Sales and Sales Management Blog

April 2, 2012

The Bittersweet Necessity of Tension and Conflict in Your Organization

Filed under: business,small business,success,team development — Paul McCord @ 2:10 pm
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“Donna, I’ve sat through three of your team’s executive meetings, one board meeting, and a couple of regional meetings.  One of your company’s biggest problems is there’s no conflict.  No one is challenging anything in the company.  Everyone gets along just fine, but it seems that everyone has taken getting along to the point that your team and your company are stagnant.  If you really want to see your team and your company grow, get some tension and conflict going.”

I believe that at first Donna, the CEO of a mid-sized financial services company was so surprised and disturbed by my statement that I thought she was going to throw me out of her office.

Then she slowly said, “Paul, I trust you so I’m assuming you have a good reason for saying something that I’d take as a pretty stupid thing to say normally.  Before I determine you’re not the consultant for us that I thought you were, explain that statement to me.”

I did–and now her company is happily engulfed in conflict.

If you want your company or sales team to grow, mature, and become strong, encourage conflict.  In fact, if you want to develop a company or sales team that dominates its market you’ll go out of your way to nurture and fan the flames of conflict whenever they arise.

Now, what comes to mind when you hear the word “conflict?”  Do you think anger?  Do you think arguments about personal territory and personal preferences?  Do you think jealousy, suspicion, and resentment?  Do you think of toes getting stepped on and egos getting smashed?

Those are certainly some things that are rightfully referred to as conflict.  And unfortunately those things arise in every business organizations—and those things have and will continue to destroy organizations.

But those aren’t the conflicts I’m talking about that are good, necessary, and helpful to your organization.

What conflict is good?  That which brings about strong, enduring, positive change to the organization and the members of the team.

Not to get religious on you, but let me begin by quoting a section of Proverbs 27: “just as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”  Iron sharpens iron through conflict and tension, through one piece of iron striking another.  And as with iron, tension and conflict can and will sharpen our organization and team members.

How does conflict bring about positive change?  Positive change comes from challenging the status quo and tradition; it comes when men and women have the courage to question how the organization is conducting its business and how it is treating its customers, employees, and vendors; and when the lower ranks within the organization challenge the decisions from on high based on the reality they encounter in the real world that is often far removed from the executive suite.

For an organization to grow and mature there must be tension and that tension must be generated by conflict—the conflict of honest men and women seeking to improve the organization as a whole.

“Seeking to improve the organization” is the rub—most conflict tends to be “me” oriented in some fashion and, thus, destructive.  Consequently many organizations try desperately to eliminate all conflict.  They have conflict resolution specialists come in and present seminars and maybe even do one-on-one counseling.  They put up posters exhorting everyone to put aside differences.  Like Rodney King, the theme is “can’t we all just get along?”

Yes, on a petty, personal level conflict and its accompanying tension is very undesirable and destructive.  But in regards to business and organizational growth there must be some constructive tension and conflict.  Unfortunately that constructive conflict can easily get discouraged in the general atmosphere of trying to eliminate personal conflict and to generate harmony with the hope that everyone will sit around toasting marshmallows and singing Kumbaya. 

Yet the reality is that if no one is questioning no change or improvement is possible.  When people question, there will be others defending the status quo and tradition, and that is when significant growth and maturity can take place.

When policies, procedures, rules, regulations, old ways of doing things, and traditional perspectives are questioned good things happen.  Sometimes those existing items are determined to be right and good; at other times they are determined to be in need of change, whether just a mild adjustment or a radical tearing down and rebuilding.

Whether or not change is needed, the very act of questioning, of arguing, or looking at alternatives is constructive and profitable for forces the organization to evaluate who it is, what it does, and how it does it. 

Frankly sometimes the tension and conflict is uncomfortable.  And on top of as unfortunate as it is, with human nature being what it is, there will be times when egos and feelings get in the way and complicate matters even more.

As regrettable as it may be that people get the ego or feeling stepped on, you cannot afford to let that possibility stop the organization from benefiting from tension and conflict.

How can destructive ego and personal feeling issues be avoided?  There really is no way to keep them out of the mix entirely.  However, there are courses, seminars, and coaches that can help teach team members how to keep the conflict on a professional level, seeking the best for the company, and keeping their personal feelings and ego out—or at least to a minimum.

There is no way around the fact that tension and conflict is bittersweet.  Few actually like conflict and the tension that naturally comes with it; but the tremendous positive results that come from good, positive, constructive conflict are worth stretching the team and getting out of the company comfort zone.

I’m not advocating that your organization become a corporate version of the Golden Gloves, but if your organization doesn’t have some tension and conflict going on, then your stagnating and soon you’ll get left behind by competitors who are willing to raise, discuss, and argue those uncomfortable questions.

