I’ve heard lots of grumblings from business owners and Sales pros that they have their heads down and just need to ‘get through’ 2009.  They are looking forward to a great 2010. 

Wait!

It’s not time to give up on 2009!!  There are 8 full work weeks left in 2009 – that is 15% of the year left!  And in some industries, sales in the last 8 weeks can account for 30-40% of their annual sales. 

To help everyone – this is a plan I am following myself – I’m going to lay out an 8 week plan with specific actions each week for you to take so you can end this year strong AND begin to set yourself up for a fantastic 2010!  But I’m not giving you the whole plan at once - just one focused step each week.  Adding these actions to your already packed week is plenty for you to take on.

Week 1 (October 26, 2009)

A hard look. 

This week take a hard look at several areas that are going to help you identify and diagnose where you are right now, what is helping, what is in the way.  If you don’t stop and evaluate first, you won’t be able to define the right roadmap and actions for yourself.

For your hard look this week, you will need data and a place (paper and pen is good) to write your responses.   Look at your: 

1. Results for 2009 to date.  Do you notice any patterns?  How do the results compare to 2008?  2007?
2. Activity level.  How does what you are doing each week and each day compare to 2008?  2007?
3. Surroundings.  Who is with you?  What kind of support do they provide?  Are they lifting you?  Leaning on you? 
4. Beliefs and attitude.  Did you believe you were going to meet your numbers this year?  Did you believe you could achieve despite anything going on in the economy?  How has what you believed this year displayed itself in your attitude? Your actions?  Have you psyched yourself out of more success this year?
5. Goals.  Where are your goals right now?  Are they visible?  Are they written?  Do you have weekly activities identified?     

Next?  Answer these questions in response to your hard look:   

• What do you think/feel when you consider your responses?  How are you contributing or holding yourself back?
• Is your activity level high enough to achieve what you need to?  This doesn’t mean the number of hours you are working – consider the actions you are taking.  What can you do to make sure that you are focused and working on the right things?
• What have you surrounded yourself with?  Messages, reminders and people that can help you be more productive?  Or energy zappers?  What adjustments in your surroundings would help you focus and buckle down these last 8 weeks?
• Describe your attitude and energy level today.  How does this affect your contacts?  Your prospects?  Your follow-up activities?  Your confidence?
• Are your goals clear?  Have you committed yourself to measurable goals or taken a ‘let’s see what happens’ approach this year?  Are your goals written realistically?  Did you really consider where you want/need to end up?  And then put together a plan of action that will get you there?  What have you done to plan for obstacles that will need to be worked through?

Did you take this seriously and put your responses down on paper?  Or just mentally think these through?  It’s amazing how easy it is to fool ourselves into what we want to believe by not looking at specifics. 

As I coach sales pros and managers, I listen to their reactions to questions such as what I just laid out above.  Then we get out pen, paper and reports to substantiate their first responses.  Know what we find?  That the hard reality is usually 20-35% different than the initial response. 

So, if you really want to make the most of your time and efforts, get out hard data, write hard notes and NOW you have something realistic to work with.

We’ll build off this in Week 2 as we look at Setting the Target.

What do you think?  Is now the time to do this type of hard look?  Should we wait  until the end of the year?  Are you ready to write off 2009?

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Tags: focus, goal setting, Sales Tips

Free Sales Training Outline for Your Sales Meeting!  Looking for ideas to easily and quickly strengthen the skill and results for your sales team?  We’ve got ‘em!

We whittled our comprehensive sales training expertise into specific 30-minute boosts of power!  These proven (all tested) outlines focus on a specific sales topic (skill, attitude, tool, practice).  There’s more than 25 to pick from today and more in development.  We have tested each booster in the 30 minute format to make sure you do get a big BOOST in a little time.

Whether you are a sales manager or a member of ANY service/sales team that would like to work with your colleagues to boost each other’s skills in selling, prospecting, marketing, or personal development, there may be a Sharpenz booster for you!  (From goal setting to working through objections to team building.) 

To build excitement in our 2nd week of launching Sharpenz, we have two special offers:  

1.  A FREE Sharpenz booster for you – you can select one of two titles:

        Better Questions which focuses on helping you identify and practice better questions you can ask in your needs analysis and problem solving.  Or

       Now to Wow provides a very interactive format for your team to look at all your customer “touch points” and determine how to escalate these touches to a WOW! experience.

2.  All orders through November 15th are discounted 50%!

I’ve even put together a video for you to listen into (less than 2.5 minutes!)

