Show Notes – Episode 19: Peter Strohkorb

Peter Strohkorb is a Sales Acceleration Specialist Advisor. He helps mid-market businesses and their owners how to sell more and sell faster. His critical advice is to advise clients to stop focusing on what they are selling and how they want to sell and to start focusing on how their buyers want to buy. The approach is called the buyer-focused sales cycle.

Peter has spent more than 20 years in the corporate world and he has learnt everything about what not to do in the sales function. Specifically, do not jump out of the bushes and hit the client up with product features and a sales pitch. Nobody likes to receive spam emails or unsolicited or cold calls.

Do not “pitch slap” your contacts.

How can we make the buying process more pleasant for the buyer?

Salespeople are under a lot of pressure (coming from their organisation’s superiors) to hit the sales target. Towards the end of the quarter, there is increased pressure to close the deal. However, buyers do not like to be pressured. Buyers want to be guided to an informed buying decision. Sellers need to advise more and sell less.

Seller behaviour is determined by how they are trained and measured.

Sales professionals are now doing a lot of remote selling. Some non-verbal queues can be missed but the sales processes are, fundamentally, unchanged. Humans are still buying from humans.

The old skills are the new skills but need to be applied more professionally. Specifically:

· Ask questions about the customer’s challenge

· Do homework before engaging, so time is not wasted on fundamental questions.

· Engage in a more personal level

· Have something which will intrigue so that the customer leans forward and engages

The personal piece is injected into the interactions by injecting a personal touch.

E.g. “How are you doing in the pandemic?”

Focus on the customer needs and the problem that needs solving. Be an advisor to the customer.

https://peterstrohkorb.com/sales-acceleration

Nicole Rose is from London, where she worked as a corporate lawyer. After more than a decade, she travelled to Italy, where she decided to change her life. On returning to London, Nicole packed her bags and headed to Australia. She studied art in Melbourne before setting up a legal arts and creative compliance business servicing clients worldwide.

She now lives in Sydney with her fantastic family.

Studying art and making creativity an integral part of her life has made her a happier and better person.

Most professionals have a passion. The difference with Nicole is that she had the luxury to refine her skills and indulge herself in the study of art. All of a sudden, everything she did had a different perspective. Nicole believes that art can change a workplace for the better.

Leaders need to encourage and reward the team members for taking risks.

Be a risk professional!

Counter-intuitively, risk is about things that can go right and create opportunities. Sometimes mistakes are made, and that is part of the process.

How can we look at things differently? That is the power of the human!

Catherine Mattiske started her career in Adelaide, South Australia. She has been in technology training for all her career. She moved to Sydney for a technology training role. It was boring. Catherine decided to do some contracting until a “real job” came along. After 30 years, she has never had a “real job”.

Catherine has been self-employed and grown a business over most of her career. One pivotal day, in a coffee shop in Balmain, Sydney, she sat with a piece of paper and a coffee and did a 10-year life and business plan. As part of this, Catherine decided it would be great to take her business to the US. She now has offices in the US, Europe and Asia.

The difference she has seen has been tremendous, and now things are continuing to speed up.

Catherine’s training business, The Performance Company, certifies trainers and manages content for clients to turn into training. Recently she has moved from her core business of B2B and enabled a new product, “Unlocking the Genius”, to grow the B2C segment.

Catherine is passionate about learning and helping people to learn. People are not taught to learn.

Victor Perton is the Chief Optimism Officer for the Centre for Optimism. He encourages everyone to plagiarise this title because he would love to see more COOs around the world.

Victor is the child of refugees who came to Australia in the early '50s. His mother survived Soviet communism and nazism in Germany. She died last year at the age of 92 and still teaching.  His mother was a great influence on his life.

Victor has been a barrister and then a politician for 18 years. He was then the trade commissioner for Australia in the Americas. Victor found the Australian reputation in the Americas as a people of relentless optimism. Once he arrived back in Australia, he was stunned by the negative language towards leadership.

He embarked upon a survey of the Australian leaders. The conclusion was that the leadership was quite good. So why the negativity? In 2017 at the Global Integrity Summit, he made a speech titled: "The Case for Optimism". It was wildly successful, turning into a book and a global speaking tour.

The Victorian government then sponsored the opening of the Centre for Optimism.

