WHAT SETS TOP SALES MANAGERS APART FROM THE REST?
LEARN HOW TO dOubLE yOuR iNcOME
NZ’s e-mag for sales leaders
SALES FOREcASTiNG Part 3: Turning your sales reports into a Sales Action Plan
NZSALESAUGUST 26Th 2009 / ISSUe 28
uSiNG THE RiGHTWORdS TO SELL
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 2
AUGUST 26Th / ISSUe 28
THiS WEEK’S MuST REAd
WHAT SETS TOP SALES MANAGERS
APART FROM THE REST?
Learn the one consistent thing
the world’s top performing
sales managers do.
WOuLd yOu LiKE TO
dOubLE yOuR iNcOME?
You can achieve your
income goals.
NZSM cALENdAR
MiNd yOuR LANGuAGE
Choosing the right words can
help you sell.
SALES TRAiNiNG diREcTORy
RESOuRcE cORNER
STOP biTcHiNG, START PiTcHiNG
An essential guide on how to give
yourself the best shot at securing
that lucrative contract.
THE cLOSE
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NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 3
I caught the train home from
Wellington the other day and
noticed an advertising poster in the
carriage. The message from a fitness
training company said ‘Those who don’t
find time to exercise will have to find
time for illness.’ how true, I thought.
It is a phrase where the words ‘exercise’ and ‘illness’ can
be replaced with other words to make equally meaningful
statements. In sales, maybe we can say that ‘those who
don’t find the time for personal development and improving
their sales skills will have to find time to work longer to get
results.’ The influences of information and communications
technology, globalisation and trust (or lack of), has changed
and will continue to change, the way customers buy.
Changing the way we sell requires constant time and
attention.
So if your sales results are looking a bit sick, have a look in
this issue at performance expert John Shackletons article,
‘Would you like to double your income?’ which asks three
questions that will exercise your mind!
Happy Selling!
Paul
ABOUT /
Short and sharp, New Zealand Sales Manager is
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and enlightening articles, and industry news and
information to forward-thinking sales managers,
business owners and sales professionals.
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PO Box 137162, Parnell,
Auckland 1151, New Zealand
WeBSITe / www.nzsalesmanager.co.nz
New Zealand Sales Manager is an
Publication
NZSM / JULY 15Th 2009 / 4
T h I S W e e K ’ S M U S T R e A D
Paul Newsom is the editor of NZ Sales Manager and helps sales professionals and sales managers
to compete and win in complex sales. You can visit Paul’s website at www.salespartners.co.nz.
WhAT SeTS TOP SALeS MANAGeRS APART
fROM The ReST?Learn the one consistent thing
the world’s top performing sales managers do.
By Paul Newsom
Sales managers have a multitude of tasks and responsibilities. Hiring, training, planning, reporting, admin, motivating,
selling, fire fighting, managing performance – any sales manager will readily add to the list. But what sets the top sales
managers apart from the rest?
Typically these tasks and responsibilities fall naturally into one of four areas of what I call ‘the sales management spectrum’.
• Command and Control
This sales manager is the administrator. Their day
revolves around day-to-day admin, operating mission
control mostly via their email, measuring and
reporting, and filtering out all the clutter so that sales
people are not distracted.
• Sell, and Solve CuStomer ProBlemS
This sales manager enjoys selling more than
managing. They get involved in all the big deals
and building relationships with clients. Typically
they will have been the top performing sales person
prior to becoming the sales manager. In fact they
might sometimes be better remaining as the top sales
person, rather than a sales manager.
• CoaCh and develoP
This sales manager spends high quality time with their sales people,
truly helping them to develop into top performers. They are excellent
at identifying and recruiting talent. Sales managers of large teams who
truly focus on coaching and developing will spend a large proportion
of their time building the capability of the team.
• BuSineSS/market management
This sales manager is the strategic thinker and tactician who
works on the big picture, building value in the business. They are
looking for strategic alliances, and work closely with marketing
on changing trends and opportunities. In smaller companies,
they will be the strategic marketing department, driving product
development based on market intelligence and research, as well as
being the sales manager.
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 5
The best sales managers are effective across the spectrum.
however, many sales managers have an individual style
which favours just one or two of the key areas.
Indeed, many sales managers tend to spend their time on the
command and control. So is one area of the spectrum more
important than others?
The most important job of the sales manager is to help their
sales people succeed. As a sales manager, if your sales
team is successful, then it stands to reason that you will
be successful. Building the capability of the team, through
training where needed and consistent coaching, has to be
the primary focus for the sales manager.
Most importantly, as a sales person, there was one common
trend with the command and control managers that I have
worked for - I didn’t learn much from them. They were not
helping me to be successful.
Recent studies all point to the fact that the one consistent
thing that the world’s top performing sales organisations do is
that their sales managers are highly effective coaches.
