Global Authority on Sales Management Training, Training for Managers, Sales Management Coach Training, Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, time management

Sometimes, You Have To Tell Your Boss What You Really Need. How to Coach Up to Create New and Better Possibilities. Part One

Oct 21, 2010 accountability, Career Advice, coaching salespeople, Communication, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management 6 Comments

Coach UP!

It’s the Message That Matters

During my trip to Moscow, while delivering my management coach training program, a manager, frustrated by the fact that she wasn’t getting the recognition and support she needed, asked, “Is it acceptable to tell your boss what you really want from them? I mean, shouldn’t they already know what I need and if they don’t know, shouldn’t they be the one to find out?”

While the quality of every relationship between a manager and direct report, as well as the success and failure of every individual on a team ultimately rests on the manager, unfortunately, there are still some managers who have yet to get the memo on this. Some are still in the process of learning how to become a better coach and yet other managers simply do not have a clue regarding how important a responsibility this is, how much power they actually possess to measurably impact their team’s success and how much of an influence they have over their direct reports and on their career.

In order to foster a stronger environment of trust, loyalty, accountability, collaboration and openness amongst your team, the answer to the question posed by this manager is “Yes,” it is up to the manager to sit each direct report down, one to one, in order to ensure they have a keen understanding around exactly what each of their people need so they can foster this type desired environment. The manager must uncover how to coach to each person’s individuality and support them based on what their unique needs, goals, skills, concerns and objectives are.

As you can see, given the location in which I delivered this particular training event, this is not an isolated issue but a global one that affects employees in every position in practically every organization and in every country worldwide.
To further support this, after delivering my management coach training program hundreds of times in practically every corner of the world, I continue to here the same question at some point during every training I deliver. That is, “Will my manager be going through this same training as well?”

Regardless of where your manager is on their own path of development, if your manager has not yet come to you to establish these boundaries and expectations around your relationship, especially as it relates to coaching, then it is only in your best interest to be the one to take the initiative, step up and initiate this conversation.

The good news is, you can coach up! That is, rather than leaving it up to chance, or waiting around until your manager gets a clue that they’re the person who needs to begin this discussion, and hopefully do so in an effective way, you can enroll your manager on establishing these new boundaries and expectations of how you like to be coached, managed, communicated to and supported. How effective you are in doing so rests in your ability to craft your message in a way that creates a new possibility rather than a confrontation.

That is, how can you approach your manager in a way that would open them up to the point that they would want to listen to you?

Tomorrow, we’ll begin answering this question and continue this discussion on this timely and relevant topic. More specifically, what you can do to overcome the reluctance to coaching your boss.

Shattering The Myth of Managing The Self Employed Salesperson. They Can Develop an “Employee” Mentality That Builds Accountability

Oct 19, 2010 accountability, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, How to Manage Your Team, management tips, Sales Management, training for managers 1 Comment

It’s not a shock that one of my deepest passions is writing and sharing my work in a way that delivers value to people, wherever they are located throughout the world. What continues to drive me to write are the emails I get from readers, thanking me and asking for assistance around incorporating what they have read, overcoming a barrier they have encountered or what they can do to embed certain changes within their organization.

I embrace and enjoy any opportunity to assist every reader. That said, here’s a timely inquiry I received from a manager and my response to this person’s issue regarding how to manage a team of self employed salespeople, which I’m sure is relevant for many managers and the reason I’m sharing it here today. As you read through this, I hope this also serves as a good reminder that, whether you’re a salesperson, manager, employee or business owner, you are not alone and there is always an opportunity to better your situation.

Hello Mr. Rosen,
I am currently reading your book “Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions” cover to cover for the 2nd time in the past few months. I have also re-read specific chapters on multiple occasions. I am a Regional Field Sales Manager for a National Company. Our teams that we also remotely manage are made up of Independent Sales Representatives and as they are self employed, we have to be always aware of the IRS 1099 requirements. A few months ago our boss read your book and became very enthralled by it. Now, we have begun “Coaching” our Sales Reps. Somewhat of a challenge because of the 1099 situation but we are getting through it. What are your thoughts about coaching people who are self employed? Your suggestions and/or comments will be greatly appreciated.