Sometimes its good to hear other’s perspectives, the following blogs mention Sharpenz: 

• Jonathan Farrington’s Blog – Sharpen Your Greatest Sales Tool
• Salesopedia Blog – Sharpenz Your Sales Meeting
• Scott “Social Media” Allen – Sharpenz: Better Sales Meetings = More Sales

Give it a try today with your free Sharpenz sales booster.  You’ll find it to be the BEST 30 minutes of your sales meeting!

P.S. Sales Pro Insider, Inc. is alive and well.  In fact, we are working right now with two Fortune 100 companies to build sales and service skills  and helping another sales organization hire a KEY sales exec!

Let me know what you think of Sharpenz!  Do you think you can sharpen skills and results in just 30 minutes?

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Filed Under: Sales Productivity
Tags: Sales Productivity, Sales Tips, Sales training

Did you ever have braces on your teeth?  The metal is not pleasant at first, the glue tastes awful and eating corn on the cob is a nghtmare!  Yet many of us go through this straightening ritual (for years!) for the outcome of a great smile.  What about braces for your career?  Wouldn’t it be great if ywe could glue something on that straightens our skills, habits, mindsets and results!

My 16 year old son FINALLY had his braces removed on Monday.  This was a long process for him, which he reminded us of often, because it was a long process including:

• Monthly adjustments
• Extra care of his mouth during this time
• Certain foods were off limits to not damage the progress being made
• People could SEE the metal in his mouth (thus, lots of photos with the no-teeth smile)
• Sometimes an extra boost of adjustment was needed- (rubber bands worn at night)

That’s a lot of ongoing “stuff” to end up with a good result.

The same is true for your career and habits.  To be successful long-term, we need to adopt a process to straighten up our sales!  We need:

• Monthly or weekly adjustments – first a hard look at activity and results and then adjustment our approach if needed.
• Extra care – do you eat well, sleep enough, exercise?  A fit body helps with our energy and stamina.  Extra care in our business relationships is needed too.
• Off limits – what behaviors or habits should be made off limit?  Do certain people bring you down? Or is procrastination or negative thinking in your way? Banish them!
• Ego – others might SEE you working hard at perfecting something or taking risks – and if you are really pushing yourself you will make some errors – keep your ego out of your straightening process.
• Extra adjustments – there are certain times when we need to adjust even more to accommodate for the economy, change in buyers, technology, etc.  Identify the extra adjustments and then set your plan to make them!

Your goal is to sell (or some of you to service/sell) and when you employ a process (no metal needed) to straighten up your skill, attitude, and mindset, you will reach new levels of success AND reap the rewards that matter to you.  And that will make you SMILE too! 

   p.s. The photo is my smiley son (teeth showing!)

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Tags: maximize sales productivity, Sales Tips

Yes a free webinar!  If you don’t know Jonathan Farrington, you should.  He is very knowledgeable about sales -and is very witty with his delivery. It’s always a delight to be in his company!  (Okay, his British speak must be wearing off on me.)   He has great information to help you move to the top 5% players in sales!  And he is throwing in a few freebies when you sign up for his complimentary webinar on October 20th!

All the  informaiton you need is below:

So You Want To Be A Top 5% Player In The Game Of Sales? 

Recent exhaustive surveys suggest that only 5% of professional salespeople reach and remain at the highest level, which we call Level 3.  A further 15% attain Level 2 status, but the majority, i.e. a massive 80% remain at Level 1 in terms of potential achievement.

•  Level One salespeople sell products and depend on having the right technical solution for the customer’s specification. This is probably you.
• Level Two salespeople sell solutions, which changes their image from sales rep to business consultant and positions them as a potential strategic resource. Most salesmen and women manage to advance from Level 1 to Level 2 fairly easily but unfortunately; many find breaking through that final glass ceiling extremely difficult i.e. moving from competitive sales professionals to collaborative sales consultants. Or is this you?
•  Level Three salespeople are able to first identify and then capitalise upon the political component within the buying process. They develop and sustain strong commercial relationships at all levels within their accounts and these relationships endure because they are based on mutual respect and trust. Their clients feel secure, so secure, that they would be fearful of changing supplier.
  Level Three salespeople rarely, if ever, lose an order that they really want because they are always in control of the sales cycle. They have identified that in marketplaces where product uniqueness and technical expertise are no longer enough, it is they themselves, that make the difference i.e. their superior skills.
  This could be you!

What we can say for certain, is that successful selling has become an exclusive club of highly skilled professionals where, for example, product knowledge, time management skills, objection handling and closing skills are the cost of membership, not leadership.

