JF Uncut

Maureen Blandford

Perhaps you’ve heard about Merrill Lynch’s John Thain’s $1.22M office renovation, including $87K for an area rug? Preceded, of course, by AIG’s spending part of their bailout on spa treatments for execs. Nice. And then there was the Big Three auto execs flying corporate jets to Washington to plead for their share of the bailout. Next up: Citigroup. Led by an exec team that the NY Post calls “Citiboobs.”

In this Wednesday’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd asks:
How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?

“Citiboobs,” indeed.

While I am appalled by story after story detailing greed, stupidity, and obtuseness in corporate leadership, and applaud the world’s righteous indignation over the executive termites who have caused irreparable damage to our many fine organizations, there’s a part of my business psyche that is pleased such horrid behavior is seeing the light of day.

For years (actually two decades), I have often felt horror at how the B2B version of  Fat Cats (Marketers and the executives who support them) burn through $s on truly ridiculous marketing tactics, while the Working Poor (Sales orgs) struggle to do more with less.

An $8K shower curtain or an $87K area rug look like wise investments next to spending in Marketing I’ve witnessed over the years. At the same time that sales organizations have seen their training & coaching budgets shrink to next to nothing, marketers think nothing of dropping $100K on new logo development or color consultation. They produce brochures that are rarely read by target audiences. A few years ago, I witnessed a tech client approve a $200K photo shoot (in NYC, of course) for photos that easily could’ve been obtained for a fraction of the cost from one of many fine stock photo agencies.

Why are our field sales folks so often building their own sales tools (wasting valuable sales time), when their corp HQ folks are spending millions on marketing materials? Because much of the corp-produced stuff doesn’t meet real selling needs. Have you ever seen the garage of a pharmaceutical rep? Packed with marketing materials they don’t use.

Very briefly, corporate marketers have been trained solely in consumer marketing, not B2B. They’ve rarely actually carried a bag and consequently don’t understand that today’s great sellers are more about asking great questions rather than selling stuff.  Our marketing materials, if you’ve noticed, are packed with selling stuff. That’s not the kind of sales support we need today.

The dark side to this story is that many B2B Marketers have much in common with our ego-centric execs. They love to be wined and dined by Madison Avenue types and spend hours talking about things like shades of color and the emotions one shade or another evokes. And, this drives me crazy, marketers disdain sellers and sales organizations. Consequently, when a sales org tries to help a marketing org better meet their needs…well, they might as be talking to the hand.

Now, more than ever, responsible leadership will be open to a little righteous indignation over the imbalance in marketing and true sales support spend. If Starbucks is halting decaf brewing after noon in the hopes of saving $400M by the end of the year, I’m thinking leadership will be open to considering many cost-saving options.

Sellers and Sales Leadership: if you happen to have an internal marketing organization who supports your needs – Bravo! You can count yourselves lucky.

If, however, you’re not getting the support you need from your marketing organization, speak up. Consultative/Relationship/Collaborative selling is precisely what we need our sales orgs to be executing. But, it’s not easy. Features/Functions/Benefits selling is part of our DNA, having evolved over thousands of years.

To be effective in transitioning our sales folks over to great selling and ridding ourselves of bad habits takes time.  A sustainable sales support plan must include on-going mentoring, coaching, & training. For both sellers and sales leadership.

The good news here is that the investment needed for GREAT, sustainable sales support is a fraction of the budget that’s being wasted in B2B marketing today. For instance, marketing organizations executing a marketing plan that truly supports B2B selling could do a great job with about 60% of their current budget. I’d recommend redirecting some of the remaining 40% to on-going sales training needs (yippee!). And either saving the rest, or redirecting to HR efforts to hire and retain great sales people.

I’m giddy thinking about this: Sales folks supported by great training and marketing materials that help them move the ball down the field. Now – isn’t that worth some righteous indignation?

Maureen Blandford is CEO of MindTime® Group, a B2B marketing firm, and author of “Branding Doesn’t Work in B2B.” Her team helps B2Bs align their marketing and consultative sales efforts to drive more profitable revenue. You can reach her at maureen@mindtimegroup.com or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/maureenmindtime  For more information on her book: brandingdoesntwork.com

Performance has many components: For example, activities and abilities are typically where many organisations focus on. Yet beneath the surface, our beliefs about ourselves, our customers, our job, can either help or hinder our performance. You may have heard the expression, “Whatever you believe you can do, you will and whatever you believe you can’t do, you won’t.” It’s as if our beliefs (which are unique to us all) become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our beliefs can act as huge barriers that stop us giving 100 percent to something.

Here are six beliefs that can have a positive impact on your performance.

1. Every Individual is unique and their perceptions are true to them. Because we each absorb 2 million pieces of information unconsciously and can only process around seven chunks consciously, we each have our own unique perception of the world around us. If everyone reading this was asked to explain beliefs, each individual would give a different explanation.

