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The real $ value of role playing

October 14, 2010 in Sales Skills, Sales Training

Tell almost any sales person they are going to participate in role plays as part of their sales training and you will hear a collective groan.  In short most sales people hate role playing.  It is often seen as a form of potential embarrassment, or something stilted and false.  Many people feel self conscious and don’t want to look ‘bad’ in front of their peers.  It doesn’t help either that over 90% of all sales people follow no logical processes when selling, so when it comes to role playing they don’t know what to work on.

When role playing is brought to bear in a sales training program it doesn’t help if role playing is treated as a token gesture and is irrelevant to the real life situations faced by the sales people.  Many role plays are generic and not pitched towards specific skills or behaviours nor are they properly monitored to provide genuine feedback on performance, suggestions and insights.  This means that role plays are viewed as a waste of time.  And they are if they are not built or delivered properly.

Given the right kind of structure and environment, the real truth is that most sales people would really benefit from regular role playing and in turn their businesses and customers would be better off too. We cannot under value the importance of role playing and rehearsal to improve and enhance our performance.   When used properly role plays and rehearsal can really hone the skills, knowledge and mindset of our sales people. Linked to clear processes and behavioural performance standards we can create an environment of conscious and conscientious practice where sales teams are willing to practice and refine their skills and talents.

At Barrett we make sure all role plays are specific to our clients’ business and their client situations.  We make sure that the role plays are broken down into steps which can be applied and practiced.  We make sure there is a check list an ‘observer’ can use to monitor and provide specific feedback on the performance of the sales person.  We make sure there is an opportunity to receive clear and unambiguous feedback on performance.   We make sure it is safe for people to practice and make mistakes without fear of retribution.  In short, we make sure role playing and rehearsal is practical, useful and insightful allowing people to adjust their behaviours and mindset to create better and better performance standards.   However, the challenge is to make this a regular activity in sales teams.

In all sporting environments ongoing training incorporates, at regular intervals, ‘race practice’.  Race practice is where you simulate the environment and actions you are likely to face when at the real event.  Race practice is a regular feature of any athletes’ life.  I can recall in my competitive swimming days that our squad would practice race starts, turns, relay changeovers as well as rehearse our speciality events racing against each other to develop a sense of what it would feel like when we were to perform at the real events.  This happened at least once a week.  This practice or role playing was invaluable to our sporting skills and especially our confidence.  The physical actions and emotions we would experience at the real events were simulated in practice.  We learnt not just how to swim well but how to handle the pressure of performing.

Like competing athletes sales people often need to perform under pressure.  Therefore we must practice to learn how to perform under pressure.  Role playing is an ideal format for building your skills and strengths in sales and working out how you handle yourself under pressure.  Done constructively and with the clear intention of building people’s capabilities, role playing can be a challenging, exciting, fun and great learning experience for all.

Sadly, however, it’s estimated that only between 15 – 20% of sales teams actually practice role playing throughout their sales year.

Role playing needs to be valued as a business tool, a peak performance business tool that helps people reach higher and higher standards. Role playing or rehearsal helps us:

1. Be prepared to handle a variety of different scenarios

  • Different types of clients i.e. from industries, large to small; high value clients, etc.
  • Clients with different types of communication styles, values, desires, motives, needs, wants, goals, etc.
  • Dealing with multiple contacts inside an organisation – i.e. CEO, COO, Procurement, CFO, HR, etc. Our sales people need to know how to adjust their language and position with these key stake holders.

2. Handling challenging situations

  • Anticipating tricky situations i.e. client complaints, accommodating extra people in a meeting, other agendas competing with your suggestions, etc.
  • Thinking on your feet when dealing with difficult or different issues i.e. hostile clients, issues outside of your control, etc.
  • Handling objections or dealing with misunderstandings.
  • Presenting different solutions and making yourself understood.

3. Presenting or pitching for business

  • Making client presentations or pitching for new business with major accounts or new prospects.

