Can sales and medicine mix?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Sales Culture

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, …

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Through the looking glass

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Performance Management, Sales Management, Sales Training, Strategy

Through the looking glass was voted by you as the number 8 Sales Trend for 2010.

Many sales people are tired of being told that they need to sell like someone else to be successful. Many are unsure of what they should be modelling. Too often they are told to ‘just be like’ someone else but with no reference to what that actually looks like they are left poking around in the dark mimicking the ‘star’ performer and left feeling unauthentic. And ‘big sticks’, bribes or fear don’t help either.

Most people, and especially sales people, …

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Why you should stop trying to delight your customers

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service

Delighting customers does not build loyalty. Reducing customers’ effort does.

These were the findings from a large customer service survey conducted by the Customer Contact Council (CCC), and featured in the July edition of the Harvard Business Review. The survey’s aim was to get answers to three questions:

  • How important is customer service to loyalty?
  • Which customer service activities increase loyalty, and which don’t?
  • Can companies increase loyalty without raising their customer service operating costs?

    • After conducting structured interviews with customer service leaders and a study of more than 75,000 customers, the CCC uncovered three findings:

    1. Exceeding expectations during service interactions has negligible …

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    Five reasons to ‘Mind Your Emotions’®

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Self Development, Wellbeing

    “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’.”

    This quote more often than not reflects my life as an entrepreneur, business woman, sales person, mother, partner and friend. On those days and nights when I feel overwhelmed and sometimes exhausted by all my responsibilities and commitments that little voice reminding me to ‘try again tomorrow’ keeps me focused on why I am doing what I am doing – it helps me to continue to cultivate my resilience, to continue to put one foot in front of the …

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    More lessons from MasterChef – Can you take the heat?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Performance Management, Sales Skills, Self Development, Success

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

    On this occasion, I want to comment on ‘Resilience’ and dealing with setbacks and challenges, and how MasterChef gave us a window into how people handle stress and demanding situations. The time pressures and …

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    What’s the difference between a member, a client and a customer?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Customer Service, Ethics & Values, Sales Culture, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Strategy

    What’s in a name? Well, there seems to be some confusion in the market place around the terminology used to describe those people who pay us money for goods, services, experiences, donations, etc.

    Different industries can have different terms for the consumers of their products and/or services. We see terms such as customer, client, patient, guest, patron, member, subscriber, donor, etc. used to describe a person who buys our products or services and intends to use them directly. In short, these terms are referring to the same person – the ‘end user’. However, not everyone ‘consumes’ our products or services or …

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    We want more than a script

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Customer Service, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Tips, Sales Training

    Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of sales people around the world use sales scripts. Used properly, sales scripts act as scaffolding or bridgework to earn us the right to have a meaningful discussion with our prospecting customers, members, donors or subscribers. The sales script is a well constructed set of guidelines that support us when we prospect.

    Good sales scripts:

    • are purposeful – have a clear reason why you are calling someone;
    • use language the customer understands;
    • are designed for the benefit of the listener with it always being “the prospects choice” to accept …

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    Is internal competition eating away at your sales results?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Talent, Self Development, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Value Proposition & Value Add

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

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    How do you create future sales superstars?

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Assessments, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Value Proposition & Value Add

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

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

    All of this makes the story I am about to share quite unique and refreshing. Recently, …

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    Culture Fit

    By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Strategy, Value Proposition & Value Add

    Culture Fit was voted by you as the number 6 Sales Trend for 2010. What is Culture Fit? Well the first place you are likely to hear about Culture Fit is when you are recruiting for new staff or being recruited yourself. For instance, Culture Fit Interviews differ from Behavioural Interviews, in that the Behavioural Interview attempts to find out about the candidate’s behaviour, skills, knowledge and experience. Culture Fit Interviews generally do not try to determine the individual’s capability, but rather considers the candidate’s ‘cultural fit’ with the organisation, their …

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