People may learn a great deal on development courses, but when they return to the workplace, they often have difficulty integrating what they have learnt into their day-to-day work.

Quite often, what they may have learnt simply slips from their minds.

I believe that between 50% and 70% of an organization’s climate, and hence its effectiveness, can be traced to management style. Effective leaders create a favorable working environment that boosts performance.

This is where coaching comes into its own: Leadership is a set of skills, competences and attitudes that individuals can develop through practice and by reflecting on their own actions and the impact this can have on others.

Most leadership programs are far too general to provide opportunities for such intensive personalized work. Coaching, by contrast, enables individuals to gain insight into their own motives, interests and concerns. These link explicitly to the challenges they face in their leadership or management roles.

Coaching can also help executives acquire a greater awareness of their own leadership style. This is crucial if they are to develop the variety of styles needed to manage and lead in different situations.

All too often leaders rely on a command-and-control style, which has a negative impact on all but a crisis. Coaching people on leadership styles produces positive results in most situations by creating a supportive environment in which employees feel empowered to give their best and find the solutions to problems.

Not unnaturally, some diehards still hold with an old-fashioned view that coaching can be used only for remedial purposes, but those organizations that have embraced the concept fully, have discarded that level of thinking. Their approach concentrates on leadership and personal development as part of building a high-performance organization – they are committed to moving away from managing by a culture of process to managing as leaders.

Typically I find that my clients are not interested in adopting the style of coaching used by many companies to focus on simple issues – particularly how to get on with fellow team members.

They choose us because they believe we offer a more challenging style that digs more deeply into behavior and personality. This leaves executives with something more permanent that they can take away from the coaching sessions and use during the rest of their careers, rather than just a one-off.

It is not always easy to convince executives that they should submit to a scrutiny of their personalities and behavior, but in reality, those executives who balk at taking “the journey of self development” could soon find themselves isolated and lesser leaders than many of their contemporaries.

News:

Ok, here is a treat – I can offer you a FREE place on my next upcoming webinar, which I am presenting for the Sales Association on Thursday. Here are the details …

“Consultative Selling is Dead. . . Long Live Consultative Selling”

Thurs.,  June 10, 2010 2:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time
(1:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Central / 4:00 p.m. Eastern / 9:p.m GMT)

Consultative selling is a term in use and totally accepted around the globe. It has been described as – “a selling methodology and mindset where the seller, acting as a trusted advisor, assists the buyer in identifying needs and offering solutions within their relationship.” But is it enough today?

Do the buyers in today’s economy and demographics want more? The short answer? … Most definitely yes. They want to be a part of the process AND the solution, because when the buyer and seller act as partners, they are building a bridge to profitability.

The primary objective of a sales partnership has to be: to create and sustain a mutually productive relationship, which serves the needs of both parties, now and in the future. The key word here is symbiotic. Partnership does not mean eliminating the tension between buyer and seller; it means that top-performing salespeople know how to strike a balance between achieving immediate results and developing the relationship fully.

During this program, I will:

•Reveal the term that we now use for this modern form of sales partnership.
•Share with you the three roles now involved.
•Discuss the essential characteristics of today’s top sales performers.
•Debate why Sales 2.0 and “Social Media” may not lead you to the “Sales Holy Grail”

The Sales Association is the premier professional association dedicated specifically to sales and business development professionals, and you can reserve your FREE place HERE

I do hope you can join me?

In that statement, emphasis is placed on the willing. But to understand leadership, we need to delve a little deeper than that.

One thing which experience has proven over and over again down through the ages, is that when any group of people are thrown together for any length of time or for any project, a leader will emerge from the group – one to whom they will listen and give their confidence and support.

Their position on the organisation chart or their title alone cannot make a person a genuine leader. They must have certain traits and skills, or they will surely fail.

In business, it has been shown again and again that these skills can be learned and the traits can be developed in any individual who is willing to exert an effort based on strong desire and a true hunger for success.

Generally, a leader or teacher does not actually “develop” another person. They encourage and inspire that person to develop themselves from within.

Thus, leadership is in a larger sense, self-initiated.

Once we understand and identify the methods and characteristics of admired leaders, we can take steps to develop these skills and traits ourselves. We can analyse ourselves – honestly, ruthlessly, objectively – and identify which skills we need to acquire or improve (and those which we need to play down).

No One Is Perfect!

The perfect leader has yet to be born. We all have room for self-improvement.

If we can agree upon what it takes to be a good leader – what are the traits of leadership, what are the skills – we will at least have made a good start.

We should analyze every genuine leader we know, and try to learn which qualities influenced us to consider them a good leader. We can probably agree upon at least five – you may have a leader in mind as we consider these:

My five? Oh, that’s easy:

Integrity – always comes first.

