Article Resources about Business

Individual sales people, as well as sales managers and business owners, all share the same concern. How to sell more without burning everyone out, or paying too much for marketing.

That’s a dilemma that has certainly been solved, quite scientifically, and I’d like to share it with you now …

Executive Summary

Everyone knows that 95% of businesses fail within 5 years. Not so many people realize that even in the top 500 businesses in the world, within 2 years if history is any judge, more than 50% of them won’t be there!

So size is no guarantee of survival, let alone success. To survive, a business must continually grow its sales, and the only way it can do that is to remain relevant to the market, and retain the capacity to communicate its relevance in a meaningful way.

Whereas one of our previous reports covered this question from the business marketing perspective, this short report now looks at how the sales person should integrate his/her own activities in order to leverage the whole sales process!

It’s true that the notes provided in this report are necessarily simplistic – such a subject demands a book! But at least by reading you’ll see the steps that are required, and you’ll certainly be able to make positive changes that will result in a better understanding of what it takes to achieve your sales goals, together with some solid steps to get there.

You Need to Understand, Much More Precisely, What Parts of What You Do Actually Work

We have shown over and over again that in every business there is a Unique Selling Equation (USE) that provides a kind of secret recipe for success.

Via brainstorming, either in-house with your team, or perhaps even by sitting and analysing the return on each sales activities you engage in, you too can discover that predictive USE.

This automatically achieves 2 important agendas.

• Firstly most sales people find they save an enormous amount of time that they were previously spending on unproductive activities. It’s very important to literally dump activities that don’t “earn their keep”!
• Secondly, once you have an equation that gives a predictable result, you have complete control over sales levels.

Do the Important Things More Often

This might sound simple but in fact it actually describes a cycle:

Schedule it >>> Track it >>> Analyse it >>> Refine it >>> Schedule it, etc.

For this to work, it means that there must be a documented system and that system is inviolable. For instance if you have scheduled in a crucial activity like networking, you don’t go booking a client for that time!

Why? Because if you keep allowing clients to book over the top of scheduled selling activities, you’ll soon run out of clients! A client who doesn’t understand that is sabotaging your business, and that’s as bad as winning a client who doesn’t pay!

Sure, from time to time it’s a necessity, but only in an emergency, such as a client leaving the country and needing to see you NOW. Don’t allow your schedule to be upset because you’ll literally “ruin the recipe” for reaching your sales goals.

Do it Better

To be more effective you must, without doubt, commit to being a learner. In particular give your attention to:

1. Learning more effective ways to describe your product or service.

   This means getting inside the mind of your client and really understanding the true reasons he or she is buying from you. It also means understanding and using the exact same language as the client. To get a better handle on this, take a look at our free report “Why Better Marketing Strategies Add Up to More Customers Calling YOU”.

2. Learn to understand body language and other non-verbal communication from the client, so well that you can:

• Gain fabulous rapport even with tough clients
• Identify an objection coming even before the client is aware of it and “cut it off at the roots”
• Respond appropriately to more and more subtle buying signals
3. Dump “closing” and substitute “wrap-ups” instead.

   These are much more natural and respectful ways of completing the sales transaction. Trust me, people are sick to death of closes, which often didn’t work anyway. In addition many of them were quite offensive to the intelligence of the listener!

4. Learn how to replace cold calling by finding out how to get masses of interested and qualified clients calling YOU.

   There are so many strategies to achieve this, and I recommend the above report, as well as our article on intelligent networking, also available free from our web site, in order to achieve this step. It’s much easier than you think!

It Doesn’t Have to Cost a Fortune to Get This Knowledge!

Believe it or not, all of this and very much more is contained within what is the most up-to-date, and also the cheapest, book on intelligent selling that you could possibly consider buying. Hot off the presses is “How to Double Your Sales in 30 Days – and Keep Doubling Them”.

This incredible 127-page manual comes complete with assignments for your progress, case studies, trouble shooting, and even tracking pro-formas to get the quantification/systemisation part down pat.

If you want, you can even get on-line personalised help, not only from me but from a working party of peers. If you’re a business owner or sales manager, there’s even a special forum just for you to deal with issues relating to team management and development.

Take a look at the contents and see for yourself by visiting http://www.speedbusinessnetworking.com/speedbook.html/.

Please let me know what you think!

Christine Sutherland is the CEO of Speed Business Networking, a membership-based site dedicated to providing hands-on help to SME’s who are seeking a more immediate and responsive alternative to expensive consulting services.

In recent years in the business-world there has been a lot written and said about team development. Unfortunately, most of the people doing the majority of talking lack the psychological background to accurately describe the conditions under which people choose to become a true team.

In a large retail store it can be a challenge to build an environment where all or most of the employees feel they are part of a store team. It’s more common to find individual departments that act as a team, rather than the entire store. That’s because as a general rule it’s easier to build a relatively small team of up to a dozen team members than it is a team with a hundred or more members.

The developmental process of a group of people evolving into a cohesive interdependent team that can direct itself to solve organizational problems rarely happens spontaneously. A true team does not happen by chance or accident, but requires planning, an understanding of group dynamics, and most of all effective team leadership. Most people in business today confuse ineffective groups, committees and other adverse groupings as a true team. An adverse grouping is a situation where people come together, either by accident or on purpose, but function in some way other than a true team. Once a person has been a member of a true interdependent team, that experience isn’t soon forgotten. And that experience can sour the person in the future to serve on ineffective groups, and committees, because the person now know what it feels like to be a member of a real team. An interdependent team is a highly unusual and unique interpersonal experience there is probably no other parallel in all of human experience.

