Recent Articles
Book Recommendation: Driven – A Guide to Harnessing Your Inner Focus to Achieve Unprecedented Results
Jul 13, 2010 Books, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living 2 Comments
Driven
Imagine being able to transcend the boundaries of what you think is possible and become powerful beyond measure? It starts with identifying your Junoon.
I am excited to announce the availability of an intriguing book written by my friend Razi Imam. Razi is an incorrigible entrepreneur who has taken an interesting approach in helping people achieve extraordinary results.
Told in the context of a story, Razi’s book “Driven” teaches the ancient Eastern concept of “Junoon” as the means to help people find their dreams and get in a state of single-minded focus that makes the achievement of those dreams and goals a certainty.
Whether you want to start a business, learn a sport or solve a major world problem, achieving the state of Junoon is where you start.
When Razi asked me to share my Junoon, it was an opportunity to take an immediate and important pause in my day to reflect upon his request. What came out for me was a moment of intrigue, of inspiration, of focus and of unwavering passion for my convictions and purpose.
Your Junoon is not just the vision for your life or career. Your Junoon is not simply a list of your goals. Yes, your Junoon encapsulates these things but it is more – even more than the declaration of the source of your power. Writing my Junoon was powerful exercise, to say the least. The following paragraph is my Junoon, which I share with you here:
“Imagine being able to tap into your deepest level of authenticity and full accountability that makes us all powerful beyond measure. To empower others to break through what may have initially been perceived as an insurmountable challenge. To be human, to find strength in vulnerability, to deeply connect with people and touch the lives of others in a way that transcends the boundaries of what we think is possible.
To profoundly impact a culture – one person at a time, whether in our community, our schools or our businesses. To live in the relentless pursuit of wanting to serve others. To channel your vision, beliefs and convictions so strongly that they become contagious and echo indefinitely throughout the halls of change.
To be inspired by a mission bigger than you that engulfs your thinking and is manifested in everything you do – to the point of obsession. To awaken the gifts and tap into the value of each person that may lie dormant so they can achieve the things they never thought could be. To know that where this all starts is at the home; with my children the ultimate source of my power-and purpose.
My children fuel my inspiration, my passion and are the center of my universe. This is my Junoon.”
Driven will give you the infinite inner strength, heightened awareness, hyper focus and deeper insight to overcome the most overwhelming of obstacles in pursuit of your dreams. Razi has crafted the formula so that who you really are, who you want to be and what you truly want can work in harmony. Driven will enable you to recognize how influential you are and can be.
What is your Junoon? This book will show you how to tap into your purest source of greatness and heartfelt energy that will drive unprecedented change – and make you unstoppable.
Download a free chapter now at Drivennation.com.
Recognize Those Defining Moments To Transform Your Team Through Coaching
Jul 8, 2010 coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, training for managers 1 Comment
Marco, a manager who participated in one of my management coach training programs, shared this story with me two days after he competed this training, right after a coaching experience he had with one of his salespeople.
He told me he was at work, walking down the hallway towards his office. Miguel, one of his direct reports walked up to Marco and asked him if he could help with a problem he was having regarding one of his key accounts and moving this selling opportunity through his pipeline and towards the close. He needed to call this customer back later today and wasn’t sure how to drive the conversation forward.
Marco remembered what he learned from some of the coaching simulations that he did during the training and, instead of reacting by delivering a quick solution so that he can move ahead and get back to his office and all of the other pressing tasks he had on his plate for the day, he recognized this was one of his defining moments – a coaching opportunity. As such, he stopped, paused, and started asking Miguel some questions.
As a manager, what questions would YOU ask Miguel at this point?
Here were just a few coaching questions that Marco asked Miguel:
1.What is the specific outcome you’re looking for when you speak to this customer?
2.How do you envision accomplishing this?
3.Tell me what you’ve tried so far?
4.What are some other ideas you feel might work?
5.How have you handled something like this in the past?
6.Based on what we’ve just discussed, what’s going to be your strategy moving forward with this customer?
Marco told me that, at the end of this conversation, not only did Miguel come up with a solution on his own, one that he felt really good about, but it was a better solution than the one that Marco would have given him!
Miguel walked away from that conversation, with a greater sense of confidence, especially since he felt empowered by coming up with the best solution on his own. He also felt truly listened to and acknowledged, which strengthened the trust and relationship he has with his boss.