 

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March 28, 2012

George Orwell’s Negative Influence on Sales Language

Filed under: business,Communication,sales,sales psychology,selling — Paul McCord @ 10:35 am
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The coincidence of timing: My friend Dan Waldschmidt published a post yesterday on why words matter.  After reading my post on how words a misused, I’d encourage you read Dan’s to see how words should be used.

What words do you use to describe yourself and your products and services?  Are there words you intentionally try to keep out the mind of your prospects or clients?  Do you use euphemisms instead of plain English when making a presentation in order to try to elicit a particular feeling or response from your prospect?

As salespeople, we’ve been taught to frame our conversations and presentations in ways that lead our prospects and clients to the conclusions and decisions we wish them to arrive at.  In order to do this, we are advised by some to refrain from using certain words that may evoke a negative reaction—or to use words that will evoke a negative reaction, depending on what we want our prospect to think or feel.

Much of this advice is based on the idea that if we control the conversation we control the prospect’s attitude, thinking, and ultimately, their decision making process.  In other words, by carefully controlling the words used in the conversation, we can control the prospect’s thought process. 

Some sales trainers even go so far as to recommend we not bring up potential negatives—don’t address a non-existent objection so as not to plant a potential objection in the prospect’s mind.  Or if an objection is raised, deflect it and return to the presentation or closing the sale.  Gloss over the objection and it will go away.    

It seems George Orwell has become the director of sales training.  Orwell’s Newspeak is now the new “sales speak.”  No longer is communicating with a prospect as a rational human sufficient; now we are exhorted to in essence treat them as nothing more than a computer, inputting only the data we want them to compute–as though if we don’t give them the words, they won’t be able to think the thoughts we don’t want them to think.

Orwell believed that words are the keys to thought.  If the words don’t exist to communicate a particular thought or concept, it isn’t possible to think the thought or concept.  Consequently, if you can control the words someone has available to them, you can control not only what they think, but eventually how they act.  Orwell later repudiated the concept.  Unfortunately, a version of this concept has become quite popular in some areas of sales training.

Like Orwell’s world of 1984, some view the world of sales as an arena where words are not simply powerful in influencing thought and behavior; they are the creators of thought and behavior.  If we don’t say it, the prospect will never think it.  If we can frame it using the words we want, the prospect will never think of their own words to describe it or question it.

Rather than trying to communicate, we are told by some that if we create the conversation we wish to have with the prospect, the prospect will unknowingly go along with us.  If only we learn the right words and phrases to use—and the words and phrases to avoid, we can direct the prospect to the ”proper” decision.  Selling in this view is simply an exercise in rhetoric.

So, we learn the right words and the right phrases; we engage the prospect by making sure we eliminate any words that might evoke thoughts, feeling, or concepts we don’t want them to have; and we ask for the order.  Instead of the automatic ‘yes’ we expected, we hear a resounding ‘no.’

What could possibly have gone wrong?  We did everything right.  We used the right words; we avoided the wrong ones.  We were careful to implant the ideas, concepts, and emotions we wanted the prospect to have.  We executed perfectly.  And they said no.  How could this possibly have happened?

Could it be that they did the unthinkable–they actually thought words and concepts that we worked diligently to keep out of their head?  Despite our best efforts to implant the right “data,”  when we pushed the “enter” button they exercised independent thought and rejected our attempt to manipulate their decision making process?

Is it possible the words we use aren’t as important as the communication and connection we make with the prospect?  Is it possible that our attempt to finesse the prospect by trying to direct their thinking through the careful manipulation of language isn’t as effective as we have been lead to believe?  Is it possible that less rhetoric and more communication would serve us better?  Could it be that more listening, more understanding, and more straight answers to prospect questions could prompt more trust in the prospect?

Maybe it is time to rethink the Newspeak of selling and learn instead to listen, to answer honestly and forthrightly, to drop the euphemisms and begin once again communicating with prospects and clients using plain English.  Maybe rather than the belief that the words we use will create the reality we want in the prospect, we should seek try to understand the prospect’s needs, wants, and issues and try to present our best solutions to those needs and wants as honestly and forthrightly as possible. 

The Orwellian experiment has been tried—and failed.  Orwell recognized the failure of the concept before he died.  Certainly, many trainers in the areas of communication and persuasion recognize the legitimate uses of rhetoric in the sales process.  Yet, there are still large numbers of trainers selling the Orwellian concept of easy sales through language manipulation and its false promise of controlling prospect thought and behavior.  There is a difference between the legitimate use of persuasive influence and the intent to deviously manipulation. 

