The old sales mantra is “when you close a big deal, leverage the momentum and get another one.”  Although it is good advice, I have always been one to savor the moment and celebrate a little bit.  I cannot appreciate crossing the finish line if I have to start training right away.  I have always enjoyed and reflected for a moment before getting busy — until now!

Last week I enjoyed one of my more significant professional accomplishments.  I was the inspirational keynote at a sales conference for BASF in Mainz, Germany.  BASF is the largest chemical company in the world.  They invited me to speak before 300 sales professionals, board members, and executives at their biggest sales event in 2012.  I was honored and humbled.  I was also selected and invited.

BASF searched in Europe for a “motivational sales speaker.”  They could find motivational speakers and sales speakers, but they did not find a motivational sales speaker.  Frustrated with a lack of great choices, they took to YouTube and found me.  After a couple of brief conversations, I was invited to be their keynote.

Six weeks later I am on a plane to Frankfurt, Germany prepared to give one of the biggest talks of my life.  I have presented to larger groups.  I have presented on this topic before.  This time it was different.

This was a significant event for BASF.  It was up to me to inspire the participants to be excited and engaged about the strategic initiatives they were learning about.  I was responsible for their perceptions and mindset when they left the event that day.  And, I was the only outsider they would hear from.  This was both a great honor and an incredible responsibility.

I knocked the presentation out of the park.  The talk went great.  Among other positive comments and accolades, the senior executive responsible for my participation acknowledged that “the final part of your speech motivated the audience very much.”  My assignment was to motivate the sales organization – mission accomplished!

As I bask in the glow of accomplishment and reflect on an incredible trip, I must keep this momentum going.  For the first time in my professional career, I am not interested in enjoying the celebration for long.  I realized an incredible accomplishment in response to a very impressive opportunity.  I want more. Now, I want to do it again. As another sales adage goes, “you are only as good as your next order.”  I am working on it!!

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Insanity – Watching businesses stubbornly go through the painstaking process of attracting experienced sales professionals, expecting great results and getting mediocre outcomes.

If you believe that the best process for improving your sales results is to lure your competitor’s salespeople you are in for a painful lesson.  It is much like free agency in professional sports. Very few free agents ever live up to the hype of expectations — they don’t have to.

First, the reality:

• Baggage: Most experienced sales professionals bring their experience to your organization, that is a plus.  They also bring their bad habits, arrogance, and attitude.  Because they have been lured away, they are often untouchable, unteachable, and unwilling to be held responsible.  After all, you hired them because they were experienced stars, right?
• Costly: No one ever jumps to the competition without an incentive.  To lure someone away, the recruiting firm must add something to the mix that makes the current situation less appealing — more money, bigger benefits, better perks.  Attraction in recruiting has its costs and sales professionals know how to maximize the return on their perceived value.
• Risky: If a professional was really enjoying their life in their current organization, why would they leave?  If everything was going great, why would anyone ever leave their current situation? They would leave if things weren’t all that great.  If things are not all that great, why do businesses incentivize them to leave?  Recruiting experienced salespeople is highly risky.  You are likely recruiting the burnout, loafer or malcontent — all very risky hires.

Now, the solution:

• Intelligence: Bring intelligence into the process.  Create and offer an attractive results based compensation model that rewards outcomes, not experience.  If you cannot attract a high performer who, if they hit their normal numbers, will make significantly more money — they are not your type of person.
• Development:  Great sports programs develop their players.  They know how to recruit and develop inexperienced players and blend them in very successfully with a few well chosen free agents.  The key to growth in your business is not buying high priced experienced talent, it is knowing how to discover and develop inexperienced talent.
• Management: The “want it now” mindset is killing business.  Short term behaviors, at best, lead to unsustainable, short term results — no one wins.  Make a commitment to be intelligent about the hiring, development and management of your team.  Sales effectiveness is not solely dependent upon a team of highly experienced, well compensated  sales pros.  It is an effective blend of effective management, strategy, development in combination with properly defined performance incentives.  Great teams require great leadership — don’t lose sight of this fact.

