If asked to name just three people who have significantly influenced the way I manage my daily workloads, and indeed my commercial life, I would have no hesitation – not even a pause for breath – in reeling off: Steven Covey, Ivy Lee, and good old Vilfredo Pareto.

Covey, most of you will have heard of, and is the man responsible for providing me with an epiphany – not quite of Damascus highway proportions, but it was certainly up there.

Ivy Lee was far less famous, but nevertheless his $25,000 system that he sold to Lee Iacocca, has given me a thirteenth month every year. I may even share more with you very soon.

Today is about someone very close to my heart. Even though we never met, and he was born just a couple of years after me (kidding) I feel we would have been good chums; here he is …. just a very brief history lesson first.

In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth.

In the late 1940s, Dr.Joseph M.Juran inaccurately attributed the 80/20 Rule to Pareto, calling it Pareto’s Principle. While it may be misnamed, Pareto’s Principle or Pareto’s Law as it is sometimes called can be a very effective tool to help you manage effectively.
 
What It Means
The 80/20 Rule means that in anything a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent) are trivial. In Pareto’s case it meant 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran’s initial work he identified 20 percent of the defects causing 80 percent of the problems. Project Managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of your time and resources. You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything, from the science of management to the physical world.

You know 20 percent of your stock takes up 80 percent of your warehouse space and that 80 percent of your stock comes from 20 percent of your suppliers. Also 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your sales staff. 20 percent of your staff will cause 80 percent of your problems, but another 20 percent of your staff will provide 80 percent of your production. It works both ways.
 
How It Can Help You
The value of the Pareto Principle for a manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 percent that matters. Of the things you do during your day, only 20 percent really matter. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of your results. Identify and focus on those things. When the fire drills of the day begin to sap your time, remind yourself of the 20 percent you need to focus on. If something in the schedule has to slip, if something isn’t going to get done, make sure it’s not part of that 20 percent.

There is a management theory floating around at the moment that proposes to interpret Pareto’s Principle in such a way as to produce what is called Superstar Management. The theory’s supporters claim that since 20 percent of your people produce 80 percent of your results you should focus your limited time on managing only that 20 percent, the superstars.

The theory is flawed, because it overlooks the fact that 80 percent of your time should be spent doing what is really important. Helping the good become better is a better use of your time than helping the great become terrific.

Apply the Pareto Principle to all you do, but use it wisely.

Pareto’s Principle, the 80/20 Rule, should serve as a daily reminder to focus 80 percent of your time and energy on the 20 percent of you work that is really important.

Don’t just “work smart,” work smart on the right things! Anyone can be a “busy fool”

Final word: You will enjoy just 20% of the blog posts you read today – I do hope this was one of them!

Recent studies have confirmed the obvious, that is to say that “fear of calling” in sales, can contribute to a significant proportion of lost sales revenues. One study that I read recently found that as many as 40 per cent of established salespeople experienced periods of “fear of calling” severe enough to threaten their future in sales.

Stemming the ever-increasing costs of the “fear of calling” syndrome cannot be addressed by training alone. It requires an experienced coach or mentor to work with each salesperson’s particular set of beliefs, so that they feel truly empowered to breakthrough their self-created mental barriers. One particular statistic in the following survey should give any salesperson suffering from “fear of calling”, renewed confidence

How Customers Regard Salespeople Survey:

• Salespeople who do not bother to make appointments.   45%

• Salespeople who know nothing about the customer’s business.    60%

• Salespeople who know little about their products and services.    60%

• Salespeople who call too often.   39%

• Salespeople who don’t call often enough.   49% 

• Salespeople who do not have the authority to negotiate prices.  45%

• Salespeople who do not ask for the order.    40%

• Salespeople who are not properly or sufficiently organised.  55%

Most desirable quality customers want to see in salespeople? –Competence!

Customers Can Sense Fear:

We must remember that a salesperson’s state of mind is instantly transferred to their prospect or customer, which means that the challenge for organisations is to constantly create a highly resourceful state in their salespeople. This is extremely important, because when salespeople lack belief in themselves, their product or their service, they unconsciously transmit their attitude to prospects in a variety of subtle and sometimes overt ways.

