PODCAST: Leadership Strategies That Motivate Your Team to Higher Performance
Jul 10, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Leadership Academy, Sales Management, articles on leadership, coaching for managers, management tips, podcast, training for managers
Listen to this podcast here.
If you want your team to sell more, the driving question every manager needs to ask themselves is, “What am I doing each day to make my salespeople even more valuable and effective so that we can better retain and acquire new customers?”
So, what are you doing to develop the skills and competencies that would enable you to get your salespeople to become sales champions? What are you doing to better your best?
Now, the obvious solution would be to spend more time with your people but the question then is, what are you doing with that time?
Most managers resort to reactionary micro management simply because that’s all they know. As such, all they’re attempting to do is try to control more of the situations that surround them. Not the most effective strategy. This actually creates a more toxic environment, making matters even worse.
There are many things that a manager can do to boost your team’s performance. In this podcast, I’ve highlighted the ones that will result in an immediate positive change, which you can start engaging in today.
You can tune in and listen to this podcast here.
NOTE: Given this page is updated often, this podcast may not be listed as the most current one on the top of the list of podcasts.
Tags: coaching, Executive Coaching, leadership, management, management training, sales management coaching, tips for managers
Sales Managers: Get Your Salespeople to Sell More: Listen to This Webinar Now!
May 1, 2009 Business Coaching, Career Advice, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Interviews, Leadership Academy, Sales Management, coaching for managers, management tips, training for managers, webinar
Click here to listen to and view this webinar.
If you missed last week’s blockbuster webinar, The Sales Leadership Imperative, you can now access the recording immediately and listen to this 45 minute discussion I had with Jonathan Farrington. We focused on the most pressing questions that sales managers and sales leaders are faced with today.
Here are the questions we responded to:
The burning question today is, what can managers do to get their people motivated and performing at the level they need to be at consistently while still having time to focus on their other priorities?
Why do so many potentially good sales managers fail?
Managers struggle most when dealing with an underperformer and making the determination about whether to support them, do nothing or let them go. How long should you stick with a salesperson who has potential, but doesn’t produce?
If you had to identify just six key metrics that sales managers should use to benchmark their sales team’s performance, what would they be?
If coaching is the missing discipline amongst managers and sales leaders today, then why do so many coaching initiatives fail within organizations?
What do you think, are great sales leaders born or made? What are the characteristics of the very best?
What are some of the inherent challenges/barriers for management who are looking to make the shift and truly coach their sales team?
Most sales professionals, in practically every industry sector are struggling to meet sales quotas. The reality is, there are still plenty of opportunities to better retain existing clients and acquire new ones but the rules of engagement have changed.
Sales leaders, who have recognized these changes, are re-educating themselves and their sales teams by adopting a totally new approach to selling as well as leading their team and as such, are forming a new type of sales culture. To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers.
So, if you’re a sales manager or even if you’re not a sales manager but need to get your team producing and selling more today, you can access this recording here.
Click here to listen to and view this webinar.
Tags: Executive Coaching, management coaching, sales leadership, sales management training, training for managers, webinar, webinars
Not Sure How To Innovate? Forget Brainstorming, SmartStorming Shows You How
Mar 23, 2009 Business Advice, Communication, Experiences in Marketing, Leadership Academy, Marketing, management tips
Did you know that the concept of brainstorming as we know it today was invented nearly 70 years ago? This was right around the time when Roosevelt was President and gas cost 10-cents a gallon. Interestingly, while technology has advanced dramatically, the brainstorming process hasn’t changed much since then.
Invite most 21st-century professionals to participate in a brainstorming session, and they’re likely to run for the door. And it’s no wonder. The typical brainstorm is long, tedious, poorly facilitated, often intimidating and even contentious. And the results are often disappointing, as well. Even when a few decent ideas are generated, they rarely end up seeing the light of day.
Two marketing communications professionals from New York City are changing all that, with a totally new approach to brainstorming they call SmartStorming: Advanced Training in Innovative Thinking. I’ve had the opportunity to connect with the creators of SmartStorming and talk to them about this cutting edge technology in how we think and create new ideas. They’ve reinvented the concept of brainstorming so that it can be done in a more of a systematic, organized process that yields are measurable R.O.I.
