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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

“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.

A great partnership is like a great marriage – precious and rare. And like any marriage, after the honeymoon period ends and the realities of life kick in, a good partnership is always worth saving. Here are a few things you can do to ensure you’ve done everything to salvage your partnership.

1. Revisit the Company Goals: Are all partners still bought in?

2. Revisit Job Descriptions: is each person doing their best in the role that’s been designed for them? Or worse, is the lack of clarity around each person’s job position causing the dissention and conflict in the first place?

3. Revisit your Vision: Are all partners still in agreement regarding the end game and where they ultimately want to company to be?

4. Get a Coach. a coach can facilitate the difficult conversations that partners are reluctant to have. Whether it’s due to avoidance behavior (avoiding conflict and controversy) or a lack of skill in communicating a coach can uncover resentments be an unconditional third party and help facilitate solutions that the partners were unable to do or even see on their own.

5. What Has Changed? Life changes, people change, priorities change. Has there been any changes in the lives of the partners, either personally or professionally? Sometimes partners grow out of their roles or simply lose interest. Sometimes changes in a person’s personal life affect their decisions that relate to their business. So, is there still a fit?

6. Over-Communicate: Rather than talk honestly and openly quite often people seem to do the opposite; they shut down their communication, making the costly assumption that “This is a dead end. My partner doesn’t understand me.”

7. Facts or Assumptions? I can’t begin to count the number of times that the very problems that have destroyed the partnership were based more in assumptions rather than on the facts. Don’t react to what you think is happening but really isn’t. Instead, focus on getting the evidence that supports your feelings to avoid making decisions you may later regret.

8. Take the High Road. Like a good marriage no partnership is ever going to be an even 50-50 split of responsibility and effort all the time. If you’re playing the “That’s not fair, I’m working harder than my partner” game, this will only lead to greater resentment and ultimately a toxic relationship. Are you standing on your Ego Pedestal and your principles, or can you let some things go that really don’t make a difference in the long run. Stop majoring in the minor things that you can overlook, especially if your partner’s natural skills, talents and the value they bring to the company exceeds their minor hang ups or idiosyncrasies.

9. Regular Partner Meetings focused on You. I’ll never forget the first time going to the doctor after my first child was born. After the initial check up, the doctor turned to my wife and I and asked a question I have yet to hear from any doctor since. She actually asked, “So, how are the both of YOU doing?” When parents only focus on their children, they lose sight of focusing on each others personal needs which they need to continue to focus on in order to maintain the integrity and strength of their relationship. Schedule partner meetings more frequently. A partner meeting is different from a strategy meeting or a meeting to discuss employees or goals. This meeting is about YOU and making sure all your needs are being met and how the partners can work better together and support each other.

Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions
A Tactical Playbook for Managers and Executives (Hardcover Edition)

Get my book 37% off and additional valuable materials here.

If you’re responsible for coaching or managing anyone, especially salespeople, my new book will help you make the transition from manager to coach by developing the missing discipline of leadership – executive sales coaching. Most managers have never been trained to manage, let alone coach effectively. I deliver to you a tactical coaching system for managers, business owners, coaches and executives – anyone who wants a proven and powerful method to coach and develop true champions.

Endorsed by thought leaders such as Dr. Denis Waitley, Brian Tracy, Dr. Tony Alessandra, Anthony Parinello and more, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions fills the void between what great managers need to know and do as a great coach in order to:

<li>Turn underperformers into super-achievers, fast. (Under 30 days.)</li>

<li>    Attract and retain top talent.</li>

<li>Motivate their team through the Art of Enrollment&#8482;, the new language of leadership.</li>
<li>Empower their people to solve their own problems and become fully accountable using the L.E.A.D.S. Coaching System&#8482; - rather than being dependent on you.</li>
    <li>Handle difficult people without conflict and determine when to let them go without collateral damage.</li>

Since the success or failure of any organization leads back to the actions and behavior of one person; the leader, it’s critical for every manger to upgrade their leadership style and approach. You’ll discover how to facilitate a coaching conversation that fits your management style, as well as the strategies of the world’s greatest coaches through dozens of case studies spanning over 15 different industries and professions, a 30-Day Turnaround Strategy, coaching and communication templates, a library of masterful coaching questions and an easy-to-follow coaching process to leverage each person’s fullest potential and develop a team of winners.

** 72 HOUR BOOK EVENT ENDS THURSDAY**

Purchase Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions by April 17 and enjoy access to hundreds of dollars worth of additional materials from Dr. Tony Alessandra, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Jim Cathcart, Jill Konrath, Dave Lakhani, Bob Kantin, Dr. Rick Kirschner, CanDoGo.com, AllBusiness.com, SalesDog.com and more. You can spend hundreds of dollars separately or you can invest about $20.00, order one copy of the book today and spend not one penny more. Look at the resources you get here.

Plenty of books espouse new management and leadership theories for managers, but few show you how to actually coach your people on a daily basis in a way that creates measurable change. Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions provides a proven methodology and tactical strategy for coaching that bridges the gap between theory and execution so that you can achieve unprecedented results -today.

Remember, this time sensitive event ends April 17 at midnight.

Get the book 37% off and hundreds of dollars worth of additional materials here.

72 Hour Special Book Event April 15 – 17

5. Develop Your Personal Style of Coaching
When people ask me what my style of coaching is, I say, “Direct yet light, exploratory, action-oriented, comprehensive, easily adaptable, conversational, enjoyable, tactical, and results-oriented. I’m your safe sounding board, your advisor, accountability partner, cheerleader, personal trainer, and consultant.”

Building off the attribute we discussed under number 4, developing your own coaching style is something that doesn’t happen immediately but as an organic process as you coach more and more people. The most effective coaches have learned to trust their heart and, in turn, trust their personality. Their style of coaching complements who they are naturally. These are the coaches who reign supreme, for they know that the very thing that their salespeople or clients find attractive in them is who they are, not simply what they do. Give yourself permission to be the authentic you and let your gifts radiate throughout the coaching you deliver.

It is perfectly normal and natural to have resistance to making the transformational shift from sales manager to sales coach. Considering what is required of you, it is a tall order. Much more is expected from the sales coach than the sales manager. However, imagine what would be possible for you and for your sales team once you make this transformation. For those managers who are willing to do so, the rewards are abundant.

** 72 Hour Special Book Event April 15 – 17

Purchase my new book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions on these specific days only, April 15, 16 and 17 and enjoy access to hundreds of dollars worth of additional materials from Dr. Tony Alessandra, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Jim Cathcart, Jill Konrath, Dave Lakhani, Bob Kantin, Dr. Rick Kirschner, CanDoGo.com, AllBusiness.com, SalesDog.com and more. Look at the resources you get here.

72 Hour Special Book Event April 15 – 17

Here’s the third of five characteristics that the world’s greatest coaches share.

3. Sometimes they really need the answer!
So, give it to them rather than throwing another question at them, which does nothing more than frustrate the person you are coaching. The sad truth is, most coaches can’t give the answer. Why? Go back to the first quality. You can’t get the answers from a coach who hasn’t been where you want to be.

Interestingly, most people need more than just a coach to reach their goals. They also need someone who can give them the best solutions, sometimes the answers, and reduce their learning curve (via training, advising, and consulting). Only an experienced coach who possesses great business acumen and experience in the real world can do this.

** 72 Hour Special Book Event April 15 – 17

Purchase my new book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions on these specific days only, April 15, 16 and 17 and enjoy access to hundreds of dollars worth of additional materials from Dr. Tony Alessandra, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Jim Cathcart, Jill Konrath, Dave Lakhani, Bob Kantin, Dr. Rick Kirschner, CanDoGo.com, AllBusiness.com, SalesDog.com and more. Look at the resources you get here.

72 Hour Special Book Event April 15 – 17

There’s certainly a tactical element of coaching that any coach can benefit from following, a process or template to use as a guide on how to coach, especially throughout your initial attempts at coaching people. However, it’s the other stuff that they can’t teach you in coaching school; experience, life lessons, personal drive, focus, commitment, integrity. Regardless of your position or your profession, I’ve noticed certain commonalities among the greatest coaches I know and have coached.

The next several blogs will focus on one characteristic that the world’s greatest coaches share. Here’s number 1.

1. You can’t take someone where you haven’t been yourself.

Sure, you may be in sales but has your coach ever held a sales position before, let alone been a top producer in her industry and company? If you’re a business owner, manager, or executive, has your coach experienced the same challenges and successes and learned the valuable time-saving lessons that will help you build a high-performance team or grow your business?

