Increase Sales Blog

Posts Tagged ‘coaching tip’

As an organization grows in revenue, other aspects also may grow from operations to people.  Eventually when small business owners or chief executive officers determine they can no longer manager all the daily operations, they will take action to hire additional staff and give them the titles specific to their responsibilities.   These titles usually are:

• Managers
• Supervisors
• Team Leaders

What sometimes happens is these titles become very confusing because of:

• No clearly articulate organizational chart
• Poorly written to even non-existent job descriptions
• No evaluation process
• Lack of written policies, procedures, processes and systems including succession leadership
• Interference from small business owners or Chief Executive Officers (Think E-Myth)

With so many small businesses operating in today’s global economy, having a clear understanding of these roles and their impact on the organization appears to be even more critical today than even last year.

In reading a posting by Tammy Kohl of RAC Corporation, she shared the results of a survey conducted by OI Partners of Cincinnati, OH.  They surveyed companies about who would takeover current leadership roles (think about your current great managers, best supervisors or good team leaders). What the results revealed was:

• Past succession plans had not been updated
• 54% lacked enough successors to fill current roles
• 14% are unsure if they have enough future leaders in place

These results confirm other management research about the lack of effective successors at all levels of management from those good team leaders to best supervisors to great managers.  So to answer the question, at this time there is no difference when we look from the 30,000 view point.

Leadership is what separates good companies from great ones and this is not about revenue or sales.  Small companies may have incredible leaders be them managers, supervisors or team leaders.  Business Training Coaching Tip: One of the better books on organizational leadership and how that translates into individual leadership is Fail Safe Leadership.

As Peter Drucker has been quoted as saying, “Leadership is all about results.”  What makes Great Managers, Best Supervisors or Good Team Leaders is the ability to secure the predetermined results with behaviors that reflect the values of the organization. Without this critical component, organizations cannot achieve their full potential.

Would you pay $20,000 for an engine (in this case a rotary one) for a plane that costs $3,000?  That answer all depends on this one word – value.

For value is just simply defined as worth.  What is something worth to you determines its value in sales.  In some cases that value is priceless.  I personally witnessed the value of a $2,200 30 minute airplane ride this past week.

No, it wasn’t me because I would prefer to be riding in the saddle of an  easy lopping Arabian instead of being strapped into the second seat of the only P51 dual controlled flying pursuit airplane with over 1,800 horsepower. (Note: This airplane is part of the Wings of Freedom National Tour sponsored by The Collings Foundation of Stow, MA.)

Credit: Collings Foundation

One of the riders was a WWII veteran pilot who had flown 94 missions between the P40 (Flying Tigers) and the P51 (Mustang) in the Pacific Theatre. After listening to some of his stories including orders were not opened until they were 500 miles from the California coastline to other pilots not knowing where New Guinea was, I watched him climb into his memories of yesteryear.  Then 30 minutes later, I watched him climb out and saw the utter joy in his face.  For him the $2,200 was priceless and allowed him possibly the last time he will physically connect with experiences (he was able to actually fly the plane) and memories of over 60 years ago. (Note:  Given this plane is valued at $1,000,000 and the plane’s engine needs to be completely overhauled after flying a specific number of hours to the cost of $750,000 helps to understand the $2,200 for a 30 minute flight )

Value in sales and your ability as a salesperson, be you a small business owner, an entrepreneur or a C Suite executive, to demonstrate that value begins truly before you have the opportunity to share your products or services. Your challenge is to determine the worth of you to your potential customers (a.k.a. prospects).  For they are truly buying both you and your products and services.  Value in sales is a packaged deal and is the deal breaker contrary to what many think that cost or price is what keeps them from earning the sale or closing the deal.

This leads to this obvious two part question:

What value do you bring when you meet with that potential customer for each of those five to 12 times before you earn the sale? Sales Training Coaching Tip:  80% of all sales happen between the 5th and 12th contacts.