There are no shortcuts or easy paths to building a successful sales team.  The least effective of these processes is to build up a team of all-stars that come into the organization from outside.  This is a lesson in perpetual insanity.

Attract and retain — develop, manage, incentivize — hungry professionals and I guarantee business will grow and grow consistently.

Final thought:  Have you ever read the resume of a sales professional who didn’t “consistently meet or exceed their revenue goals every year”?  Exactly!

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“Shitty managers give orders, they do not give permission.”

I blame it on our education.  We were taught long ago — when the educational system killed our creative side — that the person at the front of the room had the only right answer.  As students, it was our job to discover and embrace this sole correct answer.  Since then, we have been living a life chasing the approval of the right, safe and correct answer from those in authority.

What have we learned?  Very little.  Today’s business climate is made up of far too many task driven managers, who think in the short term, only expect immediate results, and instill the fear of failure and termination at every opportunity.  Being in corporate America is like being in school, only worse — we don’t get as many vacation days, we are there longer, and there is no study hall.

The source of my frustration is founded in the numerous conversations I have with people who are struggling to find creative inspiration in the fast of an oppressive business and leadership climate.

The challenge I have is helping those who feel beat up to discover that they can decide and influence their success.  And, despite the crazy machinations of their autocratic, results driven, short-term behavior oriented boss, they can create, build, and implement something that works for them.  Unfortunately, very few people realize that empowerment is a choice and that their boss will never give them permission to create an new course.  Their boss is likely the oppressive, just do it sort and is only mimicking the behaviors of their previous bosses.

Leadership is about inspiration, team building, and empowerment.  It requires that we elicit, encourage, and seek out influences, ideas, and opportunities throughout the organization.  Simply giving someone an order and a time frame is not managerial leadership.  That is autocratic leadership.

You want a more productive, more engaged, more inspired team?  Get your fingernails dirty.  Help them understand what you want, why you want it, and give them suggestions, guidelines, and ideas for accomplishing it.  And, when completed, acknowledge the work, discover how it was developed, compliment the thought process, and make positive suggestions for adding other ways to do it.

When it comes to business, there is only one yardstick — results.  However, there are five million ways to get there.  The best way to discover the path to success is to encourage a team of individuals to collaborate on a process, a solution, and the outcome.  Short term results, especially those achieved through autocratic intimidation, are not any indicator of great long term outcomes.

Focus on developing your team to the behaviors, outcomes, and activities the deliver repeatable reliable results.  People are looking to be inspired, to be part of something big, and desire to be valued and trusted.  Since they never get permission from their boss to be creative, maybe it is time for their leaders to show creativity in the way they manage.  What a concept!

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There is a myth in the business world that applies the theory when it comes to sales more is better.  Let me be the first to say that more is not necessarily better, more is simply more.

Here are three examples of more that simply does not mean more:

More sales people does not equate to more sales!

More customers does not mean better profits!

More leads does not translate into more clients!

More only leads to more when there is a defined strategic process associated with the plan for more.  Here is how more becomes more when applied to the three examples:

1. More salespeople to boost sales: Simply hiring more sales professionals does not equate to an increase in revenues.  The process for hiring, training, managing and developing sales professionals is the first part of the success model.  Successful salespeople do not simply arrive with the skills to be successful, they merely come with the experience to be successful.  The success of a sales recruit is directly dependent on an organization’s commitment and ability to hire effectively, train properly, manage skillfully, and develop consistently.  Minus those components, all you will get from hiring more salespeople is more sales people.

The second piece of this equation is connected to the market.  This is covered in better detail in the next two steps; however, you cannot achieve more sales without the knowledge of what is consistently effective in your current sales model.  Until you know what works and how to define, educate, and articulate that success model to your new hires, you will not have more sales, only more people.

