Sales Manager or Sales Mentor?

By David Burkus

In the hypercompetitive sales environment, the demands on sales managers are constantly increasing. Today’s sales managers are told to be supervisors, trainers and coaches. Recent trends suggest that managers must wear one more hat: mentor. In order to retain top talent on your team, you must be able to mentor and grow your sales representatives. Research from the Saratoga Institute suggests that over one third of employees who don’t receive regular mentoring will look for another job within a year.

What is it about mentoring that keeps good people around? Mentoring is concerned with helping your people grow to become the best representatives they can be. It is important to note that mentors aren’t trying to recreate versions of themselves. After all, not every representative is going to sell like you did in the field and trying to make them is a surefire way to create resistance.  Instead, mentors look to build upon the natural strengths of their protégés while minimizing their weaknesses.

How do you know if you’re mentoring? Here are four key elements that separate managers from mentors:

Managers Supervise Performance, Mentors Supervise Learning
Mentoring is the act of assisting another person to learn, claims Chip Bell, author of Managers as Mentors. Mentors help their protégés gain knowledge or skills that would be unavailable or more difficult to attain otherwise. Managers, on the other hand, are most often tasked with getting performance out of their people. Moving into a mentoring role can be tricky for managers, since the process of helping representatives learn often involves having to observe initial failure. Representatives, seeking to demonstrate performance and impress their managers, are often hesitant to show incompetence in front of their managers. Both mentors and protégés must surrender to the mentoring relationship, meaning that they must stop attempting to control the outcome of the process. For mentoring to be effective, managers must convey to their representatives that they understand performance (however defined) will diminish in the short-term and are willing to accept this drop in the belief that performance will increase later. This is vital because representatives must be willing to fail in front of their manager in order to get the right feedback for improvement.

Managers Evaluate, Mentors Accept
Any effort to mentor must involve acceptance. Acceptance means allowing representatives to take risks without fearing the repercussions of negative evaluation. As mentioned above, failing is an essential part of learning. In order to fail, representatives must first be willing to take risks. Mentors must encourage protégés to take bold moves despite timidity and fear of failure. This can make mentoring difficult for managers because one of their primary roles is evaluator. Managers evaluate the work of subordinates, conduct performance evaluations and, in some cases, even have to rank their subordinates accordingly. In this environment, representatives will be cautious to take the bold risks necessary for growth, preferring to stay in the middle of the pack rather then stand out. Managers can’t entirely remove the evaluator section of their job description but they can rewrite it. Instead of comparing representatives to each other, compare representatives to where they were last year. In addition, make it clear that constructive criticism is not permanent and that negative evaluation is viewed as temporary. Conveying acceptance is the opening of the mentoring relationship.

Managers Direct, Mentors Advise
Advising is the main event of mentoring. The protégés are in the relationship because of the gifts mentors can offer and knowledge is the best gift mentors have. However, the way this gift is given can affect just how great a gift it is. Managers are trained to direct representatives, to give orders on what they should do or how they should do it in order to attain a performance goal. Mentoring focuses on attaining learning goals and outright direction can create resistance. Chip Bell outlines four steps for delivering advice while reducing resistance. First, clearly state the learning goal. Next, confirm agreement on the focus. Then, ask permission to give advice. Finally, state advice in the first person, avoiding phrases like “you ought to.” Throughout the process, remember that for advice giving to truly work, protégés must feel free not to follow the advice without risking the mentoring relationship.

Managers are Near-sighted, Mentors are Far-sighted
Mentoring is a long-term process because learning should be a continuous effort. As protégés gain new knowledge, new levels of learning come within reach. The ultimate goal of mentoring should be to develop self-sufficient learners committed to continuous improvement. Often, this can mean ending the formal mentoring relationship. Moving beyond the relationship can be difficult for mentors, especially if the managers are the mentors. Even if protégés need new mentors, often they still have to work under the old managers. While original managers will always need to be aware of what their representatives are learning, they must eventually yield their supervision of it. Managers can help reduce this tension by taking an active role in finding the new mentor or source of learning, even making the introduction if necessary. Former mentors must also be slow to follow up on how the learning process is going, their protégés are still testing the waters with new mentors and must not be tempted to swim back.

Mentoring is a useful tool for growing and developing representatives and a vital tool for retaining top talent. However, the process of mentoring is not without tension. Learners must be encouraged to take risks, fail and then extract the lessons from failure. Often managers are not trained to perform the actions vital to this type of relationship. By supervising learning, accepting representatives’ risk-taking, giving advice properly and developing a far-sighted vision for representatives’ learning plan, managers can become mentors.

