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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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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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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Punished by Rewards

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Neuroscience, Neuroscience in Sales, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Motivation & Rewards

Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.

As part of my own development and in an attempt to keep my mind as open and fresh as possible, I take to reading all sorts of things. On my current reading list is a very interesting book called “Punished by Rewards” by Alfie Kohn, author, speaker and educator. He writes about the trouble with “gold stars, incentive plans, As, praise and other bribes”.

In light of current discussions and debates about the issues surrounding CEO performance bonuses and …

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The Dark Side

By / / Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Brain Science, Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Neuroscience, Neuroscience in Sales, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Psychology, Self Development, Uncategorized, Wellbeing

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 …

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Making Decisions

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Value Proposition & Value Add, Wellbeing

Several years ago I read a great book called ‘Kids Are Worth It – Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline’ by Barbara Coloroso.

This book has served me very well as a parent giving me guidance in how to raise self-aware and self-disciplined children. In particular, I learnt by heart the following questions which I ask myself whenever I make decisions and in turn, have taught my children to ask whenever they make decisions.

The 3 Decision Questions are:

  • Is it life threatening?
  • Is it morally threatening?
  • Is it unhealthy?

For instance, when my then 7 year old son asked if his 2 …

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The relationship of revenue growth to your job?

By / / Customer Service, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Value Proposition & Value Add, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Every sales person knows the relationship of prospecting to sales is critical. Without prospecting you are not likely to get a sale. We all know the relationship of sales to revenue growth is high. But how many people in your company know the relationship of revenue growth to their specific job?

The sales people do. Owners do. They think about it every day.

Yet many people not working directly with customers don’t often think about how their roles impact sales and revenue growth. Even in some customer service teams they don’t realise the connection either. How many sales …

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Thinking of promoting your best sales performer to sales manager? Think again!

By / / Assessments, Attitudes & Behaviours, Role Clarity, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Talent

Many businesses have made the mistake of promoting their best performing sales person into the role of sales manager. Their logic – well they are great at selling, they’ll be great at sales management. Sadly most of these situations end in disaster.

To start off the top performing sales person has usually been given no training or a development framework to help them make the transition into what is a very different role. It is almost assumed they will know how to be a sales manager because they ‘know’ (sadly usually only intuitively) how to sell. The …

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Costing cutting at the expense of sales? Bad move

By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting, Sales Leadership, Sales Planning, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Training

I don’t know about you, but when markets start to tighten or when things feel a bit uncertain, instead of cost cutting and bunkering down, I have found that you need to do precisely the opposite. You need to invest in your sales efforts with good strategy, sales training, good sales management and good sales coaching.

I have experienced selling in tight markets over the years and found these times to be some of my most successful sales years. Why? Because I took advantage of everyone else’s pessimistic approach as they sat around complaining, and I got out there and learned …

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The Power of Women in Sales Leadership

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Gender & Sales, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Research

As the New York Stock Exchange is now looking at “employee engagement” as a significant predictor of higher share value and market return, and given we are all competing, not just for clients and market share but for good employee talent, maybe a key performance indicator for sales management could be in Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB).

I came across some recent research into sales management, and it got me thinking about how team leaders were not allowed to “mother” their sales teams.

A loaded term, “mothering”, and without proper definition creates myths and innuendo where none should exist. The following research piece …

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