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.

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No matter who they speak with in your business – in their eyes they are all ‘the company’.

In a pre-digital world, there were salespeople and everyone else. Now a prospect can understand a business across a myriad of social media channels before they speak to anyone in your business. They read comments posted online, they judge the quality of your content, the reviews of your products and how the company responds. This is all before they speak to a ‘salesperson’.

No matter who they speak with in your business – the receptionist, customer service, someone in the delivery dock, an engineer – in their eyes they are all ‘the company’.

The client doesn’t care about the job titles of the people they come into contact with. What they will notice is whether everybody in the organisation is in synch with the ‘brand’ or not. Being consistent across every touchpoint builds trust.

So everyone in your organisation has a shared accountability for how the business is represented and how attractive the company is for people to want to buy from them.

When it is understood that every person in your business is in sales, it becomes obvious how customer experience and customer service is the new sales.

To be in synch means everyone in the business understands:

• Exactly what the business does,
• How it delivers value to its customers,
• The commitment the business has made to service its customers,
• How imperative it is to HELP a customer or prospect,
• What it means to BE the brand.

When everyone is ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ it supports:

• Customer satisfaction and retention,
• Staff alignment,
• Stronger teamwork and
• Business growth!

Imagine if every person in your business had the same training as a salesperson. How valuable would it be if everyone understood the power of?

• Active listening
• Insightful, open ended questions
• Adaptability
• Accountability
• Negotiation
• Presentation
• Language
• Confidence
• Helping

Next time anyone says ‘but I’m not in sales’ – ask them what they think a salesperson actually does. Because salespeople don’t just sell, they build relationships, they build trust, they listen and solve problems. They help people. Isn’t that the philosophy that everyone should be adopting so customers want to buy from you and stay with you?

Sales training for the entire business. Now that is evolutionary!

The post Everyone In Your Organisation Is In Sales appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Not only for its own sake, but as part of the life-long, habitual practice of being thorough in everything you do. So, why do we say that organisations are built on culture?

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines an organisation as “a group of people who work together in an organised way for a shared purpose”. I see this definition as having four parts: (1) A group of people (2) Who work together (3) In an organised way (4) For a shared purpose.

However, breaking the definition down to such a degree changes the original concept, and instead of objectively defining an organisation, I believe it idealises one. The first point is the bare minimum to be an organisation; the other three are the qualities that make up a productive organisation.

Furthermore, they form a pyramid of importance: a group of people can be anything from a successful company to a smattering of passengers on a bus, but a group who works together become a team. If that team can work together in an organised way, you have efficiency. Finally, if a shared purpose can underpin and inform the actions of that team, then you have something special.

So, where does culture fit into this definition?

The simple, but not particularly easy answer is: everywhere.

A group of people will always naturally develop a culture over time. Supporters at a sporting event grow rowdy or excited or despondent together over the course of one match. A group of high school friends, whether consciously or not, will over time decide what they do and don’t like to do, and will in turn either support or dismiss the actions of their peers based on this culture.

Beyond the first part of the definition, the idea of culture splits in two: conscious and unconscious.

Your high school friendship group, for example, probably isn’t aware that their obsession with a particular genre of music could be closing them off to a wider world of sound. On the flip side, that same obsession might happen to foster an appreciation for the virtue of disciplined, consistent practice needed for constant improvement. Either way, it’s most often luck.

A step beyond this (usually) unconscious culture-building, is “working together” in “an organised way”. To stay with the high school example, this is where something like team sports come in.

Instead of building a culture based on who you sit with at lunch and what you end up idly chatting about, these people build their culture around more organised, conscious objectives. For one thing, you change into a different uniform to participate in this culture – you change from the school uniform, which everyone wears, into your particular sport’s designated training or playing gear. You wear numbers on your back, which will, in many sports, decide exactly how you’re meant to work together. In rugby union, the number 10 can commonly expect a pass from the number 9.

Though more complicated, this same kind of structure extends to the working world. If you’re an assistant manager, you can expect most of your directives to come from the manager. If you’re a sales rep, you should expect to be making some sales.

However, in both situations, and really in any organisation, this is the broadest, least productive understanding of culture you could have. If the depth of your connection to your number on the sporting field is knowing where you’re meant to stand, then the only culture your team has is that you’re playing a particular sport. If the depth of your connection to the title on your name tag is knowing that sales reps make sales, then your workplace’s culture is probably only as deep as “people work here”.

Culture is everywhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s always working for us. Our culture of convenience is one of the reasons for Australia’s (and much of the developed world’s) obesity crisis, for example. Our culture of connection in the digital age is one of the reasons so many young people are experiencing higher levels of depression and anxiety than ever before. These examples highlight the difference between conscious and unconscious cultures. Whether you know it or not, every group, every organisation has a culture, and the impact of each one is inescapable.

So the goal, then, is not to build a culture – that will happen no matter what. Instead, the goal is to build the right culture.

In rugby union, everyone must wear boots. But in the All Blacks, rugby union’s most successful national team, everyone wears black boots. Apart from headgear and mouthguards, boots are the only uniform item that individual members can pick for themselves, and as such, you see a dizzying array of flashy, neon colours striding across the pitch on any given game. The All Blacks, of course, don’t have to wear black boots, but it’s about culture: everyone’s on the same team, driven by the same goals, and wearing the same boots is just another reminder of this fact.

But who decides this?

In a team like the All Blacks, who decides everyone wears the same boots? In a huge company, who decides that every member should prioritise learning? Who makes the standards, and who upholds them?

The answer, in any domain, is the leader. In a truly productive organisation, that really means everyone, because in a productive organisation, everyone behaves and acts like a leader. But realistically, and especially in bigger organisations, a leadership structure needs to be anchored by specified, formal leaders. And so then, the question becomes, how do you choose the right leader?

