Translating the objection is as old as the hills.  I’m not sure where I first learned it; but my guess is it might have been the famed sales trainer from the 1950s, J. Douglas Edwards, who spawned numerous others who learned from him, then started preaching his gospel.  I was one in those days; I think Tom Hopkins was another (both of us were from Simi Valley, California).

Here’s how translating works – it’s nothing more than rephrasing to better `frame’ the real issue.

For example, when I was selling advertising, a prospect might say something like this:

“I just don’t think it’ll work for me.”

“I understand.  Tell me, are you saying that because you don’t feel you’ll reach the market you really want?”

If the merchant says `yes’, I have a different objection.  If s/he says, “No, that’s not it.”, I’ll ask another question:

“Is it because you don’t feel your return will achieve your expectations?”

Again, ` yes’ gives me a `springboard’.  A `no’ means I’ll ask another question.

How do you know what questions to ask?  You practice!!!!

It’s a fun drill.  Get two or three of your friends and practice `translating’ in workshops and keep score as to who can think of the most `follow-ups’ for any given objection!

Like anything else, if you really DRILL this stuff – let’s face it, you’ve heard all the objections a thousand times – you’ll be so practiced, it’ll be second-nature.

No merchant will let you get to ten.  By the time you get to the fourth or fifth, the merchant will stop you with, “Yes!  That’s it!”

That’s when you’ve reached the real CRITICAL point in the process.  You DON’T ANSWER.

You ask another question.  Any ideas what you should ask?  Talk it over with your fellow reps!

Hope to work with you live in our series, "SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT"!

By the way, extra locations are just $249 each for the entire six weeks; click on the link above to learn more about this series.

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SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT, our live six-week online training series, has been attracting calls a lot sooner than I’d expected.  You know how it is:  People usually put things like this off ‘til the last minute and this series doesn’t even start until September 15^th!    Nevertheless, registrations are coming in now!

In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s a six week live webinar series strictly for people who sell advertising.  Most of the people will likely come from the newspaper industry – dailies and weeklies – but, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some from radio and direct-mail couponing attend.   I’ve done programs for both those industries in the past and I can tell you there is NO difference in the sales process.   Heck!  I began in radio at WLDS AM-FM in Jacksonville, Illinois when I first got out of college… and when I was publishing my weeklies, I also owned a direct-mail coupon company; so, you can trust me when I tell you it IS the same process.

Anyway, we just started promoting a week ago and the FIRST DAY Bill, our project coordinator, received a call from a publisher who’d attended a full-day program I gave more than twenty(!) years ago when he was a brand new, beginning sales rep!    It’ll be interesting to see just how many of you from the `old days’ end-up participating in the program!

A number of associations are participating and offering discounts; so, you may want to check with yours.  If they’re not, it’s still well worth it.   Even twenty years ago, publishers were paying about three times the price of this series for a single day in-house; and some were paying more than fifteen times the price for a full week!  This series is a SIX WEEK training program!  Judging by the response this early, we expect it to fill-up pretty quickly.

By the way, we've had calls asking if the price included multiple locations.  Unfortunately, that's something ConferTel can't very weoo ndo and I can understand why.  Can you imagine someone passing a link or password to a dozen papers?   However, adding locations isn't expensive.  You can add them for $249 each and that includes all six weeks! 

Here's what I'd do:  I'd put everyone together in a meeting room and hook-up my computer to a projector, just like any other training session!  This won't be a `passive' experience.  Your attendees will be writing - so they'll need table-tops -  and there will be some Powerpoints, of course.

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How often have we seen top salespeople promoted to sales management only to see them go down in flames?  Just because someone is a top salesperson doesn’t mean s/he will be successful in managing or coaching.

For example:  What are these people known for?

Andre Agassi
Curt Schilling
Peyton Manning
Mario Lemeiux

These people are famous for their talent and ability in their sports:  Tennis, baseball, football, and hockey.

Does that mean they can become a successful coach or owner tomorrow?

Michael Jordon is regarded as arguably the best basketball player that ever lived!  He was a five-time MVP, a six-time MBA champion, a 14-time NBA all star, held 10 scoring titles and retired with the NBAs highest scoring average!

He also became part-owner and president of operations with the Washington Wizards – a relationship that ended in 2003 with a less-than-stellar record.  Managing was different.

Learning to lead and manage people doesn’t happen overnight.  It’s a process.  While our Empowering Performance program, for example, can teach the fundamentals starting from the ground-up in a series of sessions, it’s actually what happens BETWEEN the sessions that creates results.

Managers need to know – and new managers need to learn:

1. How to learn to lead a sales team
2. How to build a sales team, including how to recruit
3. How to develop essential sales management skills, including how to facilitate meetings and how to coach
4. How to achieve results, which includes understanding communication styles and learning about feedback
5. How to lead to build momentum, including how to develop goals and motivation.

Each subject area should include not only meaningful content, but activities, as well; activities designed to build knowledge incrementally and assess progress.  And, each subject area covered should conclude with a personal action-plan so each attendee can continue his or her personal development.

I’ve began in the field of developing people and organizations back in 1984.  One thing I learned then, which is still true today, is that if you want to learn it, there’s always a proven roadmap available.  We have one for sales management that works in any industry.

Speaking of developing salespeople….

If you’re in advertising sales, I’ll be conducting a weekly live webinar series entitled, SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT that begins September 15^th, which we expect to fill-up quickly.

During this six-week training series, I’ll be laying the ground work in the sessions, taking your people through my In-Synch Selling sales process.  It’s not only the system I used in the field – it was actually `born’ in the field – but it’s also how I trained my own salespeople when we had training five mornings a week, every week of the year.  It includes all the aids, handouts, workbook pages, and training tools I used and that we use in our client training sessions.

The format is straightforward:

1. Live weekly online sessions with Q&A – participants all have their materials.  Management can download all, including training tips and tools.
   
2. Between weekly sessions, managers conduct in-house training and coaching on the concepts covered in live sessions – adding their own input and approaches – and use the tools and Action Plans to get the training into the field.  At each session, the previous days’ field activity is discussed and new Action Plans are created.
   
3. The next live session builds on prior learning.

Simple, stupid, huh?

It’s basic skill development 101 applied to what I call a `System for Success’ in advertising sales.

The good part is you can train your entire sales force for six full weeks with all the extras for a single flat fee…. And have unlimited replays of each session for 30 days!

I hope you’ll sign-up!

Jim

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I’m going to be doing my first – maybe `only’, we’ll see – webinar training series beginning Wednesday, September 15^th; we’re calling it SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT.

This is for people who sell advertising and want to learn how to sell long-term schedules under contract.  Actually, it’s about TWO forms of commitment:

1. Your commitment -  Commitment to your own professionalism and to truly learning how to add value beyond all the stuff contained in all those media kits most buyers barely read anyway.
   
   
2. The commitment of your advertiser - Selling the contract is no big deal IF the advertiser has made a self-commitment to future success.  Most reps have NO idea how to sell THAT!

While I have appeared at more than 1,000 conventions over the years; the vast majority of them have been corporate meetings, rather than associations, and the vast majority have been outside the publishing industry.    It’s simple economics:  our company’s primary target market are companies in the $50-500 million space with between 200-2,000 employees, on average.  Companies in that market can put 15-30 dates on our calendar each year in multiple locations.

