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Make 2012 The Best Year Yet – Put Yourself First!

December 21, 2011 in Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Communication, Success, Teamwork

As we all come sailing in from the rather stormy seas of 2011 for a brief rest in a safe harbour we can chose to look back and reflect on what has happened in 2011; the challenges, mistakes, triumphs and lessons learned.  Although reflection is very important we must not forget to take time to rest, relax and recharge before we look forward and  dream about the future and what it holds for us.

help-in-pile-of-crumbled-paper

Overwhelmed

2011 may have left you feeling overwhelmed running from one task to the other never stopping to rest and recoup. If you can take time to just forget the business world for a while and instead just ‘be in the moment’ enjoying your time with friends and family and getting some well deserved R&R you will be in a position to put your best foot forward in 2012.  If you’re  not taking leave you may find the quietness that can accompany this time of the year can give you space to reflect, recoup and recharge for 2012.

Either way, why not consider giving yourself a gift for Christmas this year.

Pick up and play that musical instrument you’ve been meaning to play, do that yoga class, go for a swim at your local pool or enjoy the rush of the waves at a nearby surf beach, take an early morning walk in the park, have a picnic in a beautiful botanical garden, ski down a snow covered mountain, ride a horse, paint a picture and don’t forget everyone is an artist, tell jokes to each other and laugh out loud for real, forge a new friendship, rekindle an old friendship, hug someone you love and tell them how much they mean to you, give and receive 20 hugs a day and see what happens, get a massage or two, drink clean water, take a nap under a tree on a warm day, look into a flower and really see what is in there, do some gardening and pretend the weeding is removing all the debris from your year, be still and listen to the sounds of nature, go for ride on the Puffing Billy sitting on the ledge with your legs hanging out and remember what it is like being a child again, hold hands with your partner/ children/ friend/ parent/ sibling, say ‘I love you’ to as many people as you can and especially to yourself.

walk on the beach

walk on the beach

Taking time out to rest and relax is good for our brain and allows us to gain a clear perspective on things, especially those things that are important to us.

Whatever you choose to do, we would just like to say thank you for your loyal readership, support and your endorsement of Barrett.  Your support of our philosophy that ‘selling is everybody’s business and everybody lives by selling something‘ is wonderful and we’re seeing a growing body of support across individuals and businesses as they make the transition into the new century.

We have connected with many people over this year, some only via this blog and other publications as well as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook, and others in much more personal ways via our coaching, training, consulting, assessments, public speaking, events, etc.  However we have connected with each other we hope that we’ve listened to you and exchanged something of value and that in some small way you’re better at the things that matter to you for having met us.

2012 holds a lot in store for us all and we need to have our reserves fully stocked for the journey ahead. We also need to promise ourselves to make sure that we make regular time for these lovely activities throughout the year ahead because they nourish us and keep us connected to what is important and this is our cherished relationships with each other.  If we take care of ourselves we’re able to listen more effectively and exchange something of value with each other more often, and wouldn’t that be nice?

At Barrett we’re preparing for a phenomenal year in 2012 and are very excited about what we have in store for you all.  I would also like to thank my fantastic team at Barrett and our Partners who are really committed to our vision to positively transform the culture, capability and continuous learning of leaders and teams by developing sales driven organisations that are equipped for the 21st Century.

So season’s greetings to you, your families and teams and may 2012 be the best year ever for us all.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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Why selling is now a team sport

March 17, 2011 in Collaboration, Communication, Customer Service, Marketing, Procurement, Sales Relationships, Sales Training, Teamwork

Subjected to marketing and sales monologues for the better part of 40 years in the form of blanket advertising, product brochures and ‘your call is important to us’ busy signals, customers have taken the lead and are way ahead of us when it comes to having sales and marketing dialogues.  Far more informed and sophisticated, and posting blogs, Facebook ‘Likes’, Tweets and reTweets, customers are engaging in their own sales and marketing dialogues about our products, our sales people, our promise, our customer service proposition and our brands, and they are affecting how we are perceived and valued in the market place.

At its very best, customers can be our finest sales team, advocating our products, services, people and brand with their endorsements.  Customers can drive more sales and business to our door or, in this day and age, our online shopping carts.  By contrast, the impact of their disapproval of our brand, products, customer service and sales people can be swift and devastating, sending people away in droves with their digital complaints and jibes in cyberspace.

It is apparent that Marketing is no longer in complete control of the brand and how it is represented in the market place – customers are taking our messages, tuning and translating them to suit their own needs while some tech savvy people are even manipulating brand images, emails, websites, Facebook pages and Tweets to their own advantage to potentially misrepresent companies, brands and products for good or for bad.  Marketing is no longer static, one way or bullet proof.

Coupled with this, Selling has now become a social enterprise where everyone (employees, customers, suppliers, communities, etc.) can be, and often is, involved in the sales and customer service processes, and in some instances, the procurement process.  Smart sales people are using their advocates to engage with their prospects and customers, encouraging and influencing them along the buyer’s journey.  Linkedin in the B2B space, Facebook in the B2C space, and in some instances the B2B space, along with Twitter are rich in group conversations which need to be listened and responded to, monitored and used as signposts for new innovations, satisfaction levels and collaboration.

It’s like the Wild West and this new age of selling and marketing is really challenging the way businesses control and represent their image, values and reputation.  Like pioneers forging new frontiers, Sales and Marketing teams need to rethink their strategies and start working together if they are going to effectively influence and communicate with their valued customers and advocates.  It’s now time for Sales and Marketing to collaborate.  For too long, too many organisations have had a standoff between sales and marketing: an ‘Us versus Them’ finger pointing culture of one-up-man-ship to the detriment of customers and businesses alike.

