Jonathan Farrington’s Blog

Failing to focus salespeople’s activity reduces efficiency and consequently reduces results because there isn’t 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 salespeople’s activities so that when their manager asks them for more, it’s no wonder that they are overwhelmed.

Poor Quality Activity Achieves Poor Quality Results:

Secondly, but equally important, salespeople often aren’t 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.

Speed Of Relaying Customer Information:

The Sales Director provides another interesting dimension to activity management. Apart from product or service knowledge, salespeople require knowledge about prospects, clients, and market trends. Therefore, if the information those salespeople require isn’t relayed in an efficient manner, their “face-to-face” selling activities are dramatically reduced.

Managing Existing Customers:

A vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet, unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease.

This creates a “relationship gap”.

Today’s News:

 I am delighted to announce a brand new initiative that has just been launched by Jeb Blount and myself.

The Sales Book Awards recognize books, authors, and publishers whose work advances sales as a profession.

Advancing sales as a profession is our core mission. All proceeds from corporate sponsorships and entry fees will be used to create scholarships for deserving students enrolled in University level, sales degree programs. We will develop and foster a wide coalition of thought leaders, educators, publishers, authors, and corporations who share our mission.

2008 Winners will be Announced December 15, 2008 
On November 15, 2008 we will announce three finalists in each major category based on the aggregate scores received from the judges. On December 15, 2008 we will announce the winner in each category and the Sales Book of the Year.

Winners and finalists will receive:

• a plaque recognizing their accomplishment

• a seal to place on their book cover and website

• recognition on major websites including SalesGravy.com, Top10SalesArticles.com (more TBA)

• a full page advertisement placed in a major trade publication (TBA)

• a scholarship will be awarded in the Sales Book of the Year’s authors name,  to the top ranked junior at the 2009 National Collegiate Sales Competition

Nominating Categories:
1 General Sales (open category)
2 Sales Leadership/Sales Management
3 Sales Motivation
4 Sales Method/Process
5 Prospecting
6 Presenting/ Public Speaking
7 Industry Specific
8 Audio Books and Audio Programs
9 Classic Sales Books
10 E-Books

You can find the full details here:  www.salesbookawards.org

Tomorrow: Fellow Top Sales Expert, Dr. Tony Alessandra is here on The JF Guest Author Spot

As a manager you have a juggling act to perform, one which balances different points of view, and often requires considerable diplomacy.

Classically these are the viewpoints of:
• Yourself
• The organisation
• Your department (or division, section)
• Your people
• External contacts (e.g. customers or suppliers)

Sometimes (regularly?) conflicts arise: something is right for the department and the people, but not for either the organisation or you. On occasions you will find yourself disagreeing with a company policy but having to support it even though you know that your people see it as wrong and personally inconvenient.

How you handle this balancing act is important, and it may be necessary to explain the reasons behind your actions. It is an area for some consistency.

You need to keep certain factors in mind when balancing the interests of different parties:

First and foremost your responsibility is to the organisation and to achieving the targets set for you. You can only do this with the support of your people, so in the long-term you must carry them with you (some disagreement may be seen as inevitable)

You have a responsibility upwards and downwards within the organisation (perhaps one answer is to support a policy, insisting that your people comply, while communicating upwards in an attempt to have it changed if it can be bettered)

You must never be seen as selfish, simply acting to make your own lot better (this will, rightly, always be resented)

You must sometimes be seen to fight your corner on behalf of your section and its people (this will be appreciated, more so if what you take issue with is a nonsense and, especially, if you win!)

Continually Seek To Demonstrate Your Skills At Balancing Different Interests:

As well as making clear your position in respect of the organisation and the other players you need to consider – and make clear – the relationship between you and your own staff. You must always be fair (but rarely democratic). People must see the realities involved. They must understand that there is a balance and that you cannot always be automatically on their side, right or wrong.