Choosing a leader is a concentrated version of choosing a culture. Culture is ultimately the behaviour and practice of a group of people, and the right leader will not only influence their team’s behaviours and practices in the right direction, but will bring a new dimension of understanding to what makes a productive culture. Productivity is the ratio of outputs to inputs, and so maximising this ratio is only half the battle – the other half is prioritising the right outputs. Publishing more books is a good step for a publication house, for example, but only if they’re good books.

Clearly, selecting the right leader is incredibly important for an organisation, and doing so can sometimes feel like weathering a heavy storm on open seas without a compass. So if I can at least offer a compass, that might be the first step in offering some security and clarity in making this all-important decision.

I use this framework when consulting or offering support to others, but I also use it regularly to assess myself as a leader. I am the leader of my small business, and so I need to consistently check myself, and assure that I am the right person for the job. Since designing The 15 Disciplines framework, it has been the bedrock of all of my leadership thinking, and so serves as the starting point for my leadership investigation.

15 questions to establish the criteria for choosing leaders in your own organisation:

1. Do you have the capacity to override your own emotions to respond productively to a situation rather than react unproductively?

2. Will you lead from a foundation of credibility, not a foundation of authority?

3. Will you ensure ethical decisions are made for the greater good of the organisation, despite the harm, discomfort or inconvenience it may cause to a few, or even yourself?

4. Will you challenge the way people in your organisation think and act so that they understand how this impacts the intended outcomes?

5. Do you hold a strategic perspective of all factors in and around your organisation that either energise or de-energise its capacity to achieve its objectives?

6. Do you have the capacity to prioritise and systematically coordinate activity with a team to ensure it will achieve the standards required of a task or project?

7. Will you establish and maintain a position of control to ensure delegated tasks will be completed on time and to standard without relinquishing overall responsibility for the task?

8. Will you orient yourself to new information in a timely manner to ensure your decisions remain relevant to achieving objectives?

9. Will you ensure all people are provided an equal opportunity to succeed and treat them differently, according to their demonstrated competence and commitment?

10. Do you have the capacity to maintain a positive culture and leverage small successes to elevate people’s performance?

11. Will you create an inclusive environment through the fair and appropriate dissemination of information and expectations?

12. Will you maintain a healthy emotional and physical lifestyle to ensure you are in the best condition to lead and inspire others to do the same?

13. Will you connect a diverse group of people to a common cause to ensure unproductive sub-cultures do not form?

14. Will you be a credible exemplar of the standards you expect of every team member and build accountability in others for those standards?

15. Will you create a safe place for people to share the good, the bad and the ugly to ensure a continuous cycle of learning and growth in team capacity?

Remember that culture is a living thing: it is constantly evolving, and leaders need to do so in order to remain productive. Check in with these questions whenever you feel that you or your organisation’s leaders may need to evolve with changing times or priorities.

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For many years the legend of the 600lb sales gorilla or Alpha Hyper Masculine ‘sales superstar’ has been strutting the hallways and boardrooms of businesses. Often revered for achieving top of the league ladder sales results, yet feared by many for their aggressive, manipulative, ego centric, demanding, intimidating antics, countless CEO’s and sales managers have allowed these sales prima donnas to remain in their sales teams but at what cost to their sales team and their business?

Too scared to confront them about their behaviours or sales tactics for fear of losing their sales contribution, many sales managers and their sales team have simply suffered in the presence of these sales bullies. In my many years of working with sales teams and sales managers I have met my fair share of Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies and their distressed managers and sales teams. Here’s what I have observed:

1. They have the ear of the Managing Director/CEO who thinks they can do no wrong.
2. They won’t let the business anywhere near their customers.
3. They tell tall tales about their legendary sales conquests.
4. They refuse to be coached, counselled or trained.
5. They are very demanding, always complaining about the lack of resources and taking up the time of countless people to do their bidding, leaving the other sales people to fend for themselves.
6. They often exhibit bad behaviour, and may be heard swearing or making inappropriate comments to their colleagues or other staff who are often too fearful to report them (see point 1).
7. They can engage in questionable sales tactics, yet claim that they are pristine and operate with the utmost of integrity.
8. They claim to know a lot of people and be very well connected.
9. They use actual or implied intimidation to get their way with internal team members.
10. They use charm and manipulation to get their way with key stakeholders.
11. They act with righteous indignation if you question anything about them.
12. They don’t think they need to comply with company policies so often refuse to complete paperwork or keep up to date CRM’s if they think it’s a ‘waste of time’.

You only have to watch the movie ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ to see your fair share of Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies. This type of sales culture was revered by a number of industry sectors in the 70’s and 80’s, including real estate, car sales, stock broking, etc. Watching it makes me feel ill, but many sales teams got off on this and even use ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ as a model of how they should sell in some quarters today.

Yet most people watching ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ or meeting their very own Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies feel repulsed by them. Often very wary of them, others wonder why they have to tolerate them and why management won’t act. Truth is these sales bullies have never been pulled into line. Their outstanding sales results have somehow bought them immunity from behaving in a civil manner. The smell of money they can bring in has condoned behaviour that has often outweighed the need to act ethically and uphold team values and respectful behaviour. Their bad behaviour has been allowed to manifest without restrictions, ‘oh let him get away with it. Look at the results he pulls in’. These sales gorillas are the direct result of poor quality leadership, lack of clear standards and bad decision making.

What most businesses do not know is that these sales bullies, for all their so called sales success, actually fall well behind the real sales superstars in terms of achieving high level and sustainable sales results who, by contrast, are open minded, curious, collaborative, team oriented, open to learning and aim for partnerships on every level. And these real sales superstars are humble too which is a direct contradiction to the behaviour of the sales bullies.