We are selling to independent beings who exercise their capacity to think autonomously of our attempts to stage-manage their actions and decisions.  Our words can influence, they cannot create the reality we want.  Our words can help create an image, they cannot eliminate independent thought.   Our words can create conversation, dialog, and real communication, they cannot produce a pre-determined outcome.  The sooner we recognize their independence, the sooner we can get back to creating relationships built on trust, not on linguistic manipulation.

March 23, 2012

Can It Get Any Stranger?

Filed under: business,career development,marketing,Personal Marketing,sales,Sales Failure,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 11:37 am
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We humans are funny animals.  We tend to do the same things over and over, no matter what the consequences.  Although we are admonished to learn from our mistakes, more often than not we continue to make the same mistakes time after time.  Maybe not the big obvious mistakes, but the little ones that we don’t notice we keep doing and doing.

Doesn’t it seem reasonable that if we’re doing something that has a negative outcome that we’d stop doing it?  Even more fundamental, doesn’t it seem reasonable that we’d notice that what we’re doing isn’t working?

Seems reasonable. 

But strange as it seems, our lives are full of things that have negative consequences yet we continue to do them. 

Some of these negative things we may be aware of and consciously choose to do anyway with such as smoking, overeating, or taking a tad too many nips of the juice.. 

Nevertheless, there are whole hosts of actions we take that have negative consequences of which we are completely ignorant.  We’re ignorant of these negative consequence actions not because we’re blind, or stupid, or too lazy to see them.  We’re ignorant because we have never examined them to see what the consequences of those actions really are.  We do them because we’re ‘supposed’ to do them or because that’s the way we’ve always done it.  We do them out of ignorance.

Unfortunately, that same ignorance that invests other parts of our lives, worms its way into our sales careers as well.  We do the things we’ve been told are the right things to do or we do them in the way we were told was the right way to do them.  And when the outcome of those actions isn’t what it’s supposed to be, we blame ourselves or chalk it up to bad luck or bad timing.  Worse, we decide the answer is to do more of those actions believing that if we do them more often and with more conviction, the outcome will definitely be better, right?  After all, weren’t we told that those were the right actions, so then the problem must be we simply aren’t doing them long enough or hard enough, never examining them to see if the problem might be with them, not with us.

So our solution is to do more of what doesn’t work.

Can it get any stranger? 

Yet, that is how the vast majority of salespeople run their sales careers.

Cold calling not working?  Make more cold calls.  Not closing enough sales?  Push for the sale harder.  Not meeting enough prospects at the networking events you go to?  Go to more events.  The direct mail piece you sent not producing results?  Send out more. 

The answer is always more of the same.  Do more of what’s not working and it’ll work. 

What a strange business we’re in.  What other business is there whose answer to the things that aren’t producing results is to do more of it?

Do you think that if the owner of a restaurant decided he wasn’t selling enough fish the answer would be to cook more fish?  Or, if the radiology treatment a physician has prescribed isn’t working they would just prescribe a larger dose without first examining why it isn’t working?  Of course not.  The restaurateur would want to know why he wasn’t selling more fish and he would figure out how to generate more customers who order fish or he would change his menu to reflect the tastes of his customers because if he tries to continue to force fish on his customers, he’ll be out of business.  Likewise, instead of just prescribing a bigger dose of the same radiology treatment, the physician will seek to discover why the treatment isn’t working and change her prescription accordingly. 

Neither the restaurateur nor the physician is just going to say, “oh, well.  What I’m doing isn’t working so I’ll just do lots more of it.”  We’d think they were nuts if that were their answer.

Yet, that’s the answer most salespeople come up with when their sales career isn’t progressing in the direction they want.  And the strange thing is few of their associates or their manager thinks they’re crazy for simply doing more of what doesn’t work.  In fact, they are often the salesperson’s biggest cheerleaders egging them on to do exactly those things.

Can it get any stranger?    

Why would a rational person decide the answer to correcting something that isn’t working is to do more of what isn’t working? 

Although there are a number of reasons such as the advice they are getting from their sales manager, many of the sales books they read, and their associates, all assuring them that all they need to do is make more calls, push harder for the sale, send out more direct mail pieces, often the real culprit is that they have no idea what they are doing that is working and what they are doing that isn’t working.

Salespeople for the most part tend to work off gut feeling.  “I feel that my cold calling isn’t producing the desired results.”  “I feel that my closing skills are really good, I just don’t feel that I’m getting to make enough presentations.”  “I feel that I’m getting a lot of referrals, they’re just not very good.” 

Working off gut feeling is a surefire way to feel–and be–broke. 