Finally - Make It Clear That You:

• See your success as tied in with and, indeed, dependent on them.
• See your role as essentially supportive (in all sorts of ways: guidance, counselling, development and motivation)
• Believe that by working together you can all succeed – not just by everyone doing their share of the work but by everyone contributing creatively (ideas may come from anywhere)

Today’s News: It does seem to me that we are being bombarded with webinars and teleseminars right now. Choosing what is good and what is not must be very difficult and personally I tend to listen into and recommend a very few - mostly from experts who I both know and respect. Yesterday I recommended Paul McCord and today I can share with you an upcoming event from Jill Konrath:

EMAIL COLD CALLING: HOW TO LEVERAGE EMAIL TO GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR
Date: June 19, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM Central

Integrating email cold calling into your account entry campaign is essential with today’s savvy phone-averse and time-starved decision maker. Don’t be fooled by the ease of emailing though. Attend Jill’s teleseminar and find out how to use email effectively.

P.S. If you’re a woman in B2B sales, check out the Sales SHEbang - a new resource, community and conference Jill recently launched. I think you’ll like it!

Tomorrow: The next edition of the FREE Top Sales Experts E-book is absolutely huge!! It is 136 pages and counting. The first draft is ready for editing, so all fifty contributing authors will be checking their work this weekend so that we can hit our publication date of Tuesday June 17th - I think you are going to love it

As ever, have a great w/e and be sure to join me again next week - JF

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

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

1. Every Individual is unique and their perceptions are true to them. Because we each absorb 2 million pieces of information unconsciously and can only process around 7 chunks consciously we each have our own unique perception of the world around us. If everyone reading this was asked to explain beliefs, each individual would give a different explanation. So who’s right? Everyone is right because your perceptions are true for you. That’s why the more respect we have for every individual and the more we seek to understand the viewpoints of other, the richer our communication becomes. By respecting the opinions of others doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to agree with them, we just have to acknowledge that every individual’s reality is the one based on their own unique perceptions.

2. Communication is successful, only if it achieves your desired results. It doesn’t matter if you think you’ve communicated well or if you think you’ve been crystal clear, what matters is that your communication is received and acted upon in the manner you wanted. How many times have you said something to another person who has totally misinterpreted what you meant? Equally, sometimes we are on the receiving end of communication that makes us feel inadequate. If we can look beyond the communication and try to see a positive intention behind another person’s behaviour, then our relationships and interactions with people become more constructive and empowering.

When we communicate with people and if they are ‘not getting’ our point, then the responsibility is ours to adapt our approach until they do. For example; if we have communicated a price increase and the reasons for that price increase, and our customers have not understood those reasons, the responsibility for this mis-communication lies with us. Therefore we can only judge the success of what we have communicated based on the reactions we get from other people.

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

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

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

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

5. There is no failure, only feedback. Of course there is failure. If you take a driving test or exam you either pass or fail. Your sales people will either succeed in achieving their monthly sales targets or fail to meet them. The key is how you perceive ‘failure’. Every failure can be looked at as a learning opportunity that is beautifully epitomised by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. Despite more than 10,000 failures, he stood by his dream until he made it a physical reality. He said that every discarded idea took him one step closer towards finding the idea that would work.

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

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

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

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

Today’s News: As the voting concludes and we are about to announce May’s “Top Sales Article Of The Month” I have to say that the competition was extremely fierce this month with very little to choose between all five weekly winners - you can check them out for yourself here

This is probably a good time to remind you that I also post every week on the “Sales Manager’s Mentor” Blog over at Sales Gravy - so do pop over there and pay a visit.

Tomorrow: Proposals and Neverland is Nigel Edelshein’s topic on The JF Guest Author Spot

A very good friend 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.”

Very interesting and visionary thoughts, which go a long way in explaining the company’s success.

Today’s News: There is a relatively new site that specialises in promoting blogs - they have hundreds, if not thousands, and whilst they do not have a specialised business section yet, lots of serious business bloggers are represented within the “General” section.

It is owned by Lynda Geller, who I first connected with when she wanted to publish some of my work over at NewsFactor. Obviously, a very smart cookie and a very genuine person too.

