“You attract to you the predominant thoughts that you’re holding in your awareness, whether those thoughts are conscious or unconscious.” Michael Bernard Beckwith

Before attempting to handle any type of objection I believe that it is important to begin by looking at the beliefs that sales people are holding in their minds. If they are focusing on what objections they believe they will encounter, they will unconsciously transmit these thoughts to their prospects.

Every moment, human beings perceive things on many different levels based on millions of bits of information being absorbed into the unconscious mind.

Our conscious mind is not able to process all of this information and tends to select small chunks at a time.  At the most basic level there is neurological perception, the way we perceive sensory-based things.  This level of perception is based upon the functioning of our end-receptors (i.e., our eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue and mouth, inner ear, etc.)

If there’s damage in the end-receptor, our ability to pick up information from the energy manifestations in the world will be affected, sometimes completely cut off so that we perceive nothing, or in limited ways, or in very distorted ways.

At another level, an individual’s experiences and consequently their beliefs will influence and colour their perceptions. Ultimately, the only thing that can be ‘real’ for an individual is the ‘reality’ that they hold inside their mind.

Have you ever experienced buying a new car and suddenly noticing how many cars of the same type as yours are driving around? This is because your car has been a recent, conscious focus for you so you see similarities with this new focus.

Objections start with a thought. You have to think about an objection to manifest and experience the objection.

For years Quantum physicists have been working to prove the entire Universe stemmed from a simple thought, and this is referred to as The Law of Creation.  When an individual holds a particular thought for any length of time they are focusing their attention on this thought. This attention will attract evidence of the thought into their lives that consequently serves to validate and strengthen their initial thought.

According to Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, Quantum Physicist, “The mind is actually shaping the very thing that is being perceived.”

This concept has enormous implications for sales people who have a tendency to encounter the same type of objections over and over again, because ultimately at some level they are not comfortable about a certain aspect of your company’s product or service. This means that their perceptions are being projected onto their prospects.

That’s why any development in the area of objection handling should start with the sales people themselves, so that they have the right ‘thoughts’ and beliefs that can serve them better during their daily interactions with prospects and customers.

Another crucial factor to bear in mind when teaching your sales team to handle objections is to help them accept 100% responsibility for the objections they receive. Every action they 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 sales people spend their lives operating at effect….”It’s not my fault I always end up competing against (biggest competitor.)” “Life’s so unfair, I always get the worst territory.” “How can I compete with our high prices?”

True personal power can be achieved when an individual accepts 100% responsibility for what they create in their lives.  This means, accepting at some level they have ‘created’ the objections in the first place and if they accept this, it pre-supposes they also have the power to remove objections before they even occur.

To put it another way they get one of two things; the result or outcome they want or the reasons why they didn’t (you may recognise these as ‘excuses’!) The more your sales team focuses on the reasons why they encounter objections and blame circumstances beyond their control, the more they push away their personal power to create more of the results they want.

This empowering philosophy is of course explained in the film ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrnes – if you haven’t yet seen it, I urge you to do so.

News: We have released a brand new “Top Sales Hardtalk Interview” today over at Top Sales World – I am chatting to Dave Kurlan “Are Your Salespeople Still Cold Calling – The Ugly Truth” and you can listen in HERE

Let’s be very clear, responsibility cannot be given – it can only be taken; therefore a sales leader can only give sales people the opportunity to take responsibility for their work demands.

High performing sales teams require clear objectives so they know exactly what they must do and why; good communication and trust so that having created such a situation, a sales leader will let sales people get on with things. These elements build higher motivation because sales teams enjoy having the authority to make decisions and get the job done.

A sales person’s willingness to participate collaboratively as a team member does not guarantee that the team will create their desired outcome. If sales people are thrown into a collaborative situation and simply told to work as a team, they will lack the structure to make this happen. After all, why should a sales person care about their sales team?

Promoting understanding of why sales people need to be a team is vital. The team needs to understand its shared goals and what each team member brings to the team that is relevant and crucial to its overall successes. Therefore, to optimize the talent capability within a sales team it’s important to identify what each sales person’s unique ability is, and how that unique ability can be shared for the betterment of the team.

For example; sales people have their own unique sets of beliefs, some of which limit their potential in sales. For instance, during a recession, some members of a sales force may believe that strong sales are impossible. But if one person increases their sales, what seemed an inevitable fact will suddenly appear more like a thin excuse for poor performance.