Fear of calling is that serious!

“The winners in life constantly think in terms of I can, I will and I am. Losers on the other hand concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have done or what they don’t do” – Dennis Waitley

Allowing self-limiting beliefs to constrain  performance, will in turn limit sales results because like everyone, salespeople hold stubbornly to private beliefs about themselves, clients, markets, competition, and even the economy, beliefs that can have an enormous impact, either positive or negative, on their sales achievement levels.

If salespeople do not see themselves as providing value for their prospects and clients, they will tend to approach customers in ways that appeal to reasons for buying other than the  genuine business need of the customer. This is what sometimes leads salespeople to oversell, for example, pressing a customer to act now in order to get a low price or to be too accommodating. It also can lead salespeople to adopt unethical behaviour, because they may try to sell a customer something that they neither need nor want. If they fail to take care of their clients best interests, salespeople will fail to build long-term relationships and lose customers.

The Slippery Slope:

Typically, salespeople who believe that if they had lower prices, they would win more deals, tend to attract more price objections. This in turn leaves them feeling scared or reluctant to talk to prospects about what they have to offer. Their downward spiral then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Salespeople’s desire to succeed may be so dominated by a need to be liked, that they’ll avoid asking prospects for information that is needed to identify the prospects’ compelling reasons to buy. When this happens, closing becomes a real issue because salespeople, fearing rejection, perceive that asking for the order might cause a breakdown in the relationship with their prospect.

Summary:The Importance of Divine Intervention From Above

Most sales managers grasp the concept of activity management, skills development and knowledge development. Intuitively, they also understand the vital importance of the right mindset. Yet far too many feel powerless to help their salespeople turn their negative beliefs into positive ones. Those few sales managers who do tackle such negative beliefs and are able to change their salespeople’s self-limiting beliefs into empowering ones, have found an unbeatable path to success.

The JF Guest Author Spot

Paul McCord

We’re all familiar with the destructive nature of self-limiting beliefs. We’ve been warned about them; scolded about them; shown how to eradicate them. But what we don’t hear much about are the equally—if not more—dangerous self-limiting habits that we all have.

Most sales trainers, managers, and motivational speakers preach to no end about the evils of self-limiting beliefs and give a plethora of positive thinking exercises to counteract them. The core belief is that what we believe—what we really in our heart-of-hearts believe—must manifest itself in our actions. So if we believe that we are lousy at prospecting, we’ll find a way to guarantee that we are lousy at prospecting—we sabotage ourselves in order to verify one of our basic beliefs about ourself as a salesperson, i.e., that we’re lousy at prospecting.

The idea behind recognizing and changing our self-limiting beliefs is that when we change our belief from a negative (we’re lousy at prospecting) to positive (we’re an effective, productive, skilled prospector), our actions will also change to reflect our new found belief—instead of sabotaging our prospecting efforts, our positive beliefs will force us to find ways to succeed at prospecting.

In theory that’s a pretty fair philosophy. Except it’s shortsighted because it only addresses part of our problem—our actions are influenced by our beliefs but the actions that hinder or prevent our success are more than just reactions to what we believe about ourselves as salespeople and sales leaders.

Need an example?

Well, let me first give an example of an action that MAY be a direct response to our belief that we are lousy at prospecting. Since we are lousy at prospecting, we decide that before we start cold calling we’ll take a few minutes and surf the Internet in order to “relax” and get “ready.” We start by spending four or five minutes surfing around a couple of news and sports sites. After a few minutes we make a couple of cold calls and discover that we hadn’t relaxed enough. As the days pass, without noticing, we’re spending more and more time trying to relax in order to get mentally prepared to cold call. Before we know it, our relaxation exercise is our prospecting time. Did we develop this habit simply because it’s easier to surf than make cold calls or did we fall into the habit as an unconscious response to our belief that we’re lousy at cold calling—and besides, it’s a waste of time anyway?

Does it really matter since either way the habit is killing us?

