I would like to focus on something, that at first glance, may appear rather trivial. In fact it might seem so inane that you are wondering why I am even writing about it.

It’s ‘note taking’.

I learnt a very salient, if not embarrassing, lesson in my early 20’s. When in my first sales consulting role I turned up to a sales meeting with a prospective client with no obvious note taking materials. Up until that time I had never been told to take notes by my managers. I hadn’t thought about talking notes myself. I relied on my memory.

However this call was different. I sat down and proceeded to ask the client questions without taking notes. This client stopped me in my tracks and said:

“Why aren’t you taking notes? How can you possibly understand me and my business if you do not take notes? Bloody sales people never take notes. What do they teach you anyway?”

I didn’t know what to say. I was in shock. After a long silence he handed me a note pad and pen and we picked up where we left off with me taking notes.

It has to be said that I have taken notes ever since and for good reason too – it really works.

OK so we can put my faux par down to youth, however, it never ceases to amaze me how many sales people (of all ages) still do not take notes when they are speaking to clients over the phone or face-to-face. For the last 10 years we have been running a true-to-life sales fitness simulation exercise where we have tested 1,000’s of sales people. Part of the exercise requires people to listen to a body of text which has vital information in it. Sadly the vast majority of people (over 90%) do not take notes which severely impacts their ability to successfully undertake the remainder of the exercise. When we debrief the exercise many confess to not taking notes in the field either.

Note taking is one of those small but really important things you can do in any client sales interaction.

Note taking:

• Helps you capture what the client is actually saying in their own words
• Keeps you focused on your client
• Gives you something to refer back to when verifying your understanding of your client’s needs
• Helps you prioritise yours and your client’s thoughts
• Helps the client feel confident in you as they see you making an effort to really understand their priorities and requirements
• Helps the client feel ‘listened to’ and understood
• Shows you are paying attention
• Gives you good content to work from when pulling together a quote or proposal
• Means you don’t have to rely on memory alone
• Gives discipline to the person taking the notes ensuring they get everything they need to know (and the client is willing to let them know) from the client

Rule of thumb:

1. Ask permission to take notes: Let the client know that you would like to take notes and check that this is OK with them. Sometimes clients may want to say something to you but do not want it recorded. By asking permission you show you are working together on gathering the right information.
2. Draw little flags against the key areas where you know you can make a sale or be of service: Too many sales people jump in at the first sign of a sales opportunity often missing additional information that could lead to bigger or more sales. To prevent this from happening I draw a little flag against each potential ‘sales opportunity’ I come across. When I have finished gathering all the information from my client I go back over my notes and let them know what I have flagged. This helps both of us get a clear picture of their situation and where I could be of service.

I find clients respond very favourably to note taking and my verifying their situation. Firstly they seem pleased to hear someone else repeat back what they have just said and secondly they feel more confident in my ability to work with them and help them in the best manner possible.

With B2B sales becoming more complicated and consultative in nature you need to take notes to keep a check on all the different facets of the client’s needs and priorities.

Give you and your client an easy break – take notes.

In the sea of information that is the internet and the ever growing networked communities we live in, you could essentially get a sales lead from anywhere. In principal this sound great. You always have someone to call on or prospect too.

However having too many choices can often lead to feelings of being overwhelmed by too much information. And when you have too much information this can lead to indecision and subsequently inaction. And inaction is the NUMBER 1 killer of any sales prospecting strategy.

So where do we start to sort out where we locate prospects? Besides the internet I find locating prospects come for the following areas as well:

Referrals
A name given to you as a lead. Choosing your time to ask for referrals is important. Wait until your customer has been able to judge you and your ability to meet and exceed their expectations. A good referral program is highly effective if you have a proven track record of in keeping promises and providing outstanding solutions and service.

Introductions
A variant of the Referral technique. It involves also asking for names, the salesperson asks for a note or letter of introduction to the prospect. This is most effective when prepared as a testimonial from a very satisfied customer who holds you in high esteem.

Centres of Influence
Centre of Influence refers to a well-known, influential person who can help you prospect and gain leads. For example, Accountants, Lawyers, Business Owners, Teachers, Politicians. First gain this person as a satisfied client and then solicit their help. You can also consider joining a community or social organizations to access Centres of Influence.

Organisations
Community Groups, Business Groups & Professional Associations can be a valuable source of prospects. These groups generally meet on a regular basis, providing you with an opportunity to build relationships. However, to make this approach beneficial, you must 1) set contact goals for each meeting, and 2) you need to communicate to the group what you do, offer assistance and make positive contributions. If other members see your involvement as being purely self-serving, this technique will not be beneficial.

Non-Competing Salespeople
Other salespeople can be a great source of prospects’ names and valuable information (this excludes confidential information!) about prospects. The key to this approach is reciprocity – ‘ you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. Establish relationships with non-competing suppliers and consider going out of your way to offer information to a non-competing salesperson about an opportunity you know of. The favour may well be returned when you least expect it.

Visible Accounts
This is where you consider cultivating visible and influential accounts that will influence other buyers. These accounts can give you credibility and make you attractive to other buyers.