Having an experienced coach in your corner who also happens to be a successful business owner and salesperson gives you the additional edge that’s sure to cut down the time-consuming and often costly learning curve it takes for you to learn and achieve what’s most important to you.

** 72 Hour Special Book Event April 15 – 17

Purchase my new book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions on these specific days only, April 15, 16 and 17 and enjoy access to hundreds of dollars worth of additional materials from Dr. Tony Alessandra, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Jim Cathcart, Jill Konrath, Dave Lakhani, Bob Kantin, Dr. Rick Kirschner, CanDoGo.com, AllBusiness.com, SalesDog.com and more. Look at the resources you get here.

Get the book 37% off and hundreds of dollars worth of additional materials here.

During a recent interview I was asked whether or not companies should be focused on promoting more work-life balance duing a time they are struggling. Should the offer a more flexible work schedule during a time of uncertainty and change? Is this how they should respond? Here’s my take on it:

I’m sure that’s exactly what people want during questionable times, more change. While the essence of the idea is certainly well founded and one I endorse during a period of normalcy, doing so now is a little to much too late. Unfortunately, most companies are delivering the wrong message that sounds similar to this: “So, we all know that it’s tough out there. We feel like we are on shaky ground. Many believe we’re heading into a recession. That’s why we feel it would be a good idea to offer you a choice whether or not you want to come into work or if you’d rather work remotely.”

Companies keep missing the mark. What their employees really want is open, honest communication. They want you to tell them how it really is. The real truth, without pulling punches. That builds trust and loyalty during times of uncertainty. Build consensus, build in more discussion groups rather than ‘meetings.’ Do more one to one coaching to really get a strong sense of where people are and what they really want and need that would give them the confidence and security they want in their career. This way, they can then actually focus on doing their job without these “What if’s” and other costly distractions that a fear based mentality creates.

Download an Excerpt of, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

1 – Chapter 10. The Art of Enrollment

In celebration of the release of my latest book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions, I have some special bonuses I want to share with you today.

First, I believe loyalty in readership is worth rewarding. That’s why I have a robust book excerpt available for you to download immediately, entitled, The Art of Enrollment.

As a matter of fact, I’m going to be sharing with you five special and exclusive book excerpts over the course of the next week for you to download and enjoy immediately! It’s a PDF, so load it into your PDA and take it with you.

Here’s the PDF you can download now of Chapter Ten. The Art of Enrollment – Download the chapter excerpt here.

Synopsis:

Enrollment: An authentic, powerful way of communicating that grabs people’s attention, stimulates interest, and empowers others to embrace, support, and believe in your position, idea, or philosophy. This motivates people to want to become part of your cause (a cause that may be bigger than you and them), take ownership of it, and then act in their best interest to create the possibility that you have introduced to them and/or have taken a stand for. (For example: Creating a certain corporate culture, selling or making a purchasing decision, trying something new that hasn’t been done before, or advocating for a positive, yet difficult change, etc.)

Enrolment is the new language of leadership. It is a way to unleash each person’s purest form of open, honest, and authentic communication, using thought-provoking, curiosity-based questions that generate worthwhile results in any setting. When you uncover what you are passionate about, what you believe in, and then take a strong, unwavering stand for whatever it may be, while respecting the mutual differences of one another, only then can you start to communicate and achieve more through the enrollment process: the highest form of communicating and self-expression.

And if you like what you read, I respectfully invite you to Write a Review! I appreciate you sharing your book endorsements. Help more managers and business owners become highly effective coaches and more powerful leaders. Write a review on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. I value your input and deeply appreciate your support.

Special Edition – Hardcover. Get Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions today at a special discount 37% off at Booksamillion and coach your salespeople into champions. Check out Amazon, Barnes and Noble, 800-CEO-READ and other trusted retailers here.

Six Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

The other day, in my blog about how to coach someone, I discussed The Gap, which is where the real magic and true impact of coaching takes place. The Gap is the space that exists between where someone is today and where they want or need to be.

What I have found is that the gap represents several key indicators or areas of opportunity that you can coach someone around. The opportunities for coaching people are vast. Here is a detailed list of the top ten things you can coach someone on.

1. The Who: Values, passions, standards, boundaries, integrity and so on

2. Their Attitude: Belief, mindset, philosophy, outlook or assumptions.

3. The Lesson: What have they learned? Why are the same lessons repeating themselves? Are they getting it?

4. Ideal Characteristics: The ideal qualities you have defined that encompass, for example, a sales leader or manager. (Extroverted, actionable, honest, strong communicator, accountable, curious, organized, strong integrity and presence, comfortable disposition, smart, responsive, and so on.)

5. The Skill: Is there a missing discipline or one that needs further development?

6. The Activity: Are they engaging in the activities that support their goals?

7. The Strategy: How do they plan on achieving the intended result? What resources are needed?

8. Their Commitment: Are you noticing their energy level, enthusiasm or motivation waning?

9. Their Communication: The language, dialogue or communication regarding style, delivery, presence and disposition.

10. Their Relationships: The relationships they have with intangible concepts and feelings as well as with their stories and S.C.A.M.M.s., (I cover this in great detail in Chapter Four of, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.) You can even coach someone around their relationship with fear, confidence, time and self management, self worth, rejection, call reluctance, their drama, their diversionary tactics and so on.

Eight Days to Launch! Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

Sales Training or Sales Coaching. What’s The Difference and When Do I Use Them?
A client of mine, the owner of an executive recruiting firm, emailed me a question after our coaching call regarding some confusion around the difference in approach between coaching and training and when exactly do you use each discipline, especially when it came to new hires who typically went through a structured training program.

Here’s what the email read:

“After reflecting on our conversation I have a couple thoughts I wanted to run by you. You mentioned I need to tap into people’s own wisdom and strength, and let them come up with their own solutions and along the way I should sprinkle in questions along their vision line that cause them to think, and I can then add truths to their solutions vs. telling them they are wrong or how to do it or what the answer is, etc…

I do believe this is a more mature approach in coaching sales managers and senior sales associates. However; this is a bit contrary to how we initially train new associates.

We only hire entry level and train from within. We tell new associates that they need to subscribe to the “blind faith” model as they are learning the job. We do this because the trainers and managers have to literally walk new associates through most of their initial phone calls so they can not only achieve measurable success quickly but help us in determining whether they have what it takes or will disqualify themselves from this position. We want them to implement our sales model because we know it works. We have a very in depth and hands on training with new associates, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity when they are being walked through how to prospect and cold call, how to deliver effective presentations, how to close the sale, how to speak with customers, how to make a proper phone call, etc. We believe this is such a difficult job to break into, we want to do everything in our power to get them performing to our expectations, so they can eventually learn how to do the job on their own.

Although it is necessary for new associates to go through this type of training, it does not seam effective for Sr. Sales Associates or Managers. It seems that if I truly want self reliant and self motivated salespeople and sales managers, I need to coach them towards the right solutions and let them get there on their own rather then tell them what the answer is or what to do.

Ultimately, my question is, am I thinking along the right path and how do you determine whether the situation requires more of a training approach where I need to show them how to do something or more of a coaching approach where I rely more on their ability to find the solution within themselves?”

Here was the response I sent:

GREAT question and highly insightful! Yes, you’re beginning to think like a coach. So the question is, when is it a training issue and when is it a coaching issue. Here’s an analogy.

If you want to learn how to play golf and you’re going to take the game seriously, one of the first things you’re going to do is find a great teacher or enroll in a golf training class. You find someone who can show you the mechanics of the game, teach you the game and help you develop your own swing. Since you’ve never done this before, you need to be shown how to do so. More than just being shown the basics and fundamentals you want to be shown the very best way to do it in order to cut down your learning curve and you want to be taught by a champion who’s already doing it or who has already done it. That’s the training aspect to learning the game and wanting to learn the best practices for playing.

Now, some time has passed by and you’ve learned the basics. You’re out on the golf course playing consistently. You’ve taken what you learned from the golf pro and are doing your best to apply it. You noticed you’re only getting so far. While your score has improved since you’ve started playing, you’ve capped out and can’t seem to shoot better than a 90.

Since you are ready to take your game to the next level, you now go and find yourself a great golf coach. Distinct from what a teacher does, your coach is going to find out what you want to refine and improve. Your coach is going to uncover where you want to be in terms of how well you want to play the game. What do you ultimately want to shoot? That’s the measurable end result or destination; your gauge for winning. Rather than tell him how to play, the coach is going to watch you play a round. The coach is going to observe not only how you swing the club but how you play the inner game of golf as well. The coach is going to want to get a good sense of your own style, strengths, areas of opportunity and how you currently play the game.

