I’ve recently finished reading Onward by Howard Schultz. The title includes the phrase; “how Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul“. What’s been fascinating to me as I have been carried along on Howard’s journey following his re-appointment as CEO is that I never knew Starbucks had a soul worth saving in the first place. I’ve always liked Starbucks but never had undying loyalty. As I have progressed through the book my desire to re-engage with Starbucks has increased.

From this I have concluded that either:

Howard &/or his co-author, Joanne Gordon, have done a great sales job on me, or Starbucks had so seriously lost its brand position and values that it has taken a book for me to understand their history, culture and vision.

Either way, Howard Schultz makes for a very charismatic leader. His passion for coffee and for the Starbucks family (employees are called ‘Partners’) is persuasive. What is also apparent though has been the need for tough, really tough decisions. You can feel the pain he personally felt in making these but also understand why the decisions had to be made.

This got me thinking about my own leadership style and the type of leadership needed to be a successful sales manager.

Like most things in life it seems, a blend of approaches is required if you want to be a successful sales leader. It is necessary to be a visionary, a coach, a friend, a mentor, a solution creator, someone who can think outside of the box and motivate when things don’t go right. On the other hand it is important to set and manage expectations and to hold people accountable. It is necessary to create routine for people so that they can perform against a set of goals (or KPIs) that have meaning attached to them. At durhamlane we talk about the need for goals to be Ambitious yet Realistic‘. Your team need to know when they have been successful and to understand the implications of not achieving goals that are agreed and set.

One set of skills or disciplines will only take you so far. However, get a blend of both working together and you will create a culture of sales performance that people want to be a part of.

Finally, I believe consistency is the key. No-one likes, or does particularly well against a moving target.

What has your best sales leader excelled in? What made them special and how did they positively affect your performance?

Filed under: High value selling, Richard Lane, Sales Leadership | No Comments »

“Can a sales person be 100% honest? That would make for an interesting blog post” a good friend said to me a while ago.  The question has been playing on my mind ever since. I suppose a similar question would be is something Black or White. To me, being a sales professional relies on being able to see the colours in-between – or ‘grayscale’ to use the language of my HP printer.

If we relate “100% honesty” to having integrity, being the consummate professional and always trying to do the right thing by your clients and prospects then it is essential.  Success in Sales means being able to navigate around a customer’s organisation – listening here, offering advice and providing feedback there. It is not our place to make controversial statements or to disenfranchise. Rather we must challenge – where and when appropriate – and build rapport and relationships that make someone want to buy from us. Offering value, becoming a trusted advisor and delivering products and services that have a positive impact.

There are times when it is better to stay quiet rather than speak up, others when we focus on one feature at the expense of another. Does this mean you are being dishonest? Only if you do so in the knowledge that you are not offering your prospect or customer the best solution possible.

The Sales Profession has built itself a reputation that not many envy. Perhaps this is because of a tendency to focus on short-term success. Worse, Management has pushed a culture of short-termism. This type of self-preservation is not long-lasting. Trust rapidly disintegrates. The most important sale is not the first to a new customer but the second – when you have successfully delivered so that they want to come back for more.

I know lots of great sales people who are focused on developing win-win relationships built on trust, reliability and professionalism. The word cloud on the right comes from a survey we ran a year or so ago where we asked sales people what first words came to mind when they thought of Sales. We intend to run it again soon and will share the results.

The Sales Profession knows it has to do better and it is rising to the challenge. I could point you to many sites both here in the UK, the US and around the rest of the world where sales individuals and organisations are helping others to make a lasting difference. Just four examples of sales pro’s I respect include:

Dave Stein at ES Research
Paul Castain at Sales Playbook
Neil Warren at Modern Selling
Donal Daly at The TAS Group

2012 will see all of us here at durhamlane continuing do our bit to put a positive dent in the sales universe. What can you do to put Pride back into Sales?

Wishing you all the best for an exciting and successful 2012.

Filed under: High value selling, Motivation, Richard Lane | 2 Comments »

In this day and age it is all too easy to forget, or not mention, the great and the good experiences we go through, for the ultimate customer experience.  Some might say it is over rated, others will argue it is part of our human nature and fabric to want to receive valued customer excellence.  Surely it’s the very least we deserve. Whether it’s a genuine good morning or somebody opening the door for you – so few really do go that extra mile – I believe in giving praise, where praise is due.

