Philadelphia, PA
The Ritz-Carlton
June 9, 2008

If you are a manager worried about maintaining sales momentum in a shrinking economy, you will want to check out Selling Power’s Sales Leadership Conference to be held next month in Philadelphia, which I will also be attending and hope to meet you there. I’ll be sitting on the panel discussion on How To Recruit and Build a Team of A Players.

9:15 AM HOW TO RECRUIT ‘A’ PLAYERS
Top experts share how to recruit, select and build a team of ‘A’ players

Here’s the agenda:
www.sellingpower.com/leadership/PHI2008/agenda.asp

OVERVIEW:
In today’s increasingly competitive and complex business environment, you can’t expect to succeed during tough times with a “business as usual” mindset. To excel during a downturn, your sales organization needs change and change demands leadership. That’s where you come in.

Selling Power magazine’s Sales Leadership Conference is designed to help executives like you create inspired, high performance sales organizations. America’s top sales leaders give you invaluable ideas for leading your team to new heights and dramatically increasing your sales. Join the select group of forward-looking companies who will come away from this conference armed with the knowledge and power to successfully meet the future. If you are serious about staying competitive during an economic downturn, this fact-filled conference is for you!

Here’s what you can expect:

Act Now and Receive an Early Registration Discount!

This is a rare opportunity for you to receive the critical intel directly from America’s leading sales authorities. For more information or to request your invitation click here: www.sellingpower.com/leadership/phi2008/

Here’s the list of speakers: www.sellingpower.com/leadership/PHI2008/speakers.asp

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KR: How can a sales manager leverage the power of persuasion to increase the motivation and performance of her sales people?

DRK: That’s a big question, big enough to write a book, so I did, two books in fact. That’s a key point of my Insider’s Guide and Playbook To The Art of Persuasion! But here’s the quick answer. Persuasion is the deliberate attempt to influence another person’s attitude in order to change their behavior. Once you’ve paid some attention, listened well and learned about what motivates your people, using the Kirschner Motivational Model or McClelland’s Model or Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs Model, or any other motivation model that appeals to you, it is important that you use what you’ve learned to speak to the motivations of your people in a way that moves them, engages them and connects them to a desirable future while offering them protection from an undesirable one.

This has to do with what you say, and also how you say it. The fact is that most people are listening emotionally most the time, and logically only rarely. So, no matter how logical you are in what you propose they do, you have to send signals that help your people feel that they should let themselves be influenced by you. Otherwise, you may be wasting both their time and yours.

There are known ways to package what you say for maximum impact. I call these packaging tools ‘signals,’ ‘guides’ and ‘themes.’ Signals speak to how you address the emotions. Guides make it easier for others to understand the logic of what you say. Themes are a way of structuring what you say to help you stay on track while saying it.

The more you use this kind of approach, the more successful you will be in getting a sustainable result.

KR: Teamwork is an important part of any successful sales organization. How can sales coaches increase commitment and elevate the motivation among their sales people?

DRK: Almost nobody goes to work wanting to do a bad job. Most people want to do well, and want what they do to matter. So it seems to me that teamwork happens when leadership happens, and leadership begins with you knowing the answers to three very important questions. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Why does it matter? Once you have the answers to these questions firmly fixed in your mind, you can help your sales people to find their own answers to these questions and then keep those answers in front of them as a reminder of meaning and purpose.

Of course, it’s one thing to have a lofty vision, and something else entirely when it comes to the rubber meeting the road. So to keep your people connected and focused, you simply must treat them with respect, keep them informed along the way, and give recognition whenever it’s due, and not just in the large things but in the small things as well. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for speaking up. Thanks for standing up. Thanks for keeping your promise. Thanks for following through. My mom used to tell me that there is always something to appreciate, you just have to appreciate the value of appreciation to find it.

KR: What are the most successful tactics used by sales managers/coaches when they are faced with bad behavior within a sales team that can negatively impact the entire team’s results?

DRK: Most of us can agree that what’s bad about bad behavior is the bad effect it has on morale, teamwork and getting results. There’s no getting around the fact that pushy, negative, disruptive and unreliable behavior is costly because it has real world consequences.

But I think it’s important to keep in mind that behavior is purposeful, people do what they do for what they consider a good reason, and labeling a particular behavior as good or bad may do little to influence whether you get more or less of it. More important, I think, is to understand what’s behind it for them. Then, using your understanding of their good intent as a reference point, you can help your people understand that the consequences of their behavior are self defeating to their good intentions. Done persuasively, and they’ll be grateful for the insight and opportunity to learn. And you, as a result, will get better results from your people.