Below, you will find my response to this inquiry.

A Self-Employed Team Still Needs To Abide By A Code of Conduct: While there are legal/compliance issues to be mindful of when managing a team of self employed/independent contractors, be careful about making the assumption that, because they don’t ‘work for you’ you can’t hold them accountable. Think of it this way. There are still guidelines and expectations you have of behavior, skill and performance. These can still be shared with your team of self-employed individuals. It all comes down to how you position this to them. Rather than lay down a set of commandments, a quota and rules they must adhere to as if they were an employee, which is the challenging part of managing a team of self employed people, position it as more of a choice they can make if they truly want to be a successful producer within your company. In essence, enroll them in developing an ‘employee’ mentality.

After all, when you were going through that recruiting process to find the right people for your team, at one point, you shared with them what the job entails, their responsibilities and what your expectations were, regardless of whether they were self employed or not. At the end of the day, they are either meeting the expectations you have of them or they are not. Moreover, you can still coach them, support them and enroll them in making the certain changes they need to make in order for them to achieve their expected degree of success. So, it’s less about not being able to “fire” them or hold them accountable to a certain guidelines because you don’t have the legal authority to make them follow your rules and more about sharing with them a message of what you find your top producers are doing and the choices they have made when taking the position. Here is an example of what that enrollment conversation could sound like. Keep in mind, it’s solely an example so feel free to refine in order to make it fit best for you.

“First, we’re excited about the possibility of working with you and having you join our team. We want every person who comes aboard and works with us to be able to achieve their personal goals. In order to assist you in doing so, we have identified some benchmarks, best practices and characteristics that our top performers engage in and possess. We are keenly aware this is a self employed position and that many people take this position because of the freedom and flexibility it offers. That being said, we still want to ensure we are able to offer you all of the support and resources you need in order to become successful here. Here are some of the benchmarks we have identified that, if embraced, enables people in this position to achieve their personal goals (list criteria, i.e. suggested coaching, meetings, reports, daily activity, skills to develop, processes to follow, mindset, etc.).

As you can see, this is not only limited to the person’s activity and effort but a great deal of their success depends upon how closely they follow our proven system, how coachable they are and how open they are to ongoing training and development. Those that have the ‘leave me alone and just let me do my job the way I want to’ mentality seem to be the ones who struggle most and wind up not working out. Then it becomes a waste of time and energy for everyone, which is what we do our best to avoid. Instead, we have found that the type of relationship we want to develop with our team is one of mutual support, trust and accountability, in the sense that we are both committed to the same goal. That is, making you a success here. While you certainly have more autonomy being self employed, those who choose to come aboard have chosen on their own to work within these suggested parameters, knowing that ultimately, it is what will enable them to meet their personal goals.

How well do you feel you would fit within this type of environment? (Why?)

If you feel this type of environment doesn’t work for you or if you’re looking for much greater autonomy that goes beyond what our current team is choosing to do, then maybe this position isn’t the best fit for you.”

Whether someone works for you as an employee or is self employed/an independent contractor, no manager can afford the time consuming and costly mistake of having someone on their team who doesn’t have the ‘employee’ mentality, doesn’t want to change for the best or be challenged to become better, isn’t a good fit and keeping someone around who wasn’t a good hire to begin with.

Are Your Emails Getting Deleted By Your Prospects and Customers? Five Things You Can Do to Increase the Success of Your Email Campaigns. Prospecting Email Strategies – Part Two

Oct 7, 2010 Business Tools, cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, customer service, Marketing, Sales Coaching, sales tools, Sales Training, Technology and Software 1 Comment

Developing an email template compelling enough to elicit a response from a prospect is hard enough. Unfortunately, this is only part of the challenge. What compounds this challenge are spam filters, firewalls and a slew of other devices that channel our innocent solicitation into the prospect’s spam folder or worse, the trash; never to find its way to the inbox of our targeted prospect.

In my last blog post, I shared some very practical and specific strategies you can use to increase the success of your emails and the odds that your email will actually be opened by your prospects by making sure you’re leading with the most effective subject line in your emails. Some of these strategies are straight out of my cold calling book. Below you’ll find five additional things you can do, and what not to do, to increase the success of your email campaigns and avoid them being deleted in the first place.

