Keith Rosen's Executive Sales Coaching Blog on Selling, Leadership, Management

When Managers Confuse Coaching With Conceding To Your Team

Nov 27, 2008 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers, management tips

Here’s a question that an executive emailed me the other day. I thought the dialogue was blog worthy and valuable enough to share with you.

“In your article “Asking the right questions when coaching employees” you suggested asking employees how they would like to be managed. My question to you is – if I have several direct reports and they each ask to be managed differently, it sounds like opening up a can of worms. Wouldn’t it set the manager up for failure – to let the employees dictate how the department is run?”

My Response:
It all depends how you position it with your team. Be careful of collapsing them running the ship and setting the direction with the best way to communicate to them so they are empowered and motivated to achieve their goals and core responsibilities without pushback. The point here is, every manager can’t manage each person the same way. After all, everyone comes to the table with a different, attitude, skill set, mindset, way of doing things, communication style, and certainly a different way they like to be motivated and held accountable. Lots of moving parts here. That’s why you must tap into their individuality. Think of it this way, if you’re able to set up how they like to be managed up front, and you manage them that way, then you can never be the bad guy! Here are some examples of questions that are meant to uncover how you need to hold them accountable and the management style that they respond best to:

• How can I best support you to achieve your goals? (Uncover how each employee wants to be managed and supported.) How can I best manage you and hold you accountable for the results you are looking to achieve?

• How can I hold you accountable in a way that will sound supportive and won’t come across as negative or micro-managing?

• How do you want me to approach you if you don’t follow through with the commitments you make?

• How do you want me to handle it? What would be a good way to bring this up with you so that you will be open to hearing it?

As you can see, you’re not changing goals, expectations, or standards. You’re just learning how to approach them and hold them accountable for doing their job in the way they are going to be most receptive to, without negativity or resistance from the other side.

Question:
This may be old thinking, or did I misunderstand the article? I’m thinking how this would translate on a day to day basis – especially if staff needs conflict with each other.

My Response:
Staff needs will always conflict with each other – after all we are human. However, I’m referring to those personal staff needs vs. what they need to function at their best and do what they were hired to do in the first place. Each person will have different needs, driftnet levels of acumen, different training and coaching requirements, different personal goals and different styles of communication. Some need more hands on, where others function well with full autonomy. That’s why you adapting your communication style to theirs helps them accelerate their productivity faster.

Question:
I’ve been coached that I need to manage in my own style, but I’m not sure how this fits into just doing what my staff expects of me.

My Response:
Yes, you do need to manage in your own style, as long as that style isn’t the old limiting, toxic, fear based and debilitating management style that I coach managers to stay away from and evolve more into the transparent, collaborative leader and coach. Be carful not to collapse how to coach and communicate with them with holding them to different standards. Think of it more as how you need to adjust the way in which you’re engaging and communicating with them. You are still holding each person on your team accountable for the same standard and expectations of performance. And you still want to coach people leveraging your personality, style, strengths, values and natural talents. Moreover, you also need to practice the best coaching approach and methodology, as there are certain core competencies that every coach and manager need to develop in order to have the proper benchmarks they can hold themselves against and use to duplicate themselves or develop other managers. However, I’m suggesting to learn how to adapt to how they like to communicate how they like to be communicated to and their communication style. If you can do so successfully, you win in the end.

Question:
Am I crazy, did I miss something or is there something more to consider?

My Response:
I think my comments above cover your questions. If not please let me know. And no, I don’t think you’re crazy!

A Question On Full Accountability – What’s The Reward for Management and Executives?

Nov 26, 2008 American Entitlement, Business Advice, Business Coaching, Executive Coaching, Hiring and recruiting, Leadership Academy, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers

One reader emailed in a question asking for some further clarity around the bigger reward from becoming fully accountable for everything in our lives as well as for the people on our team or who we manage.

Here’s the ultimate reward for you. Once you take full accountability for yourself as well as each person on your team, you are now able to empower others to be fully accountable for themselves.

If you can’t take full ownership over what you are responsible for anyway and for the most part, what your paycheck is judged by, then think about the lethal environment that you are breeding within your team. Remember, avalanches roll down hill and you are modeling the behavior you expect to see in them.

Looking at your team today, they are in essence, the result of your attitude and the choices you have made in the past. Your team tomorrow will be the result of your attitude and the choices you make today. Make the choice today to be the change catalyst you can be. Choose to make a measurable difference and become the leader who you know you’re capable of being.