The problem is few salespeople take the time and put in the effort to examine their sales business in detail to discover what they are doing that is really producing the results they want—and what they are doing that isn’t.  Few salespeople know exactly:

  • What activities they are investing the majority of their time in
  • The characteristics of the prospects they really connect with
  • Where their sales–not their prospects but their sales–are coming from
  • What prospecting and marketing methods are actually producing sales and not just bodies
  • What they are doing in the sales process that is working and what isn’t, furthermore, most have no real idea of what their sales process is
  • Or know exactly how many qualified prospects they talk to, how many of those prospects bought, what specific products or services they bought, why the prospects bought—or didn’t buy

In order to run a business, the business owner must have a thorough knowledge and understanding of their income statement and their balance sheet.  Those two documents tell the business owner what’s really going on in their business.  They tell them not only how well they are doing, but where to invest more time and money, they warn of potential problems, and they reveal new potential opportunities the business owner might not otherwise have seen.  The balance sheet and income statement are the history of the business and the business’s history tells the business owner what’s going to happen in the future—good and bad–unless the business owner makes changes to the business.

Salespeople need the same roadmap as any other business owner.  Salespeople are not employees—despite getting a W2.  Every salesperson is self-employed.  They run their own sales company.  For those salespeople who are W2’d, it just happens they have only one client—the company they are currently selling for.  Like any business owner, they must have a historical document that alerts them to problems–as well as opportunities.

Rather than having a balance sheet and income statement, salespeople must take the time and invest the effort to reconstruct their sales and marketing history in numerical form.  They must create a document that informs them of not what they think or feel has happened in the past, but tells them exactly what has happened.  Such a document will tell them in no uncertain terms where they have really spent their time; what they have really done in terms of prospecting and marketing; who their ideal prospect really is; what prospecting and marketing methods are really working; what their closing ratio really is; and a great deal more.  And it tells them that if they continue doing what they’re doing, exactly what will happen in the future.  On the other hand, it will also tell them exactly what changes must be made in order to change their future.

If a sales history document is so powerful, why do only a handful of salespeople have one?  Although one of the most powerful tools any salesperson—and their manager—can have, reconstructing one’s sales and marketing history is tedious, takes a good deal of effort, and for many the results are very uncomfortable. 

If you are serious about changing your sales business, you must learn to run it like a business and to take full responsibility for what you do, why you do it, and how you do it.  You can’t do that unless you know–and you can’t know by guessing or going on gut feeling.  You can’t change your career if you simply continue to do what you’re doing. 

For salespeople, finding and selling quality prospects is how they make a living.  Yet, most leave their success or failure up to chance and gut feeling.  Can it get any stranger than that?  You don’t have to be like 85% of all other salespeople who meander along with no real idea of what to do to be successful. 

Sit down and do a thorough review of your prospecting, marketing, and selling activities for a reasonable period, say a year.  Dig out your records of what you did and exactly what activity produced what business.  Figure out what produces business and why.  Likewise, figure out what you’re investing time in that isn’t producing business—and why. 

Once you know those two things you can begin to put together a solid plan to exploit those things that are producing for you and take corrective action on those things that aren’t.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll be in control of your sales business and you’ll no longer have to wonder where your business will come from—or if it will come.

follow me on Twitter at: @paul_mccord

January 18, 2012

October 24, 2011

How to Make Word of Mouth Marketing Really Work

Filed under: business,marketing,sales,selling,small business,Word of Mouth Marketing — Paul McCord @ 12:51 pm
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Last week while I was teaching a group of CPA’s in Newark how to work with their clients to generate a large number of direct introductions to high quality prospects, one participant mentioned that he would often hear from a client that they had given his name and number to another business owner but he would seldom hear from that prospect.  His question was how he could use the introduction generation process I was teaching to capture that word of mouth prospect.

Great question—and one that most sellers are faced with.

Everyone would love to have their clients out talking about them.  They encourage their clients to tell their friends and acquaintances about them; they hope and pray that people are talking about them; they try to use social media as a springboard to get even more word of mouth marketing.

Unfortunately, even though you want word of mouth marketing and do whatever you can to encourage it, it has one primary disadvantage that is hard to overcome—you have no control over whether the person your client spoke to will take the initiative to pick up the phone and give you a call.

How much business are you losing because you never hear from the people your clients mention you to?

Right, you don’t know because you have no idea how often your clients mention you.

That’s the intrinsic problem with a passive marketing method—no control means no accountability, no way of knowing how effective or ineffective it is.  If you get prospects calling because clients mentioned you, you think that word of mouth is working.  If you don’t get calls you think your clients aren’t talking about you.  The problem is that those calls you get might be just a fraction of the people who are hearing about you from your client, and those no calls might not be an indication that your clients aren’t talking about you but instead might be an indication that their message isn’t resonating with those they are speaking to.

So is there a way to turn word of mouth encouragements into real connections?

