A Time for Reflection and Renewal

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A Time for Reflection and Renewal

December 16, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Tips, Success

As this year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on the last 16 years in my own business. A lot has changed, yes, but many things have remained the same too. On 9th January 2011 my business will be 16 years old.

While anniversaries and birthdays are celebrated differently all over the world, a common thread is that they are often marked with a celebration or a rite of passage. So, to mark our 16th year in business, we would like to share with you 16 key lessons we have learnt since the business began. While there are many more than 16 lessons learnt, we thought it fitting to have one for each year.

Lessons learnt over 16 years

Values
Define your values and what you stand for; what is acceptable and what is not in your business and for you. Make your values a part of your daily work habits, your charter and your selection process when hiring people. It helps you to know when to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to trivial or important matters.
Leadership and Humility
Central to management and leadership are trust, respect and openness; listen and learn from your staff, clients, mentors and guides and adjust yourself on your journey to become a proficient, effective leader; build a bridge and get over yourself – don’t let your ego get in the way; follow through; don’t assume anything; be available and responsive; it is important to remember that helping others helps you.
Strategic Planning
Is your vision viable? Can it make money and be self sustaining? Once you have decided to move forward, build a plan. From top to bottom and back up again – strategic to tactical. Review it on an ongoing basis not just once a year; involve all staff in its development; make it actionable, accessible and relevant to every role in the business.
Pick Your Counsel Wisely
Find those people who understand you quickly and easily, who can paraphrase and verify what you have just said. They should bring in different perspectives and help you see links and gaps you may be unaware of. Don’t take them at face value – check that their ideas are valuable and valid – put their comments through the ‘fact versus effect’ filter to see if they are being genuine or not. And don’t pick too many at once because listening to too many people only creates confusion and indecision.
Managing Setbacks
Always confront and resolve issues straight away, as they only get worse when ignored. Never see yourself as a ‘failure’, and always try to learn from your mistakes. You can never fail and succeed as a whole person: you can only fail or succeed at the things you do. Don’t be afraid to take risks – instead take calculated risks, so if your new idea or initiative back fires you haven’t lost everything in the process.
Teachable and Transferable
Build your products or services so they can be easily taught and transferred to your team, and in turn, they can easily sell and deliver them to your clients directly or via channels. And make sure it is always in language your clients can understand.
Trust
Even when things are not going the way you want them to you need to trust your vision and have faith in yourself and others that you will come through. Remember, people buy from people they trust. Trust supersedes like.
Passion
Without passion you just won’t have enough energy or desire to make business success happen. Staying focused is crucial. Think as big as you like then set clear goals and ‘see’ yourself achieving them.
Self Mastery Rather Than Success
If we focus on enjoying rather than proving ourselves we value mastery rather than success, effort rather than outcome, and the relationship rather than approval. Our journey to self mastery is ongoing on every level.
Your Health and Time to Reflect
It’s worth it. Look after yourself and make sure you take care of the whole person – exercise, diet, rest, get variety, take holidays, etc. Because if you don’t then you are no use to anyone especially yourself. Take at least 5 minutes each day to sit quietly and reflect.
The Principle of Exchange
We all exist because we are exchanging something of value. Knowing how to communicate that value so others may appreciate and understand what you bring is critical. Be clear about the value you bring to any relationship whether it is business or personal otherwise you may create confusion about its true value.
Worthiness
We are all worthy, whatever our station in life. Our worth is not measured by what we do. We are worthy just because we exist.
Creativity and Innovation
Create something new, think outside the box, challenge prevailing views and attitudes, and don’t let yourself be bullied. Read outside your area of expertise to see how others learn, lead, make decisions, function and work – look at how it may apply to you and your business. Learn to be flexible and open minded. Trial new initiatives and see if they fit your business.
Application Rather Than Theories
Don’t get hooked on only one way of doing things as most theories don’t hold true in real life. You need to be able to use a mixture of ideas, theories, processes and models. Always have a full ‘kit bag’ of ideas, processes, resources, etc. that you can draw upon, and learn how to use them when you need them in life; take bits and pieces and apply them; trust your common sense; be prepared to make mistakes and learn from them.
Get a Reputation
If you don’t have a reputation, align yourself with someone who does. Or put your business up for reputable awards i.e. Small Business Awards, etc. It’s worth it just for the audit process itself. And, who knows, you might even become a finalist and maybe even win. There’s nothing like an award to elevate your reputation.
Courage
Check ‘what am I here to do?’ and have courage in the face of adversity – stand up for what you believe in. Remember, courage doesn’t always roar sometimes it’s a little voice inside your head that says I’ll try again tomorrow.

To all our readers, supporters and business colleagues, thank you for your patronage. The team at Barrett wish you all the very best for 2011 and look forward to sharing many more insights, research, findings and tips on how to lead an honourable, healthy and prosperous career in sales.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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More lessons from MasterChef – Can you take the heat?

