“I’m still not following you. Showing up, making a presentation and getting the order, is not the work of a salesperson?” Brent protested.

“Those are valid activities, prescribed duties, but not the work,” I replied. “Tell me, on every sales call, what must be discovered about the prospective customer, before a sale can be made?”

“Well, you have to find out the customer’s need. If they don’t need it, they are not going to buy it, especially right now.”

“And what is the goal?”

“To write the order,” Brent shot back.

“By when?” I asked.

Brent stopped. “We have sort of a two-call closing process,” he finally concluded. “The salesperson needs to write the order by the end of the second call.”

“So, tell me, what are the problems that must be solved, what are the decisions that must be made by the salesperson to reach the goal by the end of the second sales call? Because that’s the work.”