Well, how about an example of a habit that will also kill us but is very definitively not a result of our self-limiting beliefs about ourselves as a salesperson? From our earliest age we’ve been late for everything. In fact, we’re one of those preverbal people whom people claim will be late to our own funeral. At work we’re always rushing to get to our appointments but no matter what, we always seem to walk into our prospect’s office two, three, five, sometimes ten minutes late. We never have enough time to put our presentations together. We have to slap something together at the last minute and never have time to practice before we have to meet the prospect. Surely this isn’t a self-limiting habit developed in order to validate our belief that we’re a lousy presenter or lousy salesperson. Maybe it just says we’re crappy at time management or that we’re arrogantly self-centered or that we are just plain sloppy about everything we do.

Again, does it matter? Wherever the habit comes from, it’s killing us and must be dealt with if we want to succeed.

Although we hardly ever hear about identifying and eradicating our self-limiting behavior–our destructive habits—it is just as important as changing our belief system.

How, then, do we eradicate our self-limiting beliefs?

Let me quickly give four steps to identifying and eliminating self-destructive behaviors that I’ve used with dozens of sellers and sales leaders—and myself—that have proven to work:

1. Replace Negative Beliefs: I’m not going to go into this in any detail as all you need do is Google “self-limiting beliefs” and you’ll get over 217,000 links to articles, books, ebooks, seminars, workshops, and anything else you can imagine about dealing with your self-limiting beliefs. Simply let me say that positive self-talk, positive affirmations and other techniques to deal with negative beliefs do work and should be incorporated into any effort to deal with negative habits.

2. Identify Your Self-limiting Habits: Of course, this goes without saying. The hard part is how do you do it? My experience has been that we can discover a number of our self-limiting habits ourselves by simply becoming attuned to what we do, especially what we do just prior to things that we dislike or are uncomfortable doing. Over the next few weeks pay close attention to what you do. Since habits are most often unconscious behaviors, you’ll probably have better luck if you keep a log of those things you catch yourself doing over and over. It could be something as simple as stopping for a cup of coffee every morning on the way to the office or as complex as creating a personal emergency that must be attended to every time you’re asked to work late or retorting with a smart remark anytime someone questions something you say.

Unfortunately, we usually can’t find all of our negative habits on our own. We need help. Enlist assistance from those close to you: spouse, manager, coach, mentor, or close friends. More than one observer is ideal. Observers must be people who know you well and who you trust. Explain what you’re doing and ask them to observe you over the next weeks and give you feedback on the habits—good, bad, or indifferent–they notice, as well as any habits they are already aware of. You may not like what you learn, but if your observers are really trying to help, the information you get will be valuable.

Simply recording the habitual activity isn’t quite enough. Can you figure out what the action is attached to? For instance, stopping and getting a cup of coffee is associated with going to the office. Discovering an emergency that must be attended to is associated with being asked to work late.

What might be the reason for the action? Getting a cup of coffee might just be something pleasant—or it might be a way to delay going to the office. Creating a personal emergency is a way of getting out of staying late.

Ultimately, you have to decide if the action is negative, positive or neutral—and whether it is a habit that you need or want to change. I’ve found that if you’re not really committed to eradicating a self-limiting habit you won’t succeed. If you’re not committed, move on to another habit that you will be committed to eliminating because if you only half way try to break a habit and fail, all you’ll be doing is reinforcing your self-limiting belief system. Instead of gaining on your belief problems, you’ll be feeding them.

3. Replace a Negative Habit with a Positive Habit: Instead of simply trying to eradicate a negative habit, proactively work to replace it with one that will help you advance toward your goal. Trying to eliminate a behavior leaves a space, a void where the action used to be. If you’re like me, if I have a time void I’ll find something to fill it and often that something is something negative. Why put yourself in a position where you’re consciously trying to create a void that could easily create stress and anxiety? Instead of creating a void, change the negative behavior with a predetermined positive behavior.For example, instead of wasting time surfing the net in order to “relax,” purposely set aside two or three minutes prior to cold calling to sit quietly with eyes closed and envision yourself making three successful cold calls. Or instead of waiting until the last second to create your next presentation, schedule your presentation creating time several days prior to the scheduled presentation date and then give yourself a reward if you finish the presentation X days prior to the presentation date. Move from chaos to proactively managing your time and reward yourself for successfully doing so.

