Are Your People Lying To You? Become A Clairvoyant Manager To Get to The Real Truth
Oct 31, 2008 Business Coaching, Communication, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers, management articles, management tips, training for managers
The “I’m Sensing That” Statement
When talking with someone, such as one of your employees (or customers), did you ever get the feeling that they were not being one hundred percent honest and upfront with you? I’m often told that managers really don’t have a foolproof approach to extracting the truth, the real truth out of someone without sounding either confrontational or pushy.
Instead of confronting the person about their innate concern, the manager takes what this person says and tries to do their best to work their solution around it, even though they know that their employee isn’t telling them something.
After all, what could you say to a salesperson who you feel is not being forthright? “I think you’re lying to me or not telling me everything.” This is certainly not an approach I would endorse. Aside from putting the salesperson on the defensive, there’s a good chance that this approach will destroy any chance of getting this person to open up to you any more than they already have.
How can you tell when there’s something else a salesperson may be holding back from you? Here are a several signs.
Or, maybe you’re in the process of screening a new candidate for the sales position that needs to be filled. It seems the person has a clear interest in the position and you have a keen interest in hiring them but there are some inconsistencies in their resume which makes you question their long term commitment.
If you have ever run into a situation like this, there is a strong chance that there’s something else the person isn’t telling you. Here’s a great way to find out what’s really going on.
Use Your Senses
If a person makes a statement (or fails to confirm or do something for you) that causes your spider senses to tingle, trust and listen to your instincts. Remember, sometimes, just like when you’re selling a prospect, the real objection is two to three questions deep. Here’s an example of how you can use the “I’m sensing that” approach when you feel there’s something else that needs to be brought out to the surface when talking with one of your employees.
You: “Rob, based on our conversation a couple of weeks ago, do you still agree that it would be to your advantage for us to meet one to one so that you can get the personalized training and attention needed to handle some of the challenges you’re running up against?”
Rob the Salesperson: “Yes. I definitely see the benefits.”
You: “Well, we’ve been attempting to get together since then but it seems that something always gets in the way of our meeting. I know you’re working hard to bring in a few more accounts before the quarter is over but I’m sensing there may be something else that’s getting in the way of scheduling this meeting so that we can begin the work we can do together. Is that true (or, Is there any truth to this/how I’m feeling)?”
Salesperson: “Well, actually.”
And now, let the truth be known! Whether he had a bad experience with another manager, is reluctant to admit he is a little intimidated by this process, has a faulty perception of what “coaching” really means (broken wing mentality/something’s wrong with you vs. delivering more value to employees/I want to invest into you because your worth it) fears his job security, is worried what other people may think, doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by saying “No,” or wasn’t motivated by a reason compelling enough that would make this a priority, these are a few of the obstacles that can fly under your radar unless you dig deeper.
Notice the question I ask doesn’t put the person on the defensive simply because I’m not accusing him of doing anything that would make him wrong. I’m not offending him by pointing my finger and playing the blame game. For example: “Every time we plan to meet, you keep rescheduling with me.” “You told me that you were going to call me but you never did.” “You said we would be able to get together for a few minutes.” “I told you I was going to call you on Friday at 9A.M. and when I did you weren’t there.”
Instead, here’s one of the very few times during a coaching relationship that you can actually make it about you; your feelings, that is. Beginning a statement with, “I’m sensing” acknowledges how you are feeling. Then, ask the person for help in determining whether your feeling is, in fact, valid.
This approach gives the other person you’re talking with the space and permission they need to share the real truth, concern, or more of what is going on without feeling pressured. Of course, there are those occasions when the person is actually telling you the truth or simply isn’t interested in speaking with you. That’s why it’s critical to tap into your intuition and trust your instincts to determine how deep you actually want to dig to uncover the truth about what is stalling your ability to create a breakthrough in one of your people.