• So are you currently letting fear hold you and your team hostage by allowing your Alpha Hyper Masculine sales bullies to persist?
• What would happen if you got rid of the sales bullies?
• How would the rest of your team respond when they left?
• What would happen to sales and the clients?

In my experience when the sales bully – the Alpha finally departs, there is an initial sense of shock which quickly gives way to relief and the opportunity for the sales team to really pull together and prosper. The biggest fear of losing the sales bully’s sales power and their clients doesn’t eventuate in the vast majority of cases. In fact it is often revealed that the clients are happy the sales bully has left and look forward to a more open and prosperous relationship with the company concerned and sales grow even more.

I am not suggesting that most leaders intentionally hired these sales bullies or intended for them to manifest however, without clear codes of conduct or values and a proper understanding of what you want by way of ‘ good sales performance’ ‘ you cannot hire or develop the right salespeople to do the right things in the right sales culture.

In his book ‘The No Asshole Rule’, Leigh Buchanan writes about bosses behaving badly. Its thesis – don’t hire jerks, has become public policy in many companies around the world. I would suggest we think clearly about what we want manifested in our sales teams and take a leaf out of Leigh’s book and make sure we employ ‘The No Asshole Rule’ and don’t hire sales jerks.

The post Hiring A 300kg Gorilla Is A Big Mistake! Why? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Get off the 3rd appendage. If aliens descended they’d be confounded with why humans have only one hand. The entire society is glued to a piece of plastic, silicon circuits, and flashing light through gorilla glass. It’s unnatural, unhealthy, and sociologically inept.

We’ve already ruined society so why ruin Modernized Selling too? What’s wrong with this picture? Probably everything!

When I walk through a company from startup to corporation, my first mandate is to listen: not to the platitudes of executives asking for cutting edge new “closing techniques” but for the tenor and tone of the sales floor. If the culture is a closed door, sanctuary, with an “open office layout” oxymoron of nobody talking to colleagues or prospects on the phone, I know that something has truly gone awry in Denmark.

Sales floors should be loud. No exceptions.

This image looks like a blast, but this is not selling. This is leisure people!

If you are sitting near a strategic seller, and it sounds like a zen spa in the background, be wary. That rep is not busy or doing their job. Top reps that prospect like Terminator are crazy busy. Top sales floors are filled with the noises of hustle and bustle, not the thump of muted techno while the keys fall like acid rain. Top sales establishments have their own conference rooms packed with clients. Their reps are either pounding the phones standing with headsets, or out in the field face to face with customers.

What I’d really like to construct is something like an Applause-o-meter from old black and white TV game shows. A Sales-o-meter where I can monitor the sound from 1 to 10, from a traditional church to Monster Truck Rally!

It’s really easy to immediately challenge the organization I’m consulting.

If you’re having a problem with revenue, why does your sales floor sound like a funeral procession?

Energy, this is what’s missing in modern sales. Passion! Try as you might to convey this with your next spammy email, InMail or DM on Twitter but it gets lost in translation of the white wall of noise enveloping the modern prospect.

YOU will separate yourself from the next 999 reps if you always err to the phone.

Dig through the deadwood in your CRM and call all the numbers. Don’t ping your warm opportunities in the funnel with “touching base” and “checking in” emails. Get on the phone and call them. Call them again. Leave them tailored messages that are short and sweet, and that focus on them and their industry rather than what you’re selling.

I’ve got one rep I coach who got reprimanded for disrupting the sales floor with outbound prospecting. The CSO asked him to book a calling pod and ensure that any time in the POD is logged on the Google calendar.

Constraining when reps can call and forcing them to book time on calendars is the absolute height of inanity insanity! STOP the madness!

If you’re reading this and agree, get up and let out a Billy Idol rebel yell at your desk now. Start standing up while you make outbound prospecting calls. Get live and loud! Tell your boss you’re going to double your pipeline by using a phone strategy. Then get ahold of phone numbers, as many as you can – from business cards, from autoresponders, from Data.com, ZoomInfo, Google Searches – WIT – whatever it takes! I dunno, even open the cobwebby CRM thingamajig!

Always err to the phone. Inbound lead… Call. Email follow up… Call. Top, Middle, Bottom of funnel… Call. Step one… Call.

If I ran a modern sales team again, I’d buy a Polycom for every rep and put a few per room and they’d round robin making prospecting calls with headsets and coaching each other as they sharpen the sword of value and insight.

It’s remarkable to me that SDRs are not on the phone. It’s remarkable to me that modern Strategic Sales Executives show up to work, get coffee, complain about the leads, check the sports scores and never once even pick up their cell phone. (Yes, the one the company is reimbursing for primarily Facebook and LinkedIn fluff.)

Late addition from comments made to this post by the legendary Mark Hunter: “I had an inside sales manager tell me he had to get rid of the gong he had on the floor. Each time one of his team members made a sale they got to ring the gong. He was asked by HR to remove it because another sales manager said it was too noisy for his team. Note to HR…fire the other sales manager! Note to the CEO – fire HR!” I agree Mark! They should install a ‘rock concert grade amp stack’ to play this cowbell track every time someone wins a deal.

Now I’m not denigrating Social Selling; I’m advocating making the PHONE the central pillar of that strategy too. Pull up Sales Navigator, check your common connections, school in common, contacts in your own company that know them, triggers like press releases, expansion, M&A, product innovation, job changes but then pick up the phone to tell them about it. Google their name, pull a quote and call their cell phone to talk about how the quote links into a business case.

This is why I absolutely love video-based email like BombBomb. Record a video that shows you did even 30 seconds of social stalking (research) and send the image of you speaking, inflection, body language and all. This is the undiscovered country, the next frontier. You need to be more human than a human. You need to crack the cyborg “digitalfication” of everything in sales and become organic matter again.

There’s a counter culture movement happening right now in sales that reminds me of CrossFit. Sellers just can’t guzzle the corn syrup like gerbils on the spinning wheel of Social anymore. It’s time to get real, get live and get loud. Are you with me? Come on feel the noise!!!

The post All Sales Floors Should Be Loud!!! appeared first on Head Of Sales.

We’ve all been there: a sea of people, pulled together from across the country or region, locked in a windowless room with artificial light, seated at round tables with mints and water, patiently waiting for the parade of presenters to finish their ‘Death by PowerPoint’ presentations so we can get to the coffee station during the day and then the bar at night to start really engaging with our colleagues. During the day some relief can be found in the smartphones that everyone will be less and less discreetly looking at repeatedly, checking messages and social media for something to actually engage in, as the show drags on.

Every now and then the boredom is punctuated by some lively motivational speaker who tells us ‘You can do anything!’ (insert FIST PUMP), ‘Just believe in yourself’ (insert HIGH FIVE), ‘Be positive and great things will happen for you’ (insert VISUALISATION EXERCISE), ‘Now turn and tell the person next to you why you are so awesome and deserve endless riches’ (insert GROUP ACTIVITY), ‘Think about the challenges you have overcome that made you who you are’ (insert STORYTELLING). And so on.

This interlude is like a sugar hit. Perks people up for a short while, and then fades again.

The sales conference may have a big awards night or extracurricular activities, an entertainment extravaganza filled with lots of fun things to do, lots of food and drink, lots of prize giving, etc. That is fine, that can be appropriate. On top of that, participants simply might enjoy the location, the hotel, meeting colleagues, getting some time out. But is this what the conference should be all about?

So let’s start to rethink why and how we run sales conferences.

Why have a sales conference?

They are expensive to run and time consuming so we had better make it worth our while. Be clear about what you are actually trying to achieve. If the purpose is to get people together, interact, have a good time away from work, fine. But if it is about selling, sharing or generating knowledge, or any other topics relevant for everyday work, you cannot leave achieving such a goal to chance, or PowerPoint.

Purpose & Context

• There must be an overarching purpose to running a sales conference, a meaningful story and context that people can relate to.
• Set clear goals. What are you trying to achieve by running the sales conference?
  • Launch a new game changing product or service?
  • Reset the culture and team dynamics?
  • Launch the new sales strategy?
  • Bring the team together to focus on new capabilities, competitive edge, etc.?
• Have a plan. A good conference follows a logic thread, a storyline, it systematically builds something up and guides people to this result.

Make sure you are very clear about what you are trying to achieve. And any motivational speakers you bring into the mix must serve this purpose and context. Any extracurricular activities can still add flavour to this mix if planned and done well.

How to run a sales conference

There are a number of simple guidelines to follow to get your sales conference right:

• Actively engage people from the outset. Make it clear that they are not meant to be passive recipients of whatever kind of messages.
• Set context and purpose, and then create the right environment for active engagement. Make sure your preparation work has identified not only what is important to the organisation, but also what is relevant for the participants.
• Creating meaningful engagement acts as a catalyst for positive change and momentum. Giving your audience the chance to participate and contribute creates more buy-in than most motivational speakers.
• Rather than talking at the audience and telling them what we want them to hear and do, why not turn it around and make the audience the content providers, the active participants and the bringers of wisdom? Turn the audience into active contributors.

We have helped many companies turn around their sales conferences into dynamic actively engaged events that ignite opportunity and lead people to the future where they feel a sense of ownership and can-do moving forward beyond the conference.

Designing activities that stimulate communication and tap into the wisdom of the room in more concrete, meaningful ways is key.

Here is an example:

Recently, we started working with a new client who had just taken over the role as head of sales. We helped him prepare the new sales strategy, including their value proposition, sales messaging and a new solution sales approach. He had an upcoming sales conference for 150 people to kick off this new strategy. This was a make or break situation as the previous sales strategies and sales conferences had fallen short of expectations and went nowhere in the long run. Yet his people were desperately wanting direction and purpose; they loved their company and wanted to see it succeed.

Our client wanted the sales conference to deliver the following:

1. Re-energise and focus the sales teams to a true customer centric sales strategy and get them excited about how they fit into it.
2. Explain and align them to the company’s purpose and values.
3. Give them one view across all of the businesses and organisational capability.
4. Set out a high level sales strategy and plan, and then set some goals for the year, for both managers and their teams.
5. Help team members have a clear understanding of each of the key customer value propositions across their offerings.
6. Ensure the team members understand what they will be prioritising in the coming 12 months, and what success looks like if they achieve those priorities.
7. Get individual teams started to develop their own plans for how they will contribute to the overall plan.
8. On top of that ensure that everyone will have fun along the way.

Our client wanted to hear people saying:

“That was the best and most inspiring sales conference I have ever been to”.

“I know where I fit in, and what I’ve got to do, and I’m excited about the future”.

And that is what he got.

We designed a sales conference that was full of enriching activities that all linked back to his goals for the team. Day 1 set the scene and Day 2 became an active ‘market place’, a beehive of purposeful activity, focused on starting the transition from a culture of transactional selling to a solution selling culture.

Case study driven and focused on diversity, teamwork, learning and active communication, the teams were empowered to learn all about what their company offered their clients – products, services, solutions, people and value. Instead of enduring a dozen slideshows about company division, products and services, 150 people worked simultaneously and actively in small teams across the day assessing situations, solving problems, learning about new opportunities and solutions, learning from each other, getting to know each other.

As a ‘side-effect’ they also gathered all the information that otherwise would have been presented to them in the traditional way. But in the context of real life case studies they could immediately contextualise and use this information. It stuck right away. The owners of all this information also were happy, because they had the opportunity not only to present, but to engage and interact with their audience and hence position themselves much more effectively.

At 4pm on Day 2, the conference was still pumping. People were on task actively engaged and supporting each other. The energy was focused and aligned. It never waned from 8.30am on Day 1.

We had many people come to us saying how wonderful this was. How happy they were. This energy has carried over into the workplace. Now active work is happening to bring about the changes needed and everybody is on board and wanting to make it happen.

A sales conference can’t change everything overnight but it can ignite opportunity, purpose and agency. It’s about engaging the very people who attend and making them the active participants and leaders of change.  When sales conferences are designed with the participants in mind they can:

• Help develop and reinforce a culture and team that is highly engaged and performing in the market place.
• Create a sense of belonging and understanding of where they fit in, and mutual obligation to each other to deliver for customers.
• Build confidence that there is a plan in place for teams to follow and be supported to deliver, but also that there will be accountability for outcomes
• Present a clear direction of what is expected of everyone and where they fit in.
• Present the opportunity to be supported and challenged by each other
• Create a sense of ownership and engagement over what everyone is accountable for.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

The post Igniting purpose across the sales team appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Let’s look at the merit of nerd-geek lead sales recovery first.

The 21^st Century world is getting more difficult to navigate. Gone are the days of being first to market with a new product and having a reasonable lead time to win the hearts and minds of our target markets by spruiking the obvious benefits of our offer to all and sundry and making easy sales.

Today, in a sea of overwhelming choice, discerning buyers are looking for leverage, a leading edge, better productivity and cost control, business value, surety of supply and so on. They are looking to engage with people who have a depth and breadth of knowledge in their area of expertise, people who can engage in business discussions that respect complexity and offer ideas and solutions that address the opportunities of both today and the future. This requires a higher order of thinking and a skill set that allows for effective communication and collaboration. 

Many 20^th century salespeople have found the move to more complex thinking and business solution selling difficult, relying on old forms of persuasion, charm, friendship and showmanship; however, many have been found wanting by their clients and are likely destined for obscurity if they don’t transition to a higher order thinking.

Step in the wide range of engineers, technicians, mathematicians and scientists who are schooled in higher order thinking. As cited in the 30 June 2016 FINSIA article, ‘Solving the STEM Paradox’, overall, individuals with STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) backgrounds and training are able to be better problem solvers in technology-rich environments — they’re better equipped for new business models, new markets and new sources of economic growth, academics suggest.

The irony ‘Solving the STEM Paradox’ highlights is that ‘They’re supposed to be the most desirable candidates in the employment market: the saviours of services-driven economy, the diviners of economic growth. And yet individuals with education and backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, remain underemployed compared to the broader population.’

Addressing the STEM paradox and building better sales teams

I want to suggest that one way to address both the STEM paradox and crafting and generating better sales teams is to bring in more engineers, technicians, mathematicians and scientists into our sales teams.

I have found with the vast majority of technical people I have met in my life (and that’s a lot) that they love solving problems and being useful. However, many of them were not taught how to be ‘user friendly’. They confused telling with helping which often alienated people so we have been training and coaching them in how to make effective contact with people and understand where they are coming from before they fix anything, and it’s working very well. What we have done is equip them with a whole new skill set that complements their technical assets.

Solution Selling as a team sport that pays big dividends

Get these techies, geeks and nerds working with account managers and BDMs as key members of client facing teams and then the magic really begins to unfold.  One of our key clients in the mining and construction space has ensured that all their client facing people –sales leaders, account managers, technical managers, customer service representatives and technical site supervisors– have all been included in the roll out of their sales strategy and go-to-market action plan; instructed in their sales process map and levels of accountability, and then trained and coached over 10 months to take their value proposition to market.  This has resulted in a range of positive outcomes for the team/business including being the only division in the world that is ahead of budget and making profitable sales in a declining market and having a tight, unified team that knows how to sell real value and find and win profitable business opportunities when everyone else is dropping prices out of desperation. This team knows that harnessing its depth of technical knowledge and industry experience combined with skillful sales/key account planning and solution selling capabilities are their secret weapons in the race to win share of mind and profitable business with their customers.

So here is a whole new career path for the engineers, technicians, mathematicians and scientists and whole new recruitment pool for employers and sales leaders.

I would take advantage of this if I were you. With the barrier between customers and the rest of the organisation disappearing, more technical people are finding themselves engaging with customers directly. Whether in direct selling roles, technical support roles, on-site technical roles, let’s engage with more of our technical colleagues and give them the gift of good selling skills and resources.

The post Engineers & Scientists Would Make The Best Salespeople appeared first on Head Of Sales.

#5 Leadership Q&A with Ricky Chanana of Twitch  

Ricky Chanana is the Head of Sales for Twitch ANZ, where he believes in utilising consumer research, actionable insights and market awareness to help his clients supercharge their digital campaigns and drive business results.  
Read more…

#4 10 Psychological Triggers To Become Highly Influential

If you don’t understand the psychology of selling, then the words are going to fall flat if they’re not used in the right context. You need to understand why your prospects behave the way they do.
Read more…

#3 Leadership Q&A with Ghay Haidar of FarmaForce

Ghay Haidar is the Sales Director of FarmaForce. Eight times, across different organisations, Ghay has led teams who have won the coveted PRIME Awards’ “Sales Team of the Year” in Primary & Secondary Care.
Read more…

#2 Five Signs You’re An Order Taker And Not A Salesperson

Order-taker is a derogatory term used to describe a person who has a sales title and job description but does no actual selling. Here are five telltale signs that indicate that a person is really an order-taker and not a salesperson.
Read more…

#1 The “So What” Card

As a prospective customer of yours: It’s not my job to care, it’s your job to make me care. During your presentation dry-run, every time you make a statement which relates to your business or your solution, hold up your ‘So What’ card.
Read more…

Congratulations to Cian McLoughlin for authoring the most read article on Head Of Sales. We thank all of our lead authors for their contribution to a successful launch.