Publishers, facing economic challenges these days need a cost-efficient way to train, which means, getting more value from their in-house management.

This makes sense!  Being a former owner-publisher who loves the industry – and as someone who actually went through the doors and sold advertising face-to-face with `white-knuckle’ merchants, I’ve often wished there were a way to reach more publishers, ad directors, and their people in a more cost-effective way that we can still justify financially in-house.

A number of people have asked my project director, Bill Wheeler, if I could do some webinars.  Well, he finally came up with a model that we expect we can justify.

“SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT’ will actually be a six-week training program; and a publication can train its entire sales force for less than $250 a week!  That's about as good as it gets, I think.

• I `set-the-stage’ and tell them what I know about each topic in a series of live weekly webinar sessions.  Each session will be filled with content and there will be a Q&A at the end.  Publications registering will be able to download and provide their sales force with all the same workbooks, handouts, tools, etc., that I use in my live programs.
  
  
• Publication in-house management will conduct in-house training on a daily basis based on the session topics we cover each week.  Actually, they are the ones who will do the real training.  They’ll have training tips and tools to use, along with an outline of what to do in their morning meetings each day of the week!
  

After six-weeks, I think you’ll see a dramatic change in your sales people – they’ll even THINK differently!

I don’t know what a full-year ad schedule looks like for even a small ad in your publication – or on your radio station, for that matter (I’ve trained there, too – there’s NO difference in the training) – but, I’ll bet if you sold only ONE because of what this series does, you’ll make ten times your investment.

At any rate, I hope you’ll be part of our first `class’ going through the SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT program!

We are getting a number of associations on board with this, offering discounts to their members; you may want to check with yours.

Do register early!   We expect it to fill quickly.

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Do you know why a few salespeople still engage in the `hard-sell’?  It’s simple:  They have to.  It’s all they have!  They lack the knowledge required to solve client problems and even if they did, they don’t know how to gather the required information.

They have no `leverage’.

Your parents may have told you `knowledge is power’ – it’s true.

This is a concept I learned from the late training guru Don Butler more than twenty-five years ago.   When a prospect knows the price and everything else s/he `needs to know’ to make a decision – and the rep has no idea what the real issues are or how to solve them – the prospect has all the leverage!  When this happens, it takes A LOT to `lift’ the sale!

What if the leverage was all on the sellers side?  What if we moved that fulcrum much closer to the buyer leaving almost the full length of the board on the seller's side?   How much `power’ would it take now?  Very little, right?  No hard-sell required.

You don’t need a `hard sell’ if you know how to create leverage!

Leverage is created by knowledge – knowledge the seller has that the buyer doesn’t!  It comes from not only knowing your product – important but highly overrated and overstressed by far too many companies’ product development people who are overly proud of their latest creations which they can’t wait to share with the rest of the world – but more importantly, knowing how to get to the root of client issues and their implications for their future success.  The ability to do THAT and then APPLY your product knowledge is what makes the difference.

Selling Strong

The ability to sell strong isn’t something many salespeople have.  It comes from conviction, based on a philosophy and a deep-seated sense of integrity.

Integrity and character is hard to measure.  It’s like an iceberg.  90% of it is below the surface and invisible to other people.  Talking about it is just that: Talk.  But, actions are visible.  It’s the other 10% that people CAN see that provides a hint as to what’s under the surface.  It’s what you do when it’s NOT convenient.

Take the ad rep who talks all day long to prospects about how one-time ads to build a brand or following are a waste of money; but will then turnaround and book that one-time ad as soon as a merchant says he’ll buy one.  That rep has just lost credibility.  That merchant may like the rep; but s/he will never respect the rep’s knowledge or opinion again.  The rep’s actions have demonstrated, beyond question, that s/he is just like every other ad rep on the street.   That rep will never build a real following.

This usually happens because, while rep may have product knowledge, s/he lacks true professional strategic diagnostic sales process skills – knowing how to question on a professional level - and the true background marketing knowledge – not taught in product classes – to apply to the merchant’s situation.

A rep who has those skills, can demand credibility so easily withheld from the plethora of novices all calling themselves `professional’.

Sell `strong’ and you’ll never have to sell `hard’ – and it will look `soft’.

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My first selling job was in life insurance.  I’d just returned from Vietnam and now here I was hearing `No!” from everyone I approached.   It was combat all over again.  Not only that; I wasn’t really committed to my success.  I figured if this `job’ didn’t work out, I could always find another job.

I was young.

I was inexperienced.

I failed miserably.

I hated the rejection and really had no desire to succeed in selling.   I looked for another job.

That job worked out pretty well – so I thought.  From walking-in off the street, in three short years I’d made a mark working for a company with sixty-five branches throughout the United States and Canada.  I found myself being promoted rapidly and was soon working `at corporate’ in the U.S. head office in Marina del Rey, California.   I had a company-paid apartment in the Marina and a company paid car.  It was just a Chevy Malibu, but Hey; I was 29 and being promoted AGAIN… now with TWO offices – the one in the Marina and another in Vancouver, B.C., with another apartment and another company car there!

No rejection here!

Then, the other shoe dropped:  The conglomerate that owned our company sold it to another conglomerate.  You guessed it – the only people who were `safe’ were secretaries and janitors.  All key people were let go as the new owners brought in all their own key people.

No paid apartments any more.  No company cars, either.  I was back on the street.  I took another job – temporary in my mind – to pay the bills while I looked around.

That’s when I met Harold.  Harold was a 27-year-old rep for a graphics company who I’d hired on behalf of my employer to design and print new brochures for the company.  We got along great and he invited me to his house for a party he and his wife were giving.  His home was a typical `starter’ home in the San Fernando Valley, but it was still very nice, beautifully furnished, and had a huge back yard now filled with close to seventy-five guests he’d invited.  Like Harold, they all seemed highly educated and definitely people who were headed somewhere in life.

It was only when mingling with them I began to discover a common denominator:  All the guests were clients and prospects!   When I cornered Harold I asked him about it.

“Sure!  My wife and I hold these parties once a month!  We mix clients with prospects and a few neighbors!”

I thought this was a great idea.  Prospects get to talk with clients one-on-one!  Prospects get to find out who you are first hand – they’re in your home and they meet your friends!

But, I was working in a job, which now seemed pretty boring after seeing what Harold was doing with his life.   While I was bored, he was excited.  All of a sudden rejection didn’t seem to matter as much.  I wanted what was on the other end of that rainbow.

I asked him, “When you first started, didn’t you feel insecure about being on commission and hearing all the rejection?”

“Absolutely!  It’s cold out there.  But the insecurity left as I began to make sales.    Let’s face it, it now would take fifty clients – acting in concert – all leaving at once for me to lose my income.  That’s more secure than a person in a job who can be fired by one person.”

I can vouch for that.

I soon found a sales position with a commercial financial services company, and after about three weeks I began making sales.  Now, rejection was something I never thought about.  I had my eye on the prize.

While I didn’t yet own a home, I did live in Los Angeles; so, there were numerous entertainment options available to me – since my prospects in those days were all major corporate executives, I did a LOT of entertaining at high-end restaurants, and it worked.

There was a difference in how I used to handle rejection and how I was now handling it.  Before, I was worried about each swing of the bat.   Now, I was focused on the strategy of the game.  I was now focused on process, not events.