Within every sales team there are individuals who hold a number of empowering beliefs. Giving them an opportunity to share those beliefs along with the evidence that supports them can be a very transformational experience for the entire team.

Some members of a sales team may be extremely competent and if they are not stretched there is a danger they could become complacent. Therefore, utilizing these sales people as coaches and mentors for less capable sales people produces an all- round win.

Maximizing a sales team around one common goal that creates value for the customer, the organization, and the individual sales person is the only way to focus the activities of a sales team.

In my view, it is critical that each individual is able to measure the value of each activity undertaken during the day and can make the connection to the overarching goals of the organization. If there is no clear line of sight between what they are doing and the value to the customer, clearly they are doing the wrong thing.

When a sales team views mistakes as opportunities for improving their team’s process and results, it’s a sign that the sales leader has successfully created an environment that promotes problem-solving.

People are problem solvers by nature. When they are allowed to create their own solutions (rather than having expert solutions imposed upon them) sales people are more proactive and engaged.

Sales teams also have greater ownership of solutions they discover for themselves. Creating an environment that promotes problem-solving is part of creating an effective sales team structure.

Poor sales team structure can have a negative impact on individual performance, and the cause of poor performance can usually be attributed to a function of the sales team structure rather than individual incompetence.

If sales people are encouraged to be overly competitive with their peers to compete for rewards and recognition, they will withhold information that might be useful to the greater team.

When a sales team has problems, the effective sales leader will focus first on the team’s structure before focusing on individuals.

News: Over at Top Sales Management, there are a host of brand new resources this week: Today, Colleen Francis write “Build Relationships – Not Resistence”

This week’s excellent “How to” guide is “How to use Pareto’s Analysis”

For those sales leaders who are keen to develop their own team, this week’s session is “Negotiation – Start with the End in Mind”

In fact, you should really visit the Resource Area where you will find so much valuable archived information waiting for you. It’s all HERE

There are those who would suggest that “consultative selling” or its successor “collaborative selling” is dead. This is simply not true. In fact it (they) are about to enjoy something of a renaissance. Let me explain …

If, as some “commentators” (including me) are predicting, that around 90% of external sales roles are going to disappear within the next three years, then those individuals that remain are going to extremely influential – and they are certainly going to have to adopt a highly sophisticated “consultative/collaborative” style of selling. A significant part of all of this will require that they adhere to a clearly defined process.

From the Sales Director’s/VP Sales’ perspective, developing a consultative sales process means developing a comprehensive, formal, realistic, and step-by-step outline of what salespeople are expected to do. This is just as appropriate for internal and totally reactive sales teams, as it is for external pro-active ones.

This outline includes the activity and calls they must make, the relationships they should establish with prospects, the documentation they should use in sales calls, the issues they must discuss and resolve with prospects and the tangible goals they must achieve in sequence along the path to each sale, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

It’s only when such an outline is in place that sales management can be in a position to:

• Monitor the sales force’s activity, progress and results

• Assess issues as they arise and take appropriate action

• Redirect individual sales representatives’ efforts efficiently

Although many organizations appreciate the importance of being customer-focused and talk in vague terms about their “consultative sales process,” surprisingly few sales leaders invest the time and energy required to develop a formal sales process – a process that is at once detailed and resilient enough to guide their salespeople and permit effective management of their efforts.

Overcoming Implementation Inertia:
Even when a consultative sales process has been developed, understood by sales managers, written down, and circulated, it’s often not enough. No matter how brilliant, a sales process will only be effective to the extent it is followed and used by frontline sales staff. And this is where most organizations fall down: overcoming inertia – among managers and salespeople alike – and implementing the process.

The hurdles that must be cleared, in order to get people throughout the organization to actually implement it, are enough to cause Sales Directors to tear their hair out!

But a select few, of the very best, have found some innovative strategies that have enabled them to achieve the Holy Grail: Sustained sales growth achieved efficiently, reliably, and by design.

News: You can catch an excellent top sales tip from Linda Richardson over at Top Sales World today – “RFPs – Ask Rarely Asked Questions to Gain an Edge”

“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there” Charles F. Kettering.

