I read an article today in Inc Magazine entitled 13 traits of an outstanding sales person. Hunters mentality, Laziness, Follow Up, Charisma and arrogance.

 

That last one concerns me actually. I’m all for a bit of exuberance a little bit of let’s say confidence.

 

But what is far more important to me and should be to you is whether the person you are working with hiring and committing to developing is humble enough to know that they don’t know at all and that they can learn from you and from their team.

 

That’s coach-ability and it’s extremely important particularly a tiring time

I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. Nobody is perfect.

 

Yet it’s surprising how often we look for perfectionism within ourselves.

 

We expect to make the perfect sales call.

We expect to make the perfect sales presentation.

We expect to write the perfect proposal.

We expect have the perfect meeting.

 

But you and I both know that there is no such thing as perfect.

 

Perfect is a defect. It is unattainable.

 

Simply because perfect to my mind is not the same thing as it is to yours.

 

We’ll never get there.

 

When you put pressure on yourself or others to be perfect, it creates a whole bunch of problems.

 

Your reps are reluctant to try things in case they screw up.

 

People get stressed that they’ll never attain what is expected of them.

 

As a sales coach, what I want to see is consistency.

 

Not perfection - Best effort. Not 100% 24/7.

 

A healthy attitude towards failure and coach-ability to learn from it.

 

Listen now!

 

You now have all the blurbs and audio for the next three sales coach episodes

 

You also have this week’s (solo) episode and blurb for TB

I will get the Peter Smith recordings fixed!

One of my colleagues recently sent to me that he had the worst day of his professional life – I was gobsmacked.

 

Had he been fired? Or demoted? Had he lost his best client?

 

I didn’t know where to begin. It took a couple of hours to get him on the phone.

 

When he did, he said that he had had a panic attack.

 

Don’t know if you’ve ever had one before.

 

I had in 2010 and I will never forget it. It’s really hard to describe a panic attack until you have one and I hope you never have one.

 

I was under huge pressure to get some leads in a campaign for the Middle East.

 

This guy next to me called Eamon had 7 leads on the board. I remember sitting there but not being able to think, speak or  move.

 

It was like nothing worked. Even today I can’t even begin to explain how terrifying that is.

 

I’m not a medical professional but when people describe stress - real stress, I can empathise. I’ve been there.

 

More importantly for the purposes of today’s episode I can recognise the signs.

 

For the purposes of today’s episode I wanna talk to you about managing your stress levels. This could save your life.

Sales is a permission based activity between humans.

 

People humans like to be treated nicely.

 

It’s not a lot to ask to ask people to remember their manners how to treat people well.

 

We need cooperation and respect on both sides.

 

You can think of it like an equation. What I give out is what I get back.

 

My mother has a wonderful expression:

 

“You train people how to treat you.”

 

If you’re okay with people being discourteous, you are training them to continue to treated them this way.

 

The danger is that people then absorb this behaviour or centre behaviours and reflect them out to your customer base.

 

Courtesy matters and courtesy really matters among professionals.

 

Today’s episode we are professional courtesy in sales and how to coach it

If you’ve ever watched your key performers leave your team, you’ll know that it hurts to watch sales talent walk out the door.

 

But there’s lots that you can do to reduce the chances of this happening in the first place.

 

My guest today is Ryan McNitzky Sales Director AMER Enterprise Accounts at Redgate Software.

 

Ryan is going to share how you can retain key sales talent and even get your talent to think twice before leaving.

 

The grass is definitely not always green on the other side!

 

Check it out now!

A deal review is your chance to get your rep to walk you through the ‘story’ of a specific opportunity in their pipeline in a conversational manner from beginning to end.

 

You are sense-checking how they qualified this opportunity as well as their plan to get a win.

 

Of all the reviews you coach, this is where the rubber meets the road.

 

You need to get your rep to go through a specific opportunity with you at a granular level.

 

You want to make sure that your rep has thought through which things might throw a spanner in the works and what the plan is to deal with such issues before they arise.

 

Coaching the deal review will help you to confirm that they are prospecting, selling, and closing the right way.

 

Listen now to learn more!

In sales, the worst thing you can hear your customer or prospect say isn’t “no.”

 

It’s something like ‘leave this with me’” or “I need to think about it.”

 

It’s a true horror for any professional sales person. We’ve all been there.

 

We prospect, qualify, make some kind of proposal, then our prospect or economic buyer says those words: ‘I’ll think about it.’

 

After all that effort!

 

Today’s guest, Matt Dixon, author of one of the best selling sales books of all time, The Challenger Sale.

 

Matt’s going to share some revolutionary insights from his new book The Jolt Effect which comes out in September.

 

What was the motivation to write the book?

What can salespeople do to make prospects decide?

What can you do to reduce your prospects fear of failure?

 

Check it out now! 

You can’t be everywhere and you can’t do everything.

 

The good news is that you don’t have to.

 

Effective Sales Leaders are those who focus on the execution of their own priorities in any given moment.

 

It sounds simple.

 

But it’s kind of not.. because it also sounds really selfish.

 

And that’s why so many of us have a hard time doing it.|

 

You worry about the message it sends out when you put your own tasks first.

 

You worry how you are perceived in case being ‘selfish’ has the wrong effect.

 

You believe  being a manager means being ‘available’ to solve every problem.

 

Try thinking of it this way:

 

You are paid for producing… (and that means reducing).

 

Reducing the things you say yes to and increasing the things you say no to.

 

When you do:

 

You will be more focused

You’ll get the right stuff done

You will probably be a better leader

 

Check out this week’s episode to make this mindset work for you. 

Years ago, in one Wendy’s most famous advertising campaign, Octogenarian Clara Peller asked audiences: ‘Where’s the beef..?’

 

In sales, it’s a lot like asking your team (where’s the rest of the stuff?’)

 

The stuff under our noses - the unexplored opportunities

 

White space analysis helps your team to ‘unlock’ potential within existing accounts or territory.

 

And it’s a great coaching exercise with teams or individuals.

 

It opens eyes and minds, and helps your salespeople with ‘big-picture’ thinking.

 

• Where are you leaving money on the table?
• Where is the competition not offering value?
• How could you align with customer needs?
• What is your revenue potential here?
• What’s your plan to ‘landscape’ the relationships?
• How can I support you to develop your plan?

 

In this week’s episode, let’s help you to coach your team with White Space Analysis so they come up with ideas and a plan to maximize revenue.

From your perspective as a sales leader, your new hires can’t get ramped up fast enough

 

Your people are excited to be onboard.

 

They are anxious to perform and you want them to perform.

 

Here’s a place to start

 

Write down the kinds of conversations you want them to have

Write down the roles of people you want them to speak to

Write down the things you want them to learn from asking

 

Create conditions where people can learn to have great conversations.

 

Go talk to stakeholders. Make phone calls. Just go and talk to people.

 

Make this the basis for coaching for at least 30 days.

 

Then intermittently. 3 days a week, then 2, then 1.

 

Until they are ready to swim.. in the deep end.

 

When your new hires have made hundreds of calls without pressure, you can increase your expectations.

 

Confidence leads to competence.

 

Learning to have great conversations is a great place to start paddling.