Top 10 Career-Killing Mistakes Sales People Make and How to Avoid Them

Too many B2B sales professionals believe that as long as they're hitting their quota, their career is on track.

Making quota is more about the job you do than the body of work that represents your career. There are numerous obstacles and landmines in your path. If you overlook these pitfalls you will make yourself less promotable and be forever stuck on the treadmill of quota-chasing.

If you want to manage your career more effectively, avoid these 10 killer mistakes.

1. Blindsiding Your Boss. Blindsiding is an extreme form of boss mismanagement and as quick of a career-killer as there is. The best example of boss blindsiding is when a sales rep miscommunicates directly with a company executive higher up in the food chain.

Every now and then company executives will travel to meet customers and key prospects accompanied by the account manager. This presents a chance to communicate upward, do a little internal selling on yourself, and show what you know.

So during this executive visit, as you prepare to meet with the customer, the Big Boss asks for your opinion on how it's going with this particular account. Bear in mind, when your direct supervisor asked you the same question last week, you led him to believe everything was hunky dory. Your boss, in turn, informed the CEO of your rosy forecast prior to his departure. Now the CEO has just asked you the same question and you instead come back with a laundry list of issues that could cost the business. Congratulations, you've just blindsided your boss.

Even if there are company issues that are known, it is not your job to communicate up to the Big Boss unless you have explicit permission to do so or you're in the company of your boss and these issues are on the agenda.
Early in my career I was part of a group of regional office employees invited to dinner with the U.S. president.

For some unknown reason I chose the occasion to air my issues with a current sales program. When the President got back to headquarters, he called the Sales VP (my boss' boss) on the carpet and demanded an explanation.

My boss was next in line for a tongue-lashing, and finally it was my turn. While I wasn't threatened with my job, I felt imperiled enough to never forget the lesson I learned that day about blindsiding. Believe me, the Sales VP did not forget. A few years later during reorganization, I found myself on the outside looking in.

2. Failure to Take Control of Your Own Career. Speaking of bosses, it's rare to find one these days that will take a sincere interest in your career.

Today's sales manager is more likely worrying more about his career than yours. If you're counting on career care and guidance from your manager, you're erring by being too passive about managing your own career.

It's easy to take your focus off your career when you're concentrating on doing your job. That is after all what you're paid to do.

But you must learn to see the big picture; that everything you're doing in your work is leading to something bigger. This is why you need to be monitoring your own situation and calibrating your own career plan.

3. Running with the Wrong Crowd. I once assumed control of a sales team and after a few weeks on the job, noticed that one group of sales reps frequently went out to lunch together. I did some asking around and learned that these lunches were actually gripe sessions.

Bitching and moaning about your job and the company with similarly inclined co-workers is a great way to lose focus on bettering yourself and your career. Not to mention the fact that once your boss finds out about the gripe sessions he'll target the ringleader for execution. Running with the wrong crowd is never a good idea, but in a sales organization, it's a career-killer.

4. Lone Wolf Syndrome. It's common today for sales executives to work remotely in the territories they cover. When I started my sales career most of the companies for which I worked were headquartered elsewhere. I worked out of my home and traveled by car and plane to meet with prospects. My boss was located a half-state away, and visited me frequently to help out on sales calls and provide coaching. I looked forward to these visits. It's tough being on your own in a territory. One of my favorite managers used to call it “the sound of one hand clapping”.

But for some unexplained reason there are remote territory reps that don't want the boss hanging around. I refer to these types as Lone Wolves. The Lone Wolf wants very little management oversight and keeps communications to a minimum. This sales rep wants less visibility thinking if they're not sticking out, they're less accountable. That's why in his effort to avoid visibility, The Lone Wolf will draw even more scrutiny. When you start drawing more scrutiny, you're hampering your career. If you want to be a Lone Wolf, start your own company.

5. Failure to Sweat the Details. I was enjoying a beer with one of my former employees not long ago when he received a frantic call from one of his direct reports. This sales rep had missed a key corporate email about a new end of quarter process. For some reason he didn't think it was important, so he didn't read it.

As a result, he was scrambling to close a deal before the end of the quarter and was rapidly running out of daylight. The updated end of quarter process that had been the subject of the email meant that he would need written confirmation of any agreement extensions. Without this his order would not be counted.

And that is exactly what happened, causing my friend to miss his number. We had to put our socializing on hold while he called his bosses to explain what had happened. The rep apologized profusely of course, but apologies don't go far in the Big Bad World. This rep wrecked his credibility for the moment, and I'm not sure he was able to salvage it, jeopardizing his career.

6. Delivering Surprise Endings. Suppressing bad news until the end of the quarter is another great way to sabotage your career. Nobody likes surprises, especially the bad kind. I've worked for companies where culturally any kind of surprise was a credibility-killer, whether you “suddenly” came in with a big order that blows away your forecast, or you miss badly. Surprise endings are fun when they occur in books and movies, but not in a sales career. Delivering surprise endings is a good way to earn a surprise exit.

7. Believing in the Bell Curve. The Bell Curve is a grading concept that when used in a sales quota context basically says that your performance is measured relative to everyone else on the team. Reps that believe in the Bell Curve say things like “Yeah, I missed, but so did everyone else.”

Memo: there is no Bell Curve in the BBW. You're competing against the others on the team, not trying to keep up with them.

Your employer is not being graded on the Bell Curve by its stakeholders and investors. It does no good for your CEO to tell the board that the business performed as poorly as the competition. He might get away with this once, but not twice. Same rule applies to you.

8. Trampling co-workers and peers. How you go about making your numbers can over-shadow your actual achievements. If you take on an adversarial approach to gaining internal support, you will create more enemies than allies.

A representative I managed was a ferocious advocate for her deals, but she trampled over everyone in sight in the process. So despite the fact she hit her numbers, she could not advance her career. She was considered Bad News. When this rep eventually missed quota she discovered how few friends she had.

If you must have your way and you're willing to vent and antagonize people to win, become a criminal attorney instead.

9. Taking the Wrong Promotion. First of all, never accept a promotion until you have the facts. There's always risk and you must understand this before you can make your choice.

A great example is the “new market initiative”. The company has decided there's a big market of buyers that are not being touched by the current sales force. So it's been decided to select reps from the current force to staff the new initiative. You're offered a “promotion”—bigger sounding title, better comp plan and more visibility. You drink the Kool-Aid and sign up.

Nine months or three short financial quarters later, the company changes direction and nukes the program. While you were working your new assignment, your old gig was filled by someone else. The music has stopped playing and there aren't any chairs.

Being singled out for a possible promotion is a great feeling. But resist the temptation to say yes until you have all the facts and have gathered good anecdotal evidence from peers, co-workers and other managers. If there's a chance the new position will be eliminated, you're better off taking a pass, even if doing so may taint you. Maybe saying no takes you off the fast track for awhile, but if you're right and you continue doing good work, you'll outlast the initial setback and thrive.

By the way, if you're not given a choice and you're notified by your boss that you're being reassigned to a new initiative, start networking immediately.

10. Networking after the Fact. I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, the business professional networking site. I have this theory I call the LinkedIn barometer. Every time I receive a notification that one of my connections has updated their status, I just know they're seeking new employment. There are the rare cases where someone is merely keeping the profile fresh, but generally it's an impending status change, probably a job change and possibly an unforced move at that.

If you wait until you need to network, it's too late. Updating your resume, calling your friends and associates and keeping your LinkedIn profile fresh are activities to conduct while you're gainfully employed, not after you've been riffed.

WOODRIDGE

Sales Management Articles

Top 10 Career-Killing Mistakes Sales People Make and How to Avoid Them