Jonathan Farrington's Blog

Failing to focus salespeople’s activity reduces efficiency and consequently reduces results, because there is not a salesperson alive that believes they have enough time in their working week to complete all the activities they want to achieve! Time is a huge constraint on their activities so that when their manager asks them for more, it is no wonder that they are overwhelmed.

Secondly, but equally important, salespeople often are not clear about how to identify the prospects most likely to have a genuine need for their product or service. Without an objective way to prioritise which prospects to contact first and/or an efficient strategy for contacting them, salespeople are doomed to waste a large percentage of their time. Another huge dilemma for many salespeople is how to divide their time between servicing existing clients and generating new business from new prospects.

Existing clients frequently make requests for service that could be dealt with by support staff. But salespeople who lack a disciplined, future-orientated plan for generating new contacts and sales often find themselves spending more time attending to “urgent” tasks for existing accounts instead. A common approach among salespeople can be summarised in the saying “If you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it is bound to stick.” This approach is exhausting, demoralising, extremely unproductive, and very expensive in the long term.

Far too frequently, competent salespeople are expected to channel their own activities into the areas that will produce the quickest wins. Unfortunately, left to their own devices, they don’t develop and pursue a formal strategy for moving a sale tangibly forward during each prospect interaction; neither do they have a clearly defined set of goals against which to measure the progress they are making. Typically, their judgment is based on gut reaction and is purely subjective i.e., “Oh yes, I’ll get that order, he likes me”, because salespeople have to be optimistic by nature. They end up “dancing around” with prospects, in the hope that eventually they will get to their chosen point on the dance-floor i.e. -the sale. In this scenario, the customer has complete control.

Today’s News:

Over at Top 10 Sales Articles, we have announced the February Top Sales Article Of The Month, and you will most certainly enjoy it – just click on the banner above.

Over at TSE Dailies, today Maureen Blandford is in interview with: Dave Brock, of Partners In Excellence

Try COUNTERintuitive

“In these challenging times, many of us think that we need to drive harder to keep up. Not so, says Dave Brock, with Partners In Excellence. There’s not a selling organization today who couldn’t benefit from letting up on the gas to better gauge their situation.”  Another banner click away below.

Tomorrow: News of a brand new book and an upcoming event, plus of course the JF Guest Author Spot – so be sure to join me.

The traditional customer call once seemed indispensable to the selling process; the time and expense involved were just a basic cost of doing business. In recent years, however, the business community has come to regard the sales call as an expenditure for which there are substitutes.

For many companies telemarketing and direct email have made the sales call a choice not an inevitability. This is not surprising when various studies suggest that getting one sales person in front of one customer now costs $1500 – this cost has trebled since 1983. As a consequence professional salespeople have to be more effective than ever to justify the investment in a face to face effort.

To help companies meet this challenge, we need to examine how outstanding achievers have adapted to the rigorous demands of current markets.

In essence, we can draw seven primary conclusions and taken together, these findings paint a picture of the current state of the sales environment and you can discover what they are by downloading this week’s FREE eBook - simply click on the banner below.

Today’s News: So, now you can listen in to the “TSE Dailies”

“As you put the key in the ignition of your day, tune in to a power-packed interview with one of our experts – specifically designed for our subscriber community.
 
We know you have a variety of challenges and opportunities. In Sales of course, but also in Management, Teaming, Economic Conditions, and more. We’ll stay on top of issues critical to you.
 
We designed this tool to be an easy add-on to your morning office routine. And, all interviews will be archived, if you miss one or you want to share with your team.”

Yesterday, my Irish friend, Niall Devitt was in the hot seat and you will not want to miss his words of wisdom – it’s a pleasure just listening to the accent! Just click on the banner below to listen in.

Tomorrow: My guest is one of the real “big-hitters” when it comes to sales team development – my good friend from Texas, and best selling author, Paul McCord

Pick up a typical company report today and what words do you find? Verbs like analyse, forecast, plan, assess, and schedule, are used in pursuit of organisations that are efficient, productive, and predictable.

What set of people are required? Obviously, people who are efficient, effective, proficient, competent, productive, and co-operative.

I believe we need to go beyond – we need to be inspired, motivated, creators, who are enthusiastic and able to consistently deliver against our key objectives.

We should be developing individuals who are not afraid to challenge paradigms, who are prepared to go that extra yard in search of excellence and who understand that success is 80% attitude and only 20% aptitude.