1: Don’t Send Attachments in Your First Email. One cardinal email sin when emailing to new prospects is to send out your first unsolicited email with an attachment. Whether you are sending out collateral materials or other attached information, never, ever do this. It has spam written all over it and in many cases, it will be blocked by a firewall or wind up in the recipient’s spam box. For those of you who are compelled to want to disseminate so much information, this may challenge your current way of doing things. However, that’s the point. The less information you provide, the more they will need to contact you to get the additional information. And that is the objective; for them to contact you.

You’ll have time to send them your precious collateral materials, after you’ve made first contact and most important, have determined what materials they are interested in seeing and what information is a priority for them (not you) which would then move your sales process forward.

2: Hyperlinks. I know how difficult it can be to avoid placing links in emails. However, the more links you include, the greater the odds that your email will not make its way into the prospect’s inbox due to the virtual gatekeepers of email: firewalls and spam filters. If you’re going to include a link, try to limit it to one at the most. Multiple links in your email are what your spam filters are trained to sniff out and more links will increase the chance that your email will be flagged as spam.

3: Email Etiquette – Bulk Emailing and Blind Copy. If you’re sending out emails in bulk from your CRM to multiple prospects at once, this can also cause a problem. Bulk email has been known to be more readily labeled as spam or junk mail rather than sending out individual emails to each recipient. However, if you’re still compelled to do so because of the number of emails you need to send out, please, blind copy (BCC). If you are using a list management company that enables you to create newsletters or emails and sends out the email campaigns for you, or a program where only the recipients’ email shows up in the “To” line and not the entire database you’re emailing to, this isn’t as much of an issue, as the blind copy is often automatic.

But keep in mind, you have other issues to contend with, such as whether or not the solution provider you’re using to send out your emails is actually blacklisted and the company or prospect you’re sending the email to does not accept emails from that provider/IP address. Yes, something else that prevents your emails from getting through. You can check to see if the solution provider or list management company is, in fact, blacklisted via some online resources, such as spamcop.net (a Cisco service).

In certain CRM solutions such as Outlook, where have to manually put the recipients in your “To” line yourself when sending an email, consider another roadblock that your email may encounter. While you still may experience the issues I mentioned when bulk emailing through a list management company, you need to consciously use the blind copy field in your email application so that all the recipients don’t see who your email is going to. This is a matter of sound email etiquette and common courtesy which I find even to this day, is not very common when it comes to emailing multiple recipients, especially prospects who don’t know you and who you don’t even know.

Now, if you know the person who you are sending the email to, unless you’ve established the expectations, boundaries and parameters where it’s acceptable and important that everyone sees who is on that email string, that is a different situation altogether. For example, internal company communications, communicating back and forth with clients and those who need to be involved in the conversation, even communicating with friends and family, general email copying that exposes all of the recipients to each other is fine. However, when it comes to a cold email campaign or an email where it’s a general announcement that you are sending to a group of people who you may even know but they may not know all the recipients included, no one is contacting you and saying, “Hey! Thanks for sharing my email with the world and to a group of people I may not even know! I really hope it helps generate more spam for me!” Okay, this is just one of my biggest pet peeves.

4: Words Spam Filters Love. Be mindful of certain words that will easily be flagged as spam. You can have the greatest email message ever crafted but it won’t even reach the eyes of your prospect if it winds up in their spam folder. Unfortunately, when this happens, in many cases, salespeople feel their email didn’t work, when in fact, it was never opened up in the first place. To counteract this, there are several technology solutions to this that could help, which confirms receipt of your emails, starting with the most basic solution in Outlook, which is requesting a delivery/read receipt.

