I've never met a company that had too many great salespeople. A surplus of superstars. Even the successful companies always have room for another great talent at the top. And there's always deadwood at the bottom that can be pruned out..

50 years ago, John, Paul and George took a hard look at their drummer, Pete Best. They loved the guy, but realized  The Beatles needed an upgrade. They replaced him with Ringo, and the rest is history. You can't settle for B Players.

I've probably worked with over 100 Solution Providers over the years, and my informal, highly un-scientific survey conclusively shows your highest profit and happiest customers are always tied to the top echelon of your sales team.

That's why when you recruit, you need to pass up the retreads, misfits and mediocrities. Focus exclusively on the superstars: the Sharks, Killers, and Rock Stars.

At the same time you are wrestling with your recruiting, the marketplace is turning upside down. Just ask Microsoft, AOL, and Dell. You can throw in the Washington Post, Borders, Blockbuster Video and Circuit City while you are at it.   

Yes, the modern customers are far more educated and knowledgeable than ever before. They have access to tools and information that allow them to get technical details, pricing, and competitive comparisons.

Here are some of the ways the I.T. Selling Landscape is changing:

You can see the increase in specialized knowledge on the customer's part is mirrored by a corresponding decrease in knowledge among salespeople. Why? Salespeople have more and more product lines to learn, and they get less and less time to train. 

 
These two trends lead to a paradox. The customers learn more and more about less and less until they eventually know everything about nothing. Salespeople learn less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. 

This has led to the emergence of the 8 legged sales call. A Sales Rep makes a call with their Pre-Sales Engineer and a maybe Cisco Channel Manager. There's often a VMWare or EMC rep along as well to join the fun. Almost nobody in the product business does it alone anymore.

What's the answer for the sales leader? We need to reload, rebuild, and recalibrate our approach.  Here are two ways we need to do this: 

First, because the profits come from the top echelon of the team, we need to constantly be looking to identify and attract those who have the talent, mind set, and work ethic to become superstars in today's selling environment.

Second, because the sales landscape is changing, we need to identify and attract those people who can think conceptually, relate to business people, and persuade them to take a process-oriented, long term approach to solve problems and provide a competitive advantage.

That means bypassing the "emerging underachievers", and focusing on those rare people who can thrive under the new conditions. And if you want to reach "The Top of the Pops", you'll need to cull the Pete Bests out of your sales force.