I’ve been reading a lot of different stuff about coaching recently.  It’s good to see the different points of view, I learn something from each of them.  But in the end, sometimes I wonder if we are taking something that is already very tough and making it more complicated than it need be.

I read endless debates about who we should spend our time with, A’s, B’s, or C’s.  Everyone has a different view.  Some people even try to measure the optimal time spent coaching each person each week—it’s 15.23675899 minutes per person per week–OK I made that up, but you can find similar statistics in various posts.

There are lots of discussions about coaching approaches–directive, non-directive, and so forth.  Actually, I think these are very important discussions because they focus on maximizing the impact of each coaching discussion.  But some of them take the approach too far and are too formulaic, “use these words, with this emphasis, at this moment…”

In the end I’m more confused than I started (and I’m actually a pretty good coach).

I guess I subscribe to the KISS approach–Keep It Simple Stupid.  I like it because I can really relate with the Stupid part.

Here are some principles that have worked on me and for me.  Some will be helpful to you–by all means adapt them (send me royalty checks), for those that aren’t don’t worry about them.

1. The manager’s job is to get thing done through their people.  The only way we achieve our goals is through our people.  Our job then becomes maximizing the performance of our people.  Virtually everything else that manager’s do is supportive of this primary function.
2. If our job is to maximize the performance of our people, then coaching is the highest impact activity that we can engage in.  Sure there are things that help–training, systems, tools.  But coaching is where we as managers maximize our impact.
3. Everybody needs coaching–EVERYBODY, even you.  Make sure your manager is coaching you.  Coach the people who report to you, make sure everyone is coached.
4. Now for the first contradictory guideline.  This is in direct violation to 3.  Don’t waste your time on people who aren’t willing to be coached.  In fact, go one step further, get rid of them.  People who are willing to be coached aren’t willing to grow and improve.  Even if they are top performers today, tomorrow they’ll be dinosaurs.
5. Now we’ve reduced this to a simpler problem and we can re-invoke item 3, everyone needs to be coached.
6. Go where the problems are!  We tell our sales people to go where the money is, so likewise, if we want to maximize performance, go where the problems are.  This means we probably have greater impact by working with our C’s and B’s.  (But remember rule 3–and I’ll come back to A’s).
7. Spend whatever time it takes and is appropriate for the situation.  Sometimes great coaching is one or two questions/observations expressed in a casual hallway conversation.  There is no quota for coaching, 15.23675899 minutes per person per week is not the answer or the goal.  Having an impact on performance is the goal.  Do you coach A’s for 12.5267 minutes, B’s for 15.23675899 minutes and C’s for 4.237 minutes?  No, spend the time you have to–after all it’s the best way to use your time.
8. Every conversation and discussion is a coaching opportunity.  After a meeting, you have coaching opportunities, in a pipeline review, in a territory review, windshield time, in the hallway or drinking a cup of coffee (substitute the beverage of your choice).  We don’t schedule coaching sessions or meetings, we look for every conversation and interaction as an opportunity to coach.
9. Timeliness is key.  Coach when you see something happen if you want to have an impact.  Recalling that sales call 30 days ago where someone could have done something differently is a waste of everyone’s time.
10. In looking at 8 and 9, everyone needs coaching, everyone can sharpen their performance–so don’t forget your A’s.
11. Sometimes your best coaching for low performers is coaching them to move into a role where they can maximize their performance, where they can become A’s or B’s.  It may be a different sales role in the organization, it may be with another company.  C’s and low performers can’t be ignored.  You have to deal with them and you deal with them by coaching–improving their performance in their current jobs, or moving them into other roles–it’s part of what coaching is.
12. Here’s one for everyone, but it’s a way to really rocket A performers to even higher levels of contribution.  Remember you aren’t just maximizing current performance on the job, you are also maximizing the ability for them to achieve their full potential–maximizing their contribution over time to the company.  For example, you may be coaching some of your better performers to prepare them to step up to greater levels of responsibility–perhaps broader or different sales responsibilities, perhaps moving into management.  So we coach for both current performance and future performance.
13. When coaching, ask more questions than tell, listen more than you talk, probe and understand before leaping to conclusions, understand their point of view, be prepared to admit you are wrong.  Get them to think, get them to explore.
14. Here’s the second exception, sometimes the most appropriate coaching might be, “You really screwed that one up!”  In the right situation it is very powerful.  Sometimes telling is right–I’ll leave you to figure that out (or you can hire me to tell you).
15. Be human–no one is perfect, no one has all the answers. Sometimes shit happens.  Laugh!
16. Set an example, sometimes the best coaching is what they see you doing — and not doing.
17. Realize and revel in opportunities where your people may, in fact, be coaching you.  It’s subtle, it’s to be treasured.  It means they care.
18. The corollary to 17 is you have to care!  You have to care about your people as people, you have to care about their success.  If you don’t, you have no business being a manager, and you will never be successful as a coach.
19. Above all KISS.