Savvy businesses now have customer experience at the top of their agendas, but few really know to manage it, so when you do sample it, why not shout about it. Share the experience and let others follow.  Help them to share it again with others.

Here is a recent example of awesome customer service I received:

We had a new Baxi boiler installed in our old but new house nearly two years ago and since having it turned off most of the summer, it began making peculiar noises when it was re-incarnated last week.  We contacted Baxi before finding out that their service people heateam, have won numerous accolades for customer service.  And boy they weren’t wrong.  We were told it was still under warranty, ‘close call’, and that an engineer would be with us within a matter of days, which was confirmed in the same conversation. That was supported by a text the night before, stating (i) the job number, (ii) an option to cancel the appointment and (iii) an ETA stating that I would receive another text in the morning. I did and as punctuality is a hot topic for me, they didn’t disappoint. The engineer arrived on time, looking professional from the branded van to the corporate wear. This was followed with a quick diagnosis, service and wrapped up in knowledgeable advice for on-going maintenance for the heart of the house.  The icing on the cake for me was what they did next. The same day I received simple text, which read:

‘heateam would love to hear about your experience of the service we have provided to you, please reply back with your rating 1 to 5 (1 = poor, 5 = excellent)’.

SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT customer excellence, it’s simple when you know how.

There are numerous ways to capture customer satisfaction.  It is so valuable to the way you build and shape your business. We use a simple yet brilliant product from CustomerSure to measure what our clients think of our service. As a professional services business, our reputation is everything and we can only manage what we can measure.  No doubt your business is the same so don’t bury you head in the sand and hide behind what you think people think about you – make it your job to find out.  Expose yourself to the elements of human nature and ask for feedback.

Remember, even negative feedback can be converted into something positive.

Filed under: Lee Durham, Miscellaneous | No Comments »

I’ve always been a fan of technology-enabled learning.  From my early days of blending technical classroom training with online resources to my time with SkillSoft, the world’s largest e-learning company, selling global online solutions that spanned the corporate learning space and reached into every part of the enterprise, I’ve understood the value technology can bring to learning.

This comfort with (and interest in) technology is probably what led me to The TAS Group a few years back.  I knew there had to be a better way of embedding sales best practice across a sales force or an organisation than the macro-driven excel sheet I had been using.  In their industry leading Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation application I discovered a tool that not only did that but “delivered the sales forecast for free“.

durhamlane is a Certified Partner of The TAS Group and part of their Dealmaker Network.

Donal and his team at The TAS Group have now come up with another first.  Dealmaker Index.  Launched this week, Dealmaker Index is the world’s first global measure of sales effectiveness for companies and individual sales professionals.

You can measure yourself or your business against a set of benchmarks (92 to be exact) in areas such as deal close rates and sales velocity (the time between identifying an opportunity to closing it).  For 15 minutes of your time Dealmaker Index delivers back:

• An Executive Summary
• A Company Detailed Analysis & Effectiveness Report
• A Personal Dealmaker Index Report
• A Ranking relative to peers.

Like Dealmaker Genius, The TAS Group’s sales process helper, Dealmaker Index is available free of charge.  Yes, that’s true.  So, check it out now.  Benchmark yourself against peers, identify your strengths and weaknesses and build your plan for future sales success.

Filed under: Richard Lane, Sales 2.0, sales performance automation | No Comments »

If you know nothing about the project or the people involved, what makes you think you can win their business?

If you have attended one of our workshops or seminars, been coached by me or have read this blog every now and again over the last two and a half years, you will know my view on responding to ‘cold’ tenders (definition: a RFP or RFQ that you knew nothing about until it is sent to you, or you see it advertised on a public tender site etc).

My view: the only tender I want to reply to is one that I have helped to write.

I stand by this statement. Tenders, in my humble opinion, are very rarely – if ever – released by companies who have no idea what they are looking for or who they expect to work with. At best they have spoken to a range of vendors but have not decided whom they want to provide the product or service; at worst they know exactly who they want to work with but have to get three quotes (for example) to fulfil political or process reasons, or both. The word ‘vendor’ in the sentence above is exactly the challenge.