So what specifically do you do when there’s a problem with someone’s behavior? First, observe it. Notice what is happening, when it happens, where it happens and how it happens. Then get together with the person or people involved, and learn everything you can about it from them. Set the stage by telling them what you’ve observed, where and when you observed it, and then ask them, “When this happens, what’s going on for you? What is your intention?” Next, tell them the self defeating part. “When you do that, here’s the reaction it gets. Is that what you intended?” And the answer is almost always going to be “No, it’s not!” That’s your learning moment, right there. “What do you think might work better?” Either give your people a chance to come up with a new choice, or, if they’re drawing a blank, either brainstorm with them, or tell them what you know could work better. In any case, you’ll have set the table for learning. A little reinforcement, and it becomes their skill for life.

To read more of Dr. Rick Kirschner’s suggestions for improving your ability to use persuasion to create positive change in your life, relationships, and work, visit Dr. K’s Blog here: www.drkblog.com.

We believe that a big part of producing sales results consists of supporting, coaching, and managing your people. Developing and strengthening coaching skills becomes essential to leveraging your competitive edge or you’re bound to get left behind.

Today our guest is Dr. Rick Kirschner, respected educator, popular speaker, executive coach, and best selling author of the ‘Insider’s Guide to The Art of Persuasion: Use Your Influence to Change Your World.” Dr. Kirschner offers some valuable insights for sales managers working to improve their skills as sales coaches.

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KR: Rick, in your work with managers, what do you find to be the most common obstacle to building and projecting their authority and leading their sales teams?

DRK: Right off the top, I can think of a couple of obstacles. The most common one is the idea that management and coaching are about talking, that somehow talking takes priority over listening to understand. And I understand how this happens. In fast paced environments, it’s a natural tendency to put the pedal to the metal, to try harder, move faster, do more. The problem is that they wind up talking at their people instead of with them and to them. And the obstacle this lack of understanding creates is that without knowing what motivates your people, you can’t engage them where it counts.

When you understand what motivates your people, and it’s different for different people, you can speak with authority that is recognized as authority, because it is relevant and conveys experience and knowledge.

Then there’s the confidence problem. When managers come off as tentative, hesitant or uncertain, it tends to evoke these responses in their teams. This problem is the side effect of at least two missing pieces: first, not knowing your own motivation, and second, not being prepared to speak when you need to speak. The fact is, people want to be led, not managed, and they need to get that sense of authority from you, because it gives them confidence to do what needs to be done. They believe it when you believe it.

Now, it’s a legitimate question, confidence in what? After all, in these changing times, nobody really knows what’s coming next. And some degree of introspection is prudent for anyone wanting to thrive instead of merely survive. But you can have confidence in your motivations. You can have confidence in what you do know. And you can have confidence that under the right conditions, people will want to give you their best, to do their best.

KR: What are the key listening and communication skills that sales managers can improve upon as they work to develop and strengthen their coaching skills?

DRK: Essentially, there are two skills that are fundamental to success in coaching. The first is blending, the second is asking questions. Blending is the foundation of all successful relationships. It happens whenever you reduce the differences between yourself and another person. It happens whenever you send signals of similarity and commonality. And a failure to blend is the cause of most conflict, nobody cooperates with anyone who seems to be against them. If perception is everything in relationships, then sending blending signals is how you create the perception of partnering with your people in a process or project.

As for questions, I believe it was the stoic philosopher, Epicetus, who said “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Maybe this is the apt metaphor for the way we’re built, but I’ve observed that too many people just don’t get it. Although they certainly think they do. Ask just about anyone if they’re a good listener, and they’ll tell you yes. But most people do a meager job of it at best, instead drawing conclusions and then making statements instead of engaging people by asking questions.