Courage

Vision

Communication skills, and last but not least….

Enthusiasm

Whether you are a leader or a follower, you will appreciate the significance of inspiritional leadership – won’t you?

What do you think?

 
After an entire weekend spent outing plagiarists, what a pleasure it is to get back to genuine sales issues.

They say that “information is power” and nowhere is this more true, than in the first buyer-seller interactions.

Many inexperienced sales professionals – well actually, many experienced ones too - are not comfortable at the “qualification stage” of the sales cycle. This is a major issue, becuase it is in fact the most important stage of the cycle, and it is precisely why sales pipelines become padded out with opportunities that are either not winnable, or even non-existent.

There is a questioning technique, or rather a structure to use the technique within, called the funnel technique, (not to be confused with the Sales Funnel) which keeps you on track as you guide your prospect toward your service or product offering once you have uncovered their needs.

The technique relies on you using the prospect’s own words back to him or her, and you must take notes. You will need to remember what the prospect says both now and possibly well into the future, so do not rely on your memory.

There are four steps to the technique, but that does not necessarily mean that it will always be only four questions:

1. Motivate; say why you are asking the questions
2. Open neutral questions, to get non-specific, unbiased information
3. Open leading questions, to get specific, biased information
4. Summarize and gain commitment with closed questions

Step One
The first step is to motivate your potential customer. You are going to need to ask a lot of questions, so you want to prepare them for it. The best way to do this is with motivation, not justification. You might consider using something they said to provide some positive stroking.

For example, you might make reference to the size of their company or department. They will be on the edge of their chair waiting to tell you about it in more depth! Be careful not to sound too patronizing, but top salespeople are genuinely interested to learn as much as they can about their client’s or prospect’s business and are very good at creating rapport.

Step Two
Now that you have them relaxed, you can begin to probe for information, pegs to hang the sale on and hot buttons. You want to find out as much as possible without leading or influencing the prospect. You want to encourage them to talk. You could ask them, for instance, how their company was structured or what the partnership does. Never use closed questions or be too specific at this stage.

At the second stage you will more likely than not get several pieces of valuable information. You must take notes, because you may want to go through the funnel with each piece of information, maybe several times.

Step Three
Once you have started to gather information and have uncovered the hot buttons, use open, leading questions to pinpoint specific areas that you want to explore, exploit or lead the prospect into. Again, during Step 3, do not use closed questions.

Step Four
Now you summarize using the prospect’s own words and information, so as to get their commitment of your understanding of the situation or their needs. You then wait for the commitment, and go back to step one.

A Powerful Selling Tool
Questioning using the funnel technique is one of the most powerful selling tools available to you. The key to its success is to practice using it. First of all, work on your open questions, and then start to consciously differentiate between open neutral and open leading questions.

News: I am off to celebrate the rest of my birthday – days off are so rare at the moment, that I intend to make the most of it

 
In practice, you can divide people who attempt to build networking relationships into four distinct types: the Loner (little or no networking), the Socializer, the User, and the Relationship Builder.

Although a salesperson’s aim is to become the fourth option, the “Relationship Builder,” let’s briefly look at each of these types in turn.

Loners like to do most things by themselves. They may feel that they can do it faster or better, or perhaps they don’t want to bother or worry other people. They feels that their knowledge and skills are often superior to most people, and they ask for help only as a last resort (and when it may be too late).

The Loner is an easily recognizable type, because there are times when we all believe that we will do better ourselves than if we ask others for help. The Loner will not usually want to bother anyone else, or necessarily see much point in doing so, believing that others will be slower and will set lower standards.

Unfortunately, the Loner attitude is a major obstacle to effective networking. We need to shift our thinking greatly in this area. We should be more willing to let others assist, and we should even ask for help more often.

Socializers try to make a friend of everyone they meet. They tend to know people’s names and faces, but not what they do. Socializers are not usually systematic or ordered about following up on a sales lead -– contact is random. Such a person may not listen too deeply and is quick to move on.

Although the Socializer may have a wide circle of friends and contacts, he or she knows little of substance about personal skills and resources. As a result, Socializers do not often share their skills.

The Socializer is also a random networker, following little or no formal contact system.

Users are likely to collect business cards without really connecting with people. They try to make “sales” or “pitches” on the first encounter. They talk about and focus on their own agenda rather than information about mutual needs. They often have superficial interactions, and keep score when giving favors.

Unfortunately, people of this type do network widely, but in a way that creates little benefit for themselves or others. Even worse, this kind of networker tends to create a bad impression, and therefore can give networking an image of being about selling, taking, bargaining and keeping score.

