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Are your listening skills costing you or making you money?

September 29, 2010 in Communication, Sales Skills

Who is really listening? … Genuinely, sincerely and honestly listening?  I’m noticing a lot more telling and a lot less listening lately.  You only have to watch the ABC program ‘Q&A’ to see the number of politicians who have great trouble listening – to anything except themselves.  They interrupt others giving answers to questions that were never asked.  No wonder we are a bit jaded and cynical.

If we reflect on our own approach to communication I suspect many of us would shudder if others described us in a similar fashion to those politicians.  I am sure it is not how we would like to be remembered.

So this then begs the following questions: How many of us are effective at listening?  How long does it take us before we start interrupting another person?  How quickly are we formulating our thoughts, thinking about what to say, before the other person has finished speaking?  How often do we interrupt the person to give our own opinions thinking what we have to say it more important?  Why is practicing effective listening so tiring yet so profitable (beneficial and critical in developing and sustaining good relationships, personal and professional)?

Poor listening creates numerous problems everyday – interpreting messages or instructions incorrectly, missing details in orders, wrong solutions being offered, misunderstandings, etc.  Poor listening creates unnecessary hostilities, resentment, mistrust, bad impressions and poor relationships.

For instance, one research study examined different parameters of emergency medicinal residents taking a medical history of patients.  The study concluded that only 20% of patients completed their presenting complaint without interruption.  In other words, 80% of the patients were interrupted during their initial presenting complaint.  The average time to interruption was only 12 seconds!

In sales, listening is one of our most critical skills and without it we are simply ineffective.  It has been shown that engaging in effective listening habits can improve workplace performance significantly.

Here are a few important facts about listening (reference Jan Hargrave, Listening Skills in Business):

  • The average person speaks at a rate of 100 to 200 words per minute.  An average listener, however, can adequately process 400 words per minute.
  • Studies of communication have routinely found that nearly everyone listens more than they talk, reads more than they write, and spends a lot more time receiving messages than sending them.
  • Most employees spend at least 60% of their work time involved in listening.
  • Reports from the USA show that senior managers in major corporations are likely to spend up to 80% of their working time in meetings, discussions, face-to-face conversations or telephone conversations.
  • While listening consumes about half of all communication time, research indicates that most people only listen with 25% of their attention thus creating many listening mistakes with significant effects on productivity, profitability and overall performance.
  • Hearing is a physical perception; listening is a mental activity.  It requires concentration, cooperation and an open mind.
  • It is estimated that 75% of all communication is non-verbal so we need not just listen with our ears we can listen with our eyes and feelings, and hear beyond the words i.e. posture, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye contact, etc.

We cannot underestimate the importance of listening as a vital skill to enhance relationships of all kinds, enhance our careers and grow the top and bottom lines of our businesses.  Listening enables us to gain important information and be more effective in interpreting others’ messages, feelings, needs, fears, priorities, goals and desires.  Listening allows us to gather data to make sound decisions so we can respond appropriately for the benefit of all.

So are you a teller or a listener?

How many of us are really effective at listening?  Could working on improving our listening skills actually make us more sales, and have more productive relationships with our staff, customers, suppliers, etc.?  I suggest that yes it can.

I therefore challenge us to take a 28 Day Listening Challenge and focus on our active listening skills for the next 28 days and see what happens when we pay real attention to what is being said and act wisely in accord.  I look forward to hearing how you go.

If you are not convinced, remember these words by Epictetus, an ancient Greek philosopher, and you are guaranteed to improve your listening skills: “Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.”

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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How well are you Weathering the Storm?

September 22, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence

‘Weathering the Storm’ was voted by you as the number 9  Sales Trend for 2010.  While there have been ups and downs in the business world, over the last 20+ years for the most part, many of us in the western world have been able to ride on the back of posterity and market growth.  Up until the GFC, many fortunate sales people and business people found making sales straightforward and easy, however these tougher, contracting markets have left many wanting in the sales stakes.  The current breed of 20-40 year old sales people and business people had never experienced business under these conditions before.