Do check Blogowogo out and be sure to click on the “Top Rated Blogs” button:-)

Two Top Sales Experts are hosting webinars over at Business Expert Webinars this week:

1) Turn Sales & Marketing Dissonance Into Profitable Harmony

Hosted by Maureen Blandford

Monday June 2nd 2008 – 2.30pm Eastern (7.30pm GMT)

Details Here

2) Trigger Events? How To Find Your Next Customer

Hosted by Alen Majer

Tuesday June 3rd 2008 – 10.00am Eastern (3.00pm GMT)

Details Here

Tomorrow: It is debut time for fellow Top Sales Expert, Terri Dunevant on The JF Guest Author Spot

One of the key tasks of a leader is to continually seek ways to improve the way in which their team operates – constantly challenging paradigms and questioning “the way we do things around here,” will ensure the team remains at optimum performance levels.

However, it is also important to stay within an overall long term strategy and not effect change for change’s sake. Here are some thoughts on moving forward in a structured manner.

First, keep the key management functions in mind:
• Define objectives (your own and others)
• Plan (and time) action
• Communicate (throughout the process)
• Support others’ action
• Evaluate performance (and link to the future)
• Then relate this to the task, the team, and the individual people

Keeping the Overall Management Process in Mind:

Define Objectives:
• Task - Identify task and constraints
• Team - Set targets and involve your team
• Individual Needs - Agree targets and responsibilities.

Plan:
• Task - Establish priorities
• Team - Structure and delegate
• Individual Needs - Assess skills, train, and delegate.

Communicate:
• Task - Brief and check understanding
• Team – Consult, obtain feedback
• Individual Needs – Listen, advise, and enthuse.

Support/Control:
• Task - Monitor progress, check standards
• Team - Co-ordinate, reconcile conflict
• Individual Needs – Recognise, encourage, and counsel

Evaluate:
• Task – Review, re-plan and summarise
• Team - Reward success; learn from failure (and success)
• Individual Needs - Appraise, guide and train for the future

This view encapsulates, and simplifies, the whole process.

With this picture in mind certain key issues are worth a mention:

Link to the Future:

Ongoing success as a manager is influenced by:

• The attitude you take to the transition
• What you do before you move into a new appointment
• The early focus you bring to bear on key issues
• The relationship you thus cultivate with staff
• The working habits you create for yourself (and others) in process

Together, all the above influence early success in the job – and how you take things forward into the future.

Key Issues:

From the beginning, always operate on the basis that managing people:

• Takes time – you cannot get so bound up in your own workload that you skimp on time you should spend with others
• Takes effort – it is challenge, there are no magic formulae or quick fixes that will do the job for you
• Needs thought – the obvious or immediate answer may not be best, things may well need research, analysis and thinking through
• Is not a solo effort – seek and take advice from where you can, including your own staff
• Will not always go right – as Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes”: admit your mistakes (publicly if necessary) and learn from your experience.

Remember too that managing people -
Is a process of helping others to be self-sufficient – this implies trust and that management works best when you take a positive view of what people can do (and do not see your role as a sort of corporate security guard)

Is based on good, regular and open communication.

Needs to be acceptable to people before it can be effective – hence the crucial role of motivation as part of the management task.

Become self-sustaining when it works – i.e. if people find your management helpful (to the job, the organisation and to them) then they will support it and support you.

Overall, management is not what you do to people but the process of how you work with people to help prompt their performance. Work with people from day one, and go on doing it throughout your management career.

At the end of the day success comes down to a considered approach. Charge in, desperate to make an impression, go at everything at once in order to make an impression, and disaster may closely follow.

‘Twas ever thus:

“First organise the near at hand, then organise the far removed.
First organise the inner, then organise the outer.
First organise the basic, then organise the derivative
First organise the strong, then organise the weak.
First organise the great. Then organise the small.
First organise yourself, then organise others.”
General Zhuge Liang

Perhaps we should highlight the last line: “First organise yourself, then organise others”

Last Word:

Being a leader is a challenge but it is also almost infinitely rewarding to create and maintain a team of people who deliver excellent performance and produce whatever results are targeted. It is a task that takes time, requires effort, and needs a considered approach.