What value do your products or services being to that potential customer? Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Features + Benefits = Results determine Value based upon the buyer’s decision making process because what one person finds of value another thinks “$20,000 rotary engine for a $3,000 plane. What is he, nuts?”

Trend analysis has been around for a very long time.  By tracking trends from weather  such as with the Farmer’s Almanac to the U.S. economic growth to business results, management in those organizations can begin to determine if they are securing the results they are seeking over a specific course of time. This is considered seeing from the 30,000 foot perspective.

For example, Alexa.com is an online trending tool that helps to determine from your traffic relative to other sites and can measure these trends over a period of time.This Internet marketing site can create a firestorm of controversy depending upon what Internet marketing or Search Engine Optimization expert one listens to and more importantly believes.

Site Sell provides a fairly easy and reasonable argument as to the pros and cons of this tool. SEO Pitfall shares another viewpoint, but does agree this tool has some value and is not totally worthless.

Sales statistics from each location to each individual salesperson can also be utilized to identify trends. The data is then analyzed to determine specific trends such as seasonal ones.

In the book, The Ultimate Question, the author uses a specific formula to determine customer loyalty.  Again, this formula can help to pin point specific loyal customers from which data can be extrapolated into a trend analysis.

Unfortunately, many in business  management including small business owners (SBO), entrepreneurs, C-Level executives  and even the single office/home office independent contractors cannot see the trends because they have failed to invest the time to work On their business as Michael Gerber detailed in his book the The E-Myth Revisited.

Trend analysis may require some split testing to determine what the data is really telling you. For example, my education based marketing action plan includes article marketing. During the last 30 days, I refrained from submitting any new articles to , Evan Carmichael and Sales Gravy so that I can better analyze increased traffic to my website compared to the previous 30 days when I submitted almost 70 articles. Now for the next 30 days, I will submit approximately another 70 articles. Then I will review the data to see any trends. Sales Training Coaching Tip: I know from reading the statistics from my Control Panel (CPanel) within my website that a significant amount of visitors come from these three sites.

If you truly wish to be the Red jacket and stay ahead of the flow, you must have a pretty good idea where the flow is going.  Trend analysis is just the tool to help you. Sales Coaching Tip: Excel or a similar spreadsheet program is a great software tool to help you collect and analyze this information.

To increase sales may mean a brain correction in how a salesperson approaches today’s potential customers (a.k.a. qualified prospects). On Thursday, May 27, 2010, I attended a Webinar sponsored by Med Career Village where I heard Jill Konrath, author, of How to Sell to Big Companies, discuss her new book, Snap Selling.

Credit: TopNewsIn

Jill made some excellent points about “busy, crazy prospects” or buyers. These folks are the same ones identified by Michael Gerber in the E-Myth and the E-Myth Revisited only probably even busier. Sales Coaching Training Tip:  Busy crazy people are psychographics – the whys behind why people buy.

The best point she made was salespersons need to be flexible, to change their brains (think behaviors) when their qualified prospects change. I call this being ahead of the flow in my book, be the Red Jacket.

Her use of SNAP as an acronym was great as well.  When you keep your message Simple, it does sell and sells well. The human brain can only accommodate about 7 bits of information (think words). Some people can double that through the use of  “chunking.”

Of course, some sales experts may disagree with her approach because they believe in long, well crafted sales letters.  These long sales letters  may work for “unbusy” people, but my sense tells me for those higher up in the decision making process especially in larger organizations, they are not as effective as ones where simplicity rules.  Note: If you wish to learn the rest of the acronym, I suggest you buy her book, Snap Selling. And no I am not receiving any commissions.

Being flexible, open to change,  is truly a talent and one that all individuals need in today’s high pace ever evolving world. Unfortunately, most people do not know their talents and this keeps their brains working harder not smarter.