2009 put everyone’s emotional resilience to the test and in 2010 we are left with many lessons to be learned and emotional scars to be healed following the GFC storm.  The focus of ‘Weathering the Storm’ is Emotional Resilience which is at a low point with evidence of a sharp increase in people not coping with increased pressure, the GFC fallout and the more complex business world we now inhabit.

Despite the obvious business failures and the associated consequences that test our ability to handle tough situations, the latest research into resilience is also pointing the finger at the Self Esteem Movement of the last 30+ years as a contributor to many people’s inability to bounce back quickly from setbacks.

Dr Penny Brabin, a prominent Melbourne Clinic Psychologist, has written extensively on emotional health and the effects of the self esteem movement only promoting and considering positive views of self ‘you’re special’ and avoiding negatives, put-downs and any comparisons considered to reflect on the “self”.  Here she writes (excerpts from her paper “Promoting Emotional Health”…) about the negative consequences of this movement: “by not providing strategies to manage negatives it has also promoted the inability to manage criticism and difficulty with comparisons while inflating the drive for positives like approval, status and success with its flip-side the fear of failure or fear of having a go. Such consequences are associated with avoidant behaviours … and the significant increase in the incidence of depression in our society.”

I concur with the negative consequences of the self esteem movement.  I have witnessed the effects first hand many times with one experience sticking very clearly in my mind.  I had the opportunity to work with a group of professionals from one of the major professional services firms and was asked to introduce a proactive sales and prospecting culture.  Having been brought up in the world of competitive sport, business and selling, I was very accustomed to having my ideas, capabilities and character challenged, assessing my strengths and weaknesses, and learning how to win and lose, hopefully graciously.  However, in recent times  I came across this group of 20-30 year old ‘professionals’ who were led to believe, by their firm  (and possibly by ‘others’ earlier to this) that everything about them was without flaw.  They were the ‘cream of the crop’, the elite, and the best of breed.  Never a word was spoken about any personal gaps, weaknesses or failings, so it came as a rude shock to them the day when I turned up with their call reluctance profiles in my hand ready with the intention of helping them develop their selling and prospecting repertoire and beginning the journey to becoming an accomplished sales professional.  Without saying it to their faces, in the world of sales they were novices not the elite, and they were about to begin a sales apprenticeship.  Faced with this prospect, they did not respond favourably because it went against everything they have been told about themselves.  And for all my optimism, love of learning, challenging yourself to be your best, and becoming more self aware approach, they didn’t like what they saw and after that day I was not invited back because I was seen as too ‘negative’.

As Dr Brabin goes on to say, “Simple observation suggests that many individuals who function wholly in this (self esteem) dynamic, living lives of competition, focused on obtaining status from material possessions or being liked or loved by others; their “feel-good” happiness (elation) are only an experience (pin prick) away from the misery (burst bubble) associated with rejection or failure – not a condition of general life contentment!”

Dr Brabin promotes the shift to Self–acceptance, “When our goal is to focus on living our lives rather than boosting our self-esteem we can enjoy ourselves by developing satisfying activities and promoting harmonious relationships with others.  Whereas the self-esteeming demand for external validation from others leads to frequent interpersonal clashes from demand conflict, self-acceptance necessarily embodies other-acceptance promoting reduced interpersonal demands and less conflict.  When we focus on enjoying rather than proving ourselves we value:

  • mastery rather than success
  • effort rather than outcome
  • the relationship rather than approval

Recognising self-acceptance…

  1. true self-acceptance implies other acceptance and, thus, respectful treatment of others…
  2. emotional management because life events, including others’ unkind actions towards us do not risk any fall from glory or threat to our worth
  3. focus on effort towards achieving goals rather than the outcomes themselves (which are not under our control).”