July 29, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Performance Management, Sales Skills, Self Development, Success

As the saying goes, “If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen”. Once again MasterChef has served up some great life lessons. Last year I wrote about the great leadership, coaching and mentoring we can learn from MasterChef. Again Garry, George, Matt and the other guest chefs showed us how to excel in this area of leadership.

On this occasion, I want to comment on ‘Resilience’ and dealing with setbacks and challenges, and how MasterChef gave us a window into how people handle stress and demanding situations. The time pressures and increasingly difficult tasks set for the contestants showed us how well they were able to manage themselves under pressure and produce the goods. You could often see the demands of a given situation getting to a number of the contestants. It was unrelenting at times. Those who were able to hold it together and ‘manage’ themselves on every level when under added strain performed better. The constant practice enhanced their skills for sure, but it also taught them how to deal with pressure which is just as important. Prior to the final episode, we saw Adam, Claire and Callum put under pressure and it was Adam and Callum who held it together better than Claire. Claire is an extremely talented cook but got rattled more than the others thus affecting her performance. Unlike Jonathon who survived eight out of nine elimination challenges, Claire had only been in one before and you could tell. She wasn’t ready for it.

Luckily for the MasterChef contestants they were only subjected to this for about three and a half months. Working chefs are required to take the ‘heat’ everyday albeit in environments they can control. This got me thinking about those professions where every action and the outcomes of those actions are scrutinised every day, placing pressure on those to perform at their best. Professional Chefs and Sports People, Air Traffic Controllers and Surgeons come to mind and I am sure there are several others. With the exception of weather for both the Air Traffic Controllers and some Professional Sports People, for the best part, all of these professions allow their people to work in environments they can directly control and influence.

Sales people also have the scrutiny of performance in common with these professions however, they are often working in environments that are not of their own making or design. They need to be able to deal with, and adapt to things outside of their control, i.e variable conditions and new environments, meeting new people, going to new places, uncovering new issues; variables of many kinds. And unlike recipes, which if executed correctly should turn out like they were intended, sales people are often presented with the ‘Mystery Box’ (same ingredients different outcomes) on a daily basis several times a day. They have to be able to think on their feet, and create outcomes their clients need and want. They need to know how this goes with this to that.

How do they handle the stress? How do they develop their resilience to perform at higher and higher standards every day without cracking? How do they pay attention and make sure every client feels like they are special and important when you have listened to 5-25 people already that day?

As sales people, our actions are assessed by ourselves, our managers and our clients. We deal with acceptance and rejection of our offering every day. Our activities are tracked and mapped. There are league tables, etc.

Any self respecting, self managed, self aware sales person would be able to tell you where they are at each day. They will also tell you that they have learned not to take ‘No’ as personal rejection – that’s a fatal mistake made by many a new sales person. Selling is the ultimate ‘thinking on your feet’ and ‘doing’ job. Like athletes, we need to be continually exercising and getting fitter, developing our skills, knowledge and mindset all at the same time.

Why don’t we teach ‘How to Build Resilience and a Healthy Mindset’?

A healthy mindset is just as, if not more, important as product knowledge and selling skills. However, most businesses usually only train their people in business skills, product knowledge and processes. What we need to do is help people become more emotionally aware, intelligent and resilient in a number of ways. We need to work with the whole person and provide people with access to a range of tools, processes and techniques which give them insight and teach them how to manage their emotions. We need to teach people how to develop healthy and resilient attitudes so they can take the heat and really excel.

We can’t all go on MasterChef to have our resilience and cooking skills tested, nor do all of us have the opportunity to be elite athletes and learn what it is like to work under obvious performance pressure however, we can learn how to develop resilience every day in small ways.

Higher performers, unlike many other people, have searched for and found tools, processes and techniques that help them develop strategies to enhance their self awareness and emotional resilience, and allow them to make the most of their capabilities and the situations they find themselves in on a daily basis.

Developing a Healthy and Resilient Attitude

The first step to becoming more emotionally aware, healthy and resilient is the acknowledgment that there is room for improvement and taking the time to learn more about yourself. It’s about honest, constructive feedback and learning not to take things personally. That is what MasterChef is all about – continuous self improvement and self awareness. That’s what MasterSelling is about!

Next week we will look at some of the tools, behaviours and attitudes that help build self awareness, health and emotional resilience. If you want further information about this, please contact us directly.

Thanks to MasterChef for another excellent season – truly inspiring stuff!

Finally, Mary Anne Radmacher’s words sum up for me and probably many sales people and entrepreneurs our lot: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’.”

