Hi!
My name is c.j., your trusted Sales Advisor, and here's the
August 2009 issue of Psyche-Selling TM eNewsletter.
It’s good news that the economy seems to be recovering, and many
companies are looking to hiring more sales staff, or getting
their sales staff trained. This is to make sure that the sales
force is well-prepared for the “lift-off” that occurs in many
recoveries.
However, merely increasing the size of the sales force, or
merely providing selling skills training, may not be sufficient
for you to improve sales performance. You will need strong and
effective sales leadership to lead your sales team to greater
success. Once again, we borrow some ideas from one of the
earliest “consultants” in history, Sun Tzu
（孙子）.
Hence, this month's topics:
-
Sun Tzu and the Art of Sales Leadership; and
-
Confronting Poor Performance
This issue's main article is on "Sun Tzu and the Art of
Sales Leadership", and it gives sales managers and leaders a
framework on how they can get optimal sales results from their
teams.
In brief:
-
As a leader, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail for your entire
team;
-
Why being overly nice or overly strict with your team are just as
bad, and how you can strike a balance between Intelligence,
Trust, Compassion, Courage and Discipline;
-
Why the sales leader will have a profound impact on the sales team,
and MUST be held accountable for the team’s performance.
Read on... ...
To read the rest of this newsletter, pls.
click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html).
Sun Tzu and the Art of Sales Leadership
by c.j. Ng
As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, you have planned
to fail (多算胜少算，而况于无算乎). This is especially true for sales leaders who are
looking to boost performances of their sales teams.
While most sales managers do implement some level of
planning, most of such planning involve the day-to-day
scheduling of meeting customers (i.e. the sales activities) so
as to achieve the numbers. There is little or no planning, in
many cases, in the areas of strategising, competitive anaylsis,
leadership and skills upgrading of their respective sales teams.
To achieve better sales performances, Sun Tzu (or Sūn Zǐ
in pinyin, 孙子
in simplied Chinese, or 孫子
in traditional Chinese) offer some insights on how we can plan
better to become effective leaders for our teams. After all, if
today’s business is akin to war, then there’s much we can learn
from the Art of War.
The Elements of Strategy
Long before we have strategic planning tools such as PEST
(Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis or SWOT
(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, Sun
Tzu had devised 5 elements in strategic planning that helped
many generals to gain victories in battles. These are:
-
The Way (or Vision)
道
-
The Climate
天
-
The Ground
地
-
The Leadership
将
-
The Methods 法
These 5 elements can be adapted into today’s business
environment, and can also incorporate modern strategic planning
tools such as the PEST and SWOT analysis.
In ancient times, going to war is risky business – you risk
losing your lives, and those of your loved ones, along with your
properties and resources. It may be easy to coerce some
peasants to form an army for you to conquer foreign lands.
However, the best armies are those with soldiers and generals
who are committed to the Way (or Vision or Goal in today’s
terminology). If the goals of the rulers (or management) and
the objectives of the soldiers (or sales people) are aligned,
you win (上下同欲者胜).
Hence, as a sales leader or manager, you may have to
communicate your expectations and align your goals with your
sales teams frequently to make sure everybody is moving in the
same direction (the same Way). Many a time, companies
experience high staff turnover in the sales force largely due to
sales staff NOT buying into management’s vision and goals. And
in most cases, this was caused by sales leaders not
communicating their vision and goals to their team enough.
It is insufficient to just have a common goal to win battles
and improve performances. You will also have to be aware of
your surrounding environment. Sun Tzu categorised the
environment into the Climate 天 and the Ground 地.
While the Climate in ancient times mean just the weather, the
Climate in today’s business terms can also mean the economic
climate, market trends and technological improvements. It is
important that sales leaders take into account of the Climate
when setting sales targets such that targets are set high in
good times, and then can be adjusted when times are bad. Sales
leaders will also have to identify emerging trends to capitalize
on market opportunities.