A special mention the top five contributors who were Tony Hughes (22 articles), Anthony Iannarino (14 articles), Charmaine Keegan (14 articles), Sue Barrett (11 articles) and Mark McInnes (10 articles).

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The post The Most Read Articles appeared first on Head Of Sales.

This is an unlikely but true story about iconic brands being protected by an amazing airline captain, the power of social media, and how to create customer-centric culture. Every enterprise can learn much from this story as it exemplifies the incredible benefits of empowering and trusting employees to not only do their job but also represent the brand – in this case, also save lives. The QF32 incident occurred in November 4th, 2010. The ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) published their final report in June 2013, and Air Crash Investigations released their documentary in February 2014.

But before both of these, in late 2012 I was fortunate enough to interview Captain Richard de Crespigny in his home. As we discussed the incident, it became very apparent to me that Richard is not only a talented and seasoned pilot, in both military and commercial aviation, but also an exceptional leader. Richard de Crespigny is an example of what Jim Collins calls ‘Level 5 Leadership’. There is much to learn from the culture he imbues on any flight he commands. Richard is more than a professional pilot, he is committed to giving his passengers the best possible experience and being a positive representative of the Qantas, Airbus and Rolls-Royce brands.

On November 4th, 2010, Captain de Crespigny was in command of QF32 flying from Singapore to Sydney. I’ve been on this flight a number of times but not on this occasion. At 7,400 feet during climb-out there was a catastrophic failure of an inboard Rolls-Royce engine resulting in a very rare uncontained explosion. Shrapnel flew out at supersonic speed crippling control systems running along the Q380’s left wing leading edge, peppering the fuselage, invading the underbelly, puncturing two wing fuel tanks in at least ten locations and wreaking havoc with 21 of the 22 aircraft’s systems. In my opinion it was far more serious, and far closer to being a disaster, than anyone has been willing to acknowledge – there was a fire that fortunately self-extinguished in the wind. Jet aviation fuel is kerosene, not petrol, and it burns with low thermal properties.

Miraculously, no passengers were injured and, due to the low altitude, the passenger cabin was not compromised by decompression. But exploding shrapnel had penetrated the underbelly, slicing through both of the two main electrical trunk lines – the backbone of the aircraft’s central nervous system. There are many electrical wiring looms within the A380 for inbuilt redundancy but it was incredibly unlucky, and potentially fatal, for two primary looms to be taken out at the same time. Passengers heard several loud ‘bangs’ and could see obvious wing punctures and the fuel vapour trail, but there was far more damage than the eye could see. The largest passenger airliner in the world was severely degraded and had probably lost 50% of system networks and 65% of the aircraft’s roll control. It was set-up for catastrophic cascading events unless the flight deck had the right leadership culture.

On the ground in Indonesia, the engine cowling with the Qantas logo, along with other debris, had rained down over the populated town of Batam, including onto school grounds. No-one had been injured but the Twitter-sphere and Internet were abuzz. The Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, was travelling in a car with his head of Corporate Communications when they received a phone call asking why Qantas’ share price was falling dramatically. For them this was the first sign of a problem and highlights the instant speed of social media and its power to impact a brand in real-time.

Back up at 7,400 feet there was calm on the flight deck as the world’s most experienced A380 flight crew [literally] dealt with the situation. Qantas has the well-deserved reputation of being the safest airline in the world – it is the oldest continually operating commercial airline globally and no passenger on a Qantas jet aircraft has ever been killed as a result of an incident. All pilots are hired to become captains and this means that they only hire the best. On top of this, Qantas invests heavily in training and every captain is checked-out seven times a year. Just as in the military, there are full and frank peer reviews any time there is an incident. Safety, transparency and accountability are dominant cultural elements for all Qantas pilots – not something that exists in all airlines.

On this particular flight, Captain de Crespigny was being checked by another senior pilot who was himself being trained as a checking captain. This meant that there were five on the flight deck instead of the normal three – the Second Officer (Mark Johnson), First Officer (Co-Pilot Matt Hicks) and three captains – but all had no doubt that there was only one person in command. Before take-off, Captain de Crespigny had ensured that there would be no confusion concerning the chain of command and that everyone’s roles were crystal clear. He discussed these issues at the pre-flight briefing, during the drive to the airport and again before the A380 pushed back from the aerobridge in Singapore.

During the incident everyone knew their roles, and every issue and task was dealt with calmly and professionally. The First Officer, Matt Hicks, dealt with well over one hundred alarms and checklists while Captain de Crespigny concentrated on flying the aircraft, monitoring his First Officer, keeping his situation awareness, weighing his options and laying strategies to complete the flight. The second officer visited the cabin to investigate the damage and to communicate with the Customer Service Manager, Michael von Reth.

Multiple failures had severely degraded the already leaking fuel system. They had lost all ability to transfer fuel between the eleven different tanks creating dangerous imbalances that became worse with time. They had also lost all the wing slats, which provide greater lift and enable the aircraft to fly slower for landing. Back in the passenger cabin, Michael von Reth and his team were calmly assuring passengers while watching for any signs of panic in individuals and then quietly addressing problems with empathy and reassurance.