The added benefit that Marco reported on was, the very next day after his conversation with Miguel, Miguel informed Marco that he had another situation with a customer, similar to the one they discussed the day before. Because of the coaching Marco provided, Miguel reported that he was able to create the solution on his own without having to come to Marco about it!
Now, multiply the number of conversations you have like this, per day with every one of your direct reports. How much time do you think you’ll save so that you can focus on developing your people and your business, instead of continually running from one fire to the next?
Think about what we’ve achieved here. Think about your own management style. Now, think about the conversation that transpired between Marco, the manager and his salesperson.
This experience encapsulates many of the lessons when it comes to delivering masterful coaching. The coach’s mindset, such as being curious, being patient, being process driven; building trust, facilitating conversations through better questions and uncovering The Gap, tapping into people’s individuality and of course, the very essence of masterful coaching, abandoning your role as Chief Problem Solver.
Now that you have a deeper understanding of what great coaching looks and sounds like and the steps you can take to prepare yourself, as well as your team for coaching, start recognizing all the coaching opportunities you have in front of you.
Start challenging your current way of thinking and most important, start asking more and better coaching questions to further develop your team’s problem solving skills when you’re people come to you, looking for the answer.
Here’s a final tip from your coach: Realize that the best coaching moments aren’t always going to present themselves when it’s convenient for you, or during a scheduled coaching session.
That’s why I refer to these moments as defining moments. It’s your moment of truth, your moment to choose whether you react as you have in the past and continue to re-create the same results as before – or respond by taking a step back, and create the space for masterful coaching to occur.
Remember the A.B.C.’s of coaching. Always Be Coaching. In every conversation, in every interaction, allow coaching to become your new standard of thinking, communicating and how you engage your team.
To drive this point home, let me leave you with this final question.
How do you change a culture? How do you transform talent?
One person at a time. One conversation at a time.
The change starts with you. And that is great news because transforming the talent on your team really is all in your power.
Management Behavior and Activities That Compromise Trust and Coaching – Part Two
Jul 6, 2010 coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, How to Manage Your Team, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management, training for managers 1 Comment
In my last blog post, I shared a story about a management team that reinforced the fact that trust is the backbone of coaching.
Remember, trust and loyalty are earned, not inherited, so become mindful of those things that you need to stay away from that will erode the trust you need for your coaching to succeed and to foster a healthy, open coaching relationship from the start.
Here’s a short list of activities and behaviors that will erode the trust managers desperately need that will drive improved performance, loyalty, commitment and more sales.
What jumps out for you?
1.Not being present
2.Multitasking during conversation (You think you’re being efficient? That perceived efficiency comes at a major cost. Think of the message you’re sending to your people. “I guess I’m not that important.”
3.Not following through on commitments
4.Canceling (coaching) appointments
5.Violating/breaking your word. Not keeping your promise
6.Breaking confidence
7.Double talk
8.Threats and consequential negativity
9.Disposition. Tone. Being curt. Egocentric not showing your people are a priority (but an interruption or a bother.)
10.Being confrontational
11.Not showing patience (in a conversation or when coaching them)
12.Reacting negatively to something a person did wrong
13.The style of your management (pitchfork passive, pontificator, presumptuous, perfect, problem solving, proactive – See Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions for the 7 Types of Managers)
14.Not owning your own mistakes or your humanity (Your ego gets in the way)
15.Competition from manager
16.Not making the conversation/coaching safe
17.Not setting expectations in the coaching relationship
18.Not drawing a clear line between performance management/reviews and coaching
Tip from the Coach: What your people see and feel based on your actions always takes precedent over your intentions and what you say.
Tips and Questions For Managers When Setting Confidentiality in the Coaching Relationship
*What does confidentiality look like?
*What can you honor?
*Code of ethics – What nullifies confidentiality? (lie, cheat, steal, violate protocol and procedures, etc.)
*Establish how big, wide and deep the safe zone is up front
*You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game
Do Your Employees Trust You? How to Build Trust – and Destroy It in an Instant
Jul 2, 2010 Career Advice, career coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, HR issues, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Management 1 Comment
You Gotta’ Have Trust.