Emotional resilience doesn’t come easily to everyone; however we can all learn to enhance it in healthy, harm-free ways by promoting self and other acceptance.  Putting emotional resilience high on the agenda of sales in 2010 and beyond will not only benefit individuals, it will also mean they in turn can help the company achieve success by being able to put things into perspective and maintain a proactive, realistic and positive outlook in tougher markets and act accordingly rather than ride the emotional roller coaster of life despite the markets.

As stated over the decades by the grandfather of rational emotive therapy, Albert Ellis, accepting ourselves with our abilities and flaws is the only rational alternative to promote our emotional health through healthy living.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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Why we should take customer service more seriously

September 15, 2010 in Customer Service, Ethics & Values

I propose that customer service is an assertive act, a proactive role that has an incredible impact on the attraction and retention of customers.  It represents the ‘front door’, the daily face of a business, ideally setting the scene for productive, healthy relationships.  I propose that customer service can often be a much harder, more gruelling role than selling; dealing with the many variables that confront a business, sorting out problems, providing advice, answering technical/distribution/supply questions, coordinating and liaising with various departments, contacting suppliers and, dealing with crises; all the while being polite, friendly, effective and efficient on a consistent daily basis.

The types of people who perform customer service best are people who are interested in people, like regular interpersonal communication, value being part of a team, like organising and sorting things out, get real enjoyment and satisfaction from helping people get what they need, and are resilient, calm and thick skinned whilst being sensitive to the feelings and needs of others.  Who do you know that is like that?

Why then is customer service often seen as a lesser role, a ‘servant’s’ role, a role where you are required to put up with abuse and bad behaviour, and a role where you are expected to put up with things most other people would not tolerate?  Why do many customer service people feel they have to suffer in silence?

I am in the midst of working on a Customer Service Excellence program roll out with a well respected and innovative manufacturing company in the building industry sector.  They take being ‘excellent’ very seriously and as such are ensuring their customer service team are well trained in skill as well as the ethics and vision of a customer focused, quality business.  As part of our work, we discuss how to deal with rude and angry customers.  It was revealed by some of the female customer service staff, on our initial program, that some of the customers (male) were making inappropriate comments of a sexual nature over the phone to them and this was causing them distress – rightly so.  The management team (all male except for one female) who were also on the initial program were shocked at the news, and all agreed that their staff should never have to put up with this or any other type of abusive behaviour.

Asked why they hadn’t spoken up previously about these incidents, the female staff stated that they were worried that if they stood up for themselves and told the customers concerned to stop, then they might lose their business.  Credit to these staff for putting the business first however, it should never have to be at the expense of their dignity or professional behaviour.  Management were adamant that this type of behaviour, abusive language or threats from customers or anyone should not be tolerated under any circumstances and if it did happen again the staff were advised to report it immediately to their manager.

We need to make sure that all our staff are safe – free from abuse, bullying and other inappropriate behaviour.  I too often see customer service being undervalued by businesses and trivialised as fluffy, or being nice and ‘the customer is always right’ stuff.  It is far from that.  It’s a tough job.  It saddens me that people, especially women, do not think they can say something when inappropriate and abusive behaviour surfaces.  A recent newspaper article put paid to the issue that bullying was due to low self esteem, instead it stated that research found that bullies had an over inflated view of themselves and thus set about demonstrating this in various ways including bullying.

Perhaps we should be able to give our people, especially customer service staff, training and coaching in how to address bullying and other challenging behaviour alongside the more traditional customer service skills training.  And then, back this up by a code of conduct; a charter on how we deliver customer service and what we stand for.

I defy any senior manager to sit in the chairs or stand in the shoes of their customer service staff and handle that role for a week and see how they fair.  The program on channel 10, Undercover Boss, gives us a glimpse of senior executives taking on the roles of their staff, often service staff in the front line.   They are usually shocked at how hard these roles actually are and realise that without their customer service staff they do not have a business.  Whether your staff are servicing customers via the telephone or in a restaurant or over the counter, we need to make sure that we back them, keep them safe and help them be at their best, and that includes having the skills and the right to address inappropriate and abusive behaviour without the fear of losing one’s job.

