Jerry Stapleton

Shortly after John Paul II became pope, he was interviewed by an Italian journalist, Vittorio Messori. That interview became the best-selling book, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope."

Think about the last time you went to a movie. Or out to dinner. Here's one thing I can guarantee: You didn't call up the theater, ask what the price of their tickets were, and then pick a feature at random.

Not long ago in these pages I laid down my own commandments (as I referred to them) of sales leadership. One of them – hire wisely, not well – seemed to touch a particularly sensitive nerve among business owners and senior sales management. Let me take the topic a little deeper.

Here's a subject that came up in a client meeting last week and caused no small amount of – very understandable – discomfort within the group of salespeople in the room. But it has a happy ending.

This week, I'm going to outline my nine commandments of sales leadership. Ignore them at your own risk.

Forgive me! I've written about seek mode before, and I've probably even told the following story at some point in these pages.

I was in Vancouver recently working with Kris, the regional vice president of sales for the eastern region for a client company. Kris and I met for the better part of a day to work on integrating a qualification process into her team's everyday thinking and language. In short, the qualification process has two basic buckets: potential value (if we win), and winnability.

One sure way to get a unanimous non-show of hands from a group of salespeople is to ask this question: "Let's see a show of hands. How many of you, when you set your objectives for a customer meeting, have at the top of the list: 'I want to come across to the customer like every other salesperson that customer met with in the last week?'