For example, here are the findings from three trusted sources:
‘The most important skill is that of the sales manager who coaches
and develops the sales person. however, most sales managers are
more administrator than coach. Sales people who receive ½ day per
week 1:1 with their sales manager are twice as productive as other
sales people.’
Source: HR Chally Group world class sales excellence report 2007
‘Top sales performers work for managers who create a culture of
development, recognition and coaching.These teams were 38 per
cent more productive, and had 27 per cent higher profitability.
Consistently superior results depend on the manager.’
Source: Gallup Organisation, survey of 250,000 sales people,
1 million customers, 80,000 managers. 2003
‘The manager activity most closely
associated with sales rep success is
coaching. however, of the skills that
managers possess, an ability to coach
individual sales reps is relatively the
weakest.
The SEC findings are that the world’s
best sales managers provide, on average,
three-five hours coaching per person per
month. Teams who did achieved 107
per cent of target. Teams who did less
than two hours per month achieved 90
per cent of target.’
Source: Sales Executive Council – world
class sales coaching 2007
Some sales training works, but quite often it doesn’t. When
it does work, the part the sales manager plays in reinforcing
the training, after the training has been done, is key to the
success of the training, and particularly the business results.
When training doesn’t work a primary reason will be that
there is nothing in place to reinforce the training - to turn
learning into performance.
Old habits die hard - people carry on doing what they have
always done.
The SeC, who represent over 500 of the world’s leading sales
organisations, report that: ‘reps fail to recall 87% of what
they have learned within 30 days of receiving training. When
training is complemented by in-field coaching, productivity
is quadrupled, increasing from 22 per cent to 88 per cent.’
You have probably seen similar statistics before on classroom
training. They are somewhat scary if you invest in the
training, but have nothing in place to follow up. Sustained
coaching is vital to derive the benefit and value of most sales
training and help the team to apply the knowledge and use
the tools they have learned in the class room.
We do have a centre of excellence here in New Zealand.
Late last year, the SeC ranked the Waikato Management
School based Gen-i Sales Academy as world leading, and
one of the most effective they have seen. Sustained coaching
is identified as one of the top five contributing factors.
Coaching is often not well understood. Giving direction and
orders, showing someone how to do a task, or persuading
that person to do something are common examples of
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 6
what I see when managers think they are coaching. These
are necessary elements of teaching and managing but
are not coaching. The best teachers and managers are all
great coaches. They understand and guide the sales person
through the learning process until the desired results are
being achieved.
The secret for the sales manager lies in knowing
when to coach, how to coach and what to coach. The
‘what’ requires a clearly defined sales process and the
appropriate sales tools. Otherwise it will be like coaching
a team of footy players to play ‘no rules’ football or
coaching someone in the finer art of cake baking with
no bowl, scales or mixing spoon (tools) and no recipe
(process). You will get a pretty messy outcome.
When I think back to the two best sales training programmes
I participated in as a corporate account manager, it surprised
me at the time that the senior sales leaders did not attend
the training. Needless to say, they made no contribution in
helping the team to success following the training.
Recent research confirms my observations:
‘Many organisations do not have a ‘coaching culture’,
and managers worldwide, who have direct reports and
therefore by definition are team leaders, currently struggle
to understand what coaching really is, let alone reap the
rewards that coaching can deliver’.
NZATD People & Performance, June-July 09, The Coaching
Conundrum Asia – Pacific Executive Summary
So before you embark on your next sales training
programme, start with developing and honing your own
coaching skills, or get help from someone who can assist
with this. You will need to figure out how to coach the
process, using the tools and techniques introduced in
the training. for the sales manager who has not done
any professional development in sales coaching, then
this should perhaps be the biggest priority in your own
personal development.
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 8
By John Shackleton
Believe it or not, you can!
In November of last year I set an income goal for myself
and by the end of April I had achieved that goal – so
as long as I keep doing what I’ve been doing I should
continue to increase my income. how? Well the answer
involves two elements which are closely related – the way I
think and the way I behave. I’ve got three questions that will
help you apply this process.
The first question to ask yourself is: Are there people who
do what I do, that earn twice what I earn? Now, the answer
to this question is almost certainly ‘yes’. however for the
few of you that can’t answer yes to this then you may like to
consider doing something additional or something else to
earn more. If there are people that earn twice what you earn
then let’s consider a few other questions. Do they work twice
as hard as you do? Do they put in twice as many hours as
you do? Are they twice as smart? Do they have twice your
experience or double your skill level?
In my experience the top earners in any profession don’t
work harder or for longer than the average earners. They
don’t necessarily have more skills or more experience and
they aren’t usually super smart either. The difference is in the
way they think. So what this tells us is that if you think the
same way the top earners do then it’s possible to earn twice
as much as you currently do.