4. Don’t Accept Failure: Allow yourself the freedom to backslide without becoming discouraged and giving up. Habits, no matter what their origin, weren’t created overnight and they won’t be changed overnight. You’ll probably find yourself slipping back into old habits. That’s fine. It’ll happen. But just because it happened doesn’t mean you’ve lost the war. You just lost a single battle. If you give up you’ll be guaranteeing you’ll have that much more to overcome to reach your goals—and reinforcing a self-limiting habit of giving in when things get tough.

It’s been said that we humans are creatures of habit. So we are. The great thing is we get to decide if our habits are going to be positive or negative. No one else can make that decision for us. Let’s make them habits that work to fulfill our wants and needs rather than ones designed to sabotage us.

Paul McCord is the president of McCord and Associates, a Texas based international sales training, coaching, and consulting company. He is the author of the Amazon and Barnes and Noble best-selling book on referral generation, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2008), and SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar. He may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com or visit his training website at http://www.powerreferralselling.com/

JF Guest Author Post

Mark Hunter

People continue to say how cold-calling is dead and how in today’s environment, it no longer can be cost justified. The answer in my book is both “yes” and “no.” Let me deal with the “no” first.

In the past few months, I’ve watched numerous salespeople shift all of their prospecting efforts to developing social media with such vehicles as Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. The problem with this is it becomes a giant time sucker. The payout of social media in terms of developing sales short-term is very poor.

To develop a social media strategy requires time, and I’m a firm believer it must be incremental time. You can’t allow it to take away from your current sales development strategy. Now, I’m astute enough to know that this may change, but we’re not there yet. Salespeople who spend their time dealing in the social media world at the expense of time spent on normal sales development do so at great expense.

Now let me give you a “yes” response to the use of social media and cold-calling. First, keep in mind that cold-calling is rarely as cold as the term implies. Unless you’re still living in the world of selling via a phone bank sweatshop, then you understand that cold-calling is really more about warm-calling. More often than not, you are contacting people who already have some sort of knowledge of you or relationship with you. In this context, social media is a great supplemental vehicle – one that must be handled in the context of a marketing strategy. To spend time tweeting away hour after hour or visiting everyone’s Facebook page is not going to get you anywhere but broke.

The solution exists in having a sound sales development strategy that is focused on your core prospects. As an incremental process (on your own time), develop a social media awareness with Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.

A key part of your sales development strategy needs to include keeping your web presence tight and focused.   Don’t be easily swayed into believing that your best approach is to be part of every social media website available.   If you can’t be a strong presence, don’t go there.   What I mean by a “strong presence” is that you are an active player who can contribute or monitor the site at least four times per week.  For me, this means the only social media sites I use are Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook.

One very strict rule to keep in mind is that social media should occupy no more than 15 minutes per day. Only in rare exceptions should you ever access Facebook or Linkedin during your normal workday. Twitter is an exception, but only to the degree that you can have a timely review and distribution of messages. Fortunately, there are plenty of apps you can use to automatically send out pre-loaded tweets during the workday.

Social media has a role in your sales strategy, but not to the abandonment of time-tested elements such as cold-calling and meeting face-to-face with customers.  Begin today to grasp this so that you do not jeopardize your sales success.

“The Sales Hunter,” helps individuals and companies identify better prospects, close more sales, and profitably build more long-term customer relationships. As a keynote speaker, he is best known for his ability to motivate and move an organization through his high-energy presentations. Every week, people around the world benefit from the wisdom, motivation, and inspiration of “The Sales Hunter.” His insightful videos and podcasts are popular downloads on YouTube and iTunes, and he has been quoted in numerous magazines and newspapers. His free, weekly Sales Hunting Tip email is received by thousands of salespeople across the globe. Additionally, many of his articles on Sales have been reprinted in some of the industry’s leading magazines and business websites. To find out more about Mark’s selling philosophy, you can visit his blog at www.TheSalesHunter.com/blog. In addition, his numerous articles on Sales can be found on the website (http://www.thesaleshunter.com/) in the “Resources” section.

