Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

We have a training module called pre-call strategy sessions.  When we initially talk about this process, most participants think that the pre-call strategy session applies to only the final presentation when you are presenting your proposal in hopes of getting the business.  There are a couple of problems with this thinking and I'll get to that in a minute.  I want to talk first about my daughter Alex going off to college this weekend to the University of Dayton.

College planning, like sales planning, is more than just planning for the day of the event when you drop your daughter off to school or for the day when you make your presentation.  In reality, in your professional life as a sales person and as a parent, everything you do should be to prepare you for these moments.  It was at that moment when I hugged her, kissed her and told her I loved her in front of Marianist Hall that I realized I had missed several opportunities to be prepared for that moment and to make sure she was prepared. It was then that I realized that:

• My execution did not reflect what should have been my priority.  In other words, I spent too much time on the road, in the office, working at my computer at home and not enough time with her.
• You spend too much time doing admin 'stuff' instead of developing new relationships
• I took her presence for granted.  I rarely went to her room to talk and visit.  The first morning she was at school and we were home, I walked past her room; the door was open, the bed was made and she was gone.
•  You fail to stay close to your best clients on a proactive, regular and consistent basis. The key word being "proactive" - seeing them when they don't need you or they don't have a problem or providing solutions for their problems that you don't have a product or service for.
• There is more to planning for college than making sure there is money.  I then realized that everything that I said, did or thought - good or bad - was now her foundation as to how she would live her life on her own.  I realized and regretted all at once the times I was short with her, criticized her, didn't take time for her, and gave her an opportunity to witness me being selfish, arrogant, prideful, rude, unforgiving, ungrateful, angry and stupid.  (Certainly, there is another side to that coin, but in these moments we are all worried about what we didn't do or didn't do right)
•  Everything you do with your client, EVERYTHING, regardless if it is a direct contact with them or what they observe you do in other settings, gets recorded and they develop an impression of who you are and how you treat others and probably treat them when they aren't around.
• Eventually things come and they go.  It is the natural progression of raising children.  Either by design or by default, they do go away or we will suffer the stages of loss no matter how well we try and intellectualize the departure.
• You will lose clients.  But you need to let some of them go even when they or you are not ready.  You can't grow and they can't grow if the status quo remains the status quo.

Today is Monday the 24^th of August and she is on her own surrounded by 10,000 of her new best friends and the staff at the University of Dayton that is committed to putting her, my daughter, in a position to become the very best she can be.  With all of my short comings and all the things Linda and I may have failed to do, we did manage to do enough of the right things to put her in that position.  She loves UD. She has already made several friends and she is excited about being on her own and exploring her future.  She will do well.

As I talked to Linda about how I felt about Alex's departure, I told her that I needed to blog about this.  It wasn't the answer she was looking for. But after further discussion this morning, I had a chance to explain myself.  My goal is to help others.  Not just in the arena of sales training, sales management and sales culture development.  No, it's just helping people.  My goal with this post is to help those unsuspecting parents think differently about college planning so that when their day comes, they will have felt that they've planned well beyond the financial requirements, that they have paid the emotional bill for that moment well in advance, and they can look back on their time together and say to themselves "Job well-done."

Go Flyers!

Once again, I had the great honor and privilege to visit our United States Military Academy at West Point, NY.  I visited there in the fall and posted a blog about my time there, and now, once again, I was overwhelmed by the courage and passion of those that occupy this post.  Yes, it might be a stretch to tie what happens at West Point to sales and selling, but not much of a stretch.  This group of young people consistently demonstrates at an extraordinary level all of those competencies necessary to succeed in selling:  courage, desire, commitment, persistence and ethics.  Here are the lessons from my most recent visit.

Lesson 1:  There is time, and then there is military time:  We met at 0600, began our program at 0610 and finished at 0640. I shook hands with this group of majors and corporals as they filed out to go to formation in the square prior to heading to mess hall and then to their first class of the day at 0700.

