Remember Doc Holliday from the movie Tombstone?
The iconic quickdraw friend of Wyatt Earp that always seemed hungry for trouble or a fight.
He was my favorite character in the movie.
Totally fearless, deadliest with a gun, perfectly calm in the most violent situations and unwaveringly loyal to his friends.
Just like in the Old West, the modern day gunslingers survive and thrive in sales teams around the world.
How to spot a Gunslinger?
Have a look at your current sales team.
Is there one or two of them that you know have supernatural sales skills but only manage to hit their quarterly sales target just in the nick of time?
Do they seem to fuck around for the first two months of every quarter doing nothing except joke around the office?
And, do they always leave it to the last month before they come to life and start selling like crazy to hit their quota??
And even worse, do they make those sales in the last month without breaking a sweat???
If the answer is yes, chances are you are looking at your gunslinger.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of having a Gunslinger in your team?
First the good.
They never run from a fight.
If you have a difficult customer or a prospect that you can’t move along in the sales process, let your gunslinger have a go at closing them.
They have a natural talent for reading people.
They can calm down the furious.
They can loosen up the most stubborn of clients.
If you go to him and say that no one else in the office other than him can close this customer, then your gunslinger won't be able to resist taking that challenge (he will work extra hard if others in the office have already tried to close them and failed)
When they are in a good mood, the whole team is in a good mood.
But then comes……..
The Bad
Vanity is the bad side of the gunslinger.
They want to be recognized as often as possible for the sales that they do.
They love open praise in front of a group and will sulk if they don't get it
If someone else gets credit for a sale that they helped on then they will get salty, even spiteful.
Also, they don't think the normal rules that apply to everyone else in the office apply to them. Especially if they are on a hot sales streak.
And when these guys go on a sales streak it is a beautiful thing for a sales manager to watch. Because not even the “Rainmaker” (a sales type I will be doing an article on in a few weeks) can keep up with them.
When he is on a streak he is closing everything that he touches, good leads, bad leads, even dead leads that are over 12 months old.
Nothing can stop him. He is enjoying himself.
Then, just when you thought you cracked the code for getting your Gunslinger to be selling all the time…
He hits his target.
He stops dead.
Apathy kicks in, he no longer gives a shit about making any more sales.
Suddenly there are more interesting things in the office to do, such as the daily Wordle.
He will just stop until the urge to sell returns.
Which brings me to…
The ugly
The ugly part of a gunslinger is stress.
Now let me be clear, the gunslinger doesn't feel stress, I'm talking about the stress you will feel being this guy's manager.
You will literally pull your hair out watching him lazily sitting at his desk doing nothing.
You know he is one of the best sales people in the office, he has more natural talent in his little finger than anyone else on your team, but he just sits there.
It’s infuriating!!
You can hand him a golden lead and right in front of you he will smile and move that lead to the “Do it later” pile on his desk.
You literally cannot force them to do anything.
No matter how many “If you just applied yourself you would be earning more than the rest of the office combined” speeches you give him, it isn't enough to motivate him to work harder.
Even the threat of being fired just rolls off him like water off a duck's back.
How to get the most out of your Gunslinger
Your natural enemy for motivating your gunslinger is time.
If you have yearly, bi-yearly or quarterly sales periods then your gunslinger has too much time to hit his target or sales quota.
Introduce a monthly sales target. Link a generous bonus or sales commission to hitting that target each and every month.
This will shorten the time that a gunslinger can keep a prospect in their pipeline before closing them.
It has to be strictly adhered to as well. You cant let your gunslinger slide if he misses his monthly target.
It won't take long for your Gunslinger to make the adjustment to selling.
But you have to make it worth his while, if the bonus or commission isn’t a significant amount then he ain’t getting off his butt to do shit.
Also, use his vanity against him.
Start a little internal sales team competition for who has the longest running streak of hitting their target every month.
If he starts to get a few months in a row under his belt, then he will be doing everything he can to make sure that his name stays at or near the top of that competition.
Thank and coming up next…
Thank you again for taking the time to read about the Gunslinger.
Next week I will be profiling a sales type I have nicknamed “The Bulldozer” and why you need one in your team.
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