A New Community for Salespeople: SalesHQ.com
May 13, 2008 All About Selling, Sales Management, sales tips
I’d like to direct you to a new resource for sales professionals called SalesHQ.com.
SalesHQ connects members of the professional sales community across the globe. SalesHQ helps anyone excited by the art of deal making and the science of driving revenue. Members can discover jobs, research career choices, and learn to sell more effectively, manage sales people, hire the right sales people, and much more, all the while expanding their professional and personal networks.
I encourage you to sample some of their resources here at their new site at www.SalesHQ.com.
Free Webinar: Strategies for Successful Sales Leaders-Leverage Your Competitive Advantage
May 9, 2008 Business Advice, Sales Training, webinar
7 Strategies for Successful Sales Leaders
The Pressure Paradox in Sales: Uncover the Pressure Points of Sales and How to Leverage Them Into a Competitive Advantage
WHEN:
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
10:00 AM PDT | 11:00 AM MDT
12:00 PM CDT | 1:00 PM EDT
PRESENTERS:
Tom Atkinson, Director of Customer Research & Vice President, The Forum Corporation
Razi Imam, CEO, Landslide Technologies Inc.
Please join Razi Imam, CEO, Landslide Technologies Inc. and his guest Tom Atkinson Director of Customer Research at The Forum Corporation as they discuss the findings of Forum’s groundbreaking research conducted with 111 executives from 96 of the world’s leading companies. Using this research with some of the top sales organizations in existence, look at ways how sales organizations like your own can thrive in an uncertain business environment.
In this webinar you will:
<li>Get an in-depth look at Forum's sales effectiveness research.</li>
<li>Uncover the pressure points of sales and how they effect performance.</li>
<li>Use Forum's diagnostic tool to uncover pressure points in your own sales organization and discover ways to address these challenges and turn them into strengths.</li>
Attend and Win! 10 random attendees will win a complimentary copy of “The First 90 Days” published by Harvard Business School Press. “The First 90 Days” lays out a “standard framework” for leadership transitions. The book targets leaders at all levels that are making the transition from one rung of the ladder to the next. Also, all attendees will be given access to Forum’s brand new whitepaper on how to sell in a volatile economy.
Click here for more information or to register.
Sales Numbers Dipping? Success Strategies for a Slowing Economy: Selling Power’s June Event For Sales Leaders and Executives
May 7, 2008 All About Selling, Business Advice, Executive Coaching, How To Close The Sale, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, Technology and Software, management tips, training for managers
Get the Strategies You Need to Succeed in a Slowing Economy
Philadelphia, PA
The Ritz-Carlton
June 9, 2008
If you are a manager worried about maintaining sales momentum in a shrinking economy, you will want to check out Selling Power’s Sales Leadership Conference to be held next month in Philadelphia, which I will also be attending and hope to meet you there. I’ll be sitting on the panel discussion on How To Recruit and Build a Team of A Players.
9:15 AM HOW TO RECRUIT ‘A’ PLAYERS
Top experts share how to recruit, select and build a team of ‘A’ players
Here’s the agenda:
www.sellingpower.com/leadership/PHI2008/agenda.asp
OVERVIEW:
In today’s increasingly competitive and complex business environment, you can’t expect to succeed during tough times with a “business as usual” mindset. To excel during a downturn, your sales organization needs change and change demands leadership. That’s where you come in.
Selling Power magazine’s Sales Leadership Conference is designed to help executives like you create inspired, high performance sales organizations. America’s top sales leaders give you invaluable ideas for leading your team to new heights and dramatically increasing your sales. Join the select group of forward-looking companies who will come away from this conference armed with the knowledge and power to successfully meet the future. If you are serious about staying competitive during an economic downturn, this fact-filled conference is for you!
Here’s what you can expect:
<li>Winning strategies for recruiting, hiring and developing A players in a tough economy. </li>
<li>Creating a Winning Sales Culture Learn the best practices of world class sales leaders for building the foundation for consistent success. </li>
<li> Creating the vital CEO - CSO relationship Discover how Heartland Payment Systems built a billion dollar business, created 83 sales millionaires and became the leading sales force in an intensely competitive industry. </li>
<li> Leveraging Sales 2.0 technology Learn how high performing companies harness technology to accelerate their sales pipeline, improve processes, close more business and outpace their competitors.</li>
<li> Increase Professionalism Learn how you can benefit from the new wave of professionalism in selling. Seize the opportunity to work with 32 universities that create 1,600 sales degree graduates ready to outsell your top performers.
<li> Network with an exclusive group of 175 top sales leaders (C-level), who will be eager to share their know-how, their insights and their connections to help you win. </li>
Act Now and Receive an Early Registration Discount!