NB: just make sure you are clear about the types of customers you need to call on as part of your sales plan and strategy.

Happy selling.

As markets tighten and market competition increases, it becomes increasingly difficult for companies to achieve product differentiation in their market place. As such, businesses will find it harder and harder to optimise their profits unless they develop effective strategies to achieve differentiation. One way to accomplish this is through the enhancement of customer intimacy.

Account Planning, Management & Development is the process that organisations adopt in order to prioritise their customers in terms of value to the business. In most businesses, the 80/20 rule applies where 80% of current and/or potential revenue comes from 20% of the customer base. However, in recognising the value that these 20% of customers hold, it is important to adopt a strategy that is going to ensure that they are handled in such a way that maximum effort is focused on the activities that will yield the greatest potential for the company in a profitable fashion.

Successful Account Planning, Management & Development ensures that a company recognises the importance of certain customer relationships to the future of their organisation and treats these relationships as an asset to the company.

The process used to categorise customers in terms of potential as well as the process adopted to manage and develop these customers effectively are paramount to the success of any Account Planning, Management and Development strategy.

So what is a Key Account?
Essentially, it is a customer who can help to shape your company’s future. This may not necessarily be your largest customer nor the highest spending customer. In this way, the top 20 revenue, one-size-fits-all approach can be costly and risky.

Once you have completed your customer research, a number of factors should be assessed when deliberating your Account Planning, Management and Development strategy:

• Current revenue profitability vs. potential revenue profitability
• Complexity of needs
• The industry in which they operate and its viability
• Financial stability

Although the process of developing and managing Key Accounts more intimately yields greater customer penetration or share of wallet, the costs of maintaining an intimate relationship with clients can also be costly. It is for this reason that the ‘biggest’ clients do not always make the ‘best’ clients. It is a common mistake for organisations to simply segment their customer base into key accounts based on their revenue contribution, consider:

• Larger companies often require more attention and expect not to pay for it
• Larger companies tend to exert their power and negotiate lower prices, often exploiting suppliers by creating price wars (thus reducing profitability)
• Larger companies employ the resources of smaller suppliers, only giving them small orders but getting the lowest prices so they can squeeze on their larger suppliers (again, affecting profitability)

It is often a hard lesson for salespeople to learn that many big companies rarely provide the return on investment proportionate to the amount of effort that’s required. In addition, these customers often compromise the company’s profitability significantly.

Analyse your accounts

So you need to analyse your accounts carefully. When analysing an account, your core focus is to interpret the customer data in such a way that will provide you with an understanding of how you can yield maximum potential from the client.

There are five key areas that need to be researched:
Strategic Information
This is the big picture information it explains why they are in business and where they are headed as an organisation. This information is critical to your basic understanding of the company.
Operational Information
The nuts and bolts of the organisation, the what, the when and the where.
Financial Information
This information is critical in assessing the ongoing viability of the customer.
Competitor Information
Recognise their strengths and minimise them. Recognise their weaknesses and exploit them. Understand what they are doing and know how to combat their activity.
Your Company History
Have a basic understanding of previous dealings with the customer but also know where to find more detailed records if or when required.

I hope this helps you plan and use your selling energy wisely.

Happy selling

For Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe and now Stephanie Rice and Michael Phelps Olympic success has literally brought fame and fortune … but their high profile success is not just about the colour of their medals.

With the Olympics just over I can’t help but think of all the other athletes who won medals and wonder how many of them will end up with amazing sponsorship and media deals like Cathy, Ian, Stephanie and Michael. Not many I’ll bet. And with the Paralympics just begun, how many of these athletes will capitalise on their talent and success with lucrative sponsorship and media deals? Maybe even less.

These talented athletes do not have to fade away into sponsorship oblivion. There are plenty of sponsorship opportunities available for them. They need to get out there and prospect for them just like sales people do. And with something to show for it like an Olympic or Paralympic medal, the right attitude and approach, many more athletes can realise the benefits of sponsorship deals to help them extend their sporting career or find new career opportunities.

How do I know this? Well I have had the pleasure of being personally associated with the Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) since 1991 and my company has been a major sponsor of the VIS ACE (Athlete Career & Education Program) since 1998. We have been training elite athletes, like Tae Kwon Do Gold Medallist Lauren Burns, Judo Bronze Medallist Maria Pekli, Paralympian Pentathlon Bronze Medallist Don Elgin and Hockey Gold Medallist Louise Dobson on prospecting, self promotion, selling and sales planning since 1998.

Research shows very few people have the luxury of waiting around to be courted.

The world of corporate sponsorship is very different from elite training, and although they take to it quickly, the athletes have to learn how to effectively self promote, access corporations and negotiate with a strong sense of their own value. Like sales people we have taught the athletes to learn how to identify opportunities and promote themselves on a consistent daily basis. The results have been outstanding, with several of the athletes gaining large corporate sponsorship deals over recent years, even for lower profile sports.