 (If this isn’t enough for you, email me for our Coaching eBook., I’ll be glad to send it.  Just give me your full name and email address, send the request to me at dabrock@excellenc.com)

Related posts:

1. Who Should We Be Coaching?
2. Coaching And Being Coached
3. Initial Thoughts On Coaching Approaches

As sales people, we work with customers every day.  We see them, we’re in their offices, we talk to them.  They’re very real (sometimes too real) to us.  Customers–each of them—are very important to us.  Sometimes, it’s frustrating, people in our companies don’t seem to be as customer focused as we are.

Many of the people we work with aren’t as sensitive to customers as we are.  Part of it is they are busy doing their jobs, part of it may be they may not understand how what they do impacts the customer experience, part of it is simply that the customer is probably an abstract concept to them.

We talk about customers in our organizations all the time, but we refer to them as faceless entities, “General Motors,” “Bank Of America,” “IBM,” “Verizon,” or Company XYZ.  It’s hard for us to relate to an entity, but that’s how all of us tend to talk about customers.  These are entities without a personality.  We never talk about Bill, Sue, Joe, Lauren, Amir, or Deborah.  People within our companies don’t know how Robin is using our products and why they are important to her.  Or how the results produced through our services bailed Jim out, making him a hero to his customers.

It’s magic how people’s attitudes toward the customer change when they can put a face to the customer.  When the customer is transformed from an account or an entity to a real live human being, it’s hard not to be concerned with the customer.  When you know who the customer–the individual—is, what she looks like, what he’s responsible for, how our products help her do her job, the relationship changes.  It’s not a faceless entity, but an individual trying to do his or her job, trying to achieve their goals, trying to reach their dreams–and they need our products to do this.

Walk into a truly customer centric company and you see the “faces” of customers everywhere.  Their pictures and stories are in the halls, conference rooms are named after customers (individuals not entities), customers are invited to participate in meetings, there always seems to be a customer visiting and talking to people in the company.

In reviews and meetings, they talk about customers as people.  Rather than saying “we saw this when we visited XYZ Corp,”  customer centric companies say “Jill at XYZ Corp has a problem doing this, I’ve seen Dean at ABC, and Yuegang at DEF have the same issues….”  When we make decisions, we know the impact on Robert, Kelly, and Juan.

Want to be more customer focused?  Then put a face to your customers.  Rather than talking about corporations and entities, talk about people.  Celebrate the customer with pictures and stories in your halls and conference rooms, invite them to visit you.  Talk about them in your meetings.  You’ll be amazed at how attitudes change.

No related posts.

Lauren Harper posed an interesting question at Focus.com:  “As a sales rep, how do you ensure your clients don’t get buyer’s remorse?”  It struck me as a key issue sales professionals overlook.

Think about it, during the sales process, we put on our best face, focusing on the customer, their needs, trying to create value, aligning with their buying process, helping them solve their problem.  Success, we get the order, we thank the customer, then we’re off to the next thing, another deal, another order.  After all, we achieved our goal, an order!

That’s where we go wrong, that’s where our real motivations are shown and we betray the customer.  During the customer buying process, we are focused on solving their problem, we are absolutely aligned with the customer.  Once we get the order, our job isn’t over–because the customer’s job isn’t over.  They still haven’t solved their problem.  They have just made a decision about the solution, but they still have to solve their problem.  If we abandon them, or change how we are engaging them, after we get the order–the customer recognizes that. 