2. More customers to improve revenues and profitability: Not every new account sale is a good deal for the organization.  There are significant acquisition costs associated with a new client.  An improved bottom line is directly related to improvements in profitable revenues.  Simply getting more customers may increase revenues but may not improve profitability.

The best approach is to understand what type of customer is most profitable to the organization and focus your growth efforts toward those businesses.  The “any client is a good client model” is a recipe for potential failure.  The best strategy is to focus your growth efforts around establishing strong market presence in profitable growth areas and develop a strong sales team there.

3. More qualified leads that convert to profitable clients: Organizations that have checked the box, “tell me more” are not qualified leads, they are interested leads.  Interested is not necessarily something that is easily converted or profitable (see #2).  The answer to the question, “how do I turn my leads into clients?” is best answered in “create and discover more ‘qualified‘ leads.”

Interest is not qualified, qualified is qualified.  A qualified lead can be loosely defined as a “contact that has articulated or defined a problem, challenge, or opportunity in their business that they desire to discuss and share with your organization for the purposes of uncovering what you may do to solve their problem.”  While I am not much of a believer in a marketing process that can provide qualified leads, I am receptive to the concept provided this standard of care is applied and followed.  Interest is not the only qualifier; in fact, it is barely a qualifier.

Interest, awareness, desire, and discovery are the four qualifiers: they are interested in what you have, they are aware of your capabilities, they have a desire to deal with an issue, and they are looking to discover a solution to it.   Until you can understand and articulate these four components of a prospect’s situation, you have a lot of leads, but zero qualified leads.  Qualified leads convert more readily and easily than interested leads.

More does not only lead to more.  More only increases or improves when it is part of a focused and strategic process.  Next time you go for more, remember to manage your process, your strategy, and your commitment before simply adding on.

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“The program you put your customers in is not nearly as important as the process you utilize to get them there.”

I have been actively and excitedly involved in a new program rollout with one of my clients. The program they are introducing is innovative, unique, and of tremendous value to their future and their existing clients.

What excites me the most about this entire program rollout is not the package-which is quite good– but, the process the client went through to educate, inspire, and guide their team through the introductory phase.  Of the five educational segments provided, only two could be considered features and benefits focused.  And, it would be a stretch to call either one of them completely product centric.

The balance of the education and training emphasized:

• Engagement: a simple statement to elicit interest and excitement regarding the introductions;
• Listening: engaging the clients in a discussion about their current business relationships, drivers, and needs;
• Solving: helping the clients discover how the new programs could solve their specific  challenges, issues, problems, and frustrations.

Far too many product related sales training programs are feature and benefit intense.  It is as if every sales professional needs to know how to position the product by listing and sharing all the features and benefits as a coercion tactic to somehow get the customer interested in the new product.  That is simply old school and very outdated.

Today’s decision makers are far too busy to listen to a litany of benefit laden presentations from semi-professional salespeople.  They have real issues to deal with and are looking for resources who will help them discover how to deal with these issues.  In some cases, they may not even be aware of what those really are; or, are not cognizant of how important they are.

In today’s environment, a great sales call is one of open-ended discovery.  It is one where the sales professional has a conversation with the prospective client that provides education and insight for the salesperson–not the other way around.  It is in the course of educational, learning exercise that a sales professional might have the opportunity to discover a specific challenge for which they may have an answer.

When working with sales professionals the hardest behavior to eliminate is their inclination to tell the customer what the solution is — feature and benefit driven — before the customer articulates, recognizes, and agrees that they have a problem or a need.  Yes, it may be obvious to the salesperson; but, it is not valid until the customer discovers or articulates it as an important issue, too.  These behaviors are a direct result of the training methodology that expects salespeople to be focused on pitching, promoting, and selling the product; not listening to learn, understand, and solve.

