The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » 2008 » July

The Sales Book Awards recognize books, authors, and publishers whose work advances sales as a profession.

During one of their regular conversations, two avid readers, writers, and globally recognized sales experts lamented that sales books were often overlooked by book award programs and shunned by many in the publishing industry.

Jeb Blount, CEO of the sales portal, powerhouse, SalesGravy.com and Jonathan Farrington, Chairman of The Sales Corporation based in London and Paris and CEO of Top10SalesArticles.com, who share a life-long passion for sales, decided it was time for a book award program just for sales and sales related books, ebooks, and audio books.

Farrington, who has identified and cataloged the world’s top sales experts on his website TopSalesExperts.com said, “Our ultimate goal is to develop and foster a wide coalition of thought leaders, educators, publishers, authors, and corporations who share our mission to recognize authors and publishers who create outstanding works which contribute to the profession of sales.”

“Advancing sales as a profession is our core mission,” said Blount. “All proceeds from corporate sponsorships and entry fees will be used to create scholarships for deserving students enrolled in University level, sales degree programs.”

He explained that across the globe there are more than 50 universities and colleges that have developed degree level programs for sales within their business schools. “The students who graduate from these programs will be responsible for growing the world’s economy in the very near future. Our desire is to play a small but significant role in helping future Sales Professionals meet their financial needs while at the same time highlighting the accomplishments of today’s key thought leaders who contribute so much to sales.”

In the spirit of their mission, Jeb and Jonathan tapped three students, enrolled in professional selling at the University of Central Florida, to design the Sales Book Awards and build the website. According to Blount, Yurani Caicedo, who will be selling for the Miami Heat when she graduates this summer, along with Bri Chmel, the 2007 Women’s World Wakesurfing Champion who will also be enrolled in the University of Central Florida Sales Track this fall, and Raymi Dick, a UCF marketing major who graduates in 2009, were the real key to bringing the Sales Book Awards to life.

The Sales Book Awards call for entries begins on June 23, 2008. Titles may be entered online at SalesBookAwards.org

Any publisher or author may enter books with publication dates between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2008. Books will be judged in ten separate categories and a title may be entered in up to five categories. Finalists in each category will be announced on November 15, 2008. On December 15, 2008 category winners and the Sales Book of the Year will be named.

For information go to: SalesBookAwards.org

Business Expert Webinars is an international community of business experts, comprising best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus. With more than 200 speakers and about 1000 live business education webinars, they have a wide array of programs available which have already begun airing in May, 2008.

“We are using webinar technology to deliver business eLearning,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars. Topics include all genres of business –sales, networking, public relations, marketing, real estate, human resources, entrepreneurship, management and many others. Visitors interested in participating can view the extensive schedule and sign up for webinars at BusinessExpertWebinars.com. Each webinar is taught by a live presenter on the phone and is supported by a presentation delivered over the Internet.

“People are frustrated with the free webinar offerings where the price of admission is a sales and marketing pitch. Either the entire webinar is an infomercial or the content is delivered at a high-level in the session and concludes with, ‘if you really want to know how to do this, buy my CD, DVD, book, etc.’ Thus, they aren’t really free,” said Salz.

Business expert and author of “Selling to Big Companies,” Jill Konrath, said, “What attracted me to deliver content with Business Expert Webinars was that the experts pick very specific topics and go deep into the subject matter. This is strictly business education. Participants come away from BEW webinars with actionable information they can implement immediately. It is a great way for adults to learn valuable information inexpensively, without leaving the office.”

For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

I’ll be speaking at the National Speakers Assocation’s 2008 Annual Convention this Saturday.

Here’s the description:

Learn from those who have combined training and speaking with coaching to maximize their business growth, and how you can do the same. By attending this session, you will be able to: *Learn the steps to add coaching to your speaking/training business, including developing your credentials as a coach * Uncover the process to sell a package of coaching and speaking/training services * Understand how a portfolio of services enhances your clients

You can find out more here:
www.nsaspeaker.org/

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.

