When was the last time you went to a circus? It has been
years since I went and a few minutes ago I was watching a YouTube video and one
of the selections on the page was a circus video. I have no idea why, but I
watched it.
It was 12 minutes and 41 seconds of fun, excitement, and
fun. About half way through came some of the jugglers. I remember as a kid
always being amazed by juggling, I can remember as a teen wanting to be a
juggler, I can remember as a young man wanting to simply learn how to juggle,
and now I am back where I started and am amazed by juggling.
One of my favorite juggling acts was the plate balancer. You
have all seen this, row after row of sticks and the juggler starts a plate
spinning on top of each stick and runs around attending to each plate as they
start to slow down and wobble. The performer runs from front to back and side
to side always getting to the right stick a split second before the plate falls
to the ground and shatters.
When I closed YouTube and thought about what I watched, I
started thinking about what sales reps do during their careers. First we make
cold calls and get a customer base. This is just like what the juggler does
when he starts the plates spinning on the sticks. We then grow our accounts,
this is the juggler adding more and more plates to the sticks. We then start to
service our accounts, this is the juggler running around keeping the plates
spinning. As we lose a customer we find another to take its place always
keeping our territory maximized, just like the juggler starting a new plate
when one falls off a stick.
This juggling act we do is different in many ways also. The
juggler in the circus knows how long a plate will stay up by how hard they spin
it. They know which plate will be the next one to need attention and the plates
are very predictable so the juggler can rehearse hundreds of time allowing him
to have a great show with the elements of suspense and talent neatly
intertwined. As reps we don’t have the luxury of predictability. We don’t know
where the next problem will come from or what the next objection will be. We
can rehearse, but there is always an uncertainty about what we will need in our
next performance to have a successful show.
We usually have more plates spinning than the juggle could
ever think about and we need to control them better than the juggler controls
his plates. A customer will only allow themselves to wobble so many time before
they will jump off your stick and shatter on the floor of your account base.
As reps we may not have the excitement of the high wire
acts, the animals or the peanuts and popped corn that comes with the circus,
but we do have the same mess to clean up if we are not careful.
Lorin
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