Business Expert Webinars Delivers Their 100th For-Fee Webinar
Oct 29, 2008 All About Selling, Business Advice, Business Tools, Live Events, seminars, tele-workshop, webinar
Kudos to Lee Salz and Business Expert Webinars. He had the vision, executed the vision and achieved a measurable milestone over a short period of time, no less. Great example of putting the muscle of activity and momentum behind the vision. Attraction in action, baby!
Here’s the release:
Business Expert Webinars
Delivers its 100th Business eLearning Training Session!
October 28, 2008, Minneapolis, MN – Business Expert Webinars (BEW), the leading provider of business eLearning, achieved a major milestone today when they delivered their 100th for-fee webinar.
“I am proud of this significant BEW accomplishment. I’m not aware of any other program that has delivered 100 for-fee webinars in this short period of time. BEW has clearly demonstrated that people are willing to invest in business eLearning as a way to enhance the skill development of themselves and their employees. As the economy has tightened, companies and business professionals have been forced to find alternative strategies for skill development. BEW offers an affordable way to increase business aptitude on a limited budget,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.
“The BEW platform is incredible,” says Jeb Blount, BEW speaker and CEO of SalesGravy.com. “It has provided professional business speakers with a venue to reach a global audience. Participants learn relevant information that they can immediately use in their business career.”
Business Expert Webinars began delivering for-fee webinars in May 2008 and has built a portfolio of over 150 business speakers, with a schedule of over 750 live business eLearning seminars on a wide array of subjects.
About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of business eLearning. BEW has an international community of business speakers that comprises best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus delivering training for business professionals. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.
“Oh, So This Is Somehow My Fault?” Managers, Time To Get Real. Use This 27 Point Assessment To Look in The Mirror And Identify Your Toxic Leadership Behavior
Oct 26, 2008 American Entitlement, Business Advice, Business Coaching, Business Tools, Executive Coaching, Leadership Academy, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Surveys and Polls, Technology and Software, accountability, articles on leadership, coaching for managers, management articles, management tips, sales tools, training for managers
Are you toxic? Take the toxic leadership assessment here.
Are you leading your team or slowly and unknowingly eroding it from the inside out? Do you still navigate your ship using old school motivational tactics? Do you have your people living in fear? Are complaints rampant, as well as turnover? Are you spending most of your days putting out fires? Are you oblivious to the role you’re playing in any of this?
Do you ever stop to think that some of the challenges you’re faced with now might have something to do with how you might be managing your people and your business? The rules of business have changed overnight and the areas most impacted – sales and leadership.
How good of a leader are you? Maybe it’s time for you to abandon your role as Chief Problem Solver. Here’s your chance to get real about the behaviors and strategies you need to abandon today in order to get yourself out of your own way of producing the results you need. Then, you’ll be able to experience what my clients do: A 30% gain in sales.
In this assessment, you will find a list of 27 toxic management strategies that need to be abandoned. And for those managers, executives and business owners who take this assessment and react with, “Wait, this isn’t me.” I applaud you. Either you’re really that good – or really that blind (clueless and disconnected also come into mind- well, then there are those egomaniacal megalomaniacs, but need I digress). And make sure you take the coaching assessment to ensure you’re most effectively leading and coaching your people.) However, just to make sure you don’t have your blinders on, feel free to share this assessment with your team and have them fill this assessment out this assessment on you, anonymously, of course. Can you handle the truth?
Finally, for those people who are reading this blog and feeling as if they’re being managed by this type of manager, I give you this warning. If you have any desire to share this assessment with your manager or boss, make sure you know how they’ll receive it – as a subtle gesture of good will and compassion or a threat and an insult? If the latter, consider doing it anonymously.
take the toxic leadership assessment here.
So, You Think You’re Coaching Your People? Take This Executive Sales Coaching Assessment and See How You Measure Up Against a Master Coach
Oct 23, 2008 All About Selling, Business Coaching, Business Tools, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Leadership Academy, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Technology and Software, coaching for managers, coaching tips, management tips
Take the Coaching Assessment Here.