Attendees will not only receive a FREE copy of Jonathan’s most recent EBook “The Changing Face of Professional Selling” (Value $19.95) but also the chance to take a FREE ASP Profile (Value $175)

Jonathan Farrington is Chairman of The Sales Corporation, CEO of Top Sales Associates and Senior Partner at The JF Consultancy based in London and Paris.    He is also the Chairman of the Executive Board over at Top Sales Experts, and heads up the selection panel for AllBusiness’s latest initiative to find the very best sales professionals on the planet.

You can find out more about him and what they are saying about him here.  Then you can accept my invitation to claim your FREE place for this significant event and register here – http://bit.ly/4wW1fc

——————–

Participants from around the globe join the Top Sales Experts Masterclasses each week.  Hope you will too! 

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Tags: Sales, sales seminar, Sales training

Want your meetings to stick?  Listen to Sales Meeting Best Practices, podcast on Salesopedia.com.  Clayton Shold interviews Alice Kemper and me on why sales meeting effectiveness is important today.  And some tips to make them helpful!

Listen for Sales Meeting Best Practices

While you are on the Salesopedia site, look around!  There is a lot of wisdom and sales tool ideas to help you end 2009 with a BANG!

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Tags: Leadership, Sales, Sales Meeting

Continuing the week with tips on running effective meetings… An acronym to use for ensuring your meeting is worthwhile, is STICK.   

Employees around the world feel “meeting’ed out”.  They go from meeting to meeting to meeting without time to get their work done.  So the “work’ is rushed or addressed at night.  So how do you ensure that your meeting isn’t dreaded?  Well, the employees I spoke with stated that they will willingly make time for a meeting if there is something in it for them – developmentally or to help them be more productive.  That means including more than operation and product updates in your meeting format.   

Much meeting information can be shared with memos, emails, quick update phone calls, without taking up valuable time.  The goal should be for a ‘live’ meeting is for it to stick! 

With stickiness as a key outcome, the STICK acronym provides a framework for planning a productive sales meeting.  Using these ideas will help remove the Teflon-effect (slides right out of mind) of a boring meeting.  

  S  – Sharpen their skills, behaviors or attitudes.  Give your people opportunity to share experiences and best practices.  Don’t make the meeting just about information.  Use the time to BUILD your team for future success.  Incorporate 20-30 minutes each meeting for this proactive activity.
   T – Timely.  Is the information and the discussion relevant to what is important today?  Don’t hold all information you have until the meeting. If you have a lot of “little” things to cover, prepare a short handout to distribute at the end of the meeting or send an email prior to the meeting.  During your meeting do not READ the handout to them – or worse – the PPT slides!  Save your meeting time for the most meaningful topics and discussion.
   I – Inclusive/Interactive.  Put more ask instead of tell into your meeting format.  Engage and involve their expertise in topics and experiences.  With involvement comes a better sense of ownership and team.  Some business people spend a lot of time alone, and realizing that their team has similarities helps them stay connected to the company, which leads to retained employees.
   C – Communicative.  Sharing relevant information is important; asking for information back even more so.  Plan ahead and allow others to present information or lead discussion and activity.  Let the information be two-way.
   K – Kinetic.  Adults need to DO – to take action and build information into their consciousness and habits.  Help them make the information actionable.  End every meeting with each person committing to ONE action they will take to apply the information discussed.  If they have no commitments, why were they in the meeting?

With a little planning and the STICK acronym followed, your team will willingly participate in your meetings.  They will skip down the hall on the way, bring YOU a cup of coffee, silence their BlackBerry and have positive thoughts in their heads as they join the meeting.  More importantly, the information will stick and result in higher productivity after the meeting!

Want help with meetig content that sticks?  Our Sharpenz..half hour of power sales boosters are ready when you are!  And you can download a FREE sales booster today!  Visit www.sharpenz.com .

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Tags: Sales, Sales Meeting

Today is a HUGE day for me.  I’ve pushed the launch button on a new venture, Sharpenz…half hour of power sales boosters. 

I’ve collaborated with Alice Kemper of Sales Training Consultants to bring a training tool to the world!  It’s been in the works for over a year! 

We whittled our comprehensive sales training expertise into specific 30-minute boosts of power!  Then we piloted, had focus groups, tested again, and then added even more value with reinforcement tips!  

We have over two dozen titles now available – with many more in development! 

Of course, to build excitement, we have two special offers:

1.  A FREE Sharpenz booster for you – you can select one of two titles:

        Better Questions which focuses on helping you idnetify and practice better questions you can ask in your needs analysis and problem solving.  Or

       Now to Wow provides a very interactive format for your team to look at all your customer “touch points” and determine how to escalate these touches to a WOW! experience.