In an effort to try and reduce the number of self imposed limitations that can restrict our most valiant of email attempts, watch out for the following words that can easily be tagged as spam and as such, send your email into the endless void of cyberspace. Here are some words to avoid:

Words to Avoid That Can Be Flagged as Spam

• Marketing
• Market
• Free
• Bonus
• Plan
• Click
• Click here
• Advertising
• Ads
• Sales
• Selling
• Shop
• Shopping
• Package
• Save
• Save money
• Savings
• Insurance
• Discount

5: Take Your Email For A Test Drive. Here’s a final tip from your coach. If you’re not sure whether your email will safely arrive in your prospect’s inbox, then send a few test emails to either yourself, someone you know or to another computer. As long as you have your virus software and security updated and running on your computer, if it clears this test, you’ve at least increased the chance of your emails getting through to your prospects.

Your Prospects Aren’t Responding To Your Emails? Maybe It’s Your Subject Line. Prospecting Email Strategies To Increase The Success of Your Email Campaigns– Part One

Oct 1, 2010 cold calling, Cold Calling Tips, Marketing, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tools, Technology and Software 2 Comments

Developing an email template compelling enough to elicit a response from a prospect is hard enough. Unfortunately, this is only part of the challenge. What compounds this challenge are spam filters, firewalls and a slew of other devices that channel our innocent solicitation into the prospect’s spam folder or worse, the trash; never to find its way to the inbox of our targeted prospect.

While the body of the email is critical when prospecting, the subject line will often determine whether or not the email will even be opened in the first place, gets caught in the recipient’s spam/junk folder, is blocked by the firewall or is evaporated from existence by the stroke of the ‘delete’ key.

Building off the work from my book on cold calling, I spend a substantial amount of time with salespeople and sales teams helping them craft their prospecting systems and compelling email templates. However, we take just as much time ensuring the subject line in every email is on point in order to avoid the pitfalls I mentioned.

While crafting the body of the email message is a different topic altogether, in part one of this two part series on effective email strategies, here are some quick ideas to be mindful of to ensure your emails get opened in the first place. Keep in mind, some subject lines will work better than others, depending upon a variety of factors that you need to weigh in and be mindful of; including your:

1: Target audience, their position as well as whether or not they are a client, a referral or someone you’ve never spoken with,
2: Your product or service,
3: Your sales cycle,
4: Even the locations in which you sell, both domestically as well as internationally.

In terms of what to write in the subject line, here are a few ideas.

1. The Blank Subject line: As the recipient of an email with no subject line, first the recipient may peek at the sender. “Hmmm, looking at their email address they seem like a reputable sender but what is this about? Maybe this is important.” Curiosity may take over and before you know it, they’ve opened up your email. Personally, I delete every email that does not have a subject line in it, unless I know who it’s coming from personally; but that’s me.

2. The Referral Subject Line: What if you’re prospecting through referrals but the person you’re sending the email to has not a clue who you are? Simple, lets say Jane Smith gave you the name and email of a viable prospect and decision maker. Most important, make sure you get permission from Jane that it’s okay to mention her name in the email to this prospect. Next, in the subject line of the email you’re sending to this prospect, you can write, “Jane Smith Suggested We Connect.” Again, these are the strategies I use and my clients use with great success. This particular strategy turns a very cold email into a warmer, more inviting one.

3. The Cold Email Subject Line: Okay, so you have a name and an email address of a potential prospect but it’s not a referral and you’ve never connected with them. It’s a cold call in email form. What to do? Here’s where you need to take your time and be articulate, brief, creative and compelling but tempered with a delicate balance between being creative and sounding to salesy. Here are a few examples. Fill in the blanks and edit accordingly to include your service, a signature client or a measurable compelling reason. Again, be mindful of getting permission from your clients to use their names as testimonials.

• Recent Work We’ve Done For (state client)
• Why (state a client or client’s industry or profession) Choose Us
• An Introduction and Recent Success With (State Client)
• We Just Helped (Client) Reduce Their IT Costs by 35%
• Recent Success With (state client)

Lets say you provide a lead generation or marketing service. Here’s one that works well. The words in brackets are optional. Use at your discretion.

• Who Do We Send Referrals(Leads) To (At Your Company?)

Here’s another subject line strategy. Write a subject line that simply contains their industry name or name of their profession or a reference to their product or service. For example:

• Need a Florist
• Need a Mortgage
• Need a Caterer
• Need a Real Estate Agent
• Need a Photographer
• Interested In Your Services
• Your Services
• Your Products
• Information About Your Services/Products

Of course, regardless of what subject line you use, your email message needs to support it but keep it brief and don’t give away too much information to the point they have no need to follow up with you to ask for more.