Maybe the people who don’t ask very many questions are afraid of looking stupid. Maybe they think it makes them seem weak. Or maybe they think they’re supposed to have all the answers. Maybe it’s just a function of the fact that we can think faster, at 500 words a minute, than most people talk, which is about 130 words a minute. So it’s pretty easy to get ahead of what we’re hearing, or for our minds to wander to what we want to say when its our turn to talk. But a great coach understands the limits of his or her knowledge about another person, and explores that boundary to build the connection, rather than building the boundary and weakening the relationship. The key is curiosity. The less you think you know, the more you find out. The more value you place on what you can learn by listening, the less distracted you’ll be with your own thoughts.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that ‘there is no such thing as a stupid question.’ That’s a great guide when it comes to everyone other than you! You can’t afford to ask dumb questions if you want to bring out the best in your people. When someone asks me a question, no matter how trite, simplistic or off the point, I welcome it and find the opportunity in it. But when it’s me asking, I think that there are dumb questions. They’re dumb if they fail to take into account things people have said. They’re dumb if they’re closed ended instead of open ended, unless I intend to bring something to a close. I want my questions to serve an intelligent purpose. I want to get to the deep structure of a person’s motivations and positions. I want to learn about their goals and aspirations, their desires and fears. Asking questions is a great way of leading people to their own resourcefulness. And I want my questions to inform, just as their answers will inform me. As a coach, the more you know, the more likely it is that you will know exactly what you need to know in order to elicit comfort confidence and credibility.

And it sets a great example for sales people, too. Because the best sales people talk about their customers’ and clients’ business rather than talking about the sales person’s business, and that’s only possible when they’ve been asking good questions.

To read more of Dr. Rick Kirschner’s suggestions for improving your ability to use persuasion to create positive change in your life, relationships, and work, visit Dr. K’s Blog here: www.drkblog.com.

The Top Ten Signs That Tell You It’s Time To Quit Your Job

I remember years ago when researching people’s sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in the workforce, the statistic at that time was that about 80% of the people in the work force were not happy at their job. Today, that percentage is even higher. And in my line of work, it doesn’t come as a shock to me, especially with the way I see people making career decisions and the tyrannical managers who they are unfortunate enough to have manage them. The bigger question is; “When do you know it’s time to quit your job?” Here are ten signs that would suggest that you need to move on and re-examine your career path.

1. You’ve noticed signs of selective amnesia. Your boss falls short of fulfilling promises and commitments made to you.

2. You leave the office three inches shorter than you arrived - each day. The constant belittling and negative, fear based motivational strategies can really affect you more than you think.

3. You are finding it more and more challenging to fit under that microscope in order to get your daily dose of intense scrutinizing.

4. You start bringing an oxygen tank to work just in case your boss decides to suck the life out of you that afternoon.

5. You notice more and more that it’s affecting your home life and personal relationships. Don’t yell at the kids and it’s not the dog’s fault.

6. You don’t like what you do during the hours you work. Thoughts of getting poked in the eye with a hot coal are sounding more and more enjoyable and stimulating than the daily tasks, responsibilities and activities you currently engage in. Your job is simply not exciting, rewarding (financially as well as mentally/personally), challenging or making the difference you want to make for yourself and for others.

7. It’s a culture of survival - immunity challenges daily.

8. Your manager’s definition of motivation and support; “I’ll save your !$%&# this time, but don’t screw this up again. Now, go get to work and get some sales. You’ve got to be tired of being the lowest producer on the team. And you’re welcome for my help.”

9. You look forward to sick days.

10. And finally, you’re miserable, overworked, underpaid, stressed out and, it’s painfully clear to you that you hate your BOSS!

1. WRITE your JOB Description: Not the one they handed you in the hr package. The one YOU want to design the way you envision what your ideal job would look like, including the specific activities you’d be engaging in daily.

2. Set your BOUNDARIES! (They probably don’t have any set or have no clue what a boundary even is.)

3. STOP TOLERATING: Establish what you are willing to tolerate and what you are no longer willing to put up with. That includes how people treat you, as well as how they speak to you. Tolerating is ultimately a CHOICE.

4. Check Your INTEGRITY. Ever feel something is just ‘off?’ Could manifest as feeling, a sense, in your gut, your instincts. That’s the feeling you get when you’re out of your integrity. That is, what you do to keep yourself whole and complete and in balance with your world and in check otherwise = > imbalance in all areas of life.

5. LIVE Your Standards: What are the rules and guidelines you live by? How are you being in thought, communication, activities and behavior when you’re fully self-expressed? Your standards are the fabric of your integrity.

6. Manage the FEAR: Either you’re running away from what you don’t want or being pulled by the goal and vision of what you want to create most for your self in your career and your life. The fact is, your fears aren’t real but your making important life decisions as if they were.

7. COACH UP! Learn how to coach your supervisor or boss. Speak with you boss about how you want to be managed, re-train people how they can respond to you in a healthier non toxic way.