Although you’ll never be able to track and connect with every word of mouth mention your clients give you, you can significantly increase the number of connections you have with those your clients have mentioned you to by simply becoming more proactive in the way you work with your clients regarding their word of mouth mentions.

In the case of the CPA above, he mentioned that he often received emails or verbal statements from clients saying something to the effect, “Just wanted to let you know that I mentioned you to Joe Blow the other day.”  Sometimes the client will mention the name of the person they spoke to, other times they won’t.  In both cases, however, the CPA knows that a client has spoken to someone about him and recommended they give him a call.

Like most sellers in that position, the gentleman at the presentation simply hopes that he’ll get a call.  Way too often the call doesn’t come—just another wasted mention by a client.

Fortunately this CPA and everyone else who has a client or anyone else mention that they’ve spoken to someone about them can easily turn that weak word of mouth mention into a direct introduction by simply ASKING for the introduction.  It’s really as simple as asking:

Client: “Hey, Joe, just wanted to give you a head’s up that I recommended you to Nancy Drew and encouraged her to give you a call.  I hope you hear from her.”

Seller: “Bill, that’s great; I really appreciate it.  I haven’t heard from her yet but I’d love to.  Come to think of it, would you be comfortable introducing me to her?”

Couldn’t be simpler. 

What are the chances your client will introduce you to the prospect?  Very high indeed since they obviously like your work and think that you can help the prospect—and they obviously have some type of relationship with the prospect. 

Before asking for the introduction find out what the relationship is between your client and the prospect and why they suggested the prospect call you. 

All the pieces are in place for a direct introduction.  And what happens if your client says no?  You’ve lost—nothing.

But what about all those suggestions they make to prospects to give you a call that you never know about?  How can you learn of them in order to try to turn them into an introduction?

These are certainly more difficult—but not completely impossible.

First, once you let your client know that you would love for them to mention you to anyone who might be in need of your expertise and services, let them know that you’d appreciate it if they’d let you know through a call or email when they mention you to someone.  Once they do, thank them and then ask for the direct introduction.  Don’t expect everyone to let you know when they speak to someone about you—but many will and that will give you the opportunity to ask for the introduction.

Knowing that many won’t inform you when they mention you, you can also take the initiative and ask your clients if they have mentioned you to anyone.  When speaking with a client simply ask in passing if they’ve had an opportunity to mention to anyone lately.  Asking will let you uncover any unmentioned recommendations they’ve made to prospects to call you and will also remind them that you seek word of mouth recommendations.  Again, you won’t uncover a mountain of unknown mentions, but you’ll uncover some which will give you the opportunity to convert them into introductions and it will allow you to gently remind your client to mention you whenever they have a chance.

Word of Mouth Marketing is hardly a marketing format to hang your business on.  That being said, by all means encourage your clients to mention you to those they come into contact with that might be able to use your products or services.  But at the same time seek to move those word of mouth recommendations into something far more concrete—a direct introduction. 

Don’t settle for being passive.  You can turn word of mouth into far more effective introductions without being obnoxious or overly aggressive—all you have to do is ask your client for an introduction once you know they’ve recommended you.  The key is learning how to uncover the recommendation.

October 18, 2011

Why Should You Ask Yourself Why?

Filed under: business,sales,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 9:24 am
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As I was preparing to post this article I discovered an article by my friend Anthony Iannarino that deals with similar issues from an organizational standpoint.  Sometimes serendipity kicks in and you discover you’re on the same wavelength as someone else.  I encourage you to read Anthony’s take on asking why.

Why did you lose that sale?

Why did that prospect insist on such a deep discount?

Why weren’t you prepared to answer that objection even though you’ve heard it before?

Why did your best client decide to “try” your competitor for his current order?

Why can’t you get to that great prospect even though you’ve tried for almost two months?

Why is one of the most important and powerful questions we can possibly ask ourselves.  It is also one that we so often seek to avoid because the answers can make us really, really uncomfortable.

No matter our experience or success level, we never reach perfection.  All of us make mistakes; we all fail in big and little ways; we all need to improve; we all have weaknesses that cost us business.

Overcoming these issues and weaknesses isn’t pleasant for any of us. 

It’s much easier to chalk up our losses to a bad day and move on.

Certainly it’s easier to simply move on, but that’s a sure way to fail again in the future.

The most powerful question you ask is why.  That simple question is more important than any sales training you can get.  It is more important than any sales “secret” you can learn.  It is more important than any sales tips anyone can give you.

If you consistently ask “why” and then diligently dig to discover the answer, your sales will dramatically improve.  This isn’t a quick fix, but it is the single most effective change strategy you can employ.