Customer service is the back bone of any business, driving home our values, messages, vision and the state of our relationships with each other and our customer community.  Let’s take customer service seriously.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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Why we should put the Trainer back into Sales Management

September 8, 2010 in Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Management, Sales Training

Up until 20 years ago, a key function of a sales manager’s role was the regular training of their sales people.  What did this look like?  Well, something like this: weekly 1 hour power training sessions for the sales team focusing on honing key skills, bi-monthly half day or 1 day sessions drilling down on account planning, strategy, market and product knowledge, and formal class room training usually employing external, expert training providers on a once or twice yearly basis to boost their teams to the next level.  This was all supplemented by sales meetings and one-on-one coaching.

Many sales managers of yesteryear were good trainers.  However, through my observations across many businesses, the training component has been replaced by compliance.  Caught in a bind of having to meet their reporting and meeting obligations, sales managers lose valuable time that should be invested in the continuous development of their sales people.

I am seeing that many sales managers are now relegated to being ‘CRM compliance police’, caught up in reporting on numbers of leads, meetings, conversions, etc., usually at the behest of senior management to justify their investment in a CRM.  This means that sales people are often left to fend for themselves with no sales management support at all and often feel under constant scrutiny to meet their numbers quotas.

I get constant complaints from sales managers about this ‘numbers’ obsession and they not being able to support and develop their people to be their best.  They know numbers are important but numbers are not the only aspect of effective sales performance – yet why are they required to worship at the compliance alter?

Training sales people is vital to healthy and sustainable sales performance.  With markets becoming more complex and changing at rapid rates, regular training is imperative to help sales people keep up to date and effective.  Training needs to be regular for it to have any effect.  Regular ‘mini’ training sessions in short, sharp bursts combined with one-on-one coaching in the field makes for better and better sales performance as well as team spirit, unity and retention.  But when do sales managers have the time to learn how to be good trainers and coaches?  And when do they have the time to put this into practice?

Since 1997, we have been accrediting and training sales managers at Barrett to be competent trainers and coaches.  Many report very positive outcomes as a result of being able to conduct regular training with their teams.  Besides sales lifting, team moral improves, there is better retention of staff, and clients seem happier too.

It has been shown that if a business has skilful, professionally trained sales managers who can strategise and plan; lead, coach and train; effectively manage their unit; liaise, link and collaborate with other divisions; and regularly report relevant, real data to the business, then the performance of the sales team will improve significantly.  No other area of development shows such a positive correlation with sales results.

As a rule of thumb, ‘best practice’ states a sales manager should invest their time accordingly:

This is a plea on behalf of beleaguered sales mangers everywhere – if you want great sales results, get your sales managers training again.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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Can sales and medicine mix?

September 1, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Culture, Ethics & Values

As you know, I am an advocate for the philosophy that ‘everybody lives by selling something’ and that people buy from people they trust.  At its best, selling is about the principle of exchange:- the exchange of value where both parties benefit from open and transparent communication and know what they are engaging in.

So can ‘selling’ be seen as a legitimate role in the various practices of medicine?  I.e. GP’s, dentists, optometrists, physiotherapists, surgeons, etc.

If we take it that good selling is where people are fully informed of the facts surrounding their situation, are given legitimate options to choose from, and are in a position to make their own decisions without fear of deception, bullying or intimidation then, yes, selling can form a part of the practice of medicine.

Educating your ‘clients’ is a key function of good selling and selling does involve persuasion on occasion, especially where people are concerned about the decisions they have to make as it relates to their priorities, needs, wants, fears, desires or frustrations.  Some clients are prepared to take more risks than others.  Any good sales person or medical practitioner would make sure their clients are made fully aware of the risks so they can enter into a decision with their eyes open.  Offering your best expert advice is part of what we pay the medical profession for.

