Prospects to Partners Blog

I hope you enjoyed Friday’s post on the first lesson I learned that has made me a better parent. Lesson One of Accountability is often a tough pill to swallow. Sometimes it’s easier just to “give in” vs. teach the lesson.

One of the replies I received was “Accountability is out of vogue, but critical!” This came from Shawn Kinkade with Aspire KC. If you’re finding it hard to hold yourself accountable to growing your business, or just not sure how to take that next step, call Shawn… he can help you (913) 660-9400 or visit his website at www.aspirekc.com

Moving on to the next lesson...2. Self-Assess

Lesson #2: Teach them to self-assess at a young age. To be successful in life we have to understand our strengths and opportunities for improvement. Think about your best sales rep. Do they truly understand their strengths and opportunities? As a sales leader, it may be easier dodge the “difficult conversations” and focus only on the positives. Jack Welch says, “once a month give them written feedback… tell them what they’re doing good and also where they have an opportunity for improvement.” If you haven’t read his book “Winning”, I highly recommend it. The bottom line is this: We must be a clear mirror to our people.

After spending years in corporate leadership, I learned many lessons that I have been able to apply to my personal life. I’ve had the good fortune of raising a beautiful son for the past 20 months, and my husband and I are excited to welcome another child into the world in a few weeks…yes I’m about to pop! The lessons I learned while in leadership are countless, but three have been the backbone of my parenting philosophies. Today we'll chat about the first lesson....stay tuned next week for lessons 2 and 3. 

1. Accountability

Lesson #1: Take 100% accountability even if there are reasons why something did or did not happen.

It’s on every sales professional’s calendar… the weekly “team sales meeting”.  The meetings are usually on Monday morning… bright and early at 8:00 am.  Sales leaders think Monday mornings are a great time to hold a mandatory sales meeting because it’s first thing after a long weekend, the reps should be undistracted, recharged and ready to start the week.  The meetings go one of two ways:

1.    The meeting is highly effective and the team walks out engaged, entertained, educated, and motivated OR
2.    Your team sits there, glazed over and unengaged. They sip their coffee and look at you like a deer in headlights.

 I’ve personally attended and facilitated meetings with both outcomes. The deer in headlights is not an ideal situation. You leave frustrated because you don’t feel they are as motivated and committed as YOU are. As a leader, you wonder why your team is so unengaged.  You wonder if they are the right people for the team, if they have what it takes to win, if they are still excited about the job… I know list seems endless. The list isn’t endless; it’s really one reason and one reason only: YOU WEREN’T PREPARED TO ADD VALUE.

Sales leaders are constantly asking me, “How do I motivate my team to win?” I wish I had the “magic” answer to this question and that instantly you could motivate everyone on your team to WIN big. Unfortunately it’s just not that easy.

So I have good news and bad news…. I’ll start with the bad to end on a positive note. The bad news is this: YOU CAN’T MOTIVATE YOUR TEAM TO WIN BIG! Ouch, right? It seems like a very negative answer to a positive question.  I’m sure many of you are thinking that you do motivate your reps to WIN BIG. Maybe you are… but it’s not because of YOU… it’s because of something that you said that is resonating with them.  It’s a leadership 101 philosophy: you can’t be an effective leader if you lead the way you like to be led. It’s not about YOU, it’s about THEM.

Okay, so maybe this is a rant, but sometimes I can’t stand networking events. I attend them, but I don’t really enjoy them. Here’s why:  I find that many networking events are an extremely unproductive use of time.  I find professionals who network all the time in search of growing their business, but in truth, all they do is spin their wheels and waste their precious time.  I’ve been to hundreds of networking events. Professionals come out in droves to networking events looking to effectively sell their business… It’s just not that simple. Most people aren’t there to learn about YOUR business, they go to tell you about THEIR business. So your 30 second elevator pitch falls on deaf ears… and the entire event is a complete waste of time.

Let me ask you this… What is one hour of your time worth? If you don’t know this you can figure it out quickly. Here is an easy formula (annual income divided by how many hours a year you work). Or better yet, what do you charge clients as an hourly rate? Let’s say your time is worth $100 an hour. An average networking event will take up two hours of your time. Would you PAY $200 to attend the event? If the answer is no, then you need to rethink your networking strategies. I GUARANTEE you that you will have a better chance of INCREASING SALES at your company if you spent that two hours appointment dialing.

I use this phrase with my clients all the time, “be sure to use a clear mirror when you are looking at your own performance or those who report to you.” I have found this is much easier said than done. For some reason, sales people and sales leaders do not do a good job of self-assessing or accurately assessing their team members. Do you use a clear mirror? Do you self-assess? Of course you do... but do you self-assess accurately? People always say, “I’m my own worst critic...” but I don’t often find this to be true with sales professionals. Let’s take a short quiz. It is really short…. and will take you less than a minute.

It's unlikely that any successful person or company operates without goals. They may have one giant or lofty goal. They may have a series of smaller goals leading up to the ultimate achievement but success is built upon goals. Goals accomplish many things. Three of the primary accomplishments are:

1. Goals energize people and energetic people achieve more.
2. Goals signal the direction of the company and sales team.
3. Goals measure the achievement of the organization.

Do you know how to establish reasonable goals? Follow this simple five-step plan to set goals to increase sales.

Hopefully you've taken the time to clarify the roles of your sales team and sales management. It's a valuable exercise. Now you get to assess sales team strategy and culture. Regardless of your methodology half of your sales representatives currently perform below average. Fifty percent are performing below average! Think about that. This is an indisputable fact. So why even assess the team? Simply put, to sell more.

"And I'm feeling more and more like less and less." Those words sung by the rock band BoDeans may describe the malaise experienced by salespeople utilizing traditional methods in their sales efforts. This feeling is often found in salespeople working for companies that emphasize quantity ("dialing for dollars ") over quality in their endeavors.

Salespeople fail as a result of many flawed premises, priorities, beliefs and habits. There are two issues, in particular, that can hamper success.