The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » Communication

Here’s part 2 of the interview I conducted With Dr. Rick Kirschner
regarding what managers can do to drive greater results, better motivate their salespeople and boost productivity by utilizing these powerful communication strategies.

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KR: How can a sales manager leverage the power of persuasion to increase the motivation and performance of her sales people?

DRK: That’s a big question, big enough to write a book, so I did, two books in fact. That’s a key point of my Insider’s Guide and Playbook To The Art of Persuasion! But here’s the quick answer. Persuasion is the deliberate attempt to influence another person’s attitude in order to change their behavior. Once you’ve paid some attention, listened well and learned about what motivates your people, using the Kirschner Motivational Model or McClelland’s Model or Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs Model, or any other motivation model that appeals to you, it is important that you use what you’ve learned to speak to the motivations of your people in a way that moves them, engages them and connects them to a desirable future while offering them protection from an undesirable one.

This has to do with what you say, and also how you say it. The fact is that most people are listening emotionally most the time, and logically only rarely. So, no matter how logical you are in what you propose they do, you have to send signals that help your people feel that they should let themselves be influenced by you. Otherwise, you may be wasting both their time and yours.

There are known ways to package what you say for maximum impact. I call these packaging tools ‘signals,’ ‘guides’ and ‘themes.’ Signals speak to how you address the emotions. Guides make it easier for others to understand the logic of what you say. Themes are a way of structuring what you say to help you stay on track while saying it.

The more you use this kind of approach, the more successful you will be in getting a sustainable result.

KR: Teamwork is an important part of any successful sales organization. How can sales coaches increase commitment and elevate the motivation among their sales people?

DRK: Almost nobody goes to work wanting to do a bad job. Most people want to do well, and want what they do to matter. So it seems to me that teamwork happens when leadership happens, and leadership begins with you knowing the answers to three very important questions. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Why does it matter? Once you have the answers to these questions firmly fixed in your mind, you can help your sales people to find their own answers to these questions and then keep those answers in front of them as a reminder of meaning and purpose.

Of course, it’s one thing to have a lofty vision, and something else entirely when it comes to the rubber meeting the road. So to keep your people connected and focused, you simply must treat them with respect, keep them informed along the way, and give recognition whenever it’s due, and not just in the large things but in the small things as well. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for speaking up. Thanks for standing up. Thanks for keeping your promise. Thanks for following through. My mom used to tell me that there is always something to appreciate, you just have to appreciate the value of appreciation to find it.

KR: What are the most successful tactics used by sales managers/coaches when they are faced with bad behavior within a sales team that can negatively impact the entire team’s results?

DRK: Most of us can agree that what’s bad about bad behavior is the bad effect it has on morale, teamwork and getting results. There’s no getting around the fact that pushy, negative, disruptive and unreliable behavior is costly because it has real world consequences.

But I think it’s important to keep in mind that behavior is purposeful, people do what they do for what they consider a good reason, and labeling a particular behavior as good or bad may do little to influence whether you get more or less of it. More important, I think, is to understand what’s behind it for them. Then, using your understanding of their good intent as a reference point, you can help your people understand that the consequences of their behavior are self defeating to their good intentions. Done persuasively, and they’ll be grateful for the insight and opportunity to learn. And you, as a result, will get better results from your people.

So what specifically do you do when there’s a problem with someone’s behavior? First, observe it. Notice what is happening, when it happens, where it happens and how it happens. Then get together with the person or people involved, and learn everything you can about it from them. Set the stage by telling them what you’ve observed, where and when you observed it, and then ask them, “When this happens, what’s going on for you? What is your intention?” Next, tell them the self defeating part. “When you do that, here’s the reaction it gets. Is that what you intended?” And the answer is almost always going to be “No, it’s not!” That’s your learning moment, right there. “What do you think might work better?” Either give your people a chance to come up with a new choice, or, if they’re drawing a blank, either brainstorm with them, or tell them what you know could work better. In any case, you’ll have set the table for learning. A little reinforcement, and it becomes their skill for life.

To read more of Dr. Rick Kirschner’s suggestions for improving your ability to use persuasion to create positive change in your life, relationships, and work, visit Dr. K’s Blog here: www.drkblog.com.

As the economy heads deeper into a rough patch, companies must work harder than ever to meet financial targets. That means the pressure on salesmanagers to meet sales goals is huge.