The rules of business have changed overnight and the areas most impacted – sales and leadership. How do you lead your team differently today compared to the way you did just six months ago? Have you benchmarked the skills needed to lead your team through tough economic times?
After all, I hear many managers tell me how they’re coaching their people, yet in the same breath, report how they’re still experiencing the same problems they’ve always had, and worse today. Then, how effective can your coaching actually be?
If you’re still experiencing the same problems you did before you started coaching your team, then it’s time to recognize the sign; something’s not right. Is it you, the person you’re coaching or your coaching approach?
So, if you think you’re coaching your people, take this Self Awareness Assessment to gauge your coaching acumen.
How effectively are you coaching your team? Just look at the results. Here’s your chance to get real about the areas you need to firm up and develop in order to get the results my clients experience – a 30% gain in sales. This assessment will help you benchmark the areas you need to develop as well as the strategies you need to implement in order to lead your team during good and bad times and most important, get them to thrive today.
Click on this link to go to the assessment where you will find a list of 27 coaching skills, competencies and strategies that the world’s most successful sales coaches, sales leaders and sales organizations have in common.
Take The Coaching Assessment to measure your true coaching acumen. Click here.
Re-Inventing Your Selling, Business and Leadership Strategies In Response to the Current Market
Oct 23, 2008 All About Selling, American Entitlement, Business Advice, Business Tools, Executive Coaching, How To Sell and Sales Tips, How to Manage Your Team, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Selling Advice
I hope by know, we’re all painfully aware of the costly lesson this economy has taught us. The skills, the thinking and the strategies that got us here today will not take us where we want to be tomorrow. And these uncertain times have highlighted more than ever, how we have collapsed American Entitlement with the American Dream.
The simple truth is, in order to earn more we need to learn more, especially as it relates to selling, retaining your current customers and leveraging new selling opportunities.
Here’s what I’ve observed over the last six months, how the current marketplace has impacted the way we sell and connect with our prospects and clients. Granted, some of these trends have been going on for a while now. However, these last six months have put more and more companies at this crossroad, face to face with this critical decision: adapt, innovate and change or suffer from corporate inefficiency, rigidity and declining profits. Upgrade your sales and leadership strategy to respond to these times. Here’s how.
1. Yesterday, it was more of a transactional sale. You show up and take an order or worse, you wing your presentation.
Today, you need to redefine your selling strategy and become a consultative sales champion in order to survive and thrive.
• If you’ve only gotten into sales over the last few years, you’ve never sold in tough times. More than ever salespeople need the training and coaching to stay on top.
• Benchmark best practices. What are the stages of the sale you need to move your prospect through?
• Leverage technology to manage your pipeline.
• Focus on key targeted accounts through better qualification and discovery process. (More and better questions.) Research each customer and know their business.
• Order takers don’t always have the strongest relationships. More time must be spent fostering stronger relationships with key clients. This doesn’t mean calling to ‘check in’ but have a better set of timely questions that will help you understand how the current economic times have affected the way they do business and make purchasing decisions.
• Become keenly aware of the lifetime value of every customer using better defined metrics.
• Doubling sales productivity isn’t always the answer. Consider by doing so, you’re also cutting the time you have to invest in your key accounts, in half.
2. Yesterday, you can sell features and benefits.
Today, you must reinvent your M.V. P. (Most Valuable Proposition) and develop core compelling reasons which will then move your product or service from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘need to have.’
• Less discretionary spending and tighter budgets means less allocation of funds for anything other than what is necessary. “Nice to have’s” Are being cut out of budget. You must position your product as a need to have.
• Saying you’re the best isn’t good enough. You do so by being clear with your value proposition and a faster R.O.I.
• You must focus on the cost of not making changes/ the pain of no change/keeping things the same vs. selling the warm and fuzzy benefits.
• Fewer selling opportunities + increased competition = customers demanding more value for less money.
3. Yesterday, managers were able to tolerate more mediocrity amongst their team.
Today, leaders must transform into coaches and be more fully accountable for their team.
