If Leonardo da Vinci Was Your Sales Manager
” Leonardo da vinci was the inspiration that started us towards greater success. “
That’s what a sales manager told me when I asked him about the unusual way he handled his salesforce and their accounts.
I pointed out that da Vinci was an artist, sculptor, inventor and a genius, but not a salesman, nor was he ever in charge of a salesforce.
” Doesn’t matter, ” I was told. ” The biggest enemy of a sales team is complacency. sales people get into ruts, they get content and they tend to drift along, happy to do as little as it takes to get by. In Leonardo, we found a way around that sales-killing complacency. ”
Having been in sales for a couple of decades, I was more than interested. I get into those same ruts and funks at times and would absolutely love to hear a way around all of that.
” I read his notebooks. They’re wonderful pieces of inspiration. “ ( Note to self: Find a copy and rework it into something I can use on our sales people. ) ” da Vinci advised everybody to get away from their job, no matter how much they love it, because only then can you see the bigger picture and get the proper perspective. ”
Then I asked how in the name of all that’s geniusy did he apply that to his sales people.
” We send each one of our salesmen into an entirely new territory for 6 weeks out of every year. One that’s completely foreign to him. That opens their eyes and makes new salesmen out of them. ”
So if you’re looking for a method of injecting new life into an old sales team, here’s one to try.
Who’d have thought that Leonardo da Vinci was the father of sales managership ?
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