The customer realizes that we weren’t really trying to help them solve their problem, that we only were interested in the order.  They begin to wonder, rightfully so, they may have made the wrong decision.

It’s important to realize that we sold a solution to the customer’s problem—so the sale isn’t over until the customer has solved their problem!  If the sales person disappears after receiving the order, then the customer has right to be remorseful even angry.  If it’s a customer we want to be able to sell to again, then we’ve made our job more difficult–as much as we claim we are customer focused, that we want to help them solve their problem, their past experience shows them what we really care about is the order, the rest is just positioning to get the order.

The sales process doesn’t stop until the customer solves their problem and achieves the goals they had hoped to achieve.  As sales professionals, it’s our job to start setting the expectations of what will be done during the sales process, whether it’s an implementation plan, introducing the customer to the people that will be supporting them after the order, or something else.  Immediately after the order (and thanking the customer for it), the sales person has to lay out the next steps and set the expectations.  The role of the sales person may diminish, but it’s never over.  Afterall, it’s the sales person that the customer has the principal relationship with.

The sales person should always follow up through the implementation process, and even after it’s completed.  Is the customer achieving what they expected?  Do we need to do something else?  Are they satisfied?  Do we need to take any corrective action?

If we position ourselves as selling solutions, if the customer is buying because we have committed to solve their problem, then the selling process does not end with the order.  It only ends when the customer has achieved their goals.  Even then, it doesn’t stop–if we have helped them achieve success, we will want to explore what’s next.  They will be enthusiastic in doing this if we have worked with them in the implementation.

Related posts:

1. Leaping To Solutions! Are We Solving The Right Problem?
2. Being Helpful To Customers Must Be For Profit!
3. Your Customers Know What You Value, Do You?

I’ve been writing a lot about the importance of sales people challenging their customers—bringing them new insight, ideas about how to improve their business, opportunities to grow the business or improve their operations.  It’s important for sales to  differentiate ourselves by engaging our customers in different conversations than we have in the past.

However, before we challenge our customers, we have to earn the right to challenge them.  We have to first challenge ourselves–to assure we are capable of engaging in a meaningful conversation.  Challenging is not about the ability to deliver the latest snappy presentation, but to have real insight about the customer themselves.

To effectively challenge our customer, we have to first challenge ourselves.

• How well do we understand the markets in which our customers compete–their competitors and customers?  Do we have a good understanding of their marketplace dynamics?
• How well do we understand our customers’ business strategies and priorities?  Do we understand their business drivers, key performance levers and key performance indicators?
• Do we understand their goals and performance at an operational level–particularly in the areas that we impact.  Do we understand how these operational level goals relate to the strategic goals.
• Have we spent the time in their organization, seeking to understand how things work, how things get done?  Do we know how to get things done within their organizations?
• Do we have deep knowledge of how our solutions can contribute to the attainment of their operational goals, and can we communicate those in terms important to the customer?
• Can we translate the concepts into specifics about the customer’s business?

It’s important to be equipped with the knowledge and data to challenge our customers.  But knowledge and data are not sufficient.  Do we have the relationships, credibility, and trust with the customers?  Challenging the customer without having the credibility and trust of the customer is merely an intellectual discussion.

Our job is to help our customers think differently about their businesses, to show new opportunities and new ways they can achieve their goals.  We have to be knowledgeable about business, we have to be knowledgeable about their business, and we have to have earned the right to challenge them.

Related posts:

1. Customers Don’t Know How To Buy!
2. Being Helpful To Customers Must Be For Profit!
3. Those Damn Customers Just Get In The Way Of Doing Business!

Trust is the cornerstone in developing healthy relationships,whether they be personal or professional.  It’s particularly important in our effectiveness as sales people.  However, there’s a lot of bad information about establishing and maintaining trust–both with your customers and within your organization.

The launch of their new book:  The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, gave me the opportunity to sit down and talk with my good friend Charlie Green and his co-author Andrea Howe to talk about key issues we face in being trustworthy.

Dave:  Charlie, you know my passion about the role of sales managers in coaching their teams in improving their effectiveness.   How can managers coach and develop their sales people to becoming more trustworthy in engaging and working with their customers?  Does it even make sense to be thinking of coaching trustworthiness. 