Here’s the quick distinction. A teacher or trainer is going to show you how to do something; something you’ve never done before or tried before in a consistent manner. The trainer is going to provide you with a foundation, a process, a benchmark of best practices to give you a starting point in relation to where you would begin on your path of development.

A coach, however, is going to show you how to do what you are doing even better. First the coach would need see how you swing a club. Then the benefits coaching are recognized and apparent when the coach watches from the sidelines seeing the things that you, as the player cannot and gently tweaks and refines your game and approach to the point where you’ve made it your own. Coaching is the discipline management uses to leverage all of your salespeople’s individual strengths and talents to keep them on top of their game and recognize their fullest abilities today, rather than by what could be tomorrow.”

If you’re learning how to do something for the first time, you want to be taught best practices. Like golf, the instructor isn’t going to let you invent your own swing. You need to be shown the right form etc. Then as you learn the fundamentals you need to then be coached to refine your game and advance your game.

So it makes sense what you’re saying. First you need to show them the best way, show them best practices and train them how to do something they’ve never done. When it comes to refining your game, removing obstacles, and challenging thinking, that’s when coaching comes into play.

Tip From the Executive Sales Coach: Sales training is what you need to become a salesperson. Sales coaching is what you need to become a sales champion.

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.

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.

Paul, one of my clients was involved in a terrible car accident that almost left him paralyzed. Being an eternal optimist and a student of possibility, Paul persevered. He didn’t listen to the nay-sayers and to the doctors when they told him he may never be able to walk. He tapped into his internal strength and refused to surrender.

After several lengthy surgeries, the addition of a titanium rod in his leg, countless months in rehab, and a relentless drive to overcome the odds against him, Paul regained his ability to walk; something that his doctors told him may never happen again.

Paul turned what could have been a tragedy into a new career for himself, becoming a well-known motivational speaker.

Now, for those of you who are wondering how one goes about becoming a motivational speaker, it’s pretty much the same as developing any other business. You need to develop your product and brand, presentation, sales strategy, business plan and marketing campaign.

It was about the fourth month we were working together that Paul was ready to start marketing his services. He had his first presentation or seminar developed. We worked together on finalizing his sales and marketing strategy. Paul was ready to hit the streets and start bringing in new clients.

At least I thought he was. Wait, that’s not accurate. He was ready, I knew he was ready and Paul verbally admitted he was ready from an organizational standpoint. However, there was a disconnect between the things Paul developed that were ready for launching his business and him actually feeling ready to go out and close his first sale.

Here were some of the red flags that indicated there was something else going on in Paul’s mind that prevented him from putting himself out there in the marketplace.

“Keith, I’m almost ready. I’m just not ready yet. You see, I still have to get my business cards done.”

One week later here’s what I heard from Paul. “Keith I’m still not ready yet. I also need to complete my website. And then, there’s my presentation that I need to tweak a little bit. Once that’s done, I’ll be ready. Oh, I mean after I finish the PowerPoint presentation. And I still have to get that professional photo taken and…”

Just when I thought Paul exhausted all the possible excuses that were preventing him from taking action, he came up with one last one. (Actually, it was the last one I allowed him to come up with, before calling him out on all of these diversionary tactics he created for himself that justified his avoidance of taking action and selling.)

It was during coaching call when Paul would typically inform me about his achievements throughout the prior week.
Paul was telling me about how much progress he’s made with identifying his initial round of companies to target who would be a perfect fit for his services.

“That’s wonderful,” I exclaimed, happy to hear that he had identified the companies to begin calling on. “So, what day this week do you want to commit to calling on these companies?” I asked.

“Well,” Paul began reluctantly, “Here’s the thing. I need to do a little more research on these companies before I start calling on them.

Paul was clearly wearing his perfectionism on his sleeve. I inquired, “Okay Paul, so tell me, exactly when will you be ready?”

“Well” Paul began. I sensed he was about to come up with a laundry list. Yup, I was right. I stopped him before he got on a roll.

“Paul, lets look at this through a different set of lenses for a second, okay? What if you were ready, right now, today? After all, you shared with me that you have essentially everything you need to launch your company and start selling and most important you have your heart, your passion and your drive to share your story and inspire others.”

“Yes, but well, it’s still not completely finished.”

“So, when you say, completely finished, is it possible that what you really mean is completely perfect?”

Silence. A few minutes later, Paul reluctantly agreed with me.

Paul suffered from a clear case of perfectionism. And while this is a very elusive diversion we use to often keep us from taking action, Paul felt that in order for him to be ready, he had to have everything perfect, including himself.

Believing that you are “almost ready” is the same as saying “I almost made that sale.” Neither pay the bills.

So, when researching the companies he wanted to call on, it only made sense that Paul became a knowledge junkie, believing that if he could get everything perfect and learn everything he needs to know about public speaking and about his prospects (which of course, could never actually be achieved), he would then be ready to go out and sell. (Thankfully, we caught this early enough before he even tackled the thought of developing the “perfect close.”)

After discussing the consequences of his actions (or lack there of) Paul soon realized that it is who he is and his experience he could share that is the greatest gift he could give to his audience.

Besides, if you strive for perfectionism, and there’s truly no such thing as being perfect, then what kind of disconnect do you think you would create between you and every prospect you speak with? (You being perfect and everyone else being well, a mere mortal?)

Here are five questions to see if there’s any perfectionism in you we can expose.

1. Is there a fairly long list of people who have disappointed you throughout your life or career? How well do people line up to meeting your expectations you have of them? (And what’s that about?)
2. After completing an assignment or project, such as a proposal, writing an article or a newsletter, how much additional time do you take to make sure it’s, how do you say; “Ready.”
3. Are you satisfied in each area of your life?
4. When completing a project, task or goal, or when you make a substantial sale, is that sense of achievement fleeting or long lasting? (When is enough, actually enough?) Realize you don’t have to choose between feeling fulfilled and satisfied and wanting to achieve bigger goals. You can actually have both; fulfillment in your life and in your career today while enjoying the pursuit of lifelong learning, continued development and meaningful, value-driven goals.
5. Do you find yourself often building evidence to support your case, make yourself right or prove your point? Are you rarely, “wrong?”

Paul welcomed himself back to the human race and soon found out that it was the vulnerability he experienced from the accident which people connected with and made him human. Paul continues to inspire people around the world to this day.

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.

A client I had worked with about a year ago recently emailed me, requesting some time to talk. When we finally got on the phone together, it was apparent why.

Miki was a seasoned executive recruiter. She hired me initially because her sales were down and thought a coach might be able to give her the extra guidance and motivation she needed to get out of this slump. (She was right.)

After three months of coaching, Miki was back on top, the top fifth recruiter out of about 200.

Well, recently it seems as if Miki’s numbers were sliding again and instead of waiting, she immediately reached out for help.

“Keith, I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, I know we haven’t worked together in about a year and for a while I was doing great! But for some reason, I’m feeling stuck again.”

“I’m glad you reached out as soon as you noticed that something was off. Lets do a quick diagnostic and see how things are running.”

“Sure.”

“So, if you were standing on a 100 foot balcony looking down onto your entire sales process, where do you feel the breakdown is occurring; when attempting to get the appointment, when presenting, closing, or following up?”

“Well, I’m using your template for cold calling and that continually works great so the leads are pretty consistent. And the presentation seems to go just fine. So, I guess closing the sale is where I’m stumbling. If I were to look at what’s taking up my time now, I have a handful of proposals out there waiting to be closed. And the prospects I’m meeting with are just not closing; for whatever reason or excuse they give me. The proposal stage and their decision making process seems to drag on indefinitely.”

“So, you’re getting in front of the right people, you feel that your presentation flows well and that you are doing a good job establishing a rapport and relationship with your prospects. However, you feel that these prospects should be able to make their decision faster as it relates to buying from you or not, is that what I’m hearing?”

“Yes, Keith, that’s right.”

“Miki, in the spirit of exploring every possibility and not to step over anything, are you still using the sales process that we put together?”

“Oh yes, of course!”

“You are. Good. Then lets take a quick look at a few things you’re currently doing. Miki, do you remember when we developed your pre-closing and reconfirmation approach to include at the end of your presentation?”

“Um, yes.”

“Are you still asking those five pre-qualifying questions before you discuss your pricing? You know, those questions that ensure you’ve addressed every concern they have, while confirming that your service is something they can clearly benefit from?

Silence. Then, Miki responded quietly with, “Hmm. No, I forgot about those.”

“Well that’s good news! At least we’ve uncovered one critical step in your process that you’re not currently doing which has proven to be very effective. Once you start asking these questions again, you will notice a big difference in your performance. In addition, you won’t be wasting your time drafting proposals and following up with unqualified prospects who you shouldn’t be following up with in the first place.