Therein lies the ultimate source of power, for when you take ownership of full accountability, you get to be at full choice around what you are holding yourself accountable for as well; and it will be your choice to utilize your personal power, your talents, your vision, your values and your integrity in a way to move you and your team forward. If you stop for a moment and think about it, this isn’t your practice career or team. Nor is it our abilities which show the world who we truly are. Instead, it will always be our choices that define us.

Quick Ideas to Boost Your Sales – Packed in This Book

Nov 22, 2008 All About Selling, Books, sales articles

One thing’s for certain. During good and bad times, big money makers take matters into their own hands. They don’t sit around waiting for the next sale to walk through the door.

They know the number one mistake salespeople make is delaying or neglecting their own ongoing sales education.

That’s why I am recommending an excellent sales advice book written by 50 leading experts. It costs 25 bucks, so the publisher has thrown in 3 grand in complimentary sales tools for you from top sales and business growth leaders, including me.

I think you’ll find this well worth investigating. See it here.

Why Your Hiring, Coaching and Retention Programs Suck

Nov 21, 2008 All About Selling, American Entitlement, Executive Coaching, Hiring and recruiting, How to Manage Your Team, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers, management tips

Now, when sharing the notion of full accountability with my clients, I expect some pushback from managers and executives around taking on this position. I hear things like, “C’mon Keith, 100%. Don’t managers get a little bit of a break here? How can we be fully accountable when I’m already stretched thin and still expected to achieve higher sales goals with fewer resources. Doesn’t the salesperson have some role and responsibility in this? After all it’s their career and it’s what they were hired to do. I mean, what if…”

No, I didn’t cut this person off. I actually heard them through completely. That’s why we’re going to list all of the ‘what if’s’ (a.k.a excuses) that I’ve heard managers react with when I challenged them with adopting this principle. Here are all the reasons I’ve heard as to why managers feel they should not be fully responsible for their salespeople.

Interestingly, in each of these excuses, there is one common denominator that travels down the road called, YOU DRIVE! Here’s what I’ve responded with when hearing these or what the client had to come to terms doing.

“Ultimately, you have a choice, yes?”

What managers lack in accountability is made up for in their excuses or justifications for performance. The secret is, the real power comes in taking full ownership. The alternative is to play the helpless, powerless victim. And this role is filled coming from a place of weakness, devoid of power and from which no new possibilities can ever grow. For you’ve given up your greatest power; the power of choice.

These excuses are a declaration for these managers, as if they are etched in the stone writings of their predecessors that must never be challenged nor questioned. And each one of these justifications has the power of hands on experience and the evidence behind it to support its truth. But, still, where does that leave any of these managers? They’re still dealing with the same problem or stuck with a team of underperformers. At the end of the day, these managers have surrendered. They’ve given up. They’ve lost. The instant you begin to buy into a justification, you’ve started to surrender your personal power.

Then comes the next reaction I hear. “Okay, Keith, so now I’m a believer. Here’s another situation. Lets say we have constructed the most comprehensive recruiting and retention program you’ve ever seen. We have checklists, assessments and personality profiles. We’re doing background checks, speaking with prior employers and even their co-workers.

Once the preliminary work is done, we have each new candidate drive-along with one of our salespeople for one full day so they get to experience the job first hand and in the trenches. Each candidate is interviewed by a minimum of twelve people from their new colleagues to the senior leaders over the course of fifteen separate meetings.

Prior to the official hire, we have them spend three days working in the office, performing their job functions. Then, upon their official hire, we implement at your suggestion, a Thirty Day New Hire Orientation Program which details the daily regimented training and coaching they will be receiving, as well as the measurable results they would be responsible for at the end of the first thirty days on the job. Finally, we team them up with a sales coach to support them on a weekly basis. Now, even with an infallible system like this, in spite of everything, they don’t cut it. Are you telling me it’s still my fault?”

My response to this, “Has this happened yet to you?”

That’s about the time the conversation ends. Because any company that has these safeguards and measurables like these entrenched in their recruiting and retention process has reduced their risk of failure one hundred fold if not more, mathematically speaking. That is, the companies I’ve worked with who have implemented a program like the one I’ve described have seen their numbers shrink from a whopping 78% attrition rate of salespeople within the first year to less than 3%.