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Collaboration – The New Competition

July 8, 2010 in Communication, Customer Service, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Success, Teamwork

The New Competition was voted by you as the number 7 Sales Trend for 2010. Over the coming years, we will see collaboration become the new competition. Markets around the world are crying out for collaboration as innovation and differentiation become scarce in a sea of commoditised products and services.

Sales people who see themselves as collaborators, both internally (colleagues, departments) and externally (customers, competitors), will prosper more than ever during 2010 and beyond.

A large 5 year long research study conducted by B. Rosenbaum, Business Horizons, entitled Seven Emerging Sales Competencies and published in Jan/Feb 2001 revealed what makes highly successful sales people. His research, among other key findings, showed that the most highly successful sales people are indeed collaborators. In his research of over 1,000 B2B sales people across 5 years he found that top performers:

collaborated with colleagues and did not allow competitiveness to get in the way of good business, and often assisted their colleagues in achieving their best by sharing ideas, information and resources;
orchestrated internal resources so as to benefit the company, its people, and the customers and their people;
invested time building collaborative, customer focused relationships inside their organisation;
created an alignment between the customers’ and suppliers’ strategic objectives;
looked to further the interests of their customers’ firms as well as their own;
expanded the customer’s understanding of what a business relationship can be;
built a flexible relationship that is responsive to marketplace changes;
creatively drew on the full resources of the firm or business;
introduced customers to other suppliers and potentially valuable support resources; and,
invested time building collaborative, customer focused relationships inside their organisation.

These findings are not new as you can see. However these qualities are still seen, if they are seen at all, as a novelty by most senior managers which is a major risk moving forward in such changing times. Rosenbaum’s research revealed that, sadly, the vast majority of sales managers were completely unaware that these and other distinguishing qualities were what made their high performing sales people highly effective and successful. What he observed is that these sales superstars where acting and performing this way despite management. They knew what they needed to do to get the results. It’s such a pity that their managers did not.

As I wrote recently, many sales teams are still held hostage by old school sales management practices and outdated mindsets that encourage internal competition, league tables and the like. Too many sales leaders are still stuck in the 1980’s with ‘greed is good’ and ‘carrot and stick’ philosophies which do not work in the long term and only serve to hold us back in a 21st century world. Most sales rewards are still self serving, endorsing selfishness which is completely at odds with the new world of collaboration and our natural state of being.

Daniel Pink’s new book Drive focuses a big spotlight on this very issue – what motivates us. He reports that what business thinks works by way of motivation is not what the science shows or the vast majority of people want.

Besides the commoditisation of products and services, Rosenbaum’s research, Daniel Pink’s findings, and other corroborating research, the advent of social media and the multiple levels of engagement we can now have with our clients, suppliers and key stakeholders means that we need to work collaboratively with each other. And this collaboration needs to take place across marketing, sales, service, supply, production and finance if we are going to create the ideas and solutions needed for our success in the 21st century.

Those 21st century enlightened salespeople will be the conductors or connectors of viable and valuable relationships across many levels. They will be open-minded, humble and astute, and they will see patterns of connection and synergy in many places. They will recognise that we are all interconnected and without kindness and cooperation we cannot exist. They will identify competency and harness talent to achieve effective solutions. They will know that they are working towards something larger than themselves. And they will know that their success is a shared success they will celebrate collectively.

So we need to get with the program and rethink our approach to sales motivation, sales mindset, sales skills, sales rewards and teamwork if we are to remain viable in this world. Collaboration calls for a team effort. Sales teams where everyone is pitted against each other to achieve ‘top dog’ status will be replaced by a ‘lead team’ approach. Companies that want to bring in new business and grow and develop existing customers will rely on the united hands of many – rather than just one. Successful sales people of 2010 and beyond will leverage the power of collaboration over competition because they understand that relationships never work if they are forced and manipulated, and that the sum is greater than its individual parts. Synergy and collaboration will prevail.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Is internal competition eating away at your sales results?

July 1, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Talent, Self Development, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Value Proposition & Value Add

Many sales cultures are traditionally based on respect for authority, status and success, and encouraging competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented atmospheres. Although this is not true for all businesses, especially in the 21st Century! There are a growing number of businesses adopting more collegiate, lead team approaches. However, despite different types of cultures, sales performance and results are usually derived from the efforts of individuals. Harnessing those individual efforts to achieve synergy (the sum is greater than its individual parts) is a key task of management, yet so many get it wrong. Let’s take a look at one case study and see why.

What is wrong with the following scenario?