 Charlie:  I like how you assume the “whether” and jump right to the “how.” You’re quite right.  And the “how” has a couple of simple answers.  The way you coach people to become more trustworthy with their customers – first and foremost – is to be a role model.  Walk the talk.  Show them how it’s done.  Act that way yourself.   

Think about it: why would anyone trust what you say about how to do something if you yourself aren’t following your own advice?  Answer: they wouldn’t.  Nor should they.  

When you say does it make sense to be even coaching it, I think what you’re getting at is nature-nurture – is this something that can be taught at all, or can it actually be learned?  When it comes to trustworthiness, the answer is clearly yes, it can be taught and learned.  It’s more a matter of noticing what others look for than anything else.   

Interestingly, it is harder to teach trusting someone than it is to teach someone to be trustworthy.  That’s because the risky part of trust lies in trusting, not in being trusted. There’s one exception to that, which is that you can’t just be trustworthy – at some point, if you want to be trusted, you’re going to have to take a leap and do some trusting of your own.   We don’t trust those who never trust us. 

 Dave: Great insights Charlie.  The point about walking the talk is critical, too often we see the exact opposite behavior–managers or execs saying, “Do as I say, not as I do…”  I don’t think we can ever overstate the importance of the example executives and managers have to set within their own organizations.  Thanks for sharing those ideas Charlie.   Andrea, how should managers deal with people who either really are, or are perceived as, being untrustworthy themselves?

 Andrea:  Dave, this is my favorite question.  Do you ever notice how we almost never have bad intentions or harbor ill will toward others.  But others, hooh boy, they may be out to get us, or have it in for us, are laying in wait for us, or just don’t like us.  

Since sometimes “we” are “them”, this just doesn’t add up. All those untrustworthy people typically have spouses, or kids–at least a dog, for heaven’s sake–who seems to like them.  So honestly–much of the fault lies in ourselves. 

We need, first and foremost, to understand where they are coming from, to understand it from their side.  And yes, there are those cases where people really are untrustworthy, but even then, don’t shoot them before they’ve committed the crime.  Here’s where another saying comes into play: the fastest way to make someone trustworthy is to trust them.  

 Dave:  I hadn’t really thought of it in that way before, usually we tend to think of it as “them,” we never think we may be part of the problem.  It’s something we have to constantly examine in ourselves.  Charlie, let me go back to the role of the leader, what personal example should managers at all levels set in establishing a culture of trustworthiness?

Charlie:  Dave, you know, I wish people would take that as a very serious question.  I would like to.  There are two simple things that any manager can do to drastically improve the level of trust in their organization:

1.  Do a great job of listening.  Even if you know the answer.  Especially if you know the answer.  Because no one is buying your answer until you’ve done them the simple decency of hearing them out.  That builds trust.
2.  Tell the truth.  Don’t tweak it, don’t hide it, don’t try to massage it.  Just speak the truth, straight out, all the time, to everyone.  If you get in the habit of doing that, you’ll be amazed at how it gets picked up in the organization. 

 Dave:  Let’s drill down into that a little more, how can managers best motivate their salespeople?

 Charlie:  Well, some people smarter than I (e.g. Dan Pink) have done a great job of demolishing the notion that people are best motivated by money.  A few decades ago, Alfie Kohn wrote that “incentives work–they work to make people want more incentives.” Nothing motivates like intrinsic motivation, and the best intrinsic motivation is helping people to get better at doing what’s important to them. 

 Help is the best motivator there is. 

 Dave:  I couldn’t agree more.  Too often, I think managers try to use financial incentives inappropriately.  Being helpful is often the most important way to support and motivate your people.  Andrea, let me shift gears.  I often hear from sales people who work for companies that aren’t ”trusted.”   Can you be trustworthy in a company that isn’t trusted?  

 Andrea:  Yes, you can.  In fact, one of the surprising facts uncovered by our research on the Trust Quotient and the Trust Equation was that industry is not destiny.  I thought there would be more correlation between individual trust scores and low-trust industries like pharmaceuticals and finance.  But the correlations are very weak. Individuals can be very trustworthy.