Don Elgin, who raised his public profile during the Sydney Paralympics with appearances on national television and radio says,

“At the time I did the Barrett program I was a VIS scholarship holder and no one knew about Paralympic athletes and there was certainly no sponsorship for them. The Barrett process educated and empowered me to take action to get out there and educate the market and secure sponsorships. The best thing I learnt was that the worst people could say to me was ‘NO’ and that was a revelation because it meant that everything was possible. I was able to tap into the potential I already had and this helped me have the confidence to get out there and give it a go. Not only am I better equipped to source and negotiate sponsorships, but the course has had a positive impact on my confidence and this has assisted the promotional work at my place of employment.

When I started the Barrett program I was a Postie. Using what I learnt I was able to move through Customer Service and Business Account Management roles to National Marketing Coordinator for the Philatelic division of Australia Post. I have also adapted what I have learned at Barrett to all parts of my life including my work with the Juvenile Justice System and my family where I help my young daughters to develop their public speaking skills and their ability to see the good in people. Whilst I have achieved a number TWO ranking in the world for my sport and success in my career, I have come to realise that having children is the greatest honour and challenge of all. I now know that I need to make sure I leave a legacy that helps them unlock and achieve their potential whatever that may be.”

While many of the athletes come with no professional sales experience they adapt quickly and apply themselves. They are refreshing in their outlook and great to work with as they have the drive, determination, work ethic and commitment to succeed.

It continues to remind me that Attitude is the key and you make your own success.

Happy selling.

How well can we manage ourselves, our teams and businesses in a crisis or tough times?

Are our actions and behaviours putting us, our people and our businesses at risk?

As leaders and managers we are on show and our actions often speak louder than our words. In challenging times this is even more evident. Under pressure cracks may appear and our leadership is put to the test.

How do we cope under pressure? What happens to us when we crack? When placed under high levels of pressure, most people will rely on coping mechanisms or their strengths that help them manage in day to day activities, but due to the pressure they can actually become counterproductive tendencies. We refer to these as “risk factors” and they can emerge as our dark side. These coping mechanisms can become detrimental to our ability to build trust based relationships and impact on our leadership and sales style.

As each leader is an individual, they must find their own way to manage and lead. However, when we are assessing and understanding our own and others’ behaviours, we often refer to personality style as a key reference point. While certain personality assessments can provide accurate and reliable predictors of performance, there is more to a person’s capability and satisfaction or a team’s interactions than meets the eye.

As a starting point we can take a look at three key areas when taking into account an individual’s potential contribution to a role and workplace performance.

1. Out in the open: Personality
2. Beneath the surface: Motives and values
3. Under pressure: Coping strategies, derailers and the dark side

This does not exclude other important factors such as technical competence, experience, knowledge or cognitive ability. These play a critical part in a role or team, however given technical competence, experience, knowledge and appropriate levels of intelligence are sound for the task at hand, what else can impact the performance of you, your team and the business?

Although the personality or ‘out in the open’ component is a crucial one, increasingly businesses leader are also wanting to look at people’s ability to cope under pressure. They want to know about your coping strategies, derailers and the dark side.

I find people are fascinated with the “Dark Side” so I thought I would provide you with some insight into this topic and share with you some of the work we do.

The Dark Side: Derailers & Coping Strategies

Sales leadership or any people management role involves building and maintaining a high-performing team. Anything that detracts from our ability to build a sales team also detracts from our performance as a sales leader.

Coping strategies are the behaviours that we have developed over time (even from childhood) to cope with increased levels of pressure. This pressure can be due to change, high stress, boredom, multi-tasking, work overload, unhappy environment, or finding ourselves outside our comfort zone.

When placed under such pressure, most people will display certain counterproductive tendencies. We usually refer to these as “derailers” or our potential “dark side.” Under normal conditions these characteristics may actually be strengths, but when the demands increase, our reliance on these mechanisms can impede our effectiveness and erode the quality of our relationships with customers, colleagues, and direct reports.

When confidence turns into arrogance
A specific example of when a strength can become a derailer is when confidence turns into arrogance. It is a fair assumption that confidence can be one important contributor to a successful career in business and sales. To be ‘confident’ means to have courage, to be bold, to be self-assured, and people are more likely to follow or believe in a confident leader. However, this strength can become a derailer when we are under pressure as our self-assured nature goes too far and we stop listening to other people, become condescending, egotistical and make ineffective decisions.

This is not to suggest that all confident sales leaders will demonstrate arrogance, but this is one of several potential dark sides that could have an impact on our careers.

The other potential derailers are: Excitable, Skeptical, Cautious, Reserved, Leisurely, Mischievous, Colourful, Imaginative, Diligent and Dutiful.

It is very important to note that these characteristics can have highly positive implications and which we can master and turn onto our strengths. By identifying and being made aware of our leadership coping strategies or potential dark sides we can take the ‘right’ action that allows us to develop further as leaders.

Gaining insights (by whatever trusted and validated means) into and applying corrective strategies about behaviours that could potentially undermine or inhibit your performance and ability to effectively build trust based relationships will assist you to lead people and your business more effectively and help you avoid putting you, your people and your businesses at unnecessary risk.

The research consistently shows that elite sales professionals engage in self appraisal and continuous learning. They are always looking for ways to be better. So in your quest for high performance don’t forget to look at the Dark Side.