Everyone on the flight deck and the cabin crew had trained for just this emergency and they instinctively knew what to do. The flight deck team trusted their leader to lead. The leader trusted his team to perform every standard operating procedure and delegated task. The A380 was the most technologically advanced and robust (redundant systems) passenger aircraft in history. They were flying safely and just had to figure out how to mitigate the extensive failures and to get down safely at Changi Airport back in Singapore. Captain de Crespigny knew that height gave them more time and options so he told the flight deck team he was initiating a climb. “No!” they all said in unison. It was the only time in the entire flight that there was any discord – teamwork in action. They were in stable level flight and they did not have all the information about what was wrong… leave everything as it is. No ego, just teamwork. Captain de Crespigny simply said, “okay.”

With less than a 3% margin for error in landing airspeed to pull-up on the available runway they managed an incredibly difficult landing. Way faster than normal and with badly degraded brakes, no reverse thrusters, they came to halt with a mere 100 meters of runway left. But they were not out of danger – 3 tonnes of fuel poured onto the tarmac, pooling around white-hot brakes. The fire crew held back because the outboard engine on the damaged wing would not shut down. Eventually foam was sprayed all over the fuel and Captain de Crespigny decided that the passengers were safer on board than executing an emergency evacuation. Eventually the outboard engine was stopped and everyone walked away safely.

Captain de Crespigny led his team faultlessly and harnessed all the resources available to him. Despite all the damage caused by the Rolls-Royce engine explosion, and despite the potential problems with having too many cooks on the flight deck, Captain de Crespigny maintained a calm atmosphere where everyone knew and performed their roles. At one point in the crisis he re-set the flight deck team to focus on what systems were working rather being focussed on the endless alarms and lists of things that had failed. He communicated clearly and dealt with the realities but focused on the positives. He managed the risks by making sure they didn’t rush and that they triple-checked all calculations. He also quietly prepared for a glide landing (Armstrong Spiral) in the event that all engines failed. Most importantly, he didn’t make assumptions but instead tested the aircraft’s handling characteristics while he had the safety of height before the final approach. This is not standard operating procedure but was a master stroke on his part.

The QF32 incident made headlines around the world but beyond the airmanship, leadership and teamwork on the flight deck, Captain de Crespigny then instinctively continued to lead when back in the terminal with his passengers (customers). Despite his emotional and physical exhaustion from piloting and managing the crisis over four hours in the air and on the ground, he then assumed the role of customer service and Public Relations (PR) representative for Qantas, Airbus and Rolls-Royce.

He didn’t need to refer to a manual to do a masterful job because the culture within Qantas empowered him with shared values of transparency and service excellence. Rather than leave it to PR and customer service people, he took charge and when every passenger was safely in the terminal he went and spoke to them saying: “When you fly Qantas you’re flying with a premium airline and you have every right to expect more. An army of Qantas staff are right now finding you hotel rooms and working out how to get you to Sydney as soon as possible. But right now I want you to write down this number – it’s my personal mobile phone and I want you to call me if you think Qantas is not looking after you or if you think that Qantas does not care.” Then he explained what had happened, why, what would happen next and disclosed everything he knew. He answered every possible question in multiple passenger lounges for over two hours. He prepared everyone for the media circus that would ensue and stayed in the lounge with passengers until there were no more questions – eventually he was standing on his own.

Later, when the media shoved microphones in the faces of passengers asking: ‘Did you think you were going to die?’ – they responded: ‘No, the captain and crew were fantastic; they kept us fully informed at all times.’ When someone else in the press asked: ‘Did the crew or passengers panic?’ – they responded with: ‘Everyone was calm. The captain explained that the fire trucks sprayed water to cool the brakes, laid foam on the leaking fuel and tried to snuff an engine that wouldn’t shut down.’ Captain de Crespigny’s full and open disclosure and personal guarantee had transformed 440 passengers into the best PR and brand agents that Qantas management could have ever hoped for.

1,000 Qantas staff had leapt into action, looking after their customers by organising buses, finding hotel rooms, communicating and meeting individual needs until all 440 passengers were returned safely home. Everyone was deeply grateful to Captain de Crespigny, the flight crews and ground crews for keeping them safe.

None of the passengers ever called Captain de Crespigny’s mobile phone to complain or to ask for help. Richard explained to me that this is his audit process, proving that the entire Qantas organisation performed brilliantly during this extended crisis. Qantas, to their credit, never reprimanded him for overstepping the boundaries of his responsibilities on the ground in the terminal with passengers – they were grateful to have a leader step-up when needed, technically and commercially.

Captain de Crespigny is a shining example of the fact that the leader determines the culture … no, the leader is the culture. He believed that he was not just responsible for flying the aircraft safely but he represented his employer’s and suppliers’ (Airbus and Rolls-Royce) brands. In the days, months and years that followed he neutralized sensationalist media and highlighted that the safety and training culture within Qantas combined with the safety and robustness of the Airbus A380 were the reasons why the incident ended without loss of life.

Richard shies away from individual praise and continually states that it was a team effort – he is right. But make no mistake, had QF32 ended in disaster, and it very easily could have, then he would have accepted sole responsible for the loss of life. That’s the burden of leadership – you don’t get to blame others.

Captain de Crespigny is a classic example of a Jim Collins Level 5 leader and he continued to fly A380s for Qantas until 2020 – when COVID forced retirement. Just as he’s done his entire career, he walks the cabin on long haul flights and talks with passengers. He believes that a good leader has to be seen and nothing reinforces a culture of friendly service more than leaders exposing themselves to customers. Richard de Crespigny’s also knows that no cabin crew want to see passengers complaining about service to the Captain. He has behaved this way his entire career because he is committed to giving passengers their best possible experience. He even built an online community for all the passengers to connect and help deal with their fears or need for additional information.