At durhamlane we encourage sales people to operate at a higher level. We aim to create value and demand by thinking about ‘business fit, business value and the development of long-term relationships’. When operating within this framework, responding blind to a Request for Quotation seems counter-intuitive, particularly when due process typically means a lack of opportunity to fact find, build relationships or compete effectively.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying don’t respond. You may want to do so for strategic or political reasons, just don’t necessarily expect to win. And certainly don’t make tender writing your first, or preferred method of prospecting.

Imagine my surprise a few days ago when following a workshop I was taken aside by the organiser who said they were actively encouraging businesses to respond to tenders. (Clearly my earlier rant similar to the above had done little for the cause). They were pushing this position because feedback had been received that tenders weren’t being answered and bids were being left unfulfilled.

So, have I been giving out misguided advice? I don’t believe so.

Funny isn’t it how people like us (and many other professional sales trainers and coaches like us) are working hard to persuade and upskill sales people to act more like business professionals, yet the professional buyers don’t seem to want this. They want procurement by numbers without due regard for value creation or best-fit proposals.  I do understand the value a tender process can deliver in terms of quality adherence and market evaluation, however, I am uncomfortable with the extensive effort required by so many for only one, often already identified supplier, to be successful.

So, next time you see a tender being advertised, or receive an out-of-the-blue Request for Quotation that you know nothing about (apart from the fact “it’s perfect, worth loads and is right up your street”), consider the following:

• Has the tender been written with a potential supplier in mind?
• Can you compete effectively?
• How long will it take to respond versus the likely reward?
• Will your response be a strategic one? By this I mean will responding allow you to get to know the company and be used as a means of starting dialogue for future opportunity.

Finally, when you have spent hours responding to a very structured tender it is easy to lose sight of where you started (e.g. knowing nothing and nobody).  Try to remember this – I hope you win it but you may well not … this time

I’d love to hear from you on this subject – your thoughts and experiences. I am always reminding sales people how precious their time is. Can we afford to expend it on creating War and Peace for a potential project we know nothing about?  Hopefully someone out there can prove me wrong.

Filed under: High value selling, Miscellaneous, Qualification | No Comments »

I am proud to be a sales professional, and proud to be training and coaching others to become successful sales professionals themselves. However, I find myself spending a lot of time thinking and talking about the tight spot our profession seems to have got itself in.

I can understand why. For one there has been, and continues to be, much mispractice – people selling unscrupulously, only interested in a fast buck with no interest in their customer or long-term partnership; other people selling without enough knowledge of their products, services or customers. Additionally I don’t believe the sales industry has done a great job of becoming a profession and has fallen behind the buying community when it comes to education and skills development. I’ve written about these things before and also recorded a podcast on this subject with Brian Dietmeyer of Think! Inc last year.

We think this is changing. We believe there is a better way – something we call Selling at a Higher Level

Value your time

Feedback from training and coaching sessions, seminars and conversations tell me too few sales people appreciate or value their own time. I have drawn the conclusion that we are told so often that we are an interuption or that our call has not come at a good time that we become passive observers. We start to think of ourselves as interupters rather than business professionals trying to provide an answer that will lead to improved business results.

This has to change.

Business fit. Business value. Deveoping long-term relationships.

This mantra of mine will change your approach to sales overnight. No longer will you feel like you are interupting someone. No longer will you feel like you are making a cold sales call. Everything you do will be focused on trying to identify whether business fit and business value is possible. Your aim is to help the people you want to serve, to build rapport and dialogue with those you know you can support, to design and deliver that make a positive and measurable difference to your customers.

Positive spirals

The power of this mindset change is extraordinary and can lead to many positive spirals. You see, in order to approach a client with this new mindset embedded, it is imperative that research has been done so that you can identify where a potential business fit might exist. Without any pre-work it will not be possible to estimate where we can potentially add value. If we are armed with this information we can set about validating our estimates, always with the intention of developing long-term relatioships. We are investing our precious time to see if a win-win situation can be nurtured.

Professional. Humble. Courteous. Pro-active. Hungry. Ambitious.

When you approach a client this way they cannot fail to be impressed. You are no longer having a sales conversation; you’re having a business conversation focused on building value.

Which would you rather have?

Filed under: High value selling, Motivation | No Comments »

A lot of people think you can turn business development on and off like a tap.  Well you can’t, or at least you shouldn’t.

Unlike sales, business development is a softer, more tangible process yet one that shares the same objective.  Although the two are both very much integrated – a bit like sales and marketing – they are two very individual processes in terms of approach.