The critical question is: "What makes you optimistic?" He acknowledges there is hardship, grief and misery in the world, but through it, all people can be, and are, optimistic.

Every day he asks several people:

"What makes you optimistic?"

"How are you leading your team with optimism?"

"How has Covid set you up for a better future?"

People from all walks of life have been asked the question. When asked, a person's face lights up. In the more than 12,000 responses, most are unique.

In conferences, when the word "Optimism" is added to the event's title, the registrations increase by 2,000%.

Even when remote towns where the hardship of Australia are door knocked the optimism abounds

University students are motivating each other on TikTok.

Optimism needs to be involved in strategy. Organisations need to measure optimism and make it part of the strategy. When this approach changes, the outputs and direction of an organisation also changes. If the board and the executive team are open to optimism, then opportunities and an innovative way forward also opens up.

The ideal leader in the evolving work environment is to be realistic and infectiously optimistic. The ideal leader is the person who can unlock the optimism in their team.

Do not ask: "What is keeping you awake at night?"

Ask:  What makes you Optimistic?"

Do not restrict the question to work. If the question leads to personal or home life, then embrace it because it will provide the leader with an avenue to engage with employees and facilitate optimal work conditions.

The pessimist is incapable of innovating. Successful companies need to recruit optimists.

There is much discussion about resilience. However, the optimist will devise a way forward.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, senior leaders are much more in touch with employees. They are in meetings and engaged with the team. Talking and listening to employees is critical. It used to be "touching base", but what is needed now is engagement from leaders.

Australia and New Zealand used to be the most optimistic countries in the world. Now they are middle of the pack. At the same time, the number of people on medication for anxiety and depression in Australia has doubled.

There is a severe problem in the medicalisation of everyday life challenges.

"My best self" is an initiative that helps people visualise an optimistic future and realise dreams and life goals.

In summary:

Neeti Chauhan works as the COO for MindCo Consulting Group. MindCo is an HR Services company providing support to the client on HR strategy, Talent Pool mapping and workforce analysis.

Neeti is passionate about human resource management. She has been in this professional space for more than ten years. The role of HR has evolved significantly in that period. It is an exciting time to be in HR. There is a tremendous amount of transformation occurring across various sectors around the nature of work—new ways of working, technology transformation and new ways to manage and lead people.

It is an exciting space to be in because the impact that can be made on the lives of employees and leaders is material. Leaders and employees are struggling at the moment and the support she can give to clients is making an impact.

No matter how much investment in technology, the outcomes and the effectiveness relies on how well the humans are using and leveraging the solutions.

There is an overload of information on the best practices in human resources but making it tangible and achievable remains the challenge. The goal is simple: keep employees engaged, happy while achieving business goals and strategic objectives.

Planning for skills requirements in an organisation requires putting a plan in place for the next 6 to 12 months. There are many skills and capabilities in the organisation, but they can often not be seen. Therefore, an essential part of future skills planning is to map the existing skills and competencies and overlay these with the emerging requirements. Typically there is a lot of overlapping skills and competencies found, and this enables the organisation to be more agile in using available talent. Each person loves a variety of tasks and roles. It keeps people motivated and stimulated at work.

Upskilling and training is a part of this talent and competency planning. The trend is not keeping individuals into boxes. The trend is competency and skill mapping. Individuals can be given new roles and functions that are more fulfilling. They can utilise existing skills while upskilling and taking on new responsibilities. In general, people are capable of a lot more (volume and variety of work) than they are doing.

Talent should be hired for what is needed in the future rather than what was required. Future skills can be catered for by upskilling and talent pooling. In the past, talent polling was possible by sourcing talent overseas. Recently the ability to get talent from overseas has become restricted.

For young people entering the workforce, Neeti suggests not to get confused by the available overload of information. There is much advice around, and it can be daunting, however, if each person focuses on purpose and making progress each day. There is no substitute for experience, and it will come to each person. However, focus on the now and making a degree of progress each day.

Be prepared to take risks. Making mistakes and having some setbacks is part of the learning process. Ignore the noise and focus on what you do well.

Summary:

Lynn Wood has had a diverse career working in a wide range of industries and roles. The diverse experience has positioned her well for her current role, Chief Idea Spy at Idea Spies. Idea Spies keep track of all the positive ideas happening worldwide by breaking down complex reports and ideas and expressing them in a plain, easy to understand format.