2.  All orders through November 15th are discounted 50%!

If you want to hear me explain a little more about Sharpenz – I’ve even put together my first video!  (Really, this was one of  the most challenging pieces of this whole launch…I think there were 27 takes…and some of the “peppy and fun” Nancy was a little lost in the end….)   What makes the video even funnier to me is that when I was in NYC last week, I was selected to be one of the ‘volunteers’ for the NBC Studio Tour where I was the weather girl.  Now, without pressure THAT was a lot of fun (I even included a little weather dance.) 

I digress, back to Sharpenz.  We have tested each booster in the 30 minute format to make sure you do get a big BOOST in a little time. 

To honor the need for GREAT meetings, the rest of this week will focus on effective meetings. 

Today’s quick  tip for effective team meetings:

      Have a specific objective for your meeting.  Plan your agenda in advance to identify how much time you need for the topic at hand. 

P.S. Sales Pro Insider, Inc. is alive and well.  In fact, we are working right now with two Fortune 100 companies to build sales and service skills  and helping another sales organization hire a KEY sales exec!

Let me know what you think of Sharpenz!  Do you think you can sharpen skills and results in just 30 minutes?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Sales Meeting, Sales training

Well, I’m back from a whirlwind 4 day trip to NYC!  Earlier I blogged about my “training” program these past six weeks to prepare to climb the steps to the crown of the Statue of Liberty.  Mission Accomplished!

Yes, I did it!  It wasn’t bad at all.  And there were some actions that made it better.

1. Breaking the process into smaller milestones.  Reaching the base was milestone one.  A small rest (and reading the sign that there were only 202 more steps) and off I went again.  Toward the top when the stairway was really narrow, I focused on the 7 seven steps to the next landing.  Break your goals into smaller increments. Then focus on what is next and get it done.  Keep that process going to get to the final outcome.
2. Adjusting on the way.  I realized that slowly going up each step was actually more difficult than using momentum from a quicker pace.  Each muscle wasn’t agonizing over the next step.  Sometimes we spend so much time with all the “little” things that we don’t benefit from the momentum of constant activity.
3. Having the right people with you.  I was with encouraging friends who were doing the same thing.  We pushed each  other.  How about your work?  Who is “with” you and pushing you to achieve?
4. Celebrating.  We took time (and pictures) at the top.  But we also celebrated along the way.  We joked and had fun with the Guards.  We made it fun!  What do you do to acknowledge and celebrate your climb?  You don’t have to wait for rewards, celebrate along the way to energize you to keep going.
5. Following through.  The climb down was still ahead of us.  Notice that when you reach your goals, there is still work to do?  It might be paperwork, a follow-up action, making notes for the next time, etc.  Reaching the pinnacle isn’t usually the end. 

Now of course, I need to continue with my exercise.  And determine my next outcome or goal.  It will keep energized, engaged and successful!

What do you think?  Does this relate to business? 

P.S. I acctually took this picture! Another goal for this year is to become a better photographer

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Tags: goal setting, sales tips

This past Wednesday I was a panelist for a Top Sales Expert Roundtable on Prospecting.  The panel was international and so were the participants!  Even though I was there to SHARE information, I learned a few things too!

My main learning points:

1. To be successful ongoing prospecting – or initiating contact with potential prospective buyers – needs to be built into your weekly plans.
2. Tim Wackel reported a study that found that most sales people “give up” after 2-3 contacts with prospects.  In todays’ world, 5 contacts are what it takes to get them to pay attention.
3. Making contact alone isn’t the whole story – Cheryl Clausen shared that we must prepare, have a value proposition for THIS prospect and be able to succinctly explain how we can help them.
4. Discipline is one thing top producers have that many others don’t.  It doesn’t matter what system they use, they follow through and are consistent.
5. And I believe Christian Maurer shared that “You only get in life what you ask for.” Be clear on what you WANT from this contact - be purposeful with your plan and you will have better outcomes.
6. Of course, Jonathan Farrington added his quick Brit wit and compared the need to put yourself out there for prospecting like trying to find a date in a “pub”.  What do you have to lose?  If you walked into the pub without a date, and then you were turned down from prospective dates, what did you lose if you go home without a date?  He also shared that “young” people are now the hunters within organziations (can’t say I totally agree with that one!)

Prospecting isn't just for kids

Want to prospect like a pro?  One of the items just listed might resonate with you.  Take the idea, adapt it for you, and then ACT!

You can access over 70 top sales experts every week with podcasts, webinars, articles, etc. for only $25 a year!  Check out Top Sales Experts. 

What do you think?  Are we on track with what it takes to grow your business? 

P.S. My new venture – and awesome resource for YOU – is nearly ready for launch.  More next week!

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: prospecting, Sales Tips