Bottom line, and that is what really counts, is to increase sales requires a reexamination of the whys (psychographics) behind the decision making process to buy your products or services.  And then understanding how your talents (think brain) work with those whys especially if they are changing.

One of my clients, Integrative Flavors (a great company with an ever greater story) sent me this picture from a trade show with the comment “I think they need your help!”

In case the print is too small for you, the sign reads:

Our Mission - We pride ourselves with the capacity to assess situation or circumstances with expert insight and draw sound conclusions that are transparently clear and easily understandable.

Directness, Simplicity, Transparency, Decipherability, Comprehensibility, Accuracy, Certainty

Now imagine for a moment you are a salesperson for this company. How will you even know you are achieving this mission statement?

Convoluted and ineffective mission statements like this one are far too common.  And what is even worse, thousands of dollars are spent on these four finger strategic planning exercises with the only result is the fattening of the consultants’ wallets.

What would happen if the company wrote a simple one year mission statement that has up to 3 critical goal categories:

1. Revenue and profits?
2. Continuing Education Credits?
3. Standards or Licensing Requirements?

The following is an example of one for a financial advisory firm:

By 12/31/2010, our company will increase sales by 25% while maintaining current profitability; ensure all continuing education credits are achieved by our financial advisors and continue to work towards ISO (Baldrige) certification.

• Does this statement provide greater clarity and direction?
• Would I know fairly quickly as a salesperson or general employee what I needed to do to help achieve the mission?
• As a potential customer visiting this business, would I have some idea as to where this firm is going and would it  help me decide if I wanted to engage them?

Loosey goosey mission statements filled with a lot of gobbleygook such as the one in the picture do not give loosey goosey results, but rather no results.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  People confuse Vision (Big Picture of Stratgegy – Where I want to be?) with Mission (Smaller Picture of Tactics – How will I get there?)

Simplicity is best when it comes to uniting goals with performance. Invest some time to rethink your mission statement if you truly want to be the Red Jacket, stand out in the crowd and realize your goal to increase sales.

Buyer’s remorse as defined by Wikopedia is:

“an emotional condition whereby a person feels remorse or regret after a purchase. It is frequently associated with the purchase of higher value items which could be considered unnecessary although it may also stem from a sense of not wishing to be “wrong”.”

I was reminded of this syndrome when reading Cheryl Claussen’s posting this morning. Cheryl identified a great connection between sales behaviors and the recent behaviors by the U.S. Congress specific to the passage of the health care bill.

Locally to internationally, there is a lot of buyer’s remorse. And sometimes this happens without purchasing a high ticket item, but is more about regretting a wrong choice as in voting. Given the recent poll numbers of members of Congress as well as the President, there is a lot of regret happening in America’s heartland. Possibly this helps to explain why the Tea Party continues to expand and not contract. More individuals with buyer’s remorse are entering this no longer fringe group.

What is also interesting to observe is Seller’s denial. This sales behavior is manifested by the seller justifying their actions to “I got the sale” as Cheryl described in her posting. These folks whether elected officials to actual sales professionals look to any and all reasons to reconcile why they behaved in one way even though it may have been contrary to past behaviors or stated comments. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  Seller’s denial exemplifies unethical behaviors and any means justify my ends. In other words, buyer it is not about you, but all about me. High pressure, pushy salesperson anyone?

For example, have you ever heard a sales person make any of these statements

• I did not say that, what I meant was…?
• You don’t understand”?
• Don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of?

These are potentially examples of the salesperson internal decision making style reconciling reality from a denial perspective.  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  If you hear these statements, ask immediately for clarification and put it in writing.

When ethical sales people are aware of buyer’s remorse, they can focus their sales behaviors of doing what is both efficient and effective. In some cases, buyer’s remorse may happen. However when ethical sales professionals live their values, make a clear case for taking action, have an established relationship and actively listen to their potential customer, cases of buyer’s remorse should be far and few between.

Are you currently experiencing any buyer’s remorse?  Please share your thoughts if you wish.