Although planning for a great year is healthy and productive, during our quest to accomplish more we often lose sight of what is occurring today. Sure we live in the present, but is that where we are truly living and responding to in each moment? Consider that most of our time is spent either living in the past or in the future.

Where is the focus of your energy and thoughts? Are you focused on making today great or on wishing you said or did something differently at different points in your life? Do you have an internal dialogue that begins with, “If only I….” or “I should have done that because then my life would have been better.” In other words, responding to and “living in the past.”

Conversely, are you trying to get somewhere in the future, as in, “Once I make a certain amount of money, then my life will be complete, or “Once I finish this project and eliminate these problems, then I’ll be happier and have more time for myself and my family.” In essence, living in the future, a point in time that doesn’t even exist!

We often live, listen and react from the past or are pushing for something to happen in the future. To be fully present means you are able to focus on a single person, idea or topic. It means not having any preoccupations with the past or future, the two points in time we have no control over! Living in the past or in the future (vs. planning for the future) consumes our energy and time, since we are not responding to, engaged in and creating a great present.

If You’re Not Present and Engaged in the Moment, You Can’t Be:

1. Listening


2. Creating


3. Engaging


4. Connecting


5. Asking Better Questions


6. Coming Across as Authentic (which is reflected in your tonality, resonance, pacing and languaging)

Being fully present takes practice, effort and focus. Living in, responding to and thinking in the present will enable you to embrace the magnificence life offers today without sacrificing what is most important to you (friends family, health, etc.) in an attempt to “get somewhere.” Learn to master each moment in time, realizing that what is always takes precedent over was and what will be. If you can practice this, the quality of your life will greatly increase.

Thought I’d share with you a way to get my book for free.

Simply attend a short, live online demo of Landslide, a sales workstyle management tool created FOR salespeople BY salespeople to help increase their sales, leverage their time and boost their income. Register now to see how selling using Landslide is different from traditional CRM and SFA solutions. Landslide focuses on helping salespeople and sales teams work most effectively by easily enabling a three-tier sales process complete with selling cycle phases, selling activities in each phase, and the selling tools to complete these activities. At the conclusion of the demo, Landslide will ship you a free copy of Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions!

PLEASE NOTE: This offer is only available for shipment to addresses in North America.

Keep in mind, no demo no book. But hey, it’s a free copy. Here’s more information.

SalesGravy.com is among the top sales portals on the internet. But Sales Gravy is different – in fact it is different than pretty much anything out on the web today. You’ll notice this the moment you enter the site – the guys over at Sales Gravy don’t take themselves too seriously. The founder, Jeb Blount, says “That is who we are. From the beginning we made a conscious decision to keep our site fun. We didn’t want to look stiff and corporate like so many other sites on the web. Sales is a tough business, it’s brutal, so why not have some fun and a few laughs along the way?” The motto at Sales Gravy is “Sales Professionals are the Elite Athletes of the Business World” For Jeb Blount, this is more than words, it is a way of life.

On SalesGravy.com you will find a huge (and growing) collection of articles from many of the top experts in the Sales Profession. And you will also find fantastic articles written by working sales leaders and sales professionals who are in the field, getting deals done. There is a massive collection of free audio programs and podcasts, feeds from almost every top sales blog and sales resource site (the true meaning on one stop shopping), and one of the largest collections of free sales and motivation videos anywhere (yes, you can check out mine here as well).

Of course the most popular part of SalesGravy.com is the Sales Community, billed by the Sales Gravy team, as the largest online community of B2B Sales Professionals in the world. When you join the community you will literally have access to salespeople on every continent and have the ability to interact with sales authors, speakers, and experts who are part of the community as well. It’s sort of like the Facebook of the Sales Profession.

For Sales Leaders and hiring managers perhaps the most impressive offering from Sales Gravy is Sales Gravy Jobs. I don’t know how they do this, but if you are trying to fill sales positions and build your team these guys have an offer you can’t refuse: Post Your Sales Jobs Free. There are no strings attached and, here is the kicker, after you post your sales job you will have full access to their resume database. According to Jeb the resume database contains more than 2000 sales resumes and grows at an average rate of 200 new resumes a week. Currently there are more than 350 employers posting sales jobs on Sales Gravy including ADP, Grainger, Dell, and Office Depot. In the cash strapped business environment we are in these days, this free offer is worth checking out.