If you’re not making a choice to live responsibly, then you’re making a story.

Embrace Full Accountability – For Everything and Everyone

Nov 18, 2008 American Entitlement, Business Coaching, Communication, How to Manage Your Team, Insights in Business, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, accountability, business ethics, management articles

Dr. Marvin Jolson was very dear mentor of mine and a true business leader; a trailblazing pioneer and innovator when it came to the areas of sales and marketing. Here was the guy who practically invented the way encyclopedias were sold door to door and the force and genius that enabled companies like Encyclopedia Britannica where he was Senior Vice President and, back in their hay day, MCI enjoy years double digit sales growth and greater profitability. In 1990, he received the Distinguished Doctoral Graduate Award from the University of Maryland. In 1999, Dr. Marvin Jolson was the first person ever to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the American Marketing Association to a scholar who has made a career of furthering the academic advancement of selling and sales management.

He’s written a library of books and has authored dozens of ground breaking articles, many of which have appeared in venerable publications and journals such as the Harvard Business Review, The Journal of Marketing, The New York Times and Sales and Marketing Management. Dr. Jolson was also the Editor of the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. The legacy Dr. Jolson left behind also consisted of one of the most successful home security companies in Baltimore called CRIMPCO Security, which is currently being run by his son, and his two grandsons; leaving a strong and well entrenched empire for his family to continue to grow and nurture.

Dr. Jolson’s risk-taking tendencies, assertiveness, charismatic style is what won the admiration, respect and trust of his colleagues as well as his students. I remember, driving from my house in Potomac, Maryland about 30 minutes to the University of Maryland where I would visit with Dr. J (that’s what his student’s called him) at his office. He was the Professor of Marketing at that point, still teaching a few classes even well into his seventies. Dr. J’s open door policy transcend beyond his classroom or office. Occasionally, a student would even stop over at his house to get advice or to just say a quick hello. Dr. J made everyone feel comfortable, even his students who knew very well that the door at the home on Ridge Terrace, Pikesville, Maryland was always open.

I vividly recall enjoying the hours of debating the principles of selling and marketing with him. Dr. J would site his articles and case studies that appeared in the myriad of journals he was published in and I would share the most recent experience I had during the sales call I went on earlier that morning.

Dr. Jolson was the first person I reluctantly let review the very first manuscript I wrote; my first book on selling. Given the amount of red comments I received in my manuscript, in hindsight, I was probably better off giving him the manuscript on a day that either we agreed on a certain topic or philosophy or he ‘won’ the debate.

One of our favorite debates dealt with the level of accountability of a manager. We were both in agreement that in business, as in life you are fully accountable for everything that shows up in your life. It’s one of what I refer to as the universal principles I personally adhere to; one of the principles of attraction. As you can imagine, we also agreed that every person, every manager, is fully accountable for their communication, and that includes the message being heard by the other person.

Since we can control our communication and what we say, and we can’t control the other person’s communication and how they hear us, then we must learn to uncover and speak in a way that the other person listens and likes to be spoken to. Besides, who we are is created in how others hear us. Therefore, we must own the responsibility of the entire communication process and adjust our communication style accordingly.

While both of us agreed in this sound principle, there was always an interesting conversation that transpired when it came to discussing what factors determine the success and failure of a salesperson. That is, if a salesperson that you are managing fails, whose fault is it?

Whether your team consists of one thousand salespeople or just one, the simple fact stands; you are 100% accountable for the success and failure of your team.

Over the last several years, the media has focused our attention on some of the most devastating business failures of our time. People lost their life savings and were financially crippled by the fall of some of these business empires such as Enron, which was run by unethical, greed driven, sub-human, bottom feeders that thrived off the misfortune of others. In the wake of these ethical disasters of mind numbing proportion, the integrity of business leaders has been forced back in the limelight.

Yet, clearly not enough policing nor policy has been put in place to avoid these catastrophes from happening again, given the current state of our economy and the crisis that has crippled our financial institutions and again, the lives of millions of people. Which poses the question, have we actually learned anything from these lessons? We talk about them, and write about them but what changes have actually been made to prevent these disasters from happening again? What changes have you made as a result? Our society cannot be destined to continually be the victim of other people’s greed and their ability to shed accountability like a snake sheds its skin. Pointing the finger at the ones who profit the most from these crimes clearly has not served us well. The fact is, we all play a role.