 Of course that raises a question about long-term fit and influence, and the story isn’t simple, but I would put it this way: if you think your organization or your colleagues are not trustworthy, you should not use that as an excuse for yourself not being as trustworthy as you can be.  We have a whole chapter on constructive ways to be trustworthy in tough situations.  Too many people throw up their hands and say, “Oh, that’s a career-limiting move, being trustworthy.”  Well, if you give up at that point, you’re absolutely part of the problem, when you could have been part of the solution. 

 Dave:  Andrea or Charlie, let me tee this last question up, how can you make a customer trust you? 

 Charlie:  Ha ha nice setup; the whole answer has to start from the premise that you can’t.  Bonnie Raitt sang a gorgeous song back in the 90s, called I Can’t Make You Love Me.   The inspiration for the song is a great story in and of itself. It’s a great reminder that if you set out to make someone do something, you’ve already set yourself up to fail. 

 Any parent of a teenager realizes this, though they may try to deny it.  And it’s the same for all of us, all the time.  You can’t make someone trust you.

 But you can have influence.  And influence starts with recognizing you can’t make it happen.  All our little metrics and incentive systems aimed at closing sales are fundamentally flawed–they encourage us to pursue a goal that is our goal, not our customers’ goals.

Trust is loaded with irony.  Ironically, the best way to get the sale is to stop trying to get the sale.  The best way to get your goals met is to help others meet their goals.  The best way to get someone to listen to you is to first, listen to them.  The best way to get someone to trust you is to trust them. 

 These truths are practically self-evident–but we’ve forgotten them.  Go re-read Neil Rackham.  Go listen to Zig Ziglar.  Go read Cialdini on influence. They all say the same thing: people don’t care what you know until you know that they care.  Those are the rules of trust, and the rules of human interactions.  The ultimate irony for sales is, to be successful in sales, you have to give up trying to be successful at sales.  Instead, help your customer. 

 And if that sounds like a Beatle song or a Buddhist koan, well, they know a few things about life.  The fact that it’s also good business shouldn’t surprise anyone except someone who’s gotten a twisted view of what business ought to look like. 

Dave:  Charlie, I knew I could trust you to end this interview with some great reflections on how we can lead more effective lives.  Thanks Andrea and thank you Charlie!  I really appreciate your insights.  I know we can go on, but we’ll stop here.

Postscript:  The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook needs to be a desktop guide for sales managers and sales people.  Andrea and Charlie have created a comprehensive road map and pragmatic guide to profoundly changing your relationships with your customers.  We all aspire to become “trusted advisors” to our customers.  Follow Andrea’s and Charlie’s instructions, you’ll be well on your way!

Related posts:

1. Do You Trust Yourself And Your People Enough To Let Go?
2. It’s All About Trust
3. Does Your Behavior Foster Or Limit Trust?

I had a great conversation with a remarkable executive the other day.  We were talking about the sales strategies he had established for his organization.  At one point, he made the comment, “I made a mistake.”

At the time, it seemed like the best decision, but things hadn’t worked as he had anticipated.  In our conversation, there were no excuses, no rationalization, just the simple statement, “I made a mistake.”  We discussed why things hadn’t worked out the way he had hoped, what he had learned from it, and explored options for moving forward.

It was a remarkable, unfortunately rare conversation.  There were no excuses, no blame, no attributions; just the fact.  It was simple and provided great clarity in moving forward.

Too often, the single thing that limits us is the ability to admit that we have made a mistake.  We search for excuses, rationalizations.  We try to shift blame, pointing fingers to the economy, competition, or those “customers just don’t get it.”  Or we spend lots of time and resource in trying to hide it, to mask it, or “sweep it under the carpet.  We waste  incredible amounts of time, resources, energy, and opportunities trying to avoid admitting that we may have made a mistake.

There’s lots written about making mistakes and failing.  There is no end to quotes from people like Thomas Edison, any number of writers, entrepreneurs, and “gurus” on making mistakes and learning from them.  There’s all sorts of  “wisdom” about “if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t _____________________” (fill in the blank with whatever trite phase you choose.).

In spite of this, we never want to admit that we made a mistake.  Perhaps we feel that it demonstrates weakness, perhaps it exposes us, perhaps we feel threatened in some way.  Sometimes we’re worried, “what will my manager think?”  or “what will my peers think?”  Sometimes we are too hard on ourselves, we don’t have the ability to forgive ourselves and move on.  Sometimes we just don’t recognize we have made a mistake–we are clueless (but that’s a different post.)