I have been described as a “seasoned” networker – that probably means an old guy who networks a lot! – But it took me a while to identify that that there is a pyramid, or hierarchy of depth or quality in all of our potential relationships. Even if you have a business degree, it takes experience in networking to figure this out. Let me describe it to you …

Pyramid Levels:

At the base of the pyramid are what we call ‘suspects’. These are people who seem open to an approach to offer support.

It is usually better to find out more about suspects before approaching them in person. Many are often misidentified and only randomly picked. Only some suspects (when researched more closely) get to the next stage of becoming ‘prospects’.

Prospects are individuals who research confirms meet the effective network criteria, and can usually be approached in person. Once again, initial conversation may reveal that not all prospects have been correctly identified. However, the numbers of people at this level are fewer and you can be much more patient in letting time provide an answer.

Contacts are prospects to whom you have offered support and advice and whose assistance or guidance you have requested on one or more occasions. At this stage, you may have discovered only minor opportunities to call, talk or contact one another, but the potential to do more has been established.

Advocates are contacts that are openly promoting or advocating the benefits of networking (with you in particular) to other prospects and contacts. Although this may not mean frequent contact, it is likely to be more frequent than with general contacts in your network.

Partners are the best and most effective networkers that you know, and the ones you most often call to chat to, to ask advice, or suggest ideas or options. By this stage, the relationship has generally reached a much higher level of mutual trust and understanding.

Using The Pyramid To Look For Opportunities:

To begin to discover who might be your network suspects at the base of the pyramid, an excellent place to start is to reach for opportunities much more widely.

This means becoming broadly alert to the many opportunities to network that may present themselves every single day. Many of these opportunities will be posted in newspapers, magazines, on notice boards, in advertisements, on the Internet and many other sources.

An increased alertness will count for little unless you have a well thought through perspective on what you are looking for. There is no point in networking for the sake of networking. To an extent, this will depend upon your overall personal networking aims and objectives.

Possible networking goals:

• To increase market share/customers
• To find new ideas
• To learn and develop yourself
• To find a job/work/career
• To find a new colleagues/friends
• To pursue a hobby or interest
• To gain new perspective on topics of interest to you
• To go into business for yourself

Different Kinds Of Network:

Every one of these networking goals is a worthy aim in itself, but it is usually the case that only one or two goals of this type will apply at any one time. Consequently, your networking research efforts will be invested quite differently if your goals are broadly around work or career options rather than if they are about starting up your own business.

Hence, although a few people will have very wide and diverse interests and a broad array of interesting contacts, our networking pyramids are built according to our specific goals and interest areas. This is often why we talk about a jobs network, a small business network, an education network and so on.

Networking is not a new phenomenon but with the plethora of sites now specializing in bringing people together, it is certainly something business people should do well.

Personally, I enjoy networking very much - because I enjoy giving and I am interested in people.

News: It’s the w/e again already, and whilst I have my nose firmly wedged against the proverbial grindstone, ahead of the imminent launch of Top Sales World (you really are going to love it!) I have two great JF Uncut posts I want to share with you.

However, time is not on my side right now – I am more time constrained than the most time constrained chap, who was incredibly time constrained. So instead, I will, with immense pleasure, deliver up two superb guest posts from tried, tested, and eminently qualified chums.

Will you join me? I think you should try!

Obtaining continual feedback against a set of established criteria is vital if an organization is to retain its existing top clients, and seek to improve its standing and the quality of its service levels to them.
 

There are at least seven benefits of regular feedback.

• Feedback reveals your customer’s current and future plans.

• Seeing your business from your customer’s point of view allows you to answer the question “would you do business with you?” – If not why not?

• Feedback allows you to tailor your service levels so that you enjoy maximum customer satisfaction at a minimum cost.

• If you don’t ask you’ll never know how you are doing until it’s too late! Feedback is magnified by the ‘ice berg factor’ making it more critical than it originally appears.