Instead, we opt to stick our other hand in the fire by bailing them out with billions of dollars. And why not? After all, they’re too big to fail. According to Wikipedia.org, The “Too Big to Fail” policy is the idea that in American banking regulation the largest and most powerful banks are “too big to (let) fail.” Generally speaking, when a corporation, an organization, or an industry sector is considered by the government to be too important to the overall health of the economy, it will not be allowed to fail. This means that it might encourage recklessness since the government would pick up the pieces in the event it was about to go out of business. The phrase has also been more broadly applied to refer to a government’s policy to bail out any corporation. It raises the issue of moral hazard in business operations. (Gee, ya think?) The real definition of this policy is, “Once you get to a certain size in your business, you don’t have to be accountable anymore.”

It wasn’t too long ago when some noteworthy companies rose to the occasion or at least have made an attempt to do so, starting with taking full responsibility for their failures. Two companies that I’m referring to specifically are Jet Blue and Southwest Airlines. During the winter of 2007, devastating weather conditions combined with dreadful mismanagement and the poor deployment of resources caused the delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights, which left thousands of passengers stranded.

Here were two companies, who clearly screwed up – big time. But here’s what they didn’t do. They didn’t run and hide. They didn’t spin their story. They didn’t blame everything on the weather, as bad as it may have been. Conversely, here’s what they did do. They took responsibility, they apologized to their passengers, families and to the general public. They did their best to lay their cards on the table and let us know they made a big error. And in the spirit of good business practice and taking care of their customers, Jet blue offered their passengers refunds on their tickets, and in some cases, Southwest Airlines actually gave their passengers their flight for free. While it may not have been their entire fault, these companies still took 100% accountability for this debacle. They took full ownership of the problem even if the cause of the problem was outside of their control.

I guess the leaders of the growing list of failed banks, mortgage companies, investment houses and lending institutions didn’t get this lesson. The last time I checked, avalanches still roll down hill. It always starts from the top. (Here’s a chuckle. One of the banks that shut down operations was actually named, “First Integrity.”)

This is the type of mindset; one of full accountability; that a leader needs to adopt. For those ever-evolving cultures that embrace change and are strong advocates of personal development and lifelong learning, taking full accountability is a prerequisite for leadership in tomorrow’s companies, as well as for the customers that they serve. For today’s companies, how unfortunate it is that you can still survive and thrive without it. But the question is, for how much longer?

Can A Blind Manager See? Uncover Your Blind Spots

Nov 17, 2008 Career Advice, How to Manage Your Team, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers, coaching tips, management tips

After posting my blog the other day entitled, You Got Scammed! The Greatest Scams Salespeople Engage In That Managers Buy Into, I was hit with a few questions from readers, (which I certainly love to receive, so please keep sending them!) This particular blog must have struck a chord with many people, especially managers and executives. The question was, “Why do we continually fall into the trap of believing our own stories, fables, and illusions when we know that, from a logical perspective, they make no sense and wind up hurting us in the end?”

Here’s why. Because these S.C.A.M.M.s are blind spots. We’re just so used to them, we become blind to them. And this applies to both our S.C.A.M.M.s and the ones our salespeople run. Although we can more easily see the challenges and S.C.A.M.M.s in others, where they are stuck, what their core issues may be, and what might be an obvious solution for them, we are always the last person to be able to see them in ourselves. This is true regardless of your age, profession, wisdom, or experience.

What further drives the investment we make in our stories and the fables we create about ourselves is that we fall in love with our stories and the things we think are true. We love our stories and S.C.A.M.M.s! The more we tell them, the more engrained they become in our thinking and our being and the more we believe them. And boy, do they do a wonderful job justifying our position, experiences and performance. The problem is that we give our stories way too much power over us. The more we believe our fables, the more factual they seem to us, further adding to the challenge of distinguishing between what is reality and what is not.

Like the rest of the human race, managers need an objective person to peer inside their lives and help them identify and rewrite the stories they tell themselves, the ones that hold them back from greatness, prevent them from living life the way they want, and subsequently inhibit them from becoming a fully self-expressed, masterful executive sales coach. After all, I know many a manager who actually think they’re doing a pretty decent job coaching their team, when the harsh reality of it is, they’re not. And the evidence is in their monthly numbers and level of attrition they’re experiencing both within their sales team and with their customers.