That quotation very accurately sums up my commitment to looking out and predicting what I believe is going to take place within the sales space over the next three to five years: I have nothing whatsoever to gain from making such forecasts; my statements are not sponsored; I have no revolutionary solutions, which will earn me millions of dollars if I am right …. it is simply what I believe, and I am unafraid to voice those opinions.

You may consider that my opening paragraph sounds somewhat defensive: If it does, then that is unintentional. Neither is it correct to surmise that I am in anyway feeling defiant – I have deliberately eschewed confrontation on this topic. However, as I suggested to my good chum and learned colleague Paul McCord this evening, I am going to challenge a blog post he wrote last week.

It would be dangerous to simply pluck a few quotations, as the piece deserves a full reading – “In 2012 the New Normal in Sales Is . .” but I am going to anyway, because essentially my interpretation is that he disagrees with my assertions regarding the rate of change we are witnessing.. and can expect to continue witnessing over the next three to five years. Whereas, I genuinely believe that there is a momentum building, and we can either adapt and thrive, or resist and possibly become isolated. I am not a lone voice …

“Customers everywhere increasingly prefer virtual interactions with sellers. Trend data reveal that sales organizations are shifting resources from outside to inside sales. Inside sales growth is 30% faster than their outside sales counterparts. The number of Inside Sales departments is projected to grow from 800,000, in 2009, to over 2 million in 2013.”

Dave Stein CEO ES Research (And lest I be accused of simply “extracting” quotes for my own argument, you can read the entire post HERE)

“Over the past few decades, selling has changed. The changes have been incremental, giving salespeople time to adjust. Not so today. The degree and speed of change in the sales world over the past two years is revolutionary — in how, why, and when customers buy and, therefore, in how you sell.

Selling has been turned on its head, and sales organizations are trying to catch up. If you have any doubts about the magnitude of change, just think about your level of control over the last major retail purchase you made and multiply that by twenty, and you will have a sense of the revolution in buying that is going on with your customers. The revolution has created a shift of control — away from you as a seller and toward your customer.”

Linda Richardson, Best Selling Author and Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson

“Inside sales has never been more important, and it seems like every minute brings new changes. Keeping up, staffing up, and preparing for the coming year has never been more important — and for that, you need the inside track. Our trend report is 100% accurate — loaded with great advice on tactics, tools and talent that will keep you on track and ahead of the curve.”

Josiane Feigon, President of TeleSmart (Download her FREE Inside Sales Trend Report HERE)

And most radically of all …

“There are currently 18 million sales professionals in the USA, by 2020, there will only be 3.6 million”

Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power

So, back to Paul McCord’s post:

“My argument is simply that in 2012—and probably for the foreseeable future—there will not be a “new normal.”

•Almost all sellers will find their offline activities will still be more vital to their success than their social media interaction.
•Getting out of the office and in front of prospects and clients will still be the primary relationship building and selling format
•More than likely business travel will increase again this year—and for the foreseeable years to come—including travel by sellers
•Sales jobs will continue to be created with the corresponding opportunities for both experienced and inexperienced men and women
•Social media will continue to be an area that sellers need to learn how to effectively engage—but the reality is it isn’t going to take the place of a seller’s offline activities such as cold calling, networking, and seeking high quality referrals and when a connection is made through social media, for it to be effective it will have to be taken offline.”

“In other words, for now and at least the next few years, the “new normal” will be the old normal. Do those activities this year that have been successful for you in the past and you’ll be successful again this year.”

“It’s fun and exciting to talk about the “new normal,” but the fact is not much has really changed.”

Human nature hasn’t changed since last year.

The phone still works and people still answer it.

Referrals will still get you more and better business than any other prospecting format.

You will still have to work to develop relationships.

You’ll still have to educate, be a real problem solver for your clients, and bring more value to the table than your competitors.

The world hasn’t shifted on its axis—yet anyway.

So take all the talk of the new normal with a grain of salt.  Don’t ignore social media and by all means use technology to the fullest, but if you want to be successful in 2012, pick up the phone, fill up the car, and hit the streets just like you did last year and the years before that.”

Yes Paul, and it took us ten centuries to accept that the world wasn’t flat after all!

Returning to Linda Richardson, and to quote from an interview she did with me recently (which you will be able to read in its entirety on February 14th – and no, no significance!)