All sorts of things can help, but only one person can guarantee that you become a good leader – and that’s you.

Today’s News: In about two weeks time, the Top Sales Experts team will be issuing their latest FREE E-book, jam-packed with fantastic articles from fifty of the world’s top sales gurus. I have had a sneak preview and I can tell you that the quality is extremely high. You can reserve a copy by subscribing over at Top Sales Experts Whilst you are there, please feel free to admire the new site layout and all the new team members

Tomorrow: I have developed a very large collection of articles and I have been planning to update them for some time - with the barometer suggesting more wet weather, this weekend might just be the time. “Oh to be in England now that summer is here”

As ever, wherever you are in this rapidly shrinking world, have a great weekend and be sure to join me again next week. - JF

I am re-publishing this post in honour of a very good friend of mine who died this week - he was genuinely a great leader and I learnt so much from him. My thoughts are with his incredibly brave widow and his family.

Shakespeare was good about leadership, as about most other things. The spoof letter which caused poor Malvolio to make such a fool of himself contains words that say a lot about the subject. “Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Greatness and leadership are so closely akin that the words give us a useful point of departure.

“Born great” has two possible meanings: either being born to a great position, such as that of an hereditary monarch, or possessing natural talents and/or virtues of an exceptional kind. Clearly not everyone born to a great position is worthy of it, and relatively few have the qualities of a great leader. But the greatness of certain offices can rub off on their occupants, who may not otherwise have qualities out of the ordinary.

Some appear to have the gift of leadership, but are found to lack it when tested. Tacitus wrote of an early Roman emperor that he would have been thought capable of ruling if only he hadn’t actually been called upon to rule (capax imperii nisi imperasset). Others are recognised as “born leaders” and exercise effective leadership up to a certain level, but prove disastrous failures beyond that level. It is very hard to judge the point beyond which a person will be overpromoted.

“Some achieve greatness” denotes, above all, those whose greatness is self-made. But all of the really great leaders must be regarded as achievers, whatever their advantages of birth and training. Alexander the Great was born to kingship and inherited a strong army. With Aristotle as his tutor, he was perhaps the most privileged person educationally, that there has ever been. Nevertheless, what he achieved in his short life was beyond anything that could remotely have been expected of him.

Much the same is true of Julius Caesar. He was a young Roman aristocrat whose career began as a demagogic politician, but who turned out to be a military commander of genius. The trajectory of his career could never have been predicted.

Napoleon is the supreme example of the utterly self-made leader – the man who “achieved greatness” by his own unaided efforts. When he was on his way to St Helena, he was still slightly younger than John F. Kennedy at the time of his assassination. And Napoleon was not a millionaire’s son. Of course, he was privileged in another way, having the good luck to be born in a revolutionary period, when opportunity beckoned to a man of his phenomenal talents. But luck is a precondition of most human achievements. Natural leaders know how to exploit their luck.

Most of those who achieve anything in the world are ambitious, and some have very exalted ambitions which they have never the chance to realise. A few rise higher than they or anyone else could have imagined, and then prove equal to the challenge. Like those born to great offices who prove, against the odds, worthy to hold them, such people have “greatness thrust upon them”. A case in point was Harry S. Truman. He was not born great, and seemed unlikely to achieve greatness beyond the level of a US Senator. Only Franklin D. Roosevelt’s incredibly casual, last-minute choice of him as running-mate for the 1944 election, soon followed by Roosevelt’s death, precipitated him into a situation where, as he said, he felt that the moon and stars had fallen on him. But he grew in the office of President and achieved a stature that surprised everyone, including probably himself. He was a man who seemed to be overpromoted, but was not.

