The Shift Control Sales Podcast

Emotional intelligence fits in as a logical 3rd episode in this series...all about being more self aware, understanding what prompts your feelings and the responses to those feelings.

2 men that I worked with in the past used to say: 'Try and see the picture in the other man's head.'

Says it all - or most of it anyway - Daniel Goleman gets the credit for EQ and he is worth checking out in TED Talk format if not his books which can be somewhat heavy

We all suffer from setbacks - there is no escaping that fact. In sales we think that we encounter more of them on a daily basis - rejection, ghosting, the competition, the economy all can put greater pressure on us to perform.

In this brief podcast, through my work as a coach and as a sales person, I share some tips that might help you build up your resilience and deal better with the challenges thrown at you everyday.

Always remember nothing lasts forever - good or bad - just try and ready yourself for the turbulence which is guaranteed to show up.

A short series of podcasts on the stuff that sales people can look after on their own so as to make their sales time more productive and more craic.

I hate the media - not irrationally I hope, but I've an understanding of how the machine works and how it impacts our well-being.

Negativity and bad news is the order of the day - lets not include the call in shows etc...but the morning news is one bad news story after another and that kind of impact can be far-reaching if your going to start work at 8.30am.

Change the channel - podcast, audiobook or music...anything but the news.

How we forget the headline manipulation, phone-tapping, lies, promotion of self interest...it's nothing new...

Hugh Gilmore has spent over a decade providing sport psychology support to Olympians and Paralympians, coaches and the associated multidisciplinary teams. He is passionate about training people in Motivational Interviewing, (MINT Member) and has also trained in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT**) at the Albert Ellis institute in NYC. (**Acronym alert)

In this podcast we discuss the broad area of building culture within teams - Hugh introduces many of the disciplines and theories that he has applied to Olympic & world class weightlifting and athletics teams.

I learnt about OAP - Observable, Achievable, Promotable - if you are changing your cultural behaviour internally does it follow the 3...is it observable? is it achievable? is it promotable?

I learned about the difference between informal and formal culture.

And I learnt about REBT - Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy.

Much of what we do in the sales environment is process driven but at the very core sits people - employees, customers and prospects.

I hope you find something in this episode - I always enjoy chatting with Hugh.

He puts serious depth to the whole idea of culture, team building and performance improvement, fills in the gaps (where there are plenty) and leaves us maybe asking more questions of ourselves and our strategies for change.

Enjoy.

I watched a brilliant documentary over the weekend on Ange Postecoglou and his 12 month transformation of Celtic. You look on in awe at the speed of the cultural transformation, the off-field impact that has turned around on-file performance.

IT's important to take a sense check on what is possible with a sales team referenced from a sports team.

There are some major contextual differences and i reference a few of them in this podcast - recovery, downtime, performance analysis, food, mental and emotional wellbeing and physical exercise all come into play.

I reference the book Sales Cybernetics (again)- It's sold out on Amazon but you can get it on Ebay...Pricey but worth it in my opinion.

I won't lie to you on this one but there are 100 + resources online that could help you write better sales content. My perspective is a bit more basic than that - if you don't write a lot with your work, if you write mainly with acronyms and text-speak, if you didn't pass your English O'Level, GCSE, then you need to get a handle on the very basics of writing.

The short cut to great sales copy doesn't exist. Having a great conversational sales style is of no benefit to you if you cannot write in a way so that you can be understood.

I have mentioned it before in other episodes - storytelling - maybe that should be story writing, ultimately you need to be able to write emails, letters (YES letters), direct marketing copy, presentations, etc...

To do that you need to understand the basic principles of grammar, format, etc...

I hope this episode helps underline that and point you towards some good books to help - STEPHEN KING & STRUNK and WHITE are 2 great places to start.

Some thoughts on account management that I wanted to share with you. I often see the roles as being under-developed within organisations and can be a number of reasons for that which I highlight briefly in this episode.

Do you have the right people looking after the right accounts?

Are you ignoring some potential accounts based on their current value to you rather than their lifetime value?

Do your account managers understand the true value that you bring to those relationships?

Portfolio selling?

Partnerships and collaborations - real and meaningful ones...

Have you created a strategic plan for those high value accounts?

And finally the sales pitch - do you think your people could do with some more sales training?

Curious to see how the return to work or the continued working from home is impacting your sales culture and how you are able to inject the spark into the weekly sales meeting/huddle/symposium or whatever you are calling it.

For me there are some core issues that need to be discussed - as a broad framework - and everything else is built around that.

What you want to come from the sales meeting is energy, focus and clarity.

There needs to be a little fun and craic but its all about the big picture - revenue, sales and performance improvement.

1. Statistics that measure the productivity and performance of everyone in the team.

2. What happened since the last meeting

3. A preview of the week ahead

4. Problems + solutions

5. Performance against target / year on year / etc...

6. Something curious or lighthearted...but sincere!

Sales cadence is an important part of any business development out reach. It puts some order and structure to what can be often random activities - emails, telephone calls, social media nudges etc...requires a measured approach.

It represents the rhythm of your out reach - personalised messages targeted to the right person, over a predetermined time frame.

It's where 'No means not yet' comes into its own - patience, diligence and plenty of target customers to keep you distracted.

45% of everything we do is habitual. That's around 6 hours a day that you're leaving in the incapable hands of your subconscious / unconscious mind.

It made me think this morning of the challenge sales coaching presents to everyone involved - the business owner, the sales person AND me.

Who wants to be told that what they have been doing for the last X years isn't as good as it good be? Lets face it - not everyone is coachable even though they say that they are.

Business owners want the coaching done - they want it to be effective but they usually want it done quickly...GOOD, FAST, CHEAP...pick 2, remember?

This podcast is all about being careful what you wish for - managing expectations and committing to the process.