Cadets pack more stuff in before breakfast than most people do in a day.  It is truly amazing to observe the capacity for work and effort that this group has.  And their intensity is unmatched in anything I've ever experienced.  Imagine what you could achieve if you approached your professional career with this kind of intensity.

Lesson 2:  If you want to be good at something, I mean really good at something, desire and commitment alone won't be enough.  You have to drill, drill, and drill and then drill some more so that you can perform your task with near perfect execution every time. These cadets go through ‘the routine' of preparing for battle in everything they do, so that when faced with the most difficult scenario, they can perform automatically and with precision.   In selling, you may not think it's critical, but at the academy, it means someone's life.

Lesson 3:  If you commit to something because of the desire for great reward (BHAG:  Big Hairy Audacious Goal), you have to be willing to pay a substantial price.  You need to invest.  And not at the level that anyone would be willing to pay.  No, if you want the big reward, you must invest the big investment.   These cadets willingly complete their 47 months of training and development knowing that they will be asked to make the ultimate investment.

Lesson 4:  You must have standards of excellence. These standards of excellence rest upon your vision, your mission and your core values. The core values at the academy are Duty, Honor, and Country.  Every cadet lives his or her life by those values.  Those values become their DNA.  As a sales person, how you approach what you do for a living has to be in your DNA.

Lesson 5:  Finally, I learned that the best of any class are the best of any class because of their willingness to learn.  It amazes me that these cadets, one and all, are sponges when it comes to learning.  They devour information.  They ask questions. They ask for clarity.  They want to practice what they've learned. They want to execute and implement.  They strive for extraordinary and do not make excuses for failing to meet "agreed to" objectives.  Imagine pursuing your own goals the same way.

My parting thought is this:  For those of you that I get a chance to work with, I am honored that you allow me to be part of your success, and I commit to continue to serve you to help you be your best.

I work with CEOs that are afraid of what the current economic environment will do to top line sales revenue.  Certainly they can get more creative with expenses, but eventually that will have a negative impact on leveraging  new opportunities.  It doesn't take talent to cut expenses;  it is a math formula.  However, it does take talent and creativity to drive new business sales when markets are like they are today.  That is where we come in.

At Anthony Cole Training Group,  we use an assessment built and constantly perfected by Objective Management Group.  The assessment and the resulting findings provides information about sales strengths, sales weaknesses and sale skills as they relate to 21 core sales competencies.  My question today, and in 2 additional blog posts, will be:  How are you addressing these core competencies in your sales development program (either individually or corporately?)  If you are reading this as a participant of one or our training programs, then this information will have a tone of familiarity, so you will be able to relate to the content.  However, you may have been more recently focused on technique rather than the core issues that may be hindering your sales success.  I encourage you to read these posts and identify how they can be additive to your current program.  If you are not one of our participants, feel free to go to our website and take the sales grader to find out how you are doing against best practices in sales.  Here are the first 7 core competencies:

1. Has written goals: this is where your courage and passion come from. Without written goals you won't have the passion or commitment necessary to ask the tough questions, continue to prospect when the market is tough and to consistently ask for introductions
2. Follows a written goal plan: Often people have goals that are written, but then fail this next critical step - establish a written goal plan. Without a plan your goals lack clarity and therefore the activity required to accomplish your goals is unclear as well. And when the required activities are unclear then they won't get executed.
3. Positive attitude: This isn't about looking through rose colored glasses. This is about keeping your head about you when all those around you are losing theirs. It is easy to get caught up the water cooler talk and the complaining about the company, economy, or what the competition is doing. Ignore the talk and focus on what you have to do to be successful.
4. Take responsibility: Excuses are like opinions - everyone or most everyone has them and, unfortunately in selling, we use them when we fail to accomplish our goals. The easy thing to do is to blame something or someone for our shortcomings. If you've been in sales long enough you know that something is always going to happen to make selling difficult for you, but if you are committed to your own personal goals, then you won't let anything get in the way.
5. Strong self confidence: This is critical to succeed. You certainly can't expect yourself to perform well if you don't feel fully confident in what you are doing, what you are representing and what you are saying to the market. But what drives all of this is how you feel about yourself. You must have the confidence to maintain your ‘posture' when you are faced with difficult selling situations. Keep in mind that external gimmicks and crutches won't support you when things are tough. You must consider yourself a ‘10' and maintain that assessment of yourself no matter what happens in your roles.
6. Supportive beliefs: What you believe dictates what you do. If you believe that the economy is too tough to sell in, then you'll be right and won't sell anything. If you believe that people don't want to talk about spending additional dollars in a tight budget environment, then you will have trouble scheduling appointments. You get the point?
7. Control emotions: You must focus on executing your sales system and be prepared for curve balls, and ‘tough' questions. If you anticipate ‘what can go wrong' then when something does come at you that ordinarily would be considered unusual then you will be prepared to handle the situation. If you haven't thought through your phone call, or sales call or presentation, then you will be vulnerable to surprises. When these surprises happen, instead of continuing to execute without ‘panic', you will ‘choke' and deviate from your tried and true sales methods and approach. The symptoms of losing control of emotions are during review of a meeting your self-dialog contains words and phrases like: "should have, shouldn't have, could have, why didn't I, I can't believe that". These are indicative of losing control of emotions.

The best thing to do is to pick just one of these that seem to be the area where you need the most work.  Tackle that one first.  Not the one that is easy, but the one that will have the most positive dramatic impact on your business.  And if you need me call me @ 513 791 3458.

I hate having these discussions because the typically come out the wrong way in writing. When I read articles like the one from Fast Company - The Most Valuable Player in Sports - I can't help but think about sales people, selling and sales results.  Check this out.  In 2006 major league baseball spent $311,000,000 (14% of payroll) on players that didn't play.  I automatically think - hmm, how much money was spent by companies on sales people that didn't play / perform?

I also think how many goals were washed out because the sales professional in charge lacked the desire, commitment, or responsibility to overcome obstacles to executing the game / goal plan to make sure they got the sales results they stated they would get.  And, as a result, failed to achieve some, if not all, the personal goals they had set?

The article goes on to talk about how Dr. Andrews, in addition to his orthopedic wizardry, developed and honed his therapeutic  mastery as well.  He would engage the prospective athlete in dialog that allowed him to identify a multitude of success factors ‘post' operative procedure.  Here are just 6 of his questions ‘translated' into sales talk to assess a sales person's acumen and preparedness for recovery.

1. What exactly is your current sales problem? Where is / are the choke points to successful selling?
2. What happens if you don't fix it?
3. What are your short- term, intermediate and long term sales goals?
4. How committed are you to rehabbing or turbo charging your sales career?
5. What is your appetite for change?
6. What are the other external factors that will help or hinder your success?

Powerful and insightful questions that need to be asked before engaging in any sales training, individual coaching or on-going development plan.    Too often people jump into the fray of training and or self - help only to find themselves light in the checking account, lost investment of time and very little improvement in results. 

My suggestion to you is that you should look at those 6 questions before  you begin to re-invent yourself or re-commit yourself to ‘really getting it done this year'.  Honestly answer those questions and then decide on what your sales goals will be, what your goal plan will look like and how you will hold yourself accountable over the next 12 months.  Oh, and one more question once you've decided that this time you are really going to get it done:

Why should I believe you?

Sales lessons come in many disguises.  This one is about hitting sales goals with a ‘no excuse' attitude about doing whatever it takes to execute your required sales activity.

During basketball season when I was in high school, I had to work on our farm on Saturdays from 7:00 AM until basketball practice, which was about 2:00 in the afternoon.  My sister, Tresa, worked with me. We had to build blueberry crates that we used to ship pints of blueberries across the country.  On a normal day, Tresa and I would make about 800 to 1,000 crates.  On a short day, when I had practice, our goal was about 700.