This is a rare opportunity for you to receive the critical intel directly from America’s leading sales authorities. For more information or to request your invitation click here: www.sellingpower.com/leadership/phi2008/
Here’s the list of speakers: www.sellingpower.com/leadership/PHI2008/speakers.asp
The Art of Persuasion: Communication Tools For Any Sales Manager Looking to Have a Greater Influence on Their Salespeople. Interview With Dr. Rick Kirschner – Part 2
May 4, 2008 Books, Business Advice, Career Advice, Communication, Experiences in Marketing, How to Manage Your Team, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, management tips
Here’s part 2 of the interview I conducted With Dr. Rick Kirschner
regarding what managers can do to drive greater results, better motivate their salespeople and boost productivity by utilizing these powerful communication strategies.
KR: How can a sales manager leverage the power of persuasion to increase the motivation and performance of her sales people?
DRK: That’s a big question, big enough to write a book, so I did, two books in fact. That’s a key point of my Insider’s Guide and Playbook To The Art of Persuasion! But here’s the quick answer. Persuasion is the deliberate attempt to influence another person’s attitude in order to change their behavior. Once you’ve paid some attention, listened well and learned about what motivates your people, using the Kirschner Motivational Model or McClelland’s Model or Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs Model, or any other motivation model that appeals to you, it is important that you use what you’ve learned to speak to the motivations of your people in a way that moves them, engages them and connects them to a desirable future while offering them protection from an undesirable one.
This has to do with what you say, and also how you say it. The fact is that most people are listening emotionally most the time, and logically only rarely. So, no matter how logical you are in what you propose they do, you have to send signals that help your people feel that they should let themselves be influenced by you. Otherwise, you may be wasting both their time and yours.
There are known ways to package what you say for maximum impact. I call these packaging tools ‘signals,’ ‘guides’ and ‘themes.’ Signals speak to how you address the emotions. Guides make it easier for others to understand the logic of what you say. Themes are a way of structuring what you say to help you stay on track while saying it.
The more you use this kind of approach, the more successful you will be in getting a sustainable result.
KR: Teamwork is an important part of any successful sales organization. How can sales coaches increase commitment and elevate the motivation among their sales people?
DRK: Almost nobody goes to work wanting to do a bad job. Most people want to do well, and want what they do to matter. So it seems to me that teamwork happens when leadership happens, and leadership begins with you knowing the answers to three very important questions. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Why does it matter? Once you have the answers to these questions firmly fixed in your mind, you can help your sales people to find their own answers to these questions and then keep those answers in front of them as a reminder of meaning and purpose.
Of course, it’s one thing to have a lofty vision, and something else entirely when it comes to the rubber meeting the road. So to keep your people connected and focused, you simply must treat them with respect, keep them informed along the way, and give recognition whenever it’s due, and not just in the large things but in the small things as well. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for speaking up. Thanks for standing up. Thanks for keeping your promise. Thanks for following through. My mom used to tell me that there is always something to appreciate, you just have to appreciate the value of appreciation to find it.
KR: What are the most successful tactics used by sales managers/coaches when they are faced with bad behavior within a sales team that can negatively impact the entire team’s results?
DRK: Most of us can agree that what’s bad about bad behavior is the bad effect it has on morale, teamwork and getting results. There’s no getting around the fact that pushy, negative, disruptive and unreliable behavior is costly because it has real world consequences.
But I think it’s important to keep in mind that behavior is purposeful, people do what they do for what they consider a good reason, and labeling a particular behavior as good or bad may do little to influence whether you get more or less of it. More important, I think, is to understand what’s behind it for them. Then, using your understanding of their good intent as a reference point, you can help your people understand that the consequences of their behavior are self defeating to their good intentions. Done persuasively, and they’ll be grateful for the insight and opportunity to learn. And you, as a result, will get better results from your people.
So what specifically do you do when there’s a problem with someone’s behavior? First, observe it. Notice what is happening, when it happens, where it happens and how it happens. Then get together with the person or people involved, and learn everything you can about it from them. Set the stage by telling them what you’ve observed, where and when you observed it, and then ask them, “When this happens, what’s going on for you? What is your intention?” Next, tell them the self defeating part. “When you do that, here’s the reaction it gets. Is that what you intended?” And the answer is almost always going to be “No, it’s not!” That’s your learning moment, right there. “What do you think might work better?” Either give your people a chance to come up with a new choice, or, if they’re drawing a blank, either brainstorm with them, or tell them what you know could work better. In any case, you’ll have set the table for learning. A little reinforcement, and it becomes their skill for life.
To read more of Dr. Rick Kirschner’s suggestions for improving your ability to use persuasion to create positive change in your life, relationships, and work, visit Dr. K’s Blog here: www.drkblog.com.
The Art of Persuasion: The Sales Manager’s Path to Greater Influence. Interview With Dr. Rick Kirschner – Part 1
May 1, 2008 Communication, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching tips, management articles, management tips, training for managers
As the economy heads deeper into a rough patch, companies must work harder than ever to meet financial targets. That means the pressure on salesmanagers to meet sales goals is huge.