Relationship Builders have a “giving” disposition or abundance mentality. They are generally happy to ask others for help or guidance, and listen and learn about people carefully. Builders are regularly on the lookout for useful information for which others can also benefit. They have a well-ordered and organized networking system.

This type of networker is what this article is all about -– an individual who takes a long-term perspective on relationships with others and thinks more about what he or she can give or offer than about the return.

This type is out there for others, or on call to offer help whenever it is needed. If they cannot help in person, they usually know someone else who can.

Maintaining High Self-Esteem

Apart from the Builder, one factor connects the other three types in preventing them from networking more effectively. This is the issue of self-esteem.

The Loner believes in himself or herself, but not necessarily in others (especially relative strangers). The Socializer likes people, but also very much wants to be liked by others (and therefore does not want to ask for favors). Finally, the User takes a relatively selfish view of, “If I benefit or gain, I might reciprocate; otherwise I won’t.”

Of course, all of these types fear rejection, obligation, being too pushy or even looking weak. All of these fears or concerns about networking need to be lessened or overcome.

A topic as big and potentially complicated as a person’s relative self-esteem cannot be covered at any level of detail in a short article. However, it is important to appreciate how low self-esteem can have a major impact on your networking efforts if it is not at least basically understood and addressed.

An individual with high self-esteem is likely to build his own confidence to want to network by having a positive, open and “can-do” attitude.

Conversely, an individual with low self-esteem is likely to lack confidence to start with. They will convince themselves (and others) that they have little that would be of interest to others in any network.

And in a successful sales career, this is too high a price to pay.

News: All frontline sales professionals have to make presentations at some point in their career – some of us present often – and persuading those butterflies to fly in formation can be a real challenge. With that in mind, you may enjoy my most recent post over at AllBusiness -

Tomorrow: Prepared to be totally stunned! Can’t give you too many clues, but on JF Uncut, I am going to expose someone who has had it coming for a long while – and suffice to say, my colleagues and friends have been both angered and shocked by this person’s actions. Tomorrow, we put an end to it all.

 
The buyer-seller situation – like any human contact – is an exercise in human relations: the interplay, cause and effect of behavior by two or more people on each other. In the buyer-seller situation, the seller must be responsible for shaping mutual behavior.

What’s the difference between human nature and human relations?

• Human nature is the instinctive behavior that governs action concerned with the self and with self-interest.

• Human relations are concerned with how we think and act in terms of other’s interests.

Successful selling demands that human relations be dominant over human nature.

Selling is not something a salesperson does to a prospect. Selling is something you do with the prospect in a process of discovery and interaction — human relations at work.

The greatest barrier to success in this process is the “egocentric predicament.” This consists of being overly and unnecessarily concerned with the self. Our ability to be perceptive and concerned about others is inversely proportionate to our self-concern.

When the self gets unnecessarily in the way, the fruitful cycle of good human relations stops producing.

The key to understanding and accepting others is to first understand and accept oneself – starting with the realization that, rather than striving for an unattainable “I should be” image, we should settle for our real self as “I am” – accepting shortcomings along with strengths.

The following points provide a practical answer to the “I am” versus “I should be” conflict:

• Recognize it – and recognize that its source is rooted in the views of others.

• Either (a) accept your “I am” image or (b) decide on attainable, constructive steps to achieve “I should be” in the future.

• Our behavior is a reflection of our attitudes, and our attitudes grow out of our values. Each is an integral part of the other. Do your life values make it easy for you to put the other person’s interests first?

• Sincerity is a much-used word in relation to selling. Integrity is a kindred word. Integrity implies a consistent kind of honesty: acting outwardly the way you truly feel inwardly. That’s why sound values are so important to your success with others.

Remember: “People buy our product not so much because they understand the product . . . but because they feel that we understand them.”

There are many effective ways of doing this: The best way to create this kind of buying climate is to “transmit on their frequency.” This opens their mind to you and makes them willing – and eager – to listen.

A sincere, specific compliment on a point of real meaning to them gets the other person talking about things of interest to them. It opens doors.

“Before I sell my prospect what my prospect buys, I must first see my prospect as they see themselves.”

The moral right of the author, Jonathan Farrington, has been asserted. © Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.
This article or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.

Yes, it’s true, today is my 900th post here. Little did I imagine when I made that first tentative post way back in October 2006, that I would reach this particular milestone – now we have to push on, and ensure we get to 1000 sometime in September, I am thinking.

As I hinted yesterday, to mark this special occasion, I can think of no-one better to be my guest than Jill Konrath – long-time chum and thought leader in our space. Jill has just published her second book, and it is already an Amazon best seller. Please allow me to introduce you to …..