For a group of people to remain consciously competent at optimum performance levels, they require frequent injections of stimulation, motivational guidance, prompting and directing, otherwise they can easily lapse into becoming unconsciously competent or worse, unconsciously incompetent.

The primary objective of a professional Sales Manager has to be:
“To achieve consistently superior results, through the performance of every key individual.”

The Acid Test: When thinking about your own sales force:

- Do you understand their motivators – what is driving them?
- Do you have visibility of their numbers – year to date, forecast vs. required performance?
- Activity levels – are they working hard and smart enough?
- Engagement – are they talking to the right level in their prospects/accounts?
- Messaging – are they capable of delivering an appropriate message at the right level?
- Qualification – are they only spending time on deals where they can compete and ultimately that they can win?
- Closing – are they constructing successful campaigns and closing business?

Summary:
Top performing Sales Directors and Managers understand instinctively when a situation requires them to Direct, Coach, Support, or Delegate but learning these skills takes time and practice and underpinning this advanced approach to management must be a range of core competencies…

Today’s News: I am convinced of the value of “social media” of course. I am a big fan of LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo et al, but I am still not getting the most out of the experience, and I have written myself a “must try harder” note. If you are like me, you will enjoy this excellent post from Brian Carroll, over at The Customer Collective: “Can a social media like Twitter boost your lead generation results?”

Earlier in the week, Jill Konrath asked this question: “Are you still trying to figure on how to get LinkedIn to work for you?”

“If so, then you need to meet Patrick O’Malley. He’s a true LinkedIn Wizard who has helped me take my profile to the next level. Check out this video.”

Click here to learn more about Patrick O’Malley, his LinkedIn expertise, coaching & training programs. He has more great articles, videos and tips on his website.  

Finally, you may also be astounded at some figures I read yesterday:

“LinkedIn adds 400,000 users a WEEK, Facebook is adding over 400,000 a DAY. Twitter has grown 900% in 6 months. A year ago, MySpace and Facebook were the same size.  Now Facebook (at 160 Million) is twice the size of MySpace and the gap is widening.

What is happening?  Business users, predominantly LinkedIn users, are adopting these other well-known platforms as a sort of “add-on”.

Twitter recently turned down a $500 Million offer from Facebook!  LinkedIn is valued at $1 Billion, Facebook was once valued at $15B (now estimated closer to $4B), General Motors is worth $2.5 Billion.  None of these make a dime.

Their value is in YOU and their relationship with you.  They are built to be sold and you go with the sale.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  You wouldn’t want to be left behind would you?

With 30+ Million customers, LinkedIn has 350 employees and recently had to layoff 35 people.  People wonder why they can’t get their problems resolved.”

If you would like to follow me on Twitter, you will find me here

Tomorrow: I am travelling and writing next week’s blog posts on the hoof – as ever, wherever you are, have a great weekend – JF

During the seventies, eighties and nineties, it was common for large corporations such as Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Compaq etc to put their new sales recruits through a twelve to eighteen-month training program.

Today, salespeople consider themselves extremely fortunate if they receive an initial two weeks of induction training or product familiarisation workshops.

So what has changed? Have companies discovered that training is not necessary?

On the contrary, training appears to be even more important today than it was thirty years ago and it is becoming more critical all the time.

Lower Training Budgets But Higher Expectations:

The dichotomy facing Sales Directors is how they reconcile the fact that most corporations today provide less upfront training for their sales staff than in years past, yet attach increasing importance to staff development?

This should not come as a surprise, because current stock market thinking provides a powerful disincentive for firms to invest in their people on an ongoing basis. An organisation’s investment in their human capital, in the form of training and other forms of education, is not separable from general expenditure. It therefore appears as a cost on the corporate balance sheet.

Tough Choices:

Unfortunately, as a consequence, many Sales Directors have concluded that their only realistic option is to cut back on training and instead look to recruit sales professionals who, in theory anyway, already possess the necessary skills needed to do the job. They then send them out to win business armed with what they know. However, most of those same Sales Directors are discovering just how difficult it is to find skilled salespeople who have all of the essential skills and personal traits. And anyway it is not possible to equate experience or seniority with success. As I often say: “Some sales professionals have ten year’s experience, most have one year’s experience ten times”

In skills development, there are many similarities to sport i.e. does an athletic champion stop training as soon as they win their first medal? In music, does a concert pianist stop rehearsing as soon as they have given their first recital? In art, does the artist stop improving after they have enjoyed the first exhibition of their work? The answer in all cases is obvious and we should apply the same common sense principals to the ongoing development of our sales teams.