One day, we had a little fight. Tresa got mad, went to the house and told my dad.  He came over to the barn where I was working, reamed me a good one and then, for good measure, told me that if I planned on going to basketball practice that afternoon, I had better plan on still building 700 crates without the help of my sister.  I could have gotten mad at Tresa, but admittedly it was my fault; however, the real issue was that I couldn't miss practice or I wouldn't start in the next game.  So instead of sitting there fuming and playing the blame game and thinking dad was unfair, I started hammering nails into those wooden crates like a machine.

I finished my 700 by 1:30, went to practice and started the game on Tuesday.

You see, it all comes down to what motivates you to do the things you have to do to succeed.  Certainly, my goal wasn't to make the 700 crates.  It was to make practice so I could start and nothing, not even my own stupidity of having a fight with my sister, was going to get in the way.

What have you let get in your way this year?

• 1. Decisions by your company to change pricing, policies or products?
• 2. A competitor going to the low cost provider strategy and doing a land grab?
• 3. The economy blues where you now have an easy excuse not to prospect for new business?
• 4. A sales manager who is taking a bullet for the team by telling the president that she shouldn't expect to hit the sales goals?
• 5. A too understanding spouse who says, ‘that's ok we'll take a nice vacation in 2010?

Whatever the reasons, you have a choice. Buy into the excuse making or ignore it and focus on your commitments.  If you focus on your commitments chances are you'll be the lone ranger because your competition is laying around making excuses, instead of making sales, leaving the market open for you to go and grab.

At the end of the day, all you have is your reputation. Will your reputation be one of an excuse maker or one of a person that fulfills their obligations?  It's your choice.

I look at about a dozen blogs and newsletters a week.  That is not a lot of browsing according to standards set by Seth Godin, Verne Harnish, Dave Kurlan or Guy Kawasaki, just to name a few.  It is enough to know that when it comes to selling, sales training, sales coaches and driving sales results, no one person has all the answers and no one person is right or wrong. Therefore, here are a couple of links to blog post that I'm sure you will find helpful:

• Marketing: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/waiting-for-the.html
• Selling on price: http://www.sellingtoconsumers.com/art_offering_the_lowest_price_is_overrated.htm
• Quality Selling Activity: http://www.sixsigmaselling.com/six_sigma_selling/2008/04/how-to-avoid-th.html
• Sales training: http://www.omghub.com/salesdevelopmentblog/tabid/5809/bid/6914/10-Types-of-Sales-Advisers-and-How-to-Choose-the-One-That-s-Best-For-You.aspx
• Effective Prospecting: http://www.referralcoach.com/individuals/
• Closing: http://blog.anthonycoletraining.com/Sales-Training-Sales-Java/bid/4767/How-to-Sell-to-Close-the-Business

I just did a search on Google for ‘sales techniques'.  In .19 seconds, I had over 7 million listings for sales techniques.  If prospecting, qualifying or closing seems to be problems for you, it certainly can't be because you can't get information on ‘how to'.  Maybe you haven't taken the time to learn how to, or are comfortable with the position that you've been selling for 20 plus years.  As the song goes, ‘the times they are a changing'.  If you haven't changed, then I'm guessing that in many cases, neither have your results.  Oh, you may be selling as much as you used to, but I'd guess it's not as easy as it used to be.  Come on, take a few minutes every week and brush up those sales skills.  It will make a difference.

Effective and successful selling requires excellent technique.  One must excel at asking questions and listening.  One must have skill at telling stories and using metaphors and analogies to make a point,  Certainly, one must be expert at dealing with stalls, questions and objections; however, what drives a sales person's ability to execute these techniques and skills will be hard to find in a traditional sales training setting from traditional sales trainers.  As Curly said in the movie City Slickers:  "One thing, just one thing, you stick to that and the rest...

The one thing that drives consistent execution in sales is courage.  In our sales training classes, we talk about commitment, desire, outlook and taking responsibility.  Those components help drive courage.  If you think about each one of those, you would soon discover that they are not very trainable.  As a salesperson, that is what you have to bring to the dance if you want to get good at dancing, or in this case selling;  I can't teach it here and I don't try to teach courage in my sessions.  What I can do is give you some insight as to what having courage can and will do.  In the end, what matters the most about any discussion around courage is:  Start.  Just start.