• Get Out Of The Fear Based, Survival Driven Mentality and develop a coaching culture.
• Develop a 30 Day Tactical Turnaround Strategy for Underperformers
• Do Not Be Seduced By the potential you see in others.
• Relinquish Your Role as The Chief Problem Solver
• Stop coaching the uncoachable
• Become less tolerant of mediocrity and underperformers
• More diligent hiring and recruiting practices as companies cannot afford the cost of a mis-hire, especially with time of the essence.
4. Yesterday, you could get away with connecting with your key accounts on a less frequent basis.
Today, you must over-respond and over-communicate to the needs of your customers or risk losing them to your competition.
• Many salespeople are hiding under their desk in fear. A perfect opportunity for you to seize more market share.
• Insulate your key accounts/current customers. Less spending = less sales volume = increased competition.
• Become more than a salesperson, become a valuable resource and a trusted advisor.
• This presents a huge opportunity to mine for additional upselling and cross selling opportunities.
• Help them reach their objectives, save money and increase revenue. Their top goals!
• Retention is the new growth strategy? Doubling sales activity? You need a fine balance between being a great hunter as well as a great farmer. More strategic selling.
5. Yesterday, you could be more lax with your daily activity and do enough just to get buy.
Today, you must refine your daily habits and become a master of your day.
• Many entrepreneurs are willing to do the things they want rather than the things they need to do to drive the growth of their business.
• What are the non-negotiable revenue generating activities they need to engage in every day?
• How are they being held accountable for doing so? That’s were a defined daily routine comes into play.
• Time is your most valuable non negotiable commodity. Invest it in the right activities done the right way.
• You can’t hide anymore.
6. Yesterday, companies had a larger budget to invest in marketing to drive more leads and prospects to the sales team.
Today, more and more companies are shifting to cold calling to generate new prospects and new leads. These were also many of the same companies who used to be resistant to this concept! This is another learned skill set and strategy that needs to be developed and embraced by your sales team.
7. Yesterday, salespeople had larger travel and expense accounts to meet with and romance their prospects and clients.
Today, more sales are happening virtually, online and over the phone. This requires learning and adapting to a new way of selling via new communication channels.
Interview Friday with Andrea Sittig-Rolf – Leading A Team During an Economic Downturn
Oct 13, 2008 All About Selling, Business Advice, Business Tools, Career Advice, Interviews, Live Events, Sales Management, coaching for managers, training for managers
Listen to My Interview With Author Andrea Sittig-Rolf on Friday, October 17, 2008 at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern as we discuss:
You can click here to tune in on that day and time.
Renowned Sales Trainer and Author, Tom Hopkins Offers “No Frills, Just Meat” Live Seminars for $99
Oct 11, 2008 All About Selling, Business Tools, How To Sell and Sales Tips, Live Events, Sales Training
Find out more here.
There were two books I read very early on during my college years that had a huge impact on me and on my career path. One of them was written by Tom Hopkins.
Today, Tom is offering something so valuable that I needed to share it with you. He’s holding a special event next month on November 15 and again on November 20 in Southern California for:
Hopkins says, “We’ve listened to what our students are telling us. In the current marketplace, they can’t take a full day out of the field to attend seminars. So, we’ve condensed these programs to offer just the top strategies that are working now. And the Saturday program is aimed at people who are in sales part-time like many of our clients in the network marketing industry.”
While many programs of this caliber run anywhere from $300 to $1,000 per attendee, Tom Hopkins International is being sensitive to the pocketbooks of today’s Southern California sales forces. These two programs are being offered for only $99.00 per ticket. Both the offer and seating for these events are limited.
Get all the information you need here, as I’m sure this will sell out fast.
Here’s what you can expect to walk away with:
Get all the information you need or register here.