At the conclusion of a training event that I delivered for a team of about 20 managers, one of their action steps at the end of the training was to introduce coaching to their team and enroll their salespeople in being coached on a consistent basis. About a week or so after the training was over, each manager emailed me to report on how their conversations went. 18 managers told me that their team was not only bought into being coached but were generally excited about the opportunity to get more personal time with their manager!
However, the emails that I received from the other two remaining managers did not sound as promising. These two managers felt that their team was not on board with the idea of being coached and experienced a general sense of resistance from them.
The question is, why? Was it that these two managers had a team of salespeople who just weren’t coachable?
I don’t think so.
After further due diligence and speaking in confidence with those two sales teams who were pushing back on being coached, it turned out that the real source of the issue came down to one thing; trust. For you to shine as a masterful coach, it cannot be overshadowed or clouded by doubt, fear or uncertainty that may exist in the hearts and minds of your people.
That’s why trust is the backbone of coaching. Without it, you’ll experience the same resistance from your team that these two managers did.
1.So the question is, do your people trust you?
2.How do you know? What is the evidence you see to support this? Are you the first person to know about a concern someone on your team has that’s inhibiting their performance or level of commitment to their job – or are you the last to find out?
3.Have you always been clear about your intentions when coaching or supporting them, or making changes, or did you leave it up to them to decipher?
Remember, listening to you and trusting you are two different things. Coaching by definition fosters a deeper connection, level of openness and transparency with your team. However, if there’s a lack of trust, if trust has been compromised in any way, if the ground rules for coaching were not clearly established up front, the coaching will not be as effective.
The real danger here is, now the manager runs the risk of assuming that it’s the coaching that does not work, rather than the fact that it is really is a trust issue.
What many managers fail to realize is, that there is strength in vulnerability, not weakness, as many would assume. It is an important component to building trust and strengthening the relationships you have with your team.
Coaches and managers, unlike superheroes, are humans, too, and making sure your humanity and authenticity is clear to your team is an important part of building a deeper level of trust. After all, you can’t fake authenticity.
The good news is, you have the power to rebuild and regain trust in practically every relationship and it all starts with having an open, honest conversation, while setting up the expectations of coaching and the rules of engagement right from the start. You can’t change the rules in the middle or at the end of the game, as that is a sure fire way to instantly erode trust.
Remember, trust and loyalty are earned, not inherited, so become mindful of those things that you need to stay away from that will erode the trust you need for your coaching to succeed and to foster a healthy, open coaching relationship from the start.
Stay tuned for my next post, when I list about twenty different activities and behaviors that managers engage in which compromise trust and your ability to deliver effective coaching that results in improved performance.
VIDEO: Benchmark Best Sales Practices to Ensure Success
Jun 24, 2010 accountability, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, How to Manage Your Team, How To Sell and Sales Tips, Insights in Business, management tips, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Videos 2 Comments
Are You Selling By the Numbers or Selling With a Blindfold On? Statistical Benchmarks for Success and Self Accountability That Most Organizations Are Still Missing
Yes, these questions I list below the video are that important. So important, in fact, that they could change your entire perspective around what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and how much you really need to be doing in order to generate the worthwhile results you’re looking for. Because the truth is, you just may be running so fast in an attempt to catch up on your sales numbers, that you didn’t recognize the blinders you’ve developed which are obstructing your view of the fuller picture; the landscape you’re trying to farm and manage when it comes to selling and driving the right sales activity.
Here are those questions you need to ask yourself (and your sales team). “With all the effort I’m putting forth in an attempt to generate more prospects and selling opportunities, following up and retaining existing clients to ensure that I’m bringing in as much business as possible:”
• Am I acutely aware of the activities and benchmarked proven practices (both the activities and the dialogue/message I need to communicate) that I need to engage in daily that would secure my success?
• Am I measuring the numbers and the results of my efforts and allowing these statistical data points to be the driving force behind my sales activities?
• Do I know how much cold calling and prospecting activity is actually enough (emails, voice mails, live calls/connections, letters, and so on) and when to call it quits and move on when attempting to convert a contact into a qualified prospect?
• Do I know how many calls/contacts I need to make each day, each week and how often I need to follow up with a qualified prospect in order to earn their business or move them to the next stage of my sales process? (And have I even defined those specific steps in my sales process to begin with?)
• Am I holding myself accountable when it comes to engaging in the right activities in the most efficient way possible through the effective use of a daily routine?