8.Get Your NEEDS MET: Here’s a paradox: The very place that the majority of the people on the planet go to get their personal needs met is at the office. Ironically, you can’t get your PERSONAL needs met at work but how many people do you know who define themselves by their career? Time for a MindShift and my favorite four words. It’s Only a Job. If you know someone who thrives and needs to be acknowledged in order to function at their best, it’s time to go deeper and get that need met-permanently so you can transition to being driven by your values, instead of your needs.

1. WRITE your JOB Description: Not the one they handed you in the hr package. The one YOU want to design the way you envision what your ideal job would look like, including the specific activities you’d be engaging in daily.

2. Set your BOUNDARIES! (They probably don’t have any set or have no clue what a boundary even is.)

3. STOP TOLERATING: Establish what you are willing to tolerate and what you are no longer willing to put up with. That includes how people treat you, as well as how they speak to you. Tolerating is ultimately a CHOICE.

4. Check Your INTEGRITY. Ever feel something is just ‘off?’ Could manifest as feeling, a sense, in your gut, your instincts. That’s the feeling you get when you’re out of your integrity. That is, what you do to keep yourself whole and complete and in balance with your world and in check otherwise = > imbalance in all areas of life.

5. LIVE Your Standards: What are the rules and guidelines you live by? How are you being in thought, communication, activities and behavior when you’re fully self-expressed? Your standards are the fabric of your integrity.

6. Manage the FEAR: Either you’re running away from what you don’t want or being pulled by the goal and vision of what you want to create most for your self in your career and your life. The fact is, your fears aren’t real but your making important life decisions as if they were.

7. COACH UP! Learn how to coach your supervisor or boss. Speak with you boss about how you want to be managed, re-train people how they can respond to you in a healthier non toxic way.

8.Get Your NEEDS MET: Here’s a paradox: The very place that the majority of the people on the planet go to get their personal needs met is at the office. Ironically, you can’t get your PERSONAL needs met at work but how many people do you know who define themselves by their career? Time for a MindShift and my favorite four words. It’s Only a Job. If you know someone who thrives and needs to be acknowledged in order to function at their best, it’s time to go deeper and get that need met-permanently so you can transition to being driven by your values, instead of your needs.

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Here are some suggested questions you can use during your one to one meetings in order to tap into a person’s internal drive, while uncovering exactly how you can best coach and manage them.

1. What do you want to be doing that you aren’t currently doing?
2. What areas do you want to strengthen, improve or develop?
3. What is most important to you in your life/career? (What does a successful career/life look like?)
4. What are the three most important things you would like to accomplish right now?
5. What is your action plan to achieve those goals?
6. What do you need that’s preventing you from reaching those goals?
7. How can I best support you to achieve these goals? (Uncover how each employee wants to be managed and supported.)
8. How can I best manage you and hold you accountable for the results you are looking to achieve?
9. How can I hold you accountable in a way that will sound supportive and won’t come across as negative or micro-managing?
10. 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?

Questions will assist your employees in uncovering what internally motivates them based on their beliefs and values, so they can access their own energy to achieve it. You are also uncovering the style of management they respond to best. Moreover, you are setting up the expectations on both sides as to what to expect from one another. It certainly beats using your energy to push or stimulate interest or action based on your assumptions or beliefs based on what may work for you.

If you rely on pushing to get someone into action, they won’t move unless you’re there to push. It’s more effective to help them articulate what they want so they can begin to self-motivate.

The real benefit of getting this is that empowering people by tapping into their internal drive doesn’t drain your energy. Pushing for results is exhausting.

Get more coaching tips from Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.

Communicate from Abundance Rather Than From Scarcity

What do people want most in their career? Statistics show that people want the positive reinforcement and acknowledgement that lets them know they are doing a good job.

The number one issue people have in the workforce today is, “Will I be valued and will I have a job in the future?” You want the people who are working for you to want to be there. Otherwise, what do you think they are going to spend their time doing?

Yet what do managers do to acknowledge their people’s value and appease their concerns? Instead, managers focus more on the problems coming at them rather than on their team’s achievements or solutions to drive continued, sustainable growth; continually putting out fires and jumping from one problem to the next.

The byproduct of acknowledgement is you build morale which breeds the type of culture that you are looking to create. Ask yourself, do you get acknowledged for something on a daily basis? Chances are, if you have not been the recipient of consistent, positive and authentic praise, then you may be conditioned that acknowledgment is not all that critical or effective. After all, we’ve learned from our predecessors. Just ask yourself, how often do you authentically acknowledge people on a daily basis?