We believe that a big part of producing sales results consists of supporting, coaching, and managing your people. Developing and strengthening coaching skills becomes essential to leveraging your competitive edge or you’re bound to get left behind.

Today our guest is Dr. Rick Kirschner, respected educator, popular speaker, executive coach, and best selling author of the ‘Insider’s Guide to The Art of Persuasion: Use Your Influence to Change Your World.” Dr. Kirschner offers some valuable insights for sales managers working to improve their skills as sales coaches.

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KR: Rick, in your work with managers, what do you find to be the most common obstacle to building and projecting their authority and leading their sales teams?

DRK: Right off the top, I can think of a couple of obstacles. The most common one is the idea that management and coaching are about talking, that somehow talking takes priority over listening to understand. And I understand how this happens. In fast paced environments, it’s a natural tendency to put the pedal to the metal, to try harder, move faster, do more. The problem is that they wind up talking at their people instead of with them and to them. And the obstacle this lack of understanding creates is that without knowing what motivates your people, you can’t engage them where it counts.

When you understand what motivates your people, and it’s different for different people, you can speak with authority that is recognized as authority, because it is relevant and conveys experience and knowledge.

Then there’s the confidence problem. When managers come off as tentative, hesitant or uncertain, it tends to evoke these responses in their teams. This problem is the side effect of at least two missing pieces: first, not knowing your own motivation, and second, not being prepared to speak when you need to speak. The fact is, people want to be led, not managed, and they need to get that sense of authority from you, because it gives them confidence to do what needs to be done. They believe it when you believe it.

Now, it’s a legitimate question, confidence in what? After all, in these changing times, nobody really knows what’s coming next. And some degree of introspection is prudent for anyone wanting to thrive instead of merely survive. But you can have confidence in your motivations. You can have confidence in what you do know. And you can have confidence that under the right conditions, people will want to give you their best, to do their best.

KR: What are the key listening and communication skills that sales managers can improve upon as they work to develop and strengthen their coaching skills?

DRK: Essentially, there are two skills that are fundamental to success in coaching. The first is blending, the second is asking questions. Blending is the foundation of all successful relationships. It happens whenever you reduce the differences between yourself and another person. It happens whenever you send signals of similarity and commonality. And a failure to blend is the cause of most conflict, nobody cooperates with anyone who seems to be against them. If perception is everything in relationships, then sending blending signals is how you create the perception of partnering with your people in a process or project.

As for questions, I believe it was the stoic philosopher, Epicetus, who said “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Maybe this is the apt metaphor for the way we’re built, but I’ve observed that too many people just don’t get it. Although they certainly think they do. Ask just about anyone if they’re a good listener, and they’ll tell you yes. But most people do a meager job of it at best, instead drawing conclusions and then making statements instead of engaging people by asking questions.

Maybe the people who don’t ask very many questions are afraid of looking stupid. Maybe they think it makes them seem weak. Or maybe they think they’re supposed to have all the answers. Maybe it’s just a function of the fact that we can think faster, at 500 words a minute, than most people talk, which is about 130 words a minute. So it’s pretty easy to get ahead of what we’re hearing, or for our minds to wander to what we want to say when its our turn to talk. But a great coach understands the limits of his or her knowledge about another person, and explores that boundary to build the connection, rather than building the boundary and weakening the relationship. The key is curiosity. The less you think you know, the more you find out. The more value you place on what you can learn by listening, the less distracted you’ll be with your own thoughts.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that ‘there is no such thing as a stupid question.’ That’s a great guide when it comes to everyone other than you! You can’t afford to ask dumb questions if you want to bring out the best in your people. When someone asks me a question, no matter how trite, simplistic or off the point, I welcome it and find the opportunity in it. But when it’s me asking, I think that there are dumb questions. They’re dumb if they fail to take into account things people have said. They’re dumb if they’re closed ended instead of open ended, unless I intend to bring something to a close. I want my questions to serve an intelligent purpose. I want to get to the deep structure of a person’s motivations and positions. I want to learn about their goals and aspirations, their desires and fears. Asking questions is a great way of leading people to their own resourcefulness. And I want my questions to inform, just as their answers will inform me. As a coach, the more you know, the more likely it is that you will know exactly what you need to know in order to elicit comfort confidence and credibility.