And what about the questions we developed to defuse the objections you hear? I know that you were running into the “send me a proposal” and the “I have to talk this over with my board” and the infamous “that’s a lot of money” objection. The rebuttals we developed were squashing and preventing these objections consistently, remember?”

“Yes, I most certainly do remember, Keith. I especially remember that when I used them, these objections weren’t getting in my way! The problem is I totally forget about those rebuttals as well! How weird is that?”

We ended our call a few minutes later after I coached Miki and her memory on what she needed to reconnect with in her selling approach. Not surprisingly, she emailed me a week later about a few sales she was able to close as a result of doing what she needed to do again; the basics. Miki got back to the basics of what made her successful.

Interestingly, while I identified certain things that Miki clearly needed to change for the better, it was nothing she hasn’t tried, created or done successfully before. Her real enemies were success, complacency and time.

Whether we’re in a slump or selling like a pro, when something is always going on we become blind to it. That includes becoming complacent or often blind to the good things in our life as well as the bad. Of course, this does not exclude the productive behavior and actions we take in addition to the unproductive ones. We sometimes forget what has worked for us, what has specifically contributed to our success; the things that have become habitual. And when something becomes a habit, it’s now working in the background of our lives, being done without conscious attention. We no longer have to think about doing them. Therein lies the danger.

Tip from The Executive Sales Coach:
Here’s an elusive diversionary tactic to consider.
If you continually forget everything you’ve learned, then you can always claim that you have adopted and utilized what you’ve learned. And if you continually feel that you’re using everything you’ve read, heard or seen and nothing is working, what a wonderful opportunity to look outside yourself and blame your poor performance on everything except you. After all, you’ve tried and done everything, right? In your mind you have the validation to support such a claim, which is really an excuse in disguise. So, if you forget about it, then you are always right (and never accountable). Get it?
When coaching someone out of a slump who has all of the right components to succeed, most of the time it’s the basics which have been ignored or forgotten that contributed to the breakdown. The basic questions we ask, the presentation we deliver, the process we’ve developed that has successfully worked time and time again. Some how, some way, we get sidetracked, distracted or seduced by something we perceive to be better (or worse), like a new selling strategy or approach, status quo, even our attitude. Consequently, we mistakenly change what was clearly identified as an approach or mindset that was working well.

The next time you experience a selling slump or you feel that sales aren’t coming to you as easily has they once did, go back to the basics. Instead of doubting yourself and your abilities, see what you need to be reminded to do consistently again in your selling approach. Look at the engine that drives your sales. You may notice that the only thing needed may be a quick tune up to enhance your performance. It’s all in your control.

New Book Project!

The Executive Sales Coach

(Working title. Sort of evolved out of two other projects I was working on, One being The Art of Enrollment and the other, The Seduction of Potential.)
Excerpt from: The Executive Sales Coach

(Due out when I’m given my deadline by my publisher. Probably next year.)

But there’s some interesting stuff on this site at www.theexecutivesalescoach.com.

Potential Is the Holy Grail

Are you tripping over your own potential? Or worse, are you relying on other people’s potential to ensure your success?
 

The Seduction of Potential
April 14, 2006
 

After traveling for speaking engagements practically once a week since the beginning of the New Year, I’m happy to report this to be the first of several weeks with no business travel. Having a moment to sit, decompress and process some of the highlights of my travels, I thought I’d share a profound and valuable story that any business owner, manager or sales management team would want to hear about, especially as it relates to hiring, training and building a first class, high performance team.
 

Two areas where managers consistently struggle are in the hiring and firing of their employees. Deciding who to hire, who to let go and when to do it is the daunting task that managers complain about most. When it comes to making the right decision about their employees, the questions I’m asked most are:
 

 ”I’m not getting the production I need from my team, even when I continually push them. How do you turn an underperformer into a top producer or at least into an average, acceptable producer? When does it make sense to invest your time, money and resources into someone who you feel you can turn around? How can I determine, based on a defined set of criteria, benchmarks and measurable steps, when to (with great certainty) cut the proverbial bait and let someone go?”
 

These are the most common questions, challenges and headaches amongst management and business owners that seem to keep them up at night. 
 

Now, back to the event. It happened a few weeks ago, during one of the best weeks I’ve had all year. This week happened to be the perfect balance of positive indulgence; extreme success in every area. I delivered some of the most well received keynotes/workshops in my career (I was even asked back to deliver an encore performance.)
 

The subject matter of my seminars was cold calling, prospecting and leadership. (That is; how to shift from being a manager to a coach so that you can turn an underperformer into a superstar in under 90 days.) Following this four day event in Orlando, Florida, I enjoyed taking my oldest daughter and wife to Disneyworld; a special Birthday present for my 6 year old.
 

It was during the management workshop I was delivering on the first day of this week long conference. Someone asked a question regarding how to handle an underperformer. As this manager was sharing in great detail the challenge she was having with a salesperson she hired several months ago, I noticed an interesting reaction from the audience. I glanced out at a sea of people, their heads nodding up and down in agreement; as if she was sharing not just her story, but everyone’s story.
 

She talked of an experience that practically every manager and business owner in the room was able to relate to; an all too common tale of a new, promising hire with incredible potential. 
 

The story continued about the candidate with a wonderful resume, great background, stellar references and a seemingly positive attitude and disposition. A candidate who was given the opportunity to work with her. A candidate who she felt had the potential to live up to her expectations. A candidate whose experience seemed to be a perfect complement to this new position she was looking to fill.
 

I listened intently to her as she described this experience. Her once positive level of exuberance; her hopes and dreams evaporated, as she painfully explained how this promising young superstar became one of her biggest disappointments, frustrations and overhead. And it wasn’t like she just called it quits after a few weeks and fired this person. She invested her precious time trying to turn them around. The more she invested her time in supporting and training this person, the more her expectations were shattered.
 

This manager was stuck. She didn’t know what to do. At this point, this new hire was now costing her money, time, selling opportunities and resources every day this person stayed on her team. She completed her story, sounding as drained as if she and the rest of the audience were reliving their personal staffing nightmares all over again; touching what seemed to be an eternal wound that simply would not heal. What sounded more like a desperate cry for help, she concluded, “Keith, what should I do?”
 

The room was silent. Every manager and business owner in that room were gripping the edge of their seats, waiting, looking for and anticipating a magnificent solution to this common and painful dilemma. What was this magic formula that Keith Rosen was going to impart which would forever change the landscape of business by ending this ongoing problem and enable every manager to maximize the performance of their team and each player?
 

My response: “Do not be seduced by the ether of potential.”
 
Blank stares.
 
I knew I was on to something. I heard each person in the audience thinking.
 
Yes, we are often seduced by the potential that we believe we see in others. We see potential in the people, as well as in the opportunities all around us. We see the untapped potential in the people we have a vested interest in. Our children, spouse, co-worker, partner, supervisor and of course in our staff. We see potential in new hires as well as the untapped potential in the veterans on your team.
 
We believe that sometimes, if we wait, if we’re patient, if we give them just a little more time, a few more resources, better training, they can finally live up to their potential. We believe our employee when they tell us, “Just give me a few more weeks. I’m about to close in on two big sales. Yes, I know my performance has slipped, but as I told you, those personal problems that have been distracting me are no longer there.”
 We get hung up on potential experiences and past defining moments.
 

We think, “Okay, if they really could turn it around that would make my life so much easier. After all, it sure beats the painful, and time consuming process of having to recruit someone new, let alone having to figure out how to cover a territory with no salesperson!”
 

This belief is counterintuitive. Ironically, it costs you more to keep someone like this on your team. More time, more lost sales, more lost opportunities, more internal problems and less time for you to focus on growing your business and on the people who are performing. The people who make you look great, who are coachable and who want to truly live their potential.
 

And that’s when it happens. The seduction begins. The ether of potential seeps into your veins. We start believing this can truly happen. Its seductive forces blind you to the facts. Now, you begin making decisions based on your emotions and unrealistic scenarios, rather than on the facts and what’s best for you, the company as well as the person in question.
 

The seduction of potential clouds your best judgment. If you’re looking for evidence, then just glance over at the people on your team today. Think about the people who you have hired in the past who did not work out. How many people can you think of who you hired, that, in your heart, you knew there was something telling you that they weren’t the right fit? Call it your gut reaction or intuition.
 

The Hard Cost of Complacency
 
How many times have you been in a situation with an underperforming employee where every week that goes by you tell yourself, “Just one more week. They’ll turn it around. I know they can do it. If they just follow the program. Just let them get through this next project. I hope they bring in some new business soon.” (A.K.A. Mother Teresa Syndrome. “I can save them. And I will sacrifice everything in order to do so!”)
 