• When calling on or meeting with prospects, do I have a clear set of outlined objectives that I need to accomplish on every call and during each meeting, especially when delivering a presentation?
• Have I identified the lifetime value of each client or account in order to classify customers according to their sales potential? (What’s the economic impact of the time you invest?)
• Do I have a detailed strategy for each of my clients to ensure that I’m maximizing every conceivable up selling and cross selling opportunity?
• Am I fully leveraging the power and potential of my CRM solution for prospect, client as well as territory management? Do you have a call report system?
• Do I have the right questions that provide me with the critical intel I need in order to qualify each person as a viable prospect so that I can most effectively determine where my limited and precious time is best invested?
And to clarify further when it comes to the type of questions you need to be asking each prospect, this isn’t limited to Selling 101 – Uncovering a Need. I’m also referring to understanding how they buy, how they make decisions, the internal workings of the company, the people and egos involved, the process they are going to go through when they hang up the phone with you or end the meeting and then attempt to solve the problem or find a new solution on their own using the resources or venders they currently have, the concerns or roadblocks that you could encounter down the road that would stall or destroy the potential for a sale, the timely and relevant issues that are going on internally, the overall mood of the company and its leaders, and so on. (Hint: Low closing percentages = misalignment in who you should be presenting to and following up with in the first place.)
If you don’t have the answers to these crucial questions, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to enjoy the certainty and peace of mind that comes from utilizing a formulaic approach to selling. After all, if you define it, you can then refine it. So, if you’re ever wondering why you or other salespeople fall into what’s known as a ‘sales slump,’ here’s the main cause of that. They aren’t honoring their sales process by the numbers and as such, those who continue to ‘wing it’ as their overall selling strategy are destined to experience the ups and downs in performance and in their stress level, as well as the waning sense of satisfaction and confidence that’s sure to follow in its wake when this amount of ambiguity and uncertainly is present.
In this video, discover why it’s no longer about simply ‘doing more’ but about doing more of what’s right. Your product has changed over the years and while your selling and management strategy needs to evolve as well, this evolution must be guided by the numeric benchmarks in order to see the full, panoramic picture of the truth that surrounds your current situation.
Note: If you’re looking for a great tool to help develop your prospecting formula and the measurable efforts needed to achieve your sales goals, check out my Prospecting Calculator here and enjoy the confidence and certainty you’ll experience when you prospect by the numbers.
Here’s the link to the Prospecting Calculator.
Is My Team Uncoachable? The Top Ten Reasons Why Coaching Fails When Managers Attempt to Coach Their Team
Jun 2, 2010 coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, training for managers 4 Comments
“I’ve tried coaching my team. It didn’t work.” Really? Was it the coaching that didn’t work, the manager’s coaching that didn’t work or was it more about how the coaching was delivered that didn’t work? As a manager, there are many things to consider when rolling out a coaching program for your team that will lead to a successful initiative, a mediocre one or a coaching program that will go down in flames.
Since my last book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions, I’ve been spending the majority of my time (every week!) delivering my management coach training programs for both domestic and global organizations. And the more I deliver my program, whether it’s to a team of sales managers who want to learn how to facilitate more effective sales coaching interactions with their salespeople that drives more sales or to a team of executives, VP’s and senior leaders who are in the position where they can provide a deeper layer of support by authentically coaching their management team, the more I find consistencies as to why coaching doesn’t work.
For any company wide coaching initiative to be effective and long-lasting within your organization, there are important obstacles that a manager or internal sales coach needs to address. Rather than do a deep dive into each of these 10 points, leverage this as more of a checklist for you to use before rolling out your coaching program.
If you’ve already attempted to coach your people and have experienced varying degrees of success, do not give up! This checklist can be used for you to diagnose where the breakdown is so that you can recalibrate your coaching efforts and overcome some of the obstacles that may have been outside of your line of vision.
The Top Ten Reasons Why Coaching Fails When Managers Attempt to Coach Their Team
1. Coaching In Your Own Image. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I already know the ‘right’ way to sell which has always worked for me. So if I were you, I would do it this way.” Note: Your building robots using this approach, not tapping into people’s individuality.