The ability to admit, “I made a mistake.”  To recognize this and move on has tremendous power.  It sets a great example for everyone in the organization–encouraging them to take risk and move forward.  Admitting you have made a mistake is freeing, it enables you to clear your mind and move forward.

When is the last time you admitted, “I made a mistake.”

Related posts:

1. Lost Opportunity — It Takes Courage To Say You’ve Made A Mistake
2. The Courage To Admit You Are Wrong
3. Do You Trust Yourself And Your People Enough To Let Go?

Today, I was doing some research on upgrading a product I currently used.  I wasn’t sure about what would be included in the new release, consequently, wondering whether I should upgrade or not.

I visited the web site, was struggling with the information on the website.  While they kept wanting me to buy leveraging buy buttons and pop-ups, I struggled to find the information about the changes in this software.  Then the, “Do You Want To Chat” pop-up came up. 

I decided to go for it.  It asked for my name, email address.  Having been through this before, I knew I would be inundated with unwelcome calls and emails trying to get me to order.  I ignored filling those in, just putting in my first name.  “Kyle” responded to my chat request.  After the welcome message, he started to try to get my contact information.  He’d type in “What’s the name of your company?”  I’d respond, “I just am looking for information.”

He’d respond, “What is your email?”  I’d respond, “I’m trying to understand if these features are part of the standard upgrade or if they are in the optional modules that I have to pay more for?”  Kyle said, “I’m not sure, can I get your information?  How many licenses are you interested in?”  “I responded, “The product data sheet says these are in the standard product upgrade, can you verify that for me?”  Kyle responded, “No you have to upgrade to our enterprise packaging, would you give me your email so we can contact you further?”

Kyle really didn’t want to answer my questions.  He was insistent on getting as much of my contact information as possible.  Finally, in frustration, I replied, “Look, I am not prepared to give you my contact information yet.  I just want some clarification on what’s in the product upgrade, and what’s not.  The data sheets on your site are saying one thing, you are saying something completely different.  Have you looked at the data sheets?  Can you tell me the answer?”

Kyle sent me a final message, “Thank you for contacting us, we hope we’ve answered your questions in a satisfactory manner.  If you have any other questions, please email me at….  We appreciate your business.”

He then terminated the session.

I still don’t have the information.  I had thought of upgrading, across our company, the additional licence fees would have been about $15K.  I couldn’t get the information I wanted.  I guess I’ll put it off, I probably don’t need the function anyway.  Boy I wish Kyle could have answered my questions…………

The problem isn’t Kyle’s.  He’s just doing what he has been trained to do and how he is being measured.  His didn’t know his product, all he could do is get mey contact information to get me into a marketing cycle. 

The problem is deeper–basically a trust issue.  I’m normally not so averse to providing my contact information, but I’d had trouble with this company before. With past queries, I would be inundated with emails, sometimes, several a day.  I’d get daily calls.  In the past, even if I informed them I was looking for information only, they kept pressing for orders in follow-up calls and emails.  Their engagement process taught me to be wary.  They have trained me to be careful in providing my contact information.  They have trained me to minimize the information I share, until I am ready to make a purchase decision.  They have conditioned me to be very focused in the ordering process, avoiding the upsell/cross sell.  In our short online conversation, it was clear that Kyle was trying to upgrade/upsell me .  Despite learning the product I originally asked about had the capability I was asking about, Kyle claimed it didn’t, I’d have to buy a different version.

I’m a current customer, though often I wish I wasn’t purely because of the way they treat me.  If my business weren’t dependent on this software package (high switching costs), I wouldn’t stand for this treatment.  I wish they would help me buy, rather subjecting me to their selling.  They’d get more, I’d get more–seems simple.

No related posts.

I’ve been participating in an interesting conversation at Focus.com— “What are some non-selling skills that sales reps need to master?”    Leanne Hoagland-Smith made some important observations.  One of those is the importance of Strategic Thinking.

