Natasha David worked for me a number of years ago as Marketing Manager in a technology company where I was Managing Director. One morning I received a call… her husband had died and was in his late twenties. “I’m so, so sorry Tash… what happened?” an awkward silence followed. How do you talk about a loved one who commits suicide? How do you cope with the feelings of guilt about failing to save them or not being close enough to recognise what was about to happen? I felt paralysed but we did our best to give her all the space and time she needed to be able to manage.

Many questions and emotions swam around in my head in the months following this experience. Two years earlier in the same company where Natasha lost her husband, our Professional Services Manager lost his 20 year old son to Leukemia. There was a dramatic relapse just days from the twelve month anniversary of cancer treatment when he would be officially pronounced as being in remission. It was heart wrenching to witness let alone live through. We also supported him by removing all work pressure and providing complete flexibility on full pay for as long as he needed. Without any fuss, his team rallied and covered all work demands. He slowly re-joined work and we were able to tentatively talk about his son with him. There would be stilted conversations and tears but it was okay… all part of the process of creating a meaningful life without his beloved son as well as honoring his son’s memory.

For friends and colleagues, what is the boundary between showing care and prying into someone’s personal life when they suffer loss or are seeking to deal with their own demons of depression or other mental illness? Is the workplace somewhere the grieving person goes to escape or can it be a place of healing? Is the workplace where those with invisible disabilities come to hide and deny or can they be accepted and respected?

Suicide seems to be different… a social taboo with stigma attached to the death of a loved one. I never did manage to have a conversation with Natasha; just a few hugs and as much workplace support as I could provide. She withdrew and coped in her own way… I did the same when I lost my mother at 25 – it was at times a bleak lonely place. After losing her husband to suicide Natasha was pulled into a dark void and checked herself into hospital where she had a profound realisation that can save lives …

The Life Saving Truth: “Suicide only transfers the pain to everyone else.”

This is something we should all share with anyone we think is in a bad place with depression or other mental health issues. Natasha is one of the most courageous people I have met and she is about to publish her book, Marrying Bipolar. It provides amazing insight for anyone wanting to understand mental illness. Winston Churchill described depression as the black dog but it is far more complex than applying labels.

Natasha decided that if she was to push on, she would make it the best life she could live. She has done exactly that and her book will make a difference in many lives.

Natasha’s story shows the devastating impact for those around someone suffering from mental illness but what if you are directly managing or working with someone who has a mental illness? I’ve managed sales people for many years and I am sensitive to the tell-tale signs. I have a personal experience with mental illness as the son and then the business partner of a bi-polar father. Others in my family also suffer from mental illness but I thank God not my wife, children or me.

Professional selling is brutal… it is not for the faint-hearted. High levels of emotional intelligence (EQ), business acumen, strong work ethic and resilience are all essential. I’ve seen sales people battle through massive highs and devastating lows, damaging the very relationships they need to succeed, going troppo on drugs and alcohol, going missing for days until they emerge from their dark fog.

All this raises two important questions for sales leadership:

1. Does selling attract those who are inadequately equipped to cope with the demands of the role?
2. What can sales leaders do to help and manage those in their teams that suffer from a mental illness?

1. Does selling attract people who are poorly equipped psychologically?

The research has evidenced that mental illness does not discriminate by ethnicity, age, gender or career choice (Meadows, Farhall, Fossey, Grigg, McDermott & Singh, 2012). Throughout my professional career, the most common mental condition I have encountered in sales people is bi-polar. This term used to be identified as manic-depression and both are apt descriptions for the huge mood swings that can damage relationships with clients, staff and partners. On top of this they require persistent, consistent management therefore consuming disproportionate amounts of a manager’s time and energy. Although anyone with a disability – physical or mental – can be a productive and valued member of a team, they need to find the right job position, have a supportive manager and work environment.

The biggest mistake a manager can make is to hire the wrong person and the second biggest mistake they make is holding onto staff that need to be moved on.

This sounds very harsh but it’s a truth all managers must face. The best way to do so is with empathy and compassion in seeking to help people work in roles that best suit them. A lack of compassion combined with relentless pressure and judgment exacerbates the risks and highlights a sales manger’s poor values or interpersonal skills.

Selling is one of the toughest jobs; for anyone to sustain success they need the following attributes:

• Resilience: The ability to cope with rejection and disappointment amidst relentless pressure to perform and deliver results
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ): The ability to truly understand your personal strengths and weaknesses while being able to read people and politics
• Good work ethic: The discipline and ethos of doing what it takes rather than your best by committing the required time and energy in paying attention to every detail
• Curiosity and intelligence: Beyond being smart, this is also being obsessed about the customer’s world, how results can be delivered and how risks can be managed
• Insight and domain knowledge: Specialisation in an area that matters to the customer with you being able to provide genuine insight to the people who make decisions.

Track record, qualifications and work history are easy to validate. Every hiring manager needs to go beyond these and be clear about what defines a ‘cultural fit’ for sales people by evaluating candidates against the above criteria.

2. What can we do to fulfil our duty of care for those who are struggling?

Make no mistake; leadership carries a burden both morally and legally. We have a duty of care to those we employ and to those with whom we share our lives. We need to create person-centered cultures rather than toxic performance-based furnaces. I’ve written previously about two contrasting corporate cultures (love vs greed) and we need to create environments where work has purpose, value and respect for those around us.

A healthy workplace is a community where employees are valued members of a team rather than mere units of production. Where relationships are real and the corporate values play out in the positive behavior of the leaders.

We need to ask people if they are okay and really mean it. The best way to create a high performance culture is to be authentic about delivering value for clients and building relationships of trust and respect. Executing this requires leaders who are the real deal and able to rally people to their cause; yet becoming a great leader in an inside job rather than projecting a persona.

Capitalism without compassion is commerce without a soul. We all want to make a positive different in the lives of others but not everyone can be a winner who stands on the podium in first place. Great leaders embrace diversity and leverage individual strengths within teams. As a leader, seek balance and value individuals as people who have their own fears and shortcomings as they pursue their aspirations. Have the courage to talk with an employee or colleague about how they are really going with genuine empathy.

Ask ‘how are you going… really?’ Then listen like you’ve never listened before. Everyone needs to be heard. Everyone needs someone who cares and believes in them.

For more on this important topic, please read The Darker Side of Selling by my good friend Bernadette McClelland. She provides three examples of the unhealthy pressure and destructive behaviours that plague many sales environments.

Reference: Meadows, G., Farrell, J., Fossey, E., Grigg, M., McDermott, F., & Singh, B. (2012). Mental Health in Australia: Collaborative community practice (3rd ed.). South Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.

The post Mental Health Truths Sales People Should Know appeared first on Head Of Sales.

There are, however, many things you are not going to lose during our emergency. This list is also what you must retain, even though some will require considerable effort as we face our global crisis.

Your Relationships: You are not going to lose the lifetime of relationships you have built and nurtured over a lifetime. On the other side, you are going to have your family, your friends, your clients, and your partners. They will be thrilled to have you still, and you will be here to help each other.

Your Attitude: It is natural to feel fear and doubt. But it’s essential you keep a positive, optimistic, future-oriented, and empowered attitude and belief system. There is nothing to gain by being pessimistic, especially when you need to take action. You need to keep your attitude positive, even though it isn’t always going to be easy.

Your Knowledge: It has been a very long time since I have heard anyone say, “No one can take your education away from you.” Even though some of what we believed may be proven wrong, like the idea that “it can’t happen here,” what you know will still be intact, and it will be beneficial in the future.

Your Experience: Another form of knowledge, and one that you will also retain in the future. Your experience is still going to be valuable, and it may be worth even more when we reach the other side, as we begin to rebuild. Your situational knowledge is an advantage in the future.

Your Memories: A life is made up of experiences, the best and most important of which include your friends and your family. The best things in life are not things; they are our memories, and particularly the ones we make with the ones we love.

Your Goals and Dreams: Your goals and dreams might take a hit, but when something is important to you, it is still going to be important to you in the future. You can, should, must keep your achievable goals and your dreams. Let them fuel you through this challenge.

Your Hunger: The key to reaching your goals and finding wild success is mostly hunger. If you were hungry before, you will be even hungrier on the other side of this crisis. Let the desire wake you up in the morning and taking action as soon as your feet hit the floor.

Your Ability to Help: Your ability to help, to share, to create value for others is only going to grow stronger during difficult times. It is difficult to worry about yourself and your future if you are focused on helping others who need you.

Your Soul: The part of you that is unique isn’t going to go missing. The Buddhist koan, “show me your original face before your mother and father were born” is an attempt to help you recognize this part of you. There is no threat of losing what is essentially you.

Your Spiritual Faith: In times of crisis, it is easy to doubt your faith, to question what you believe, what you know. The word faith is to believe without physical proof, but trusting what your spirit perceives. Your faith will endure this test.

Please remember that we are in the middle chapters of our story, not the ending.

The post What You Will Not Lose in A Crisis appeared first on Head Of Sales.

I ran a sales management masterclass for a global client and here are the key points I made to 30 sales managers about the way we all need to lead and inspire teams.

1. Purpose.

No sense of mission or purpose for the difference you’re making in the lives of others.Intent is everything… potential customers can smell it. There is nothing more repelling than having ‘sales breath’ where you’re all about yourself and making your sale rather than being all about them and the outcomes they need to achieve while managing risk. What difference do you make in the lives of your customers… personally and professionally? Be clear about the answer and ensure all of your salespeople are too. As a sales manager, make sure you’re all about your people rather than yourself and that you act in the best interests of your people, your customers, and your company.

2. Strategy. 

Every organization is political in nature and this means that there are competing priorities and hidden agendas. You need a strategy for managing relationships and engineering best value for the customer while creating a comparative bias toward the strengths of your team, your company, and your solution. Strategy need not be complicated but you must know how you can change the rules on the competition, kill the customer’s apathy, and embed yourself in a compelling business case where there is an inbuilt bias toward what you do best in the market.

3. Technology and Data.

Failure to be data-driven and leverage technologies. Average deal size is shrinking, the number of people to cover in an account is increasing, sales cycles are taking longer, and there is increased competition. All of this means that you and your salespeople must apply effort where it will be most productive. Treasure time, fully embrace your CRM system, leverage LinkedIn’s, harness data intelligence tools that provide direct dials and the insights that create context and ‘warm’ engagement. Leverage the strengths of weak ties to never make cold calls yet go get punch drunk on the phone while your competition has slipped into ‘snoozer mode’ of passive social selling. Combinations of technology and driving concurrent channels of outreach are how the best are crushing quota.

4. The right conversations. 

No-one is interested in what you do and how it works until they first see you as someone who can help them achieve the important outcomes they are accountable for in their role. Lead with why conversations matter and be specific about the opportunities you see for them to improve revenue, reduce costs, increase profitability and have a positive impact on the metrics by which they are measured and personally that matter to them. Have a ‘hypothesis of value’ about how they could improve their business based on what you’re seeing with other customers who have a similar profile. Make your narrative all about them rather than yourself!

5. Sense of urgency. 

Time kills deals. Momentum is difficult to create and so very easy to lose. Treasure every opportunity and constantly think about how you can create progression every day with each stakeholder in every opportunity. What’s the next step? What are the key milestones and dates? Who needs to be on board to achieve consensus and in order for a decision to be made? Hope and prayer is not a strategy… success is earned. Between the opening and the close is the middle… the middle is the place where many deals die. Your biggest risk is usually complacency. Constantly ask why it matters and what happens if it slips. If there is a not a ‘compelling event’ then there had better be a compelling business case.

6. Discipline. 

We must do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and regardless of how we feel. Beyond going through the motions, we need to also execute masterfully. The discipline of training and repetitive correct execution is the hallmark of the very best in their field.

“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody want to lift no heavy-ass weights. But I Do”

Ronnie Coleman

7. Execution. 

Having a rubbish narrative and not executing the fundamentals is the most common reason for sales failure. If you can’t secure meaningful conversations with the people of power and set the right agenda, then you’re working with someone else’s agenda. The customer forms an opinion of us quickly and we need to earn their trust and respect at every stage and through every interaction. Many deals are lost by the seller tripping over their own shoelaces. Can we write professionally and do we proof-read? Do we turn up on time? Have we done our research? Do we have insight? Is our demo relevant? Are our slides on point and all about them not us? Do we ask the right open questions? The list goes on… make every post a winner. You and your team need to all do the basics well.

8. Managing Expectations. 

Let’s face it… your boss is a lunatic who has an insatiable appetite for ever-increasing performance results and no regard for your personal life. They are happy to burn you out, throw you under the bus or melt you with their blow torch. You must manage their expectations. Customers are also crazy as they bark orders for you to jump through hoops and dance to their discord. They adopt ill-conceived strategies for managing their risks and often unwittingly work against themselves. It’s essential to positively influence their process, set the right agenda, then ‘culturally’ align. Ensure you have alignment with their process and reasonable goals and achievable time-frames. Be proactive early and know that yes-people are not respected.

9. Humility and the willingness to learn. 

Lifelong learning is the hallmark of the smartest humble people on the planet. Conversely, salespeople must be the worst readers on the planet. So many sellers think they know it all and have no need of improvement. Curiosity and a willingness to learn is what transforms a sales career. The best sales managers have their people on a reading program and they test whether they actually read or listen to the books, watch the videos, do the research. They turn sales meeting into sessions that actually provide value for the salespeople rather than cadence forecast meetings.

The post Actions That Lead to Sales Success appeared first on Head Of Sales.

“I don’t believe in burnout.” – Grant Cardone

Do something you love and you’ll never truly work a day in your life.

People ask me, “Tony, how do you keep up the frenetic pace of 25 hours every day? How are you not beyond burnt out on selling, calling, and traveling across continents incessantly after 3 decades?” It doesn’t mean I love every element of what I do on a daily basis or enjoy the rejection laden gauntlet… even I run from dawn until dusk and I’ve had moments of near-implosion this year with finishing my next book, meeting client commitments and continuing to publish blog articles .

I blast ahead by getting off on the high I feel miles into a bike ride. I thrive on challenging myself daily for the breakthrough. When you really don’t care about hearing a ‘no’, the yeses are sweet! When all possible rain is water off a duck’s back because you’re making a positive difference, then you’ll make money rain too.

It’s possible to be joyful about this thing called SALES if you’re making a positive difference in the lives of all those you touch.

I have several secrets to preventing and avoiding burnout out over a 30 year career in sales. Here we go:

1. 80/20 rule. Isolate the 20% of your activity that yields 80% of the results or output. Do that before lunch. If I don’t do 2 major things that scare me before lunch, I shouldn’t have even worked that day. Yes, that means directly call 2 or 3 CEOs who could partner with me, who I could consult on revenue acceleration.
2. Curiosity. Yes, it killed the cat but not the human. You must become infinitely interested in other people. Even fascinated by buyer psychology… What makes them tick? How are each of their problems different like a snowflake or fingerprint? You could even take a course from Barry Rhein on Curiosity Based Selling. Prospects are fascinating. Peel the onion with open SPIN questions and turn your ‘listen to talk’ ratio on 20/80. Super hard to do and that discipline of “being fully there” (as I highlight in RSVPselling methodology) will “open doors where there were once walls,” per philosopher Joseph Campbell.
3. Exercise. You’re not going to hit 10X Massive action being sedentary hitting the red bull and jolt cola. Work/life balance comes from concentrating really hard and doing that ‘one thing’ as effectively (and highly leveraged) as possible in that moment. Exercise improves stamina and brain function. You can only become caffeinated for so long. The body’s natural energy systems bloom into a supernova of dopamine (not the Facebook cat video clicker kind), serotonin and endorphins when you can get your heart rate up. For me that’s cycling and not just weekend warrioring it. I often wake in the dark to strike out to put in 60 kilometers.
4. Altruism: I truly seek to help my partners, customers and network to PIF: pay it forward. There are some aspects to what I do that have more residual intrinsic value than money can ever buy. Mentoring wonderful people that exceed my ability. Truly stunning and humbling! Behavioral change at the client level and the client’s team is extremely rewarding when they grok the sales process, methodology and start to hammer high action down through the funnel to CLOSED-WON. Watching all the principles I espouse in these blogs, hardened in the trenches, come to fruition for those that would dare try apply COMBO literally, is what I live for!
5. Passion: You can call it Grant Cardone 10X or Obsession but I stay dedicated to setting 10X goals every day, every quarter and every year to push myself to the next level. I’ve hit many of them inadvertently by shooting for the stars and hitting a mountain.
6. Go off the grid: Every 90 days, shut off all your electronics and go into the outback on walkabout. You’ve gotta unplug from social media, your cell phone alerts, the screens, Netflix and chill, and inbox Zero false hope. Go back to nature or run across your country like Forest Gump. Get real and back to who you are as a human. Epiphanies flow to an open mind. Digital overload has deadened human creativity. Do you think Michaelangelo was rushing to respond to a tweet?
7. Life-Long Learning: Constantly strive for knowledge, wisdom, mentorship, reverse mentorship and read widely across many subject matter areas to cross-train. I absolutely loved this video by Jeb Blount. Readers are leaders and writers are sellers. Never stop learning! There’s truly a correlation between the level of success possible and how much one reads. Yes, you can learn by apprenticeship and doing but you need to get Zig, Bosworth, Eades, Thull, Holden, Rackham, Adamson, Holmes, et. al burned into your DNA! Turn your car into a classroom.

Instead of burning out, KTFB – keep the fire burning.

Sure there are days where you’ll feel overwhelmed (I have many), face the crippling defeat of a lost sale, be met with only silence and rejection, face the blowtorch of internal corporate politics, and flat out want to quit. You’re only human and that’s par for the course. But just like Billy Joel entreated, “Don’t forget your second wind!”

Persistence, tenacity, and grit will pay off in spades. Approach your life and your role with a “beginner’s mind” and growth mindset. Carpe Diem – Seize the day! Sometimes I feel like Benjamin Buttons. You’d be shocked that after reading hundreds of books, attending more seminars than I can remember, and coaching/closure of thousands of sales cycles, it’s still day one on the learning curve.

We’ve never lived in a more exciting time than right now. The machine age, the blossoming of the fourth industrial revolution (from automation to intelligence) where heart, man, machine and software automation are all simultaneously hitting a wild nexus point to finally carry the realm of B2B Complex Sales forward is incredibly invigorating!

The post Secrets To Minimise Burnout appeared first on Head Of Sales.

When I sell there’s typically something nagging at my conscience that I’m avoiding. When I start the day there’s typically someone I’m afraid to call. Maybe the timing isn’t right or they’re too senior. Shoulda, woulda, coulda becomes didn’t.

Yes, I’m human. But to transcend I use fear as a guide that points me to what I should do next. Repetition is the mother of skill but it also gives us another profound gift which is the development of ‘gut instinct.’

Trust your gut. Let’s unpack this because we don’t really see gut instinct discussed in many books or blogs because it’s our inner dialog, our inner voice and world.

Jack Canfield used to say, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” Another one was, “FEAR: future events appearing real.”

I thought these two concepts were a bit esoteric and it would serve my audience to bring them to light.

When you sit down at work tomorrow, do not check your email. Write down what you are most afraid to do instead. Granted, this thing is high integrity: moral, ethical, etc. Maybe it is a demon you need to face. Most likely you’re procrastinating, overthinking, or trying to be too perfect.

NOW TAKE ACTION!!!

That’s really the secret – my gut talks to me throughout the day, an inner voice I trust. It leads me through the deal. I play out 50 chess moves and stay a dozen moves ahead. When the voice is nagging at me or I’m fearful of something, it’s probably something I really need to do.

When you look at the company, who intimidates you that could sign? Start there. Call there first. Call and have a conversation. The likelihood they delegate you or you get their executive assistant is 99%.

Put up pricing that is awe inspiring and value based. Don’t cave. Be principled in your negotiation.

So what are you afraid of most? Is it your success? Ruffling feathers. Do you think you can hunt for new business and win without stepping on any toes? To make a great omelet you’ve just gotta break eggs.

Do this experiment: Next time you prospect a company, add a Board Member. Just add them on LinkedIn. Once they add you back, write them a 3 sentence message thanking them and mentioning you’d like to have a quick chat about their thoughts on XYZ. You will be absolutely shocked how few people ever talk to Board Members, VCs, CEOs (yes, there still aren’t many on LinkedIn), COOs or CFOs. Yet these folks always get drawn in at the 11th hour to rubber stamp your deal!

A couple pithy quotes come to mind that are super relevant to this post. The late, great Dr. Wayne Dyer used to always say:

“Be independent of the good opinion of other people.” – Abraham Maslow

“The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.” – Tim Ferriss

So maybe I’m not advocating for throwing painkillers and pizza in the blender and fighting the angel of death. But there’s a comedic metaphor in here.

Your inner voice will seldom lie and always knows where to take you. Your compass or North Star will be when you move from selling to make money to serving other people. When you truly, in your heart of hearts are seeking to care and improve the business and lives of everyone you touch, get ready. You are in store to a) start to really enjoy this job and your life and b) be met with a remarkable set of magical circumstances.

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

Things we sellers fear most or Seven Steps To Sales Heaven? Only you can decide.

1. You are not in client services. You are not going to close an entire enterprise deal without a roller coaster of a decision maker, trial by fire in a committee, group think, emotion or crisis mode. They will RFP and reverse auction to squeeze you every time. Who doesn’t drive a hard bargain? Don’t you!
2. Of course, you’re afraid to dial the CFO, he can torpedo the account, the opportunity and pull it off the forecast. Relish this. Live in reality, not delusion. Qualify out – it’s OK. Live in truth.
3. Your presentation doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, if you are speaking more than 20% of the time while on-site you are only shooting your close rate in the foot. They will know you by the quality of your SPIN questions and listening.
4. If you’re not a team player, management will fire you. Nope. Pipeline cures all ills and top revenue producers are untouchable!
5. What if I burn out? Burn to shine and you’ll never burn out. The harder you push every minute of the job, the faster the time will fly. Burnout is a myth as is work-life balance. When you’re at work, prospect incessantly. Communicate with current opportunities, warm leads and drive on into the dark stormy night fearlessly with your fog lights on to slay the dragons of the unknown.
6. Calling one more time. Calling too many times as to be improper. Calling over someone’s head. Why fear any of these?
7. Pushing back. And the greatest fear of all in sales that separates the titans from the also rans: walking on the deal. You MUST be willing to walk on every deal. Especially after 6 months of the dance and in the 11th hour with everything riding on it. Always and only negotiate from a position of strength and never let them see you sweat or walk on you!

I don’t know what else to tell you. This sales thing violates a lot of psychology. We humans are fearful, sensitive creatures that fear the dark, the unknown and disappointing each other. We relish conformity, abhor rejection and seek the comfort of cliques. This is why I am beginning to think the lone wolf isn’t the worst analogy. It travels in packs but gets the hunting done. I’m not saying to be a wolf, but at least unleash the wolf in you: the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Never fear what you will lose. Fear instead only, the opportunity cost of not giving every moment of your sales day and life your absolute all!

As you sell… What do you fear? Where does your gut instinct take you? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

The post The Ultimate Sales Fuel: Fear Meets Gut Instinct appeared first on Head Of Sales.

So, choose which of the people below that most describes you.

Person A. Things run through your head: they won’t want to talk to me, they are too busy, I’m not quite right for them, I don’t want to disturb them, I don’t want to pester them, now isn’t the right time to approach them.

Person B. See all that person A does plus thinks – I’ll be brave, when the friend is nearby and if I feel its right I’ll casually give the friend my number to give to her.

Person C. There’s the hot person, I’m going to hang around where the hot person is. I’m going to be accessible and available. If there’s then an opportunity that arises naturally I can grab it. If not, I’m making an opportunity to strike up a meaningful conversation.

Person D. There’s the hot person, I’m going in!

Sound familiar to sales? Let’s set the scene. You are at an event and the ‘target’ client is over there.

Sales person A. Things run through your head: they won’t want to talk to me, they are too busy, I’m not quite right for them, I don’t want to disturb them, I don’t want to pester them, now isn’t the right time to approach them. No one likes to be approached.

(CK input: limited belief that everyone else is the same as you).

Sales person B. See all that person A does plus thinks – I’ll be brave, If I feel it’s right  I will leave my card. (CK input: the intention of ‘I’ll just leave a card’ will give a high probability in ‘just leaving a card’)

Sales person C. There’s the hot target prospect, I’m right or them, they are right for me. I’m going to hang around where the hot prospect is. I’m going to be accessible and available. If there’s then an opportunity that arises naturally I can grab it. If not, I’m making an opportunity to strike up a meaningful conversation.

Person D. There’s the hot prospect, I’m going in!

So, a few observations here.

1.    Your limited belief is what will make you or crush you. If you know your solution will benefit them then your ‘state’ will be in one of 100% congruency, positive, ‘can do’, and what follows your thinking is your behaviour – so your body language and what you say and how you say it.

2.    Know your target clients, know their names and have an opener ready. It’s better to be prepared and not have an opportunity then have an opportunity and not be prepared.

The post Why Sales Is Like Dating appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Success starts and ends with your thinking, change your thinking and you change your results.

Would you like:

• to make more profit faster, easier and with integrity?
• more happy clients who pay the rate your solution is worth and refer you?
• to embrace selling and feeling confident each time you are with a client?

Here are our five secrets to immediate business growth.

 Secret 1: Sales = helping

Think of it like this – here are people that need something solved. These people may need what you have. If you don’t let them know you can help them you are doing them a disservice!

 Be positive about your solution

 Start each day and interaction with ‘I’m here to help’

 I need to let more people know how my solution can assist them in their lives/work by making them happier, saving or making money, saving or creating time.

 Secret 2. Understand your customer

Stop trying to sell! Stop trying to ‘persuade’.

Move your attention and your focus onto ‘understanding’ your client and how your solution can help them.

 Ask questions

Build an arsenal of open ended questions to keep your client talking about their situation. Have hundreds of questions practiced.

Be inquisitive, be curious

Your questions should be a natural expansion of what they are saying, It shouldn’t feel like an interview. There should be flow. It needs to be obvious why you are asking the question and tailored to that client. 84% of customers say being treated like a person/an individual, not a number, is very important to winning their business*

Secret 3. Stop talking and start listening

 The only talking you should be doing is asking fantastic questions. 90% of the time the client should be talking. You need to be listening.

Be present – By being prepared for the meeting and clearing all distractions in your mind you can focus 100% on what your client is saying

Listen and beware

We have a propensity to hear what we want to hear and jump to assumptions.

Aligning

The client has told you everything they want – NOW forward your solution that aligns with their values, motivation, desires, likes and dislikes.

 Secret 4. Do what others will not do

While I was blueberry picking with my 6-year-old he said ‘Mum let’s go through the middle  of the row’ which looked difficult. When I asked him why his response was ‘If you do what everyone else has done you will get what everyone else has got’. That’s what business development is about – finding other ways to seek opportunities.

Plan

The answer to your dreams is having continuous growth. Business Development professionals know how much time needs to be dedicated to growing the business. They know how many calls and meetings they need to do to exceed target.

Take action consistently

You don’t get thin by eating one healthy meal – and you don’t grow the business doing business development once. Put times in your diary. Stick to it. Be disciplined.

 Follow Up

 The average follow up needed is 12. Most sales people give up after three. The hard work has already taken place and then you lose it to a competitor simply because they happen to follow up more times than you. Learn about adding value with your follow ups so it’s  not a ‘I’m just follow up’ conversation.

#Secret 5. Be in charge of your own mindset (your state of mind)

Success begins and ends with your mindset. If you think that client won’t buy you are right. If you think you need to negotiate, you are right. If you think the market is tough, you are right. Conversely, if you think you can make 20 calls a day and the market is buoyant, you are right. If you think it’s easy, you are right. You really are acting out the sum of your thoughts.

 Re frame

One of the easiest ways to flip any negative mindset is to do a reframe. Quickly think of something worst. I read once that if we all wrote our problems on a piece of paper and threw them in a hat, once we saw what others have wrote we would soon grab our own out again. Good reframe hey? You can have that one on me.

Positive anchor

The client who said thank you, this solution really helped. An email you kept from a happy client. Feel the feelings and hear the words of happy, contented clients.

Gratitude

Start your day with gratitude. It’s no surprise that if your standard of living has increased ten fold from when you were young then you probably start each day with knowing  how lucky you are. Always be grateful for what you have and acknowledge your skills that got you where you are today.

The post 5 Sales Tactics To Know appeared first on Head Of Sales.

If you have decided you are in charge of your outcomes then this is the article for you.

A success mindset means you are:

• accountable
• always enhancing your performance
• driving for improvement.

You seek, and create, great results. You have created a set of habits.

Substantial, continuous business growth stems from the right habits repeated so consistently they become unconscious. The same way as one healthy meal eaten a week ago won’t get us thinner- (damn) one great day doing calls won’t get us to smash our targets every month.

What we are after is creating a habit of repeated, consistent excellent behaviour.

7 steps for creating the right habits

1) RECOGNITION

So before we ‘create a habit’ we need to recognise that one needs to be created!

Sounds simple right? I just think of it, write it down and do it.

Well if it was that easy everyone would be doing it!

First you need to recognise that things can be done better, that in the case of sales (which usually means the ‘habit’ is connected to business growth) then more business is out there waiting for you.

There is always more to understand, to learn, to process, to adopt. Never think you have reached ‘the top’ as then you are closed to learning. So, the first step is the recognition that there is more to learn, we can always evolve. That growth comes from stretching your skill set. (Good news is that once stretched it never shrinks back).

If you are a sales manager you may have fallen into the habit of telling your team what to do, tell them their new habit- i.e. how many calls to make etc.

What is often missing in this attempt to drum up business and new behaviours/ habits is the team just isn’t sold on it!

You need them to recognise there is a fantastic habit to adopt.

2) DESIRE

Now you’ve recognised there’s more out there to learn, you need to create the desire to want to do something about it!

Recognition without desire is, well, pointless for sales!

Sales is about taking action whatever the weather.

Desire comes from knowing how it will affect your life. And therefore having an inner need that’s so burning, you would move mountains to make it happen. If you are doing something out of your ‘norm’ the behaviour you want to create needs to be an inner need so strong that you are prepared to do things you don’t normally do.

If it’s border line desire, it won’t get past go. You won’t even start. The first obstacle will stall you.

If you are a manager don’t bang on about your desire to increase sales: you are not your team! Sarah’s desire to get results isn’t the same as Marco’s.

Work out what fires their desire. When do their eyes light up? What does each person care about? What motivates that person?