Bad medicine like bad selling is about tricking people and taking advantage of the unsuspecting and the uneducated.  And as the medical profession is part of the educated elite, where there is knowledge there is power.

My concern lies in the corporatising and commercialisation of medicine and I feel it is posing some ethical problems by creating a range of competing motivations such as ‘Do I do the best for my patient or my shareholders’ wallets?’

You may notice the increase in the amalgamation of medical practices, especially in the areas of dentistry and optometry and the shift in focus to shareholder value.  It’s similar in my view to corportatising child care and look at what happened there.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to present information on ‘selling’ to a dental group.  They were interested in how to bring a sales culture into their business and get patients to buy more, especially ‘teeth whitening’ and other ‘vanity’ offerings.   I must say, I felt very uneasy and did not continue with that business.  A recent article in The Weekend Australian, 28-29 August 2010 titled ‘Ethical doubts over optical sales’, highlighted the potential issues with the ‘corporatisation’ of Optometrists.  The President of the Australian Medical Association highlighted the possible ethical dilemma and conflict of interest, with optometrists working for large corporates and their emphasis on selling prescription glasses.  Whilst he stated that there was no evidence of the over prescribing of prescription glasses, he raised issues about providing accurate medical advice and the desire to increase the value of the ‘sale’ and shareholder value as a real risk.   The issue revolved around ‘trust’ – trust in the advice given and the options presented.

This is not just hearsay.  Take the following scenarios I came across in the last 4 weeks:

  1. A dentist, about to clean the teeth of his patient after the normal check up, suggested that the patient should have a photograph taken of their teeth so they can have a before and after shot.  The patient agreed, but found out later when they got their bill that they have been charged $55 for the photograph unaware they were required to pay for it.  At no time did the dentist inform the patient that there was a cost associated with the photograph.  When the patient confronted the receptionist about her bill it was immediately refunded without question.
  2. A patient is overcharged via her private health fund by her dentist.  The dentist was able to access her private insurance surplus taking advantage of her savings.  When she confronted him he told her ‘bad luck it’s already done’.  Now she has to take her complaint to the Dental Board and her insurance company wasting her time and creating more angst.
  3. An optometrist offered to take a photograph of a patient’s retinas to check for pressure build up, etc, and like the dentist above, didn’t inform the patient that there was a cost associated with this.  Later, the patient found out there was a $90 fee attached to the photos, and upon challenging the receptionist, had the fee waived.

That optometrist patient was me in this instance and as a result I no longer go to this optometrist.  My trust has been breached and I could not rely on his opinion or advice any more.

I understand that dentists, optometrists, vets, naturopaths, physiotherapists and podiatrists, for instance, have ‘retail’ arms to their businesses because they can sell ancillary products.  However, I am proposing that there needs to be more attention paid to the transparent selling and ‘up selling’ of products and services between the medical advice given and the sale of retail products.  Not having met all medical professionals I can only assume that the vast majority know the difference between giving sound medical advice free from bias and the offerings in their retail business.  For instance, I like going to my vet.  He gives me good advice, and he hasn’t tried to take advantage of me by over selling products or offering me things I do not need.  He informs me of my choices and, as a result, I reward him by returning to him when I need vet advice as well as buying my dog and cat food from him rather than the big pet store a few kilometres away.  I like supporting him and I understand that retail is part of his business mix.  I buy from him because he is a good vet and he also offers products of a superior value that I couldn’t get at the supermarket.

The spotlight, too, is being shone more brightly on the relationship between the medical profession (GP’s and Specialists) and the pharmaceutical and pathology industries.  I wonder how many have been influenced or even induced by pharmaceutical or pathology companies to change their prescribing or referral habits in favour of personal benefits at the expense of patients.  No wonder people are increasingly feeling cynical and wary about the intentions of the medical profession.

In conclusion, I recognise the need for businesses to be well run and profitable, however, when shareholder value outweighs the health and wellbeing (financial as well as physical) of its clients or patients, then I think we need to question the application of ‘selling at all costs’ in these cultures.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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