Leanne’s right, but we don’t talk about it very much.  I think there are a couple of aspects to Strategic Thinking, first–how sales professionals manage their opportunities, time, and territories.  Second, how we engage our customers in thinking about their businesses.  Both aspects are critical for high performing sales professionals.

Managing Opportunities, Time, and Territories:

Too often, sales people are interrupt driven or response oriented.  Sales people tend to be transaction oriented, that is–what’s the next email, what’s the next phone call, what’s the next meeting.  We need to respond to something, we need to find out something else, we need to present something.

Days and weeks are consumed in acting and reacting.  We seldom take the time to sit back to think and plan.  We don’t take the time to develop a deal strategy, but look no further than the next step.  We don’t take the time to plan a sales call, choosing instead to shoot from the lip.  We don’t examine our prospecting, choosing instead just to do the same old thing over and over, even though they produce diminishing returns.

The highest performing sales professionals schedule time to plan, strategize, and think.  They look at the long term–are they getting the most out of their territories?  Are they investing their time in areas that produce the greatest return?  Are they being as effective as possible?

They look at each sales opportunity strategically.  They start with the end in mind, developing strategies to get them to the end goal as quickly and effectively as possible.  When surprises happen, rather than reacting, they pause to understand, assess the impact to their strategies, they think several steps ahead, adjusting their strategies where appropriate.

Top sales professional understand the value of planning—planning a sales call, planning a deal strategy, planning how they will maximize the growth in their territory, planning how they will achieve their goals, planning how to most effectively spend their time.  Top sales professionals are also execution oriented–they execute their strategies and plans.  They focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of their execution.

Strategic thinking, understanding the big picture,,  is the way top sales professionals approach every aspect of their job, it’s what separates them people chasing transactions.

Strategic Thinking–For Your Customers:

Top sales people contribute to their customers in a different way as well.  They don’t just compete to solve their customers problems, they look at their customers as if it were their own business.  They aren’t worried about making the sale, getting the deal.  They want to win the customer’s total attention.  They do this by thinking about new ways for their customers to grow their businesses, new ways to do things.  They are not just Problem Solvers, but are Opportunity Solvers.

Because of the way they think and they way they help customers grow their businesses, customers view them differently from normal sales people.  They become trusted advisers, they become critical to the success of the customers.  Customers don’t avoid them, but actively seek them out.  Customers know these top sales people are focused on their success.

Strategic Thinking, the ability to simultaneously look at both the big picture and tactical issues is what separates top  performers from everyone else.

Related posts:

1. Outsourcing Our Thinking?
2. What’s Wrong With Strategic Accounts?
3. Stop Wishful Thinking —- Focus On Executing Your Strategies And Business Plans!

More than ever before, collaboration and partnering are critical to business success and sales.  Internal collaboration–marketing, sales, customer service — all working together to grow the business; external collaborations–working with channel and business partners in reaching customers; collaborative relationships with customer–becoming a trusted advisor in facilitating their buying processes.

Yet the data on collaboration and partnering is very bleak.  Many internal efforts at collaboration fail, projects start but never finish or fail to achieve their objectives.  Often internal collaborations leave organizations worse off than if they never collaborated at all.  Data on external collaborations and partnering is even more dismal with as many as 70% of partnerships failing to achieve their objectives.

If collaboration and partnering are so important, why are we so bad at it?  There are lots of reasons–the wrong project, the wrong partner, lists can go on.  One of the key reasons partnerships and collaborations fail is because of lack of alignment between the organizations–for example a marketing/sales collaboration fails because marketing’s goals and objectives are different from sales’ goals and objectives.  External partnerships are no different.  Aligning the various constituencies around the same goals, priorities, expectations, and many other things is critical to success.

At it’s core, I believe we can express this alignment in terms of the following equation (leave it to a trained physicist to try to reduce things to equations):

 Translated this means, for a collaboration or partnership to be successful, there must be:

• Shared Risk
• Shared Resources
• Shared Rewards
• Shared Vision
• Shared Values

Any imbalances across the relationship will put the likely success of the relationship at risk.  For example, when one partner believes there is an imbalance in risk/reward–they will be unhappy in the relationship.  Or if the collaborating organizations don’t share a common vision, there will be constant struggles and fighting.