Good sales practices include processes and steps to follow.  They can be taught and learned.  Role playing allows us to practice in safe environments and identify where we need to pay more attention to ensure better performance.  Role playing and rehearsal also allows us to make sure our effective skills and capabilities don’t’ ‘go to seed’ and keep us fresh and alert.

You’re never too old or too experienced to learn.  The other week when our new Director of Sales, John Garrido and I were out on a client meeting, John was able to give me feedback on my sales performance.  It was refreshing to be able to have someone observe me and make suggestions on how I could be better.  It is very hard to observe your own performance.  We need people to observe us, see how we are performing and give constructive feedback.

Good sales teams look out for each other.  They plan ahead, they account for various contingencies and they actually practice how to deal with them.  They do not leave their deals or sales careers to chance.

Let’s bring back effective role playing and rehearsal and ensure our talents and capabilities are able to flourish and shine.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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When should we appoint a Sales Manager?

October 7, 2010 in Recruitment, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Strategy

For many start ups and small businesses having a full time sales manager in place is not a viable option.  Firstly, there is usually no one to lead and manage in the sales function however, the function of sales management should be on your ‘To Do List’ as a business owner/manager even if you are sales managing yourself.  Paying attention to your sales activities and results, developing your sales strategy and plan, knowing who to target and how to target viable prospects, mapping your metrics (lead/prospect/sales conversion ratios, etc.), success rate, development of product knowledge, reporting, proactive review, and keeping yourself motivated and committed all form part of a sales manager’s role.

Making sure these activities feature as part of your regular business practices, your way of doing business, from ‘Day One’ means that when it comes time to appoint a sales manager you have the basis of a sales management function in place.

So when is the right time to appoint a sales manager?  How many sales people do you need to get to before you can afford a sales manager?  Do you need your sales manager to sell as well?

These are some of the critical questions facing many SME’s.  In reality the sales management function should be the second most powerful role in a business behind the CEO.  The role has considerable power to make or break a business.  Effective sales managers lead the charge for sales growth directly and via a sales team.  They make important decisions about customer acquisition, growth and retention, entry into new markets and viability of a sales force.

The appointment of a sales manager into your business is one of the most important decisions you will make.  Getting it wrong can be catastrophic.  So here are some guidelines to help you with your sales management employment plan:

Step 1:  Begin with the end in mind

What do you want to see happen to your business in the next 5+ years?  How do you visualise it happening?  By beginning with the end in mind you can then work backwards and plan your business progression by mapping it out over the next 3-5 years, taking into account your revenue and profit projections, then plan your sales force around these guidelines/goals including the appointment of a sales manager.  For instance, I have clearly articulated my business vision over the next 10 years including the next several steps in my business growth plan which includes mapping the size and type of sales team and the type of sales manager I need.  With a clear plan in place, I have now gone to market and appointed the first role, a Director of Sales, whose job it is to grow my business and build a sales team around him to achieve our revenue and profit projections via a well established and clearly articulated sales strategy.  In the early stages, the Director of Sales needs to be able to sell as well to get the sales momentum going.  This way they learn my business, how it works and how to make it better.  They know what needs to be in place for an emerging sales team and how to promote and position my business favourably in the market.

Step 2: Create a transition plan

As your business grows you need to plan for growth in your sales team.  You can start with a Director of Sales to lead the charge like I have or you can appoint sales people.  However, sooner or later you will need someone performing the role of sales manager in a formal manner.  You can use the following points as a guide:

  • If you have 2 or more sales people you will need someone taking the lead on the sales management function on a part time basis.
  • If you have 4 of more sales people you are likely to need a full time sales manager who can also sell into and manage key accounts.
  • If you have 8 or more sales people you will need a full time sales manager whose sole function is to be a sales manager.
  • If you have more than 10 sales people you need more than one sales manager.

A word of advice: don’t leave it too late.  Usually people appoint a sales manager out of desperation after they are exhausted trying to do everything themselves.  Don’t let that be you.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

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

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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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