The reality is that selling in today’s climate is both an art and a science. Selling is a profession that demands a far wider range of skills than ever before, skills that require continual fine-tuning and constant practice.

In Summary – Ongoing Reinforcement and Development Is Essential:

The operative word here is “ongoing”. Even if salespeople have undergone progressive sales training, there’s no guarantee that they will be successful. It is common knowledge that skills grow rusty over time and salespeople are prone to pick-up bad habits along the way or to simply skip steps and take shortcuts that can lead to long-term trouble. Perhaps even more important these days, is the fact that markets, competition, technologies, and customer preferences are all in a constant and accelerating state of change. This fact requires that sales people are able and willing to rethink their sales strategy and approach frequently and receive a regular top-up of skills and motivational coaching.

Unfortunately, the task of selling never becomes any easier and as competition continues to intensify, sales people will face issues that can be extremely difficult to deal with i.e. decreased product uniqueness, increased competition within ‘safe’ markets, longer sales cycles and shorter product life spans. Every organisation that intends to survive in the re-engineered environment which arrived with the new millennium must, in my view, respond to those realities.

Today’s News: I am delighted to confirm that Top Sales Experts have formed an alliance with a dynamic  new company called Meeting To Win, who have a very innovative solution:

“Sales Managers, have your Monday morning sales team meetings gotten boring and routine?

It’s a challenge to come up with new ideas every week to keep meetings interesting, motivating and productive. Wise managers are outsourcing this challenge to Meeting to Win.

You can take meeting preparation off of your to-do list for good! All you have to do is add Meeting to Win to your team. Each and every week a new, fresh, creative team meeting agenda will be sent to your inbox. You simply follow the agenda for weekly sales team meetings that your team will love and actually look forward to.

Our goal is that each week your sales team leaves your weekly sales team meeting better equipped to compete and win.

Subscribe today and your first 3 agendas are complimentary. Once Sales Managers are using this resource, they don’t know how they ever lived without it and, even so, you can cancel at anytime.”

Just click on the banner below to find out more about them

Tomorrow: We still have a lot of cosmetic work to complete on TSE 2.0, so I will be very busy, but wherever you are, have a great w/e, and be sure to join me on Monday – JF

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

If ever there was a need to re-examine the way in which we are all approaching business, it is now: It’s time to challenge paradigms; look outside the square; understand that just because that has always been the way we have sold, that it will work for us in the current climate. If we keep doing what we have been doing, we will keep getting what we have been getting.

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 organisations 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.

The role of strategy is fundamental if the people within an organisation 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.

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 organisation 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:
Organisations 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 organisation without total commitment is like trying to drive a car without fuel. But every organisation has the potential to harness the power of their salespeople just as surely as oxygen pumps life into the human.

Today’s News: January’s “Article Of The Month” has just been announced over at Top 10 Sales Articles and it is a belter, written by….. well why not check it out for yourself?

Other than that, news is scarce today, I guess everyone is eagerly anticipating…

Tomorrow: It all kicks off, and I for one cannot wait – here is the countdown

“We are coming…Are you ready”

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.

We believe that between 50% and 70% of an organisation’s climate, and hence its effectiveness, can be traced to management style. Effective leaders create a favourable 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 programmes are too general to provide opportunities for such intensive personalised 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 organisations 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 organisation – they are committed to moving away from managing by a culture of process to managing as leaders.

Typically we find that our 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 behaviour 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 behaviour, 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.

Today’s News: Here is a great new site that is “Delivering Social Collaboration to the Sales 2.0 Community” It’s called Connectize, and the CEO, Tom Canning is a very switched on guy – think you will like it. 

Tomorrow: It’s going to be a very long w/e as we put the final finishing touches to the launch of TSE 2.0.

Here’s the latest news:

“We’re coming … are you ready?”

What is the TSE 2.0 Launch all about?

Well, I am not at liberty to reveal details just yet. The final pieces are clicking into place – literally—as I am writing to you.

But … I can tell you that my TSE colleagues – sales experts from around the world – have created a whopping $2,000 worth of free gifts – extraordinary ”freemiums” – with answers to your most pressing business questions and answers to questions you haven’t yet asked!

Now, if you want to take a sneak peek and watch the count down with me you can … but ssshhh! … don’t tell anybody just yet …it’s all still quite hush, hush.

Follow along here: “We’re coming … are you ready?”