1. Start by making the decision that courage has to be part of your make up and that you will be courageous in your thinking, decisions and activities. Become a warrior for what you stand for and what you want to achieve
2. Start by identifying what is it that you really want out of being a sales professional. Did you get into this business to be average? Would you rather be extra-ordinary? Then start thinking that way.
3. Start by stopping. What I mean is decide what you will stop doing. This too takes courage because often we do things because they make us comfortable instead of difficult and uncomfortable sales activities that make us money. Not that you stop providing great service, but do you have to do that? Get your need for approval met by selling to more people, more quickly at higher margins. You'll receive all the reward and recognition that you need.
4. Start by leading others instead of standing in line with those willing to just get along. Don't buy into the bad economy or poor product excuses and stop hanging around the water cooler talking about company decisions. Start taking responsibility for your results and start being the leader on the leader board.
5. Start having fierce conversations. Read the book by Susan Scott, Fierce Conversations. She will tell you that the first fierce conversation is with yourself. Once you get your head straight and get honest with yourself, commit yourself to have fierce and tough discussions with others. Not in-your-face aggressive or mean discussions, just tough discussions about what is or isn't happening, and what has to happen to move a sale forward or to stop where you are.

                Courage, as they say, comes in a can.  I CAN.

I landed at the Bradley International Airport outside of Hartford Connecticut when I was 18.  I flew out of there a couple of days ago, 35 years later, after one of our sales training sessions with an insurance company's  salesforce.  I can't believe the changes. Though I didn't remember all the details of the airport, I do remember it being small and unremarkable.  Today it is a bright, vibrant and a much-expanded hub of air transportation; the improvements are mark able.

As I sat there having lunch, I wondered how much I had changed over that same time-period.  Certainly, the physical changes were obvious.  When I was 18, I was there as a recruit to play football for the University of Connecticut.  Today, I'm a 53 year old consultant to companies that are trying to change / improve their sales force, align sales efforts, and build systems and resources that support extra-ordinary sales growth.  Money isn't the measure of everything that happens, but it is one way to keep score and to track how far you have come.  35 years ago, if you had told me that someday I would own a company with 8 employees and generating 2 million dollars a year, I would have thought you were nuts.  My goal at that time was to graduate and become a college football coach.  How did I go from football coach to entrepreneur?   The following list isn't meant to be all inclusive answer to that question, but maybe it will give you some idea of what it takes to change from an average doing ok sales person, to one that is considered extra-ordinary and best in class.

1. Goal setting - you have to establish non-negotiable goals that extend who you are
2. Commitment - you have to demonstrate your commitment with consistent behaviors
3. Persistence - nothing that you want will be easy, you have to persist beyond obstacles
4. Passion - I love what I'm doing. If you don't love what you are doing get out
5. Learning - you can't stop learning. If you do you'll stop earning and growing

Certainly, you can make a living and probably do ok, but is that why you chose professional selling as a career, to be average and ok?  Challenge yourself in the following ways:

1. Set new goals for yourself that are way beyond what you think is possible
2. Commit to write down your goals, share them with others and then execute activities consistent with those goals.
3. Persist - Do not let yourself or others convince you that you are too old, too young or already good enough to take on a challenge of getting better.
4. Re-ignite the passion that you had the first day you started. Think that you have nothing and you have everything to gain and prove. Start over again as if you had to prove something.
5. Read a book at least every other week. Learn something new about yourself, your business and about selling. Expand your knowledge and skill to become best in class.

Again this isn't the end all and you may actually be thinking is it worth the effort?  I can't tell you the answer to that and only once you accepted this challenge will you know your return on investment.

Yesterday, I got the honor of meeting some remarkable people.  They are sales people in fatigues. They spend their day selling other on the connection between athletics and winning on the battlefield.  One of the metrics for success:  bring everyone back alive.  That is life or death.