It made all the difference in the world.   Selling became fun and I was achieving for the first time.

What do you want?

Write that on your bathroom mirror.

What do you want?

Focus on that.  See everything as a process to achieve it.

Then learn the STRATEGY of selling.

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DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR REPS TO SUCCEED?

Dealing with reps is really no different than dealing with clients.  They’re people.  And, like former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp once said, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

People will generally act in their own self-interest.  While you’re shaking your head in agreement, recognize it’s probably true of you – and me – as well.  That’s why we have to be especially careful as we recognize it.

It’s when you put your clients’ interests ahead of your own – and they recognize and believe it – that you have a real relationship.  That’s true for your reps, too.

Clients can tell when you’re just trying to get your hands in their pockets.   That’s why they think all reps are alike.  And, reps can tell when you’re just using them to achieve your own goals.  That’s a big reason so many change jobs.  It’s more than money.

My philosophy was simple.  My reps were my clients.  I worked for them.  It was my job to get on their team!   Like former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda said, “You have to find out what motivates THEM… and tap into THAT!”

In those days, I used a lot of outside training resources just like a manager has batting coaches.  It was my job not to teach them only my way of doing things; but, to expose them to MANY ways of doing things – because no one person has all the answers - and be their coach… helping them to find THEIR success.

It extended beyond selling.  I wanted them to be successful in life!  Every Friday morning was ‘career day’ at training.  That morning session wasn’t about selling; it was about how they could reach their career goals and hopefully retire rich!  I even had local financial planners come in and talk about starting early to plan for their retirement.   It actually worked to my advantage, because they began to realize what they thought was a `comfort zone’ level of production really wasn’t!  For the first time, they began to see just what they had to achieve to have the lifestyle they wanted.  Many said they wanted to retire by age 55, but were astounded to find out just what that would require.

The results of this approach were outstanding.  My publications had the lowest turnover of any media entity in our market, I’m sure.  I’m also sure my reps made more money than any of our competition.  I’m confident of this simply because we had a waiting list of applicants at a time when most publications were finding it tough to recruit – and more than two-thirds of my sales force were driving luxury cars which we paid for but they earned.  I was a publisher-owner of five papers for six years and had ZERO turnover the final four years – no one left.  No one was fired.  We had a major team our competitors envied.  It was like an NBA team that wins four national championships in a row and no one wants to leave and break it up.

Want to build a REAL winning team?  Get on THEIR side.  Build a culture that LEARNING and DEVELOPMENT is good on all levels… no matter where it comes from.  Focus on success, not fiefdoms or power.  You’ll be amazed.

“SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT”

Big announcement on this coming August 17^th in our In-Synch Selling (advertising sales) e-zine!   Many of you have been asking for this; so, we’re expecting this to be a big success.

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Today’s post will be brief.   And, maybe that’s a good idea, given the first item!

YOU TALK TOO MUCH

One of my favorite sales publications is Selling Power; one of the few I actually subscribe to in hard copy as well as on-line.   Gerhard Gschwandtner’s the publisher – someone I’ve known since first appearing in the publication back when it was known as “Personal Selling Power” in 1986.   His editorial in the July/August issue focuses on what I consider to be the most common mistake salespeople make:  Talking too much!   He gives seven reasons sales people do it - and it’s worth a read.  In fact, you should tear out the page and have a discussion workshop with your entire sales force on each point.  I think you’ll also like Gerhard’s blog.  He’s a `class-act’ and it’s an excellent publication.

DOWN & DIRTY TRAINING CAN WORK

I once had a new ad rep who seemed to have all the success ingredients, but after her first three weeks she STILL wasn’t writing any contracts.   She said she could get one-time open-rate ads, but I wouldn’t book that business and she felt stymied.  At the time, I felt like I’d tried everything to train her and nothing seemed to work.

Finally, one morning for our morning training – we held training five mornings a week all year round – I asked her to come up and sit across the table from me in front of everyone else in the class.   I said, “Write me up.”

She looked at me dumfounded and asked me what I meant… she expected one of our `batting-cage’ role-play sessions.  I said, “Just write me up…. Let’s do the deal!”

She asked, “What do you want me to write up.”

I said, “I want a full year, half-page, 4-color campaign and I want to give you a check for the first two-weeks in advance.”

Her jaw dropped.

“Huh?”

“Do it!”

She wrote up the deal and passed it to me.  I signed it and wrote a check.  She paper clipped it to the contract and gave me my copy.

“Do it again.”

“Huh?”

“Do it again!”

She did it again.  She wrote it up, passed it to me, I signed, passed it back and wrote a check.  She gave me my copy and paper clipped the check to the contract.

We then did it a third time.

After three times, she was doing it quite easily!  She was fast… it was almost automatic.

After the session broke up, she went out into the field and wrote three full year contracts that day!

Lesson:  Closing wasn’t her problem.  She’d been afraid to write the deal.  She’d never done it!  She wasn’t used to it.   I got her used to it, and it worked.

Try it!

“SIX WEEKS OF COMMITMENT”

Big announcement on this coming August 17^th in our In-Synch Selling (advertising sales) e-zine!   Many of you have been asking for this; so, we’re expecting this to be a big success.

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They didn't teach time management in school.  During my years in a military academy prep school, I was forced to learn out of necessity; from reveille to taps, the day was structured and you only had x amount of time to do everything, from brushing your teeth to homework.  I did learn how to focus and get things done, but I still didn't really have a time management process.

It was after I was out in the real world I began hearing about the importance of time management; so, I began wondering how successful people did it - after all, we all have the same number of hours to work with.

Here are a couple of time management tips that helped me.  Hope they help you, too.

Worried about managing time?  Here are some ‘timeless’ time-management tips that still work!

Tip #1 came from Jack Nicklaus, the dominant golfer on the PGA Tour when I started out in sales.  He ended his career with 18 wins and 19 second-places  in major championships – that’s 37 times being either 1^st or 2^nd in majors – and he did it all playing a limited schedule while building a successful design firm and his own brand in golf club manufacturing!   Even today, at 70, he has more than 50 golf courses under construction around the globe with over 80% of his business overseas!

I read a Jack Nicklaus interview on time management back in 1979.  He said that in his early career, he was always working and the results weren’t that great because he was always ‘burnt-out’.   He decided to change his approach by blocking recreation and family into his calendar first, then golf, then business, making sure that nothing was neglected and everything was ‘in balance’.   That way, he said, he was never burnt-out and he could approach every segment of his life ‘recharged’ with enthusiasm!  When he was with family, he wasn’t thinking about work or golf.  When he was on the course, he could concentrate on that.

Tip #2 came from another interview I read, this one with Roger Staubach who had been a star quarterback for Navy, served his country,  became a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback and, five years before retiring, began a career in commercial real estate development.  By the time he retired from the Dallas Cowboys, his company had become one of the most successful real estate developers in Texas.  In his interview, he said he liked to ‘block’ his time.  All activity was assigned a letter code:  `A’ – activities that produced income.  ‘B’ – activities that contributed to ‘A’.  ‘C’ – activities that he called `white collar maintenance’ - stuff you have to do that doesn’t contribute to revenue.  ‘D’ was driving, and ‘X’ was everything else.

