The 50 Shades of Blame - All the Reasons Why It Can't Be Done

Why it is never my fault. An extensive guide to become a better me.

A few years ago, when that movie was just out, I heard someone use an obviously bad excuse in a meeting. Later, when I was talking about excuses and blame with a couple of people over a beer, I said that by now I could write a book about it. Someone asked what the title would be and - boom - there it was.

Much longer ago I learned that there are roughly two sorts of behavior. The victor versus the victim. Victory is about Ownership, Acceptance and Responsibility while the victim thrives on Blame, Excuses and Denial. OAR<>BED in short. Remember that golden oldie, it is extremely useful. As a score card. For yourself or for others, in meetings, interviews, reviews, wherever. And it is essentially the foundation for this write up.

 I have been hiring, firing, coaching, mentoring and managing people for 20+ years across 20+ countries. I learned a lot about the human soul, the devious mind and its darkest corners. When it comes to excuses and reasons why it can’t be done, I think I have heard it all.

Don’t snow the snowman. 

As a head of sales since the mid 90s and more recently as a product chief, I have always had to motivate people and cope with resistance. Dealing with all the reasons why it can’t be done. While overcoming all these obstacles, I sharpened my team's and my own sales skills - because I literally just fought off every excuse in the book. Since sales is about listening and convincing, about handing customers their problem and then the solution, I made the mental connection like anyone else that all of this is about influencing. Whether you are in sales, marketing, politics or you are building an exuberant Ponzi scheme, focusing on the "convincing conversation" is what you have to do. The rest is noise. A lot of books have been written about this topic and a lot of what is in there is true. But not as short and dense as we need in this day and age of social media hashtags.

 So - here we go – fifty examples with remedies. A lot of these are from a direct sales environment because that is where influences and excuses go hand in hand- however there is some universal truth here for any management scenario. All are first hand real life situations.

1 “I can’t sell this. We’re too expensive”

That is by far the most used excuse. I heard this so many times, even today. But why is it so popular? Because it is the easiest excuse. It just means you as a sales man/woman, do not know how to sell the premium value over something cheap. The one liner answer to this one is: Go do your homework: if Ferrari would have said this, they would not be selling super cars. The one word answer is “VALUE”

2 “Our marketing budget is too low”

Well that could be true. But, when it is in line with what the company or industry peers spend, there must be something else going on. Budget is OK and you are wrong, or the issue could be that money gets wasted or spent in the wrong way. If I see big exhibition boots with a lot of staff, lots of advertising without a clear vision or no call to action, I know enough – that is waste. I could write another 50 point blog on how to spend marketing money in useless ways (where “spray-and-pray” is not even the worst habit).

3 “The product is bad”

Maybe it is. BUT - If someone else is successfully selling it in or outside your organization, and you are the only one complaining, there is probably no big issue with the product. Unless you oversell or undersell the thing because you do not know its exact positioning. Or, anecdotally, if you are so much of a German perfectionist that you do not dare to sell a product that has even one minor bug. 

4 “The competition product is better”

It is never good to keep on focusing on competitor marketing blabla. Knowing your own marketing pitch is far more useful. Just do not mention competition unless asked to compare, and deliver the battle card you studied thoroughly when that happens. Which you kinda hoped would happen, right? And then close. Even if your product is not flawless, it is still your job to sell it, not to whine about it. If the competition product would really be so incredibly good, they would have 100% market share. And they don’t. Know your competition but do not let them distract you.

5 “There is not enough time”

This one is usually about setting priorities. It could also mean, on the extreme end, you are a lousy planner, or you prioritize wrong, or there are inefficiencies in what you are asked to do. Try to figure out where you are wasting time and work with other groups and management in your company to become more efficient. Ask help for better streamlined IT and product marketing delivery. That is usually an area of continuous need for improvement. Pure sales efficiency however is easy to measure for management, even on an individual level. Be very sure before you pull this excuse card. 

6 “Nobody knows about this”

Well go tell them then! And make sure your marketing counterparts know what needs to be communicated. Customer education is part of the job.

7 “My target is too high”

Come on, are you the only one? If you set the bar low enough, everyone will make their target! Let’s not do that, look what happened to the education system in many western countries as a result. No rewards for showing up please. No participation prizes. Targets should be firm but achievable. If based on prior achievement, market growth, and an acceptable attainment average in your company, there should be no reason why a target is totally not achievable.