Doing More Leads To Failure – Reinvent Everything
Oct 8, 2008 All About Selling, Books, Business Advice, sales tips
Power Referrals – The Ambassador Method Will Build Your Social Currency
In today’s market, exploiting every vehicle you can to drive more prospects and more sales to you is crucial. The innovative will reign supreme, while those scurrying to simply do more of what they did yesterday wonder why ‘more’ isn’t the answer. What daily activities yield your greatest ROI? How are you then refining and re-inventing those activities to over respond to the needs of your customers?
Winning today requires re-thinking every activity you engage in, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Just yesterday, I’ve incorporated a whole new system that has now enabled me to more efficiently respond to every email that’s sent to me or to my company, with less human resources being exhausted. It’s a win-win for my customers and for my company and it didn’t cost me one penny. I simply refined a system we already had in place and made it even better. Keep in mind, the old system was working fine, but working fine is what got all of us in the mess we’re in today. The “Good Enough Mediocre Mentality.”
Stop and think about how you generate new business? What new initiatives or ways of prospecting have you incorporated over the last few months? How proactive are you about pursuing referral business and the many business opportunities that are out there waiting for you?
My friend and colleague, Andrea Sittig-Rolf has just released her latest book entitled, Power Referrals: The Ambassador Method for Empowering Others to Promote Your Business and Do the Selling for You (McGraw-Hill, 2008).
What does this mean to you? An opportunity to tap into a new way of doing business and attracting more customers. And it all revolves around your ability to leverage your Social Currency.
I’ve included an expert from Andrea’s book below, defining social currency and how you can start building your own.
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Social Currency is the value we bring to the social networks in which we are involved. Think of all of the networks you are involved in; social networks, professional networks, family networks. In every network, you bring value to others in that network based on the people you know and the relationships you have. Social currency is what you have to “spend” by way of introductions you make to help the people in your networks get what they want.
So how do you determine your social currency? Think of all of your spheres of influence: the people you know and the networks you’re involved in. Your spheres of influence can include colleagues, associates, referral partners, prospects, customers, friends, family, and Ambassadors. The Social Currency Assessment will help you map and understand your individual strengths and how they can benefit those in your spheres of influence, your potential Ambassadors, and your actual Ambassadors.
Everyone has skills, abilities and gifts, and this assessment will help to hone yours for a clear understanding of what strengths you have and what assets you bring to the table in your Ambassador relationships. For those skills and strengths you don’t feel you have, it’s best to simply manage your weaknesses, and to build on your strengths.
Your spheres of influence and your strengths are just part of your overall social currency…
For more information about social currency and the new book Power Referrals: The Ambassador Method for Empowering Others to Promote Your Business and Do the Selling for You, plus a free online toolkit, click here.
NYC Event! Critical Strategies for Winning Big Clients
Oct 6, 2008 All About Selling, Live Events, seminars
Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 6:00PM
LOCATION
The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10036
Register here.
If there’s ever an event worth noting and more so worth attending, I’m going to let you know. And here’s one that you can’t afford to miss.
The need for companies to over-respond quickly and efficiently to current market conditions has never been more apparent. Organizations must adjust their sales and leadership model with minimal collateral damage while doing so.
As more and more companies are selling to fewer and fewer large, corporate accounts, sales teams at companies of all sizes struggle to consistently hit ever-increasing targets quarter-after-quarter. It’s the question that keeps every sales leader up at night: How can you accelerate your deal flow? How can you close more revenue, faster?
In today’s hyper-competitive, ‘always on but never available’ selling environment, sales reps and sales managers face equally hard challenges.
Sales reps have to deal with prospects who don’t answer phones, all calls are routed to voice mail and no one ever calls back. Even when sales reps do manage to get prospects engaged, the likelihood that the deal would close is anybody’s guess.
Yet, both sales executives and their managers’ careers depend on forecasting and delivering results accurately.
Spend an evening with leading experts on the critical strategies and proven tools your teams can use right away to:
These strategies may go against conventional wisdom, but that’s why they work.