The process of team development is neither complicated, nor impossible. Many new and previously inexperienced team leaders are able to build a team with proper training and coaching. Being successful as a team leader requires only a minimal knowledge of the process, but it does demand a willingness to try new techniques and methods. For most new team leaders it means stretching beyond what may feel natural or even comfortable. Whether you are experienced or inexperienced, old or young, it is possible for you to become an effective team leader.

Before we learn what an interdependent team is, let’s first understand what it isn’t. There are four typical negative or adverse reactions to the grouping of people in interpersonal relationships. This is true in both personal and professional relationships. These adverse reactions are observable in behavioral terms and for simple clarification are called: mob, gang, committee and group.

Mob. Individualistic or selfish thinking can identify mob behavior. People displaying mob behavior are tactical in that they think only for the moment and have virtually no strategic or long-term planning. In mob behavior there is no leadership, which creates mob disorganization. When we think of street mobs, the first thing that comes to mind is violence, but actually violence is the product or outgrowth of disorganization, which happens because there is no effective leadership.

Gang. Although gang behavior sounds similar to mob behavior, it differs in almost every aspect. Strong autocratic leadership along with a h
ierarchical system of management characterizes gang behavior. Gang members are highly territorial and defensive, thus creating aggression in defending their perceived territory. In business, gang behavior frequently includes empire building where gang members attempt to exclude “outside” resources by becoming totally self-reliant or self-sufficient.

Committee (Task Force). In business, committees are usually thought of in positive terms. Actually, compared to interdependent teams, committees are inefficient and ineffective. Due to the lack of team cohesion and identity, traditional committees frequently have problems focusing on their purpose until they satisfy a strong need for organization, defining procedures, establishing policies, and having a controlled leadership. Some committees invest most of their available time in these areas. This results in a lengthy process that is cumbersome and oftentimes fails to achieve superior results.

Group. A “group” consists of people in a setting that lacks purpose, leadership, communication, and obviously results. The best examples of groups are the people in an elevator or doctor’s office. They are there, but have superficial communication at best. In fact, if someone breaks the rules of groups by attempting to lead or force communication, other members of the group become uncomfortable and unwilling to cooperate. If you doubt this, try asking someone in an elevator to join you in singing a song. The person will likely repel at your comment, because it’s not acceptable group behavior.

If you are a student of human behavior you can probably see examples of these four types of adverse reactions to human interaction in almost every aspect of life. When one department in a store demonstrates gang behavior toward another department, it can result in a very unhealthy situation. There may be a sign placed on a backroom door that says, “Research and Development Personnel Only.” This would be characteristic of people defining their territory demonstrating gang behavior. Obviously, any of the four adverse reactions can be counter-productive to smooth store operations.

Next month we’ll look at the process a leader takes to build a group of people into an interdependent team. We’ll see, for example, the benefits of team cohesion and team identity. Until then, keep your eyes on the teams in your workplace and see how many of them might be mobs, gangs, committees, or groups.

If you would like more information on Team Development, please contact one of our team members at (888)262-2499. You can also visit our website to learn more about our products, services, and the multinational organizations we have served over the past three decades. Reference this article to receive a 50% discount on any of our books or 15% off your first scheduled training event.

Dr. Richard L. Williams is a retail consultant specializing in team development, performance coaching, leadership development and organizational development.

Due to outstanding scholarship while a doctoral candidate at Oxford University, Dr. Williams was honored with Knighthood. His formal title is, therefore, “Sir Doctor Williams.”

Real Consequences

Survivor has started again! The thrill of making decisions under the stress of dire consequences is a scenario that rivets millions of us. This vicarious experience shines a light on our internal competitor. It gets us asking the questions, am I tough enough? Am I flexible and clever enough?

In a month, these people encounter more challenges which require more nimbleness of mind than most of us experience in a year. As business professionals, we can learn from these people not their back-biting strategies, but their reactions to difficulty and stress.

Deal with Life’s Challenges

Watch how people naturally react to these challenges and how, over time, they learn to react better or be voted off. Watch how those who become positive, perseverant and optimistic eventually win. After the competition is done, these people will deal with life’s challenges in a more effective way. Experience does that.

As I’ve written about Army Rangers in my book, “No Excuse Leadership,” challenges provide a perspective on difficult that most people don’t have. Difficulties will come. However, people who have learned to operate effectively under stressful circumstances will overcome.

Get Out of Your Natural Environment

Unfortunately, Survivor is not going to call us and give us this wonderful learning opportunity. Fortunately, the market for this type of experience has produce events like the Ranger Experience. Though it’s only four days, and meant to build people, not break them down, it is an
intense personal and team learning experience. Like Survivor, this course, developed by former US Army Rangers, takes professionals out of their normal environment and focuses on teamwork, leadership and communication. Four days without a cell phone, laptop and PDA’s. Tough to survive?! Quite the opposite.

Our Inner Competitor Needs to be Challenged

Survivor taps our inner, dormant competitor. Courses like the Ranger Experience allow us to learn about ourselves and become better at succeeding under difficult circumstances.

Brace E. Barber works extensively with Leading Concepts, Inc. (http://www.leadingconcepts.com) in the field of immersion soft-skill training with a focus is on how to develop leaders, who are prepared for and can succeed under stressful circumstances. He is the author of the book No Excuse Leadership. (http://www.noexcuseleadership.com)

Brace E. Barber works extensively in the field of immersion soft-skill training. His partnership with Leading Concepts, Inc. http://www.leadingconcepts.com has allowed for the expansion of this extraordinary level of experiential training. Brace’s focus is on how to develop leaders, who are prepared for and can succeed under stressful circumstances. He is the author of the book No Excuse Leadership. (http://www.noexcuseleadership.com) (J. Wiley and Sons Publishing)