Marissa Is At The Top Of Her Game. So How Does She Do It?

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I met Marissa last month at an event I was asked to speak at. She was 27 years old and, while attractive, she didn’t turn heads when she walked in the room.

And, she was assertive, but in a serene, comfortable way.

SYSTEM-THE-ROAD-TO-THE-GOAL.

As high achievers usually do, she approached me after my speech and wanted to ask me a few questions about my topic-“How To Be A High Sales Achiever In An Ultra-Competitive Market.”

She asked the question, and scribbled down some of my input. But I could tell something was different about her. So, I asked her how she had climbed to be the top ranked sales person at her software company (a company that has over 100 sales people.)

Here was her formula of how she rose to the top:

1. “I have a web page that offers a free download of a checklist I wrote about how you know if you’re ready for software.” She maintained this was THE thing that was the difference maker. Now, when she’s networking, all she does is meet people, collect their card, and send them a nice email that links to her web page.

NOTE: She spent her own money on the site, the email software behind it, and paid to have the checklist written. This total cost was about $500/year, a pittance when you see her earnings. 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.

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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!

Building Your Platform To Make Selling Easy(ier)

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Last week, I got called by a CPA firm who wanted training for their people. This you must know: CPAs are not very good at selling. It’s not that they don’t have the expertise. That’s not it at all.

It’s that selling spooks them. It’s not in their comfort zone.

So, when I get a call from a professional services firm (or any company), I always start with one simple question: Do you have a platform?

Platform

After the weird looks they give me, I go on to educate them to what a “Platform” is.

Platform: definition, A position in the market that you occupy where people look to you for expertise.

Physical Platform

Just as you would speak at a conference from a podium (platform) the same thing applies here. In the physical world, it is you speaking from the stage, on a topic that you have some degree of expertise in, where all eyes are on you.

There, you don’t have to fight for attention. You ARE the show.

In the sales & marketing world, your platform could be a variety of things. LinkedIN is a platform. Any kind of social media could be a platform (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram). Your email list is a platform. A podcast is a platform.

Simply, it is a place where you command attention of the people you’re trying to reach.

Your platform is a positioning tool that raises you above the din of competition and market confusion.

You Have One Right Now, But You May Not Know It Read more

The One Thing That Will Change Your Sales World

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Apologies to the person who created the “flower and the bee” concept but I think that epitomizes perfectly the problem with most sales processes today.

The-Flower-Does-Not

And do we ever have a problem.

The ‘flower and the bee’ phenomena goes like this: in nature the flower must pollinate itself. It sits there waiting for the bee (one of the many ways pollination happens) to pollinate it. The flower does not labor, nor does it stress about bees showing up. Bees, on the other hand, are scurrying about trying to find food, and pollinating the flower.

In business, sales people are typically the bees and the customer is the flower. Sales people scurry around the country looking for food.

Why does it have to be that way? Why shouldn’t the sales professional be sitting – allowing the prospect to show up for them? Why?

It’s because we don’t plan it out that way. (We actually might, secretly, like the scurrying about looking for plants -err prospects.)

We have bought into the flower/bee process so heavily in sales that we refuse to even admit that it’s all wrong. (We also do this when job searching…wrong again.) Read more

How To Make A Sound, Effective and Compelling Argument

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Well, the election cycle has begun. And with it, comes my constant frustration (you might recall my blogs from 2 years ago) at how our politicians make their arguments, or, more accurately, how they DON’T make their arguments.

But since I’m staying away from politics in this blog, I’m left with a thought on how any of us make an argument for something we believe in.

As sales people, company leaders, and business executives, we must constantly be in argument-making mode. Not “argument” in the sense of aggressiveness, caustic language or a verbal battle. But “argument” in the sense of how we make our point, and bring others around to our way of thinking. Read more