Moderated by Nigel Edelshain, CEO Sales 2.0, the conversation participants include Jill Konrath, sales expert and renowned author of Selling to Big Companies, and Razi Imam, CEO of Landslide Technologies, an award-winning company recognized for offering an innovative sales management system that goes beyond just technology.
Together with Nigel, they will discuss the key elements of building effective sales teams – from the new selling skills to the new Sales 2.0 technologies that help salespeople win corporate accounts consistently.
Register now for this timely session – seats are limited.
AGENDA
6.00PM – 6:45PM Networking and Hors d’oeuvres
6:45PM – 7:45PM Presentation and Interactive Discussion
7:45PM – 8:00PM Wrap-up & Networking
Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 6:00PM
LOCATION
The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10036
First 20 registrants will also receive an autographed copy of Jill Konrath’s best-selling book, Selling to Big Companies.
The I.G.O. 3-Step Permission Based Closing Process To Defuse Any Objection
Oct 4, 2008 All About Selling, Sales Coaching, closing the sale, sales articles, sales tips
Defusing Objections
Rather than react to an objection with a statement that creates an adversarial posture between you and the prospect (Example: defending your position, service, or product) respond to the objections you hear with a question using the three step I.G.O. Permission Based Selling Rather than react to an objection with a statement that creates an adversarial posture between you and the prospect (Example: defending your position, service, or product) respond to the objections you hear with a question using the three step I.G.O. Permission Based Selling™ process to defuse them. Here’s how.process to defuse them. Here’s how.
Tip From The Coach: Remember, after gathering the information during your discovery process, use this information to conclude your sales process and ask for their business. If done effectively, all you are really doing is reconfirming the information that they previously shared with you as to why they want to use you and your company – because you’ve satisfied all of their needs.
I. Isolate the objection
G. Gain permission to have a dialogue.
O. Offer solutions or new possibilities.
Step 1. Isolate the Objection:
Ensure that you are actually dealing with a valid objection rather than a smokescreen. You don’t want to overcome smokescreens because you can’t. That’s the inherent quality of a smokescreen; if you overcome one, the prospect will just create another one. Therefore, isolate the objection down to its core to see if the initial objection they shared with you is really the truth or if it’s something else. The “something else” could be that they don’t believe you, don’t trust you yet, don’t believe you or your product can help them, they may not be the decision maker, they have been burned before, they are simply having a bad day and you are their new target, and so on. Confirm whether the objection they shared is the core objection or if the real objection is actually something else. These questions will enable you to expose what their primary concern actually is.
Step 2. Get Permission: Get permission to discuss solutions and have a dialogue.
Now that you’ve smoked out the real objection, it’s time to offer a solution. However, the key for this conversation to work without you sounding like a high pressure or “cheesy” salesperson is to first get permission. You can create a new opening to overcome a prospect’s concern by asking for permission to do so.
“Mr. Prospect, if budget was no longer an issue for you, would you be open to exploring this in more detail?”
“Mrs. Prospect, if there was a way to make this slide comfortably into your budget, would you be open to discussing this in more detail?”
Use “If” Questions:
Reverse or take away the objection to determine if “not having a budget” or if “working with another vender” is the only thing that’s truly getting in the way. Now that I’ve hypothetically removed this objection, their response should be a “Yes,” which would then give me the permission to allow me to continue our conversation and focus on a solution; such as uncovering a measurable budget, a time they would have a budget, or the results they really want, rather than dwelling on the objection or the problem. Once again, keep in mind that if they respond with a “No,” then there’s still something else going on, you haven’t uncovered the core objection or another objection or roadblock that they haven’t shared with you yet.
Step 3. Offer a Solution:
If they say “Yes,” you now have a prospect who is interested in hearing more about the solutions you offer.
Tip From The Coach: Salespeople don’t overcome objections, prospects do. The only person who can truly overcome an objection is the prospect. Salespeople create the opportunity for this to occur through their effective use of questions. Selling is therefore the art of asking questions, listening openly and intentionally, and gaining information; not giving it.
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