“Jonathan is not one to skirt an issue. He is outspoken and clearly never satisfied with the status quo. His vision is to get a global sales conversation going. Top Sales World is a place where experts and practitioners meld and everyone learns.  It reflects Jonathan’s take on life: “Never stop learning. If you do, it is time to pack up and go home. Looking three years to the future, he sees a very different sales landscape”

Yes, I do very much see a very different landscape: I believe that we need to adapt; to embrace the exciting changes that are happening, not resist them, and hope that it is all a figment of the imagination of a few “crazies” I have been openly discussing these changes for three years, and I am happy that more and more well respected thought leaders are now seeing what I first saw all that time ago.

Final Word: “Some people make things happen, some people watch what happens, but most wonder what the heck happened” Anon

News: Exciting w/e ahead; there is a buzz in the air, and no doubt we shall see some responses here. Me? I do think it is important that we “commentators” remain impartial, so “Go Giants!!!”

I am right in the middle of a new blog post, which should be ready tomorrow. You know that feeling when you think you have something important to say, and you are determined to articulate it comprehensively?

The main objective of the post is to challenge something my good chum and learned colleague Paul McCord wrote last week, which he titled “In 2012 the New Normal in Sales Is . .”

Whilst it may not have been his intention, he does disagree with a number of assertions I made in these recent posts: “Professional Selling – Will it Soon be the Survival of the Fittest?” and “Thinking of Buying Sales Training? Then Think Very Carefully!” But you will need to wait until tomorrow to read my response in full!

However, yesterday I read something which resonated with what I have been writing about for a very long time, and I wanted to share it with you:

Becoming a Sales Superstar: The Challenge of Change by Kathleen M. Adams, Ph.D.

Becoming a strategic and consultative Sales Superstar requires significant changes in your “world view” – how you think about yourself, and how you think about your relationships with key stakeholders. You are faced with new ways of thinking, many of which directly challenge what you have been taught and believe.

When faced with significant innovations in thinking, we tend initially to find ourselves in one of the following three characterizations:

The “Authoritative Critic”
The “Authoritative Expert”
The “Enthusiastic Apprentice”

We can think about these three characters as being on a spectrum that runs from outright rejection to eager acceptance.  As we take a brief look at each of these, allow yourself to wonder where on the spectrum you fall in your process of becoming a Sales Superstar.

The Authoritative Critic

This individual quickly dismisses new ways of thinking, outright rejecting them as ridiculous, foolish and unwise. What is this individual’s motivation?

Motivation of the Authoritative Critic? Fear of change, of loss.

The Authoritative Expert

This individual is one who typically responds to the introduction of innovative ideas by rejecting the reality that the ideas are indeed innovative. This individual is typically thinking “What’s the big deal? I’ve always done it this way.”

What is this individual’s motivation? Fear of losing face, of appearing inadequate.

The Enthusiastic Apprentice

This individual is excited by innovative thinking and is eager to learn. She may not understand or totally embrace the innovative concepts, but she is excited about the possibilities that well-informed change may bring about.

What is this individual’s motivation? It is hunger for knowledge and excitement about the possibilities that may come with new knowledge.

The nature of change is dynamic. As much as we might like to believe that change is linear, the truth is that deep transformative change develops in a spiral pattern. As you reviewed the above characteristics, you may have seen parts of yourself in each description.

Knowledge is power. The more aware you can become of your own process of “spiraling” through the process of change, the more conscious and intentional you can be about choosing change, choosing growth, and choosing to become a Sales Superstar!

So where do you fit in? Recognize yourself? Tomorrow, I’ll reveal where I fit in, and indeed where I think my colleagues fit in. Be sure to join me for a very interesting final post of the week.

News: My colleague, Jonathan London provides today’s tip over at Top Sales World - “Prospecting: 24 Ways to Get People to Call You Back” – always an interesting chat with him “Hi this is Jonathan London” I reply “Yes, this is Jonathan in London” “Hi Jonathan” “Hi Jonathan”

Meanwhile, over at Top Sales Management, you can catch me in conversation with Dave Kurlan – that is the multi-medal winning Dave Kurlan- “Is Selling Going Indoors?”