• Feedback can reveal what your competition are doing, helping you to be a consistently strong contender.

• Gaining a reputation for wanting to hear feedback can actually make money for you.

How Often?

This will depend entirely on the importance of the account and revenue levels being achieved – or anticipated.

Assessing The Feedback You Receive:

If the feedback you have been receiving to-date has not been useful, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I ask enough questions?

• Do I ask the right questions?

• Do I communicate effectively about why I am asking the questions?

• Do I ask the right people?

• Do I know how to use the data I collect?

• Am I organized to respond to the information?

• Do I value and trust the information I receive?

What Do You Do With The Results?

Communicate findings upwards & sideways

Act on vital issues

Feed back remedial actions

Confirm satisfactory resolve
 
Do remember, the account review process …..

• Is a non-threatening meeting.
 
• It is a fact finding session, not a sales event in the short term. But ….

• It is highly likely that during this meeting you will uncover additional short, medium and long term opportunities.     
 
 Try it for yourselves …..

News:

Subject: Time for deadbeat donors to pay up!

In the months after Haiti’s earthquake pledges of aid came from all over the world – totalling more than $5 billion USD.  However 6 months on, only 10% of this aid has actually been delivered to Haiti – compromising the country’s ability to rebuild and prepare for the upcoming hurricane season.

President Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to Haiti, has vowed to chase the countries with outstanding pledges, and we’d like to show him the world supports his efforts.

I just signed a petition asking world leaders to deliver the aid they pledged to Haiti as soon as possible.

Please join me by signing the petition here:

http://one.org/international/actnow/haitiaid/index.html?rc=haitiaidconfemail

Together as ONE we can make a difference!

Thanks!

Let me begin today’s post by saying that in my opinion, the perfect leader has yet to be born – and I have studied most of the significant leaders in history!

I also took on my first “leadership” role at the tender age of eight, so you can assume that “leading from the front” has been a major feature of my commercial life.

The reality is that we all have room for self-improvement, but  if at least 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 analyse 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 six – these are mine - and you may well have a leader in mind as we consider these?

Enthusiasm:

Everyone should agree that enthusiasm for what one is doing is a critical leadership trait. No man or woman can install much enthusiasm in anyone else for something about which they themselves are not enthusiastic. Genuine enthusiasm does not mean a glib, backslapping, plastic smile type attitude. More often, the genuine leader’s enthusiasm is likely to be of a more quiet nature – but it is there! It is shown by the manner in which they go about their work. Their manner of handling their job seems to say to everyone. “This is important! It must be done right. It must be fairly and squarely done! And -you can do it!”

Unless a person feels right down in their bones that the work they are doing is worthwhile, they can never consistently (day in and day out) act as though they do. So, if they have any feelings or doubt about the importance of their work and cannot become enthusiastic about it, the trouble is in the person himself or herself. Whether they realise it or not, those around them sense their feelings, their attitude is showing!

Courage:

Leadership takes “guts.” The true leader has the ability to “take it” when the going gets rough. Often the leader has to “take it” for the whole organisation to keep morale high. The leader has to face up to new challenges all the time. Indeed, many successful leaders invite difficulties just for the sheer joy of coping with them. The genuine leader approaches each day with a sort of “joy of battle”.

Courage in leadership sometimes takes unexpected forms; it may mean standing up for a principle. (Has anyone ever known a real leader who was a “yes person”?) It means having the character to stand up for what you believe in without comprising or cutting corners.

It may mean taking a bold approach to a new idea – sticking your neck out in support of something which you think is worth trying. It means loyalty to your convictions.

Self Confidence:

Another important requirement for the leader of today is self confidence. However, in making decisions about people, their motivation and the way they act or react, the leader can never feel completely sure they are right. The best they can do is to make a sort of “educated guess” based on the facts they can assemble and then rely upon their past experience and knowledge to interpret them.

 A great help is to know and work within their personal assets and limitations. They know what they can personally do and what they are unable to do. They are willing to listen to other opinions, assess them and be big enough to adopt the meritorious ones even if they do not square with their original thinking. They can take small reverses in stride.