“Wait and see” is not a contingency plan. Hope is not a strategy.
 

We often hire people based on their potential rather than on what they have truly and measurably achieved. As such, we try to pull out, exploit and develop the potential we see in them. After all, the goal of management is to make your people more valuable. The key here is making sure you are investing your time in making the right people more valuable. Otherwise, it’s a time consuming and exhausting exercise in futility.
 

I too, fell victim to this philosophy in my younger years as a manager and business owner, thinking we can turn people around and actually ‘change’ people (without their consent.) As I mentioned, there’s a big difference between being a manager and being Mother Teresa.
 

Your internal dialogue then continues as you struggle to come up with the right decision, “If they stay, maybe they will turn it around! If I fire them, then what do I do? I have to start the recruiting and training process all over again. What if I fire them, they go to work for the competition and they become a superstar? Lets just wait and see what happens tomorrow.”
 

When it comes to creating extreme scenarios, relying on costly assumptions and making decisions that are being fueled by fear and consequence, the pendulum swings both ways. Unfortunately, you’re still in the dark either way.
 

 You Can’t Build a Business On Potential
 

Let me bottom line this. There is no potential in the terms of how we define it or embrace it in our lives. The way we use potential is more of a smokescreen, a diversionary tactic, a justification for our behavior, for doing something we want to do or an excuse not to take certain actions.
 

You don’t hire someone based on their potential. Here’s a more vivid and beneficial definition of potential. Potential is based on something that you have not seen yet nor have evidence to support. Potential resides in the future, a possibility. Besides, if you are attempting to make a hiring decision based on someone’s potential, and the candidate hasn’t been living their potential by the time you have met them, then what makes you think they are going to start living it when you hire them?
 

Either people strive to live their potential each day or they’re not. It’s that simple. (You may also want to check on the tools, resources, training and coaching that you have provided them.)
 

Besides, if you don’t know whether or not you have made the right hiring decision within 30-60 days of hiring them, then you are in deep trouble. Thinking that if you give them one more change, more time more training is the answer, it is not. This is a lie that you’re telling yourself, a justification. What will happen is this; eventually the pain of keeping that person around will become so evident that they either quit or get fired. Now, the manager has surrendered all of their power to act by choice and instead, is in a state of reaction and need.
 

If you or your staff are not currently using what you have every day each day, then you are not living your potential. It’s not that you cannot improve. The difference between lifelong improvement and building a high performance collaborative team of self motivated people and working off potential is this. With potential, you’re seeing something that you have not seen yet nor have evidence for. With lifelong improvement, you’re working with something you see with evidence that it can be made better.
 

We wind up collapsing potential with possibility. So what truly seduces us is the potential of possibility.
 

What’s missing for managers is certainty. It’s the uncertainty, the unknown, the fear that paralyzes every manager when having to make a decision whether or not to terminate someone or invest the time in turning them around. Managers rely more on their gut than on the facts.
 

Having the certainty and confidence in their people supported by evidence is a healthier more productive model when creating new possibilities based on authentic, human potential. The certainty comes from having an executive sales coaching program (Like the one I mentioned that we will be reviewing in this book). Once you have a structured, coaching program that holds someone accountable on a daily and weekly basis, you no longer have to make the decision to keep them or terminate them. Now, your underperformer in question will make that decision for you, based on the defined set of criteria and measurable actions steps they need to take to demonstrate their commitment to their position and to dramatically improving their performance.
 

If you are responsible for hiring, developing and managing a team, what process do you have from the time you hire someone through their first 30, 60, 90 even 120 days in their new position? What would having a 90 Day program for every new hire based on measurable productivity steps do for you and for your team? Wouldn’t this simplify your life dramatically? Now that you have a proven process documented, either the new hire is sticking by the program, or they are not. Now, there’s no room for you to be seduced by the potential of possibility. There’s no ‘probation’ or waiting for the year end performance appraisals.
 

No more guesswork. No more ‘what if’s”. No more stressing over what you perceive you can’t control or being frustrated because your process doesn’t work. Remove the doubt and replace it with certainty, peace of mind and the confidence in knowing that the process will produce super-achievers.
 

Now you can run your business or your team with greater efficiency. Once in place, you’ll be able to get back to doing what you were meant to do in the first place; make your people more valuable.
 

If you need some assistance in developing some the programs I’ve described above or would like me to share with you some proven step by step programs I have created that have worked for other companies like yours, feel free to contact me anytime. info(at)profitbuilders.com or 1-888-262- 2450. I’d be happy to discuss how I can act as your Interim Coach and develop an effective internal coaching program for your company.

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:

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.

One Measurement to Help You Determine Whether or Not To Let Someone Go

During  a seminar last week, I was asked by a group of senior managers, “When does it make sense to let someone go or invest the time in developing and retaining that person?”

Quite often managers are either thinking, “What’s best for that person? or “What’s best for me?”

Unfortunately, both of these questions cloud your view of the bigger picture; what is best for the company.
Ask yourself, when taking an action or speaking with someone, “Is what I am doing now helping the business?” It’s not about you and it’s not about them.
It’s about all of us and that means asking this question instead; “What is in the best interest of the company?”

For example, if you know someone may not be working out, how does this affect the overall division or company? What is best for the company? What are the consequences of keeping them or letting them go? At the end of the day, both you and your team have the same goals. Put your differences aside and work together to make this happen as one cohesive cooperative team.

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 asking a prospect questions, be sure that your questions succeed in achieving the following objectives.

1. Be direct and candid with your questioning and communication. Do not be vague or tiptoe around the subject or question. Make the question clear, focused, direct and concise.

2. Make sure that your questions open up new possibilities, ideas and opportunities in the mind of the prospect that they never considered. Do they enable the prospect to see a new and better solution and envision more measurable worthwhile results, based on the information that you have provided?

3. Have the prospect draw from previous purchasing experiences to determine their buying habits, wants, priorities, and needs.

4. Learn to question what is said and what is not said. Never prejudge a prospect until you have the evidence to support your assumptions. Utilize questions until you are satisfied with the response.

5. Use questions to achieve mindshare and agreement as well as to gracefully uncover and correct the inaccuracies and misperceptions which they my have about your product or service.

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. 

To permanently eliminate any confusion, lets draw a distinction between what it means to pre-qualify and pre-judge someone such as a prospect. If you read my cold calling book, you know that I’m a strong advocate of pre-qualifying anyone before you invest your very limited and precious time in meeting with or speaking with them. Conversely, pre-judging someone is something you do that shows up in the filter or barrier you have in your listening.

Here’s another way to distinguish between the two. When you are pre-qualifying someone you are arriving at a conclusion that determines whether or not there’s a fit worth pursuing based on a defined set of criteria you uncover through the use of well crafted questions.

Pre-judging said simply, is all about you. Here, you are relying on your faulty and costly assumptions, thoughts and beliefs to determine their needs and whether or not this prospect will potentially buy from you.

When you pre-judge someone you’re making assumptions about them before you ask any questions or uncover any facts.

When you pre-qualify someone, you’re asking questions to uncover their unique and specific needs without making any assumptions so that you can determine very quickly if there is in fact, an authentic fit worth pursuing.

Just put the final touches on the site for my next book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing the Sale.

www.GuidetoClosingtheSale.com

Talk about taking one subject many people struggle with and levitating it with what always seems to be a controvertial title (the “Idiot’s” portion of the title, at least). Lighten up. Your customers and prospects are.

I hope you enjoy Chapter One as well as the Introduction, which I’ve currently posted on this site  and will be available only for a limited time. Wait until you get your hands on some of the techniques in this book. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sales veteran, top producer, new salesperson, manager or business owner, this book is packed with step by step and line by line Permission Based Selling and Presentation Strategies which I guarantee will bring in more sales for you.

So, feel free to visit the site. I’d also love to hear your comments as well! And if you haven’t already make sure you get my monthly ezine which will also keep you posted on other resources available only to those who know.

Be Creative
    
It is three p.m. in the afternoon on a lovely fall day. You are on your way to work. As you walk by a school, you notice all of the children playing outside. You pause and watch them for a second. A flood of emotions and memories intoxicate your mind, as you  remember yourself as a child. You admire their youthful exuberance, their unlimited supply of energy, their fervor for freedom, their passion for knowledge, their desire to learn and their boundless creativity.
 

Become a create freak rather than a control freak.
 

You listen to their conversations as they play. Some are talking about the planets they are visiting. Others are envisioning the castle in which they are playing in. They see this vividly, down to every detail, including the moat around the castle. Some pretend to be presidents, firemen, astronauts even doctors.
    
