Coaching The Presidential Candidates

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As of yesterday at 5:00PM, not one candidate has called me from any presidential campaign. Hmmm. Guess that’s not unusual. THEY NEVER DO!

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But let’s pretend that one did call asking for help on debate prep, speech prep or just how to communicate better with the American people. I would lead with the three-headed problem to be followed by the 10-point fix:

The Problem

1. People are hungry for a candidate that people feel understands them. Most candidates are awful at establishing ‘remote rapport.’ (Rapport is easier when you’re face-to-face, but more difficult to establish at a distance, or in media). Reagan and Clinton were very good at this. Read more

Becoming Your Best By Avoiding The Misses

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I am blessed to be able to interview top-notched authors and experts in the area of leadership as we launch The Sales Leadership Academy.

Steve Shallenberger

I spoke to a veteran of leadership coaching, Steve Shallenberger, last week. Steve has worked with Fortune 100 companies for the last 30 years and has a great pulse on the mistakes he sees leaders make. He’s also author of “Becoming Your Best.”

One of those has to do with “Vision.” The lesson is that just because your company has no declared vision, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

But the fact is that if you have a division…a team…a group…you MUST have a compelling, inspiring vision for your them or they’ll wander around with little focus, and little inspiration.

Here is an excerpt from a longer interview I did with Steve where he shared his thoughts.

Enjoy!

If you’re interested in learning more about The Sales Leadership Academy…and how it can help you create this type of inspiration in your team, go here. A little knowledge here could make a huge revenue difference in your team. It might be worth looking at.

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Are You Using An Ancient Leadership Method?

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How tedious has it been in the last 20 years to try to keep up with all of the leadership theories and maxims put forth by experts? Leaves us all kind of confused, doesn’t it?

Alan Cutler

Alan Cutler has done an excellent job of sifting through all of the theories and get to what works. In this interview excerpt, I ask Alan some of those questions about the psychology of leadership, a topic on which he has written, “The Psychology of Leadership.” (Click Here To Learn More)

Enjoy the interview with Alan. Let me know your thoughts.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Sales Leadership Academy…and how it can help you create this type of inspiration in your team, go here. A little knowledge here could make a huge revenue difference in your team. It might be worth looking at.

LearnMore

What Percentage Of Your Team Is Truly Committed?

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In the lead up to the launch of The Sales Leadership Academy, I have the luxury of interviewing experts in the field of motivation, most specifically, “sales team motivation.”

DrJoeFolkman

As in, “What role does the leader play in the inspiration and motivation of their teams?”

It’s really easy to say (and I’ve said it, too), “Well, it’s not up to anyone to motivate the producer. They have to come to the table with their own motivation.”

That may be true. But does that mean you play no role at all in that? Of course not.

Dr. Folkman’s Take on Inspiring from a Leadership Position:

I had the privilege of speaking with an author, Dr. Joe Folkman. He’s written several books, most notably, The Inspiring Leader. In it, he reveals multiple studies of leaders and what makes them inspirational.

I sat down with Joe this week and I thought you’d be interested in a specific audio clip from that interview. In this clip, he addresses the idea of “commitment” and how you, yes YOU, have a role in creating commitment on your team.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Sales Leadership Academy…and how it can help you create this type of inspiration in your team, go here. A little knowledge here could make a huge revenue difference in your team. It might be worth looking at.

LearnMore

One Hour of Goal Setting

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As part of my sales training for my clients, we hold monthly telephone calls with small groups of sales people. On those calls, we talk about deals they struggle with, opportunities they see and tactics on how to land those prospects.

On a recent call, I was asked about goal setting. Specifically, “How much time should we spend in goal setting activities?”

GoalVSwish

My answer surprised them. I suggested that for every hour they spend setting goals, they should spend 20 hours planning them out. 20 hours!!!??!

The idea with “goal planning” is to give yourself a roadmap of EXACTLY how you will accomplish the goal.