Roger Staubach said the first thing he’d do is get his calendar out - no CRMs in those days - and use a marker to draw boxes around each hour of the day, every day of the week, for the entire month.  Then, he’d put codes in the boxes.  Certain hours would always be A, B, C, etc.   Then activities within each code would be prioritized and inserted.

I’ve been using a combination of those two approaches as my system ever since.  Try it!  It will work for you, too.

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The phone rings.  It’s an advertiser who’s ads haven’t been working.  He wants to cancel.

Good!

Before I tell you the rest of the story, you should know why it’s good.  It’s a lesson I learned – and still remember - from reading a great book a long time ago:  Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude by the late W. Clement Stone, who was chairman of Combined Insurance Companies of America; but, he didn’t start-out that way.   His was a ‘rags-to-riches’ story, starting out literally penniless and ended-up giving millions to charities.

When he was a young boy, his father had abandoned his mother.  Young Clem had to help support the family by selling newspapers on a street corner in Chicago.  He liked that corner because he knew he could sell all his papers by 5 p.m. and that was just enough to buy food for his mom who was home with younger children in their cold-water walk-up apartment.  One day, some older boys decided they wanted that corner; so they beat him up, forcing him to leave.   Dejected, he walked into a little coffee shop and sat there wondering how he would tell his mother what happened.   Then, people started buying his papers!   He came back the next day and found he could sell out all his papers by noon!  Getting kicked-off that corner turned out to be good!  In fact, if it hadn’t happened, he would have never found the coffee shop!

It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.   Always look for what’s good about something that seems bad.

Here’s why that’s important to you:  No one will ever buy ‘in’ or buy ‘up’ in your publication as long as they are satisfied with their present situation.  If you ever want to sell someone UP, they must become dissatisfied with what they’re presently doing.

So, you’ve been wondering how you’re going to get an advertiser to buy UP to a larger and better campaign?  They have to become dissatisfied with what they’re doing!   But, how do you get them to become dissatisfied?

Back to our merchant phone call.  Bingo!  Your merchant has just solved your first problem.

The merchant wants to cancel.  That’s good!

Why is that good?  Because the merchant is dissatisfied…. And so are YOU!  You both agree on something right off the bat:  What the merchant has been doing up to now isn’t what s/he SHOULD be doing!

“Jim, I hate to tell you this, but I’m going to have to cancel.”

“Good!  I’ve been wanting you to do that.”

“What?”

“I said `Good!’  I’ve been dissatisfied with what we’ve been doing, but I didn’t say anything about it because I thought YOU were satisfied.”

“Well, I haven’t been.”

“Good!  Because I don’t want you doing it any more, either!   In fact, I owe you an apology.”

“Really?  Why?”

“Because I KNEW what you SHOULD be doing and I should have told you.  I want you to know that it’s ALL MY FAULT.”

“What should I be doing?”

“I’ll show you.  I’ll be right over.”   I hang up.  I go.  And I show him, clearly, directly - and with confidence - EXACTLY what he needs to do if he REALLY wants to succeed.  I’m careful to point out there are no guarantees… and no free lunches… but I DO know what it takes if he’s serious!

In six years of selling campaign (only) advertising, I didn’t receive that many cancellation phone calls – quite frankly, because I sold them the right way the first time – but, when I did, that was the approach I used and it worked AMAZINGLY well.  

I turned ¼-page cancellations into half-page, full-year campaigns.  I turned half-page cancellations into full page, full-year campaigns.   Once, with a camera store, I turned a 13-week ¼-page campaign into a 52-week campaign of 4-color, 2-page spreads.   The owner was ecstatic!  His sales changed almost immediately and this time he stayed and stayed and stayed – he was STILL running the same two-page color campaign when I sold the papers three years later!

Remember this:  These merchants WANT to succeed.  They WANT to do better.   Often, they’re just afraid.  They don’t have much confidence in ad reps because most ad reps are nothing more than `talking brochures’ who can do little more than regurgitate media kit data.

When they call to cancel, think `Good’ – because it’s an opportunity you didn’t have before:   Now, you have a REASON to sell them UP!   The strategy doesn’t change:  To uncover wants, needs, desires, dissatisfactions, buyer motivations, and use your knowledge to help them achieve the success they want over the next three to five years of their lives!

Pretty soon, you’ll be sitting in the office thinking, ‘I wish someone would call to cancel’, because until they do, you’ll have to dream-up your own reasons to help them become dissatisfied.  

It’s easier when they do it for you.

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Virtually every company has multiple products - heck, so do we!  But, getting preoccupied with pushing products can literally lead to failure faster than it will to success!

I've been asked if I could write something about cross-selling.  Maybe I've neglected this area because I've always considered it so ridiculously simple.

When I was in publishing, we sold print and direct-mail couponing - two separate products - almost always in the same sale; but, the 'cross-selling' was less than 2% of the process.   The other 98% was where the real challenge was.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to witness the complete training program of a major Wall Street investment firm.  Over the course of the entire 30-day `curriculum’, I was able to see first-hand exactly why the entire industry was constantly fighting for its life; indeed, virtually every firm was constantly going through bankruptcies and continuous mergers.

The first day’s orientation – virtually all the major firms were conducting the same basic 30-day new broker training– provided a hint as to what was to come.  The company President would welcome everyone and state their position right up front:  “We’re in the product manufacturing and distribution business.”  And, from that moment forward, that’s what sales training was all about.

For the next 30 days, what passed for sales training was a constant stream of `instructors’ from the various product-development areas.  This firm occupied about twenty-five acres inside the World Trade Center and we saw someone from every acre.  We listened to people from managed accounts, unit investment trusts, variable annuities, and every single in-house proprietary fund there was… all of them telling the new brokers how to sell their products and how to ‘piggy-back’ – another way of saying ‘cross selling’ – one sale on top of another.

It was classic.

At the end of the month, every novice broker knew everything there was to know about every single product the company had and was overloaded with binders, books, and notes to reinforce it all.

When sitting around after hours, one novice broker would ask another, “What are you going to sell?”   The other would answer, “I like the UIT’s!” - unit investment trusts, don’t ask – “I think I’ll concentrate on them!”   Everyone was all excited about all their great products and all their really neat brochures.

When they left New York to fly back to their branches across the America, they knew their mission:  Get on the phone and start selling something.

It was a classic marketing mistake:  A product in search of a market - instead of the other way around.   And, it was widespread throughout the industry.  The result was predictable:  Most brokers failed and industry turnover was extremely high.  Not only that, the firms really had to make their money on investment banking because the retail side was failing miserably; mergers were widespread and constant  As soon as a merger took place and new signs went up on the branches across America, they’d enter into another merger and the signs would change again.  It was the only way they could stay alive.

During that entire 30-day program, there was literally NO real sales training, which means there was no real problem-solving at all.  The novices ended-up calling people and pushing product.

Indeed, in many industries today most sales training is still about product.  What’s really amazing is that many are the very industries that find themselves in constant trouble and still in denial – always convinced they’re doing great and always looking for the ‘magic bullet’.     Too many reps are still spending 98% of their time on what really accounts for about 2% of the process.

Product knowledge is a requirement.  So is oxygen.  But, neither of those will make the sale or grow your success.  Product knowledge is a ‘plug-in’ – something virtually ANYONE you hire can assimilate.  Nothing in life is that easy.