Churchill and de Gaulle, two of the greatest leaders of modern times, also depended upon chance for the fulfilment of their potential. But they had formidable talent and limitless self-belief. Destiny seemed to wait on them. They were manifestly above the ordinary run of humanity, and made no attempt to conceal the fact.

By contrast, Mahatma Gandhi, though no less extraordinary a person achieved his appeal to the Indian masses by seeming to identify with them. His style was studiedly anti - charismatic, yet it gave him a charisma that was quite unique. Like many effective leaders, he used dress (or in his case relative undress) as a weapon. His loincloth was the PR equivalent of Napoleon’s black hat and grey overcoat, or Churchill’s boiler suit. (When Gandhi met George V at Buckingham Palace, and was asked afterwards if he felt at a disadvantage wearing only a loincloth, he replied cheerfully: “Oh no, His Majesty was wearing enough for both of us”).

Leadership is partly a confidence trick, and those who practice it cannot afford to be too predictable. Some have alternated ruthlessness with generosity. (This was one of Caesar’s trademarks). Others have appeared at times to be listless and drifting, only to spring suddenly to life. (This was Stanley Baldwin’s style).

Democratic leaders have the difficult task of both guiding the people and seeming to respond to the popular will. Autocrats  are obviously freer to exercise leadership, but among them the most successful have been aware of the need to be loved and admired as well as feared, just as many of the best democratic leaders have been natural autocrats, restrained only by conscience and realism. The essential qualities of a good leader are much the same, whatever the environment.

Of all the qualities needed for leadership, only one is indispensable – courage. Without it, all the others are more or less useless. Courage has been shown by all who we recognise as true leaders, from Alexander to Thatcher. A leader must have the ability to take hard decisions and calculated risks. This rule applies at all levels and in all situations – in school, factory, boardroom or sporting arena, no less than on the battlefield or in the council chamber.

Leaders have to give courage to others, while creating the illusion that they know exactly what they are doing. In Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra, when one of Caesar’s officers says something intended to lift his spirits, he replies witheringly: “Do you presume to encourage me?” Shaw, like Shakespeare, knew what leadership was about.

Today’s News: We have almost completed the site makeover for Top Sales Experts and if you haven’t been over there recently, I urge you to visit. By September, we will have a daily blog, monthly newsletter, a fantastic resource centre, packed with articles, white papers, ask the experts section and so much more.

We are also launching the next edition of the free E-book at the beginning of June - more details soon. Finally, you will also realise that the team has expanded considerably and will continue to do so.

The press release for my first book, “Tougher At The Top” goes out today and you can catch it here

Finally, as I promised on Wednesday, if you missed my interview with leadership guru and good friend Kevin Eikenberry, you can simply click on the banner in the left-hand column

Tomorrow: We have already begun work on giving Top 10 Sales Articles a makeover and that work will continue over the weekend, plus of course we have a new E-book to prepare - so we will not be slacking!

Wherever you are, as ever, have a great w/e and be sure to join me next week - JF

People have been debating the nature of leadership for as long as records have been kept – certainly as far back as Homer and his peers. The topic continues to fascinate and enthral us today, but the way in which we assess leadership roles is changing.

Where once we looked to military and political leaders for inspiration and insight, now it is increasingly business leaders who hold our attention and provide role models.

Ask someone to name a leader whom they have admired and they are just as likely to name Richard Branson as Tony Blair, Anita Roddick as Margaret Thatcher. This focus is reflected in the growing number of books and articles about business and the main players.

Most writing on good management and what it takes to get to the top focus on leadership. It is regarded as one of the most important areas of personal development. This also explains the growing interest in leadership courses.

Defining just what makes a leader effective, however, remains as difficult today as it ever was. But that does not prevent us from seeking to distil their secrets – quite the reverse.

Of course, 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: This week, the Elves have been working on a facelift for Top Sales Experts and adding a number of highly distinguished new members. They have also added a ticker box, to make it easier for visitors to locate upcoming Business Expert Webinars that will be delivered by TSE team members. In fact they have placed one on Top 10 Sales Articles too, prior to giving that site a makeover.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, BEW kicks off next week and I will be highlighting it often because it is a great initiative and fully deserves my support and your investigation - if you haven’t already done so, you can check it out by clicking the box in the left-hand column. 

