“I want my people to be accountable.”

“I want our people to be MORE accountable.”

“Our main issue this year is ‘accountability.’”

Sound familiar? Accountability is the number one recurring theme throughout sales leadership in the United States. Sales leaders want their salespeople to be more accountable for their actions, activity, numbers, and (of course) sales.
And it’s TOTALLY WRONG, TOTALLY BACKWARD, TOTALLY INSULTING, and TOTALLY ANTI-SALES.

How’s that for an opinion?
REALITY: NO SALESPERSON WANTS TO BE ACCOUNTABLE. They got into sales so they WOULDN’T have to be accountable.
But sales leadership, even in their current CYA situation, has no concept of “field reality.” Rather, they implement some form of accountability through CRM (customer relationship management), and wonder why NO ONE uses it, much less keeps it up to date.
CRM is an advanced form of database that that helps salespeople keep track of customers, and on the surface it seems like a great tool. But it’s complex, cumbersome, and requires additional work. Leadership, who bought CRM for the wrong reason, expects all salespeople to document everything. But salespeople don’t.

CRM programs are the most-purchased, least-used software in the history of the computer. Why?
The reality is: CRM doesn’t help salespeople make sales.