How creative children are! How powerful their minds are. Full of ideas with no inhibitions or limitations to restrain them. Children have the ability to visualize or imagine their true dreams. They bring their dreams into their reality and making them real.
 

The most creative time in a person’s life is from birth to the age of around eleven years old. This is the time when they are not constrained by rules or regulations. Children are not concerned with what is supposedly acceptable in thought or behavior and what is not, what is practically right or wrong, proper or improper, fact or fiction.
    
In a child’s eyes, there exists no boundaries. There is nothing to regulate them or inhibit their level of creativity. Everything that children see is new and exiting. They are constantly absorbing information and expanding on their ideas. The more they learn, the more children want to express themselves. They want to share what they have learned. They have no fear of rejection, of being wrong or of the unknown. Why? Because they have not experienced it yet!
    
The years begin to pass. The people in a child’s life, such as teachers and parents, begin to instill their values and ideals in the minds of their children.
 

As a child gets older, they begin to experience embarrassment, being wrong, having people put down their ideas and dreams and punishment for doing the, “wrong thing.”
    
The creative boy now becomes a man. His eyes no longer see the dreams and visions he had as a boy. He becomes serious; more focused on the perceived role to play in society and the pressures from his family. He concentrates on what he thinks he wants and needs. His thoughts and desires that he had as a child become clouded with every passing day, only to be replaced with more and more responsibilities. A mortgage, a job, a family.
    
He begins to lose sight of what was especially important in his life. The simple things. Freedom of expression, having fun, peace of mind, living simply, appreciating his surroundings, treating every day as a new adventure and not getting caught up in the manutia that blinds us from appreciating the beauty around us. All of the visions and dreams are put on a shelf where they begin to collect dust.
 

The man begins to forget what it was like to be creative, to dream and to imagine. Lack of creativity breeds complacency. He now becomes just like everyone else; another face, another number.
    
Imagine if we never lost our creative edge. Imagine what would be possible if we didn’t feel compelled to have to change, due to other people’s beliefs, perceptions or rules.  Now imagine if you had the ability to share your visions and dreams with those around you.
      
Before you assist a customer in opening up their mind, you must first open up your own. Know what it is like to sit on a cloud. Can you see yourself sitting way up in the sky? Do you smell the crisp air?  As you look down, do you see the whole world? Imagine there is nothing to restrain you. Look at the root of the word creative. Create. Take action to create your own destiny. Now, take the customer with you.
    
Anyone can study and memorize a presentation. Ask someone why they actually purchased from you. Will they say it was because you had the most beneficial package? They might. However, most of the time they will say it was because of you.

Tune In To The Most Powerful Time Management Tips

Listen in on Selling Power Live as I’m being interviewed by Jeffrey Gitomer.

This is a solid value rich, 15 minutes of an infusion of the most powerful time management techniques you’ve ever heard.

Be prepared to change the way you think about how you manage your time, and your life, forever. We’re talking breakthrough results here.

Click here to listen now to this interview! Get more tips and master your day. Download my time management book now!

Any self proclaimed guru, if they were being truly honest, would admit that at some point in their career, in the spirit of lifelong development and continued evolution, (as well as walking your talk) they would reach out to someone else, another expert, a colleague in their respected field for assistance in an area of their life or business in which they, themselves, are not. Take selling, for example. As a professional presenter who makes their living delivering keynotes, seminars, and training events; one core competency they need to master is How To Sell and position themselves effectively.

How to market, sell and package themselves, how to get organized, how to utilize technology to stay ahead and streamline their business operations are just some of the areas that any wise and insightful business leader would reach out in search of that guru who could assist them in developing, mastering or delegating these critical components of their business.

For me, 2005 was the year of fine tuning the positioning, technology, structure and future of my business. 2006 is the year of execution and abundance. The year of getting ahead of the future. With my oldest daughter in kindergarten, the twins turning 2 in January and the house completed, it was the first time in 2 years that I managed to position myself ahead of the game; something I’ve always done in the past. With 3 new projects launched online, new programs, new technology, new books, happy clients that are a blast to work with, it made sense to continue this path of refinement, enlightenment and evolution by looking under the hood when it comes to perfecting my public speaking skills so that every person in every audience that I’m speaking in front of has a powerful, enjoyable experience that becomes the foundation for measurable, long lasting results.

After some Googling online, I came across one self-proclaimed expert on public speaking. A “presentation coach or public speaking coach” is what he suggested he was. According to his website, he only works with the top speakers in their profession. His website spoke of a system he developed to make any presentation pop, engaging and entertaining.

It peaked my curiosity. After all, if someone knows more about something than I do, it only makes sense to tap into the wisdom of others.

I see he’s written a few books, so I had my assistant schedule a one to one call with this presentation guru. Now, you would think, anyone who touts themselves as an expert in a specific area or topic, they would be a model of what they preach. That is, walk their talk. I must say, I would expect this person to have a strong presence, even on the phone and be a master of communication. That’s what I’d be paying him to teach me, right? To take me somewhere I have not been myself.

Well, not exactly.

I called him one afternoon for our scheduled appointment. “Hello, Jon?” I asked.

“Yes, how can I help you?” A soft, monotone, lethargic voice responded.

“My name is Keith Rosen. You may have heard of me?” I said jokingly.

Silence…...

I continued. “I’m an executive sales coach, corporate trainer and professional speaker. Since I’m always on the lookout for ways to do things better, I came across your website and was curious to know how you may be able to help me.”

“Sure,” he responded…... Empowering…..

“Let me tell you how this works. Are you going to be in the LA area next month during the week of March 14? I’m conducting my next live workshop that you still have time to register for.”

I paused, taken aback. Was I having a flashback to my first Dead show in the early 80’s and blacked out the last 30 minutes of our conversation? Did I fall through a crack in the space-time continuum and landed at the point in time we refer to as the future where we were wrapping up our conversation? Possibly. Or could it truly be that this artist of the spoken word began the conversation without any regard to the sanctity of the consultative sales process; the very basic foundation upon which any great sale opportunity is built upon.

This master presenter didn’t ask me any questions about who I was. He didn’t ask about what I did or why I was even calling him. (Kind of makes you look at those people who consider themselves “strong closers” in a different light.) Considering that a very large portion of my practice consists of executive coaching and sales training over the phone, you would think it would behoove him to find out at least some basic information about my business. His approach to attracting me to hiring him and the way he demonstrated his illuminating presence and years of refining his skills as a presenter in a way that would connect with your audience, hold their interest and feel empowered at the end of every speaking event was by telling me when he is speaking next and asking me to register. Brilliant.

“No,” I replied almost a bit bewildered and taken back from This Diva of Delivery’s approach. Maybe I’m underestimating his powers of enrollment. Maybe this is a carefully planned and executed approach to blind side any potential client and baffle them into the sale. Maybe.

“Well then,” Diva Dan continued, “We can work together on the phone. I can offer guidance on your approach. You can also send me the manuscripts of your presentations as well as a live demonstration of a presentation you delivered, even an audio presentation would be fine. I would then review them and offer my suggestions. I charge $575.00 per hour. However, you can buy a package of 10 calls for $5500.00.

“Okay,” I said. “Well, would you want to know a little about me and what I’m doing to see if you can even help me and there’s a fit between us in terms of what I’m looking for?” I figured, I would try and salvage his fragile sale.

Silence. Again. Hmmm, an elusive fellow. More Jedi mind tricks?

I threw him another bone. I voluntarily shared with him what I do and what I’ve been doing, writing, creating.

When I concluded, more silence.

“Well, thanks for your time.” I decided to end this unique experience. “Let me consider what you can do for me and I’ll get back to you if I’m ready.”

“You can also attend the next program which we’re now taking reservations for that will take place in August. What part of the country do you live?” Was this his confusion close?

Oy. 20 minutes into the conversation and this is when he is interested in finding out about me and where I live?

If this is the impression he leaves with people and how he performs on the phone, what would he be like in person? I don’t know what I’m more concerned about; him or the companies he claims hire him for corporate work.

I have to say, I was also a little perturbed by this experience. I felt a bit deceived and lied to. So, for those people who are looking to hire a speaker or coach; whether it’s a life coach, sales coach, executive coach or trainer for your sales and management team, remember this. You’ll be able to recognize the really great trainers and coaches by the ones who focus on delivering value to you immediately and are tuned into your objectives, your personal and unique needs and the measurable results you can and want to expect. (“And by the way, here’s a list of all my clients that you can call at any time.”)

The first experience you have with them and the way you feel after talking with them is typically the way they will present, train and coach your staff because they masterfully model what they teach. The other stuff, (the things I’m guilty of as well but recognize them for what they are); the sharp websites, good looking pictures and strong value proposition is still, at the end of the day, fluff.

