The Ten Best Books to Read in 2010
Dec 30, 2009 Books by Keith Rosen, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, coaching for managers, training for managers
Selling Power magazine just released their list of The 10 Best Books to Read in 2010. You can find the full list of these top ten books on Selling Power’s blog here.
My book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions is listed #1. I’m deeply appreciative of this recognition. You can find the full review below. Most important, I hope this book continues to make the impact it has on managers world wide, regardless of industry or profession, providing the guidance and strategies that are desperately needed to succeed as a leader and as a coach in this new marketplace in order to end the timeless struggles that managers are faced with, get your people hyper-productive and ultimately have them perform like true champions today. (You can find more information about this book here.
Review below by Gerhard Gschwandtner, founder and publisher of Selling Power Magazine:
The 10 Best Books to Read in 2010
Charles W. Eliot once said, “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” The profession of selling is fortunate to have a multitude of counselors who are willing to share their insights with their peers. Below is Selling Power’s selection of the best books to read for sales managers and salespeople to boost sales productivity, to improve sales and to increase customer value. These ten books contain hundreds of valuable ideas that – if applied correctly – could easily increase your sales by 10% – 30% in 2010.
1. Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions: A Tactical Playbook for Managers and Executives by Keith Rosen
How many salespeople on your team are not employing their full potential? 50%, or more? What stands in the way to greater performance isn’t something they don’t have, but something they don’t get: professional coaching. The sad truth is that most sales managers don’t have the skill set that it takes to make a positive difference in their salespeople’s performance.
Most managers act as “super closers” and at the same time they complain about their salespeople’s inability to improve. Their approach to coaching is “telling and yelling.” The good news is that Executive Sales Coaching shares a proven process where sales managers and salespeople can co-create new skills in a fail-safe environment. The outcome: salespeople will create their own solutions.
This book will show you how you can:
*Help salespeople use their hidden capacities to solve their own problems
*Create a culture of accountability where salespeople strive to live up to their commitments
*Establish a climate of constructive collaboration that allows people to grow
What do I think? There are only a handful of great sales coaches. Keith Rosen is one of the top three in my mind. His book shares all the essentials you need to achieve a positive transformation of your sales team in 2010.
The downside: Once you’ve opened your eyes to the amazing possibilities of coaching salespeople, you’ll become hyper-critical of other sales managers who are stuck in the old ways of managing by “telling and yelling.”
You can read the full review and find the other top ten books on Gerhard’s blog here.
Tags: books on management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, Sales Management, training for managers
VIDEO: More Frequent Coaching Yields a Measurable R.O.I.
Dec 29, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, Videos, coaching for managers, training for managers
If you go to the gym on a frequent basis, you’ll get in better shape. A sound and fairly obvious principle. The same principle holds true with coaching the people in your company.
The measurable return you receive from investing your time coaching your people is similar to the payback you get when working out or engaging in some type of physical exercise on a consistent basis. That is, if you coach your people more frequently and consistently, your career and the career of those people on your team becomes much healthier.
Moreover, you have your finger more readily positioned on the pulse of what’s going on around you and within your organization so that you have the ability to handle what would initially be perceived as a small challenge or inconvenience before it blows up into a grand scale problem or costly catastrophe.
After all, problems are what happen when you fail to recognize the clues around you.
Below is a 45 second video I did that discusses this.
Tags: coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, management training, Sales Coaching, training for managers
VIDEO: Managers Must Make Coaching a Choice – Not an Obligation
Dec 28, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, training for managers
The coaching relationship is a choice, not an obligation. The relationship between the coach and the people who are coached is a designed alliance, a collaborative partnership, and more. As such, remedial or sanctioned coaching is often met with resistance rather than with open arms.
How is coaching being offered to your team or to your employees? A perk, an incentive, an option, an obligation, or a remedial response to underperformance? Are you offering it to your entire team, to a select few, or to just one person?
It’s the manager’s responsibility to enroll each person on their team on the benefits of coaching and being coached, rather than forcing coaching upon them. Here’s a video I did that supports this.
Tags: coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, management coach training, management training, Sales Coaching, training for managers
Igniting the Fire Within – A Coaching Tool To Enroll People To Change By Taking a Stand For Them
Dec 23, 2009 Executive Coaching, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers
Everyone can benefit from extra support and motivation. Compound this with tougher times, igniting the fire that burns within each of us is more critical than ever before, especially when there are those of us that might be struggling to keep that fire alive. For managers, it’s essential that you are able to communicate in a way that enables you to spark that fire within each person on your team.