Doubling Your Business

Let’s say you have a goal to double your business in the next year. Pretty awesome goal I’d say! But before you hit the streets to accomplish it, write it out on a piece of paper, place it in front of you and set aside 4 hours for Goal Planning. Read more

Selling Isn’t Meant To Be A Struggle

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51pCTMwjjLL._SX355_BO1,204,203,200_One of my favorite books of all time was a 60-pager written by Stuart Wilde called, “Life Was Never Meant to be a Struggle.”

In this book, he addresses how life demands effort, but not struggle. As he defines it, “struggle is effort, laced with negative emotion.”

In sales, we struggle a lot, don’t we? Struggle to get an appointment. Struggle to get to the right person. Struggle to position our product in the best possible light. Struggle to close the sale.

But, should we feel ‘struggle?’ I don’t think so.

Life-Not-Struggle

In markets that are abundant, you should be on the lookout for “ideal fit” between your customer’s pain and aspirations, and your solution. If there is no ideal fit, then you must move on.

Traditionalists among you will say, “No, Bill, you must be persistent and press hard to make the sale.”

Really? Is that really what you think? Sounds like struggle to me.

Instead….

1. Be clear about the value you bring. How can you determine an “ideal fit” if you aren’t quite sure of the value you bring and what problems it will solve for the customer? Bullet-list the elements of your value so you can become clearer about it.

Another bulleted list you should make is the characterization of your ideal client. Do they have money? Are they interested in growth? Do they look outside for help? Do they respect your ideas?

These two lists should be the filters that you shoot prospects through to see if you should spend one more minute with them.

2. Align behavior with purpose.  If you struggle in a component of the sales process, say lead generation, then you aren’t looking at it correctly. I had a mentor who said, “If you’re feeling pressure, you’re doing something wrong.” This is why I say, “align with purpose.” This means to state what your purpose is in your profession.

If it’s to make a lot of money for yourself, then you aren’t operating from a place of High Intent. Every thing that happens to you in the sales process will be seen as a threat to your core purpose.

But if your purpose is to be a hero to your target audience…or to serve them exquisitely…or to solve the biggest problems they have, then you are “on purpose” and in sync with what they want. You both want the same ting.

And when you are on purpose, prospecting behavior will never be a struggle. 

3. Take the pressure off early. Tell the customer upfront that it’s OK if this is not a fit. Why would you have any other point of view than that? If it’s not a fit in his/her eyes, are you going to continue to hang around? No, of course not.

But by saying it…out loud…you separate yourself from the hundreds of amateurs who have come before you.

When you apply pressure, you are not in-disposable. Your are DISPOSABLE.And if you are disposable (or feel like you are), you will struggle in the profession.

Let me know how you do at implementing these three simple ideas!

Are You an Amateur or a Pro? Here is a Simple Checklist

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I’ve been reading a lot of Steven Pressfield lately. He’s written a couple of books that are really good – namely “Turning Pro” and “The War of Art.”

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If you’re a client of mine, I’ve probably sent you one of those books to help you grow your business. If you’re not a client, then I urge you to go to Amazon and purchase them both immediately, especially if you are interested in creating a new future for your business.

Most of the readers of my blog are sales or business development people and I thought I would create a very simple five-point checklist to help you assess whether you’re an amateur or a pro (or whether you have amateurs or pros working for you): Read more

Why Do You Do The Work You Do?

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In my training and coaching practice, I have frequent occasions to question new clients as they’re on-boarded into my program.
When-you-help-someone-connect-what

A question that I always ask – and am never quite satisfied with the answer – is “Why do you do what you do?” Read more

What Your Coach Should Be Doing For You

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It used to be that personal coaches were the luxury of the rich and famous – leaders of companies – celebrities – extremely high income earners. But not so much anymore.

Coaching

And if you’re in the market for a coach, here are 10 items to consider as you search for that coach or mentor.

By the way, as a professional coach, I have a dog in this hunt. Meaning, I see plenty of coaches that are of no help to people. They might have their accreditation, but they have no process to really get the best out of people.  (I use “he” although I realize great coaches can be “she’s” too.) So here goes:

1.  Tells us the truth. How often do we hear the truth? People are fragile and we know that. So, if we get to coach someone, formally or informally, we’ll hold back. A great coach NEVER holds back. Read more