3) FOCUS ON THE OUTCOME

Make sure you are crystal clear on your outcome.

“More money” won’t cut the mustard. (would you be happy with a dollar more)? Be specific.

• Write it up so it’s in your visual cortex.
• See that goal/number.
• Believe that goal.
• Run the feeling you will feel when you get there, when you have it.
• What do you see – how will you feel?
• Start to ‘step into the shoes’ of that person who has achieved their outcome.

Now, look back… what did it take to get there?

4) ACTION

Break down what needs to happen to achieve that outcome.

What do you need to do daily, weekly, monthly to make that happen? Bullet point it.

For around 80% of us that are highly visual, it would help to put that list up somewhere where we see it daily. How many calls do I need to do daily with XYZ conversion to get this amount over the line. Be crystal clear on the journey needed.

5) CREATE A ‘TRIGGER’

If your action is to call prospects every morning then create an ‘anchor’ around a routine you do each morning.

For example, each time I have my coffee I will call up my first prospect.

To create ‘space’ to do your new behaviour you need to break an old one. What do you normally do when you have your coffee? If what you currently do is more appealing than your new ‘action’ you will struggle to find the will to drop it. Create a new space for your habit.

6) HABITS ARE MUSCLES

Use it or loose it. (Or in this case ‘do it or loose it’).

Do it every day. Habits are actions repeated so often you are unaware. So, do it when you say you will. Commit to it.

If it’s daily that’s an easier habit for most then making it weekly or monthly.

Daily for 30 days…then cha-ching you now have a new behaviour/ habit!

7) MEASURE

Have check in points to measure how you are tracking. Review every 3 months or so, this way you can tweak and evolve your habit.

My question to you: what anchors have you created for yourself to stick to your habits?

The post Mindset determines your success appeared first on Head Of Sales.

I’ve read a brilliant book, The Sales Survival Handbook by Ken Kupchick which details the realities of a career in sales, sprinkled with humour.

Here is an edited excerpt on what salespeople can expect in their career. Ken has arranged these into three categories—the good, the bad, and the crazy.

The Good

Let’s start off with all of the great things that can happen to you in sales:

• You have the opportunity to make more money than you’ve ever made before but you’ll never have to worry about what to do in your free time since you won’t have any.
• You’ll get to meet many different people from all walks of life and it’s the only job where you can call someone dozens of times without having to worry about a restraining order.
• There is great job security since nearly every company in the world has a sales force.
• You are in complete control of your own income, which means you’ll be able to buy lots of new things you’ll never get to enjoy since you’ll always be working.
• You will become an expert in persuasion, which can help you in business as well as relationships.
• Your coworkers will become like your family—the kind of family you want to abandon forever once you’re old enough to leave.
• The fast-paced and diverse lifestyle of sales can make the workday feel exciting.
• Once you have established a big enough recurring customer base, you can have a more flexible schedule and spend your time pursuing your passions, if you have any left by that point in your life.

The Bad

Sales is a constant battle for success; here are some of the challenges you’ll deal with:

• Customers lie to you on a regular basis, which has spawned the popular sales phrase “buyers are liars.”
• Compensation plans and quotas change constantly, and while management presents them as “new and improved,” they almost always make it more difficult to earn money.
• Sales can be so stressful that some people experience PSSD—Post-Sales Stress Disorder.
• Management constantly puts more and more pressure on sales reps to produce. “What have you done for me lately?” isn’t just a guilt trip from your spouse anymore, it’s a guilt trip from your sales manager, whom you spend more time with than your spouse anyway.
• At the end of every month, quarter, etc., you go from “hero to zero,” when everyone starts from scratch again. If you performed poorly, you go from “zero to zero,” and if that happens too many times in a row, you go from “zero to unemployed.”
• The competition can be intense, nearly violent, and doesn’t always play fair, and that’s just your coworkers.
• Even though you’re usually selling to new people, the repetition of prospecting, pitching, and following up will make you dream about work every night, when you’d rather dream about your manager falling down the stairs.
• The sales training “gurus” your company will hire have never successfully sold anything in their lives except for their sales training to your company.
• Demanding clients and hard-driving managers will mean long work hours, and you will get to see your family less than you’d like to, or exactly as little as you’d like to.
• Since you’ll be making more money than you’ve ever made in your life, an audible gasp will emanate from your throat when you see how much money has been taken out of your commission check for taxes.

The Crazy

Here are some crazy facts that you need to know if you want to survive in sales:

• It takes an average of 12 follow-up calls to close a deal, which is at least 11 more calls than you’ll ever feel like making.
• The best time to cold-call someone is between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m., which is exactly when the rush of your gigantic afternoon energy drink starts to wear off.
• Thursday is considered the best day to prospect, by which point in the week all you can think about is moving to a country with a three-day workweek.
• In 2007, it took an average of less than four phone calls to close a deal, and now it takes eight. At this pace, by 2030, it will probably take 300.
• An average of 50 percent of sales go to the first person to contact a prospect, and zero percent go to the first person to show up at the prospect’s house at midnight.
• Only about 11 percent of salespeople ask for referrals, probably because the other 89 percent wouldn’t recommend themselves to anyone either.
• Each year in business, you’ll lose about 14 percent of your customers and 42 percent of your hair.
• Nearly 13 percent of all the jobs in the United States are full-time sales positions, and the other 87 percent are filled by those who spend their days ignoring salespeople.
• It is estimated that over half of the people making their living in sales should do something else, which is a fact that slightly more than half of us are already well aware of.
• Over 90 percent of all customer sales interactions happen over the phone, which is bad news for any salespeople who have a really high-pitched voice.