In my last blog, I shared a video where I talked about a powerful coaching tool I refer to as the ‘Wanting for’ statement. This is a great tool for anyone, especially for the manager who’s looking to empower their people and tap into some well needed motivation. The “Wanting for” statement is an independent, self containing strategy you can use at any time during normal conversation and can be used in a variety of situations.
Once you start using the wanting for statement more consistently in your communication, you will notice how much more open people will be to hearing and digesting your message, especially the ones they may have a natural inclination to resist. They are the perfect precursor to softening a difficult message by first opening up the person’s listening; which starts with the authentic commitment you have to supporting them by articulating specifically what it is you want most for them. Wanting for statements are a powerful tool to reinforce the stand you have chosen to take for someone, while doing so in an efficient way and simultaneously challenging them to bring out their best, as well as yours.
Based on several requests since my last post, I’ve listed several different examples below where it would be appropriate to use this coaching tool, as well as some sample dialogue you can use.
1.You need to deliver a strong message to an underperforming salesperson about their need for a turnaround.
“Kelly, what I want for you is to be able to turn your performance around to where it used to be so that you can start enjoying your job the same way you did when you first started here, along with the financial rewards that follow.”
2.You need to prepare someone or your entire sales team for some imminent changes; whether they are changes in your sales procedures, product or service, HR or in their responsibilities.
“What I want for each of you is to be able to walk into the office each day feeling confident you have all the tools and resources needed to reach your goals here, both personally and professionally. And sometimes, reaching your goals requires making some changes in our approach and how we do things.”
3.You want to reinforce your stand and commitment to the success of each person on your team.
“At this point, we have all been working together for some time now. And I hope that each of you are fully aware of my commitment to your continued success here. What I want for all of you is to be able to come to work and experience a deeper sense of satisfaction in your career, feel supported by your management team and be motivated by the value you can deliver to your customers. To achieve this, I want to reinforce what I am willing to do for you…..”
4.You want to provide some well needed motivation by acknowledging and reigniting the personal power someone may have forgotten they have.
“Nicole, I know you’ve been in sales for a while now. I know this isn’t the first time you’ve felt a bit deflated when you saw your month end numbers, especially with your work ethic and all of the effort you’ve put forth. Sometimes, with all of the things we have control over, there still exists those other market conditions which we can’t control. What I want for you is to be able to manage and honor the process you’ve put in place, which has always been proven to work well for you but do so without the additional stress and pressure you seem to be piling on yourself lately. It looks like there’s an opportunity for you to shift back to being more process driven without pushing so hard for the result which, as you’ve seen, will come naturally by honoring your process. Are you open to discussing how together, we can get you back on track to achieving your goals?”
5.You would like to open up the possibility to have a conversation about coaching someone around an area they have been struggling with.
“I know you’ve mentioned that it’s talking a little longer to create new relationships and get prospects to open up to you, especially when these prospects have been working with the same vender for as long as they have been. What I want for you is to feel confident that you have the tools and the strategy you need the next time you are confronted with a prospect like this, so that you can turn these conversations into new selling opportunities. Are you ready to discuss how to do so?”
Tags: career coaching, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, life coaching, management, Sales Coaching
VIDEO: Use The Wanting For Statement To Motivate and Enroll People In Change
Dec 17, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, Videos, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers
Tags: coaching for managers, Executive Coaching, management training, Sales Coaching, training video
Live Event Next Week – How To Succeed In Today’s New Marketplace
Dec 9, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Interviews, Live Events, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Sales Training, training for managers
Join me next week for my live interview on SalesBuzz Radio.
Date: Thursday, December 17th 2009,
Time: 3:30pm EST
Cost: Free!
No registration Required
I’ll be discussing the new rules for winning in today’s rapidly evolving marketplace, focusing on what managers and salespeople need to do to win more sales today.
Some points I’ll be addressing will be:
*Eliminating the resistance to change in order to accelerate your growth
*How to become more accountable and self-motivated to generate immediate results
*Empowering yourself and others to solve problems, permanently
*The future of selling and sales management
To listen without registering, simply sign in to The SalesBuzz Online Community at 3:30PM Eastern and click the ‘Radio Show’ tab on this page.
To register, go to join us and complete the easy registration form here. (Joining is absolutely free).