2. Poor Positioning. How did you set the expectations of coaching? “All the underperformers, please stand up! Here’s your chance to redeem yourself!” Ouch. This “Broken Wing Mentality” (Remedial Coaching) doesn’t create an atmosphere where everyone would want to be coached.
3. Past Experiences. “I’ve already tried to coach my people. It didn’t work.” Well, maybe it’s more about how you tried to enroll them in coaching that didn’t work. Every day, more and more statistics and surveys are showing the R.O.I. that good coaching generates. It’s time to do some self analysis and ask yourself what role you’re playing in this.
4. Inconsistent Coaching and Support. Sure, you may have been excited to coach your team but what message are you sending them when you cancel that coaching session you scheduled with them, regardless of how good a reason you had, your employee is thinking is “I guess I’m/the coaching isn’t a priority/important enough.”
5. No Training. The manager is not trained in coaching. It’s tougher than you think, especially around observation techniques and delivering actionable feedback that drives positive change and measurable results. This leads to two other challenges.
• Hollow Coaching. Focusing on the ‘what’ rather than going deeper to uncover the ‘why.’ Managers are good at uncovering what’s going on; you can see that by looking at a monthly activity report. Where managers drop the ball is uncovering why the behavior is going on or the actual reason behind the lack of activity. This often leads to something that many managers experience, which is:
• Repetitive Coaching. “Now we’ve already had this conversation five times over the last month. Looking at your activity the problem is you need to make more calls. So, make more calls! Call reluctance you say? Well, you just have to be more resilient.” Can you envision the salesperson walking out of that conversation with a powerful epiphany?
6. Event Based. The coaching is event based rather than culturally based to ensure long-term consistency. No coaching plan – no long term success.
7. The Manager Assumes They Have the Trust of Their Staff. This is a common challenge amongst many teams which breeds the resistance to coaching at the very core. Your experience as a manager is one thing that can inhibit your coaching effectiveness but what about your employee’s experience either with you or their prior manager? What if they had a prior experience that was less than favorable? Has this been addressed? Do your people really and truly trust you? How do you really know? Conversely, maybe the manager doesn’t really want to coach or doesn’t believe in coaching or maybe the manager doesn’t have the full authentic commitment to want to make their people more valuable and truly put them first. This is also felt by your team and will affect the level of trust you can foster.
8. The Manager is Coaching the Wrong People. “I only coach the underperformers and leave the top performers alone.” What a great strategy if you want to send the message that coaching is ONLY for the underperformers, while isolating your top performers. Then we wonder why we’re losing our good people. Everyone wants the attention of their manager but for different reasons and we need to align our coaching with where we can deliver the most value for them, individually.
9. Investing the Right Time With the Wrong Approach or Conversation. I can keep spending time pushing on a brick wall but that wall is never going to move. Just like I can say I’m investing the time coaching but am I truly coaching my people or am I simply doing what I did yesterday and relabeling it coaching? I can tell you that this is probably the biggest challenge I see amongst management teams today. That is, they think they’re coaching but they are not. The role plays and skill practice scenarios that I do during every training event continually support this to be true.
10. Toxic Management Style.
• Reactionary
• No patience. Here’s a tip – there’s no such thing as speed coaching. One of the most valuable parts of coaching is creating a safe place for your people to process and self reflect. You don’t always get that in a five minute interaction and if you rush the coaching process, you are only robbing you and your people of a powerful coaching experience. Remember, just because they don’t ‘get it’ as fast as you do or as fast as you think they should doesn’t make them wrong or less valuable. Honor and respect where each of your performers are regarding their own learning style and path of development.
• Misconceptions of what coaching is from both the manager and the salesperson. Time to even the playing field by uncovering each person’s perception of coaching, creating a universal definition of coaching and then setting the expectations on both sides.
• Managers not modeling it, walking their talk
STUDY: Employee Engagement Ranked As the Most Important Organizational Success Driver: Event This Week!