I was introduced to Dr. Ralph Pim by one of my first clients, Mark Bodnar.  Ralph is the head of competitive sports at the military academy at West Point.  We spent the day talking about how to transition cadets into the work environment ‘after' West Point.  We talked about how he has led to charge to ‘fix' some of the elements of the competitive sports program at West Point.  

Now, you can't go to West Point without gathering in some of the history of America and the history of West Point, where I was introduced to some amazing people.

MAJ Shawn Bault ( 3 combat tours - Assistant Director of Company Athletics)

MAJ Kahn Diep (Director of Competitive Club Athletics - 1 combat tour)

MAJ Joe Gelineau (Special Forces - 2 combat tours - Director of Company Athletics)

MAJ Scott Blanchard (Below the Zone Officer - 1 combat tour - Assistant Director of Competitive Club Athletics)  

We talked about measuring commitment.  Commitment at the military academy is at a different level then what we consider as commitment.  We think in terms of committing to prospecting activity; they commit to bringing entire companies of soldiers back to the states alive.  However, we both have the same problem:  "how do you measure commitment".  I think it's kind of simple:

• Achievement of stated and agreed to non-negotiable goals
• Do not offer up excuses when you fail to accomplish goals.

As simple as this concept is, and with all the leadership taught at the academy, this seemed to resonate and help them realize that yes, even at this high level of performance, people will be susceptible to performing less than they are capable of.

In addition to our discussion around identifying and measuring commitment, we discussed how they work to develop commitment and cohesion within their teams.  I asked them what they do or discuss currently; their response:   they talk about and coach to vision, goals and core values, having the right team members and creating a culture that enables teams to succeed.  Sound familiar to what it takes to build a committed and cohesive sales team?  It was comforting to hear that one of the best learning institutions in the world addresses this crucial element of success the same way we do.

I'll close by reminding myself and you that their objective of focusing on building teams of significance and winning with honor is to prepare cadets for battle, for fighting, for protecting our country.  They measure success by lives not lost and those not wounded.  These are their objectives, their metrics for success, and all the while they have fun, they joke, they enjoy a deep commitment to each other and to the cause.  Truly a remarkable environment.

As you go about your day today, remember that selling isn't life or death.  However, if you prepare and have commitment, your approach is based on solid core values, and you execute and work to win with honor, then you will win more than you lose, you will thrive and can be proud to call yourself a Sales Professional.

So what is the connection?  Maybe nothing at all.  We have a program called Sales Management Environment.  One of our clients adopted the program and changed the name to Sales Management Effectiveness.  I like this too, but the point is this:  What does it mean to have a sales environment and/or culture, and how and what defines the culture?  In addition to answering that question, we must also address this question:  ‘what is the impact on sales results?'

Unknown!  That's a scary, yet valid, answer because most companies do not have the ability, or simply do not track the appropriate metrics that would indicate progress or a decline in results other than sales results. Certainly that is an indicator, but depending on the ramp-up time you expect for a new sales leader, new sales people, or a new sales training program, how could you possibly use just sales results as a measure of success?  That's like using just the score at the end of the game to determine how well your team played.  You may have won, but did you play well enough to win again and again?

Ideally, you would look at the following:  Sales activity and critical sales ratios , such as conversion of contacts to appointments, appointments to opportunities, opportunities to presentations and presentations to closed business.  In addition, you would have to know your average size sale.

In the past, when I've asked senior sales management, sales leaders and sales people about these numbers and ratios, I got a blank stare, a shrug of the shoulders and an "I don't know'.  Why is it a problem?  Because without knowing this information, you can't possibly measure the impact that sales leadership and other influences have on sales results.  And, if you are trying the ROI of a sales leader or sales program, then you MUST know this information.

With our system of testing, training and tracking you can be sure that you will know what needs to be fixed, how to fix it and if it is being fixed.  Without that approach to hiring a sales leader or sales training program, why would you invest the money?