Sales team has great products and service proposition and is part of an international business
Sales team is made up of individuals who are measured on achievement of individual sales targets
Each sales person is given a base retainer but earns the vast majority of their income on commissions made from sales converted
There are a couple of high achieving sales performers, some average performers and some new sales people yet to prove themselves
Annual staff turnover of sales staff has been about 30-40%
Average tenure is 18 months
The sales team is a state team all working in the same city
Sales performance is purely measured on sales revenue results
Sales League Tables are on public display showing who is ‘top sales dog’ each week
The sales culture is based on respect for authority, status, success and competition
The workplace atmosphere is competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented
The sales people do NOT work to specific territories/markets or customer segments to manage and grow, instead it is ‘first in best dressed’
The competitive environment encourages sales people to fight over leads that come into the business leading to ‘bullying’ tactics, attempts to ‘outdo’ each other, squabbling and fighting over who got to that client first
Sales people ‘sand bag’ lists of clients just to make sure that the other sales people do not get them even if they themselves are not working on those leads at present
Management provide no selling skills training, no sales coaching, no sales support, no CRM, no documented sales strategy nor a ‘go-to-market’ plan
There are no formal sales management practices in place except for the weekly sales meeting which deteriorates into an ‘I’m better than you are’ bun fight

This is an example of lazy and ineffectual management. Only focused on outcomes with no regard for strategy, team structure, performance quality, clear leadership, staff retention, values or culture, this sales team is not geared for high performance and continues to lag behind its true potential.

Why create competition where it doesn’t need to be?

Why make selling harder than it needs to be?

‘Old school’ sales management said that you had to have sales people competing with each other or they wouldn’t sell. You weren’t a legitimate sales team if you didn’t have league tables. They said that internal competition would motivate people to sell more. Well they are wrong. The scenario above is not uncommon. It reflects an actual real life situation – happening right now.

This archaic approach doesn’t work. It’s outdated and old fashioned. If you want to generate real sales growth, try harnessing the energy, talent and ambitions of your sales people in a constructive way where they can all achieve their individual goals along with those of the company without trying to ‘kill’ each other in the process. Remember the old saying ‘a team of champions will not beat a champion team’?

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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How do you create future sales superstars?

June 23, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Assessments, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Value Proposition & Value Add

How many of us entered our sales careers with our eyes wide open? Fully aware of what it takes to be an effective sales person – ably resourced with the tools, processes, plans and support essential to our success. Knowing full well what you were getting yourself into.

For most, if not all of us, our initiation into sales was nothing like this, and was cushioned with little or none of these luxuries. Does the analogy “sink or swim” resonate with anyone?

All of this makes the story I am about to share quite unique and refreshing. Recently, some rather clever and farsighted managers gave some very fortunate young people the opportunity to get a large glimpse into the world of selling.

Here is their story: Two senior managers from one company, both whom I have known and worked with for many years, had the presence of mind and foresight to think ahead and tap into the desire of some of their younger staff to advance their careers.

Their business is in the industrial equipment market where they sell new equipment, spare parts, service and rentals. Recently, they advertised for a new service sales person and received, amongst others, applications from several of their internal service technicians.

The senior managers took these applications very seriously. However, they could not appoint any of their internal applicants because they had no experience and very little idea about what it takes to be an effective sales person. Thinking about the future of their business, staff retention and the desire of these young people to advance their careers, the senior managers took it upon themselves to give these driven and ambitious staff the opportunity to really understand what selling is all about – so that they could one day go in into a sales role with their eyes wide open.

This is where Barrett came in. In discussion with the managers, we developed a one day session where these young participants explored topics like:

Why sales matters
The changing face of customers and what they really want
Ethics in selling
Missed and lost opportunities
Critical success factors, and key qualities of the 21st century sales performers
Olympics Game – our sales fitness and simulation exercise which tests peoples’ natural sales capabilities and gives them real time feedback
The sales essentials overview:

5 step sales planning process
4 step sales prospecting process
7 step sales communication process

Skills you can apply NOW to build your steps to being a sales performer

As part of the session, we pointed out that even if they were not currently in a sales role, there were still numerous, valuable things they could take from the session and apply immediately in their current roles. Skills, knowledge and insight that would (and did) serve them, their customers and the company well right now, as well as lay the foundation for when the time comes for them to knowingly and willingly step into a sales role. Things like:

Knowing, understanding, communicating and modeling the vision, key message and promise, values and customer service ethic of the business
Knowing how to make effective phone calls to clients, etc. – being clear about the purpose of their calls and how to position themselves confidently (this relates to how to make prospecting phone calls)
Recognising and understanding different communication styles and how not to confuse different with difficult
Knowing how to ask good questions to clarify and verify their understanding.

What was most impressive was the prolific note taking, questioning and genuine interest in really getting a handle on what it takes to be a great sales person. For me it was one of the most enjoyable and inspiring days I have had in a long time. There is nothing like working with people who really want to be there and be their best.

All the people I have shared this story with in the last month have all expressed the same wish – that they had had the chance to experience such a session before they became a sales person.

All credit to Cameron and Mick for having the wisdom to provide this opportunity to their team. I am sure that the benefits will be varied, significant and long-lasting.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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