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Most salespeople work for commission and bonuses. The question is are these still motivational reasons to perform well, or do they skew performance?

This podcast explores the world of commissions and basic pay, and suggests some new ways to remunerate people that might be more motivational.

After training salespeople for more than 20 years we have seen many new commission plans introduced – and now we want to question their validity. 

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By 1910 5.8 million phones were in use and five years later the transcontinental telephone line began to operate.

Now there are an estimated 53 plus million people using a smart phone, and the phone is so smart that people don’t use the phone element as much!

They use their email. In this episode we look at what you should really not be doing in your emails to engage prospects, and which phrases you should retire immediately.

Too many people are living in their inbox and won’t call people, write letters or see them face to face. Of course in a WFA anywhere world and with C19 here are times when you can’t.

Claude C. Hopkins the marketing giant would be keen to translate his methods to email, we look at how he made people desire samples and what they can mean for the information you wish to share.

Reconsider the quality of your written communication and connect other mediums and channels together making things more engaging for your clients and prospects and you.

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McKellen has just completed his second run as Hamlet, his first was 50 years ago. Sir Ian is 82 and played the lead in Sean Mathias’s age, gender and colour blind production. 

After a brief reminiscence over cigarette brands of the past and wondering how vapers can get excited by branding and advertising as we once did; we look at the play, the character of Hamlet and his skills.

This version proves that age is only a number. Ian has the gait of youth.

Hamlet has to be able to persuade a number of people to help him in his quest to find out if his Father has been poisoned and then to aid him in revenge.

He even influences the players who visit the castle to enact a scene that will help him see if Claudius is guilty.

In business persuading people to take action is the goal, not just to like what you have said and how you said it. We explain how Hamlet follows Aristotle’s famous consideration of Ethos, Logos and Pathos.

I hope this play starts a trend on and off the stage. We should be age, gender and colour blind and the more we are, the more diverse and exciting our lives will be.

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Following our recent podcast about ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ this episode takes a brief look at other, famous sales related films.
These include, ‘Boiler Room’, ‘Tin Men’ ‘The Wolf on Wall Street’ ‘Fargo’ and ‘Jerry Maguire’. What are the scenes, lines and scenarios that get across the talent, skill or cunning of the salesperson? Are all the portrayals negative stereotypes? What are the positives we can take from these examples? Hear two ex-actors, now sales trainers, reflecting on what might once have been their swan song. 

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We explore this stellar sales film of 1992, which began life as a stage play at the National with Bob’s best man playing the prospect who changes his mind.

What is it that David Mamet does so well with his writing that makes this story one of the films sales professional love and want to recount lines from?

Well the characters are as sharply drawn as they are filthy tongued for one thing, so the dialogue fizzes and sparks.

Secondly it is the story of desperation, and what a person can be led to do when your job is on the line.

The iconic scene stealing delivery from Blake, Alec Baldwin in the film, Bob is this episode, is relished and understood for its brutality, as well as its honesty.

If you know this film you’ll enjoy us bringing it to life with additional nerd facts, if you’re new to it, then you’ll be watching it very soon. 

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In this podcast Bob and Jeremy explore Leadership Levels – and Disloyal Bonding from Head Office. 
Are you strategically forcing your people to bond with customers in a way that puts your own company at a disadvantage? What are the Head Office decisions which sound like a good idea, but actually damage your business? The effect of internal meetings and decisions and the knock-on effect once they get to the frontline, are huge. We give examples of really poor strategies which companies just don’t understand. When there is a complaint, how many consumers talk to their friends about how poorly you’ve dealt with them? How divorced is your Head Office from your customers? What are the financial risks of these terrible decisions? This podcast connects the customer all the way to the CEO, and challenges them to do the right thing. 
 
We also have some fun imagining what the world would be like if businesses ran interviews on the basis of the different levels of leadership explored in Vlatka Hlupic's The Management Shift.

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In this episode we focus in on the major sweeping changes retailers need to make to survive in our post pandemic society.

Having first worked with the two biggest high street names in Travel, your hosts have gone on to work with many leading and world class retailers and helped them to change the way they operate with regards to sales, service and leadership.

In this episode we talk about the mistakes that retailers seem to be unprepared to face up to and change. The low pay problem that causes low skills in customer facing and management personnel.

We look back on the discovery Elmer Wheeler made when an advertising salesperson in the 1930's and talk about how the problem is still unfixed. Retailers must become 'phygital', a term from McKinsey that makes the experiences consumers have in a physical or digital sense wholly connected and not separate silos.

In a world that doesn't need targets, perhaps retail must now have a conversion rate obsession; as with declining footfall it will need to rocket its' sales conversion rate to make the bricks and mortar maths add up.

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Should people still go to University and saddle themselves with £60k+ worth of debt? Should they mortgage their futures for the hope of a better start? Does University give them that? If we are all living longer, why do we try and cram all of our education into the first 20 years? Time to rethink time, value, and money. Your hosts give you several different perspectives, as fathers of teenagers facing these choices, the pros and cons and the advantages and disadvantages of taking different paths. Have you really considered different options? As an employer what do you really value? 

This debate is right and timely, given the previous year of remote teaching and Covid ravaging campuses up and down the country - and we expect our students to be okay with that? To pay for that? Or is it all worth it in the end? 

Bob and Jeremy both went to a second rate drama school in Oxford, and had completely polar opposites when it came to education. Their experience as students, workers, returners, and employers gives a fresh look at this difficult subject. We'd love your opinion too - please rate and review - thanks. Once again, we must credit Charlie Morrell for his theme tune, and thank our colleague Ann Harris for her delicate but witheringly emphatic editing and cutting, which renders the listener an experience which is both wholesome, and surprisingly, not in any way tiresome. 

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When lockdown hit presenteeism bias became even more challenged. 
If people aren't in the building how can I trust them?!
Often the least trustworthy people project, unconsciously biased...

In this episode we look at:
Confirmation Bias
Action Bias 
Declinism Bias
Ageism 

With remote working here to stay we discuss how we now view people working from home; whether they are single, or a busy parent, we never judged them in quite the same way when we shared a workplace...

We offer some ways for businesses to deal with the changing ways of work. 
Adapting is vital. Different yes, but not always difficult.

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This episode is about you.
Are you interested in how you are perceived?
Would you like to change people's perceptions?
Get ways to work out what you stand for and a method to develop your personal brand.
Listen out for the fun and insightful exercise that requires you to spend time talking and learning from someone you admire in your business or marketplace.
We discuss mixing or sharing parts of your personal life on social media, and we look at the role someone who doesn't know you well can play in helping you decide what you want to share, say, write or produce.
We also have a go at saying what each other projects as a personal brand, with unexpected if not unwelcome things revealed.

If you like this episode and want to subscribe or tell your friends or clients about it we are already grateful.
Feel you can rate us and write a review? Thank you!
We gain more listeners from referrals and reviews than any other marketing.
Putting someone onto a new podcast can make their walks, runs and cleaning tasks that much more enjoyable...
Get in touch at [email protected] with any comments and suggestions.

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Reality Training - Selling Certainty