No Excuse for Accepting Excuses

   When your life's at stake, excuses are simply unacceptable. So when the life of your business is at stake, why raise your tolerance?

   Case in point: I recently skydived for the first time, free-falling at 185 MPH. I simply would not tolerate any excuse for why the parachute didn't open, why the airplane stalled or why we couldn't land safely.

   With so many livelihoods at stake in your business, why accept excuses for the sales organization not meeting the revenue and margin targets? These targets are essential to achieving the sustainable growth you’ve projected and essential to achieving your vision.

Understand Excuses

   John Miller, author of QBQ! The Question behind the Question, says,

“In today’s business culture, the lack of personal responsibility is a problem that has resulted in an epidemic of blame, complaining and procrastination. No organization can achieve its goals, compete in the marketplace, fulfill its vision, or develop people and teams without personal responsibility.”

   Interestingly, there are companies that have grown significantly in this economy. What's the secret? Leadership refuses to use the economy as an excuse; they are committed to finding creative solutions that ensure revenue and margin growth.

   When person blames competition, you must realize that the salesperson failed to sell the value of your company or its products and services. It sounds like this “The competition came in at the last minute and undercut my price. How can we even play in this market when they’re giving product/service away?” When you hear this line, you know that the salesperson was outsold by your competition. In order for salespeople to admit they were outsold and develop creative strategies for winning the business anyway, they must first admit that they were ineffective. That's a fearful step; they often fear negative reprisals if they confess the truth, so they create excuses. In a culture where ineffectiveness is treated with positive training and coaching, this is less likely to happen.

   When the company and/or company policies are blamed, the  salespeople are transferring criticism to avoid guilt for not performing. It’s less burdensome to blamesomeone else or some other department. I am always amazed that within a company, one or two salespeople will navigate successfully through the internal company policies producing record performances, while others spend time complaining, delivering lackluster results. The first group took personal responsibility; the second group made excuses.

Eliminate Excuses Now