To participate, call in or email the show—it’s your show, so don’t hesitate to contact us with your questions and comments. During the show, email thesalesbuzz@thebrooksgroup.com with your questions and comments and the opportunity to for me to answer your most pressing questions as it relates to sales and sales leadership. You can also email me today at info@profitbuilders.com to better ensure your question gets addressed.
To receive a free special bonus offer; tune in and watch for a follow-up email.
Tags: career coaching, coaching for managers, Executive Coaching, interview, live event, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, webinar
Connecting on Common Ground: Questions That Gracefully Correct Someone and Foster Healthy Collaboration That Create Better Solutions
Dec 2, 2009 Communication, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching
There may be times when someone holds certain perceptions or beliefs about your product, service, industry, performance or processes that may be inaccurate. Or, maybe you need to enroll people in an alternative solution, a new way of looking at a situation or a different way of thinking. When this occurs, and you’re running into resistance from the other side when trying to create buy in or you are hearing conflicting opinions which you do not agree with, you may react by telling the person they’re wrong. Or, you attempt to fill in the conversation with statistical data, evidence or proof that supports and defends your point of view in order to convince them to agree with you.
Lets face it, when someone is told they’re wrong or their belief is in conflict with the position you’ve taken, they either shut down and stop listening or come out fighting in an attempt to defend their stand. Once this happens, a confrontational atmosphere is created between you and the person you are speaking with. When you invalidate someone’s viewpoint, they become further entrenched in their case and are less willing to budge or move off of their platform.
Rather than react to their remark, demonstrate your interest in understanding what motivates their thinking and reasoning in the first place. Become interested in gaining a greater awareness around where they are coming from and seize this opportunity to validate and connect with some aspect of their feelings and thinking. Saying things like, “I appreciate how you feel” or “I understand your feelings/position on that” lets the other person know that you are sincerely trying to understand and respect their view and what they had said, rather than dismiss it. This demonstrates a willingness on your end to smooth out the playing field, continue the conversation and find a common ground and solution, without becoming argumentative and defensive.
To avoid confrontation, detach from your agenda and outcome for a moment and instead, respond to a person’s statements or comments with a question that directs the conversation toward creating a new opportunity, belief or solution. Questions allow you to correct someone gracefully or explore a new possibility without having an emotional reaction, dismissing their opinion and feelings or telling them they’re wrong.
To avoid the battles that happen in daily communication, focus on helping other people get what they want in every conversation. This is especially important if you’re running into situations like these with the people you work with. We often forget that, while we may all hold conflicting viewpoints, you are still ultimately working towards one collective goal, objective and vision within the organization. We need to continually be mindful of our shared goals and keep this in front of our line of vision. This approach enables you to do so, while acknowledging and respecting each other’s differences. You’ll also find out that you have more in common than you had originally thought.
Drive these types of conversations with well crafted, neutrally charged questions that are not loaded, manipulative, adversarial or have a hidden agenda attached to them. The byproduct will be healthier collaboration that ultimately gives you what you want with less effort. These questions will also help foster a deeper level of buy in and the mutual alignment of goals that you need in order to ensure that together, you generate worthwhile results over the long term. The following questions will enable you to create new opportunities that you would not have noticed before and uncover innovative ideas that are otherwise left unexplored.
1.What else do you feel might be possible? What else could be true?
2.Can you please share with me your thinking on that? What does that (solution, approach, problem, etc.) look like for you? What does that look like through your eyes?
3.May I share my view on that? Are you open to hearing another point of view on that?
4.Is it possible that there may be another approach/solution here? Is there a different way we can look at this?
5.Is it possible that there may be more/other facts to consider?
6.How can I best assist you around achieving what you want most?
7.When did you decide that was true?
8.That’s interesting. Can you share with me why you feel/see it that way?
9.What else is true about that? Is that the truth or is it something else?
10.I’m not too sure what you mean. Can you say more about that?
11.How do you mean when you say (better results, well trained, not qualified, not professional, unmotivated, poor service, etc.)? What does (success, persistent, organized, responsive, more responsibility, a qualified selling opportunity, overwhelmed, etc.) mean to you/look like to you?
12.I hear that you’re saying this can’t be done this way but what if it could be done? What would that mean to you?
13.What would be possible if…..?
14.What result are you looking to achieve here?
15.What is most important to you?
16.What’s the common ground that we share? What’s the common objective that you see here? What do you feel we are in agreement around?
Tags: Communication, conflict resolution, creating buy in, leadership, management, negotiation
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