Jun 1, 2010 coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Live Events, Sales Management, Surveys and Polls 1 Comment
An unscientific poll of visitors to the EEA portal over the last two months suggests engagement in early phases. More specifically, this poll found that:
• 47% had received at least one survey from their company in the last year; the rest had not;
• Only 32% said their organizations provide them with a dynamic environment that encourages excellence and advancement;
• 51% believe engagement should be measured by customer and employee retention; 31% by revenue and profits, and 17% by employee absenteeism and productivity;
• In terms of what drives people to perform, these respondents ranked, in order: helping the organization achieve its goals and objectives; open and honest communication with management; belief that the organization is a best place to work; compensation and benefits; feeling that one is making a contribution, and rewards and recognition;
• Employee engagement is ranked by these respondents as the most important organizational success driver, followed by customer engagement, and then supplier engagement;
• Only 25% of organizations seriously consider channel partners when making business decisions that affect them;
• 67% of companies think they have no better than ordinary relationships with vendors;
• Respondents said their companies generally did a good job of developing products with customers in mind, and measuring results, and showing commitment, and not as good a job at internal marketing or getting customers to “identify” with their companies.
Given the direct relationship between employee engagement and coaching – as a manager, executive or business owner, your ability to effectively coach your team is what will make the difference between average or mediocre results and securing as well as retaining your position as a leader in your market. Now more than ever, executive coaching and sales coaching for your sales team and management teams is what will truly provide you with your competitive edge.
If you and your organization are interested in learning more about engagement and the impact it will continue to have on your business, then join us June 3-4 at the Doral Arrowwood, Rye Brook, N.Y. (just 10 minutes from Westchester County Airport (HPN) in White Plains, N.Y.)
As a subscriber and reader of my blog, I can offer you a complimentary registration to the upcoming Enterprise Engagement Expo and Conference, which I am speaking at. Simply go to eeaexpo.org, and use the code PF2010 to register to get complimentary conference and exhibit area access. I’ll be speaking on the role of sales leaders in relation to fostering a deeper level of engagement with their people and meeting with clients and potential clients in a “conversation center” at the event where we’d be happy to meet with you as well! (I’ll be there on June 3 only so shoot me an email if you’ll be there and we can meet!)
Understanding how to engage key customers, channel partners, employees and vendors provides a competitive edge for your business and a maybe even a potential boost to your career.
This conference offers a unique introduction to a proven path to business success critical to professionals seeking to improve the performance of their organizations and themselves. The program is designed to help you learn from experts, peers, and leading suppliers about the emerging new of enterprise engagement and how you can profit from it.
Let me know if you’re coming by shooting me an email to info@profitbuilders.com and I’d be happy to meet you there!
Click here for a complete program agenda and to register. Be sure to use code PF2010 to take advantage of this complimentary offer.
Learn How Enterprise Engagement is Changing Your Business
May 28, 2010 customer service, How to Manage Your Team, HR issues, Live Events, training for managers, Videos, webinar 1 Comment
June 3-4, Doral Arrowwood, Rye Brook, N.Y. (just 10 minutes from Westchester County Airport (HPN) in White Plains, N.Y.)
I’m pleased to offer you the opportunity to have a complimentary registration to the upcoming Enterprise Engagement Expo and Conference, June 3-4, 2010 which I am speaking at. Simply go to eeaexpo.org, and use the code PF2010 to register to get complimentary conference and exhibit area access. I’ll be speaking on the role of sales leaders in relation to fostering a deeper level of engagement with their people and meeting with clients and potential clients in a “conversation center” at the event where we’d be happy to meet with you as well! (I’ll be there on June 3 only.)
Understanding how to engage key customers, channel partners, employees and vendors provides a competitive edge for your business and a maybe even a potential boost to your career.
The Enterprise Engagement Alliance Networking Expo and Conference, June 3-4 at the Doral Arrowwood in Rye Brook, N.Y (near Westchester County Airport) offers a unique introduction to a proven path to business success critical to professionals seeking to improve the performance of their organizations and themselves.
The program is designed to help you learn from experts, peers, and leading suppliers about the emerging new of enterprise engagement and how you can profit from it.
• Translate theory into results from experts, colleagues, and top suppliers of engagement services in educational, roundtable, and one-on-one meetings.
• Get answers to questions and solutions to challenges—every education session is followed by a round-table discussion with the speakers and others with mutual interests, so bring your questions and challenges and a willingness to share answers.
• Learn about an emerging new field that crosses traditional lines between sales, marketing, human resources, and financial management;
• Gain new insights into the role of leadership training, polls and surveys, communications (social networking, promotional products, face-to-face); measurement; rewards and recognition, customer loyalty, and more;
• Make yourself more effective as a leader by understanding the emerging field of enterprise engagement;
• Make contacts with people and resources who can help make it happen for your organizations.