Now we need to consider belief and the next question
you should be asking yourself is: Do I believe in myself
enough to earn twice as much as I am currently earning?
Don’t just quickly answer yes – first consider this
experiment that’s been done many times: If we placed an
exciting job advert in the paper stating the complete job
description and showing a salary of $65,000, we could
expect to receive many applications. If we took the exact
same advert and placed it in the same paper the following
week but this time said that the salary was to be $650,000
how many applications do you think we would receive?
Most people would love to earn that salary but very few
people actually believe that they are worth that amount of
money and therefore they wouldn’t apply.
So now we know that in order to double our income we
need to change what we believe we are worth. Just a quick
note here: many people make the false assumption that
their self worth is determined by what others think. In other
words they are only worth what someone else decides to pay
them. It might be an interesting exercise to ask an employer
(not your own boss!) how much they are prepared to pay
their staff. Some business owners will give you the answer
that they’ll pay as little as they can get away with, which
is understandable as that way they get to keep more of the
business’s profits.
WOuLd yOu LiKE TO dOubLE yOuR iNcOME?
John Shackleton is an international speaker, coach, author and performance expert.
Visit his website at www.johnshack.com for more information.
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 9
The starting point to doubling your income is to believe that
you are worth that much and the only way to do that is if you
are giving a better product, a better service, doing more and
going further than the next person.
Now we need to ask ourselves: What do I need to change
about the way I work that could help me double my income?
Some people feel that this would involve a massive change
which would be too big or too scary to take on. Just consider
the following story:
Two identical yachts leave the Bay of Islands on the same
day and both captains decide that they are going to sail due
north for a week until they make landfall in fiji. Now they
sail at approximately the same speed and experience very
similar weather but one of the yachts has a one degree error
in its compass readings that it is not aware of. for a while you
wouldn’t see any difference between their paths but after a
few hours you would start to see a gap building up between
them and by the end of the first day they would be a few
kilometres apart. Seven days later one of the yachts would
happily make safe harbour in fiji. A couple of months later the
other yacht would run aground on the coast of Alaska. Do you
sometimes feel you want to be on a path towards sunshine,
but it seems to takes you ten times as long to get there as it
should and when you arrive it‘s the wrong place anyway!
Very often the changes that we need to make to improve
our results are very small, but if we consistently apply those
changes over and over again we can achieve some great
results. These alterations might be as simple as changing the
questions you ask people when you start to work with them.
Perhaps it is offering your product or service in a slightly
different way. It could even be as simple as selling to a
different type of prospect.
In November of last year I made some very simple changes
to my business model and decided to stop chasing my
clients for business on the telephone and concentrate on
marketing through my newsletter and by email contact.
This approach wouldn’t work for everybody but for me the
results have been wonderful, including having a smaller
phone bill! My whole attitude has improved as I no longer
experience the frustration of not being able to speak to
people because they are away or in meetings and I think
I’ve probably stopped chasing some people away by being
too pushy.
Now I’m sure some people would respond better to a
phone call rather than an email so I expect I’ve missed
out on some business but the net result to me has been
very positive. Not only have I doubled my income but I’ve
reduced the stress in my life and increased the time I can
spend with my young family.
I’ve achieved all that just by making a few tiny changes to
the way I’ve been selling and I’d love to tell you that it’s been
easy but it hasn’t. I’ve found myself falling back into my old
habit of telephoning on a number of occasions and when
I do my stress levels rise and my free time disappears. I’ve
had to work really hard on not feeling guilty because I’ve not
been on the phone for 4 hours a day. Now I understand that
for some of you that may sound really stupid but I’ve been
spending half a day on the phone for the last 20 years and to
me it feels normal. If I don’t do it my brain tells me I’m being
lazy and ineffective and therefore I won’t be successful. The
new approach is simpler, easier and more effective but my
old habits are difficult to break.
Change is never easy especially when you are trying to alter
habits that you’ve had for years but the results of making
these small changes can be spectacular.
So, let’s summarise those three questions that you need to
ask yourself in order to double your income.
Are there people who do what i do that earn twice 1.
what i earn? (The answer to this one is almost
certainly YeS).
do i believe in myself enough to earn twice as much 2.
as i am currently earning? (Be honest with yourself
and if the answer is no then you need to work on
your self worth. You could start by reading Psycho
Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz – the best book I’ve
ever read on self image).
What do i need to change about the way i work that 3.
could help me double my income? (You are only
looking for small changes but ones that you can apply
on a consistent basis. The problem for most of us is
overcoming the old habits).