And it sets a great example for sales people, too. Because the best sales people talk about their customers’ and clients’ business rather than talking about the sales person’s business, and that’s only possible when they’ve been asking good questions.

To read more of Dr. Rick Kirschner’s suggestions for improving your ability to use persuasion to create positive change in your life, relationships, and work, visit Dr. K’s Blog here: www.drkblog.com.

How do we uncover internal drive? By using one of the most valuable tools as a coach - asking more and better questions. To uncover each person’s internal drive, schedule one to one meetings with each member of your team and invest the time asking questions to uncover what is important to them. Listen to their responses and ask more questions as you uncover what they most want.

Here are some suggested questions you can use during your one to one meetings in order to tap into a person’s internal drive, while uncovering exactly how you can best coach and manage them.

1. What do you want to be doing that you aren’t currently doing?
2. What areas do you want to strengthen, improve or develop?
3. What is most important to you in your life/career? (What does a successful career/life look like?)
4. What are the three most important things you would like to accomplish right now?
5. What is your action plan to achieve those goals?
6. What do you need that’s preventing you from reaching those goals?
7. How can I best support you to achieve these goals? (Uncover how each employee wants to be managed and supported.)
8. How can I best manage you and hold you accountable for the results you are looking to achieve?
9. How can I hold you accountable in a way that will sound supportive and won’t come across as negative or micro-managing?
10. How do you want me to approach you if you don’t follow through with the commitments you make? How do you want me to handle it? What would be a good way to bring this up with you so that you will be open to hearing it?

Questions will assist your employees in uncovering what internally motivates them based on their beliefs and values, so they can access their own energy to achieve it. You are also uncovering the style of management they respond to best. Moreover, you are setting up the expectations on both sides as to what to expect from one another. It certainly beats using your energy to push or stimulate interest or action based on your assumptions or beliefs based on what may work for you.

If you rely on pushing to get someone into action, they won’t move unless you’re there to push. It’s more effective to help them articulate what they want so they can begin to self-motivate.

The real benefit of getting this is that empowering people by tapping into their internal drive doesn’t drain your energy. Pushing for results is exhausting.

Get more coaching tips from Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.

12 Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

Confidence. It’s one of those key ingredients that needs to be present in our formula for success. If you look at anyone at the top - in business, in politics, in entertainment, in sports, one common denominator each one of these leaders possess is an unshakeable degree of confidence in themselves, in their abilities and in their beliefs.

Confidence makes up much of the fuel that drives us, the over-achievers, the dreamers, the visionaries, the driven, the passionate and those who simply want to be the best at what they do; the entrepreneur who’s looking to build a successful business, the manager who wants to empower his team and make them winners, the salesperson who’s looking to post large monthly sales numbers, the sole practitioner seeking to build a sustainable practice or the up and comer starting a new career and is looking to make their mark in order to ascend through the ranks within their company.

The challenge for maintaining an infallible, unshakable high degree of confidence is that for most people, it seems to be conditional. Rather than being absolute, most people’s level of confidence changes based on their situation and experiences. Sometimes it’s at an all time high. Yet, other times their level of confidence is shaken or challenged based on an encounter they had, a mistake that was made, a failure, or an inability to produce a desired result.

The myth surrounding confidence is this: The overall sense of confidence you have about yourself is based upon your experiences and what you produce. As such it will continue to eternally vacillate, as most people allow their internal condition to be dictated by their external situation.

In my article, The Secret to Building the Confidence of a Champion, you’ll discover the hidden power that we, as human beings have at our disposal but rarely do we tap into its fullest potential. I’m referring to the greatest power we all possess. That is, our power of choice and out ability to choose to be confident as an absolute rather than as a condition of circumstance.

You can read the full article here.

A Glimpse at Sales 2.0 - The Potential and Pitfalls

For those of you who attended the first ever Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco this past October, you’re probably in a state of overwhelm as well as awe, like many of the people I met with were.

It’s a testament to the new age of selling and the role technology will play in how we sell. Sales 2.0; the conversion of technology and sales and the symbiotic relationship between the two; how they can be integrated together and co-exist in harmony. As I was walking through the isles where these venders were displaying their innovative solutions, it was mind-blowing to see that a majority of these well established high-tech companies were less than five years old.