You can Buy Ken’s book on Amazon here.

The post When Being In Sales Becomes A Joke appeared first on Head Of Sales.

It’s a question I’ve asked a couple of times in workshops and online, and it’s a question that was triggered by a few ‘posts’ I read, stating that

Salespeople today don’t execute on the basics.

And my response is – what are the basics then?

And as would have it on social, there was a plethora of responses, from which I randomly collected this bakers dozen:

1.    Understand your customer’s business issues and what they want

2.    Ask intelligent and strategic questions

3.    Listen a lot more than you talk

4.    Make your key objective to help the customer, not to close a sale

5.    Know your prospects.

6.    Know your competition

7.  Solve their problems

8.  Know your company story

9.  Build rapport

10. Understand the buyers needs and KPIs

11. Networking

12. Storytelling

13. Find the problem, discover solution, present why solution is best for prospect

Are any of these wrong? Far from it.

Whilst these are skills that every salesperson must have and is typically the focus traditional sales training provides, I don’t believe they are the basics, nor do I believe they are the focus for the future sales professional that business wants and needs.

Whilst they are a combination of general sales skills ie networking and storytelling, as well as role based sales skills ie account management and marketing, as well as communication sales skills ie rapport and listening, I would suggest they are, what I call, ‘surface basics’.

I believe there must be another layer beneath these ‘surface basics’ that make results stick, that make people execute and that provide an environment of growth – something essential, primary almost. Something that forms a solid foundation for these ‘surface basics’ to sit on.

And I’d like to refer to them as Identity Skills.

It’s almost a Simon Sinek moment with a fundamental circle missing. We know what we need to do, how and why we have to do things, and if your people don’t know any of those three areas, then they are taught, coached, mentored or shadowed until they do. We would hope!!

Even if that is the case, sometimes many still don’t get it!! There is a gap. And for those that feel there is a gap, then this might help… it’s drilling down into the WHO – and accessing what I term my ChangeMaker Circle. The Basics of any form of Leadership.

According to the World Economic Forum, ‘by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today …”

Based on this, the top 10 job skills you will need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Connection Economy or the Imagination Era are:

1.      Complex problem solving

2.      Critical thinking

3.      Creativity

4.      People management

5.      Co-ordinating with others

6.      Emotional intelligence

7.      Judgment and decision making

8.      Service orientation

9.      Negotiation

10.   Cognitive flexibility

(Source: Future of Jobs Report, World Economic Forum)

So, if we take the top three as a sample and reframe them as our foundational basics, our previously shared ‘surface basics’ seem a little lacking:

Complex Problem Solving Skills

How do we develop our complex problem solving skills? What part of the brain is defaulting to emotions or confusion which means you get anxious, overwhelmed or stressed because you can’t quite compute something fast enough, or deep enough? If most salespeople struggle with selling value or holding margin when they are in a crucial conversation, then what value would building their ‘problem-solving skills’ give them instead of ‘overcoming objection’ training? If the role of a sales leader is to lift others, then how are they teaching, coaching or mentoring their team to solve ever increasing complex problems or deal with the complexities in today’s economic climate. Somehow, focusing on ‘closing skills’ doesn’t seem enough.

Critical Thinking

How about critical thinking? Negotiation was one of the must have ‘basic skills’ a few years back as was ‘active listening’, but it has been overtaken, well and truly by the need to tap into the ‘executive brain’, assess what’s important and make connections between what you already know and potentially create new ideas and information that would create value for others. With so much data, insights, analytics and business intelligence, being able to see patterns, or keep an open mind and override those unconscious biases that rise-up when we hear things, or see or notice different things is crucial. Just uncovering the buyer’s problems or challenges is not enough today, it’s being able to make that mean something which is the skill we need to learn.

Creativity

And creativity. How often do we need to come up with fresh ideas. or need to be more creative in our approach, our conversations and our outcomes, especially with so much volatility in the market through new products, price fluctuations, new roles that haven’t even been thought of yet and new ways of working within this new economy. Artificial Intelligence may help us do things more productively and efficiently but those algorithms aren’t quite ready to be ‘creatives’ just yet. We need to tap into our ‘imaginations’ more to get those fresh and competitive ideas flowing more freely and to also help inspire ourselves and those around us.

So, the grass-root basics in this interconnected and imagination era look a little different today than they used to in the industrial economy, and even the previous knowledge/informationeconomy as shown in this ‘evolution of leadership’ model by the About My Brain Institute.

For us to move with the times means unlearning, learning and relearning what we need to, especially when it comes to the basics.

Respectfully, the basics shared earlier, whilst important, are certainly no longer enough, moving forward, for the salesperson of the future to hang their hat on.

Can you experiment with what it takes to be a real problem solver, a deep thinker and an inspired creative? If so, then you have a surefire head start as someone people want to work with.

Be Bold, Brave and Brilliant

The post The Science of Basic Selling Skills appeared first on Head Of Sales.