David Burkus is a leadership coach/consultant and has taught at the university level. He holds a master’s degree in Organizational Dynamics and is a doctoral student in the field of leadership. He can be reached at david@davidburkus.com

Selling a Price Increase in a Soft Market

By Mark Hunter

Selling a price increase can be difficult in nearly any type of situation, but trying to sell one in a soft market can be downright brutal.  Yet, as unpleasant as it can be, it is often essential.   The problem of selling a price increase in a soft market usually stems from the fact that the salesperson and the customer are coming at the situation from different perspectives.  Especially in times like this, it is imperative for the salesperson to understand that regardless of what the market or economy is doing, if a price increase needs to be sold, it needs to be sold.  This means that the salesperson can’t go into the sales process believing that the customer is going to reject the price increase unless the deal can be saved by offering some type of discount.  If they approach the meeting with this attitude, they almost guarantee failure because a customer will never pay more than a salesperson tells them to.

In these types of situations, the first thing that often happens is a comment from the customer about how soft the economy is, how prices are really going down, and therefore, how a price increase at this time doesn’t make any sense.  When the salesperson hears this, they usually agree because they hear and see the same thing.  However, as soon as they do this, the battle is lost and 9 times out of 10, the only thing that can save it is some type of discount. 

To counteract this problem, when the salesperson hears the customer make this type of statement, they should ignore it.  Yes, ignore it.  The reason?  Many times the customer merely wants to get it off their chest and by telling it to you, they feel better.   The first response the salesperson should make is to ask the customer questions about how they intend to use what they’re buying and whether or not they’ve been able to achieve the results they’re looking for.

If the customer continues with their line of discussion about the economy and they can’t accept the price increase, then the salesperson should ask about the steps involved in their buying process.  The objective is really to get the customer talking.  Initially, this can be a little scary because the customer may begin ranting about how they always go for the low price.  After they get done explaining their process, the salesperson should question them about how their own customers decide to buy from them.  It’s in this part of the discussion that the customer begins to see how and why quality and confidence are such big items in any purchase decision.  A good salesperson will then pick up on these two items and reinforce them with follow-up questions that get the customer to further explain the importance of quality and confidence.   When the customer sees what they’re buying in this light, the price increase becomes a much smaller issue.

Sometimes even after this conversation, there will be customers or purchasing departments who will still not accept the price increase.  They usually comment that they will find another vendor to buy from.   This is often a veiled threat to get the weak-kneed salesperson to cave in with a discount.  For the salesperson, this type of discussion is best thwarted by ensuring the end-user fully understands the value and benefits they will receive from their product, as well as by clearly communicating the amount of pain the customer will go through should they decide to switch.  First, the cost of converting to a new vendor is always much higher than initially thought, so the discount the new vendor has to offer needs to be significant.  In addition, it might be easy for a customer to find a new vendor at a lower price, but on many occasions, the lower price vanishes after the initial order and, suddenly, the new vendor is at the same price as the original one.  Furthermore, the new vendor will not have nearly the knowledge or expertise as the original company about how to service the customer, so the switch often winds up costing more money in the long-run. 

As a final line of protection, I strongly believe the salesperson communicating the price increase should not have the authority to make any price concessions.  When this power is taken away from the salesperson, it’s amazing how much tougher they are in executing a price increase.  By requiring the salesperson to get approval from someone else, it also takes the salesperson off of the hot seat and, many times, as soon as the customer is aware of this, they will stop badgering for a discount. 

Selling a price increase in a soft economy is certainly harder than selling one in a booming market.  However, as professionals, salespeople need to take the time to know and understand how to sell a price increase in all types of markets.  It doesn’t require herculean skills.  It requires the diligence and patience to keep the discussion focused on the benefits the customer is looking for from both the product and from you, the salesperson.

Mark Hunter, "The Sales Hunter," is a sales expert who speaks to thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability. For more information visit www.thesaleshunter.com

Sales Versatility: Connecting with Customers Every Time

By Michael Leimbach

As a sales leader, you probably debrief sales calls, review sales campaigns, analyze prospecting activity, and ride along on certain customer calls to observe or assist. No doubt you have noticed that each salesperson has some customers and prospects that they easily connect with, and others that they don’t.  And you might have seen cases where the same approach that succeeded with one prospect or customer caused another to become impatient and tense.  Perhaps certain salespeople appear to waste time on social chit chat or having coffee with a customer– and yet they seem to succeed in closing good business.  And some established customer relationships end up being downright difficult – fraught with tension and frequent communications issues and misunderstandings for reasons that are hard to understand.
It is difficult finding a common thread that explains which salespeople communicate well with which customers.  The reasons for success seem as mysterious as the reasons for failure to connect.  But the ability to consistently build productive, trusting relationships with many types of customers is the best predictor for getting second appointments, closing important sales, acquiring referrals from customers who buy, and avoiding the wasteful process of damage control in rocky relationships.
What is it that makes the difference between those successful communications with customers and the difficult interactions that lead to failed calls and sales campaigns?