Lynn deals with positive people with positive ideas. It is an excellent alternative to the negative ideas that perpetuate in the business environment. Idea Spies associates Lynn with positive ideas and the solutions that are being produced for the problems.

Lynn considers the trends for the future, focusing on more creativity and positivity. There is a real need to explain things simply so that people understand. Artificial Intelligence is taking over most of the mundane roles. There is too much information coming at all of us each day. Therefore Idea Spies is breaking this information down to 100 words or less to explain complex ideas and innovations. What is the critical point to being conveyed?

There is a leadership trend from an autocratic leadership style to a democratic leadership style. The importance of this change is related to the requirement of solving problems using teams. Individuals are not as effective at solving problems as teams. Leading practical, functional and agile teams demands a democratic leadership style. The democratic style enables collaboration and cooperation. There has been a change from competition to cooperation (sharing some information) and then to collaboration. Collaboration means sharing much information. Collaboration requires high trust levels between the stakeholders.

In an environment of collaboration, creativity is fostered and fear replaced by trust.

Who can be trusted and how can the leader assist in increasing trust in a group?

The point about trust is how to learn about whom you can trust. Optimistic people seem to be more trustworthy.

A new style of leader is emerging, and the traditional style is falling away. As a leader, it is essential to be able to cope with failures and deal with them. Take the feedback on board and move on.

Some advice on preparing individual skills for the future include developing personal resilience, flexibility and adaptability. The environment is changing quickly. Individuals need to develop the confidence to reinvent themselves.

If people want to stay ahead and relevant, they need to learn new skills. Of course, some people are not interested in staying competitive, and that is up to them. Sometimes the change requires going back to a more fundamental role. The change is not always up and up. Some skills are retained and others are added to an individual’s resume.

Enhanced communication skills are required in writing and verbally.

Summary:

Pam Halle is a mother & wife. Family is essential and defines who she is. She works in the financial services space. Currently, she is the head of marketing for Liberty IT Consulting Group.

Pam finds the fast-moving and rapidly evolving part of the financial services market attractive. Technologically, it is exciting. Its crucial o keep learning and upskilling just to keep up. Every CEO brings a new vision. She has been involved in several organisational restructures.

It can be gruelling and grind you down, so it is essential to get a balance family and time away from work.

Keeping up with essential technologies in her role is exciting and challenging. Leveraging CRMs and platforms like LinkedIn for the business are a constant learning curve.

In this era, training can be a 15-minute video to watch or short audios. A lot of the training can be done at home and in your own time.

The technology piece must be viewed as exciting and something to embrace if you grow in your role.

Everyone needs to upskill in the rapidly changing world. We are moving away from working close to each other. The piece which bridges customers and works colleagues together is technology. The technology is increasingly efficient and easy to use.

One of the innovative ways we are changing AI is starting to change the work environment.

Some people cannot keep up so quickly with technology changes. It can be overwhelming.

Regardless of age, fast speed internet and zoom are now essentials for operating at home. Working, ordering groceries, buying essentials all require

For young people considering entering the financial services sector, Pam has the following advice: Be adaptable to learning new technologies and change. Be prepared to upskill, learn, inquisitive for new information constantly. Use technology to extend your reach.

Leadership skills have changed from being brave and positive, steering the ship and evolve to being empathetic and vulnerable. Leaders who admit weaknesses and vulnerability can bring people with them through a crisis. They are willing to make tough decisions and being accountable. Communicate and keep communicating. Communication encourages engagement and support from the community, and people will trust and follow.

In Summary:

David Hubbard is a chartered accountant focused on tax and compliance and internal audit work.

He used this knowledge to travel to the UK. He started to work on projects and like the environment.

He now lives with his family in Newcastle, NSW and the Hunter Valley area.

He started a business, Cinch, in 2014. Cinch focuses on not for profits and the NDIS. He looked for not for profits which had a significant impact on the community. The objective was to improve their efficiency.

As part of the business, he partnered with another colleague who focuses on coaching and leadership and the human element. The partnership allows Conch to support clients with the sustainability element of the business. Change and human behavior affect the outcomes of the business.

As part of this, they have increased their awareness in the NDIS sector.