So who’s right? Everyone is right because your perceptions are true for you. That’s why the more respect we have for every other individual and the more we seek to understand the viewpoints of others, the richer our communication becomes. Respecting the opinions of others doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to agree with them, we just have to acknowledge that every individual’s reality is the one based on their own unique perceptions.

2. Communication is successful, only if it achieves desired results. It doesn’t matter if you think you’ve communicated well or if you think you’ve been crystal clear, what matters is that your communication is received and acted upon in the manner you wanted.

How many times have you said something to another person who has totally misinterpreted what you meant? Equally, sometimes we are on the receiving end of communication that makes us feel inadequate. If we can look beyond the communication and try to see a positive intention behind another person’s behaviour, then our relationships and interactions with people become more constructive and empowering.
When we communicate with people and if they are ‘not getting’ our point, then the responsibility is ours to adapt our approach until they do. For example; if we have communicated a price increase and the reasons for that price increase, and our customers have not understood those reasons, the responsibility for this mis-communication lies with us. Therefore we can only judge the success of what we have communicated based on the reactions we get from other people.

3. Resistance from another person usually signals a lack of rapport. Rapport is a vital ingredient when developing relationships because it builds trust and allows communication to flow. When that state of rapport is there, communication is a lot easier even if you don’t agree with the other person. When we don’t feel that rapport or connection we have a tendency to ‘nit-pick’ or find fault. Customers respond to people they perceive understand their position and are on the same wavelength. If we are encountering lots of resistance from a prospect or a customer, then it helps us to notice that we haven’t built sufficient rapport. Even if our prospect doesn’t agree with what we are saying, rapport enables us to have an open discussion where we can get an honest reason for their reaction rather than a ‘prickily’ brick wall.

4. Flexibility improves success. The greater your flexibility, the greater your chances for achieving what you want. If we accept that every person is a unique individual then we have to accept that each prospect and customer will require a different approach. Using the same approach with all prospects and customers is like playing the lottery, the chances of getting it right are extremely low. If we have high levels of flexibility that allows us to adapt to each prospect and customer’s style then we are able to build more rapport and reduce resistance.

Einstein gave the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over whilst expecting a different result. As an example, think about a fly…..have you watched how many times a fly bumps its head trying to fly out of a window? I guess that’s why it’s a fly.

The more we are able to adapt, the more opportunities we create. If what you are doing isn’t working, try something different and if that doesn’t work try something different again. Flexibility of thinking and behaviour creates awesome sales people. Your team are also unique individuals requiring a unique approach with how you manage them. The greater your behavioural flexibility the easier it is to connect and develop better working relationships.

5. There is no failure, only feedback. Of course there is failure. If you take a driving test or exam you either pass or fail. Your sales people will either succeed in achieving their monthly sales targets or fail to meet them. The key is how you perceive ‘failure’. Every failure can be looked at as a learning opportunity that is beautifully epitomised by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. Despite more than ten thousand failures, he stood by his dream until he made it a physical reality. He said that every discarded idea took him one step closer towards finding the idea that would work.

One of the most powerful self-coaching questions sales people can ask is, “What will I do differently next time?” or “What can I learn from this?” Sales people who make mistakes and learn from those mistakes have a tendency to do better than sales people who are scared to fail. Therefore if your team can be encouraged to see that when they don’t achieve their targets they have an opportunity to learn, because they have been given great feedback on what not to do next month.

6. Accepting 100% responsibility creates transformation. Every action you take creates a reaction that is based on the formula of cause and effect. Everything that happens is the effect of an underlying cause. Most people spend their lives operating at effect….”It’s not my fault I always end up in bad relationships.” “Life’s so unfair, things always happen to me.” “We’re in a recession, that’s why I haven’t achieved target.” “If I could only match our competitors prices, I’d win more deals.”

True personal power can be achieved when an individual accepts 100% responsibility for what they create in their lives. To put it another way, you get one of two things; the result or outcome you want or the reasons why you didn’t (you may recognise these as ‘excuses’!)

The more you focus on the reasons (excuses) and blame circumstances beyond your control you push away your personal power. Therefore, if you believe that you are in control of the situations that life ‘appears’ to throw at you, then you are in control of your thinking and emotions, and therefore in control of your own life. This belief has given thousands of sales people the determination to breakthrough so many barriers and overcome countless challenges when at times it was tempting to wallow in self-pity. If something good or bad happens, ask yourself, “How did I create that?” This question enables you to tap into your brain’s infinite potential and it will give you all the answers you need. If you’re prepared to commit 100% to taking responsibility for your own life, the results can be extraordinary.

Today’s News: I probably get alerted to new site launches two or three times every week, but this is one that looks really good and I have every intention of getting involved, think you will like it – http://www.publisheddaily.com/

In addition, it is some time since I mentioned Sales HQ - what a really good looking site – now edited by the amazingly talented Kit Richert PhD – if you haven’t discovered this site, you really should do.

Tomorrow: My learned colleague Maureen Blandford needs to get something off her chest, and so JF Uncut returns tomorrow with a vengeance – be sure to join us.

The JF Guest Author Spot

Kevin Eikenberry

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to be more productive. We buy time management books, go to courses, try new software, read blogs dedicated to productivity and search for the best system to help us get more done in the time we have.

Of course increasing productivity makes sense because, even if we don’t always act like it, we only have a limited amount of time with a huge variety of things we would like to do with this limited resource.
This article isn’t about a system or some super-special techniques.

Nothing you are going to read below is going to surprise you, and yet most of us don’t do these things well, or do them so inconsistently that they lose their value. They aren’t sexy, don’t have a related website, and they won’t cost you anything except a decision and some discipline.

The good news is they’re so effective that once you develop the discipline you will have productivity gains for the rest of your life.

The Productivity Enhancers

Here are the four choices you can make to extend and enhance your productivity in any and every area of your life.

• Believing in Yourself and Your Success. While this is certainly true at the highest level – your self esteem is an important component of your success – in this case I am thinking about something more pragmatic.

Have you ever had a situation where the task becomes so daunting that you aren’t sure how you will ever figure it out or know if you can get it all done at all? When you are this unclear, your focus naturally moves to these negative thoughts and your confusion, frustration and overwhelm gets in the way of getting anything done; let alone large amounts of high quality work. Thankfully, the other three enhancers can help solve this one!

• Creating a Clear Purpose. As with belief, there is a big picture component to clarity of purpose. When you are clear on your life’s purpose everything in your life will get better, but for now we are talking about clarity on the current situation. Do you clearly understand the problem you are facing? Do you clearly know the goal you are trying to achieve? When you get more clear, you get more focused, and as you get more focused you can get more of the right things done.

• Maintaining a Refreshed State. Have you ever noticed that stress can negatively impact your productivity? Have you ever noticed how much more effective you are after a good night’s sleep or a healthy meal? In every one of these cases lies a key to greater productivity. To be more productive you must take better care of yourself. Get ample rest, eat better and exercise. All of these things will help you reduce your stress and remain refreshed and ready to tackle the work in front of you.

• Investing in Quiet Time. There are a number of forms and functions for your quiet time. You can reflect; you can pray or meditate; you can plan. Perhaps most of all, when you create quiet space in your life you can think. Thinking is something we do far too little of! When you give yourself time, space and permission to think about the things you’re working on, you will generate new ideas, approaches and connections. In addition, thinking time helps you stay more refreshed and alert as well.

The Paradox

As you read these four ideas you may be thinking – these things don’t give me more time – they take time.

This is so true.

Just as you must invest money to earn a return, you must also invest in yourself and your process in order to glean the best possible results. As counter-intuitive as it might sound, when you begin to invest in these activities, the resulting performance improvements will be incredible.

The Ultimate Benefits

These ideas can be applied, thinking of greater productivity in any area of life, but the best news of all is that when we decide and discipline ourselves to develop these habits, the benefits accrue in every area of our life – not just the area we were focused on when we started!

Potential Pointer: The greatest productivity improvements come from within and are a commitment to being more successful. That commitment starts with investing time in yourself, even when you think you are “too busy” to do those things.

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. You can learn more about him  here

Today’s News: This has become Clayton Shold’s regular piece of weekly real estate, because I am a big fan of Salesopedia.

It is a “clean” site that looks good, feels good and has excellent content. It appeals to serious sales professionals; it is devoid of gimmicks; it is populated by the very best sales gurus; it is unpretentious; it does what it says on the label – it is for “grown-ups”

When I talk to any of my friends and colleagues, Salesopedia is always the #1 choice, when it comes to getting work published.

Is it the most visited? Who knows – different people use different statistics to suit themselves.

Yesterday, my friend Jeb Blount of Sales Gravy suggested I use a site called Compete.com – so, open-minded as ever I logged in: It told me that for December, Sales Gravy got 60k unique visitors; Salesopedia got less than 10k; my blog got minus 50k and Jill Konrath’s blog got 2.5 million – credibility shot to pieces with just one search.

Anyway, this week Clayton is interviewing Mike Shultz: (Another member of the “Global Follicle(y) – there is no such word, in case you are wondering - Challenged Society”

“Mike Schultz is the Publisher of RainToday.com which is the premiere online source for insight, advice and tools for business rainmakers, marketers, and leaders. It seems everyone today is talking about the economy, but Mike and his associate, John Doerr do more than just talk. They recently released their research on “How Clients Buy.” Their findings are very interesting and instructive on what you can do in this economy to positively impact your sales results. Find out what Mike says “the guy down the street” isn’t doing that you can do to win the business.”

As ever, simply click on the banner below to listen in.

Tomorrow: “Six Beliefs That Can Have A Positive Impact On Your Performance” – we are talking sales performance here!

An objection can be looked upon as sales resistance, and without it you cannot expect to make a sale – just as in electricity, you cannot expect to have current flowing from one end of a conductor to the other without resistance.

Making a sale is like driving a car from A to B, where you accelerate and decelerate according to the road conditions. If the car were lifted, the wheels would not touch the ground, it would not have resistance, and without friction you won’t be able to move forward, no matter how fast the wheels are spinning.

Within this E-book, which represents a compilation of articles I have written on the subject, I cover the various strategies you should use to overcome any objection – and reach a satisfactory close.

Simply click on the banner below to download your FREE copy

Today’s News: We are just thirteen days away from launch – more soon!

Tomorrow: My guest is best selling author and leadership guru, Kevin Eikenberry

The JF Guest Author Spot

Craig Klein

“You’ve got to hear 5 no’s to hear 1 yes.” is a common saying in the sales game. It’s also held up as one of the most challenging aspects of sales. Some people just can’t handle that kind of rejection day in and day out…

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way!

The history of selling, which I’ll save for another time, is such that prospects and sales people are trained to follow a certain dance. It’s one in which the prospect is “leading” and the sales rep is “following”. This puts the sales person at the mercy of the prospect’s whims and leads to lots of disappointment and rejection.
So, how does a sales person take control of the dance and find success in a more fulfilling way? Well, it’s not as hard as you think…

It’s really about knowing what makes someone need and want to pay for your product or service and making sure the prospects you invest your time in fit the bill. There are entire books and sales methodologies built around this concept – “Solution Selling”, “Find the Prospect’s Pain”, “Questioning Techniques” are all common phrases used within these methodologies.

More good news! You don’t really need to spend a week in sales training to get good at it!

Here’s a simple road map -
1.    Write down 3 to 10 things you need to know about a prospect before you know if you’re likely to do business with them. Imagine that you’re talking with a life long friend and he says he knows someone who may need your product or service. In that comfortable setting, with no risk of offending anyone, what would you ask your friend about his friend to be sure it’s a fit?

2.    Spend a little time working on scripting out ways to ask these questions that will be appropriate for your prospects. Keep it short, simple and to the point.

3.    Create a call sheet where you can record the answers to these questions for each prospect you talk with. A simple spreadsheet with each prospect listed on one row and the answers to your questions in columns will work. If you’re using a contact manager or CRM, create fields in the system for these answers.

4.    Now, test the questions by trying to answer them for all the prospects that are already into your sales pipeline. Try to fill in the blanks when you have further questions with these prospects. You’ll find it’s uncomfortable if you’re asking the right questions because these questions are much easier to ask at the beginning of the relationship.

5.    With every new prospect, take control up front using your questions. Take the role of the expert. When the prospect starts asking you the typical questions about your company and services, they’re taking over and you’re losing control. Stop them by saying something like “Our product/service is designed specifically for certain types of companies/customers/etc. Let me briefly ask you a few questions to see if we’re likely to be a fit for you. If so, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.” If handled properly, the prospect will see that this is in his best interests as he won’t be wasting his time if it’s not a fit.

6.    Now, the hard part – when you hear answers you don’t want to hear, recognize that you have an opportunity to do yourself and the prospect a huge favor. You can save yourselves a lot of time by saying “based on what you’ve told me, I don’t think that our offering is going to fit your needs.” You may even want to point them to other solutions that do fit.

I know, this sounds totally counterintuitive. Just try it. You’ll find that you establish tremendous creditability with the prospect and often, they’ll try to convince you that they DO need your product! …and that’s what we’re after!

Now you’re in control.
Now price won’t be such an issue.
Now you have more time to spend on the prospects that DO fit the bill!

If you’re having trouble making this concept work for you, you may be talking to the wrong people. More to come on finding the right prospects…

Craig Klein is CEO and Founder of SalesNexus.com, a leading online contact management system for small business sales teams.  Craig’s a sales process guy.  His passion is helping small businesses hire, train, measure and manage sales people through their sales process.  Craig’s blog, Sell, Sell, Sell! has become a valued resource for business owners and sales executives.

Today’s News:

   Here is a gig you really should not miss!! Presented by my good friend from NY,NY – the irrepressible Keith Rosen.

The Art of Enrollment – Turn More Conversations into Clients

Mark your Calendar! January 28. 2009

Attend this event as our guest for free.

“People don’t want to be sold. They want to be enrolled.”

If you’re a coach, trainer, consultant, or non-selling professional, this is one tele-workshop you can’t afford to miss on the evolution of selling.

How effective are you at converting conversations into clients? Do you find yourself struggling to find more clients? What do you do to be unique and make an impact in the very first conversation you have with a prospect? Masterful coaches and speakers leave not only a lasting impression – they also create one.
It’s no secret that most coaches, speakers and non-selling professionals don’t like to sell. The income of most coaches reflects that. As such, they unknowingly use ineffective selling strategies rather than develop healthy, winning relationships with clients. Relying on price as a competitive differentiator dilutes your true value offering.

Coaching and training is not something you “pitch and sell.” The next evolution in how you engage clients is through the Art of Enrollment. What has been initially perceived as an inherent ability in certain leaders, coaches and top achievers is now a documented, step by step process that allows anyone, especially non-selling professionals, to convert more prospects into clients. You can do so in a natural, conversational way that honors your personal strengths, talents, integrity, values and style of communicating.

Keith Rosen has taken his twenty years of coaching and million dollar enrollment process that catapulted his business to one of the most successful coaching practices in the country and is now sharing his system with you in his latest innovation, The Art of Enrollment; a proven process to build a highly profitable, rewarding and sustainable business.

Specifically designed for coaches, consultants and trainers to learn how to:

•  Conduct an initial coaching conversation that will allow you to convert more people into high paying clients in less than 60 minutes.

•  Ask better questions and stay away from the ones that actually sabotage your enrollment efforts.

•  Build enough value where you can easily double – if not triple your current fees so that you can start making a healthy six – seven figure salary.

•  Quickly defuse and eliminate any concerns that prevent people from hiring you.

•  Avoid the toxic clients.

•  Eliminate costly assumptions and toxic thinking that actually prevents you from building your practice.

Date: January 28. 2009
Duration: 90 Minutes
Time: 12pm EST
Location: Your Phone
Cost: Free! Please attend as our guest. Full details here

Sponsored by: The International Coach Federation

Over at Top 10 Sales Articles this week, there is a particularly fine selection of nominees, so do pop over and take a look.

Tomorrow: It’s time for me to give away yet another FREE ebook: This week, the topic is “Handling Objections” – everything you will ever need to know about breaking down resistance and getting to “Yes, I’ll Buy”

If ever there was a time for true leaders to stand up and be counted, surely it is now.

In my view, we are in this predicament because of a combination of weak and corrupt leadership, but you know, there must be almost as many theories on leadership as there are leaders themselves and models for the best kind of leadership change with the times.

In the 15th century, Niccolo Machiavelli advocated a combination of cunning and intimidation as a way to more effective leadership. His philosophy, if not his practices, became unfashionable some time ago.
“Great Man” theories, popular in the 19th century and early this century, are based on the notion of the ‘born leader’ who has innate talents that cannot be taught.

An alternative approach that is still in vogue is based on trying to identify the key traits of effective leaders. Behaviourist theory prefers to see leadership in terms of what leaders do rather than their individual characteristics, and it tries to identify the different roles they fulfil. More recently, attention has moved away from the individual in the leadership role to embrace a more holistic view and investing less in what some commentators refer to as the ‘myth of the heroic leader’.

Requirements of a Leader:
It is my view that an effective leader needs to be:
• A good diagnostician, who can sense and appreciate differences in people and situations.
• Adaptable, in the ability to adapt the leadership style to circumstances.

A leader must realise there is no one best way to influence people.

In summary, to those who would suggest that great leaders are born not made, I would say this: We can examine all of the great leaders in history and identify some common characteristics but we cannot say they were “Born Leaders.” They all developed into their leadership roles over a period of time, learning the skills along the way. I do believe that leaders can be developed – I have to believe that because currently we have far too few of them in the world.

Today’s News: Fellow Top Sales Expert, Dave Brock published a great post last week: “Why Do Salespeople Have Such A Bad Reputation?” It was picked up by The Customer Collective and got more than three hundred and fifty views – plus it attracted a lot of comments. It also attracted the attention of this week’s “Horse’s Ass” – a guy called Axel Schultze.

Two other sales gurus who I both like and respect – Dave Stein and Niall Devitt  weighed in and you will enjoy reading all the comments here 

SalesNexus launch their FREE five part “Double Your Sales In 2009″ series today – just click on the banner below to register

Tomorrow: By pure coincidence, my guest on The JF Guest Author Spot is Craig Klein, CEO at SalesNexus – “Simple steps to identifying prospects that will buy“

In 1957, Roger Bannister became the first athlete to break the four-minute barrier for running a mile. Prior to Bannister’s achievement, on that evening in May at the unassuming Iffley Road track in Oxford, most athletes considered a sub-four-minute mile impossible. But that same year, sixteen other athletes also ran a mile in less than four minutes.

Did they become super-human overnight? Or, more simply, did their beliefs change? That is the way it works – if one person can do it, we can all do it, we just have to believe we can.

Our Colleagues Can Exert Positive Pressure:
Like those milers, salespeople have their own unique sets of beliefs, some of which limit their potential in sales. For instance, during a recession, the members of a sales force may all believe that strong sales are impossible. But if just one person increases their sales, what seemed an inevitable fact will suddenly appear more like a thin excuse for poor performance.

We Must Challenge Negative Beliefs:
Sales Captains who challenge negative beliefs with good questions can help create shifts in mindset. Take a look at these examples of negative beliefs and examples of questions that challenge them.

Statement:
“Our solutions are too expensive.”
Response:
“Compared with whom?”
“Compared to what?”
“How do you know?”

Statement:
“I’m hopeless at cold calling”
Response:
“According to whom?”
“What prevents you from being good at cold calling?”
“What would happen if you were good?”

Statement:
“My sales target is too high this month, I’ll never achieve it”
Response:
“What do you need to do so that you can?”

While challenging questions may not instantly create a belief change, over time, they can enable salespeople to shift their perceptions of their beliefs, recognising that there are other possibilities and options available to them.

Developing Self Worth:
Organisations that recognise the importance of helping their salespeople develop a strong sense of self worth are many times more likely to produce high performers. Self worth is vital to everyone but especially to salespeople who hear “no” more often than they hear “yes, I’ll buy”. A salesperson’s self-esteem can sometimes take a hammering, but organisations that find ways to build their salespeople’s self-esteem reap an invaluable dividend. Self–worth translates into attitude, that small thing that makes such a big difference.

In Summary – The most successful salespeople take care of their attitude and they understand that:

Great Attitude = Great Results,
Average Attitude = Average Results,
Poor Attitude = Poor Results.

The second commonality with successful salespeople is that they expect to be successful and they want it badly enough that they bring about its happening i.e. fulfilled expectation.

Tomorrow: I am heading back to Paris. It has been a great week and I’ll be here for you on Monday as usual – JF

The JF Guest Author Spot

Kevin Dwyer

How well does your compensation method match the needs of your organisation? Does your compensation method create unintended consequences that deliver an observed strategy and set of tactics that differ greatly and negatively from the intended strategy and tactics?

If your answers are; “Not very well” and “Yes”, you are normal. If you answered “Very well”, and “No”, you work in a rare organisation or you are potentially blissfully unaware.

Most organisations operate with a salary only, or salary plus bonus (for the individual) scheme. Sales organisations and sales departments of large organisations often operate with a salary plus commission or a commission only compensation system. Another option not often used is the salary plus pool system. Salary and the pool may remain fixed with revenue, or float with revenue.

Which is the best compensation method? The question, unfortunately, only begs other questions. “How do you want your staff to behave?” is the first question one should ask of oneself when designing a compensation system.

Other considerations include what level of risk one wants employees to take, what degree of teamwork is required to be successful and how closely the organisation’s financial performance is tied to staff performance. For example, a retail sales organisation’s financial success is highly geared towards the salesperson’s success. A research laboratory’s success is highly geared towards individual risk taking (ideas) and team collaboration.

Salary, with or without salary sacrifice, is a good compensation system where individual risk taking need not be rewarded-other than through improvements in salary with career progression. Its other pros include: stable cost of doing business; easy to change accountabilities and roles; easy to administer; and high income security for the employees. Its major con is that it does not quickly reward successful short term risk taking.

Salary with a bonus is the most popular compensation system and yet it is one of the less beneficial compensation systems for most organisations.

The first con is that the bonus is usually tied to a budget number, operational quota or other target that has little relevance to the employee. The employee cannot see clearly how they may influence the performance to realise the bonus. Examples include an operations employee whose bonus is tied to profit and a local employee whose bonus is tied to the performance of a large geographical area.

For instance, consider a Chilean employee whose bonus is tied to the $US performance of the “South American” region. The payment of the bonus can easily depend on sovereign risk levels of Argentina and Brasil. What impact does that bonus arrangement have on the employee’s work? The answer is very little other than disappointment when the bonus does not materialise and joy akin to winning a lottery when it does. The bonus is equated to luck rather than personal or team performance.

When it is clear that either a bonus will or will not be paid a couple of months before the calculation period ends, there is often a tendency for effort and intensity of performance to drop off.

Other cons include that they are often difficult to administer, are poorly understood by employees, and create difficulty in changing roles and responsibilities during the period of time that the bonus is calculated.
The pros of such systems is that they provide a better balance of income security and income at risk for performance and allow for a design that incentivises individual or team performance and short term risk taking.

Commission structures, usually constructed for sales teams, consist of two generic types: commission only and salary plus commission. The pros of commission only and to a lesser extent salary plus commission, are that they provide a high degree of flexibility tying remuneration to revenue and are easy to administer and understand.

The cons of commission schemes, particularly commission only schemes, are that they may lead to aggressive behaviour and provide low income security for employees. Additionally, whilst other compensation systems reduce the cost of sales as a percentage of revenue as revenue increases, commission schemes fix the cost of sales as a percentage of revenue, meaning that from an organisational perspective, higher volumes of sales are no more profitable than lower volumes.

Another issue which clouds the impact of commissions on behaviour is the choice of paying on billings or receipts. The former absolves the salesperson of the responsibility for making appropriate checks on prospects’ abilities to pay. The latter makes it difficult to administer and may lead to aggressive collections behaviour.

A salary plus pool system offers what I think for most organisations is the best compensation system. The system works by creating a pool of funds which may be a proportion of revenue or a proportion of the overall budget or salaries budget. The availability of the pool is triggered by a single metric which the team can influence, for example, sales revenue, production volumes, project expenditure or costs.

The pool is divided amongst a team using a set of metrics which the individual can readily influence.
The metrics for dividing the pool should cover a range of behaviours as well as results. The number of metrics should number no more than four-more than that and individuals find it difficult to keep them top-of-mind. The metrics may change from quarter to quarter or year to year dependent on what is important in the operating environment at the time.

For example, elements to be assessed for a production plant may include three or four of the following:
• Contribution to safety culture
• Production volumes
• Productivity
• Error levels
• Project completion
• Reliability
• Adaptability
• Job knowledge
• Contribution to team ethic

Using a pool system with a defined team makes it more likely that individuals in the team will behave in such a way that the team gets the best result as it is their interest primarily to get the team result “across the line” and secondarily to contribute the most to it.

Another variation of the pool scheme is to have two trigger levels for two pools. One pool may be for an overall geographic region and another for a smaller region within the original geographic region, i.e. a state within a country, a country within a regional group of countries. Another alternative is a division within an organisation. A further alternative is for two sets of metrics within a triple bottom line set of objectives, for example, a pool for financial results and another for community engagement.

Compensation systems must be thought through from first principles to design them to achieve a behavioural objective. Following what competitors do is not enough because it is very likely that their compensation system is flawed in design when it comes to changing the behaviour of people.
©2008 Change Factory

Kevin Dwyer is a pragmatic change management advisor and founder of Change Factory based in Melbourne, Australia. The Change Factory view of what is generally missing in sales development can be summed up by the phrase “Training is not enough” Kevin’s interest in sales is in developing the reinforcing loops of corporate goal, strategy, marketing and sales tactics, KPIs, recruitment, career and competence development, coaching and counselling that influences more customers to move through their buying process with the selling organisation. www.changefactory.com

Today’s News:

One of my “inner circle” (The Global Sales Council) is talking to one of my good friends: Paul McCord is in interview with Clayton Shold over at Salesopedia: “Paul McCord gets results. As an author, consultant and coach he doesn’t make money unless he creates value. This is true for anyone in the sales profession. Every day you are challenged to direct your energies on activities that drive your income. In this podcast Paul distils down to three key words critical to sales success.”  Just click on the image above to listen in.

Tomorrow: “How Roger Bannister Challenged Self-Limiting Beliefs” – and the lessons we can learn from one man’s courage as we strive to deal with the challenges of 2009

To some, networking means simply meeting or calling someone new for what might be a one-off discussion or event. In this limited sense, networking is only a trading relationship in which two parties seek to discover whether they have anything of mutual interest to talk about. They either make some sort of exchange or quickly move on. This makes networking a highly ‘transactional’ subject, much like buying and selling or negotiating with someone.

My view is very different because I believe that networking has a much wider definition. In fact it can be a major social and life skill to be used in both a business/organisational and personal setting.

This ebook is compilation of articles that I have published on the subject, and I have endeavoured to share with you my experiences, with the hope that you will enjoy improving your own networking skills.

You can download it for FREE, simply by clicking on this banner.

Today’s News: Today, I have been working with one of my favourite (favorit) clients to prepare for 2009/2010. The strategy that we designed is so much different to the one we prepared for 2008 – it is immediate; it is short-term (quarter by quarter, out of necessity); it is more flexible (also out of necessity); it allows for further financial dowturns; it is depressingly realistic. But it should guarantee that they are well equipped to take full advantage, when the first shoots of recovery begin around Q3 next year.

Tomorrow, I am delivering an intense NLP coaching session: “How People Buy: Seeing Your Client Through Your Client’s Eyes” inspired by Kerry L. Johnson – “If you can see John Smith through John Smith’s eyes, you will sell John Smith what John Smith wants” This is particularly poignant in today’s selling climate.

In the afternoon, I am going to expose that very same team to Jill Konrath, who will connect live with them for ninety minutes. This is part of my strategy of inviting a selected few, trusted friends, and world class sales experts into my accounts. My clients are in for another real treat tomorrow.

Tomorrow: My guest is my good friend from down under, Kevin Dwyer who, ever insightful, will be sharing his thoughts on compensation – this is becoming an important issue and Kevin is one of the leading experts in the world on the topic. You will not want to miss his words of wisdom.

The JF Guest Author Spot

Colleen Francis

Every January, no matter where you look—magazines, newspapers, TV—everybody talks about how it’s time dive in and get a “new you” makeover. Reinventing yourself ought to be about more than just getting a new outfit and haircut. Why not start by making changes where it really counts—in your sales results! More sales this year means more commissions…which means you’ll have more money to really spoil yourself later on.

The first step is to know where you stood at the end of last year. Like most sales professionals, it’s likely that you can quickly recite exactly how much you closed and how much you earned last year. But have you stopped to consider just how productive you were? It’s a question worth pondering.

Recently I conducted a poll with my clients—most of whom were in leadership positions—to determine their biggest sales concerns. The overwhelming answer was sales productivity. In other words, how much revenue per period can each team member produce, and how can we make that better.

You can chart your sales productivity daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or even annually. Given that we have just finished a calendar year, you have a great opportunity right now to take a look at your own productivity or that of your team from last year.

There are two ways to do this…

1. Look at your ratios
At a minimum, sales reps should produce 6-9 times what they’re paid. The best companies achieve ratio of 10-12 times what they pay their sales staff. If the total take-home pay for a rep (commissions and salary combined) is $100,000, then the best reps produce at least one million dollars in sales.

Granted, these numbers are moving targets. You need to take into account accelerators, bonuses new hires, among other factors, but it is nevertheless a reasonably accurate measure to use when assessing sales productivity.

Let’s test your own productivity for last year. What was your total take-home pay (i.e., salaries plus commissions)? What was your total revenue tally? Simple division will tell you if your productivity levels were mediocre or high. I recommend that managers conduct that test for each team member, as well as for the entire sales team.

2. Examine your sales capacity
Another way to look at productivity is to analyze your sales capacity last year. Do that by multiplying the following:
(# of reps) X
(average hours you work per day) X
(number of weeks you work per year) X
(% of selling time) X
(closing ratio)

For example, if you worked 10 hours per day, 52 weeks per year, spent 100% of your time selling, and had a 100% closing ratio, your sales capacity would be a whopping 520. This, of course, is an entirely unrealistic number, but it serves to illustrate how this kind of analysis is conducted.

Realistically, most sales people work an 8-10 hour day, up to 46-48 weeks per year. Selling time per day is a huge variable. The key question is how much time you spend talking to customers. Most sales people report 30% of their day is spent talking directly to customers—and I find it can be as high as 60% and as low as 10%. If you’re unsure, estimate that 50% of your time per day is spent selling and the other half is spent in meetings, at lunch, driving, talking to co-workers, entering data into CRM, research or doing general administrative work. Enter this number as a decimal in the formula.

Closing ratios can be as low as .008 (125:1), and as high as 0.5 (1:2). It depends on whether you’re cold calling from the yellow pages (which has the lowest closing ratios), or growing your business based on referrals (which has the highest closing ratios). Be honest with yourself and make sure you consider your closing ratio from net new contacts to close—not just the closing ratio from proposal stage to close.

Now that you have your sales capacity number, you can set some goals to improve it. Try to get as close to the unrealistic 520 number we mentioned earlier!

What to improve first? For starters, don’t think about increasing the number of weeks you work in the coming year. That number should be decreasing not increasing. Also, there’s no point in adding sales reps to the equation if your sales capacity is already too low. Instead, consider the following activities.

Optimize your number of hours selling — Can you outsource some non-sales work to others so that you can increase the number of hours you spend per week in front of customers? Consider outsourcing low-return tasks (e.g., expense reports, preparation of slide decks, editing).

Improve your closing ratio — Are you asking for referrals every day from clients? Can you target your market to a smaller niche? Can you improve your qualification steps? Do you have a targeted marketing program to help the right clients find you? Are you reaching out to your existing customers at least once per month?

Sure, we all want improved productivity, but if you don’t know how productive you were last year, how will you know what to improve? To reinvent your sales this year, you must know your benchmarks from last year. Once that’s established, you can choose the right activities to improve. You must measure results at every step, and make decision based on the numbers—not your gut feeling.

As I do every year, I invite you to set a goal for yourself for the coming year and send me your implementation plan. I am happy to hold your feet to the fire every month—just a friendly check-in to see how you’re doing!
Colleen Francis, Sales Expert, is Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com). Armed with skills developed from years of experience, Colleen helps clients realize immediate results, achieve lasting success and permanently raise their bottom line.

Start improving your results today with Engage’s online Newsletter Engaging Ideas and a FREE 10 day intensive sales eCourse: www.EngagingIdeasOnline.com

Today’s News:

I would like to take this opportunity to send all my friends, colleagues and associates in the USA, my very best wishes on this very special day. Whilst this is a very significant day for you, you know that it also will inevitably have a significant effect on the lives of everyone in the world.

You should also know that “the thinking classes” in Europe are 100% behind President Obama – we can almost say that now. We have never doubted the need for drastic change, and I for one, will wake up far more hopeful after an eight year nightmare. This is not a time for recrimination - post-mortems will take care of  that – let’s all look forward to an administration which is honest, transparent and that genuinely puts the people (of the world) first.

Have a great day my friends, today I am spiritually on Capitol Hill with you.

Tomorrow: It is time for me to give you another FREE Ebook – “Networking To Success” so be sure to claim your copy.