Training professionals classify skills as ‘hard skills’ and ‘soft skills’.  The hard skills are things like learning a software program.  Soft skills are things like problem solving, leadership, people skills, etc.   As one CEO once said, ‘It’s the soft stuff that’s hard.  The hard stuff is easy.’

The key to success:  Go ahead and learn all your products; but, don’t confuse that with sales training.

How to ‘cross-sell’?  It’s easy.  If you know sales, it’s nothing but simple product application – and it’s only about 2% of the process.

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Everyone’s familiar with SWOT as a planning tool, where you analyze your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in order to determine strategy.  It’s pretty `101’ stuff, but still valid.  The weakness of SWOT is in it’s use;  when it’s considered the `core’ of strategy development.

A recent Harvard Business Review article cited a Bain & Company’s  study of 57 organizations between 2000 and 2006 and found that fewer than one-third of the companies going through a change management process experienced any meaningful improvement and most had no effect whatsoever – and some even destroyed value!  One example cited Chrysler, who had reorganized its operations three times in three years preceding its bankruptcy and eventual merger with Fiat.  During each of the three changes, executives proclaimed the company was on a new path to profitability.  Guess what.

The disconnect between structure and performance is based on a misunderstanding of the link between the two and a fundamental rethinking about the concept of reorganization.

It’s been noted by people smarter than I that a company’s value is equal to the sum of its decisions; and the link between performance and decisions shouldn’t be underestimated.   Therefore,  it would seem decisions, rather than structure, should be the primary focus.

The risk in SWOT, of course, is that you could end-up with an organization misaligned with your strategy simply because you ignored your decision process.   The point:  SWOT can be a meaningful exercise in determining strategy; but, not necessarily as preparation for organizational change.

Before embarking on a change initiative, however, it may be beneficial to look at positions in terms of another grid:

                            Dreamers                    Winners

                            Losers                        Defenders

Let’s take a look at these positions, starting with the least favorable:

• Losers:  These are the companies whose strategy for preserving value is based on cost and risk reduction.  The result is almost always the same:  They lose competitive position.
• Defenders: These are comfortable with the ‘go slow’ approach.   This approach can work if the gap between them and their competitors isn’t growing too rapidly or too large.  Often, this can backfire, however.
• Dreamers: These companies create value through product or business transformation; but, almost always without a linked high performance strategy.  The result is often unrealized goals and unkept promises.
• Winners: These companies have combined the ability to create value through a product or business transformation with something the ‘Dreamers’ didn’t have:  The capacity for strategic execution of a true high-performance strategy.
  

The process of developing a high performance strategy is something that’s learned, preferably through some `hands-on’ learning experiences directly tied to your organization’s needs.  But, rest assured, there is a process and a roadmap to go with it.

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We’re living in a time when everything customers want to know is readily available online.  They don’t have time for salespeople who walk in to ‘introduce themselves’ or ask ‘can I have a minute?’   For many customers – particularly high-level buyers – it’s a ‘who needs you?’ world for owners when it comes to salespeople.

Be careful.  They just might be.  But, don’t blame it on the internet, cable television, the `balloon boy’ or the Kardashians.   You may want to grab a mirror.

Let’s review.

• Your customers have access to all the information they’ll ever want on the internet, including your pricing.  So, you post all your goodies on there to keep up, lest you be left out.
  
  
• Everyone in the industry talks about enhancing online presence to increase revenue when customers, particularly at the decision making level, are seeking strategic advisors. 
  
  
• We preach long-term commitments while we continue to sell quick-buck solutions, usually after asking about three or four open-ended questions we learned in sales training – in interpersonal skill we hope to enhance through webinars and chat boxes.
  
  
• We still believe our collateral materials are critical, while ALL of us know some of our biggest, best, and longest-lasting client relationships were developed with little more than a blank piece of paper or a napkin.   And, you don’t need no stinking business cards.

In short, we’ve mastered short-term thinking and placebo solutions beyond Jack Kevorkian’s wildest dreams!

I began talking about the necessity of moving away from tactical selling to strategic partner selling – adding value beyond the product – as far back as 1984; but, I certainly wasn’t the first, or brightest, to see this move as an imperative.

While many have been preaching the ‘consultative’ model for decades, the truth is many have fallen short due to a poor understanding of strategy itself – still promoting product value disguised as strategic value.

It’s one of the reasons our training sessions continually emphasize two main points (it takes a lot of emphasis to undue decades of brainwashing):

1. Never `Present’ anything.  It’s the application of knowledge clients want to see, particularly if your application can be couched within their long-term ‘big picture’ strategy.
   
   
2. Don’t even think about ‘closing’ sales.   If you’re doing it right, you’re OPENING relationships.  Sales are short-term.  Relationships are long term.   And, they’re built on truly, really, honestly, actually, inevitably, and increasingly adding value.

Want your reps to be relevant?

1. Don’t focus on how to influence clients.  Focus on how they can impact the clients’ business.
   
   
2. Quit focusing on your competition.  If I see one more ‘how to sell against….’ seminar, I’ll need an airbag.  It’s time to move into the real world:  Focus instead on how you can impact your client’s business.  That’s where success really lives.
   
   
3. Quit worrying about making sales.  Focus on making a difference.  You will astound your clients and baffle your competition.  They won’t know how to act.
   

“But, Jim, our salespeople can’t learn all that stuff!”

Who do you think you’re talking to?  Sorry.  I don’t believe you.  But, you’ll have to teach them something besides the endless parade of how to sell another special section series they’ve become accustomed to enduring.   They need challenges and – believe it or not – they want to sell at a higher level; but, you have to take them there.

Remember, there’s a big difference between you doing something and your simply getting it done.  You don’t have to know everything in order for your people to learn.  You simply have to know how to get them taught.  There’s a difference.

Once you understand these key points and understand you’re in the results business – not in the delivery business, you can move your people to a higher level.  That’s your ticket to success.

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Successful managers are different from unsuccessful ones - and I think we've all seen the symptoms.  You've probably seen them, too.

This week my E-Zines – I publish two currently – are both about the difference between ‘doing things’ and ‘getting things done’.   In it I allude briefly to the differences between managers who succeed and those who somehow remain forever stuck in their careers.

The one major difference I’ve seen is that those who get ‘stuck’ seem to thing THEY are the ones who’s job it is to DO things.  Those who I’ve seen succeed have held a different philosophy:  They see themselves not as the doers; but as the catalyst charged with ‘getting things done!’

This doesn’t apply only to managers.  Some major league corporate CEOs have fallen prey to the same fixation, much to their detriment.  You can even look back at the U.S. Presidents over the past half century – the failures always seemed to be the ones who felt they had to DO everything, never realizing their need to micromanage was their worst enemy; and the ‘successes’ always seemed to be those who managed the ‘big picture’ – something business schools call ‘the view from the balcony’.

A recent Harvard Business Review article discussed this in terms of ‘diminishers’ vs ‘multipliers’.  You can guess which is which, but suffice to say ‘multipliers’ get things done through people, both internal and external.

My ezine articles mentioned a CEO I met many years ago, as well as a specific client who’s attitude was quite different.  You can make your own comparison between these two separate unrelated instances:

• The CEO of a failing newspaper:  (Coming up to me after a convention session) “Jim, I’d love to have you come in and train my people; but, I think I’d have some political problems if I did that.”
  