A self-confident leader is never satisfied with their present accomplishments; does not spend their time in useless longing for things they cannot have. Rather, they set about realising their immediate and realistic goals.
 
Integrity:

A leader keeps promises: They keep their promises to their associates as meticulously as those made to their superiors. They keep promises made to themselves, which are the hardest to keep and failure in this is the easiest to rationalise. They can keep all these promises because they never commit themselves rashly; but always within the limits of reality and their present capabilities in terms of personal ability.

Part of this matter of integrity is certainly, unquestioned loyalty to their organisation – to its reputation as well as their own. Also they must have loyalty to their products and to their associates and loyalty to their industry. Loyalty to one’s associates is extremely important in any leader. They should never allow themselves or others in their group to ridicule, or down grade other leaders or people in the industry, as it is a sign of jealousy and this is one trait that cannot exist in a true leader. Part of this loyalty is a sense of stewardship – a feeling of responsibility for the welfare, progress and security of the industry as a whole, and that includes everybody who ethically runs a business, everyone in their organisation, their customers and their family.

Interest:

Even the Oxford Dictionary has difficulty in defining the meaning of the word “friendliness”. Of “friendliness” it says, “it signifies befitting or worthy of a friend.”

A leader has a genuine and sympathetic interest in and a respect for people as individuals. A very high percentage of any leader’s day is spent working directly with individuals.

Be careful – do not go overboard. Here there could be a danger signal. Friendliness can, of course, be overdone. Although interested and sympathetic, the true leader stays firm – never getting so involved in the personal lives of people that he forgets the implications of their role as a leader. They never play favourites – and should never play one personality against another. They know where to draw the line.

Humour:

Whilst not advocating that a leader be the ‘life and soul of the party’, it is essential that they have a keen sense of humour. There will be times when an appropriate joke or light hearted remark, will do more to relax and motivate than all the arranging in the world.

These then are the six basic characteristics which help a person to become a successful leader. Think of others. Upon reflection, you will probably agree that your ideas are closely allied to or even a part of the six detailed here.

They are not by any means a guaranteed panacea that will assure success as a leader. Though all leaders possess them to a varying degree, all of us have known people who have had them all, but were still unsuccessful as leaders. Characteristics or traits by themselves do not make leaders, certain “core skills” are equally necessary.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

Whatever got you where you are today will not be sufficient to keep you there. A rapidly changing environment is the regular background against which organizations must develop.

Change is continuous and will become more rapid as we move forward over time. Senior management must be capable of reacting to those changes and be prepared to take advantage of them and yet stay within the overall framework and agreed strategy, because old ways no longer work.

The role of strategy is fundamental if the people within an organization are to be enabled to make the level of contribution of which they are capable. Strategy, based on a good grasp of the core competencies of a business, is an essential precursor to achieving optimal shareholder value.

And I would further suggest that dependence on salespeople is key to delivering the latent capability of a business.

Our salespeople are the greatest source of competitive advantage we have and that is precisely why we should continue to invest in them and fully develop them.

This is particularly true now that in most market sectors competitive advantage is continually being eroded – i.e. International barriers are coming down, selling time is becoming limited, competitors are getting smarter, fewer and fewer names are appearing on companies’ databases, and product uniqueness is rare.

Conversely, undeveloped personnel can bring down a company through inadequate performance, leaving the competition to harvest the marketplace.

If your organization wants to permanently increase it’s sales results then it needs to approach sales differently to create “the difference that makes the difference” in order to positively impact bottom line performance.

In Summary:

Organizations and salespeople who have 100% commitment to doing whatever it takes to elevate their sales to a whole new level are the ones most likely to succeed.

Trying to operate a sales organization without total commitment is like trying to drive a car without fuel. But every organization has the potential to harness the power of their salespeople, just as surely as oxygen pumps life into the human body.

Adaptability and 100% commitment really are the keys to success!

Ask a colleague to define the customer and they will probably say ‘Someone who buys from us.’

What about internal customers? Colleagues; other departments; branches; suppliers? They are equally as important and deserve to have their problems and complaints taken seriously.

