How we can learn MasterSales lessons

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Talent

Like many people in Australia, my family and employees have been captivated by MasterChef Australia.

What I love about MasterChef is that it can be seen as a metaphor for expressing our talents and being the best we can be. Given my interest in everything to do with sales, personal mastery and performance, I particularly love the parallel I have been able to draw about what it takes to be an elite master chef and an elite sales person and elite sales leader by the observation I have made in MasterChef.

As lessons for people wanting to master the sales profession,MasterChef works …

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Does everyone live by selling something?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brand & Reputation, Education in Sales, Ethics & Values, Marketing, Procurement, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Skills, Teamwork, Vision, Mission & Purpose

‘Does everyone live by selling something?’

My desire to seek answers to this question was ignited back in the late 1980’s when I came across the quote ‘Everyone lives by selling something’. The quote was coined by Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet, travel writer and author of ‘Treasure Island’, in the late 1880’s some 100 years earlier.

It is interesting to note that Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature. He was also greatly admired by many authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov and others. Most modernist writers dismissed him, however, because …

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Create your ‘Ideal’ sales force blueprint

By / / Assessments, Competition, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Performance Management, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Role Clarity, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Psychology, Sales Results, Sales Talent, Strategy

Now is the time to rethink your sales strategy and your sales force. Design the sales force your business needs and get great results.

Tip: It’s all in the thinking and planning that happens before the execution.

To help you start your thinking and planning here are two case studies from our work files where the businesses got it right.

Story one: Transform your current sales team into a new sales team

“The Sales Culture transformation and competency project we worked on with you in 2008 has been such a great success for our team. The culture is now fantastic and the morale of …

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Success is a moving platform

By / / Brand & Reputation, Business Acumen, Competition, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Pioneer, Sales Relationships, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, Strategy, Sustainability & Environment, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Do you have the wrong sales team delivering your sales strategy?

Ask yourself the follow the questions:

  • How has your strategy and /or market place changed recently?
  • How have you seen the role of ‘sales’ change over the last few years in your industry?
  • How do your sales people compare to your competitors?
  • How do your sales people need to sell now?
  • How is your product offering behaving in the market place now? Was it once exclusive and now a commodity?

The definition of a ‘good’ salesperson is driven by many possible needs. Those needs are a function of industry standards, changing market conditions, competition, corporate strategy …

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The cost of poor sales selection

By / / Assessments, Brain Science, Brand & Reputation, Competition, Performance Management, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Assessments, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Management, Sales Psychology, Sales Research, Sales Talent

Have you ever done the math on how much sales recruitment costs you, especially when you get it wrong?

If you are like most managers then chances are you haven’t. So let’s consider the costs, overt and covert, involved in sales recruitment.

If you don’t know it already, sales recruitment is one of the toughest assignments around. I know this firsthand, as I was in this role for over 8 years with a leading consultancy and recruitment company. During this time, I interviewed about 8,000 sales people face-to-face in the technical, industrial, medical, and scientific industries. Remember, this is not counting all …

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Creating the right environment

By / / Ethics & Values, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Management

I was running a ‘train the sales trainer’ session with some experienced, professional Sales Managers the other day. The session I ran is designed to equip these managers to run mini sales training modules of as part of our sales fitness programs. Many manages are not trained facilitators and so we make sure we give them the information they need to set up an effective learning environment. All was going well until we came across the content entitled “Creating the right learning environment” which is a practical guide about what you need to prepare and take into account when setting …

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Leading a healthy sales career

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Emotional Intelligence, Neuroscience, Neuroscience in Sales, Sales Culture, Sales Psychology, Sales Talent, Sales Tips, Self Development, Time Management, Wellbeing

It is well documented that being healthy (physically, emotionally, and mentally) is vital to leading an effective and productive life.

In sales your health is a critical factor to your success. Many highly successful sales people I meet are self disciplined in all aspects of their life ensuring they are fit, healthy and well trained in their profession.

Having a healthy sales career is underpinned by the individuals healthy life style, and a well managed business which includes good sales support, clear goals and leadership.

I have written before in a previous post Healthy salespeople, healthy …

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The Hard Sell

By / / Ethics & Values, Negotiation, Sales Culture, Sales Relationships

I declare right up front that I am not, and never have been a fan of the Hard Sell. You have probably guessed that from all my previous posts.

And if you ask most people about what they think about the profession of selling they will often describe something akin to the ‘Hard Sell’. Of late I have also noticed a rise in ‘hard sell’ stories where people are being unnecessarily pressured to buy or sales people being pressured to sell at almost any cost.

The hard times may be pushing some people to do things they wouldn’t normally do like the …

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Professional Services firms are feeling the pinch

By / / Brand & Reputation, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Marketing, Prospecting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Strategy, Success

Take note: Lawyers, Accountants, Engineers, Marketing Consultants et al

Professional Services Firms are struggling when it comes to keeping and finding business. This on top of the fact that many have to come to grips with the fact they need to sell. The market has definitely changed. You cannot sit there aggressively waiting for the phone to ring anymore.

In speaking with one partner from a well respected law firm, he vented his frustration at the lack of action being taken in his firm by partners and their teams in terms of driving the push to find new business in current and …

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Leadership, Sales and a Clear Message

By / / Brand & Reputation, Communication, Ethics & Values, Marketing, Prospecting, Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Sales Strategy, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Welcome to 2009.

Over the summer break I was talking with a number of friends about what 2009 will hold for us, our families, our communities and our businesses. Without exception, we discussed the current and possible effects of the GFC (global financial crisis) on our markets and especially on our thinking and our actions moving forward. We discussed the importance of open, clear and honest communication and decisive leadership, clear goals and defining what we stand for.

We discussed the fact that it would be very hard for people to make ‘easy’ money this year i.e. playing the stock market, etc. …

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