8 “People are just not buying right now – there is no demand”

Pick up the phone and call. You would be amazed to find how many people are actually buying. Maybe not from you but from your competitor.

9 “I don’t get my customers to call me back”

They probably don’t want to talk to you when your story is bad and you do not have the ability to draw people in. Practice your pitch, understand your customer, identify needs and problems, find words that work. Know the issues. Don’t just talk about the product, figure out how to deliver the problem first. How? By listening for clues. Don’t use the superficial language call center spammers use when trying to sell you generic crap. By leaving a voicemail. That is not ‘selling’.

10 “In my market it’s totally different, I can’t sell this here”

Pulling the regional card. OK fine. Your area deserves a different approach maybe, and there may be a need for a different feature set and margins. An extreme example is serving India with a US product. Ravi Venkatesan, describing initial struggles and later success of John Deere and Microsoft in India, wrote a book called “Conquering the Chaos: Win in India, Win Everywhere”. He says in India you need 80% of the functionality against 30% of the price. So it can be done! As a country sales head, 50% of the job is representing the company in your region, the other 50% is selling your region in the company. Pick the right products for your region and get buy-in on that from the execs. Separate reasons and excuses.

11 “All these products are the same”

No they are not. Every product has a different edge, story, unique value. That is differentiation. Find the edge. Ask your product management not to assume everyone knows the little subtle differences. Be specific and outspoken about your USP's and demand Marketing to help you with enlarging these differences. 

12 “This is too complicated for our customers”

Even if the product has tens of thousands of parts, there is always a marketing pitch able to frame it. Again, it is about finding the essence and selling the problem. BMW cars are The Ultimate Driving Machine. That is the essence, because life is sometimes boring. If you sell BMW's you sell the driving experience, the story, the teenager’s dream, the race car fantasy. You are not selling a transportation vehicle with good gas mileage.

13 “I can’t get meetings with my clients”

Boy, you must be boring. Either figure this one out fast, or find another profession quickly. Ask your peers how they do it. Google it. This is basic skill stuff. Hint - How do you talk to strangers at a party, reception, in a pub? 

14 “Not enough marketing – our product does not stick”

If we would do so much marketing that our killer product would sell itself, we would not need you. Marketing and sales are separated activities. Sales people unfortunately need to concentrate on identifying the demand, work on leads and nurture and close them. Of course you need lead nurturing and continuous demand generation, but ultimately it is up to you to build relations with key customers and keep the buzz alive. Marketing can’t help you get higher closing rates.  

15 “I am not in Support, I am in Sales

“I don’t want to have to solve customer issues”. The thing is with customers - they trust you and that is why they call you. You are the relation manager so deal with it and leave solving the technical issue to the pros while doing proper handover and follow-up. Don’t make the mistake of trying to actually solve technical issues yourself. No good deed goes unpunished.

16 “There are too many questions from customers”, “we do not always know the answers and it takes too much time to find answers. It is not our job to be Wikipedia.” The good news here is that there is apparently a lot of customer intimacy. It’s still better than getting no inquiries. Sales people will have to use influence skills in order to deflect standard information centric questions to online resources and available materials in order not to become 1-800 -LAZY-BUYER. Getting someone to observe and analyze these calls with a check of the associated recent marketing is useful. Splitting the team into pre-sales support, sales and system engineers is another option, depending on the business you are in. 

17 “Not enough demand, the market is generally weak”

This needs to be put in perspective by looking at real data (let's say GfK if you are in Europe, or NPD in the US). I would suggest to never claim market weakness unless backed up with firm numbers. Otherwise it is just an excuse. If you grow slower than the market, you are losing market share. If your sales declines but less than the total market, you are actually gaining share in a declining market.

18 "No new leads"

Happens a lot when marketing and sales are not aligned. You can’t stop doing things when that happens. Work the existing ones, work the installed base, and if you are in an indirect sales model: work the channel.

19 "Bad quality leads"

Yes, you do not get deals handled on a silver platter. There is waste. Work fast, qualify fast, move on. The best way in this case is to work more leads. It is what it is.