Tomorrow: I’ll be catching up with outstanding mail, watching the English soccer Cup Final and hoping that the rain eases up :-(  Next week, on The JF Guest Author Spot, we have a couple of “big-hitters” so be sure to join me. As always, wherever you are, have a great w/e. Best - JF 

Business people in the UK have devalued selling for far too long and some managers have convinced themselves that they would do better if they did not employ salespeople - after all good products sell themselves, don’t they?

As a consequence, until very recently, salespeople have done everything possible to avoid calling themselves “A Salesman or a Saleswoman.” They have developed a series of euphemisms such as: “Sales Engineer,” “Account Executive”, “Technical Sales Consultant” etc. But nowadays we accept that we all sell everyday - doctors, lawyers, estate agents, architects, and politicians.

The fact remains that anyone who is in business has to sell themselves and their products - and the so called “Captains of Industry” - Branson, Roddick, Marshall, Hanson, Gates, Dell and Co. are thought the best salespeople in the world.

It therefore follows that the quality and success of our salespeople will ultimately determine the success of our companies. Certainly the world has become more competitive and in order to survive and stay in business we need to continually expand and develop the skill sets of our sales team.

Sir John Harvey-Jones said “Most companies fail not in their attempts to be innovative or creative. In this country most of them fail because they undervalue the importance of professional selling”

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 e.g. 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 and recognise that there is not one critical sales related challenge, which must be addressed but five and I will discuss these in a follow up post.

In Summary:
Our commercial functions, particularly the sales team, represent 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 software, new office equipment, expensive IT systems etc. will count for nothing.

We can therefore say with complete confidence, that selling really is the key factor in the total marketing process

Today’s News: I had quite a lengthy conversation with Robin Frey Carey of The Customer Collective - have you been over to there yet? - and we were discussing, amongst other things, webinars and tele-seminars. My view is that like all things in life, there are good ones and erm, less than good ones. For example, the Business Experts Webinars initiative is superb and I think Lee has a really big success on his hands - if you want to check the itinerary for May, just click on the box in the left hand column. (Due to the pressure of other commitments, I will not be appearing until September)

Thanks to a superb suggestion from my good friend Keith Rosen last week, we are working on something very unique and I promise to share it with you very shortly.

Talking of upcoming tele-seminars, have you really booked your place for my conversation with the remarkable Kevin Eikenberry yet? Just click on the banner below - please.

Tomorrow: We are putting the final touches to the re-worked Top Sales Experts site and preparing to give Top 10 a makeover - plenty to keep me going. Wherever you are, have a great w/e and enjoy the sunshine

“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 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.

The world’s leading organisations continuously seek to improve their performance. There may be unlimited potential for achieving accelerated improvement but if this potential is not being realised, good change agents must line up and mobilise all the forces (or drivers) for improvement.

There are five main drivers for improvement in organisations:

• Strategy

• Lean operations

• Balanced culture

• Customer responsiveness

• Leadership

Strategy sets direction and give focus to improvement. It must however be deployed throughout the organisation to be effective.

Processes need to be mapped and analysed in a methodical way; projects must be managed; problem symptoms traced to root causes; data must be collected before decisions are taken; trends in customer preferences detached and fed back; improvement activity of any kind reported on and coordinated; improvement action measured. Just about everything should be done to a discipline.

A balanced culture means effective, creative management of people. Customers are served by people; processes are managed by people. Only people can deliver quality improvement. For them to work well they must be empowered, given direction, measured, reviewed and success recognised.

Customer responsiveness keeps the organisation focused on customer needs, reactions and changing requirements.

Finally, leadership ensures that everyone is enthused and supported to work on the strategy, improve processes, served customers and active team players.