The conference was a huge success, not only in the higher than anticipated number of people who attended but the sheer number of thought leaders who shared their vision of the future of selling and the technology that will drive it.

To that end, the keynote I delivered, “Managing the MySpace Generation: Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions” was available to view online the next day in its entirety (thanks to the technology that Altus developed) along with a searchable transcript of every word I uttered.

I had the distinct pleasure to interview a number of these innovators and CEO’s who are charting this new course as it relates to how salespeople sell, how they are managed and how they are trained and coached.

Not only did I have an opportunity to connect with so many great people and innovators like AllBusiness.com’s, Lori Richardson, Selling Power’s Gerhard Gschwandtner, Jigsaw founder, Garth Moulton and its CEO Jim Fowler, and William Landers, CEO of xsellense, but here is just a sampling of the incredible roster of people I interviewed:

Bill Hoffman, Vice President of Business Development, CanDoGo.com
Ken Luden, CEO of LucidEra.com
Stu Schmidt, Vice President of Solutions for WebEx
David Thompson, CEO and co-founder of Genius.com
Evan Sohn, CEO of Salesconx
Razi Imam, CEO of Landslide
Sebastian Grady, COO of Altus Learning Systems

Sales leaders, business owners and sales managers need to prepare for the next evolution of selling and what it’s going to take to make their sales team a leading force in their space. These are just a few of the companies providing revolutionary and unique services that are going to assist sales teams in developing and maintaining their competitive edge.

Yet, with all the technology that is going to change how salespeople sell and manage themselves, I was surprised to hear the comments made by some of the people who spoke at this event. Here are a few observations I heard that certainly stirred up quite a reaction in me as well as in many other attendees:

1. Cold calling is dead.
2. Technology is going to replace the salesperson.
3. Companies are going to rely less and less on the high caliber, professional salesperson who can take a prospect from the beginning of the sales cycle to the end when closing the sale.
4. Automated, asynchronous training solutions are going to replace training and professional development delivered by a live person (face to face, over the phone or through the internet.)

Sure, technology will automate and streamline many of the functions and tasks salespeople and management are currently responsible for. More specifically, how they manage their sales pipeline and the stages of their selling cycle, how they qualify and mine for new prospects, how they network with other business professionals, how they maintain their contact database as well as how they communicate with their prospects and customers. And the trend for companies to transition from what was once a face to face sale to a virtual, off site sale will continue to dominate more sales cultures.

Yet, as a pioneer in sales coaching and professional development, one thing is for certain. People like to buy from people. As such, the longer your sales cycle and the higher the price tag on your product or service, the more solidified the need will be and will remain for talented sales champions to drive sales and growth.

I have already seen the negative impact that some of these great advancements are having on sales teams across the globe as it relates to how salespeople are interacting with their prospects, customers even their managers. Many managers have reported spending far too much time reviewing a thread of email conversations between their salespeople and prospects when attempting to uncover where a communication breakdown occurred or when trying to identify how a great selling opportunity was lost. Misinterpreted and poorly worded emails between management and their staff are the cause of more costly problems and upsets which deteriorate relations than any additional time-savings they supposedly create.

Moreover, there’s the ever-widening communication gap that some of these new technologies promote between the younger, MySpace generation and that of their boss, especially as more and more sales teams are built on a virtual platform where there’s little, if any face to face weekly interaction with their manager. Rather than develop their core leadership and coaching competencies and skills, managers are relying far too heavily on these solutions to solve many of the managerial challenges they are up against when building and managing their sales team.

Salespeople are expecting their webinars, proposals, websites, online marketing campaigns and collateral materials to do the selling and prospecting for them. And what’s worse, there are those salespeople who attempt to close a prospect or overcome objections via email rather than simply picking up the phone to facilitate a direct, one to one conversation that would appease the person’s concerns. Here’s just one example of a perfectly good opportunity and a valid reason to reach out to a prospect over the phone that salespeople need to take full advantage of, yet fail to do so.

The introduction of these new technologies into the selling process will continue to proliferate, for change is truly the only constant. After all, there will always be a need to make the selling process easier and more efficient for the salesperson, for your company and for your customers.

While more applications such as the ones I’ve mentioned are infused throughout each stage of the sale, the technology of maximizing human potential is far from tapped. And as more technology emerges to simplify the selling process, there will be an even greater demand for the elite salesperson who can manage and leverage technology as well as effectively communicate their message to their targeted audience.