20 “I spend too much time putting things in Salesforce”

The alternative is worse. People putting nothing in the CRM system so all future marketing dollars get wasted on a poor database and there is no accurate view on the sales funnel. If people work without a system, how do they even remember what they are working on? Who are the potential customers and how can they be reached? What is the history of the relationship?

21 "The economy/consumer confidence is down, expect a drop in sales"

That is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you say it a few times, you rapidly start to believe it. Think about what it means. If consumer confidence is down a couple of percent you should anyway be able to deliver 97% or 98% of that target number. And probably a little more if your product is less conjuncture sensitive.

22 "My sales territory does not have enough potential"

Could be true. If you are new in a sales team and everyone else have snapped up the good customers before you arrived, you have been served a bad hand. Play the hand - and find out what the real value of the territory is. Work out a reasonable expectation with management. Set your own expectations. Don't just brag and claim you'll fix it, that will always end in tears.

23 "No time for small accounts”

“I am working on this big deal and trust me, it will come in." No it will probably not. And even if, you can't influence the timing. Betting on an 'all or nothing' scenario is tricky. Spread the risk. Work on numerous smaller accounts or deals, especially the ones your competitors ignore. Easier and far more predictable.

24 'I have not time to go after this, I have incoming calls about other stuff'

This may be true because it is happening to you. Reality. But priorities need to fit in the right corners of a quadrant composed by urgency and importance. If you need to focus on something important, isolate yourself. Get rid of distractions, don't take calls or do email. Work from another place. Set time slots for clusters of tasks. Learn to say ‘no’ to energy suckers and time consuming tasks that are not urgent nor important.

25 "I can’t charge myself every time to circumvent the issues with a new product. It is just not easy to sell"

New things are usually not a commodity yet. If it is truly innovative, it must have something new, incremental customer value and it is easier to use. Focus on that triangle as your value prop. It’s all about preparation. Make sure product marketing has described the fit well with personas, user stories, white papers, case studies and battle cards. Find out which customer profile potentially syncs best with this upgrade. Which customers are the easiest in adopting something new. Remember Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claiming that “nobody is going to buy a $600 phone” the day the first iPhone launched. Don’t be like Steve.

26 "There is a better version of the product coming out soon, I think, and I have advised the customer to wait for that"

This is a violation of an important basic rule: SELL WHAT YOU HAVE. You also made a wrong assumption since it is often not clear when the new product finally makes it to market.

 

27 "I don’t think this is the right technology for our customers"

That is a dangerous assumption for two reasons. First, you are possibly not an engineer and may not understand every part of it. Don't judge a book by its cover. Second, there may be a customer subset that is going to be interested in this product. Verify with your customers first and don't give up immediately. Old saying: An assumption makes an ASS of U + Me.

28 " I am on target already, I am not going back to do unnecessary effort this quarter"

This is basically putting your own personal situation first, instead of the company's or the team's. Doing this is usually a CLM (Career Limiting Move). And you may regret not having an insurance policy if a deal falls through anyway. 

29 "The relation with this customer is tense, we screwed something up recently. I do not want to risk that even more by pitching a product he may not like"

This sounds plausible but it is not. Instead, rebuilding the relation can be done with more frequent and empathic 'checking in'. Mentioning new products without pushing it down someone's throat is usually OK. Pull an 'oh by the way' or 'One more thing'. Or make the news ‘exclusive’. Radio silence is bad communication practice. 

30 "We need to wait offering this. The customer will be upset that we have something better for a lower price, he has been buying the old thing"

You can't ignore or deny the existence of progress. If people would always wait for the next wave of tech, they would never buy anything . Like a computer gets faster every year since 1981. Why wait eternally - you need one at some point. A customer will not hold progress against you, unless he or she finds out you have been hiding it from them.

31 "It’s difficult to close this deal because it is almost … <fill in: christmas, Easter, fourth of July, Ramadan, Diwali, New year’s eve, Labor Day, Asuncion day, Whit Monday> People rather buy on other days, not right before xyz" If that were true, we should not have salespeople being paid these specific days leading up to a holiday. No chance they would sell anything then. Unpaid leave would be the solution.

32 "I can’t talk, call, attend or prepare for an important meeting, because I had a lot of administration work to deal with because it's end of the quarter and I need my opportunity pipeline in Salesforce to be up to date." This is another classic excuse for bad planning or lack of calendar management. Often used by young people new in the job.