  
• My Ad Director client: (When I asked him about his CEO’s attitude about his bringing me in)  “Jim, my job isn’t to spend my time doing things.  “It’s my job to see they get done.  I see you as a resource.”   He was saying I was a ‘tool’ in his tool chest.  He was right.  He wanted me to train his people and be a resource for the ongoing coaching the line organization must do to make the training effective.
  
  

It isn’t hard to see who the ‘multiplier’ is.  In the meantime, the CEO was stuck – afraid of his middle managers’ attitude – or just as bad – the managers may have been afraid to look as though they weren’t doing their jobs.

This is my second blog post on this subject; but, it’s so central to effective management, I felt it was worth the effort.

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Sales fundamentals never really change.  It also appears to be true in some corporate cultures.   I was just looking at an article I wrote that appeared in the American Marketing Association’s Marketing News back in 1986 and was a little surprised to see much of what I wrote way back then still has meaning  today.  In fact, if I hadn’t told you this, you might even think this is a brand-new blog post.

Here are a few excerpts:

The `soft sell’ – making it easy for buyers to buy the way they want to buy – carries a hidden danger:  We may be creating a generation of salespeople who are little more than clerks…  The newspaper industry isn’t much different.  What passes for sales training is often only product orientation.  When sales reps call on prospects, 60-seconds doesn’t pass before the talk turns to demographics, circulation rates, or some other set of numbers….

To avoid manipulation, soft-sell reps turn into questioning clerks who are great at problem solving but lousy at directing the sale to a conclusion…  A strategic approach to guiding the process is more important than ever.

The next generation of sales professionals will combine the best elements of the first stages: solving problems with a market-driven approach and a strong,  strategic sales plan.  Where a company is on the evolutionary scale will determine its place in the market and its ability to attract top talent in the years to come; but it takes guts and a corporate culture that isn’t fearful of making mistakes.

Top-down commitment gets bottom-up support…. Skill development is handled by the line organization, not the people in HR.  Management needs to get out of the office – even try the uncomfortable!

Want to learn how to ask questions.  Quit carrying collateral.  Leave it in the car.  One sales manager who took my advice and called on a national account carrying only a yellow pad told me, “I felt naked; but it worked!  It’s the first time in six years I found out what he really needed and now he’s a client!”

Interesting, huh?

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High performance isn’t something that just happens because everyone agrees to ‘get on the same page’.  The fact is your organization must be set-up for success – and that requires organizational alignment.

An organization that’s well aligned literally hums like a well-oiled machine.  Employee roles are clear, focused, and processes flow almost naturally.

Sounds good, huh?   Reality is different.  Few organizations are ever really aligned because changes are occurring literally all the time!  For poorly-aligned organizations, this creates problems on many levels:  Processes can become ineffective or roles may have changed when processes have not.

The conflict between technology, processes, and roles can make team members feel disorganized, making work more difficult.   Oops!  Back to ambiguity, confusion, and overlapping roles.

So, how can an organization improve alignment and move toward a high performance culture?  Like many things in life, it begins with questions about:

The gap:  How far from the ideal organization model are we?

Reality:  Differentiate the possible from the practical

How to begin:  What’s the first step to attaining our goal?

What shouldn’t change:  Some things should stay the same.  Why?

Every journey begins with a first step.   Before an organization can move – as an organization – toward a high-performance culture, the team members must learn the principles of high performance, including:

The difference between traditional vs. high performance paradigms

The characteristics of high performance

Learning how to achieve a win-win culture

A high-performance development model, including a model for transition planning and its tools.

You’ll then need to conduct an assessment your organization’s current high performance potential.  After all, knowing the principles won’t be enough unless you know – like the sign in the mall when you’re trying to find the shoe store – you know where you are now.

That process will allow you to develop a high performance strategy and high performance teams.

Easy?   No.  Not much is.

When does it end?  Probably never.  Or, maybe when things quit changing, which is saying the same thing.   Maybe that’s why so many successful organizations in America have understood and come to grips with the one simple fact of life:   People determine the organization’s success or failure.  They must succeed for the organization to succeed.  That means becoming a ‘learning’ organization – one that sends a strong message to it’s people:  They ARE the future.

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How much time do your reps waste?   It's not uncommon.  I've often said that most reps could make a second living with the time they waste.  Unfortunately, it's a situation that appears timeless.

I was talking to a newspaper publisher last week, doing a little homework, and asked the question, “How do your sales people prospect for new business these days?”   She said, “They don’t.”

“They don’t?”

“No!”

“What are they doing?”

“They’re on computer screens, talking to their friends on Facebook, and living off their existing accounts!”

She also told me this wasn’t unique to her company; she hears the same lament from others in the industry, too!   I’ve known this publisher for almost twenty-five years.  She’s one of the best in the business; so, if it’s happening to her, I knew it had to be happening to others.  A few calls later confirmed my suspicion.

Reps come in, get on email and check all their social networks – and before you know it, it’s noon and they’re off to lunch.

Since articles and ezines are best suited for providing useful information, and blogs are more conducive to opinion pieces, this seems to be a good place/time for me to spout-off a bit.

How many industries – which means the companies within them – have grown over the years to the point they’ve somehow lost the entrepreneurial culture that fueled their launch, gave them birth, and fueled growth in the early stages.

I’ll give you a personal example:  When I first launched my first publication, I was a typical boot-strap startup working out of a converted garage.  Public companies have access to public credit in the capital markets; small business can typically look to a bank and the SBA (provided banks are lending); but, in my case that was out of the question, too – banks don’t lend on publishing ventures and even if I had equipment to use as security, which I didn’t, it wouldn’t have helped much.   I couldn’t even use my home since it was a ‘starter home’ recently purchased on the GI Bill, which means there was no available equity.

If I was going to attract salespeople, I had to offer a great opportunity – that meant commissions that were higher than anywhere else.  Without getting into details, I’ll just say I did it by ‘front-loading’ the commission structure on new sales very heavily, provided they were long-term contracts.   I also wanted reps with the right attitude – the Three E’s:  Energy, Effort, and Enthusiasm.  I didn’t care about product knowledge – that can be easily taught.

It worked.   The first rep I hired was an 18-year old recent high school graduate with NO experience doing ANYTHING besides babysitting; but she had the three E’s.  I could teach her the rest.  In 1979 that 18-year-old made $30,000 – that was a LOT of money in 1979 for many people, let alone an 18-year old.  My 1981, I had reps often making over $1,000 a week - all based on production – and driving company cars I’d leased for them.

My second rep was a guy named Nick.  He came walking up my driveway on a Saturday and knocked on my door.

“Are you Jim Lorenzen?”

“Yes.  Who are you?”

“I’m Nick, and I want to work for you.”

I invited him in and within five minutes I hired him.   He came from doing Amway.  I knew he had an entrepreneurial mindset.  He quickly became my top producer and four years later was my GM running four papers, leaving me free to travel speaking at conventions.

When I sold my publications, they were successful and growing.   After the sale, the new owner began to make changes.  One of them was going to draws vs commission, then salary plus bonuses.   Nick left quickly.   Over time, he couldn’t keep his best talent and the papers started down.  He sold to a third buyer after a few years and the third owner began to hire from other papers and added a lot of G&A overhead - and doing other things that ‘don’t make the cash register ring’.