Traditionally, one of our largest clients ran its business from manuals. Staff who wanted to know how something should be done would be directed by a senior manager “to look in staff manual 108” for the answer. It was not a motivational style of management, and had become unsuitable for fast-changing modern business conditions. So eight years ago, based on our recommendations they created what they called “The ultimate service provision” by merging all the information technology (IT) and back-office functions. Management broke with old habits and traditional training, and decided to improve the leadership skills of the senior managers through coaching.

The outcome has been a resounding success, producing far better results than conventional development training. The evident superiority of coaching explains why more companies are taking the same route and making it a priority.

We believe that coaching’s rapid growth will continue. Forward thinking organisations are looking for alternative ways to lead and organise staff. The business world has experienced more upheaval in the past year than in the previous fifty: It’s no accident that this period of unprecedented change has witnessed a boom in executive coaching.

At the moment I am coaching a top executive who insists on becoming involved in every detail of the business, causing frustration amongst his junior executives. “If he’s not in a meeting, he feels he’s not working”, I was told. Time management and delegation courses had done nothing to cure his faults, which leave him no time for the sort of reflective thinking expected of a senior manager. Coaching, particularly by making him study his own diary and cutting down on the congestion in it, is already having an impact.

The signs are that the boom will continue. A recent survey that I read, which polled H. R. professionals from Europe, America, Australia and Asia found that 88% of the respondents were planning to make more use of professional coaching. A little more than half of the respondents had introduced the practice in the past 18 months.

Like our clients, 70% of those polled said that coaching has an edge over conventional development techniques and they would choose it to change the behaviour and performance of senior people.

Today’s News: Jill Konrath is recommending some excellent FREE sales resources here 

Niall Devitt posted “The Apocalypse, Four Sales Trainers and the 1st Commandment of Selling”  which you will enjoy very much and Paul McCord is asking: “What is Operational Excellence in Sales and Marketing?“

Tomorrow: On The JF Guest Author Spot, I welcome back Drew Stevens PhD – “The largest single issue with selling in a difficult economy is change. There is change in buying power, change in budgets, even change in decision criteria. However, what is not changed are goals, annual commitments, and a desire to excel.”  He will also give you the opportunity to download his latest FREE ebook – “Thriving In A Volatile Economy” – so be sure to join us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For companies to remain competitive now, their sales organisation must be able to respond positively to changing economic tides. As businesses strive to establish customer orientation, sales partnerships and a strategic approach to selling, they are demanding more and more from their salespeople but ensuring that these new methods are widely practised and smoothly implemented falls to sales management.

Building Productivity:
Sales productivity is a strategic issue. That’s why problems in this area stem from salespeople being unclear about their company’s priorities i.e. what their message should be and what they should be selling.

The trend in industry of removing layers of management between the sale force and the general manager presents a challenge to those sales managers who remain. To begin with, the sales manager becomes an essential link between company strategy and what takes place in the customer’s office. He or she must not only grasp the corporate vision but be able to communicate it to the sales force in terms of the real effects on sales practices.

Creating Direction:
Sales managers with an intimate feel for the selling process succeed because their staff regard them as part of the sales team but coaching the team is as important as playing in it. In other words, sales managers must be prepared to provide training, feedback and support to every individual within the team.
Once committed to the training process, they must routinely reinforce new ways of behaving in real sales situations. They must provide a clear sense of direction on a daily basis, not just at the monthly sales meeting / quarterly review / annual appraisal.

The very best sales managers engage in frequent coaching and feedback, even when their sales people work in remote locations. While encouraging salespeople to air their problems openly and discuss their concerns, sales managers must be able to offer clear and specific feedback for improving sales performance.

Rewarding Change:
The sales manager is charged with translating the company’s reward system into specific improvements in sales performance. Both salespeople and corporate managers count on the sales manager to recognise and reward outstanding achievement, formally and informally.

The process of promoting new attitudes about the customer and the role of the salesperson can be frustrating and slow. Reverting back to recent research there is compelling evidence to suggest that companies will see results sooner if they recognise and reward salespeople – “you get more of the behaviour and results that you reward.”

The trend in sales compensation appears to be away from commission to guaranteed salary, from compensation based on orders to compensation based on delivery and sign-off. Interestingly some organisations we know, base their ‘salesperson of the year’ award on the basis of customer satisfaction or customer retention rather than sheer volume of orders or activity.

Today’s News: Three Top Sales Experts are presenting over at Business Expert Webinars this week: Cheryl Clausen, Anne Miller and Leslie Buterin – you can get all the details here

Tomorrow: On The JF Guest Author Spot, Colleen Francis – “Make 2009 the Year You Reinvent Your Sales!”