Last week, I hosted our annual CEO Forum, where we invited just 30 leaders from our customers to come together and talk about their perspective and outlook for the upcoming year.  Purposefully, the audience mix is always very broad ranging from heads of government agencies to CEOs of consumer product companies and every possible market in between.  Always for me, this is an exciting and entertaining event, as I attempt to facilitate ideas and comments among a diverse and energetic mix of leaders answering a series of broad questions…

• What’s your general sense of the economic outlook?
• What are some of the big opportunities you’re seeing out there?
• What are the primary concerns that you have as you look out at 2013?

What we heard...

What we heard during the discussion, during dinner and then from the after-dinner speaker, who focused his comments on Washington, were two primary concerns/opportunities:

1. 
   The major concern that was voiced in the room was the continuing paralysis in Washington and the inability to create any sense of cross-partisan cooperation that would allow the business community to be able to realistically deal with the debt crisis and the consistent over-spending.
   
    
   
   

2. The other concern (which I would actually put in the opportunity category for 2013) was the question of why is it so consistently difficult to find, hire and develop solid management talent in general…and especially in the world of Sales where we all want to partner with managers who  lead the pack, are proactive, take charge without being told and consistently demonstrate strong leaderships skills?

For #1, I’m not sure that anyone can resolve this concern until we’re faced with another Thelma & Louise driving-over-the-cliff-exercise, which will, most probably, continue to kick the proverbial can down the proverbial road.  The tough changes will only happen through tough leadership.   The walk-away from the dinner was that the peak of the Obama reign is right now, and that both his ratings and his impact will begin to significantly slide over the next two years right up to the time that he becomes just a lame duck for his final two years.  No matter which side of the political chasm that one is lined up on today, I think we can all agree that there’s a lack of economic leadership everywhere.  It’s a tough situation, especially at a time when business in general is doing much better and optimism is starting to creep back into our vocabulary once again.  It’s exactly at this time that the U.S. needs strong leadership.

Which then brought us to the real world (not the fantasyland of Washington) of applying this same desire for strong leadership to our own companies and the question of why it’s so difficult to hire AAA sales leaders?  Is it because…

• …we get time-squeezed, and we accept hiring “good enough” to fill the open position?
• …we fail at building a bench of future draft choices during the year?
• …we fall in love too quickly?
• …we don’t use the stringency of testing that we do for other, “more technical” positions?
• …we just don’t know what an A, A+, or triple A player looks like?

Each year, only 67% of salespeople make their quota.  When we see this data at the beginning of every year, I just can’t believe that it’s true, and yet, year after year, highly respected sales data analytics firms come in with these same depressing numbers.  I know in our own companies, the quota results are pretty good, but then what’s we do.  I also know that when we do experience low quota performing salesguys, it always ties back to the head of sales.  Poor sales performance rarely has anything to do with the products.  And, even more rarely does it have anything to do with the competition.  Always the results-both good and bad-directly relate to the performance of the head of sales and the degree of leadership that this person displays both downward to the troops and upward to the CEO and the board.

So, while we can’t do much about dealing with the lack of leadership in Washington, we do have the means, especially now at the beginning of the year, to totally control the development of our sales management and the performance of their team.   For example, no matter what the size of company, every one of us could very easily…

• …complete a formal assessment of our sales managers to find out exactly what we have...and don't have
• …develop a 360, along with an objective 1-on-1 assessment all focused on improvement.
• …develop a 2013 skills training program with them for themselves and for their team
• …create a 2013-2014 leadership development program for them
• …have the Big Boy or Big Girl talk with our underperforming managers.

We have lots of choices, and numerous no/low cost tactics that we could employ, and now’s the time to do something starting this first week in February when we still have time to make a difference on 2013 revenue.

Remember, as you’re watching the Super Bowl this weekend, no one got to New Orleans and became a member of the best performing teams in America by just hoping that their performance would improve.  Being the best at the top-most levels of performance, no matter what the business or the sport, “simply” comes down to the selection, the skills training, and the personal development of the team, all orchestrated by the senior manager.  

Welcome to 2013...and Good Selling! 
January was a real solid month, and it sounds like it's going to be a great year!