One of the toughest challenges you face right now is dealing with crazy-busy prospects. They rarely answer the phone or respond to your emails. They’d rather stay with the status quo than change. And they’re always getting distracted.

Here’s the deal. When people have too much to do and impossible deadlines, it changes how they make decisions. And, it changes their expectations of you too.

There’s help. Jill Konrath, author of the classic “Selling to Big Companies,” just released her new book, “SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers.”

I have already read it twice, and I highly recommend it. It is guaranteed to remain another best-seller for Jill, and proves conclusively, that she is genuinely one of  THE sales thought- leaders and sales strategists in the world. 

Jill knows how to capture and keep the attention of hard-to-reach prospects. And, she shows you how to help people make decisions a whole lot faster too.

To learn more about SNAP Selling & to download two chapters, just click here: http://www.SnapSelling.com.

P.S. You’ll also be able to download some cool new sales tools from Jill – no strings attached.

Again, I urge you to click on http://www.SnapSelling.com right away.

Me? I am off to write Blog post No. 901

Directors and management often see customer relations as the affair of a complaints department, while they are occupied with running the business. This is a form of warfare carried out against the irritating habits of customers seeking fair treatment, a fair deal or equality of relationship.

Salespeople often see customers as an unruly, disobliging and dishonest source of commission.

Support staff accept that they are paid to (try to) cope (on a good day) with unreasonable, whining, stupid, ungrateful customers who just will not be behave.

Administrators see customers as dunces who must be forced to follow the rigid procedures developed for the convenience of the supplier (an endless nuisance to the customer).

Technical people often see customers as stick-in-the-mud know-nothings to be loftily put in their place by the use of elitist techno-jargon.

Production people ignore customers entirely, because otherwise customers would get in the way of how they want to run the place.

Finance people treat customers not as people, but as reference numbers with obligations required to fit processes.

Unkind comments? Not at your place? Great! But anti-attitudes like this abound right across the commercial spectrum. You do business with your customers — not despite them! Customers pay the wages for everyone, not just the sales force.

There is always a penalty for poor customer relations. It plays out over the weeks and months ahead when people – and those they influence – simply avoid your firm.

Why Try?

“Why should I be nice to someone who is yelling at me?” says one of your people. Well, that is not an unreasonable question. Let’s try to understand the psychology of people who grumble — or worse, complain.

Believe it: For most people (apart from a psychotic few), complaining is a very stressful thing to do. Apart from whether the problem itself has made the customer angry, having to pump themselves up enough emotionally to have a “confrontation” makes people short-tempered. So people dealing with customers must expect them to be upset and angry.

Let’s analyze the language. The customer says, “That is not good enough,” quite probably with a few expletives thrown in for good measure. Now, the person handling the call probably did not cause the problem themselves; someone else did. Why take the blame for that? Well, because the person handling the call is part of the team and happens to be the one taking the call.

The drive for continuous improvement will come from your customers – if you let it, and if people’s arrogance does not get in the way. Believe me, the customer is an expert in your business. They may not know how to make grommets, or how to merchandise goods, or how to write software, but they do know what they want from you.

Imagine them saying, “As customers, we do not want it your way; we want it the way that suits us. And we will tell you, if you want to listen, and providing we see you want to do something about it.”

One of the problems with employees in many companies is that they just do not want to be told anything, especially by a customer. No one’s going to get anywhere with customer relations until they recognize that customers are valued assets, not dumb milk cows for money.

What’s the Lesson?

Customer relations is a strategic understanding, not a departmental name. Most people in most companies don’t think about their responsibility for developing good customer relations, because they simply do not see it as their “job.” The trouble is that you cannot see the cost from a simple item on the profit-and-loss sheet. Most of it is hidden in the cost of losing business and winning new business. Existing customers cost much less to keep than new customers cost to win.

And you? Can you truthfully say in your heart of hearts that you believe in the value and need for everyone in the business to help to build good customer relations? If not, then watch out for the competitor who will figure that out first – or the person competing for your job who knows that is how it’s done.

Customer relations is that serious.

News:

April Sales AllStar: Redmond O’Leary Feels His Clients’ Pain
Meet Redmond O’Leary, who was picked as AllBusiness’s April 2010 Sales AllStar. He is a key client manager for IBM in Ireland. He has seen business challenges before, so the most recent recession was a reminder to focus on clients and, like a doctor with patients, to listen closely to their challenges and to serve as a trusted advisor. He is also a really nice guy, who I liked immediately. You’ll like him too. Listen in to the full interview HERE

Tomorrow: I will be writing my 900th post here on the Blogit, and it is entirely appropriate that I feature someone very special in my business life; a genuine thought leader in our community, who has just published a guaranteed best seller … be sure to join me.