Sales and marketing need a new partnership.

  • Is everyone in your business on the same page or are your sales and marketing teams still operating in silos?
  • Do you really speak to and actively engage with your customers and relevant communities or is marketing still producing marketing material that is too product centric and the sales team still engaging in product monologues?
  • Are your sales people trained in the fundamentals of marketing skills and strategies?
  • Are your marketing people trained in the fundamentals of selling skills and strategies?

Get everyone in the same room

Why not involve your marketing team in your next sales training program or at the very least get the sales and marketing teams together for 1 day and discuss what needs to happen to ensure you are all on the same team and working for the betterment of all.  Look at your key messages, advertising strategies, discussions groups, websites, social media, product mix, direct and emerging competitors, and your everyday public presence.

Why not go one step further and include all your staff in the discussions: get your customer service, finance, production/operations, IT and procurement teams in the same room and map your customers’ buying journeys.  Explore how everyone in your business can affect your brand, customer experiences, sales results and overall business performance.

One thing is clear: Successful selling now requires new and more meaningful collaboration between sales, marketing, customer service, operations, finance, IT, customers, suppliers and communities. We’re all in it together.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.
Author: Sue Barrett, Sales Training at Barrett at barrett.com.au

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Why hiring or keeping the 600lb sales gorilla is a mistake

December 2, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Culture, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Recruitment, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Teamwork

For many years the legend of the 600lb sales gorilla or Alpha sales superstar has been strutting the hallways and boardrooms of businesses.  Often revered for achieving top of the league ladder sales results, yet feared by many for their aggressive, manipulative, ego centric, demanding, intimidating antics, countless CEO’s and sales managers have allowed these sales prima donnas to remain in their sales teams but at what cost to their sales team and their business?

Too scared to confront them about their behaviours or sales tactics for fear of losing their sales contribution, many sales managers and their sales team have simply suffered in the presence of these sales bullies.  In my many years of working with sales teams and sales managers I have met my fair share of sales gorillas and their distressed managers and sales teams.  Here’s what I have observed:

  1. They have the ear of the Managing Director/CEO who thinks they can do no wrong.
  2. They won’t let the business anywhere near their customers.
  3. They tell tall tales about their legendary sales conquests.
  4. They refuse to be coached, counseled or trained.
  5. They are very demanding, always complaining about the lack of resources and taking up the time of countless people to do their bidding, leaving the other sales people to fend for themselves.
  6. They often exhibit bad behavior, and may be heard swearing or making inappropriate comments to their colleagues or other staff who are often too fearful to report them (see point 1).
  7. They can engage in questionable sales tactics, yet claim that they are pristine and operate with the utmost of integrity.
  8. They claim to know a lot of people and be very well connected.
  9. They use actual or implied intimidation to get their way with internal team members.
  10. They use charm and manipulation to get their way with key stakeholders.
  11. They act with righteous indignation if you question anything about them.
  12. They don’t think they need to comply with company policies so often refuse to complete paperwork or keep up to date CRM’s if they think it’s a ‘waste of time’.

You only have to watch the movie ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ to see your fair share of sales gorillas.  This type of sales culture was revered by a number of industry sectors in the 70’s and 80’s, including real estate, car sales, stock broking, etc.  Watching it makes me feel ill, but many sales teams got off on this and even use ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ as a model of how they should sell in some quarters today.

Yet most people watching ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ or meeting their very own sales gorilla feel repulsed by them.  Often very wary of them, others wonder why they have to tolerate them and why management won’t act.  Truth is these sales gorillas have never been pulled into line.  Their outstanding sales results have somehow bought them immunity from behaving in a civil manner.   The smell of money they can bring in has condoned behaviour that has often outweighed the need to act ethically and uphold team values and respectful behavior.  Their bad behavior has been allowed to manifest without restrictions, ‘oh let him get away with it.  Look at the results he pulls in’.  These sales gorillas are the direct result of poor quality leadership, lack of clear standards and bad decision making.

What most businesses do not know is that these sales gorillas, for all their so called sales success, actually fall well behind the real sales superstars in terms of achieving high level and sustainable sales results who, by contrast, are open minded, curious, collaborative, team oriented, open to learning and aim for partnerships on every level.  And these real sales superstars are humble too which is a direct contradiction to the behavior of the sales gorillas.

  • So are you currently letting fear hold you and your team hostage by allowing your sales gorilla to persist?
  • What would happen if you got rid of the sales gorilla?
  • How would the rest of your team respond when they left?
  • What would happen to sales and the clients?

In my experience when the sales gorilla finally departs, there is an initial sense of shock which quickly gives way to relief and the opportunity for the sales team to really pull together and prosper.  The biggest fear of losing the sales gorilla’s sales power and their clients doesn’t eventuate in the vast majority of cases.  In fact it is often revealed that the clients are happy the sales gorilla has left and look forward to a more open and prosperous relationship with the company concerned and sales grow even more.

I am not suggesting that most leaders intentionally hired these sales gorillas or intended for them to manifest however, without clear codes of conduct or values and a proper understanding of what you want by way of ‘good sales performance’ you cannot hire or develop the right sales people to do the right things in the right sales culture.

In his book ‘The No Asshole Rule’, Leigh Buchanan writes about bosses behaving badly.  Its thesis – don’t hire jerks, has become public policy in many companies around the world.  I would suggest we think clearly about what we want manifested in our sales teams and take a leaf out of Leigh’s book and make sure we employ ‘The No Asshole Rule’ and don’t hire sales jerks.

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, Culture, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Talent, Self Development, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Value Creation

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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