“We all know innovative thinking is critical for success, today more than ever. We call it the ‘Innovation Imperative,’” says Mitchell Rigie, co-creator of SmartStorming. “The difference between surviving and thriving, today and in the foreseeable future, is going to depend on how fresh and unique a company’s thinking will be.”
Traditional brainstorming is still one of the most widely-used tools for generating ideas. Every day tens of thousands of brainstorms are held around the world.
It seems that the technology behind brainstorming has now evolved into something more powerful. “Brainstorming is a fundamentally flawed process,” says Keith Harmeyer, Rigie’s partner and co-creator of SmartStorming. “For years we sat through hundreds, maybe thousands of unproductive brainstorms. And finally we asked ourselves, ‘How can we do this better?’“
Based on their own experience and extensive research, Rigie and Harmeyer developed a turnkey system that addresses each of the key weaknesses of traditional brainstorming. The result is a thorough six-step process that takes users from pre-planning, through the idea-generation phase to follow-through and next steps.
“Consider the cost to an organization of a typical brainstorm session. Six or eight or even more people, sitting in a room for an hour or more. Then multiply that by the number of sessions held over the course of a year. And with what return? It’s staggering. Plus the negative impact on employee morale is enormous. SmartStorming delivers tangible benefits to the organization, managers and participants,” said Harmeyer.
At the core of SmartStorming is 3-D Ideationsm, a proprietary technique that breaks idea-generation into three parts, resulting in a significantly great yield of fresh, innovative ideas.
“3-D Ideation makes it possible for groups to think beyond their limiting assumptions about a challenge; what most people refer to as ‘thinking outside the box.’ They then view the challenge from a number of different viewpoints, to gain a broader perspective. And finally, they free associate, using a variety of ideation techniques we provide,” said Rigie.
Several leading creative services and consumer products companies have already benefitted from SmartStorming and many more are jumping on the bandwagon. To learn more about SmartStorming training, visit SmartStorming.com.
A Question On Full Accountability – What’s The Reward for Management and Executives?
Nov 26, 2008 American Entitlement, Business Advice, Business Coaching, Executive Coaching, Hiring and recruiting, Leadership Academy, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers
One reader emailed in a question asking for some further clarity around the bigger reward from becoming fully accountable for everything in our lives as well as for the people on our team or who we manage.
Here’s the ultimate reward for you. Once you take full accountability for yourself as well as each person on your team, you are now able to empower others to be fully accountable for themselves.
If you can’t take full ownership over what you are responsible for anyway and for the most part, what your paycheck is judged by, then think about the lethal environment that you are breeding within your team. Remember, avalanches roll down hill and you are modeling the behavior you expect to see in them.
Looking at your team today, they are in essence, the result of your attitude and the choices you have made in the past. Your team tomorrow will be the result of your attitude and the choices you make today. Make the choice today to be the change catalyst you can be. Choose to make a measurable difference and become the leader who you know you’re capable of being.
Therein lies the ultimate source of power, for when you take ownership of full accountability, you get to be at full choice around what you are holding yourself accountable for as well; and it will be your choice to utilize your personal power, your talents, your vision, your values and your integrity in a way to move you and your team forward. If you stop for a moment and think about it, this isn’t your practice career or team. Nor is it our abilities which show the world who we truly are. Instead, it will always be our choices that define us.
“Oh, So This Is Somehow My Fault?” Managers, Time To Get Real. Use This 27 Point Assessment To Look in The Mirror And Identify Your Toxic Leadership Behavior
Oct 26, 2008 American Entitlement, Business Advice, Business Coaching, Business Tools, Executive Coaching, Leadership Academy, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Surveys and Polls, Technology and Software, accountability, articles on leadership, coaching for managers, management articles, management tips, sales tools, training for managers
Are you toxic? Take the toxic leadership assessment here.
Are you leading your team or slowly and unknowingly eroding it from the inside out? Do you still navigate your ship using old school motivational tactics? Do you have your people living in fear? Are complaints rampant, as well as turnover? Are you spending most of your days putting out fires? Are you oblivious to the role you’re playing in any of this?
Do you ever stop to think that some of the challenges you’re faced with now might have something to do with how you might be managing your people and your business? The rules of business have changed overnight and the areas most impacted – sales and leadership.
How good of a leader are you? Maybe it’s time for you to abandon your role as Chief Problem Solver. Here’s your chance to get real about the behaviors and strategies you need to abandon today in order to get yourself out of your own way of producing the results you need. Then, you’ll be able to experience what my clients do: A 30% gain in sales.