The product may be the answer.  However, one has to know what the question is first.  And, the problem that one is solving for must a problem that has been first identified and articulated by the client, not the salesperson.

Next time you find yourself all jazzed about the product — name, features, benefits– remember this is all good stuff, provided the customer knows how the product is actually helping them.  That knowledge comes from the learning and discovery process, not the pitching process.

Great sales is understanding how to listen and learn better — it is not knowing how to present all the wonderful features and benefits of the product or program.

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I was recently asked about the personality and behavioral profiling tools people use in the hiring process and which one I recommend.  I have come across a wide variety of capable programs and systems.  While they are tools that can assist in the hiring process there are none that are a sure-fire panacea for improving the hiring results.  While these programs provide a variety of helpful insights, they are simply tools and are not a predictor, indicator, or prognosticator of any assured successful outcome.

While there are many processes, programs, and approaches designed to assist in identifying and selecting the best candidate for open positions, there are no guarantees these decisions will be successful.  Quite frankly, no program in itself is going to improve or increase the odds of success.

One need look no further than the National Football League (NFL) to demonstrate this point.  NFL scouts spend hundreds of hours testing, measuring, evaluating, and judging football talent.  They put athletes through physical tests, mental tests, intelligence tests, and performance under duress tests; yet some of their highest, sure fire drafts never pan out.  That is because there is not one single test that can assure success or guarantee a great hiring outcome without putting a person into the organizational mix.

When it comes to hiring successes, there intangibles that cannot be measured, evaluated or predicted in any systematized assessment program.  While I do trust and rely on the accuracy of many of these tools for what they have been designed to do, I believe that nothing replaces another, more efficient tool — the interview and development process.

There is no substitute for directly engaging in the evaluation of a potential candidate.  And, many organizations need to be more accountable for their process in this regard when it comes to their successes in attracting and retaining talent.  Here is my hiring system and the critical success factors associated with it:

1. Test for Cultural Fit: Every organization has a cultural DNA.  First, the organization needs to clearly know what that cultural DNA is. Then, they can and must recruit, hire, and attract people who fit that DNA.   The problem is that many organizations are not connected to, or in denial of their culture.  An organization cannot successfully attract and retain people unless they reflect or embrace the existing culture.  If the organization is in the midst of a culture shift, then hire change agents who reflect the new culture; otherwise, focus on understanding the culture and hire accordingly.
2. Management and Leadership: Most businesses fail at hiring because of poor cultural fit and leadership.  They don’t have a hiring problem — they have a retention problem.  This is supported by the statistical fact that 90% of the people who leave any organization leave because of leadership or management issues.  If an organization’s management style or leadership team is dysfunctional, attracting and retaining “A” players will not be fixed by improving the hiring process.  Instead of attempting to hire “A” employees to fill open positions, businesses need to focus first on identifying and attracting “A” leaders to improve the teams they have.
3. Training and Development: Most people come to a new position with the desire, potential and commitment to be successful.  Besides culture and leadership, the other component of a successful hiring model (attraction and retention) is the employee development component.  A team can only improve, grow and prosper when the organization provides the tools to help them accomplish this.  Organizations that make a commitment to developing their team are more successful and are more effective in attracting and retaining talent.
4. Hire for Skill not Industry Experience: Many organizations, especially when it comes to sales, focus on recruiting people with industry experience.  If talented people with industry experience are available and willing to move, one needs to ask themselves if they are talented why are they available?   The obsession with industry experience is misplaced and over applied.  It is easier to educate and develop talented individual about the business than it is to teach them the skill you are actually hiring them for.  Hire intelligently; hire for acumen and potential not industry experience.

When it comes to hiring, there are no guarantees.  However, the more an organization holds itself accountable for the success of its hiring process without transferring that responsibility to an external system or program the more effective the organization will be in attracting and retaining great talent.  Instead of looking outside to purchase or utilize a simple hiring model, look inside and build a solid, sustainable one.

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