When You Leave

Sales leaders sometimes travel and sometimes they even take the time for a vacation! I can remember leading a sales management workshop 10 years ago when at a break it seemed almost everyone ran to a phone to check in and “put out fires”. Two of attendees stayed behind and chatted casually about the class or other topics.  It was a clear study of who were in control and perhaps who were not, the two sales managers must have known that even without them, their team and organization would continue to function.

In today’s world with text, email, vmail and mobile phones staying in touch is easy-sometimes too easy.  There are a few rules in leading a high performance sales team when out of the office.

One: Make your team independent of you. Many first time sales managers feel they must “serve” their team and solve all their problems. While support is critical, absorbing their problems

The Mental Side of Sales and Leadership

I read a quote once supposedly by Jack Nicklaus: "golf is 80% above the shoulders" and as a bogey golfer I have come to totally appreciate that comment and admittedly it is a problem for me. I asked Jim West, our Director of Golf what his recommendation would be for a book or video on the mental side of golf...he quickly suggested: The Golfer's Mind, play to play great, by Dr. Bob Rotella, I found it on Barnes & Noble and four days later it arrived. On the plane to Seattle Sunday morning I read about ¾ of the book. It's an easy read with "ah ha's" throughout the book, with great idea's, practical suggestions and stories of his client's of t he Pro's we see on TV and the battles they face and philosophies they use to maintain their mental focus for 72 holes.

No Regrets, a Do-Over Recipe for Success

This weekend I was working on my next book and the ending of my chapter described  my keynote program: “No Regrets, a Do-over Recipe for Success”.  I thought I would share this with you as we move into the dog days of Summer.

 This is what a No Regrets, Do-over Recipe and Building a Personal recipe for success is all about. Abraham Lincoln made the comment, “It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” It’s important to be able to bring balance together, learn to use the ingredients you have, and know what you want from life. Start with being a better person and try to make the world a better place.

 I like to suggest that it’s all about three little words, and then some. These three little words are the secret to success. They

Partners who focus on net-new clients will see growth; but you'll need focus and correct execution to really pull out a win.

Over the last few years as we've worked with partners in strategic planning sessions to help them build predictable revenue, one trend we've found is that clients who focus on adding net-new clients experience greater revenue growth.

Bringing on net-new clients requires careful focus and execution in several key areas:

1. Company leaders must set the stage by asking: Is this a goal we (management committee) are all committed to achieving? If the answer is yes, then the first metric to be set is a specific number of net-new clients sold per quarter. Depending on the size of the organization, it may be appropriate to then determine metrics by practice for net-new revenue and net-new clients per quarter.
2. Create a marketing plan to assist in attracting net-new prospects. You should expect to spend additional marketing dollars as compared to simply marketing to your existing customer base. We normally recommend that each potential prospect must be "touched" eight to 12 times by e-mail, direct mail, phone calls and other campaigns. The secret to a successful campaign is touching various job titles at each prospective organization, such as president, VP of sales, marketing, human resources and CFO. The marketing messages must be unique and specific to each job title.

Making it to the Top

Making it to the Top, and other phases like it typically refer to exceeding your sales quota or becoming a top performer in your organization. Sales leaders have used these words to create sales contests, set goals and sales themes for the year and ...so have I, and last Friday I made it to the top!

First, I will be honest, I took Friday off.  At 7AM eleven people drove about 90 minutes to Smoky Mountain National Park to begin a 5.5 mile hike up Mount LeConte and reach its pike at 6600 feet. Secondly, it was a hard and difficult hike. On a hot day, we crossed mountain streams, climbed over rocks, walked along four foot wide ledges holding onto to a wire cable for support and for over 3 ½ hours- we made slow and a steady upward climb.  All eleven of us made it to the top!

It’s Almost August-5 Steps to Finish Strong

As a strategic sales leader you need to be proactive in your thinking and actions.