In this assessment, you will find a list of 27 toxic management strategies that need to be abandoned. And for those managers, executives and business owners who take this assessment and react with, “Wait, this isn’t me.” I applaud you. Either you’re really that good – or really that blind (clueless and disconnected also come into mind- well, then there are those egomaniacal megalomaniacs, but need I digress). And make sure you take the coaching assessment to ensure you’re most effectively leading and coaching your people.) However, just to make sure you don’t have your blinders on, feel free to share this assessment with your team and have them fill this assessment out this assessment on you, anonymously, of course. Can you handle the truth?
Finally, for those people who are reading this blog and feeling as if they’re being managed by this type of manager, I give you this warning. If you have any desire to share this assessment with your manager or boss, make sure you know how they’ll receive it – as a subtle gesture of good will and compassion or a threat and an insult? If the latter, consider doing it anonymously.
take the toxic leadership assessment here.
So, You Think You’re Coaching Your People? Take This Executive Sales Coaching Assessment and See How You Measure Up Against a Master Coach
Oct 23, 2008 All About Selling, Business Coaching, Business Tools, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Leadership Academy, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Technology and Software, coaching for managers, coaching tips, management tips
Take the Coaching Assessment Here.
The rules of business have changed overnight and the areas most impacted – sales and leadership. How do you lead your team differently today compared to the way you did just six months ago? Have you benchmarked the skills needed to lead your team through tough economic times?
After all, I hear many managers tell me how they’re coaching their people, yet in the same breath, report how they’re still experiencing the same problems they’ve always had, and worse today. Then, how effective can your coaching actually be?
If you’re still experiencing the same problems you did before you started coaching your team, then it’s time to recognize the sign; something’s not right. Is it you, the person you’re coaching or your coaching approach?
So, if you think you’re coaching your people, take this Self Awareness Assessment to gauge your coaching acumen.
How effectively are you coaching your team? Just look at the results. Here’s your chance to get real about the areas you need to firm up and develop in order to get the results my clients experience – a 30% gain in sales. This assessment will help you benchmark the areas you need to develop as well as the strategies you need to implement in order to lead your team during good and bad times and most important, get them to thrive today.
Click on this link to go to the assessment where you will find a list of 27 coaching skills, competencies and strategies that the world’s most successful sales coaches, sales leaders and sales organizations have in common.
Take The Coaching Assessment to measure your true coaching acumen. Click here.
Speaking at the Sales Leadership Conference Next Monday Oct, 6 – Chicago
Sep 30, 2008 All About Selling, Business Coaching, Business Tools, Insights in Business, Leadership Academy, Live Events, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, articles on leadership, seminars
For those managers and executives out there with a struggling sales force, here’s something you can do about it. Tap into this rich opportunity to get immediate solutions to your most pressing sales and leadership challenges from the experts.
Next Monday, October 6, 2008 I’ll be speaking at the Selling Power Sales Leadership Conference at the Four Seasons, Chicago. Below is the agenda. Click here for more information.
Agenda
7:30 AM REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
8:30 AM WELCOME KEYNOTE
9:15 AM TOTAL LEADERSHIP: BE A BETTER LEADER, HAVE A RICHER LIFE
Total Leadership is a proven method for producing sustainable change in all parts of life that can be learned and practiced by individuals, groups, or organizations. It is informed by decades of research and practical application by Stew Friedman, a veteran Wharton School faculty member.
Speaker: Stewart Friedman, Founding Director, Wharton Leadership Program
10:25 AM MORNING BREAK
10:45 AM HOW TO BUILD AN EXECUTION-ORIENTED SALES CULTURE
A sales-driven organization is one where the activities of the sales force are aligned with a company’s mission, vision and values and where salespeople deliver value every day with every customer. Each of the panelists has excelled in managing a sales-driven organization. Learn the winning strategies and tactics from these experts so you can get your entire executive team to support your guiding vision.