We believe that a big part of producing sales results consists of supporting, coaching, and managing your people. Developing and strengthening coaching skills becomes essential to leveraging your competitive edge or you’re bound to get left behind.
Today our guest is Dr. Rick Kirschner, respected educator, popular speaker, executive coach, and best selling author of the ‘Insider’s Guide to The Art of Persuasion: Use Your Influence to Change Your World.” Dr. Kirschner offers some valuable insights for sales managers working to improve their skills as sales coaches.
KR: Rick, in your work with managers, what do you find to be the most common obstacle to building and projecting their authority and leading their sales teams?
DRK: Right off the top, I can think of a couple of obstacles. The most common one is the idea that management and coaching are about talking, that somehow talking takes priority over listening to understand. And I understand how this happens. In fast paced environments, it’s a natural tendency to put the pedal to the metal, to try harder, move faster, do more. The problem is that they wind up talking at their people instead of with them and to them. And the obstacle this lack of understanding creates is that without knowing what motivates your people, you can’t engage them where it counts.
When you understand what motivates your people, and it’s different for different people, you can speak with authority that is recognized as authority, because it is relevant and conveys experience and knowledge.
Then there’s the confidence problem. When managers come off as tentative, hesitant or uncertain, it tends to evoke these responses in their teams. This problem is the side effect of at least two missing pieces: first, not knowing your own motivation, and second, not being prepared to speak when you need to speak. The fact is, people want to be led, not managed, and they need to get that sense of authority from you, because it gives them confidence to do what needs to be done. They believe it when you believe it.
Now, it’s a legitimate question, confidence in what? After all, in these changing times, nobody really knows what’s coming next. And some degree of introspection is prudent for anyone wanting to thrive instead of merely survive. But you can have confidence in your motivations. You can have confidence in what you do know. And you can have confidence that under the right conditions, people will want to give you their best, to do their best.
KR: What are the key listening and communication skills that sales managers can improve upon as they work to develop and strengthen their coaching skills?
DRK: Essentially, there are two skills that are fundamental to success in coaching. The first is blending, the second is asking questions. Blending is the foundation of all successful relationships. It happens whenever you reduce the differences between yourself and another person. It happens whenever you send signals of similarity and commonality. And a failure to blend is the cause of most conflict, nobody cooperates with anyone who seems to be against them. If perception is everything in relationships, then sending blending signals is how you create the perception of partnering with your people in a process or project.
As for questions, I believe it was the stoic philosopher, Epicetus, who said “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Maybe this is the apt metaphor for the way we’re built, but I’ve observed that too many people just don’t get it. Although they certainly think they do. Ask just about anyone if they’re a good listener, and they’ll tell you yes. But most people do a meager job of it at best, instead drawing conclusions and then making statements instead of engaging people by asking questions.
Maybe the people who don’t ask very many questions are afraid of looking stupid. Maybe they think it makes them seem weak. Or maybe they think they’re supposed to have all the answers. Maybe it’s just a function of the fact that we can think faster, at 500 words a minute, than most people talk, which is about 130 words a minute. So it’s pretty easy to get ahead of what we’re hearing, or for our minds to wander to what we want to say when its our turn to talk. But a great coach understands the limits of his or her knowledge about another person, and explores that boundary to build the connection, rather than building the boundary and weakening the relationship. The key is curiosity. The less you think you know, the more you find out. The more value you place on what you can learn by listening, the less distracted you’ll be with your own thoughts.
Perhaps you’ve heard it said that ‘there is no such thing as a stupid question.’ That’s a great guide when it comes to everyone other than you! You can’t afford to ask dumb questions if you want to bring out the best in your people. When someone asks me a question, no matter how trite, simplistic or off the point, I welcome it and find the opportunity in it. But when it’s me asking, I think that there are dumb questions. They’re dumb if they fail to take into account things people have said. They’re dumb if they’re closed ended instead of open ended, unless I intend to bring something to a close. I want my questions to serve an intelligent purpose. I want to get to the deep structure of a person’s motivations and positions. I want to learn about their goals and aspirations, their desires and fears. Asking questions is a great way of leading people to their own resourcefulness. And I want my questions to inform, just as their answers will inform me. As a coach, the more you know, the more likely it is that you will know exactly what you need to know in order to elicit comfort confidence and credibility.
And it sets a great example for sales people, too. Because the best sales people talk about their customers’ and clients’ business rather than talking about the sales person’s business, and that’s only possible when they’ve been asking good questions.
To read more of Dr. Rick Kirschner’s suggestions for improving your ability to use persuasion to create positive change in your life, relationships, and work, visit Dr. K’s Blog here: www.drkblog.com.
RSS