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 10
Consultative Selling NZIM CentralWellington
Sales Skills 3eMAAucklandAdvanced Sales DevelopmentDavid foremanWellingtonKey Account ManagementDavid foremanWellingtonSales Skills 3eMAAuckland
Sales ManagementDavid foremanWellington
NegotiationDavid foremanWellington
Sales Skills 2ZealmarkAuckland
Sales DevelopmentDavid foremanAuckland
effective Proposal Writing David foremanAuckland
Sales ManagementDavid foremanWellington
Sales DevelopmentDavid foremanAucklandTelephone SalesZealmarkAucklandAdvanced Serious Selling Richard GeeAuckland
Consultative Selling NZIM CentralWellington
Telephone Selling SkillseMAAuckland
effective Proposal Writing David foremanAucklandAdvanced Serious Selling Richard GeeChristchurchSales ManagementDavid foremanWellington
NegotiationDavid foremanWellington
ProspectingDavid foremanAucklandSales Skills 1eMAAuckland
fRI 25 SePT
MON 21 SePT
TUeS 15 SePTMON 14 SePT
WeD 9 SePT
Advanced Sales DevelopmentDavid foremanWellingtonKey Account ManagementDavid foremanWellington
Sales PlanningDavid foremanWellingtonSales SkillsZealmarkAuckland
NegotiationDavid foremanWellington
Sales DevelopmentDavid foremanAuckland
TUe 8 SePTMON 7 SePTfRI 4 SePT
fRI 18 SePT
SUN 20 SePT
SAT 19 SePT
SUN 13 SePT
SAT 12 SePTThU 10 SePT
SUN 30 AUG
SAT 29 AUG
SUN 27 SePT
SAT 26 SePT
NZSMCALeNDAR
MON 31 AUG
ThU 27 AUGWeD 26 AUG fRI 28 AUG
ThU 3 SePTWeD 2 SePTTUe 1 SePT
Sales PlanningDavid foremanWellington
Territory Management,Richard GeeAuckland
Sales DevelopmentDavid foremanAuckland
SAT 5 SePT
ThU 17 SePT
TUe 22 SePT WeD 23 SePT WeD 24 SePT
SUN 6 SePT
fRI 11 SePT
WeD 16 SePT
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 12
Are you using the right words to excite your clients, or
to show that you can fix their issues? Often slightly
changing how you describe a product or service can
completely change how people view the service.
Keep it professional. There’s no need to swear and curse – as
my father always says ‘people that use foul language in business
discussions have no grasp on articulation and delivery of a
message’. Funny thing, my Dad is bang on!
Using well-constructed language that reflects you and your
company’s goals is critical for the elevator pitch and the
discussions with clients and prospects. Language is just as
important as marketing or branding. In the game of sales
one of the greatest tools is the language of positives. This
is simply speaking in positives so the message is always
encouraging and exciting.
An easy example of this is: “that’s no problem to do” can be
rephrased to “Yes we can absolutely help to achieve this for
you”, the same wording but avoiding using the double negative
of NO and PROBLeM. Simple changes like this can have a
huge impact on your results – and the motivation of your staff!
A further example of how to use language in sales is to
simply listen to their issues then adjust your language and
how you describe your product or service to include the key
“trigger” words that the client uses, and the sales process will
be much smoother.
I had great success with this when I was working for Calcium –
the way the sales team was told to sell the product was on the
merits of its marketing ability – these were fantastic solutions
to problems most people did not know they had. After asking
a number of prospects what issues they had with email, then
changing the language I used to describe our services to include
their trigger words, clients instantly understood how the tool
could help them and sales took off!
MiNd yOuR LANGuAGE By Tom Reidy
T W O M I N U T e T O P U P
Tom Reidy is a consultant specialising in strategies for Sales, Social Media and email marketing for business. visit his website at www.catalyst90.com
“Sales is not the art of making people buy, but the art of conversation”.
MID STRENGTHFULL FLAVOURFULL LIFE
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 14
NZSM / AUGUST 26Th 2009 / 15
It’s all about winning. Not about victory over opponents. It’s about winning the contest with your own potential to achieve all you can in life.
Michael Dell
“ “
Have you subscribed to New Zealand Sales Manager? It’s free!Simply visit www.nzsalesmanager.co.nz to get a copy of New Zealand Sales Manager delivered
straight to your inbox every third Wednesday!
frank, revealing, motivating and humorous, Stop Bitching outlines
self-styled advertising gurus, Marty Kellard and Ian elliot’s nine step
programme to success. An essential guide on how to give yourself
the best shot at securing that lucrative contract.
Editor’s note: The authors’ experience is predominantly in selling
advertising, where the ‘big pitch’ style of presentation selling is somewhat
more predominant than many other industries. however their underlying
principles of getting the edge on your competition in the preparation stages
by understanding your customer and their problem and knowing what it will
take to win rather than guessing, are essential to anyone in a complex or
consultative sale.
STOP biTcHiNG,START PiTcHiNGBy Marty Kellard & Ian elliotPublished by Pier 9
$33.98 from
R e S O U R C e C O R N e R
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