Moderator: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and Publisher, Selling Power
Panelists: Sanford Brown, CSO, Heartland Payment Systems
12:15 PM LUNCHEON
1:15 PM HOW TO SKYROCKET YOUR SALES TEAMS’ PERFORMANCE - CASE STUDY: DHL
Sales force success is driven by a continuous management system that links business objectives, benchmarking, focused planning, individual assessment, and hands-on coaching. In this in-depth case study, you will learn exactly how DHL uses a scientific Sales Improvement Process to maintain peak levels of sales performance. This approach was pioneered with DHL’s 1,500-person sales force in the Asia-Pacific region; however, it can be easily tailored to sales forces in any industry, of any size, and with missions ranging from making small ticket, transactional sales to much larger, relationship-based sales. At DHL, this Sales Improvement Process was employed with a 150-person sales force in China, as well as the 15-person sales force in the Philippines.
Speaker: Malcolm Rees, Global Head of Sales, DHL Express Global Management
2:30 PM BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Breakout A: Coaching Salespeople into Champions
Technology has not only changed the way companies sell but the way managers build and advance their team. There’s less face to face time between your customers and your salespeople. To maintain your competitive edge, sales leaders must know how to quickly and efficiently coach, develop, motivate and retain their top performers in order to drive positive, measurable change. You can create a world class team by developing your own coaching skills; the missing discipline among today’s leaders. Learn how a tactical coaching system can empower your sales force to realize their fullest potential.
Moderator: Mary Delaney, CSO, CareerBuilder.com
Panelists: Dave DiStefano, CEO, RIchardson
Patrick Sweeney, EVP, Caliper
Breakout B: Reviving Sales with Creative Incentives During a Slow Economy
Many industries are suffering from a slowdown. To stimulate sales, sales leaders often resort to price-cutting, or offer special incentives to their customers and their sales force. What strategies work best when it comes to planning, promoting and executing a successful incentive program? What incentives motivate customers to buy and what incentives motivate salespeople to deploy the extra effort needed to drive up sales? Learn how industry leaders deploy Incentives to achieve a strategic competitive advantage.
Moderator: Matt Harris, Vice President, Marketing, American Express Incentive Services
Panelists: Richard Blabolil, President, Marketing Innovators
3:30 PM AFTERNOON BREAK
3:50 PM THE FUTURE OF THE SALES PROFESSION
With many baby boomers retiring, US companies are beginning to suffer from a shortage of sales talent. Every year over 1.5 million College graduates enter the field of sales, starting their careers with inadequate training, burdening their employers with a high business ramp up investment. There is a silver lining on the horizon with 35 visionary Colleges that offer a complete sales curriculum. Every year, these colleges graduate 1,600 sales professionals who know how to cold call, write a sales letter, handle objections, close a sale and ask for referrals. Engage in this session to help advance your profession. Together we can transform selling into a respectable and predictable science.
Speaker: Howard P. Stevens, Chairman and CEO, The HR Chally Group
Panelists: Pete Peterson, Director, Program for Sales Excellence, University of Connecticut
4:50 PM CONCLUDING REMARKS
Speaker: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and Publisher, Selling Power
5:00 PM NETWORKING COCKTAIL RECEPTION
Post-Conference Workshop – Tuesday, October 7, 2008
This optional workshop will run from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon in Ballroom A (8th floor) of the Four Seasons Chicago Hotel.
8:00 AM MANAGING THROUGH CURIOSITY
Click here for more information.
CEO Strips to Deliver a Presentation With Impact
Sep 29, 2008 All About Selling, Communication, How To Close The Sale, Leadership Academy, Sales Training, sales articles, sales tools, seminars
Now here’s an example of a presentation that grabs attention. It has all the elements of success. The right person, (Tom Ziglar, CEO of Ziglar, Inc.), the right intention, focus, the visuals and measurable results.
Take a look and watch him, um, strip? And for the record, Tom lost, what, 71 lbs! No kidding.
Here’s the link to watch the video presentation!
And congratulations again, Tom, on an extraordinary achievement.
Engaging the Hearts and Minds of All Your Employees
Aug 26, 2008 Books, How to Manage Your Team, Leadership Academy, management tips
With technology advancements nearing the speed of light, there are no sustainable competitive advantages anymore…except for your people. Engaging the hearts and minds of your team is the only sustainable advantage left in today’s hyper-competitive, high-velocity world.
As a result, employee engagement has been a white hot topic. Lee J. Colan’s rapid-read book translates the concept of employee engagement into concrete actions leaders apply in real-time. Whether you lead a family, a project, or community volunteers, this a highly interactive book delivers “how to” strategies for igniting passionate performance – our teams willingly giving their time and energy to achieve our goals.