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

Believe it or not, complaining for most people - apart from the psychotic few - is a very stressful thing to do. Apart from whether the problem itself has made the customer angry, having to pump oneself up enough emotionally to have this ‘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’s not good enough!”  – quite probably with a few expletives thrown in for good measure. For a start, the person handling the call probably didn’t cause the problem themselves, someone else did. Why take stick for that? Well, because that person is part of the team and happens to be the one taking the call. Feeling part of a customer sensitive team is a vital element in wanting to and being able to deliver sensitive, constructive customer relations but, by ‘team’ I don’t just mean the Customer Service Department, I mean the whole organization.

Too many organizations operate ‘Customer Support’ (you can see the language varies a bit) as a quite separate entity from the operations of the business. They are in their own sterile ‘bubble’ charged with keeping customers from ever speaking to the people in ‘Operations’ who have normally caused the problem in the first place. That’s not how it is supposed to work – but it is convenient for the business that doesn’t want to deliver good customer relations. It just wants to shut customers up for as low a cost as possible.

Empowerment Pays

The problems facing staff members are: knowing that no-one wants to hear what the problem was; that they can make no changes in the way the organisation operates; that they cannot set out to improve things for future customers so that particular problem will never recur. They simply try to ‘win’ discussions with customers and give them anodyne replies in accordance with ‘the rules’. Is it any surprise that those people simply don’t believe in customer relations? They do what they are told to do and get paid for that.

Think of your own experiences. Think of how often you’ve been ‘put in your place’ by someone. Think how you detest being forced to talk to ‘Customer Service’ because you expect not to have the problem resolved.

Technical Support Is ‘Customer Service’ Too

The ideal model of a Technical Support Department is that the phone never rings. The trouble is that most people who operate one expect the phone to ring in proportion to the number of customers. The missing bit is that if the people on help desk have no involvement in making changes, then they cannot prevent the same problem recurring fifty times a day.

The basic rule should be that the moment you deal with a customer problem, you put in place changes so that problem will not recur for that reason. Staff with power are highly motivated to be helpful. People without power hate having to deal with cranky customers and simply try to fob them off.

We Must Work to Change the Entire Ethos

Sadly, I have reached the following conclusions: Directors and Management often see customer relations as the affair of a ‘Complaints Department’ whilst they get on and run the business – which 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 won’t be told.

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 they 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 all over 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 its way out over the weeks and months ahead when people – and those they influence – simply avoid your firm – they allow their feet to do their talking!

News: Big treat for you today: I managed to get some time with Trish Bertuzzi yesterday, and we talked about the current very high demand for inside salespeople – you can listen in HERE

A very good friend and ex-client of mine runs a highly successful information technology service in the South of England and his private-sector customers include many Times Top 100 companies.

We often exchange opinions and I recently asked his views on leadership, because I have always been impressed with his commitment to “people development”

He believes leadership is all about bringing out the best in the firm’s 1800 employees. “We have a very informal, non-hierarchical structure,” he says. “The task of our leaders is not simply to issue orders but to act as role models in providing our customers with what they want in terms of teamwork, friendliness, delivery and, in general, supplying a top-class service.” Many of those who join the company are former customers. “We first of all put them through a programme which helps them to understand what we are trying to do, then a management team shows them how our ideas are put into practice.”

When trying to identify future leaders, he and his management colleagues adopt the premise that anyone possessing sufficient motivation can become a leader. “But obviously some are better than others, and the best are likely to end up as managing directors,” he says.

“I believe that leadership is something that can be taught, but that’s not a reason for trying to teach everybody everything. We need good team players, and the leaders are those who enable them to give off their best.”

The ultimate test of a leader, he believes, is whether the individual can generate trust in others.

“We are not one of those companies where self-interest is dominant,” he says.

He would not comment on the general quality of British management, often portrayed in a negative light in the media. “I don’t know whether we are ahead of other firms in our thinking, but we are certainly doing something different. I don’t know anywhere else where the staff can talk to the boss in the frank and informal way that they do here. I go around meeting each member of the staff individually twice a year to brief them on what’s going on and on our plans for the future. Because they know they are not going to be shot for speaking their minds, they’ll all have a go at it. It’s not just one-way communication.”

I find it very difficult to comprehend reporting to a leader I couldn’t trust – it has to be one of the key characteristics – doesn’t it?

News: And staying on that theme, you might enjoy my article over at Top Sales Management today,  “Sales Leadership – The Changing Role” or “The Four Step Process I Use When Probing for Pain” over at Top Sales World – bit of a JF day then!