By now the summer is almost over and you need to be concerned about exceeding Augusts’ quotas, achieving September’s goal and the fourth quarter sales numbers. What should you be thinking and doing, here’s a quick checklist.

1)      Ask each salesperson to identify if their top prospects/decision makers have vacations scheduled during the next 45 days and if they do, will they delay planned decision dates.

 2)      Review your pipeline values by stage at 30, 60, 90 days to identify if you have enough opportunities for the future and if you can “move ahead” or accelerate their decision points. Do you need a few quick marketing lead generation programs?

 3)      Carefully measure your leading indicators to see if your salespeople are taking the summer off. Leading indicators are sales actions that will lead to demonstrations and/or proposals.

Finding Opportunities

Last week I spoke at Microsoft’s World Wide Partner Conference, with 14,000 attendees it was a terrific event. The amazing action to watch was the volume of conversations taking place-not necessarily just on the Expo floor but EVERYWHERE!

At this event Microsoft has created a software tool called “Connect” that allows anyone registered to search the registered list of attendees and arrange for a meeting in a predefined area for a 30 minute “speed date” or even to arrange a meeting at some other location.  Plus attendees had the opportunity to network at the evening receptions, (several every evening), at breakfast, lunches and hallway accidental meetings.  The noise and energy of people from all over the world discussing their business, asking questions and find new opportunities was impressive.  From my personal experience I had good accidental meetings with individuals from Russia, Poland, Greece, the Czech Republic and the US were we discussed and shared business thoughts and laughs.

Is your organization and your sales team suffering from:

Puny Revenues?  Weak Results? It Maybe Time for a Sales Leadership Workout!

 A  one &  1/2 Day Regimen for Getting  Your Sales Organization in Shape  

Build a proactive approach to Sales Management 2.0 that creates predictive revenue and a self-managed sales team.  Learn how other top performing sales leaders have muscled up their teams to pump up predictable revenues. Here’s what they have to say about the event:

 “Great Content, Energetic Deliver, High Value.”     “Outstanding, just what I needed.” “Informative, educational, spot-on!”    “Inspiring” Information and tools you can use immediately” “Intense!” 

 The Skinny on Sales Leadership Workout:

 Schedule: Day One, 1:00 PM – 5:30 PM; Day Two, 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM

 Next Location: Waltham, MA August 4th & 5th,  Hasbrouch Heights, NJ August 19th/20th

Regimen:

• 10 proven ways to boost sales in 90 days
• The 9 Things Great Sales Organizations Do & How To Do Them

Learning from Losing

In most of our client consulting engagements we strongly recommend that “win/lost” reports are completed. This is a process of reviewing all sales that occur and those that don’t!  We suggest this action is performed in two steps.

The first step is between the sales manager and the salesperson, during this phase the sales leader simply probes as to what the salesperson believes are the reason the prospect purchased or did not purchase your solution. Questions are asked regarding levels of communication, perceived benefits, pricing and competitive situations. We normally recommend this conversation takes place during a sales meeting-it is NOT a grilling.  This is a group coaching and training experience, the review should be designed to help the salesperson and the members of your sales team to share experiences or ideas as to what worked or what did not work.

The second step is a conversation between the

Creativity.... It’s a Sales Thing!

 There is no question about it, top performers are more creative that your average salespeople. They seem to come up with unique ideas to prospect, find ways to enhance client relationships and they close more effectively. Sales leadership requires creativity as well, sales managers that are exceeding sales quotas, hiring and developing their teams and building a sales culture require huge levels of a creativity quotient.

The good news? You can enhance your creativity by “working on it”...In my Keynote, No Regret’s, the Do Over Factor, I share three tenets for personal and professional success, creativity is one of those three foundations.  I have listed nine actions you can work on to develop mind patterns that will enhance your creativity power.

• Track your ideas:  keep a notebook and write down all your ideas-about anything, it is amazing what happens when you build an active list.