33   I can’t talk to the customer/vendor/engineer tomorrow because they are busy with the election, the news, Brexit, Trump, global warming, the NBA finals. Also known as: “I think the customer is on vacation”. This is another example of and excuse packed in an assumption. Try harder and do not give up before starting.

34 “We’ll never succeed. It's too hard. This quarter or this project is lost, I’ll save the effort for next quarter, next project, next customer, call, product, etc”.

This one is hard to counter. It is in essence defeatism. Giving up. It is defined as the acceptance of defeat without struggle, often with more negative connotations. It can actually be linked to pessimism in psychology. In my experience it is very hard to work with people who choose defeatism as their fav way out. Born pessimists are in your company because that someone who runs the show lacks proper hiring skills.

35 “I am currently seeding information and will start harvesting (means: get off my lazy butt) at a later point”. An example of someone that is not action oriented. That is OK if the job is 100% reactive but if any initiative is required, this attitude will need to change. If you are that person with a low sense of urgency, you get confronted often by people that ask you the "When is this done" question. With other people it can often be observed in combination with difficulty to get time commitments and mealy mouth talking around the subject.

36 “I know this is my job, or customer, or product, or task but I have not been offered training on this product yet so someone else will have to deal with it ” That is another popular example of passive behavior. It may be an accurate description of the situation but it just does not sound solution oriented. Don’t make it a habit to hand your superiors all kind of problems. You were probably hired to solve problems, not bring them to your managers and expect them to do your part. Getting educated or trained is part of your responsibility.

37 “Customer does not want to do me a favor on this transaction”

Well, favors are a two-way street. Everyone is like Janet Jackson, thinking “what have you done for me lately?”. If you have not invested in customers, because you basically have been treating them like an ATM, don’t expect them to return a favor that does not exist. I used to work with a recruiter that constantly said: “You need to help me, can you introduce me to this guy or that guy, can you get me meetings with this manager” and so on. Such a nag. Patience with that runs out quickly.

38 “We can’t uuhhh, uuhhh make quota because the economy uuhhhhh price of pasta has gone up here in Italy and people have less money”

An actual hard disk drive salesman from Italy gave this answer once when pressed for an explanation for under performance after being grilled for 10 minutes in a review meeting. This situation happens when you have to come up with an answer but you simply do not have one.

Be prepared. If you are not on quota, you know the questions are coming. If you don’t have the answer even if you really tried, just say it. Admit failure. Bite the bullet. Better than digging a deeper hole for yourself.

39 "I don't think my customer has the budget. I don't want to put him off by asking the budget immediately"

This is a sales person struggling with the B in the basic qualification concept of B.A.N.T. (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline). It is certainly true that there needs to be a qualified budget - every car or kitchen salesman will tell you that. But people usually spend more than what they tell you, or even higher than the amount they have in mind. And they don’t get offended by an innocent question.

40 “We can’t sell enough at the end of the quarter because Finance is not letting us, we are not allowed to ship through Iran, we are delayed because of paperwork, the customer sent the order but we did not receive it, we should overrule credit hold, we need more warehouse people at the last hour of the last day of the quarter and they should all work until midnight”.

I have been hearing these advanced mixes of panic, blame, excuses and denial since 1991. The denial part is the fact that all of this is the account manager’s lack of planning and now he or she is making up excuses for bad timing by deflecting the blame on the supply chain. Elaborate, creative, entertaining yet insulting to other people. This category of assholes give sales people their bad rep and make the other people in companies secretly hate your guts. Don't be that guy.

41 “Well we can deliver this piece if you really need it - but we will have to cut out that other piece”

This is the original go-to basis of operational or engineering horse trading. It happens when people get pressured and do not deliver what they promised or were supposed to do. They will deflect by offering you a false economy of simplified choices, luring you into lowering your standards. And since you are not Steve Jobs, you are very likely to give in. The cure for this is iron discipline and a stream of well-documented commits and schedules. Frequent check-ins. Teams that produce little increments or additions in a high-frequency, iterative process with a lot of checks plus balances deliver. But teams that follow an old fashioned waterfall approach usually end up in delays and mistakes, a phenomenon also known as: “We are building a plane in 100 days and we will test-fly it on the day 99”. Crash ensured.