After reading the book QF32 and also after interviewing him for several hours, I formed the view that Captain de Crespigny embodies the following philosophies to which every leader should aspire:

• Be an unrivalled expert and passionate about what you do. Richard’s intimate knowledge of the A380 helped him manage its systems in a crisis and lead the team with clarity.
• The job is to provide a great experience for customers [passengers], not fulfill the role technically [fly the plane safely].
• Avoid complacency and don’t make assumptions. It is the things you do not know that can get you. Be positively paranoid and manage every conceivable risk.
• Teamwork is everything. Communicate clearly and ensure that everyone knows their role and is empowered to perform it.

The Qantas A380, Nancy-Bird Walton, which was operating as QF32 on November 4th, 2010 is now back in the air after what was reportedly the longest and most expensive aircraft repair in aviation history. Fly with Airbus, Qantas and Rolls-Royce with confidence – companies that have great cultures.

My advice for every business is to build a great customer-centric culture and empower your people to passionately represent your brand in all channels, especially social.

While I’m on the topic of aviation, here’s what I learned from my own plane crash when flying an aerobatic biplane many years ago.

Below is a keynote I did in 2012 talking about QF32. I have since been converted by Richard to now be a huge fan of Airbus! Also, not all Qantas pilots prefer Boeing – certainly not Richard. Both are brilliant designers and impeccable manufacturers but the philosophy of flight control software laws are different.

See Air Crash Investigations documentary here. Read the Transport Safety Bureau report here. Link to my full white paper: Everyone Represents the Brand – How to Create a Customer Centric Culture.

The post Leadership Lessons From Air Crash Investigation QF32 (Airbus A380) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

There are millions of reasons that salespeople fail, and there are even more ideas about how to help them improve and succeed. But the primary reason that salespeople fail is something that is irreparable; it is something for which there is no available remedy that can be administered. Training won’t help. Neither will mentoring or coaching.

Here are five telltale signs that indicate that a person is really an order-taker and not a salesperson.

1. You Don’t Do Any Prospecting

The first sign that you are an order-taker is a serious lack of prospecting activity. Order-takers don’t embrace the fact that the value that they create for their organization and their clients begins with opening the relationships that open opportunities.

Order-takers talk a good game. They know someone at such-and-such company. They met someone at a party; it’s sure to work out as a deal. Someone’s brother works as a supplier to the big dream client. It sounds too good to be true—because it isn’t true.

Order-takers avoid prospecting like the plague. They buy the hype that there are easier ways to build a pipeline because they desperately need to believe it. It means they can keep the lie that they are really a salesperson and that they can succeed without prospecting.

2. You Love and Embrace the RFP Process

Real salespeople struggle with the RFP process. In an attempt to create a level playing field (something that salespeople know isn’t likely to benefit either them or their clients), the RFP process eliminates the salesperson’s ability to create the value that they create for their dream clients.

Order-takers love the RFP process. They feel like a real opportunities, and they provides a lot of work that makes the order-taker look and feel busy. But instead of prospecting and creating real opportunities, these so-called opportunities find their way to the order-takers desk, allowing them to avoid prospecting.

3. You Try Desperately To Take Credit for Other People’s Work

Because they have too few real prospects in their own pipeline, order-takers try to insert themselves into other deals. They work on clients who are already being pursued by inside sales or by their operations team members.

These opportunities don’t need their attention, and in some cases their involvement only makes things worse. But their involvement gives them something to talk about and something to put on their sales reports.

Order-takers want to make a contribution. They just don’t want to do the real and difficult work that is sales.

4. You Are Great In Front of Clients and Can’t Wait to Present

Order-takers believe that they are great in front of prospective clients. They believe that because they are personally likable, that this translates to effectiveness in and of itself. It doesn’t.

Order-takers aren’t tremendous value-creators because they don’t have enough appointments to get better at making sales calls. They don’t have the business acumen to really diagnose their dream client’s needs, and they don’t follow an effective sales process.

When an order-taker is fortunate enough to find themselves face-to-face with prospective clients, they present. They believe that by telling their prospective client what their company does, they can make an effective and compelling case. They can’t. It doesn’t work.

5. You Work On Renewing Existing Client Accounts

Existing clients will need to have their contracts renewed. And there is no reason to win an account if you aren’t going to do everything in your power to work on increasing and improving your wallet share and retaining the client.

But sales is about the acquisition of new clients, not just the maintenance and renewal of existing clients.

Order-takers make way too much of renewals, pretending to themselves and to everyone else that renewals are time-consuming and complicated affairs that need their direct attention.

These are all telltale signs that the person in question is an order-taker—not a salesperson. Salespeople don’t wait for deals to walk themselves in; they go out and make it rain.

Conclusion

The primary reason that salespeople fail is because they aren’t really salespeople. These people have job titles that suggest that they are in sales, and they work in the sales department of an organisation. They even report to a sales manager. But even though all of these things are true, they are salespeople in name only.

The reasons this group of people who we call salespeople fail in their role as salespeople is that they have never embraced selling. They don’t embrace selling, and they don’t see themselves as professional salespeople.

They are uncomfortable prospecting because they don’t believe in what they are doing. They suffer call reluctance because they don’t feel strongly enough about what they are doing; they don’t feel right asking for an appointment.

They are uncomfortable asking for and obtaining commitments, and they reject using any commitment-obtaining language.

Occasionally, they make some deals because they are good, hard working people. But because they never embrace sales, they never really succeed. Instead they move from one sales job to another sales job, usually because they want the high rewards that come with success in sales, rewards they never obtain.

The post Five Signs You’re An Order Taker And Not A Salesperson. appeared first on Head Of Sales.