If business unfolded in real life as it does on Microsift Excel, everyone would be a businessman…and if selling were the only skill necessary for the business to thrive, the salesperson would have it easy.
What irony! Many employees shun sales, yet all who start a side hustle—or outright business—crave it. All the same, the reason many salespeople struggle in business becomes clear almost immediately. Here’s why.
Salespeople struggle in business
One would imagine then that the stellar salesperson who starts his own business is bound to thrive, yes? No.
In fact, the polar opposite often happens: he struggles, and tragically, unchecked, his business quickly bites the dust. This is a classic example of why salespeople struggle in business, and it’s more common than you think.
This is the reasoning he goes through: “If I’m this good at trading in currencies— dealing— at BCK Bank, I should be able to start and thrive in my own forex trading busijess.” (Insert smirk here)
1. The reality check: why salespeople struggle in business
What happens instead is a rude awakening.
In the initial stages, he may seem to succeed, possibly buoyed by existing leads. Quickly, though, reality hits home.
Larry Madowo recently asked Kenyans to “cancel” him—a dangerous game for someone whose visibility was and continues to be built largely on the television platform that puts him before millions.
If in doubt, think of journalist Enock Sikolia —do you even remember him? He spoke about how people he considered friends disappeared after he left Citizen TV and started The Kenyan Historian channel on YouTube. Viewers don’t automatically translate to followers.
It’s a powerful lesson for the salesperson turned entrepreneur.
The audience that cheered you on when you sat behind the desk at the bank or the big corporation? Much of that visibility was rented from the institution.
The platform made you look larger than life. When you step out on your own, you discover that getting people to follow you is very different from getting people to watch the platform carrying you.
Foremost, is the realization that the primary reason he thrived with his former employer was not so much his own brilliance as the environment the employer had created, which allowed his talent to flourish.
That distinction is critical to grasp if your business is to succeed and is a key reason salespeople struggle in business.
It suddenly hits him: for his business to survive, he must put in place the same systems and structures that made him thrive.
This includes creating his own credibility. Working systems and structures are like tilled, regularly watered land. The seed finds it easy to flourish, and the business runs sustainably.
Few withstand the tenacity this calls for. The vast majority find it easier to look back over the employment fence they jumped over. Miraculously, the grass over there now looks greener than it did when they left. (Sigh!)
2. Hiring yourself
Next, in the process of wanting more business, the budding entrepreneur hires salespeople.
He is sure his cash flow projections will unfold in real life as they do on his Excel sheet. (Ha!) Excel operates in a linear, objective environment; business (selling) doesn’t. The former is a science; the latter, an art.
The former digital marketing guru—an expert at digital prospecting — now CEO of her won property development firm, is visibly irritated that her salespeople aren’t selling.
“Why?” she angrily asks.
Well, for starters, the quality you brought on board was what your budget could afford, and what your budget could afford must go through a learning curve.
This is another common trap where salespeople struggle in business —they expect their new hires to perform like they did in a completely different context.
“But I didn’t have to go through this myself.
I was always ahead of my game. I read books and kept finding new ways to become better. In fact, before hiring them, I easily sold—and still sell—these plots of land. And what is this about them requiring training?”
In other words, why can’t they be like me? And why do we have to incur further expenses for training them on something they are already paid to do?
Read: Never say, ‘I can’t sell’ once you start a business. Do this instead.
3. A business isn’t a salesperson
Well, not all seeds fall on rich, arable land. Some fall on rocks and others among thorns. These must be nurtured.
While you chew on that, here’s another piece to mull over: the budget-quality ratio isn’t linear either. Even if you can afford quality, you are still not guaranteed competence.
Ask any seasoned businessperson, and they will tell you they have poached stellar sellers whose star simply dimmed when they crossed over. Recruitment is not a science either and their environment has changed.
Maybe that’s why Harvard Business Review advises hiring for potential, not experience.
Or maybe, when they cross over, they find they have fallen on thorns and feel strangled, proving that salespeople struggle in business for reasons beyond their sales ability.
This insistence that they be like me is a significant point of departure between those who go into business because they thought their sales skills would see them through, and those who were not in formal sales—say, engineers, accountants, teachers.
The latter will find it much easier to learn or seek help in the form of a business partner who is a competent business developer or learn the skill themselves.
But pride won’t let the former do so. “I can do this myself” becomes their myopic, debilitating mantra. This is perhaps the most significant reason why salespeople struggle in business —they cannot see that the business skills required are different from sales skills.
4. Replace pride for patience
It’s not all doom and gloom for the salesperson turned business owner, though.
Once he replaces pride with patience, he becomes a wise fool. He realizes he has options: staffing his weakness by way of a business partner or expanding his knowledge base considerably, as KCB Group CEO Joseph Oigara advises.
Stellar sellers struggle in business
These practical steps are what prevent the salesperson’s struggle in business from becoming a permanent state.
Think carefully before you take the leap.
Business is not sales and sales is not business..
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