October 13, 2011

Finish 2011 Strong While Laying the Groundwork for a Great 2012

Filed under: business,sales,selling,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 10:22 am
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Although somewhat hard to believe, we’re now at the end of another year.  With only two and a half months to go, your year is virtually over.  That doesn’t mean your production has to be over, it means that more than any other time during the year, you must have a laser focus in order to finish the year strong and lay the foundation for 2012.

Unfortunately the last quarter and the first quarter of the year are the least productive for a great many sellers. 

A great many sellers slack off during the last quarter thinking that there really isn’t much business to be had since “everyone” is consumed with the holidays and spending little time attending to business—especially when it comes to making purchasing decisions.

Likewise, the first quarter is written off by many with the excuse that people really aren’t back to concentrating on work until the middle of February—and then they’re really just beginning to look at potential purchases, meaning that the actual production won’t close until the second quarter.

While the majority is assuring themselves that their low production isn’t their fault but is simply a reflection of the reality of the calendar, there is a much smaller group of sellers who are busting sales goals.

Are those sellers who are making record sales during the “dead” time of the year just lucky?  Maybe they sandbagged business to make their last quarter look great?  Possibly they are out giving radical discounts in order generate the business most other sellers can’t seem to come up with?

The fact of the matter is that none of the above reasons are accurate as they are nothing but the excuses the majority of sellers use to justify their low sales.

The last and first quarters don’t have to be the valley of death for sales.  With just a few simple activities you can bust your sales goal in both quarters.  What you do right now will determine what your end of year and beginning of year are like—and whether you enjoy great paychecks over the next few months or go on your annual starvation diet until next April.

Take control of your sales business and income by:

  1.  Clean out your dead prospecting wood.  Refuse to waste more time on dead end prospects.  Take a critical look at your pipeline and get rid of all the prospects who aren’t worthy of your time and effort.  Yes, seeing those names on your pipeline can be comforting because they pad the numbers, buy in your heart you know they’re nothing more than wishful thinking.  Get real, get rid of them and see where you’re really at.
  2. Double down on prospecting.  Shortly most sellers will begin slacking off on prospecting figuring that no one will take their call anyway.  Don’t allow yourself to fall into that trap.  In fact, take advantage of your competition’s laziness and INCREASE your prospecting activity.  Not only will it pay off in the fourth quarter, you’ll have a breakout first quarter of 2012.
  3. Stay in touch.  Again, while your competition takes the next two to three months off, increase your activity.  Don’t allow your prospects and clients to forget you.  While your competition may send a Christmas card, you should be working.  Most of your prospects and clients will be working just as hard this quarter as they did last.  Most will still be making purchasing decisions.  While your competition writes off the quarter, you can write business. 
  4. Solve problems.  Your prospect’s problems don’t go away because Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays roll around.  Business problems don’t take holidays or vacations.  Neither should you.  Concentrate on solving prospect problems and you’ll magically find that your production problems go away too.

Turning the fourth and first quarters into high production quarters doesn’t take luck or magic, it simply takes focusing on business.  Treat the end and beginning of the year like any other quarter and your production will be just as strong as the second and third quarters. 

The reality is that production declines in the fourth and first quarters because our activity declines, not because the business isn’t there. 

Make this year and next banner years by doing what your competition won’t—continuing to prospect and solve issues.  You’ll find your bank account will really appreciate your effort.

September 26, 2011

4 Signs You’ve Lost Your Team’s Respect–And What To Do About It

Filed under: business,management,Sales Management,small business,team development — Paul McCord @ 11:03 am
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Everyday there are tens of thousands of sales leaders who are trying to manage a sales team that has lost respect for them—and many don’t even realize that they’ve lost control of their team.

Are you faced with any of these issues?

1. Team members are seldom on time and come and go as they please.  Are your sellers straggling into the office and scheduled meetings because of a lax office atmosphere—or because they simply have no respect for you and your ability to control them?

2. Your interactions with team members are usually monologues.  Are team members listening to you intently and respectfully and giving their opinion freely—or are they simply waiting for you to shut up so you’ll go away and they can go back to ignoring you?

3. Your team members try to talk over you.  Are they excited and want to get their ideas out—or do they think you have nothing worth listening to and don’t respect your opinion?

4. Your requests are ignored or assignments are completed in a half-hearted fashion.  Are they so busy with selling and taking care of their customers that they just didn’t have time to get to the assignment—or do they think the assignment was a joke not worth their time and effort, and besides, you’re not going to do anything about it anyway?

It’s easy for managers to ignore the above symptoms of disrespect.  In fact, it is far easier and a lot more comfortable to ignore them than to acknowledge them.

But if you’re in a position where you have a team that does not respect you, either you or they are short timers.  A manager—and the company they work for—cannot last long once they’ve lost the respect of their team.

But once the team’s respect has been lost, is it possible to regain it?

