Selling as a Team Sport

By: Brent Patmos

If selling is a team sport then why are the indivdiual efforts of salespeople rewarded most often? Because the only person that believes selling is a team sport may be the sales manager or vice president of sales when they are rewarded for team performance and team results.

This is exactly as it should be. The belief that sales is a team sport is a delusion created by a company's overreaching desire to somehow make indivdiualism less offensive and arrogant. There are significant benefits in working with a sales team; idea sharing, resource pooling, networking and moral support to name a few. The best salespeople, those that have a clearly defined sales process, produce results, consistently develop great customer relationships and have a great attitude, possess an indivdiualism that should be relentlessly rewarded and should exist independently of any other salesperson on their "team."