If this guy with the golden tongue is the guru, then we desperately need to re-evaluate the standards and perceptions which we have of these self proclaimed gurus. Are we buying into them a bit too much? Do we believe their marketing message over the core value they can actually deliver on in a measurably positive way?

Hmmm, note to self: Find out what companies he’s trained and sell your stocks in them-immediately.

My wife and I were finalizing the kitchen design in our new home, when my phone rang. “Keith Rosen?” A strong, resonating voice on the other end of the phone asked.

“Who’s calling?” I responded.

“Joe Connolly withThe Wall Street Journal and WCBS Radio,” he announced. No wonder why he’s on the radio.

“Hi, Joe!” I replied. How can I help you?”

“Keith, I just finished reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about you and your approach to prospecting and cold calling. It seems this article originally ran in Inc. magazine. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Joe, that’s right.”

“Very interesting stuff you’re doing. We’re hosting our next Small Business Breakfast in Connecticut next month and wanted to see if you would be interested in sitting on our panel of experts.”

“Thanks for the invitation, Joe. What are the details?”

“We’d like for you to sit on our panel and answer some questions on the topics of your two books on time management and cold calling. This event would be Wednesday morning, May 18 at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, Connecticut. We would need you there at 7:30am. There will be about 600-700 people in attendance, all local professionals as well as our sponsors. One more thing, Keith, would you mind if I asked you a few questions, right now [on the record].”

“Sure. Feel free to ask me anything you’d like.”

After about 20 minutes, we concluded our conversation.

Make time your ally. Eliminate at least 2 hours of your workload each day and do more of the things you want to do. Here’s how you can start taking control of your day, and your life.
Find out more here

“Keith, you’d really be a perfect fit for this event. I hope you can make it.”

“Thanks, Joe. It sounds like it would be fun! I hope I can make it as well.” I told Joe that I would confirm with him within the next day whether or not I would be available.

Step one, good news. The date was opened. After confirming my availability with Joe, we discussed some additional details of this event.

Fortunately, I asked my dad if he was available to come along and he joined me for the ride. Like any other successful business event, the venders were set up outside of the ballroom, doing their best to mine for prospects in this qualified crowd of professionals. People were chatting and networking themselves through the crowd, as they made their way to a seat in the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency.

The next time Joe and I spoke was the day of the event. The panelists took their position and Joe began the job of moderating and facilitating. He introduced the panelists. When it came to me, he added, “After speaking with Keith, I knew he was the real deal, especially when I asked him if he could commit to the date. Instead of saying, “Yes” on the spot which, according to Keith can mean you’re a “Yesaholic” he responded with, “Thanks Joe, let me check my schedule and I’ll call you back.” So, not only did he write the book on time management, here’s a guy who practices what he preaches.”

A question came my way. It was on how to best manage your time. “Hi Keith,” the gentleman in the audience began. “What strategies would you suggest to better manage your time?” Given the reason why I was seated on this panel, an appropriate question.

My first response was to say this, “Stop. Stop trying to manage something that you cannot manage in the first place.”

Blank stares. “Let me explain, I continued.”

“But first, let me tee it up with a question I have for all of you.”

“How many of you are familiar with the expression, time is money?”

About everyone raise their hand.

I then asked, “By a show of hands, how many of you manage your money in some way? Whether you use a stock broker, financial advisor, accountant, bank or just do it yourself, raise your hand if you manage your money ins some way.”

A few seconds later, several hundred people raised their hand; a good 90% of the audience.

Finally the point blank coaching question; “How many of you manage your time as diligently as you manage your money? In other words, raise your hand if you have a consistent, weekly routine that you follow from the time you wake up in the morning up until the time you end your day, [whether that’s when you end your work day or go to sleep] that contains the specific, measurable activities and tasks you engage in that move you closer to your goals, while keeping your life in a happy balance?”

A few seconds later, I thought I might have to repeat the question. Not a hand went up. I’m not surprised. After all, it was my clients who inspired me to write a book on time management in the first place.

In a room filled with highly successful professionals, there wasn’t one person in the room who could confidently raise their hand and say, “Yes! I have that!”

And yet these people are still successful (however you define what “successful” is).

“Is that some irony,” I continued after my question. “Here we are, on the surface believing that time is money, yet when it comes down to it, we’re not managing our time and ourselves the way we manage our money. We don’t give our time the same respect, diligence and planning it deserves the way we do money.”

“And the kicker is, once you invest your time, you don’t get it back. You can’t double it, invest it or save it for a rainy day or slow it down. That’s why it’s important to shift the focus from trying to manage your ‘time’ to managing what you can control, which is yourself and the actions you take each day. You can control where you invest your time, rather than other people or situations doing it for you. That’s why the foundation to living your potential is to first upgrade your relationship with time so that time becomes your ally not your adversary or something you try to beat out each day. Then you can begin the process of developing a routine.”

The universal law certainly applies; we resist what we need to learn the most.

1. What would you tell sales managers to help them motivate the various members of a sales force—some high achieving, some midlevel producers, some new and untried, some never quite achieving what they seem capable of, and channel partners as well?

Begin by upgrading your philosophy about managing and motivating. Most managers tell me they believe their primary role is “problem solver” to their employee’s challenges- a role probably learned from their predecessors and mentors. Many attempt to control their environment, working within the limits of what they already have. Some spend their time extinguishing fires. Others derive their energy by keeping certain challenges alive, providing them with some sense of purpose. Perhaps the real issue is not tapping into what might drive employees to motivate themselves. Continually providing employees with your own solutions can train employees not to be accountable. It will likely result in the lackluster performance you are working so diligently to avoid. It creates an environment of dependency, preventing employees from sharpening problem solving skills or discovering their own solutions.

Coaching, for example, utilizes a process of inquiry which allows your staff to articulate what they want, then access their own energy to achieve it. Otherwise, you’re using your energy to get someone else in motion. To uncover each person’s internal drive, ask questions. Invest the time uncovering what is truly important to your staff in order to improve performance and align their efforts with the company’s vision and direction. Unfortunately, in today’s business environment managers don’t feel they have the time or patience to ‘coach’ their team. Instead, they’ll just provide the answer or solve the problem, then wonder why their staff is so dependant upon them to be motivated.

2. Maybe there’s something you see being done over and over that just doesn’t make sense. How can managers motivate the top sales performers to outperform themselves?

Great managers realize one of their key roles is maximizing their team’s productivity. However, with long work hours, keeping up with deadlines and balancing personal responsibilities, something gets sacrificed. As such, professional development for their team takes a back seat to the problems that arise daily. Managers don’t have the time and resources needed to effectively coach their staff or develop the skills to become a masterful coach. If it’s not getting done today, it may be faulty thinking to believe that one day, something will miraculously ‘turn around’ and you’ll finally have more free time to invest in developing your people.

The managers who are realizing this are turning to coaches as a way to help balance their workload and provide the guidance and support salespeople want. The right coach can further refine your sales team’s selling skills that will bring in more sales. Coaches also provide the structure, focus and accountability needed to ensure your team is engaging in the right activities consistently so they don’t have to practice on their prospects. With this time savings, managers can focus on helping the company thrive, not just survive. After all, how can you expect more production from your salespeople without giving them more resources and support? And quite often, that additional support equates to more time the manager needs to devote to that person; time they simply do not have.

Here’s something else that doesn’t make sense.

Managers wind up spending more time on the weaker areas or problem areas than they do on the things they want to reinforce or create more of. For example, think about those people on a team that require more of the manager’s time and attention. These are the people who may cause problems at work. They may be the underperformers who you’re trying to help boost their productivity. Unfortunately, managers reward these people more than the top producers by giving them the greatest reward available and that is, their time. Your time is the most valuable of rewards and ironically, many managers invest their time in the wrong people. More of your time should be spent rewarding the top producers, investing your time in them, the people that make you look good, the people that consistently reach and exceed performance goals.

3. Will an awards program really improve retention? For that matter, will an awards program improve sales performance?

An awards program will help if:
A. It’s an award that the salesperson truly wants.
B. You have the right people on your team. (You certainly can’t expect an awards program to work if it’s offered to someone who shouldn’t be on your team in the first place.)

That’s why I suggest, instead of developing a one size fits all awards program, Tap into the individuality of your team. For example, if you manage a ten person sales team you may consider that you have ten salespeople. In reality you have 10 individuals who just happen to be salespeople. In other words focus on their individuality, their personal and unique needs and goals to uncover what drives theme. Otherwise, you are making the assumption that your 10 sales people are exactly the same and motivated by the same things. Now, how do we uncover their internal drive. By using one of the most valuable tools as a manger, asking questions.