David finds the intimate knowledge of the client business and helping the not for profits optimise the impact they have on their respective communities. It may be possible to save the client money or help them drive their limited funds further. They are helping their clients help more people and communities. A key metric is to measure how many people in the communities are impacted and supported. They help people help people. Connection to the community is critical.

There needs to be a balance between the available funding and the quality of services delivered.

In the future, the challenge will be a focus on efficiency. There are many programs and software systems. It is hard for some organisations to know which is the best to choose. It is essential to map the required business processes over the capability of the available and relevant software.

If they are not using software, then the clients are reliant on manual processes. Manual processes are usually more expensive, slower and less reliable. Optimizing technology implementation leverages the services available to the community. A lot of not for profits are trying to deliver services in a virtual context. Therefore technology is critical.

People in not for profits are very resilient. They are willing to upskill. The sector is still looking for human contact.

The leadership function in the not for profits is changing. There is an increased distinction between leaders and managers. Those that are not prepared to change are liquidating or merging.

Leaders need to focus on the future and bring their teams with them. Bringing the team with them requires excellent communication and a clear message. The focus on the end customer is brought into sharp focus. The best leaders can bring out the “care factor”. Psychological safety is an honest discussion that is happening with staff and clients. It is partly to help staff through difficult times and partly to mitigate business risk.

People are resilient. There is a light at the end of demanding periods. How do you connect with people without meeting face-to-face? Develop the concept of building a network and to know, like and trust like-minded people. Through building a personal network, opportunities do arise.

In summary:

Episode 12: Steve Sandor

Steve is a business improvement strategist. He works with business owners to help them find their genius.   He teaches business owners how to upskill their staff or bring in the requisite talent.

Business owners do not deal well with stress. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified this. Owners need to be able to communicate with each other. They need to be able to trust and value each other. Once there is trust, then difficult discussions become possible.

Communication through social media is now the norm for younger generations. It is how many people keep up with their networks. However, it is not the same as face to face or verbal communication and the relationships which develop from this.

Steve uses social media like LinkedIn to help build a professional network. However, he is not looking for many contacts, just like-minded people interested in his line of business.

Some people start their own business because they see a niche. Others are forced into their own business. Everyone brings values, knowledge and experience. It is essential to be very good at what you do. Surround yourself with great people, not employees. Find great people.

If your business is growing, then a mind shift is required. You are running a business and need to be a business manager. Too many business owners just keep the owner mentality.

The change is not trivial. It requires an investment in self to become capable in a broad range of skills and putting in place steps which allows upskilling of self and employees. The role of the business owner must evolve into one of support rather than control.

Being vulnerable is the best first step. Many see this as a weakness, but it is the opposite. Be open and share some of the fears being faced.

Soft skills like vulnerability, empathetic and listening are excellent skills for entrepreneurs to develop. If they can, then they will be stronger leaders in the future.

Episode 11: Elizabeth McDonald

Elizabeth McDonald the new director of Allied Health in the northwest of Tasmania.

The health care issues in rural and remote areas are amplified when compared with the mainland and the cities. There are staff shortages and access to specialised services is very challenging.

Innovation is very important as is strong leadership. She is helping to change the way health services are delivered.

One of the changes that is occurring is the openness to telehealth and video conferencing style of consultation. Physiotherapists are using this method. The idea is now open that the patient does not have to be directly in front of the specialist and practitioner all the time.

In general medical practitioners are used to seeing patients face to face.

Australia has many remote areas. In the past, the patient has taken long car drives or fly in for an appointment. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a change in how services are delivered.

The big discovery is that the variety in service delivery works.

The skills set to change now required for allied health professionals is a flexible mindset. On top of this, professionals need to learn about the necessary technology so that services can be delivered remotely. Some of these skills can be trained but a mindset change requires an individual to want to change and do things differently.

The pandemic has forced change resisters to come along with the new ways. Now that they have experienced the differences and seen that they work, they accept the changes.

One way is to tell professionals that the change is coming and then asking what support each person needs to help them get to the new paradigm.

The conversation is now happening on how best to deliver services in the future. In the next few years, the service level will increase for patients because there is not reliance on face to face consultations. The health care system will innovate and become more efficient without the lost time and massive cost of driving long distances and flying. The professionals need technical skills for remote consultation and an ability to embrace change. Change is the new normal in Allied Health.

Medical information changes very quickly, and the professional has to make a more significant effort to change and adopt new ways of delivering services.

Key points: