Hi!
Here's the July 2011 issue of Psyche-Selling TM
eNewsletter, and many companies are now using the summer months
to train and coach their staff to better results.
While most sales managers believe and agree that training
and coaching is important to boosting their team's
performance, few however do so systematically. In
fact, most sales managers would also admit they need help in
brushing up their sales coaching skills so as to get better
results.
While
coaching sales people is largely similar to coaching in
general, there are some information that sales managers
can leverage, and some techniques to help sales managers
spend less time and get better results.
Hence, this
month's topics:
-
How to Spend Less Time and Get More Results for Your Sales Coaching; and
-
Are You Managing Like a Parent or an Adult?
This issue's main article is on "How to
Spend Less Time and Get More Results for Your Sales
Coaching ", and we
look into practical and simple ways that sales managers
can implement effective sales coaching strategies and
improve their teams' sales performances.
In brief:
-
How a good coaching
strategy will deliver good results i implemented
well;
-
Besides helping team members to correct their mistakes,
good coaching also help team members to strengthen
their strengths;
-
Ultimately,
coaching is about helping your team members get from
where they are to where you want them to be.
Hence, before you start any coaching, you need to
know where you want them to be, and how to bring
them there. Read on... ...
To read the rest of this newsletter, pls.
click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html.
In the meantime,
click here if you
want to join our LinkedIn Winning Proposal Best
Practice discussion group. You will get advice
and support on how you can formulate winning
proposal strategies and win more deals.
How to Spend Less Time and Get More Results for Your Sales Coaching
by c.j. Ng
Kathy has
just been promoted as Sales Manager of her team, and she
just found that being a Sales Manager is quite different
from being a Sales Person.
More importantly, there seems to be tons of people
issues that she would have to help resolve through
coaching.
For instance, there's Sam,
who's a new sales person and showed a lot of promise
during his initial training with the company. When
he went on his work, he also put in lots of effort.
Still, after 3 months, there wasn’t any results
generated.
Then there's Susan, who's one of the better sales
persons in the team. Unfortunately, she hadn’t
been producing much results lately. When asked
about her performance, she replied that the customers
just need a little longer time to make the decision this
year..
And
there's Simon, whom had been in touch with a
prospect for quite some time. He had seen their
decision makers, technical buyers and even
end-users. While responses were positive,
there was no further progress in the customer's
buying process.
To make things worse, Kathy
hadn't even received much coaching from her former
manager when she was a Sales Person, and hence don't
even have a role model to emulate when she needed to
coach her team. The good news for Kathy is
that coaching for Sales People is not as difficult
or as daunting for newly on-boarded Sales Managers.
The concepts are simple and easy to master, although
it will require some practice to get the best
results!
Where
You Are, and Where You Want Your Team to Be
The approach that most Sales Managers take when
coaching team members is that they tend to look at
low-performance incidents sporadically and just give advice on
how their team member needs to do to correct that behaviour. This action is what is known as
"Corrective Feedback", which could be part of
coaching, but is inadequate to equate it with
coaching.
To make coaching really deliver desired results, we
can borrow concepts from the
Six Thinking Hats
to formulate an effective coaching strategy.
Here are the first steps:
-
Blue Hat - What do
you want your team member to become, and how you
want to go about achieving this.
-
White Hat - What
current information (e.g. sales results,
prospecting effectiveness, selling prices etc.)
do you have about your team member? What
other information do you need so as to really
understand where he/ she stands right now?
For instance, let's look at the following numbers
and see if you can tell who's the best sales person:
|
No. Of Client Meetings |
Salesman A |
191 |
Salesman B |
78 |
Salesman C |
63 |
Now take a look at the following numbers and decide
who is the sales person:
|
No. Of Client Meetings |
Proposals Sent |
No. of Sales Closed |
Sales Value |
Salesman A |
191 |
123 |
34 |
340,000 |
Salesman B |
78 |
78 |
43 |
500,000 |
Salesman C |
63 |
30 |
25 |
360,000 |
Actually
the question here should NOT be "who is the best
sales person". Instead, it should be focused
on what are the strengths and weaknesses of EACH
sales person, and then develop a coaching strategy
to help that sales person to be
the best-possible
sales person you want he or she to be.
Conveying Your Coaching Message
Although coaching your sales team is really about what you want your
team member to become, you will need that team member to
agree to your goals and objectives for him or her.
Coaching is a 2-way street, and hence if your "coachee"
does not agree or buy-in to your goals, the coaching
will fail.
As such you will
need to communicate your Blue Hat with your team member
clearly, and be open to feedback if there are any
disagreements or modifications to your original plan.
During your coaching session, you will need to
communicate the following:
-
Yellow Hat - Give
affirmation on the strengths and positive
contributions of the team member. Coaching
is as much about helping team members to correct
mistakes, as it is about helping them to
strengthen or improve on their existing
strengths. In any case, team members
ALWAYS feel good when their bosses tell them
something nice about them.
-
Black Hat - Let
your team members understand which are the areas
that need correction or improvement. One
thing to be clear in such communication is to
make sure the team member understand that you
are not picking on their mistakes.
Instead, they have to be clear that you are
helping them achieve better results.
-
Green Hat - Instead
of telling them what they need to do to get
better results, invite
and engage them to suggest creative
suggestions to help improve their own
performances. You will be surprised by the
ingenuity of the suggested solutions, and best
of all, since your team member suggested the
solution, you will get the full commitment of
that team member to implement the solution that
he or she suggested!
-
Red Hat - At
suitable intervals, find out how your team
member feels whether he or she is OK to continue
with the coaching, or if he or she is
comfortable with the conversation between the
two of you. If at any point of time your
team member feels uncomfortable, that could be a
sign that the coaching is moving in the wrong
direction. You may then want to stop, and
re-strategise for a different coaching session
the next time.
Despite
your best efforts, not all coaching will turn out in the way
you envision it to be. But that's OK. What is
more important is that you adapt different coaching
strategies to different team members based on their:
Achieving Sustainable Results
While MOST sales
managers agree and believe that training and coaching team
members is very important for boosting the team's
performances, FEW actually took systematic steps to
train or coach their team members.
The key word here is "systematic".
Coaching your team members, while very important, is usually
NOT urgent. That is, if you don't coach
your team members today, nothing catastrophic is going to
happen tomorrow. Hence, with the heavy workload and
the number of more urgent matters to attend to, most sales
managers keep on postponing the required coaching for their
team members until it's way too late.
Hence, to achieve
sustainable results with your coaching, you will have to:
-
Schedule the appointment with your team members and
everybody will have to treat it as important and urgent
as a key customer meeting;
-
Put on your White Hat prior to the coaching
session to gather as much information of your "coachee",
and also make a list of questions for the information
that you would like to know;
-
Put on your Blue Hat at the end of each coaching session
to set mutually-agreed action plans on what behavioural
changes that your "coachee" needs to make; and
-
Listen to the feedback given by your "coachee" and
determine what changes that you need to make too!
The steps to being an effective sales coach are simple.
The difference between a good sales coach and a mediocre one
boils down to: practice. Just like any new skill, the
initial practice is going to be awkward. However, with
more practice, you can be an expert sales coach real soon.
Need help in
spending less time and getting more results for your
sales coaching? Simply e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-136 7190 2505
or Skype:
cydj001
and arrange to buy me a mocha. All information
shall be kept in confidence.
Power Breakfast Hour: 19 Aug 2011
How to Spend Less Time and Get More Results for Your Sales Coaching Efforts
Join International leadership, innovation and
sales force effectiveness consultant c.j. Ng in this Power
Breakfast Hour in Shanghai where you will find out:
VENUE: Crowne Plaza Shanghai • 400 Panyu Road
(near Fahuazhen Road) • 上海银星皇冠酒店 • 番禺路 400 号
(靠法华镇路)
DATE: Friday, 19 Aug 2011
TIME: 08:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
PRICE: RMB
300 ONLY
(includes a Crowne Plaza mooncake voucher worth RMB 158)!
To make this a more conducive
discussion, we are expecting a small group of about 15
people only. The room can only take in 18, so please
register early to avoid disappointments. Please e-mail
your registrations to sales@directions-consulting.com
You can also download our Power Breakfast Hour video on
Taking On the Giants: How to Sell to BIG Companies even when You have Small Budgets and little Brand Recognition.
Pls. check out our web sites
www.directions-consulting.com and
www.psycheselling.com/page4.html for more inspiration.
Need a Keynote Speaker for your Annual Conference?
Whether you are holding a
conference for your regional staff, resellers or even
customers, we have the right speaker who can help you
deliver the spirit of your conference, and effect positive
changes to meet your goals.
The topics our
speakers can speak on include:
-
Selling to Muggles: How to Make the Sale
when Buyers have No Idea What You're Talkin' About
-
Taking On the Giants: How to Sell to BIG
Companies even when You have Small Budgets and little
Brand Recognition)
-
Achieving
Exceptional Customer Satisfaction, Productivity and
Talent
Retention by Boosting Your Employee Engagement
-
Using the Six Thinking Hats® to Win More
Sales and Get More Customers
-
Why Some Sales People Succeed While Others Fail?;
-
How to Lure Away Your Competitors' Key Accounts, and
Make Them Buy from You Instead?;
-
Improving Sales Productivity by Motivating the Sales
Force;
-
Sun Tzu and the Art of Strategic Decision Making;
-
The End of Guanxi as We Know It!; and many more!
Simply e-mail your requests to
info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-21-6219 0021
for enquiries. Sample video and audio recordings
available upon requests.
Practical Tips for Managers:
Are You Managing Like a Parent or an Adult?
By By Mark Murphy,
CEO of
Leadership IQ
Where does entitlement in our organizations come from? Are employees just naturally entitled, or is there something about our leadership that’s contributing to the problem?
In the late 1950s, there was a school of psychological thought called Transactional Analysis that identified three states (or "voices") within which we interact with other people. And it provides a particularly good model for addressing entitlement in organizations.
Here are the three unique voices (or "ego states" as psychologists sometimes call them) that drive entitlement in the workplace:
Parent Voice
The "Parent" voice is a giver. (Which, as you'll see in a moment, is often not a good thing in the workplace.) It could be giving criticism. It could be giving permission. It could be giving security. The giver says, "I’m going to tell you how things are, give you permission, give you criticism, give you security, and you will thus be dependent on me to give you all these things."
Child Voice
The flip side of the giver is the taker or “Child” voice. This is the role where we take. We are dependent on the giver for our emotions, our reactions and for how we think. We’re in a reactive, taking role.
Adult Voice
Finally, the third voice is the “Adult” voice. The adult voice is our logical, independent, self-sufficient, rational (calm, cool, collected) voice. This is the person who says, “I will solicit my own feedback. I will go out into the world and figure out things for myself, and I’ll do it calmly, coolly, collectively, rationally and self-sufficiently.”
Now, the Parent-Child dynamic – and thus entitlement itself – has nothing to do with our chronology. In other words, it has nothing to do with our age or whether or not we are parents or children. Someone in their 80s can act in Child mode, and someone in their 20s can act in Parent mode. Instead, it's all about how we interact with each other.
Learn how to change an entitlement culture from the inside out. In our new webinar, "Overcoming a Culture of Entitlement," you'll discover how taking the Adult (or coach) role as a leader (rather than the typical Parent role) will make employees more self-sufficient, more accountable and more productive. Learn more now.
So to answer the question from above, "Where does entitlement come from?", entitlement in an organization comes from the people in your organization inhabiting Parent and Child voices. It’s not just employees in the taking role, and it's not just managers in the giving role – it's both of these groups playing their respective roles that perpetuate a culture of entitlement.
In many organizations, managers, executives and human capital systems assume the Parent role — giving performance reviews, giving raises, giving information, and giving permission. Meanwhile, in those same organizations, the employees are squarely in the Child role — taking the reviews, raises, information and permission.
For example, it's pretty typical for a manager conducting a performance appraisal to give praise or criticism while the employee takes feedback and reacts accordingly. But we don’t want managers conducting performance reviews by just giving praise or criticism while employees just passively take it; we want them to have an Adult conversation where they can share their various perspectives, take ownership, and become more self-sufficient. Wouldn’t you rather have your employees coming into these conversations armed with great self-awareness, understanding and owning their personal opportunities for improvement, and taking full control of their lives and careers?
To fix entitlement, the goal is to get everyone in the
Adult voice. Managers have to leave the Parent role and
move into the Adult role, and employees have to leave
the Child role and move into the Adult role – and it’s a
challenge for both.
For managers, it can be scary to leave the Parent role. After all, it means giving up control. The more employees become self-sufficient, the more they realize we don’t have all the answers; the more they realize we're not always correct; the more they challenge our management decisions. By the same token, it can be scary for employees to leave the Child role. After all, it means they will have to
No doubt these are challenges, but accepting a culture of entitlement is a much more dangerous alternative.
Even though giving up control is scary for leaders, and giving up passivity is scary for employees, ultimately, the only way to overcome entitlement is to get both groups into Adult roles. It is a delicate balance, but as you'll learn in our upcoming webinar, transforming a culture of entitlement into a culture of accountability and proactivity pays off in profit, productivity, growth and more.
Learn how to change an entitlement culture from the inside out. In our new webinar, "Overcoming a Culture of Entitlement," you'll discover how taking the Adult (or coach) role as a leader (rather than the typical Parent role) will make employees more self-sufficient, more accountable and more productive. Learn more now.
If you would like to get more and better ideas how to
change an entitlement culture in your company, you can e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-136 7190
2505 or Skype:
cydj001 and arrange to buy me a mocha. All
information shall be kept in confidence.
About PsycheSelling.com
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.
Yet today,
-
many companies still don't have a coherent approach
as to how they can generate more sales and
achieve better margins;
-
many sales people are still lying to their
customers so that they can meet their targets at
the end of the month;
-
many customers are still waiting ethical and
professional sales people to help them find out
their real needs, and provide solutions that
work
Psyche-Selling TM
is set up so that companies and sales people can
make healthy profits and STILL provide genuine
solutions to customers.
Psyche-Selling TM
would like to create an environment where customers
can trust sales people to give them what they
want, and NOT be pushed with all kinds of
products and services. In return,
customers will become loyal fans of these
ethical and professional sales people, and repay
them many fold for the long-term.
Psyche-Selling TM
will not rest, until the above is achieved.
Not just in China. Not just in Asia. But
everywhere where buying and selling takes place.
Psyche-Selling TM
is a wholly-owned brand of
Directions Management Consulting Pte Ltd
that specialises in the field of improving sales
performance by enhancing the performance of the
entire sales team. Apart from the regular
"selling skills training",
Psyche-Selling ng TM
conducts pre- and post-training analysis,
interviews, monitoring and reviews, working
closely with managers and even senior
management, to deliver real improvements in
sales leadership and performance.
Hence,
Psyche-Selling TM
would like to be known as the preferred choice of
outstanding and remarkable clients, and pride
ourselves as such. We will also be
continuing to assist our clients achieve greater
heights in 2009 and beyond.
Enquiries and suggestions,
pls. e-mail
info@psycheselling.com or visit
www.psycheselling.com
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