As a thank you for your support and readership, I have arranged with Lee to give you a free bonus tool (worth $99) when you pre-order his new book.
Take a quick read of a sample chapter. It offers actionable tips to fulfill the emotional need for purpose on your team… and ignite passionate performance – fast!
Who Do You Coach? A. G.R.O.W.T.H. Success Indicator to Determine Personal Coachability
Jul 11, 2008 Books, Business Advice, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Leadership Academy, Sales Management, accountability, articles on leadership, management articles, training for managers
Who Do You Coach?
“Who should I be coaching?” I’ve been asked this question hundreds of times by both internal sales and corporate coaches as well as those looking to build a career as a coach and develop a sustainable coaching practice on their own.
The short answer is that not everyone is coachable.
You can determine if people are ready to be coached by who they are—the degree to which they are receptive to making positive, long-term change both in their thinking as well as in their behavior. This determination is less about what the people do or their position, age, industry, experience, education, knowledge, or intelligence. Remember, coaching is about building sales champions from the inside out.
The following six qualities need to be present in the person and the coaching relationship in order for your coaching to have a profound impact. I’ve identified these attributes by the acronym A. G.R.O.W.T.H.
A. G.R.O.W.T.H. Success Indicator to Determine Personal Coachability
1. Actionability. A combination of both action and ability. The word represents both the actions that will drive success as well as the person’s actual proficiency and aptitude. Without action, nothing happens. And without the person’s innate ability and intelligence to carry out the task as intended, the action becomes an exercise in futility. As I tell my clients, “If you’re only willing to do today what you did yesterday, then what do you need me for?” This holds true for both action in your thinking and in your doing. Coaching is based on forward movement by engaging in activities you either haven’t tried, haven’t done consistently, or haven’t modeled on established best practices. (You may have been engaging in the activity in a less than effective manner.) In addition, action is the effort you put forth to change your current beliefs, your attitude, and how you think.
2. Gap. Simply put, the gap is the space between where the person is now and where they want to be. It is the space where new resources, beliefs, skills, strategies, and dialogues are cocreated by you and them. This gap stands in the way of the person’s goal and where the magic and power of your coaching occur. We will spend some time later in this chapter discussing how to uncover and coach the gap.
3. Responsibility and Ownership. I connect these two characteristics because there is a symbiotic relationship between these traits: One cannot exist without the other. If the person you are coaching is unwilling to take full responsibility for her life, career, or for the outcomes produced throughout the coaching process, your coaching will be ineffective. The coaching sessions can quickly turn into an environment for excuses. What’s worse, coaching someone who is unwilling to take total ownership of her success creates a situation where the coach can easily become the scapegoat and validation for the salesperson’s lackluster results, failures, and inefficiencies.
4. Willingness. How badly does your salesperson want to achieve the goals she has laid out? Is this person willing to go above and beyond what her peers are doing to achieve what matters most to her? How has she demonstrated evidence of her commitment and desire to achieve the outlined objectives? Determination and drive are the fuel that propels the coaching forward. Without an unconditional willingness to forge ahead, even in the face of adversity and doubt, you may find that these meetings quickly turn into a prodding or pushing session. The danger is, you may start pushing harder than the person is ready for and then you are dictating the agenda rather than the salesperson.
5. Trust. Trust is the backbone of any relationship, especially a coaching relationship. The foundation of trust is even more essential if the person you are coaching is your employee, peer, or coworker. As with respect, trust is earned. What have you done to earn the trust of the person you are coaching? Or, what have you done to destroy the trust between you and a person you are coaching? Can it be repaired? Can you trust the person you are coaching? Do you have evidence that makes them untrustworthy? Listen to your instincts on this. If you can’t trust them, don’t coach them.
6. Honesty. Honesty is distinct from trust. Honesty refers to the ability of the person you’re coaching to be open and vulnerable with you, the coach. Honesty relates to the degree in which the salespeople not only share with you pertinent information about themselves, their situations, challenges, upsets, and inspirations but also their willingness to look inside themselves and embrace the truth in every situation, whether they like it or not. Part of the role of a coach is to hold up that proverbial mirror so that people can see the truth of what’s going on, what’s getting in their way, and what they need to do to achieve unprecedented results. A defensive attitude creates an unhealthy coaching environment.
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