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Death of a Sales Team, One by One

While participating in a rather tedious discussion of the sales team effectiveness, well in this case its ineffectiveness, I heard the following;

“They (meaning any sales person on the team) can just call on their contact network while we ramp lead gen.”

Yikes. While the words stung my ex-sales person ears I thought there has to be an “ism” for this start up phenomena. That is a start up hires a salesperson who has a strong Rolodex and expects them to generate business from this Rolodex as a means to ramp to quota while the company gets its marketing house in order. The inevitable end result is the salesperson exhausts his or her contact database and ends up on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) and then is let go for under achieving. Then it hit me;

Rolodeath.

This is the “ism” I am looking for to describe this group think outcome. Imminent death for a salesperson occurs by allowing them to exhaust their personal network with no real lead gen in sight.

Anyone? Buehler?
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