The Ground in ancient times mean the terrain of which armies
will travel upon. For today’s businesses, the Ground means all
that is happening on the ground, in the market place. This
includes specific customer behaviours and responses, pressure
from competition, our strengths and weaknesses with responding
to such situations. When sales leaders understand the Ground,
they can provide adequate coaching and mentoring to their teams,
and guide them to greater successes.
The Qualities of a Leader
Sun Tzu also provided a set of qualities that leaders
(将) should
have. These are:
-
Intelligence
智
-
Trust
信
-
Compassion
仁
-
Courage
勇
-
Discipline
严
According to
HR Chally, the 2 aspects of intelligence that a sales leader
should have are:
-
Analytical intelligence; and
-
Practical intelligence
Analytical intelligence refers to how a sales leader can
analyse issues ranging from market trends to individual sales
situations, and then formulate strategies to overcome
challenges. Practical intelligence refers to how the sales
leader can apply concepts learnt from other fields and
industries onto their sales teams to generate better results.
Both aspects of intelligence are critical in enabling the sales
leader to plan ahead and beat competitive pressures. Sales
leaders will have to balance the discipline of getting things
done with the creativity to think out-of-the-box to beat the
competition (以正合，以奇胜)
Sun Tzu mentioned that winning armies have capable generals
whose actions their lords (their bosses) don’t interfere with (将能而君不御者胜). This applies to the
sales leaders’ bosses, just as it applies to how sales leaders
treat their subordinates as well. In most cases, the reason
that sales leaders are not able to empower their team members to
perform their best independently are due to a lack of clear
expectations. That is to say, many sales leaders don’t
communicate their expectations with their team members clearly
enough, and hence team members don’t really know what the sales
leaders want. As a result, sales leaders will have to
constantly monitor and control team members, giving team members
an impression that their leaders don’t trust them. If team
members don’t feel they are trusted, they will not perform at
their best.
Having compassion doesn’t mean being “nice”. Rather, it means
how the sales leader sincerely has the interests of the team
member at heart, and works hard to help the team member achieve
her full potential. Being “nice” may mean giving the team
member better leads or preferential treatment. At best, this
may be just giving the team member the “fish”, rather than
teaching her “how to fish”. In worse situations, this may lead
to favouritism, and may divide rather than unite your team.
Team members may thus lose their trust in you as a leader.
However, if you are driving you team to greater performances,
you are developing them to be better sales people. While this
means that you will achieve better sales performances, it also
means that each team member will become better sales people in
their own right.
In war, generals need courage to face surmounting adversity.
The same applies to today’s sales leaders. If the sales leader
does not show confidence and self-belief in face of tough
challenges, the team will easily lose their morale.
Courage also means making tough or unpopular decisions. Many
sales leaders are afraid to take corrective actions against
their top sales people, fearing that these top sales people may
bring their customers to a competitor. In doing so, other sales
people will feel they have been unfairly treated, and will lose
their trust as respect in you as their leader.
Finally, discipline is NOT always about catching what your team
members have done wrong. It is just as important, if not more
important, to give recognition and sincere praises when your
team have perform to expectations too. In fact, the focus of
“discipline” isn’t so much about avoiding mistakes, but rather
it’s about achieving optimal performances.
Being Accountable as a
Leader
When a sales team is not achieving its targets, chances are
some members of the team will be fired to make room for new and
hopefully better performing sales people.
However, in sports (especially in team sports such as
football or basketball), if the team is not performing well, the
manager or coach gets fired first! In ancient times, when an
army loses a battle, the general might be executed too.
While it is easy to blame a few non-performing team members for
not performing to expectations, the leader has a great amount of
influence over the team that may well determine the success or
failure of the team. In short, just like in ancient times,
sales leaders must be held accountable for their teams’
performances. That should be one of the disciplines that a
sales leader must have.
To paraphrase how Sun Tzu’s core beliefs about war can be
applied to business, here’s the modern-day version:
“Sales...
...the lifeblood of a company, a matter of ‘life and death’, survival
or extinction. Indeed, something that needs to be studied,
applied and re-modified consistently”
(业绩……企业之命脉，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也).