Click on any of the
links below to view a 5-minute video
clip.
The
Unprepared Salesperson
The
Prepared Buyer and Seller
The
Uncooperative Buyer
Coach
John Agno believes
we must develop our salesmanship and leadership ability
to achieve the success we seek. Agno's job is to coach
people to greater self-awareness, purpose, personal
strengths and a sense of well-being that often translates
into greater compensation, job satisfaction and practical
use of skills and abilities. Developing commitment in a
world of employees, peers, free agents and volunteer
talent is not an easy assignment and requires the
development of your leadership skills; the effective
leadership ability that you didn't learn in school or
executive education.
All the brains and
connections in the world won't matter unless you also
have the bullheaded determination and sales ability it
takes to get things done. Your resilience and sales
skills are especially crucial for small businesses.
Can You
Sell?
Robert Louis
Stevenson said, "Everyone lives by selling something."
Yet, most people don't understand the sales process and
their part within it. Business owners constantly worry
about the selling function and how it affects their
ability to manage the firm's cash flow.
"It's sad that
something as important to the economy as sales shows up
as a footnote in the principles of marketing course at
most graduate business schools," says Andy Zoltners, a
professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of
Management.
"Many people view
selling as tactical and haven't taken the broader view
that you will need sales skills even if you aren't
managing a sales force," says David Godes, an associate
professor at Harvard. "If you're going into consulting or
banking, how do you get clients and how do you raise
money?"
"Even if the
students choose not to go into selling, they need
multifunctional expertise to get into general
management," says Doug Raftery, Procter & Gamble's
vice president of consumer business development. "They
will also gain a better sense of how to sell their ideas
inside their own company."
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Self-coaching
helps you
develop your personal
skills,
clarify your values and guiding principles and build your
reputation. Self-knowledge
provides the
personal integrity to engage in productive and authentic
relationships.
Why do
Salespeople Fail?
1.
They think they can get away with "winging it." This
expression comes from the theater; where it alludes to an
actor studying his part in the wings (the areas to either
side of the stage) because he has been suddenly called on
to replace another. First recorded in 1885, it eventually
was extended to other kinds of improvisation based on
unpreparedness.
Being
prepared for the customer interaction is important.
Knowing what action you want the prospect to take based
upon this sales interaction allows the sales person to
focus. Having a strategy of what to ask, what to show and
tell helps to move the prospect to taking the desired
action. Anticipating obstacles to the sale will allow you
to plan how to go around or over potential "roadblocks"
in accomplishing your sales
objective.
2.
They don't understand the impact of their personality on
specific buying styles. This shows up in not really
listening to the prospective customer and, instead,
filling the sales interaction with sales talk. They don't
answer questions well because they don't listen for the
assumptions/beliefs that's behind the prospect's words.
Their presentations are not in line with what the
prospect wants to know. Being out-of-touch with the
prospective customer's personality style insures that the
inability to communicate will sour the
sale.
According
to an article on sales management in Business Performance
Management, December 2008, only 41% of companies surveyed
were confident that their organization manages its sales
operations and performance effectively. Two of the most
common impediments to successful management of the sales
team are inconsistent execution (47 percent of
respondents) and an overall lack of sales processes (38
percent). Processes in areas of sales such as revenue
forecasting, incentive calculation and territory
management are imperative to achieving corporate revenue
objectives; it's alarming that so many companies lack
some of these basic
procedures.
To
improve your sales people's ability to sell well, train
and coach them on a proven sales methodology that allows
them to prepare for every major sales interaction.
Provide them an understanding of their personality's
strengths and weaknesses and how they can "read" their
prospect's buying style. Usually a sales person's
weakness, in the buyer's perspective, is an over
extension of a strength and can be toned down through
self management by the
salesperson.
Gain Favorable
Attention
People distrust
salespeople. They have built-in detectors to tune out
sales pitches. And once the sales pitch detector goes
off, information flow stops.
When you hope
to gain the favorable attention of another person,
consider stating your intention upfront. The more direct
you are in stating your intention, the more likely you
will be able to experience an authentic conversation
where each party shares what's important to
them.
To 'sell' your
idea, product or service, you must pass the ACID
test:
A. Gain
favorable Attention,
C.
Inspire Confidence,
I.
Build Interest to
where
D.
Desire surfaces.
When 'desire'
surfaces, the other person takes the lead in the
conversation while you begin to provide the evidence
necessary to justify the
transaction.
For more on how
to make good presentations, click
here.
The
Success Formula
The
formula
for both
personal and corporate success = your
human capital
(what you know and can do) times your
social capital
(who you know and who knows you) times
your
reputation (who
trusts you).
Coach
John Agno
says, "You can take away all my money and even my
customer list, but if I can keep my smarts, my business
relationships and reputation, I'll get it all back and
then some. Having knowledge, social capital and trust is
the ultimate security blanket in good times and
bad."
"Today's economic climate is an excellent time to
reach new prospective customers and build better
relationships with your present customers. But building
your company's social capital is not about sitting alone
in front of your computer trying to come up with a
winning marketing formula on your own. No one I know who
is successful in creating a marketing presence does it
that way."
"Successful
people may have started out going it alone, but as soon
as they possibly could, they began to leverage their own
and other people's ideas, experiences and relationships.
They put into play a proven sales strategy, methodology
and training focused on targeted accounts.
Email
me to learn
about our exclusive Sales
by Objectives (SBO)
methodology for training and coaching your sales people
to success."
How much do
you know?
• It allows us to
control impulses and select the most appropriate
behaviors.
• It shows us how
to avoid reacting in negative and potentially
self-limiting ways.
• Knowing our
strengths and limitations makes us more understanding of
others.
• Gaining an
understanding of issues reduces conflict in ourselves and
in others.
Throughout
life we
continuously learn about our personal
style and
preferences,
leadership
development,
interpersonal
communication,
stress management and coping skills. Becoming more
self
aware gives
us great leverage in consciously exhibiting the type of
behavior that gets us where we want to be.
How good is your reputation?
The ancient Greeks
taught that all conversation involved three ingredients:
Ethos, or the character of the speaker; Pathos,
connecting with the emotions; and Logos. The logos
discussed by the Greeks refers to the factual content of
a message, the words used.
To hear your message, people first need to positively
connect with you emotionally before they are ready,
willing and able to listen to what you have to
say.
When
we trust a person or
organization,
we assume that the benefits of our relationship with them
will outweigh any costs to us. The willingness to ascribe
good intentions to and have confidence in the words and
actions of other people affects the way in which we
behave toward others.
The importance of perception in the development of
trust and mistrust cannot be overstated because our
perceptions often turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.
When we trust someone, we are more likely to overlook,
forget or not recognize an actual breach when it
occurs.
Since our decision to trust or mistrust is both a
rational decision and an emotional reaction (one not only
thinks trust, but feels trust), trust-building is
critical to your personal effectiveness.
For
self-help books click
on:
be
conscious of your default
behavior
,
love
, success
, A.D.D.
, self-coaching
, leadership
,
what
should I do with my
life
and the
meaning of life