I first became seriously interested in objective sales team assessments in 1993 when I created my own consultancy. Up until that point, I had used various psychometric tests for recruitment purposes, and they were useful, but somehow, they always left me wanting more. In fact a couple of years ago, I wrote an article called “Psychometric Tests and Professional Salespeople – Happy Bedfellows?” and I said:

“You see, returning to my Attitude + Skills + Process + Knowledge formula, at what point does a psychometric finding have reliable relevance?

The attitude element is uncertain and for me this is critical, as it drives the motivation of all the other elements: Skills, including; negotiation, presentation, account management, relationship building, opportunity assessment etc, cannot be assessed. The individual’s commitment to appropriate sales process which might include; forecasting, pipeline development, activity analysis etc, cannot be assessed. And finally, knowledge, that includes industry knowledge, sector knowledge, company knowledge, product knowledge and even self-knowledge, cannot be assessed.

Having recruited, trained, mentored, coached and developed more than 70.000 thousand front-line sales professionals and sales leaders since 1994, my question is a simple one:

“In the field of professional selling, have we been seduced into allowing psychometric testing to become our bedfellows?”

All of this compelled me to begin work on my own set of highly relevant, sales specific assessments – ASP Profile.

ASP Profile is the most cost effective sales competence assessment tool available.

It represents the culmination of eighteen years ongoing research and experimentation. It has involved consultation with hundreds of individuals including, captains of industry, psychologists, professional buyers and front line salesmen and women from every industry sector.

The end result is that we are now able to recognize the three levels of selling that exists – four if you include sales management – and as a consequence, we have produced a model at each level that accurately profiles the characteristics and working styles of the very best performers.

It assesses existing strengths, limitations and ongoing development requirements in three specific areas: Attitude, Skills and Process.

ASP Profile is a unique concept which is rapidly gaining recognition as a world class product in the field of sales team performance assessment and has already been adopted in earlier and current forms by hundreds of forward thinking organizations around the globe including: – Autodesk, France Telecom, Global One, Computer 2000 Group, Northumbria Water, ISI Group plc, F.I. Scotland, CISCO, Platinum Technology, Computer Associates, Belle Systems, Allied Dunbar Assurance plc, Exodus, Mclaren Consulting, Domino UK Ltd and Parker Hannifin.

However, I would add that it is appropriate for organisations of all sizes from F.T.S.E. 100/Fortune 500 companies to the S.M.E sector and furthermore, it is not industry specific.

The sales team is our forward line, if they are not scoring regularly; we cannot possibly
achieve our overall commercial objectives i.e. nothing happens until somebody sells something and all of that investment in costly accounting systems, and new office equipment, expensive IT systems etc. will count for nothing.

The primary aim of ASP Profile is to assist management in making effective human resource decisions objectively; the decisions made about people, their recruitment, ongoing development
and promotion. This will enable organisations to minimise the cost of recruitment and selection and also improve the overall quality and therefore productivity of their existing staff.

In summary, I believe that this initiative is an essential first step towards developing
‘Optimum Performance’ levels.

As you will have probably already seen somewhere, my new consultancy, JFA (Jonathan Farrington & Associates) is launching on April 17th - and more about that soon – so as a pre-launch “taster,” we are offering you the opportunity to sample ASP Profile for a massively discounted price.

If you are serious about becoming the best you can possibly be – or, as a sales leader, you wish to benchmark your team against the best in your industry, then I urge you to learn more HERE – it might just be one of the smartest decisions you make in 2012!

News: It’s changeover day at Top Sales Management, which means a fresh set of resources – for example, today’s article comes from Dave Kurlan “Are Your Salespeople Still Cold Calling? The Ugly Truth” HERE

Regular visitors here will know that over the past couple of weeks, I have been talking to some great fellow thought leaders and I am really enthused about all that is in store for 2012 – and the years to come!

But today, I have some exciting news that you don’t have to wait for ..

I am pleased to announce that Smartr Contacts for iPhone is now available in the iPhone App Store.

Many of you, like me, have been using Xobni’s products on Android, Gmail, Outlook and BlackBerry and have been waiting patiently for the iPhone version of Smartr Contacts.  The wait is over, it is available to you today!

Download Smartr Contacts for iPhone

What this means to you is that if you already use Smartr or Xobni on Gmail, Outlook, Android or BlackBerry, you can now access all those contacts on your iPhone.