I’ve spoken to many management experts who have argued that once lost, respect is impossible to regain and the only solution is new management.

And for the most part I agree.  However, I have seen several situations where management redemption did occur.  In virtually every case, the manager took the following five steps:

  1. Personal acknowledgement.  The manager recognized the loss of respect and committed themselves to aggressively addressing and correcting the issue.
  2. Confessing to the team.  The manager confessed to each member of the team (either in a group meeting or during individual meetings with team members) that they had lost their commitment and had failed the team and have recommitted themselves to serving the team without reservation.
  3. Establishing new ground rules—and adhering to them.  The manager sets out a new set of rules that govern both the team’s and the manager’s actions along with the consequences for breaking those rules.  Discipline is not only needed, it must be demonstrated.  Consequently, it is necessary that the team know what is expected from them and from the manager and that both have objective rules and guidelines that all parties are aware of and can measure one another by.
  4. Encourage discussion–and dissent.  It is imperative that an open dialogue between the manager and the team members be created and it is the manager’s obligation to set the tone and get the ball rolling.  If the manager can’t break through the ice and begin a real conversation with the team, no amount of confession and fair rules will do any good.
  5. Treat team members with respect.  Very often the team begins losing respect for their manager not simply because they view the manager as weak, but because they feel that he or she isn’t treating them with respect.  A manager cannot expect respect from the team if they aren’t showing the team members respect.  Respect, more than any other aspect of relationships, is a two-way street.  Part of earning respect is showing respect and the manager must begin the process by making sure the team members know they are respected.

The above five step process isn’t an overnight fix.  In fact, regaining respect takes time—a lot of time, weeks and months worth of time.

Yes, once the team has lost respect for their manager the most expeditious solution is replacing the manger.  But that isn’t the only solution.  If you find yourself in a situation where you’ve lost your team’s respect—or if you have a manager that for whatever reason you cannot replace and they’ve lost their team’s respect, apply the steps above and you will, given time, repair the damage and once again have the team’s respect.

July 14, 2011

Is “Managing” Killing Your Team’s Sales Productivity?

Filed under: business,management,Sales Management,team development — Paul McCord @ 5:39 pm
Tags: , , ,

“Yeah, my folks may think I’m a bit of a hard-ass,” Bill said, “but they know they better get things done and done on time.  We have deadlines around here—when reports are due, how long they have before a phone or email message from a customer or from within the company has to be responded to, how long it should take to resolve customer service issues, and by all means, any special assignments I give them.  They know my expectations and what the consequences will be if they don’t meet them.”

Bill was a new client.  He’s the manager of a team of salespeople who sell into the building materials market.  His salespeople tend to be relatively inexperienced (most have less than 3 years experience) and who have fairly large territories where they addresses several different sectors of the market.  They deal with residential and commercial builders, building materials suppliers, and industrial customers. Each salesperson has lots of potential prospects spread out over a large area.

Bill tries to control their activity by demanding they adhere to very tight time guidelines.  For instance, calls or emails from customers must be returned with 2 hours—no excuses.  Calls or emails from within the company must be answered the same day—even if the call or email comes in one minute before they leave the office and isn’t critical.  Because of this, the salespeople are constantly checking their office voice mail and their email.

Customer service issues are to be addressed and resolved within 24 hours.  The only exception is an issue that arises on Saturday—it can linger until Monday.

Call reports are due every Friday by 4PM.  Monthly sales and the next month’s sales projection report are due by 4PM on the last working day of the month.

Special projects—of which they are always a couple that have been assigned—have their due dates.

Bill has a conference call sales meeting every Monday morning which all are required to attend.  Then each salesperson will have a 30 to 45 minute personal sales review session with Bill sometime on Monday or Tuesday.

If you add up all the time spent monitoring voice mail and email, doing reports, making sure all customer and internal issues are dealt with immediately, throw in the conference call and personal phone meeting with Bill, and a reasonable amount of time for travel, one wonders where there’s any time for prospecting and selling.

Certainly Bill’s team gets stuff done—they’re a highly disciplined group.  They pump out reports, are on time for meetings, know exactly when they get voice mails and emails, and stamp out customer service and internal company needs and issues quickly.  But not surprisingly, they’re not meeting their sales quota.

They’re “disciplined” to death—with all the wrong actions.

One can debate the value of the meetings and the reports.  Certainly returning customer and company emails and phone calls in a timely manner is necessary.  Addressing customer issues—and internal company issues—is also important.

But Bill—and a great many other sales leaders and companies—are focusing on the stuff that isn’t their primary reason for existence but are easy to monitor and to micromanage.

When I asked Bill why he hired salespeople his answer was an incredulous, “what do you mean why did I hire them?  To sell, of course, why do you think I hired them?”