You generally find the characters which deliver both processes are also very individual, in terms of motivational drivers, goals and objectives, both professionally and personally.  Business development people are generally either sales-oriented (client-facing) or utilise a more operational function within a company to support sales.

Business development is all about attracting new customers and penetrating new and existing markets. Techniques include intelligence gathering like competitor analysis, generating new business leads for sales people, following up sales activity, proposal and presentation writing through to pitching, account management and planning. Business development is as much about market intelligence as it is about market positioning. However, business development is often related to growth, sometimes the optimal marketing strategy and objectives could be about downsizing the activity in an existing market or decreasing the sales volume of a selected line of products or services.

SME’s often do not establish procedures for business development; instead they rely on existing clients and contacts to help them grow their business – organic growth.  This is a high risk strategy on its own as some businesses assume that because they know people in high places that this will solve any business development challenges they have and that new business opportunity will fall in their lap. The solution is to develop a balanced strategy towards business development, with a core focus on other companies operating in sectors of experience, before you start to focus attention and resource in new market sectors, in new demographics.

Business Development is not rocket science, but nevertheless it is a science and requires strategic input.

Whatever you choose to do, make sure you plan for the long-term, as with every ongoing process; it’s the only way to build a better, stronger, healthier business and a sustainable pipeline of new business opportunity.

Best of luck and if you need help….you only need ask.

Filed under: High value selling, Lee Durham, Prospecting | No Comments »

How do you work out where you spend your sales time? Are you working hard on deals that close, or do you find yourself chasing too many opportunities that never quite cross the finish line?

I believe qualification, whilst being one of the core skills needed to really succeed in sales, doesn’t always get the attention it should (in my opinion) command.  Perhaps this is because it doesn’t sound as sexy, or as familiar in sales terminology as “negotiation” or “closing techniques”.  Probably more likely it is harder to teach in a single session and is less tangible.  Qualification is an on-going discipline – the backbone of your sales approach – and a topic that benefits from a coaching-led development approach.

At durhamlane we aim to blended our training and development services.  Integral to our success is the blend between hands-on workshop-style classes and on-going coaching.  This approach ensures learning is reinforced and lessons are learnt on-the-job.

Effectively qualifying your opportunities means you better understand what you know, and as importantly, what you still need to find out.  Analysing in this way means you ask better questions of your prospects and bring increased rigour to your sales efforts.

Qualification helps you ask great questions; asking great questions helps you accurately qualify.

The Magic 35 Qualification™ toolkit came out of my efforts to understand and manage my corporate sales forecast and help the sales success of those in my team.  This simple toolkit has been designed to help sales people embed strong qualification processes into their sales activity.  As an added bonus it also provides an instant pulse-check on where you are with your sales pipeline and what you need to do to move forwards.

Over the last few years many companies and sales people have adopted this toolkit to increase their success.

We can also take this further through our Certified Partner status with The TAS Group and their Dealmaker software.  Here we embed The Magic 35 Qualification™ approach into robust (and industry leading) sales performance software to deliver an amazing best practice sales effectiveness tool.  Regarding Dealmaker, Donal Daly, CEO of The TAS Group, said “I embed sales best practice across my organisation whilst getting my sales forecast delivered for free“.  You can read more on how Dealmaker can help your business on our website.

I am looking forward to sharing The Magic 35 Qualification™ with two audiences at this years Keep Your Business Fighting Fit conference in September.

Why not take a moment to think about each opportunity in your sales pipeline.  What are the key criteria you need to understand and what key questions can you ask to move you forward?

Filed under: High value selling, planning, Qualification, Richard Lane | No Comments »

I tweeted the following message a couple of days ago which seems to have struck a chord with a few people:

Time doesn’t make itself available; you have to seek out, nail down and use it wisely. Taken own medicine today.

Why did I find myself doing this?  Well, as I was travelling home from my first day back in the office following a family holiday and I was overwhelmed by the fact that of late I have massively been busy … being busy.  Now, I’m not saying that I haven’t been doing the right/good things.  Actually I think I have.  More really that there is so much to do it is a question of prioritising all of these good things into some sort of order or hierarchy.

Value + Urgency = Priority

There has been a lot happening in my world.  If you are a regular reader you will know that since April this year the business has stepped up a gear (or three) and we are now a full blown 360 sales performance business, durhamlane.  (Check out our new website for more on this).  We have gone from 3 employees to 8 (mixture of full and part-time – a core value of the business is to offer flexibility) and I am delighted to be able to write that our customers and prospects seem to be liking our enhanced offer.