Whether you’re an athlete, a coach, a manager, or a salesperson, you still require a coach on the sidelines to observe you and uncover the confining behavior or thinking that you cannot. There is a tremendous value to having someone on the outside looking in and pointing out the things that you are unable to recognize on your own; especially when you’re in the thick of the game.

You Got Scammed! The Greatest Scams Salespeople Engage In That Managers Buy Into

Nov 14, 2008 American Entitlement, Career Advice, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers, sales tips

Oh, The Stories Managers Believe Their Salespeople Tell

Salespeople are a creative bunch, especially when it comes to the stories they tell themselves. These also happen to be the same stories that managers find themselves to be the unfortunate recipients of during many meetings, conversations or performance reviews. Unfortunately, rather than removing themselves from the story, managers find they are getting sucked into it, wasting valuable time and resources on a well fabricated issue that has no real resolution.

I refer to these illusions as S.C.A.M.M.’s which is an acronym for Stories, Cons, Assumptions, Meaning and Mindset.

A S.C.A.M.M. is an action, excuse, or belief you hide behind that justifies your circumstance, behavior, and performance, even your position on something, that provides you with an excuse so you do not have to be accountable for your responsibilities, goals, or the situations you put yourself in. The one commonality that each of these five words share is choice. At the very core, your stories, cons, assumptions, imposed meanings, and mindset are ultimately a choice.

Just ask salespeople who have to prospect to build their businesses. They can justify practically any activity that will take them away from prospecting, allowing them to major in the minor activities that act as diversions to doing what’s truly needed.

Once you’re able to uncover a salesperson’s S.C.A.M.M., the tactical coaching strategy would be to coach the person on rewriting their story from a place of challenging them on creating some other truths that may be possible, instead of jumping into and chasing their elusive story down the ever-winding rabbit hole with them. This is a key point not to be brushed by and critical to the impact you can make when coaching your salespeople. In other words, you don’t coach the story or feed into the story. If you do, you are coaching someone around a lie, something that doesn’t even exist. Instead, you coach the person on their relationship with the story they tell you in order to uncover the real truth of what’s going on.

What are some stories you may hear from your salespeople? I’ve listed a few of the more ‘popular’ fables that you can start to recognize the next time you hear a salesperson attempting to enroll you in one.

The Top Ten Lies We Tell Our Boss (And Ourselves) – And Actually Believe Are True

1. Fear of Failure (or Success): “I’m afraid of failure yet I won’t take the steps to ensure my success. Therefore, if I sit back and do nothing, then I can never fail at anything!”

2. Perfectionism/’Either Or’ Thinking: “Either I create the perfect (prospecting, time management, goal setting, management, coaching) system to use or I don’t do it at all. A similar perfectionism type of story is created by the type of salespeople I refer to as knowledge junkies. Their story can sound like this: “I’m still not ready yet. Just a little more training, research and due diligence, then I’ll be ready.”

3. Taking It All On: “I can’t delegate these tasks that other people may be able to do because they will never do it as good as I can.”

4. Been There, Done That: “The last time I attempted to build my business through prospecting it was a waste of time. Therefore, I know that prospecting won’t work for me.” (Did you ever consider that it was more your approach to prospecting that wasn’t effective?)

5. Playing It Safe: “Sure I’ve been prospecting. I mean, I’ve been targeting my current accounts to see if there are any service issues that need to be handled and whether I can get more business from them. After all, you need to take care of your current customers, right?” (Do you want to survive or thrive? Your choice.)

6. The Accountability Trap. “Of course I have a to-do list. I check things off as soon as I can fit them in.” Do you have a deadline associated with each task on your to-do list? A task without a deadline is another S.C.A.M.M. Writing down a long list of tasks or activities that are not scheduled and have no timelines or completion dates associated with them is another way to avoid accountability. Since you are keeping the timeline open ended, you don’t have to be responsible for completing the tasks by any specific date. No schedule, no commitment.

7. Not Having a Schedule. “I’m so busy that I don’t have time to create my routine! “The absence of a routine frees you from being accountable for certain things you’re responsible for or you may not want to do but have to do in order to reach your goals.