Finally, after about six more years of trying, the third owner found me again – at the time I was operating other businesses and had my office in Orlando, Florida – and tried to sell the publications back to me!   I actually flew back to California – about seven miles from where I live today – to take a look.  What I saw was a lot of fat.   What’s worse, the business was weak.   Anyone who’s been around publishing long enough can just look at the ads and you can tell – at a glance – whether or not the publication is making deals off the rate card, giving away ads, making trade-deals, etc.  In short, you weren’t getting what you were seeing.   When I owned the papers, you could take a calculator with our rate card and add-up the revenue.  It was all under contract, paid-for, with no receivables, no trades, no discounts, no freebies.  It was squeaky clean.   It was a sold, real revenue-stream.

We could do it – even selling without a media kit – because we were bringing value beyond the numbers.  I was teaching our reps to do what other publishers thought their own reps were too stupid to learn.

Now, unfortunately, it was too late; the brand was ruined.

Now I realize my compensation structure wouldn’t work in many industries like pharmaceuticals, industrial, high-ticket technology, many consumer products, or a thousand and one other industries; but it does make sense in many others, including publishing.

I see far too many publications hiring second-rate talent - because they feel they can’t afford the best – then focus on product training because they don’t think their people are smart enough to learn anything beyond the basics.   Even those who do pay well and think they’re hiring the best are often hiring people who’ve become accustomed to the ‘public utility’ culture.

Want a comparison?  Compare the dominant newspaper in your area with the dominant radio station.  Which ad reps do you think are waiting for people to ‘call in’ their ads?  Which ad reps won’t even talk to you about an open-rate buy?   The answer is obvious – in virtually every market across the United States.

I think if more publications went back to their entrepreneurial roots – in culture and compensation – and hire from outside the industry – product knowledge is only a ‘plug-in’ anyway – I think they’d be amazed at the progress they could make.

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Are you spending your time doing things – or are you getting things done?

You’ve heard the old expression `work expands to the time allotted’; and we’ve no doubt witnessed it at times in our own lives.  Usually we think of it in terms of HOW we actually perform a task – efficiently vs. inefficiently.    If we’re lucky, we’re taught early in life by someone (parent, teacher, role model, mentor, etc.) how to get more done in less time.

In my case, I learned in a military academy prep school I attended before college.  We had three hours for homework each evening and it was ‘lights out’ at 10 p.m., no exceptions.  When you had to juggle academics with military duties and fit it all into a limited amount of time, you learned how to prioritize and focus pretty quickly.

But, getting things done – versus `doing things’ – has other implications in business.  I’ll use an example from our own business and you can apply it to yours.

Once, after speaking at a conference, I was talking to a newspaper publisher who said, “I’d love to have you come in and train our people, but I think it would cause some political problems.”

I didn’t even bother to ask him what they were.  That single sentence was unbelievably revealing on several levels:  He had ad directors and middle managers who he thought were the ones who should be training people, and/or, his ad directors and middle managers thought they should be doing the training and would see anyone else’s intervention as an intrusion.  

All I could do was shake my head in amazement.   Either (a) that publisher had no clue how to develop his organization, (b) he had middle-managers that saw their positions as fiefdoms to be guarded, or (c) both a and b were true and his publications were doomed to straightjacked thinking for all eternity. 

If what he said was true, it was a case of weak leadership leading bad management.

Compare that to an ad director I knew many years ago, named David Feldman,  who built sales organizations at two different companies during those years.  Each time he took a new position, his first call was to me to plan the training and development process. He wasn't the CEO, he was an ad director! 

I once asked him, "Has the CEO ever asked you why YOU aren’t doing the training yourself?"   David said, “I’m the manager.  You’re the batting coach.  It’s not my job to spend time doing things; it’s my job to make sure they get done - and done right.” 

He made it clear to every CEO that hired him that he considered training as integral to success as batting practice is to a baseball team... and he negotiated his training budget as part of his 'package' for coming aboard.  He was smart.  He refused to be responsible for the success of a sales organization that would not invest in the development of its talent.   I'm sure he told those CEOs the same thing he told me.  He obviously worked for CEOs that `got it' and were on the same page.

He set records everywhere he went; so it was no surprise watching his star rise.   Now compare that with sales managers who still think they have to DO things themselves.  They never understood their job was to 'coach' reps based on what they've learned and practiced.   I've seen a lot of them over the last 25 years; they seldom go far.

Moral:  Quit doing things.  Start getting them done.  There is a difference and it can be dramatic!

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Ask sales reps how they feel about role-playing and you’ll likely see raised eyebrows and rolling eye balls.

Not a surprise.  Who wants to look – and feel like – a complete idiot in front of the boss or (even worse) your peers!  After all, we spend so much time telling everyone how good we are and how much we know about selling!  

A role-play?  Pleeeze!!!  ‘We don’ need no shtinking role-plays.’

But, wait!  (Does this sound like a sham-wow commercial, yet?)  Role-plays can be fun!  Yeah, I know.  How does THAT happen?

I actually stumbled on the secret  - it’s isn’t, really - by accident many years ago when I was in publishing and holding sales training for my staff five mornings a week.  The secret came to me at Dodger Stadium!  Before the game, BOTH teams were taking batting practice!

Wait!  Batting practice!  Before EVERY game!  EVERY day!   There’s a unique concept!

Sales is about execution – every day!  It involves skills.  Skills, by definition, must be practiced.  Hmmm.  I think I’m smelling some coffee!

Then I noticed something else!  Nobody ever `struck out’ during batting practice.   Not one single batter!   They all hit solid line drives and even a few home runs!   I didn’t even see a ground ball!

Practice without failure?  How can that be? 

I GET IT!

I was like Columbo (ask your parents) hitting his forehead in amazement:  NO ONE – EVER - strikes out!   My mother wouldn’t strike out!

In fact, the pitcher isn’t even trying to strike out ANY batter!

So, what’s going on?  What are they doing?  Then, it hit me:  The pitcher is ‘feeding’ the batter pitches that allow the batter to:

1. Practice swinging in rhythm
2. Practice hitting
3. Build rhythm and tempo
4. Create mental images of the ball flying out of the infield
5. Program a feeling of success after success  -  positive feedback programming of what success looks like....

BINGO!  This is good.

I spent the next weekend revamping my entire approach to training, especially role-playing.  In fact, I quit calling it ‘role-playing’.  It now became ‘The Batting Cage’!

No one ever looked bad.  Everyone always looked good.

It was an immediate ‘hit’ with the sales force and in the years I’ve taught it to other companies, it’s success has been nothing short of spectacular.   I have a drawer full of letters from sales executives and owners telling me how their people have formed their own groups and have never been so excited about training!

The Roadmap

I’m going to give you the keys right here.  It’s simple and straightforward - most good things are - and doesn’t require a lot of space to explain; but first, two key points shoud be reiterated:

1. The key to success in sales:  Execution.
2. How to achieve success:  Practice.

Sure, we could talk all day about motivation, self-image, attitude, yada, yada, yada; but, you still have to execute to succeed and you need to practice in order to execute flawlessly.

Sure, attitude is critical to success; but, I’ll wager you this:  If you’re having fun, your attitude changes for the better.  People like what they’re good at (… duh).

So, how do we make it fun?