In case you don’t already know, Smartr Contacts is a free app that makes it easy to search all your contacts, even those who aren’t in your iPhone address book – Automatically. See photos, job title, company info, message history, and social updates for anyone you’ve ever communicated with. Instantly know who your contacts are, how you know them, when you last talked, and who you have in common.

If I’ve sold you, click here to get started with Smartr Contacts for iPhone.

You can also check out this video to see the app in action.

If you like the app as much as I do, please share it with your friends - they really will thank you!

Full Disclosure: I am receiving no financial – or any other form of compensation - for this post, but Xobni are one of our sponsors over at Top Sales World and Top Sales Management. I am a big fan, and I want to share them with you! – JF

In recent weeks, I have been discussing the future of professional selling, and amongst other predictions, I have suggested that in my humble view, within five years, just 5% of external salespeople will remain.

It will therefore come as no surprise that I have received a number of emails asking if I will clarify what these survivors will look like, what will be their characteristics, and what will differentiate them.

Over the past twenty years I have trained, developed and mentored almost one hundred  thousand sales professionals - from foundation right up to “master craftsman” level -and I think this has given me a unique opportunity to formulate an accurate profile of a “Top 5% Achiever.”

So What Is It That Top 5% Players Do?

They:

o Position themselves with the real decision-makers and avoid those without ‘approval power’. They are able to first identify and then access the formal decision making unit – right up to “C-Level” where most of the decisions are being made these days.

o Not only get the order but a satisfied customer, repeat sales, enthusiastic reference sites and constantly increase sales penetration within their accounts.

o Know how to minimise the uncertainties of a cold call on a new account, by careful planning and rigorous opportunity assessment. They concentrate solely on opportunities that they can win – and that they want to win!

o Recognise when to treat an old account as a new prospect and keep the relationship fresh, alive and maintain profitability.

o Never entertain business they do not want because they recognise that it takes just as long to work an unprofitable opportunity through the sales funnel, only to lose it at the death, as it does a profitable one. They trust their own judgement but also rely heavily on objective assessment.

o Readily identify and know how to deal with the three different buying influences present in every sale and they also develop strong allies.

o Understand how to prevent sales from being sabotaged by an internal enemy. They insulate themselves by using those allies.

o Are able to recognise fail-safe signals that indicate when a sale is in jeopardy. This comes from experience but also information supplied by their allies.

o Are rigorous in tracking account progress and are able to accurately forecast future sales because they use proven methodology, which allows them to weight every opportunity in the pipeline

o Avoid ‘dry-months’ by allocating time wisely to their critical selling tasks i.e. Prospecting for new business, covering the bases with existing opportunities and finally closing the best few.

o They understand that the old saying “People buy from people first” no longer applies to personality, but rather to professionalism, commercial bandwidth and superior knowledge

We can then go further and identify eighteen core competencies in which Top 5% achievers generally excel:

o Organisational Skills

o Communication

o Presentation Skills

o Business Development

o Opportunity Assessment

o Interpersonal Skills

o Creative Thinking

o Critical Thinking

o People Awareness

o Integration Skills

o Resilience

o Strategic Approach

o Pro-Activity

o Negotiation

o Key Account Management

o Team Membership

o Process & Methodology

o Political Awareness

If you then add into this mix an understanding of, and familiarisation of the importance that social media now plays, you begin to see just how different these Top 5% achievers really are.

In Summary:

Be assured, the very best sales performers do not achieve that status overnight. They work tirelessly to develop and hone their skills-sets, insist on regular top-up coaching and seek out those who are outperforming them, so that they may learn and improve still further.

They have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of their industry and sector. Finally, they concentrate on eliminating any weaknesses and are anxious to be assessed and receive feedback on a regular basis.

This post is not meant to be a “commercial” but if you are a front-line sales professional and you would like to receive an accurate and objective assessment of how you stack up against Top 5% achievers, or if you are a manager, and you are wondering which of your current team measure up – or indeed could become a Top 5% player, you will be very interested in reading my post on Monday.

News: Over at Top Sales World, we have announced the top ten sales articles for January, and you can check them out HERE

Meanwhile, over at Top Sales Management, you might enjoy my recorded conversation with Ken Thoreson “Sales Leadership – The Changing Role” HERE

Do look out for an exclusive post tomorrow, and be sure to have a great w/e – JF