The technology of interpersonal, result oriented communication; the language and true art of selling will still reign supreme in the selling profession. Sure, these new tools we have at our disposal will improve efficiency, cut down on travel as well as timely administrative tasks, and reduce prospecting time and the time it takes to convert prospects into customers, now that there is less of a need to meet face to face with prospects in order to sell your product or service to them. However, it will be the sales leader who is the rainmaker, the fearless and persistent prospector, the conduit to building and maintaining strong relationships and the master of the language of selling who will continue to dominate this era of technological change.

Excerpt from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing the Sale by Keith Rosen. Reprinted with permission by Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Release Date, January, 2007. Visit www.guidetoclosingthesale.com.

When you are listening to a prospect, what exactly are you listening for? For one, you certainly want to listen for what is missing or the gap. After all, this is what you are ultimately presenting to them, that is, your solution which in turn, fills their void, gap or problem. So sell the gap! It is your solution, product or service that becomes the bridge which takes the prospect from where they are today (present state) to where they want to be (desired state).

Keep in mind, this can be different from what they want or need. This is something that the client themselves may not even be aware of. If you can identify this gap, you can then bridge it with the right solution.

For example, a client of mine hired me to train their sales team. As I explored deeper, I discovered that they were experiencing a large amount of turnover. There were many inconsistencies and breakdowns during their recruiting and hiring process. There was nothing documented as it relates to a process that people can follow consistently to attract the best talent. Especially when it came to screening candidates and a strong retention plan to retain their new hires.

I found that they were experiencing a 35% attrition rate. I proposed not only providing them with a sales training program, but also a more in depth solution to developing and strengthening  their recruiting and retention strategy to reduce the amount of attrition which would complement the training.

The result was a comprehensive recruitment and retention strategy which ultimately reduced turnover within their company dramatically. That was the gap that I was able to fill. Simply by listening deeper, I was able to uncover what their true needs were, were the breakdown was beginning, what their core challenges were. The same challenges that they did not articulate on the surface. It was what they weren’t saying that I listened for. Their needs and greatest point of pain.

There’s a symbiotic relationship between the way we listen, and the questions we ask. For example, if you’re already listening from a certain place or through a filter, then chances are you are not going to ask certain questions that can create new selling opportunities.

After all, if you keep listening from the past and reacting based on a past experience or a future expectation, you will continue to create the same results as before.

Highly Effective Leaders Are Fully Accountable For Their Communication

More than 65% of all problems or breakdowns that exist among people and within businesses occur as a result of faulty communication. The very thing that occupies approximately 70% of our waking hours is the very thing we have difficulty with the most.

Most of us were never taught how to communicate in a way that produces consistent results, so we continue to experience frustration, resistance, conflicts, or breakdowns. Although the style of communication varies from each leader, (high powered, humorous, low- key, etc.) a great leader is fully accountable not only for the message they deliver but for the way they are being heard. Enhancing your communication requires taking full responsibility for the outcome of each conversation; not only for what you are saying but for the message the other person is hearing. (I.e., Speaking in their “language”/communication style.)
Tip From The Coach: To strengthen your communication, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Am I taking full responsibility for the message being heard by the other person? (Remember that it doesn’t matter what you say, it only matters what the other person hears.)
2. Did I respect the other person’s point of view or did I have a reaction (disagreement) to what they were saying that prevented me from listening to their full message?
3. If I was asking someone to take a specific action (delegating), did I make my request clear & check to see if the conversation worked/was successful? (Did I receive feedback to ensure that I was understood?)
4. Did I receive value from the conversation? (Did I allow the other person to contribute to me?)
5. If the outcome of the conversation did not meet my expectations, what did I learn that would enable me to better communicate with that person? (Did I open up a new and greater possibility that I didn’t notice before?)
6. Did I give the person the gift of my listening?
7. When delegating a task or having a conversation, was I cognizant of the common sense trap?

It is not the other person’s responsibility to understand what it is you are saying. It is your job to be understood.

Highly effective leaders are fully accountable not only for the message they deliver but for the message the other person is hearing. Producing greater, long-term results without conflicts or breakdowns requires taking full responsibility for the outcome of each conversation.