Why don’t we praise our employees enough? Why are we so stingy with our acknowledgement? What are we afraid might happen? Do we feel that we only have a limited supply of acknowledgment and we don’t want to use it up?

Oh I can see it now. Here’s the visual, You are in your office one day and one of your salespeople comes over to you and says, “I just want you to know that I’ve noticed you are taking more time and interest in my work and with the positive reinforcement I’m getting around my behavior that’s generating some worthwhile results, I’m getting the sense that you are appreciating what I’m doing here more and more. Well, I just want you to know that you are making me feel just too good about myself and the company so, this has just got to stop!”

While this is an obvious exaggeration, the real truth is, we don’t acknowledge others more often because we either don’t know how to and are a bit reluctant to do so, are afraid if we acknowledge people too much they’ll start to slack off, simply don’t think it’s really all that important or we are afraid that it won’t come across as genuine.

They key to using positive reinforcement and acknowledgment as a powerful, motivating tool is to use it authentically, measurably and unconditionally, rather than issuing generic blanket and hollow statements of praise that sound like, “Good work!” Instead, recognize when something specific has occurred. Notice what the person did or how they have grown and praise them for who they are and who they are becoming.

General recognition such as, “I love the work you’re doing” or “You did a great job,” is not enough. It can actually backfire to work against you if the person you’re delivering the acknowledgement to feels it’s either inauthentic, conditional, a manipulative strategy or believes you have your own agenda attached to it. That’s why when you give genuine, honest acknowledgement; make sure it’s specific and measurable.

Be as specific and as measurable as you can be with your praise. Reinforce a behavior, activity, change, mindset or technique that you noticed which made a profound impact on their success and the results they’ve achieved. By acknowledging a specific behavior, the person knows what to reinforce and do the next time they tackle that task. In essence, you are reinforcing best practices while they’re doing it.

Here are three examples:

“You really demonstrated your ability to effectively follow up with Mary Johnson, the last sale you made. Your persistence, the way you specifically approached the conversation with Mrs. Johnson and the steps you took when honoring your selling system turned that volatile prospect into a happy customer. This is certainly an accomplishment to feel proud of.”

“I really appreciate you honoring this deadline and turning this proposal around for me so quickly, even with all of the other priorities that are on your plate. Your work through this process is a testament to your commitment to doing what it really takes to effectively manage an overwhelming workload.”

“I knew you could do an exceptional job on managing that new project and getting the team involved in completing it-and you proved me right! There were many opportunities to lose your cool or dump this project on to someone else but you maintained a positive attitude and a steadfast work ethic. I just want you to know I truly admire that in you and your commitment to see this through to completion.”

If your appreciation of a person’s efforts is truly authentic and sincere, you have the power to make an employee’s day. Besides, how else do your employees know if they are doing a great job? When they don’t hear about problems?” I have yet to hear about someone who left an organization because they were appreciated too much.

Since your people know the behavior to reinforce, your recognition will further sharpen their ability to self-generate results and solutions on their own rather than continually run to you.

Get more coaching tips from Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions.

Barrier Eight: Full Accountability
If you want to become powerful, hire a powerful coach. It’s a simple, yet highly effective strategy. If you want your salespeople to be powerful, you need to be a good role model for them. As you evolve, so does your team. Consider this truth: Your team is a reflection of you. If you’re not prepared to be 100 percent accountable for the success and failure of your team, if you skirt accountability in any way, if you lack professionalism or proficiencies in certain areas, your team will reflect these weaknesses. If you choose to evolve, so will your salespeople. If you want a world-class sales team, you have to become a world-class executive sales coach.

Barrier Nine: Competitive Managers
The most effective leaders develop other leaders. They encourage their people to perform as well as they do—even better. That is the sign of a true master and the real testament of a great manager. But what if the manager perceives his coworkers and subordinates as a threat? What if the manager is driven strictly by ego, the need to prove himself and his worth? What if this manager thinks he has survived only by keeping a competitive distance from his peers and salespeople? I’ve known managers who don’t share their tools and best practices with their salespeople for fear their salespeople will outdo them. These are likely to be inferior managers who will seek to selfishly leverage the coaching relationship in a way to better themselves and their position rather than for the betterment of their sales team.

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