8. Everyone Comes Before Me: “I can’t say ‘No’ to my clients. I have to take care of them or they will go elsewhere, right?” Do you have a salesperson who has a hard time saying, “No” to clients and drops everything at their request? One of my clients, Mary, was telling me that she blocked out Mondays and Fridays for marketing, professional development, research and new business development activities. When I asked her if she honored this, she paused for a moment and then replied, “No.” Mary shared with me the fear she experienced about blocking out two full days, even though she knew that in order for her to build her practice this was a priority. So, inevitably, a client would call and ask to see her on a Friday or Monday. Rather than honoring the appointment she made with herself, she would set the appointment with the client. Mary said she had a real hard time saying “No” to her clients. After all, if she said “No” to them, maybe they would go elsewhere, right? Either that, or she felt her clients wouldn’t be able to meet with her at another time. What a S.C.A.M.M. Either you are going to run your life, or other people and circumstances are going to run you. Honor the commitments you make to others as well as the commitments you make to yourself. Besides, you cannot effectively take care and serve others if you do not take care of yourself first.

9. Interrupt-Driven: “I can’t focus on any task for very long because I am constantly being interrupted by people, situations, problems and new tasks I’m suddenly responsible for. It’s hard to get things done.” This easily distracted salesperson probably has a long list of tasks that never get completed. This person may also be an adrenaline junkie who loves the rush of working on overdrive when trying to do it all and juggle many unfinished and ongoing tasks. Do you become easily diverted or distracted by situations, new tasks or people rather than maintain the focus on your goals and initial objective? If so, you probably have a long list of tasks that never gets completed, because you feel that you’re always being pulled in a different direction.

10. Playing The Victim: “I can’t believe I wasn’t able to schedule an appointment with Mr. Prospect today. I feel so dejected and frustrated, too frustrated to do anything else productive today.” Do you allow one bad experience to snowball and affect the rest of your day? Rather than moving on and forging ahead, this allows you to go into a negative tailspin and destroy the chance of doing anything else productive for the remainder of your day.

The next time you encounter someone who is reluctant to take the necessary actions to achieve the results that matter most, there will always be some type of confining belief, story or S.C.A.M.M. at the core that is getting in the way. Think of it as an objection you may hear from a prospect. If you can uncover, address and defuse their story, you free them up to take the action.

The real danger comes when a manager starts believing and feeding into the story. Instead, try this approach the next time. Rather than coach someone on their S.C.A.M.M, have them rewrite and redefine their story in a more empowering way. For example, you can use the following questions to help them reshape their reality and their perception: “I can understand how you can feel that way. However, is there another way to look at this that might serve you better?” “Is this way of thinking helping you or consuming you?” What else might be true?” “How can you change your thinking around this in a way that would move you forward?” “What do you think it’s going to cost you if you continually buy into that line of thinking?”

After all, every S.C.A.M.M.; every story, belief assumption, worry and fear is created using the very same tool we use to define our goals and dreams; our imagination.

You may find that one or two (or more) of these behaviors describe some of your salespeople’s S.C.A.M.M.’s (maybe even some of your own), and this is actually good news! I never said that you would like bringing these truths to the surface. Although it takes a conscious effort to uncover other people’s diversionary tactics, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you use them, too. However, now that you have a greater understanding and awareness, you can do something about them.

When you notice yourself or your salespeople falling into any of these traps, you can choose to either continue engaging in the S.C.A.M.M., or make a better choice that will generate the results you really want.

The Top Paradoxes of Prospecting

Nov 12, 2008 Cold Calling Tips, How To Close The Sale, How To Sell and Sales Tips, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, accountability, sales tips, tele-sales, telesales

Many of the strategies that we engage in today, whether in our thinking as well as in our actions, are often counterintuitive to what we may believe would be the solution to achieving our goals and objectives; especially as it relates to cold calling and prospecting for new business.

Here’s a sample of the top paradoxes of prospecting that make prospecting so challenging. However, once these paradoxes are woven into your thinking, you’ll notice how these contradictions will provide you with a competitive edge that no other marketing piece, feature or benefit of your product or service could even come close to.

Lets face it. You and I both know that the ultimate objective of your prospecting efforts is to sell more and boost your income. However, to achieve this goal, it’s just not where you are going to focus your energy and thoughts.

If you can understand and embrace these paradoxes, you now have the opportunity to respond to each prospect in a healthier, more productive, and more enjoyable way.