One final tip. When you finally do connect with your prospect in person or over the phone (fine, even via email), interview your prospects to determine what it was that motivated them enough to respond. This way you can duplicate what works and develop your own set of best email practices.

It may take you several attempts to find the strategy that works best for you. Conversely, you may find a blend of these strategies to work if not all, depending upon the situation you’re using them in. So be patient, be consistent, be pleasantly persistent when prospecting and remember, make sure you’re tracking your results to gauge what works and what does not in order to continually refine and develop your masterful prospecting system.

The Wall Street Journal Lists The Top Seven Sales Coaches On Twitter

Sep 24, 2010 Interviews 2 Comments

I happened to be on Twitter posting some new updates and resources and noticed someone else’s tweet – a mutual follower. His tweet was titled, “The Top Seven Sales Coaches on Twitter.”

Clicking on his link, I happened to find an article in the Wall Street Journal, naming these top seven coaches on Twitter. (How ironic – using Twitter to find the Twitter article.)

Then I remembered doing an interview with a journalist for the Wall Street Journal several months ago, regarding another topic. It was a nice surprise to find that I was named #1 on their list of sales coaches.

You can find the article here.

You can find me on Twitter here.

Are Busy Prospects Driving You Nuts? Jill Konrath’s New Book To The Rescue

Sep 24, 2010 Books 1 Comment

Here’s something I thought you’re be interested in. One of the toughest sales challenges you or your salespeople face right now is dealing with busy prospects. They rarely answer the phone or respond to your emails. They don’t like to make changes. And, they’re always getting distracted.

Here’s the deal. When people have too much to do and impossible deadlines, it changes how they make decision — and their expectations of you too.

That’s why I want you to know about SNAP Selling, the new book by Jill Konrath. It’s filled with fresh sales strategies that actually work with today’s crazy-busy prospects. In fact, I personally endorsed it!

But don’t take my word for it. Go to snapselling.com and download two chapters yourself.

While you’re there, make sure to register for the FOUR free sales resources that Jill is giving away. They’re excellent. My personal favorite is 9 Tips to Prospects to Call You Back.

I’ve included a few articles below from Jill below so you can see just how good her stuff is.

1: How One Failing Salesperson Became Invaluable

2: The Biggest Goof Sellers Make When Dealing with Hot Prospects

3: Challenge Your Prospect’s Thinking

Again, here’s the link to more information on the book: snapselling.com

Happy Selling!

What Top Managers Do to Win More Sales. Coaching Webinar Recording Now Available.

Sep 21, 2010 coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, Live Events, Sales Management, training for managers, webinar 1 Comment

Access the free webinar here.

I’ve gotten a large number of requests from people who missed the only free coaching webinar I did this year and wanted to attend, or attended the webinar and wished their managers (or their boss) were able to attend.

Well, now the webinar has been archived and is available for your immediate access!

Simply click on the link here and you’ll be able to listen in to the event as well as view the PowerPoint that supported this program. In this hour long webinar, I’ve shared my experiences and best practices so that you can learn how to get your salespeople and managers to accelerate their performance – today. Some of the main points I covered will enable you to:

• Avoid the most common barriers to effective coaching that will generate greater results.
• Develop a self-motivated, loyal and fully accountable team – without pushing.
• Generate a measurable ROI from your coaching efforts.
• Make more time, more sales and more money.
• Surrender your role as Chief Problem Solver.
• Retain your best people
• Have fewer problems coming at you
• Experience greater fulfillment, satisfaction and growth in your career

There’s so much content packed into this one hour, that attendees have reported they keep getting more tips and ideas after hearing it over and over again!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the webinar, so feel free to post your review or email me with any questions or comments.

NOTE: When you click on the link your browser may prompt you to download the playlist. It is not the actual recording but a link to the recording. So you can simply save the link to your hard drive or click on open with (windows media, etc.)

Access the webinar here and enjoy! No registration required!