Take a few minutes today and check out Sales Gravy here.

Here two final solutions to be mindful of when attempting to connect with your desired prospect.

Strategy #6: Get On Their Calendar

If you happen to be calling on a prospect that you have connected with in the past who has an assistant, try this approach. “Hi Jane, Keith Rosen here from Profit Builders. Mary and I have been playing the longest game of phone tag in history. If you have her calendar handy, can you please help me by scheduling in a five minute block of time that works for her so that I can answer her question regarding your sales training initiative?” You’ve now succeeded in scheduling a time to call a prospect when you know they are available and are expecting your call.

Strategy #7: The Back Door Approach

Here are a few more innovative ways to connect with your prospects that don’t require speaking to the concierge.

Call Before or After Hours: Call before or after a live person begins to answer incoming calls. Many businesses today have an automated voice mail system when the office is closed. The intention here is to get into their voice mail system and listen for the prompt that asks you to “Please spell out the person’s last name.” Once you do this, the voice mail system will often tell you the prospect’s direct extension before transferring your call. Now, when you call back during normal business hours, you can ask the concierge to “Connect you to extension 2345 please.” In addition, if you want to circumvent the concierge who refuses to patch you through to their voice mail, calling before or after hours provides you with the opportunity to leave a message with your prospect.

Return Receipt: This approach comes in very handy. When sending out an e-mail to a prospect, use the “return receipt request” option in the software you use to manage your e-mails. If the prospect opens your e-mail and sends a receipt, you not only know that they received your e-mail, but you also know when they have received it. This way, as opposed to trying to track down a prospect when they are at their desk, or checking their mobile device, you know exactly when to call on them, since they are now checking your e-mail! Obviously, this strategy only works if you are in front of your computer often enough to retrieve your e-mails as they are sent.

In an effort to combat market conditions, I’ve noticed an increase in cold calling activity within many organizations regardless of industry. Here are some solutions to be mindful of for you to use when you run into the barrier that may prevent you from connecting with your desired prospect. The elusive gatekeeper.

Strategy #4: Ask for Help

Now that you have the prospect’s name, you begin the initial steps of contacting the prospect. After several attempts, you still have not successfully connected with them.

Another avenue to revisit would be asking the concierge for help. Think about how you respond when someone asks you for help. Chances are, you do your best to help them. So, appeal to their humanity. Here’s a sample of the dialogue to use.

You: “Hi Jane, Keith Rosen here. We spoke a few weeks ago and you were kind enough to help me then. Well, here I am again in desperate need of your help. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Mary Johnson, but have not been successful in getting her to return my calls. I’m sure she is very busy and I certainly don’t want to keep filling up her voice mail with messages from me. Can you help? Any suggestions you can provide, whether it’s an alternative way to get Mary to return my call, a different way to contact her other than voice mail, or a better time that I should try to reach her would be deeply appreciated.”

You now have the opportunity to develop a relationship with the concierge and become the salesperson who gets preferential treatment that the other salespeople who are calling do not. Finally, you might find that once you ask for help, they will immediately connect you to the prospect!

Becoming friends with the concierge provides some immediate benefits that you can realize. As a matter of fact, you’ll be surprised how much insider information you can get. This includes the name of the decision-maker and their contact information, important information about the decision-maker and how to best approach and appeal to them, company politics and procedures, company status and timely news, internal changes, , initiatives, or challenges.

Connecting with them as a person rather than as an obstacle will make your cold calling efforts much less of an effort. So, acknowledge every concierge you speak with. It’s safe to say these types of calls are not the majority of calls they receive. Some are just downright hostile! After all, the concierge is often the first point of contact and in the hot seat when dealing with certain problems. With the barrage of calls that a concierge fields daily, a sincere and authentic complement goes a long way. You now have an internal advocate on your side.

Strategy #5: Work from the Top Down and the Bottom Up

Get your calls transferred over to customer service, technical support, accounting and attempt to get the intel you need from there.