Managers Continue to Teach Their People How To Avoid Full Accountability

Nov 10, 2008 American Entitlement, Business Advice, Executive Coaching, Hiring and recruiting, Insights in Business, accountability, business ethics, management articles, training for managers

“What is that guy doing now?” It was just an odd maneuver. Something out of the ordinary from what would have typically been an everyday experience at the drive through of a Burger King. (Hey, my kids love it and no, they don’t eat this ever day; just a treat!) I was on my way back home after spending the day with the family, unaware that within the next several minutes I’d be having a breakthrough which led to the development of many of the concepts and strategies you’re going to read about in my book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.

I watched the customer in front of me drive from the first to the third window of the drive through which happened to have been closed. “What an odd maneuver,” I thought, as I noticed that the typical handoff through the drive through window was not in play. Instead, the cashier came outside, headset in tact and bags of food in hand, to deliver it directly to the window. The customer, happy to receive his order, drove off.

As I pulled up, I wondered if I too would suffer the same fate as the customer before me. Then it happened. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a digital timer mounted above the cashier’s head near the window. At that moment, the manager at the drive in window waved me forward, without my food. “We will bring it out to you. Just pull up, please,” he requested.

The manager sent a young man out to my car and handed me my food. Wanting to understand this odd tactic, I couldn’t let it go. “I’m curious, why did we have to pull up, especially when there was no one behind me?”

“The timer,” he replied. “That’s how the manager is rated in performance. We’re supposed to serve each customer under a certain period of time.”

As a manager, is this truly a feat you’d want to be known for? This manager actually succeeded at beating the clock, yet at a greater expense and one that most managers are blind to. Then, with a puzzled look of disbelief, these managers are mystified when their staff doesn’t meet expectations of performance. This manager unknowingly or worse, consciously did his company, every customer, as well as every person on his team, a major disservice.

Is there really any wonder why there is such a shallow pool of real talent in the workforce? At some level, across every business unit, industry or profession, this is what our managers are teaching the workforce – how to skirt and dodge full accountability! And then they sit and wonder why they can’t attract better people into their organization who are fully accountable for their performance and success. Hmmmmmm.

Hoover’s Webinar: Over-Responding To Your Customers with Better Questions Creates More Selling Opportunities

Nov 6, 2008 All About Selling, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Selling Advice, sales articles, sales tips

Do you remember like it was yesterday where 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.

If you’re in the transactional selling business or are an order taker, then chances are, you don’t always have the strongest relationships with your customers. Therefore, more time must be spent fostering stronger relationships with key clients in order to insulate them for your competition. After all, tighter budgetary constraints = less spending = fewer and smaller selling opportunities = increased competition. Or does it have to be this way? What about this model.

Tighter budgetary constraints = less spending + making the needed adjustments in your selling strategy to account for this change = Capture greater market share.

This doesn’t mean calling on your key accounts just to “check in.” Just the other day, I received a voice mail from my credit card processing company. They were calling, and I quote, “Just to see how things are going.” Gee, this is certainly not the type of call that’s going to stimulate new sales or more sales.

Instead, have a better set of timely questions that will help you understand how the current economic crisis has affected the way they do business and make purchasing decisions.

Especially today, there are many salespeople who are hiding under their desk in fear not wanting to talk to their customers. This is a perfect opportunity for you to seize more market share.

The salesperson of tomorrow will continue to evolve into more than a salesperson, but a valuable resource and a trusted advisor throughout the entire selling process; and beyond.

This presents a huge opportunity to mine for additional upselling and cross selling opportunities.

Think about it for a moment. To develop the possibility for a sale, you have to uncover two critical things:

First, where the prospect or customer is now (Current State)—->
Second: Where They Want To Be (Desired State)

It’s your job to move them from their current state to their desired state through the use of better questions. If you want to know if your questions are being effective, just ask yourself this; are your questions giving you all of information you need to know about your prospect and their situation? The wrong questions will not only provide you with the wrong information but they will guide you right out of a sale and any selling opportunity that may have existed.

Below are the questions I mentioned I would blog about from the webinar series I delivered the other day for Hoover’s with Dr. Denis Waitley and Tom Hopkins.

Here are some relevant questions to explore with your current customers and prospects to uncover their priorities, how they are making purchasing decisions today and any upselling opportunities that may exist:

When prospecting, it’s going to be the following decision oriented questions that are going to move the sales process forward and motivate your prospect to want to buy from you. These types of discovery questions will enable you to develop a greater sense of urgency that will motivate them to make a buying decision.