All of this means we are engulfed in lots of fantastic and exciting activities.   Activities such as business planning and execution, networking and meetings, proposal writing, programme creation, training delivery, team development, contract management etc etc.  All cool stuff that we want to be busy with.

However, what I realised on my journey home the other evening was that I had not blogged for quite some time (check out the date of the post prior to this one), our monthly newsletter had become more of a, well, less frequent effort and I hadn’t even downloaded the software I use for podcasting onto my new laptop.

Quality x Quantity x Consistency = High Performance

If you have attended one of our training or coaching programmes you will no doubt remember this equation since we use it often.  I have underlined the element that I am writing about today.  Consistency.  It is really important to maintain a consistent approach to everything that you do.  It is consistency that allows top performers to become the greatest performers.  If there is one thing you want to be remembered for, as a sales person or as a manager, it is consistency.

So, make time for the things that you enjoy and the things that make a difference.  I believe strongly that if you do the right things then the right things will happen.  I thought this post would offer proof that everyone gets caught out now and again – that’s fine – just make sure you recognise it when it happens and put it right as quickly as you can.

I’ll finish this post with a quote – one of my favourites – from Elmer Leterman

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Think about it…

*****

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Motivation, planning | No Comments »

As you might expect, doing what I do (sales coach, trainer, confidence-booster, mindset shifter, motivator and process changer), I’ve spent a fair bit of time working out what motivates me.  I like to think I have a pretty good idea how to get the best out of Richard Lane.

Well, with this in mind it is time to admit I am not a big fan of computer-generated voices that are designed to motivate you.  There is something I find hugely annoying about being told what to do by ‘someone’ who does not actually exist.  In fact, forget the motivational bit, I much rather queue and have my shopping scanned by a real living breathing person in the supermarket than by a computer that keeps reminding me (in what feels like a condescending tone) to place my item in the bag when I already have, before thanking me for shopping with them and wishing me a great day.

… but I digress.

Well, automated or not, the best way of getting me to do something is by engaging me.  Make me feel a sense of ownership.  Have me take responsibility.  Boot camp isn’t my style – In fact that approach tends to send me the other way.

Or is it.

I went running recently (first first time for a while) and plugged in my iPhone.  Now, since Freddie was born six months ago I haven’t done much running.  So it felt like progress as each piece of kit went on although the run actually happening wasn’t a dead cert until I was out of the door and into the evening sunshine.  With my music started I fired up the RunKeeper app.

At the 5 minute mark my music faded and RunKeeper’s automated motivational coach came on to inform me of my progress.  I ran for the next few minutes in a bit of a black mood.  I hadn’t asked to be interuppted (RunKeeper must have upgraded at some point because this hadn’t happened before).  I didn’t want to be tracked on a minute by minute basis (although I like reviewing my runs afterwards).  What did she (Ms Application) know about what I was trying to achieve?  She was only a computer anyway.  But oh, what a terrible average speed!

At the 10 minute mark I was updated again.  This time the stats were slightly better.  It was still an interuption but I felt myself running with a little more interest and intent.  By the 35th minute I was running with anticipation.  I’d achieved improvement over improvement and was starting to like my new virtual running partner who was coaching me through my headphones at regular intervals.

I guess the angle to my story might be a little different if my time had got worse and worse but I think I took part in my first virtual sports coaching session.  We will be seeing each other again.

So how does technology help you to continually improve how you sell?  Take CRM for instance.  Does your system offer you insight and value into the opportunities you are working, or your year-to-date performance, or does it feel like a drain on your productivity?  Have you taken time to understand how it can help you or, like me on my run, is it a surprise – perhaps an unwelcome performance analysis?

As a Certified Partner of The TAS Group we work with our clients to help them take advantage of the benefits technology can offer sales people through Dealmaker sales performance automation software.  If you are looking to remove subjectivity from your forecast and increase insight into what you need to be doing to move your opportunities forward in the sales process then I’d love to chat to you.  Please do get in touch either by email or phone – my contact details are available from the side banner of this blog.

*****

Robot picture found on the web, courtesy of fastcompany . com

Filed under: Motivation, sales performance automation | No Comments »