We may assume for example that everyone is motivated by money. This is not always the case. As a mater of fact, it is often what causes people to lose their motivation.

To uncover each person’s internal drive, schedule one to one meetings with each member of your team and invest the time asking your staff questions to uncover what is important to them. Listen to their responses and ask more questions as you uncover what they most want. Sure, you need the right answers to stay in business. However, to get ahead, you need the right questions.

4. What’s a good way to get salespeople to swallow their dose of training?
Have them develop their own training module. A few years ago, I put together an online assessment I call the Sales Diagnostic. This assessment is designed to gather more information about a person’s selling skills, competencies as well as their selling and learning experience in order to uncover the skills that need to be developed and strengthened.

The point is, when I finally get in front of the people that I’m training, I remind them who created the curriculum. It was them. Because they filled out the Sales Diagnostic, they were able to share what they wanted help in and the areas they want to improve. As such, you know have the opportunity to let your team know that it was them who designed the curriculum rather than someone else who feels this is what they ‘should’ learn.

Designing the training curriculum around your salespeople’s response creates a strong sense of buy in from your team. After all, if they created the curriculum, they own it. And if they own it they are going to be more apt to listen and act on it rather than report back to you saying, “Well that’s not really the training I was looking for” or “That really didn’t apply to me.”

Selling is The Art of Creating Possibility

I came into the office one morning and noticed the light on my telephone flashing. So, like any other day, I retrieved my messages from the day before to find one voice mail from a gentleman looking for a Michael N. Now, there’s no Michael N. working in my office, so I figured it was a wrong number.

Regardless, I wanted to honor the commitment I make to people who call me, which is to return their call within 24 hours, even if it means returning a call to someone letting them know there’s no Michael N. in my company.

So, I called and left a message.

Two days later, I was left another voice mail from the same person. This time, they sounded a bit frustrated, even irate. They said they left several messages for Mike N. (now it’s ‘Mike’) with no return call from him.

So, now I’m getting more curious about who this elusive mystery man is. I called back and nicely left another message, explaining the situation.

The gentleman called me back, this time sounding angrier than before. I was available to answer the phone.

I let him know there was no Michael N.

He started laughing, first realizing that he had obviously had the wrong number and then secondly, after reflecting on his behavior, laughed more, this time more of a nervous laugh you would hear if you were a bit ashamed of your behavior.

Supposedly, one of the 800 numbers I own belonged to another business years ago. That had to be one old business, since I’ve owned this number for over 15 years.

My innate curiously enticed me to ask him who he was, what he was looking for and who is this Michael N. person?

He told me his name was Alan, and he was a financial planner. Mike N. works for a marketing firm and supposedly offers a service that Alan was looking for. It seems, after several more questions, that Alan was struggling generating enough qualified prospects to help grow his business and was looking for a company to provide him with qualified leads.

I asked more questions, this time about what he’s done over the years to generate leads; what’s worked for him, what’ hasn’t and what he has not tried yet. I asked him to pitch me. He did as he mentioned he spends a few hours each day on the phone, attempting to generate business through cold calling.

It seems that Alan has relied heavily on using the phone to generate new business.

He finally stopped and asked, “So, what was your name again? What do you do?”

I then shared with him who I was and what I did. The next thing that happened; we were in a full coaching call, evaluating his business, and him.

Exactly one hour after my phone rang with the wrong number, Alan gave me his credit card number and hired me as his coach.

Those people who you consider a master of networking, selling or at generating referrals, consider one common denominator that makes them so great at what they do.

They have adopted a concept that I illustrated in the story I just shared. That is, they realize that selling is the art of creating possibility; possibilities and opportunities that didn’t exist before.

After all, when you network or ask for a referral, isn’t that what you are doing, creating something out of nothing? A new relationship, a new contact, a new prospect, a new business acquaintance, a new friend.

The greatest salespeople on the planet realize this and as such, do so consistently. What possibilities are you going to create today?

For years, I’ve managed salespeople. And over two decades later, now as an author and Executive Sales Coach, the one constant I still hear when speaking with managers is that the 80 – 20 rule is still alive and well.

For those who may not be aware of what the 80-20 Rule implies, it is this: 20% of your (sales) team will be responsible for roughly 80% of your volume/making quota or achieving productivity goals within a collaborative team environment.

Considering the resources and outsourced professional coaching available to assist in developing a high performance team, this culture seems a bit antiquated in this day and age; one that should have gone by the wayside like pagers did once mobile phones became easily accessible to anyone.

Why does this rule still have to be in existence today? Granted, I know many companies where this doesn’t apply. But what about the population of companies that still breed this culture?

And what does this say about the manager managing the team he or she has? Can we surmise or look past the fact that if the manager is the one responsible for hiring, then the problem at it’s core is that managers are simply making poor hiring decisions.

The 80-20 Rule now takes on a new meaning: 80% of the time, management will make a costly hiring mistake.

Unfortunately, this statistic isn’t far from true. So, it’s not a wonder that managers are only getting it right 20% of the time. If you don’t have an HR department or at least someone strictly dedicated to this function in your organization where it would demand this type of position, then the burden typically falls on management, the same managers who are responsible for other people’s production, and quite often along with their own personal productivity/quota.

If you’re still a victim of this philosophy, lets take a look at your recruiting and retention system. Do you have a step by step recruiting process that you follow which reduces the costly mistake of mishires, while continually offering your people the coaching and training they need on a consistent basis? (That means more than 4 times a year or once at the annual conference.)

A depiction of insanity; managing a team of (sales)people who shouldn’t be there in the first place. Oy. Corporate America still has a ways to go. I certainly have my work cut out for me. In the meantime, I’ll keep hunting for those companies suffering from this philosophy.

Priorities vs. Goals- What’s the Difference?

Definition:
Priorities: What is most important and meaningful in your life today (activities, values, beliefs, lifestyle, principles, standards, hobbies, integrity, etc.) that you are not willing to compromise or sacrifice in pursuit of something else (a goal).

Goals: A future based anticipated expectation, possibility, end result or experience you are working towards creating, achieving or bringing to fruition that has not yet been realized in the present.

Comparisons:
Present Focused vs. Future Focused
What Is Happening vs. What Will/May Be
In The Present vs. In The Future

Example:

John had a goal of being a top producer in his company. As such, he looked at the other top producers and the activities they engage in which make them successful. The top salespeople are working twelve hour days, sometimes even seven days a week. Thinking, “It worked for them, so I guess I should do that too,” he decided to give up a chunk of his family/personal time and other enjoyable activities/hobbies in his quest to become financially successful.

Although John’s priority was spending time with his family, he didn’t understand why he felt miserable and encountered resistance while attempting to achieve this goal.

Once he created a personal strategy and a routine for achieving his own bigger goals that supported his lifestyle and priorities without having to sacrifice what matters most to him, he was able to reach his goals with less effort and enjoyed the process even more.

Key Points:

If you are encountering resistance while attempting to reach certain goals or performing certain tasks, chances are it’s either something you really don’t want to be doing, an old goal that may not serve you anymore (a should) or you are operating from someone else’s agenda (also a should)! The bottom line is, these goals don’t support your priorities and you’ll continue to feel “off” throughout your pursuit of these misaligned goals.

Take the time to align your goals with your priorities. Otherwise, you’ll feel confined or powerless to make changes, allowing situations, circumstances or other people to influence or control you. Discover what YOU truly want by aligning your goals with the priorities in your life rather than the “shoulds.”

The fact is, “Should-based goals” do not support your priorities or personal vision. So, if you are unsure whether the goal, activity or task classifies as a should, take a look at your lifestyle, values and priorities and see if they are all in alignment. If the goal doesn’t support them, it’s a “should.”

Benefit of Getting This Distinction:

At the end of the day, your goals need to be aligned with your priorities. Honor the priorities in your life by making them non-negotiable. Before you map out your goals, determine the priorities in your life that you’re not willing to sacrifice. This way, you can identify the activities you need to engage in and what you are willing to give up today (maybe even a conscious, short – term sacrifice of certain priorities) in pursuit of a bigger dream tomorrow.

When your goals are aligned and balanced with your priorities, natural strengths and talents, you’ll maintain your integrity, feel calmer and will experience greater peace of mind and fulfillment while traveling on your path to achieving bigger goals and meaningful, long lasting results.

Once you can orient your life around your priorities, you’ll have fewer goals that you’ll feel compelled to attain or be driven (consumed) by. If you design your life and career around what is most important to you on a daily basis, you’ll avoid becoming hooked or attached to creating something ‘better’ at a future point in time, which can rob you of the quality of your life today.