Begin with the obvious (now that you’ve been to Dodger Stadium with me)

1. Make it easy and fun! Whether you do it like we did (five mornings a week, every week of the year with rolls and coffee) or like other companies (peanut butter & jelly lunches -  or pizza and sodas late in the day), make it FUN!
2. Make it regular! (see #1).  This is not an event.  It’s a process.  It must be done on a regular schedule.   You watch:  Pretty soon, they’ll be doing it so well they’ll be knocking it out of the park every time.
3. Focus on ONE skill at a time.  Do not  ‘role-play’ the entire sale.  Get that person in the batting cage and drill ONE SPECIFIC SKILL.     Maybe it’s how to Open the sale.   My people liked to drill ‘the conviction formula’ – another article .  Whatever.  Drill ONE, and only ONE.

Quick story:  I once had a rep who hadn’t written a deal in two weeks!   When it was her turn in the cage, I told her to take out three contracts.   I had her literally ‘write me up’ three times.  No closes, no pitches, no nothing.  Just write me up.  Do it again.  Do it again.  She went out that day and sold two contracts!  Sometimes people just need to get the mental image of ‘doing the deal’!

1. Have a purpose.  Know exactly what skill you’re trying to develop and show your rep exactly what success looks like!  Get in the batting cage yourself!  Demo it!  Let the rep see and let the rep do.  Let the rep see how easy it is!
2. Don’t throw ‘curve balls’ and try to ‘stump’ the rep.  Trust me, they’ll get better and better doing this just following this plan… and soon they’ll be ASKING YOU for some curve balls – and taking great pride in being able to hit them!
3. Meaningful feedback.  Get the reps involved in critiquing each other!  In groups of three, have a pitcher (merchant), a batter (the rep) and a coach.  Make each role play short and easy.  Then have the coach provide input, telling  the batter (a) what was good, and (b) how the batter can improve.  Stay away from criticism.  The more they focus on what works, the more the other behaviors will disappear.

Breaking The Ice

So, how do we begin to develop the culture of having fun in the batting cage?  Start with fun games that have nothing to do with their work.

I gave every rep five one-dollar bills (good thing we weren’t a big company) and told them we were going to play ‘The Questions Game’!   It was kind of like tennis:  You had to return the serve and always ‘return’ the ball when it was hit to you.  The `ball’ is returned by asking a question.

The game is played two people at a time (singles match).  The first person asks a question – the serve.  The second person must answer with a question – the return.  The first person must then respond with another  question.   The first person who ends with a statement – fails to return - loses a dollar to his playing partner and the person who won the point gets the dollar - and gets to ‘serve’.

Rep A:  I like your watch; where did you get it?

Rep B:  At The Watch Store; do you want one?

Rep A:  How much does it cost?

Rep B:  How much were you thinking of spending?

Rep A:  I don’t know, what features does it have?

Rep B:  (you do this one)

You get the idea.  These exchanges are a lot of fun and can get very funny; but they do develop a great skill:  To automatically think in terms of questions, not statements.   Watch, your reps will start doing it at Happy Hour – with their own money.  Kind of like ‘liars poker’ – Yeah, I know, you never did that.

Getting To The Batting Cage

Involve your people in creating ‘batting cages’.  What specific skills do they feel they’d like to develop?   Split-up your reps into groups of three:

• Prospect – The pitcher
• Rep – The batter
• Coach -  who helps keep the process on track. 
  
  

The three people will rotate roles with each `cage’.   Again – keep it all lively and fun!

My reps did their own cages every single morning.  It wasn’t long before they began doing it automatically each morning.  Some even came in early to practice and most of the time, I wasn’t even involved!

Soon, you’ll see them changing the groups around and you’ll notice they ‘can’t wait’ to play in the batting cage each morning.

How did it work for us?   My publications were small; but we outsold ALL of our much larger competition.

My speaking and training career actually began when the publisher of a local daily – at a chamber function – joked that if I wasn’t the competition, he’d have me train his salespeople.  I told him I’d do it; and he was astonished that I actually showed-up and did it!  I trained his people to sell against my own publication!

My justification was simple:  I’d rather follow good reps through a merchant’s door than bad reps.  Bad reps ‘burn’ the market.  Good reps `warm up’ the market.    Let’s face it, merchants think all reps are alike.    Raising the bar is good for everyone.

Now, YOU can do it, YOURSELF!

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Your top-performing, fast-track superstars - the ones you think represent the future of your company - just may not be all you're hoping for.  In fact, they just might be planning to shock you and all your future plans.

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend the May 2010 issue of The Harvard Business Review.  One article in particular should be of great interest to CEOs and any other senior executive concerned with retaining and nurturing their star talent!

I’ll be writing more about this in our corporate blog in the future; but the issue of employee engagement is just as critical in sales as it is to those concerned with overall organizational development.   It’s an issue we address with clients, as well.

The HBR article, How To Keep Your Top Talent, discusses the results of a survey of more than 20,000 employees regarded as ‘emerging stars’ in more than 100 organizations over a six-year period, conducted by the Corporate Executive Board; and the findings were consistent regardless of industry, country, or economic conditions.  A few findings were alarming, though not completely surprising. 

Remember, these are the 'star' top-performers who care considered to be on the 'fast-track' to success in these organizations:

• One in four intends to leave their organization within the year
• One in three admits to not giving 100%
• One in five believes his/her personal aspirations don’t mesh with their organizations’
• Four out of ten have little confidence in co-workers and even less in their senior team
• 70% of today’s high performers lack critical attributes essential to success in future roles.

The findings should be alarming for you, too, if you actually reflect on the implications of each one of these points.  There’s much more in the article and I’ll leave you to read it yourself; but, many engaged in organizational development have been banging the drum about this issue for some time; and, it’s especially important right now.

The reason is simple:  During hard times, people may be glad to have jobs; but, star performers – the ‘emerging leadership’ you want to keep – really aren’t that worried about work.  As the economy improves and companies begin hiring again, their resumes are polished and their hooks are in the water.

I’ve often felt that training is about more than simply improving skills.    As you probably know, our organization had training five mornings a week all year round – both internally and externally produced – not counting other more formal events and programs.  In the companies I’ve run over the years, I’ve felt ongoing employee development initiatives accomplished a few other very worthwhile purposes:

• They helped me identify the people who didn’t want to succeed.  That was good to know, for obvious reasons.
• They helped identify the people who were truly committed to growth and development.
• They  sent a strong message to my employees that I was committed to them.  They were worth more than payroll – they were a long-term investment; and it showed I was willing to ‘walk-the-walk’ when it came to their future with our organization.

The issues that must be understood and the keys to success in this area are outlined quite well in the HBR article; and I would offer only a couple of thoughts based on my 25+ years not only on the front-lines, but in witnessing other organizations and cultures, as well:

• Top-down commitment gets bottom-up support.  If top management is simply ‘sending them to training’,  it will turn-out to be little more than a placebo.   If you want employees fully engaged, top management will have to demonstrate it – in spades.
• Organizations that rely solely on line-management to conduct all employee development will inevitably suffer from ‘incestual knowledge’.   The best learning comes from experience and sometimes it’s even better when taken from other organizations – even industries – and applied to current issues.    

Bullet points #3 and 4 of the findings mentioned at the beginning of this piece directly relate to meshing employee engagement with developing a high-performance strategy, often engaging your top performers in the process.  Proctor & Gamble does that today!

Every executive and manager should be aware of this issue – and take steps to address its implications – now before the hiring begins.

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