External customers sense if there is a good working atmosphere, a co-coordinated approach to customer service, teamwork and high morale. It gives them confidence to stay with you

Passing Blame:

Why is it that when customers blame us for something going wrong we are quick to blame others, especially in larger organizations?

‘We passed the order to stores weeks ago; I don’t know what they have done with it.’ (You know very well it’s still in your in-tray!)

Customers see through these feeble excuses and are not impressed!

Why do this?

• Stores are always making mistakes; attributing one more to them won’t make any difference

• There’s a particular person in Stores you don’t like

• No one will find out whether they are to blame or not

• They have blamed your department often enough

• They always beat your staff at the annual bowling challenge

Two Way Process:

Lack of communication between departments is often cited as the reason for poor working relationships. “They never tell us anything” is a frequent cry.

Communication is a two way process. The most efficient of systems will not be effective if people don’t read their messages, look at the notice boards, and log on to their computers, check their voice mail or pay attention at meetings.

Getting people to sign memos only provides proof of receipt, not of having read them. They need to want to know what’s going on.

Low morale and a critical and suspicious environment will prompt employees to see customers as a nuisance and not the lifeblood of the business. Every employee needs to appreciate that they contribute to customer satisfaction even if they are working behind the scenes, e.g. maintenance, cleaning, refuse collection, etc. They deserve to be kept informed!

Company Culture:

Some departments pride themselves on being the most efficient, the best organized, the most responsive, and expect others to live up their standards and follow their procedures. This can foster resentment and lead to a refusal to co-operate. Frustration and conflict can cause bad feeling and a desire to sabotage. This often happens when an organization has no clear vision or has not communicated one to the staff. Poor leadership or managers with their own agendas are other contributory factors.

Working in isolation, split site or satellite offices often result in an autonomous management with a workforce who want to do their ‘own thing’.

This has a negative effect on customer satisfaction. Customers become the victims of internal politics. What’s it got to do with them?

Insecurity 

Another cause of internal conflict is insecurity: downsizing, management restructuring, fast-talking business consultants, threat of job loss, short term contracts, all might trigger a loss of pride in the job and a couldn’t care less attitude. Customers become anxious and take their business elsewhere.

Insecurity manifests itself in a number of behaviors:

• Gossip and back-stabbing

• Shifting blame

• Anger, depression

• Increase in absences due to stress

• Constant moaning and winging

• Negative thinking

In this environment it is likely that customer complaints will increase. It is essential to keep the customer at the centre of everything you do, no matter what is going on behind the scenes.  – Without customers you don’t have a job!

Taking Action:

Managers need to be very observant. Early identification of problems is the key to a successful solution.

Look out for:

• Deadlines not met

• Increase in illness

• Poor quality work

• Atmospheres

• Arguments

Action:

• Ask questions in a confidential manner

• Reassure, calm fears

• Praise, encourage

• Don’t blame or challenge

• Involve people

• Motivate, reward

Multi-Skilling & Interdepartmental Working

Conflict also arises through ignorance. Giving people the opportunity to learn about the work of others and equipping them with new skills, helps dispel fears, boost confidence and motivate. It also takes people out of their enclosed worlds of Accounts or the Post room and gives them the bigger picture.

Many complaints arise because staff feel they are expected to do a job without any training. Allowing them to attend courses out of the workplace is very beneficial. It gives them the opportunity to network with others, revitalize their ideas and acquire new skills. Hopefully they’ll come back and think, ‘It’s not such a bad place after all.’

In any business, we are all customers of each other. Unless we get the internal customer service right it won’t extend naturally to external customers.

How can you do this?

• Have a positive attitude to your own work and that of your colleagues

• Help out when necessary

Remember you are all working to a common aim, customer satisfaction

And Finally: Team Building:

It isn’t necessary to take the workforce paint-balling in Yellowstone Park to ‘bond’, build trust or foster better working relationships.

Time away from the desk or shop floor to discuss issues in small groups, social evenings and inter-departmental activities can be just as effective.

Everyone needs to understand their own worth and value to the company.

High self-esteem = reduction in conflict = better customer relations = more profitable business