To learn more about creating successful collaborations and partnerships, on Friday, July 29, 2011, at 11:00 PDT,  join Francine Allaire, Daniel Stevenson, and me as we drill into Partnering For Growth, Innovation, And Profits.  It will be a fantastic Free Webcast.

For a free Whitepaper on Creating Effective Strategic Partnerships, email me with your full name and email address, I’ll be glad to send you a copy.  Just send the request to:  dabrock@excellenc.com, ask for Creating Effective Strategic Partnerships

Related posts:

1. Collaboration
2. Collaboration Is More Than A Web-Conference
3. Moving Beyond Selling To Building Collaborative Relationships

Before you misunderstand, relationships are very important in sales.  If everything else is equal, I’d much prefer to have a deep relationship in any competitive sales situation.  So I don’t want to diminish the importance of building and maintaining strong relationships.  The issue, though, is everything else is never equal.

Unfortunately, I think too many people focus only primarily on the relationship.  I read a comment in a discussion that made me cringe:  “…successful sales depends on relationships, it’s not a matter of ‘productivity’ in terms of calls made, appointments set……”  I couldn’t imagine a statement that is more wrong.  (I was tempted to say stupid, but I want to keep this civil.)

We only get the opportunity to sell when we get in front of a person that has a need to buy.  Making calls, setting appointments, prospecting are all activities we need to do to identify opportunities.  Furthermore we need a sufficient number of activities to identify enough opportunities in which we can compete and win.  The number and strength of our relationships is meaningless if they don’t have a need to buy.

We can never take the relationship for granted.  We can never think that we will be selected over a much stronger alternative, solely because of the relationship.   However powerful our relationship, if our competition presents a much more compelling solution, the customer would be foolish to make a decision based solely on the relationship.  Customer’s can’t justify anything else–their performance is being evaluated, they need to achieve results of their own.  Before relationship–they must look at the solution(s) that best help them achieve their goals.

Despite the strength of our relationship, we need to “sell to the problem/issues.”   We need to persuade the customer we have is the best alternative–having a strong relationship helps us do this, but by itself does not guarantee the outcome.

The thing is, I see too many that focus only on the relationship, forgetting they still have to sell and meet customer needs.   They think the lunches, golf games, birthday cards will carry the day.  They abandon their sales process, they forget the steps they have to go through to make the sale.  They rely on “their guy.”  They forget, regardless role “their guy” is in, they still have to execute their sales process. 

Many years ago, when I led a very large sales organization, a friend of mine lost a multimillion dollar order.  We had a very good relationship, the sales person had worked for me at one time.  We’d had many dinners together, shared adventures on the road when he worked for me.  When I went to the other side of the desk, becoming a customer, he thought things  would be great.  Despite my coaching, he didn’t spend the time necessary with my team.  He presented a solution that was OK, but not nearly as good as the alternatives we were considering.  When we selected his competitor, he came to me shocked.  “Dave, I thought we had a relationship.  How could you do this to me?”  My response was simple, “Tom, you are still my friend, but how could you do this to me?  I advised, guided and coached you on the sale.  I told you who you needed to convince and what you needed to do.  I told my team to seriously consider your solution.  But you failed to convince my team.  You thought I would make the decision for you, despite everything I said.  So, I’m really disappointed.  How could you do this to me?” 

Tom lost about $5M in that order.  He’s sold to me and my organizations since then–winning a good number of deals.  When everything else is equal or even near equal, I’d prefer to give Tom my business.  But Tom has learned he must sell me, he must sell my team.  He knows we will evaluate the solutions looking for the one’s that best meet our needs, only after that does the relationship count.

Relationships are important. As I said, when all else is equal or just close to equal, a strong relationship may be the differentiator–people buy from people they know and trust. Relationships help us in propsecting. Relationships and referrals can open new doors for us. If we have strong relationships, when new opportunities arise, hopefully the customer picks up the phone to invite you in. Relationships are important, they can help to create strong advocates within our customers.

Relationships are important.  Build and nurture them for life.  Don’t take them for granted.  Don’t forget, despite the relationship you still have to compete for and earn the business.

Related posts:

1. Moving Beyond Selling To Building Collaborative Relationships
2. Connecting Versus Relating — The Disappearance Of Real Relationships
3. The Commoditization Of Relationships