Only 38% of an inside sales reps time is spent on direct sales activities.  “Ouch”.

Today there is an unprecedented level of scrutiny into sales operations and demand for more reliable revenue production and forecasting. Few executive management teams are willing to leave sales alone and hope for the best.

Many companies strive to balance the efforts of available resources to maximize sales productivity. Increasingly, a key component in realizing this vision is having a resource that supports sales team efforts, increase the time they are in front of prospective customers.

We all have means of deluding ourselves.  If our favorite baseball team drops to last place, we convince ourselves that it’s only a temporary slump. If stocks lose a lot of points we may tell ourselves that it will come back soon.  If we put off an important task we may kid ourselves by saying that another day is better for it.

A salesperson, too, can practices self-delusion.  They may blame bad luck for their failure to get an order.  Or they might make their supervisor the whipping post for their own mistakes.

However, there is another kind of self-deception, which is even worse. This is when a salesperson tell themselves that their problems are simply the result of their being in a rut.  In other words, they seem to think they’ll be on high ground in a week or so.

Maybe they will.  Salespeople have gotten out of ruts and have gone on to top production levels.  But how many are making that rut a grave?