Discover the emerging business of engagement on us.
Click here for a complete program agenda and to register. Be sure to use code PF2010 to take advantage of this complimentary offer.
VIDEO: Don’t Sell The Way You Buy
Apr 20, 2010 coaching salespeople, Sales Coaching, sales tips, Sales Training, Videos Leave a comment
Here’s a valuable sales tip: “Don’t sell the way you buy.” You may feel that I’m contradicting some universal selling principles. After all, conventional sales wisdom handed down through the ages suggests how important it is to empathize and sympathize with your prospects and clients.
However, there’s a very fine line between understanding and respecting someone’s decision making process; and assuming that everyone makes a purchasing decision in the same manner and using the same criteria that you do. Moreover, there is also the faulty assumption that your prospects respond in a similar fashion to the type of sales approach and the type of salesperson that you respond to and would buy from.
My point is, if you started selling the way in which you make a purchasing decision, you are now putting your values, thought process and beliefs on the customer, assuming they purchase the same or in a similar way that you do. The result? More objections, less sales.
In this video, I defuse a costly myth. That is, the old adage of putting yourself in their shoes is really a costly assumption that destroys many a selling opportunity. Why? Because when you “look through their eyes” or attempt to see things how you assume they see them, it is still really what you see, not what they see.
The result? You develop a sales process based on how you think they buy rather than how they actually make a decision. Why? Because how you think they buy is really how you buy. (Is your brain twisted enough yet?)
If you truly want to wear their shoes, then you need to know how they think and what is important to them. Therefore, the only way to uncover how the prospect likes to process information, make a purchasing decision and the criteria they use to do so is by asking better questions.
Now, lets take this same ineffective model of selling like you buy and turn it around for a moment. If this belief of selling like the way you buy is getting in the way of taking certain actions or asking certain questions when on a sales call, then what about other things that you are doing or saying which you think are safe to you but in fact, are not safe or comfortable for the person you are speaking with because you’re still operating off the same tool, costly assumptions!
The lesson; Don’t believe everything you sell, I mean, tell yourself.
VIDEO: Is Cold Calling Really Dead?
Apr 19, 2010 cold calling, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, sales tips, Sales Training, tele-sales, Videos Leave a comment
You get to your office, sit down at your desk and open up your calendar. A concerned look sweeps over your face. “Only one appointment this week.” You look at your pipeline and get that squirmy feeling inside your gut, as you realize your pipeline is not as full as it used to be. You’re wondering where you’re going to find your next prospect.
The uncertainty begins to sweep over you. The stress starts creeping into your body, for you realize you can’t keep procrastinating making the cold calls you need to in order to book more appointments with key decision makers.
Does this situation sound familiar? As you might imagine, I’ve been getting a high volume of calls from sales managers and their salespeople struggling to meet their sales goals.
After investing several hours cold calling, this experience can leave you feeling depleted, frustrated and annoyed. You don’t understand why you’re unable to set the appointments with the prospects who you know you can help and therefore need to meet with. You ask yourself, “Why won’t they talk to me? I know I can help them. If only they’d give me some time on the phone.”
In desperation, you cry out, “This cold calling thing doesn’t work for me! What else can I do to schedule meetings with more qualified prospects who can buy from me?”
In this video, I address the question, “Is cold calling really dead?”
So, what is the answer? Is cold calling really dead? The answer is a resound, “Not even close.” Therefore, do not abandon cold calling! Cold calling is far from dead and I see evidence of this every day.
Sure, I realize for many people cold calling and prospecting ranks right up there with getting their teeth pulled without the gas.
However, as someone who has coached and trained thousands of salespeople and managers over the years, here’s what I’ve learned very early on. It’s not that cold calling doesn’t work. Cold calling works fabulously well. It’s the way you’re cold calling that doesn’t work. In other words, consider that it’s more about your approach and cold calling strategy; what you say and how you say it – that is ineffective and what your prospects are unresponsive to.
So be careful. Most people who feel cold calling doesn’t work in actuality, have learned the wrong lesson.
Side note: Over the last year, my cold calling book has been gaining a renewed popularity as competition increases and the need to find more qualified prospects to fill your pipeline intensifies. So, if you’re ready to develop a permission based prospecting system then check it out here.
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