When I asked how they were performing against quota, he told me that well over half were off quota for the year and the team as a whole was almost 15% off quota for the year.

I then asked him how his salespeople spent their time.  He told me that “they’re salespeople, they spend their time selling.”

But, of course, they weren’t spending their time selling.  They were spending their time meeting his deadlines and attending meetings, doing things that were easy for him to track and thus to keep his thumb on them.

How accurate, I asked, was the information contained in the call and sales reports?  How accurate were his salespeople’s projections?  As expected, he answered that there seemed to be a lot of wishful thinking and hope packed into all the reports.  The only items in the reports that he could take at face value were the closed sales.

I asked him if he thought the inaccurate information in the reports was wishful thinking as he said or just plain padding to try to keep him off their backs.  He wanted to know if I really wanted an answer or if it were a rhetorical question.  (The guy did have a sense of humor after all.)
We eventually got down to the root of the problem—Bill had his people spending so much time meeting his deadlines on busy work that they really didn’t have all that much time to do the hard work of selling.

Over the next few months Bill and I worked to change both how his salespeople spent their time and how he worked with them to make sure they—and he—were focusing on the right activities.

His team members weren’t too thrilled with the changes at first.  Although they didn’t like the ever present deadlines and butt chewing if they missed them, many of them enjoyed the busy work—it kept them off the phones and away from potential rejection.

It took some time to get everyone working on the same page—and get everyone working on generating business instead of doing easy busy work.
However, by the end of the first quarter of working with his team, Bill saw marked improvement in both the numbers that were coming in and the morale of his team members.  Sales were coming in the door.  People were making money.  Butts were getting chewed out less and less.  People were happy.

Reports—well, there were fewer of them and some even came straggling in a bit late.  Meetings—fewer of them also.  Special projects?  Hardly any.  None of these changes has thrown the world off its axis.

Bill is still hyper sensitive about dealing with customer service issues, and phone calls and emails must be addressed in a timely manner but no one is checking their voice mail and email every few minutes for fear they will miss something.  Salespeople now check their voice mail and email four times a day—when they come into the office in the morning, once prior to lunch, once mid-afternoon, and prior to leaving in the evening.
Are you burdening your team with so much busy work and so many demands that it prevents them from accomplishing their primary purpose?  Are you, like Bill, concentrating on things that you can control while sacrificing production and revenue?

Don’t answer too quickly—it is way too easy to fall into the trap of flooding your team members with activities you and they can easily control–and then blaming them for non-production.   Bill isn’t a horrid person or incompetent manager–he just fell into the habit of trying to control his people and did it by trying to control actions.  That’s far too easy a trap to fall into without even noticing.

What are you having your team do that is wasting their time—and draining your team’s production?

June 22, 2011

Get Rid of Your Seagulls Before They Devour You

Filed under: business,Client Relationships,small business,success — Paul McCord @ 10:34 am
Tags: , ,

My wife Debbie and I have an 18 month old grandson, Colton.  Knowing that we’ll soon be watching animated movies with him, we’ve been catching up on them every chance we get.  Not having watched them much in the last twenty years or so, I’m amazed at how many there are—and how good some of them are.

In Finding Nemo, as the action progresses toward Sydney Harbor, we witness a large group of Seagulls fighting for food.  The Seagulls know only one word which they repeat incessantly—“mine.”  Their dialog is a constant stream of “Mine, mine, mine, mine,” as they try to grab and fight for whatever food there might be.  And they’re not the least bit inhibited in how they go about getting it; nor are they concerned about how their actions might be impacting those around them.  Their only concern is for themselves and what’s in it for them.

Do they remind you of anyone?

If you said some salespeople, you’d be right, of course. 

But those aren’t the ones I’m thinking of.

Instead, I’m thinking of a group—hopefully a small group—that virtually every seller in the world knows all too well—some of their prospects, customers, and clients.

We all have them in our pipeline and in our client database.  They bleed us dry with their constant cry of “mine, mine, mine,’ with unreasonable demands and never-ending attempts to get lower and still lower prices.

This small set of prospects and clients take up far more time and energy than they are worth.  Yet most of us dutifully take care of them, even when we know it is to the determent of our other prospects and clients.

What should we be doing with this flock of self-centered Seagulls?

Get rid of them.  Turn them loose and let them suck the blood out of your competition.

There is no rule that says you can’t get rid of prospects and clients.  It’s your sales business; you can keep or get rid of anyone you like, and you must do some culling in order to maintain a healthy business.

If you have Seagulls as clients, get rid of them.  If when you prospect you come across a Seagull, eliminate them from your prospecting list

We all want and need sales, but prospects and clients who only know the word “mine” aren’t going to do anything for you except ultimately cost you business and money.  Shoo them away before they devour you.

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