{"id":11273,"date":"2010-08-26T14:41:34","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T14:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandler.dsstaging2.com\/case-study\/salespeople-who-decide-are-salespeople-who-survive-2\/"},"modified":"2022-10-18T16:00:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T16:00:34","slug":"salespeople-who-decide-are-salespeople-who-survive-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/salespeople-who-decide-are-salespeople-who-survive-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Salespeople Who Decide Are Salespeople Who Survive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The late, great Arthur Ashe, for whom the Stadium Court at Flushing Meadows Tennis Complex in New York City is named, was not only a great pioneer in the sport, but was also known for his intellect and ability to teach in both words and examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I attended a tennis clinic one time where he was a guest speaker and remember him saying, &#8220;The single most important difference between the professional money players and the really good amateur players is &#8220;speed to execution&#8221;-the professionals are one critical second faster in their decision-making than the best amateurs. The best amateur players are one second faster than the averageplayers and so on and so forth. A mere one second in decision-making makes all the differencebetween a world-class player and a good club player. He gave example after example of this in teaching how to set up strategy for hitting baseline shots, volleys or overheads. When you think about this &#8220;speed to execution,&#8221; it seems to apply in other places as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was driving down the street recently on a beautiful clear, cool day and observed all the squirrels jumping from tree limb to tree limb; many were scampering across the street and up into trees. Occasionally I noticed along the road an indecisive, uncommitted, slow squirrel, which can be best described as a &#8220;Flat Squirrel!&#8221; What could have happened had that squirrel been faster in its speed to execution, a little quicker in reaction time or more committed to its plan? There is a good chance he would not be flat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The sales world has &#8220;flat squirrels,&#8221; salespeople who are uncommitted, unwilling to strategize, slow in reacting and indecisive. You may be familiar with some of them; they may work around you in your company. &#8220;Flat Squirrel&#8221; salespeople show signs of the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Not willing to commit 65-70% of their time each week to prospecting, presenting, and engaging in sales activities.<\/li><li>Spend more time dreaming about their next career, than strategizing on making their current career a success.<\/li><li>Blame lack of results on outside influences or luck of their competitors.<\/li><li>Self-destruct their own product and income by using price as their selling point instead of creating their real competitive advantages.<\/li><li>Tend to wait on others to initiate the motivation for them to achieve, rather than implement a self-initiated and self-administered plan.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Pay close attention to the world around you-avoid the self-limiting habits that lead to the &#8220;Flat Squirrel Syndrome&#8221; for salespeople. Remember: all the worrying, scripting and planning in the world will be worth absolutely nothing without any decisive action behind it. Be that one-second quicker in making your decisions and taking action, and you&#8217;ll find that your competitors will be flattened in your rear-view mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Illustration by Rob Green<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The late, great Arthur Ashe, for whom the Stadium Court at Flushing Meadows Tennis Complex in New York City is named, was not only a great pioneer in the sport, but was also known for his intellect and ability to teach in both words and examples. I attended a tennis clinic one time where he&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":11274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120],"tags":[1103,1026,1115],"class_list":["post-11273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-motivation-mindset","tag-prospecting","tag-qualifying"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Salespeople Who Decide Are Salespeople Who Survive | Sandler Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The late, great Arthur Ashe, for whom the Stadium Court at Flushing Meadows Tennis Complex in New York City is named, was not only a great pioneer in the sport, but was also known for his intellect and 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