42 “I think we can definitely deliver this but we will have to do more research, study the personas, define the story, work in concentric circles, define the lingo, create a mood board, style umbrellas, develop a holistic view”

Here we have a designer talking that really just needs to produce a part design. But this person does not see him- or herself as an individual contributor but rather as a member of a cutting-edge hipster commune that is creating a new level of higher art. Very hard to deal with since these people get so butt hurt and insulted when you pull the “Just get it done” on them. My advice is to be tactful yet persistent with the artists. Set and manage expectations and do not let them boil the ocean. 

43 “We have been doing it like this for years, we can’t change, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, it is impossible, this will never work in Russia, this will not fit in budget, it is too extreme, I am not authorized to do this”

All of this is fear of change. Conservatism. A virus that has been going around since forever. Persistence, force, courage and explanation are the remedies. Very hard yet very rewarding. People that are changing things should not be interrupted by people saying it can’t be done. Separate the Negative Nancies, the Debbie Downers, the naysayers from the people that actually make things happen. Fill in all your Linkedin clichés about thinking outside the box, break some glass, look beyond the horizon.

44 “We should not do this, or go to market with this present this, it is not perfect yet.”

To that I say: “DONE is better than PERFECT”. Or as Steve Jobs put it, “Real artists ship”. He was referring to the fact that everyone has all kind of great ideas, but real artists deliver on them - 'ship' them. 

45 “We should drill down on this some more before we take a decision”

That is a Finance favorite, the main source department of paralysis by analysis. The risk-avoidance, the fear of making a mistake, the seven locks on the door, the lack of courage. No company managed by fearful people has ever succeeded. They implode. Entrepreneurial spirit paired with an understanding of numbers is a better mix. Don’t let the bean counters run the circus. 

46 “I think we should run this up the chain, ask for more executive buy-in, write this down in a plan and present it to the management, ask more people to join the meeting, add more slides to the deck"

Nope. No, no, NO! A slap on the wrist is usually better than wasting time constantly asking for permission. It is an excuse out of fear. If an idea fits the scope of your job and you think it is worth pursuing, just do it. Go find the resources and get going. 

47 “But, But - What about me?” I use this as a descriptor of extreme deflecting tactics from people that are being held accountable and they try hard to escape. Some of them get emotional, angry, irrational, arrogant, aggressive (or a combination of all of the above – again, I have seen things). This kind of people also constantly tries to dominate the conversation and are focused on their ego, or want to prove to be always right, cut you off, talk over you, even scream. There is only one recipe: Rinse & Repeat. Keep on stating what the point is. You are dealing with a narcissistic personality. If it’s an employee – confront them and let them play nice. Repeat offenders should pack their bags, since we want an asshole-free work space. If it is your manager behaving like that – go find another job – you’ll never win the egomaniac contest.

48 “It wasn’t me” Blame shifting key phrase. Comes up every now and then. Easy to spot: total lack of ownership or accountability, or both. If combined with standard victimizing “belly-up” behavior, it sounds more like “It wasn’t me, it is your fault because you made me do this”. Dissect by staying calm and looking at the facts. If done in a non-confrontational manner, nobody loses face and we can all move on.

49 “This is a huge issue and we should drop everything and fix this immediately!!”

Aka “Chicken Little – the sky is falling”. Google it if you don’t know that phrase. It is the signature phrase for exaggeration of a problem, often to hide other issues or lack of progress. Usually combined with blaming someone else. Time consuming because it requires investigation. Easy to spot as a deflection tactic when it suddenly comes up at a convenient time rather than being escalated the proper way. Ask yourself: “How important is this really?” 

50 “Let me present the 2017 portfolio with this 2014 presentation” This is a placeholder for the non-motivated, out of shape, not-so-fresh anymore sales people. Often using the old logos, talking about products that are obsolete, problems from the past, successes from 5 years ago, previous corporate power point templates, incomplete material, lack of current market knowledge. This could be anything from a group of sales people that needs a fresh restart to an individual that is having personal issues. Demotivated people are infectious and need to be helped, for the sake of themselves and for the sake of their colleagues. Take this issue head on if you recognize yourself or a staff member.

I hope you enjoyed long-reading this and it has not completely depressed you. Please leave feedback and add comments to complete the story. I will periodically update and you get credit!

 

Richard