Today’s News: It is a while since I mentioned my good friend and publisher, Jeb Blount, who has created a superb sales community over at Sales Gravy - if you haven’t discovered SG, do take a look here

Tomorrow: We are continuing our work on three exciting new projects, so the likliehood of some downtime is very slim, but hey-ho, that’s the way of the world right now. You have a great w/e and be sure to make it back next week to join me and my guests. - JF 

Today’s post was prompted by my considerable frustration last week, at being unable to make contact with people who appear to spend their entire lives in meetings. These are my thoughts:

Have you heard the one about meetings?

“Are you lonely?
- Work on your own?
- Hate having to make decisions?
- Rather talk about it than do it?

Well, why not hold a meeting?
- You get to see other people
- You can sleep in peace
- Offload decisions
- Learn to write volumes of meaningless rhetoric
- Feel important
- Impress (or bore) your colleagues - and all in work time!”

But of course, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Too many meetings, too little time. When the true cost of holding just one meeting is accurately calculated, it should provide sufficient motivation for us to want to ensure that all of our meetings are meaningful, necessary and can be justified.

Are Meetings A Waste Of Time?

Why they cause frustration:
• Too many of them
• No real purpose
• Too long
• Platform for the talkative
• Few decisions come out of them
• Make straightforward issues complicated
• Often slow things down

Potential benefits:

Run properly they can be an effective means of:
• Communication to a group
• Meeting people face-to-face
• Improving the quality of decisions
• Getting to know people
• Drawing from a variety of different experiences
• Building teams

The following figures are based on a working year of 288 days, with one working day equal to 7 hours. (I wish!) You begin to realise the true cost of holding a meeting.

Salary Per Annum: £40.000
One Hour Meeting: £24
One Day Meeting: £168

Salary Per Annum: £100.000
One Hour Meeting: £60
One Day Meeting: £420

Some Tips To Ensure A Successful Meeting:

• Only hold meetings if they are really necessary
Could people be told any other way?
Consider the cost; meetings are expensive – time away from job, salaries of those attending.

• If they are needed, then plan for them
What do you want to achieve?
What are you going to discuss?
What decisions will need to be made/actions taken?
Who needs to be there? How are you going to tell them what it’s about and why they are invited?
How long can you allocate to the meeting?
Remember, if you fail to prepare, then prepare for your meeting to fail.

• Prepare an agenda
Include only relevant items
Put them in order of importance
Decide who will lead the input on each
Allocate time for each item (don’t forget to allow for a 5 minute break at least once an hour)
What could go wrong and what will you do?

• Collect all information
If it’s lengthy, summarise it, outlining key points
Send out agendas and key points in advance.

• Prepare the room
Ensure that there are sufficient tables and charts
If you want equipment (eg: flip charts, PCs overhead projectors) make sure it is available and working
Arrange refreshments.

And Finally: Running The Meeting:

Achieve faster, more efficient results by:
• Telling everyone the purpose
• Setting the scene for each item, eg: open discussion by inviting specific contributions from those present
• Letting everyone who has something to say make a contribution
• Summarising what’s been said
• Watching for signs of non-participation
• Sticking to time (always start on time and don’t be afraid to finish early)
• Agreeing actions to follow
• Not being afraid to critique the meeting, i.e.: Was it worth it?
• After the meeting:
Circulating minutes promptly to those attending and interested parties
Monitoring and reviewing progress of any actions decided

End Result? A successful meeting and all in work time!

Today’s News: Congratulations to my good friend Keith Rosen, for such a mega launch of his new book; “Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions” which hit the very top of Amazon’s best-seller list last week. It has been so successful that he has extended the special bonus period until May 2nd, you can find out more here

There is a great deal happening this week in terms of site launches, major events etc. so be sure to stay tuned in

There are a brand new set of nominees over at Top 10 Sales Articles - all of them, very high quality and do drop in to the Customer Collective, when you can, as I am still hosting the Sales Sandbox.

Tomorrow (Tuesday): My guest is the amazing Leslie Buterin (as in buterin bread)