The 75% Problem
At first glance, some salespeople just seem to have a knack for reducing relationship tension and quickly putting almost anyone at ease in any situation.  They gain access to more contacts and enjoy greater customer loyalty, higher close rates, and more repeat business.  They are often described as possessing good “people skills” -- apparently inborn and hard for others to acquire.
But Wilson’s Social Styles research indicates that these fortunate few are so successful because they are using interpersonal versatility -- the ability to understand differences in communication preferences and adapt to make relationship interactions more productive.  Versatility is a skill that can be learned, and people who have it are measurably more capable of building and sustaining open, trusting relationships with a wide variety of different kinds of customers.
According to the Social Styles model,  everyone displays a recognizable set of preferences and habits in interactions with others.  These preferences add up to our social style.  The four primary styles are labeled as Driver, Expressive, Amiable, and Analytical. 
The four styles vary in terms of behaviors reflecting the dimensions of Assertiveness (Tell versus Ask) and Responsiveness (People versus Task orientation).  For the Assertiveness dimension Drivers and Expressives tend to be more Tell oriented, while Amiables and Analyticals are more Ask oriented.  For the dimension of Responsiveness, Analyticals and Drivers are more Task oriented, while Amiables and Expressives are more People oriented. 
When salespeople find it easy and natural to communicate with a customer or prospect, the likelihood is that they share the same social style.  But only about 25% of people fall into each of the social style categories  this means they will likely share a social style with only about one quarter of the people they meet – and that there could be potential difficulties in communicating with the other 75%. 

Think of the implications if a salesperson can only interact successfully with customers using their own style.  If a salesperson is interacting with everyone in the same style, there’s a good chance there will be customers who, for example, will feel they are being given too much information – or too little.  Some customers will find the salesperson to be overly friendly, while others might perceive him as aloof or not friendly enough.  Other customers will want a lot of different options to consider, while others want to cut to the chase and know the bottom line right away.  These differences create tension in the relationship and can become barriers to making sales.

Versatility: The Key to Improved Business Results
In the current uncertain market, it’s especially difficult for sales leaders to manage all the variables affecting the ability to increase sales.  You may have little control over the external factors affecting the business, or the strategies adopted by executives in response.  You can, however, act to help your entire sales team become more versatile in how they interact with prospects, customers, and the internal support team and their own peers.  Imagine the results if your whole team could connect successfully with 100% of the prospects and customers they meet.
The good news is a sales team can experience dramatic, measurable improvements in performance when salespeople learn how to adapt to others’ social styles. In one study, building the versatility skills of the sales force yielded a 53% improvement in market share. To illustrate the impact of this kind of result, consider a company with 6.29% market share.  Suppose it has 1,000 customers, each purchasing $1,000 in product, making each one-percent increase in market share worth $158,982.  In this example, an improvement from a 6.29% market share to a 9.65% market share (or 3.36%) is equal to $534,179 in increased revenue.   For the pharmaceutical firm involved in the above study, improving the versatility of their sales force brought a highly profitable return on investment.

Depending on your company’s industry, product offering and market, increased versatility may make different kinds of contributions to the improvement of business results.  What are the critical issues that are most important in your organization right now?  Sales organizations challenged by the erosion of their existing customer base and price cutting competition can expand their opportunities by building stronger relationships with current contacts and developing a wider range of new business partnerships.  If the company is seeking to expand into new markets and increase prospecting activities to find new opportunities, versatility can make all the difference in establishing new relationships quickly and sustaining them to close sales and get repeat business.
 
Increasing Versatility
For most of us, interpersonal behaviors and preferences are habitual and largely out of awareness.  The critical factor in becoming a more adaptable, versatile communicator is the powerful insight that we do have different styles and that each style has unique strengths.  As salespeople come to better understand their own style and recognize style differences, they also learn how to respond to their customers’ styles in a way that makes it easier to exchange information, reach mutually agreeable decisions, and work smoothly for successful sales closures, implementation and follow up.   Over time, as they develop higher levels of skill, salespeople become adept at recognizing the indicators of different styles and adapting to them.  This adaptation becomes an integral part of how they communicate.  A highly versatile individual is almost always perceived as a highly effective communicator – someone who has those “good people skills,” is a trusted business partner, and is a very successful negotiator.

While there are multiple ways to improve communication in a given situation, the single most important factor for enhancing communication effectiveness across the board is style versatility.  As salespeople must work harder for every sale, building this kind of capability provides a real competitive advantage for the team the company as a whole.

Michael Leimbach, Ph.D., is Vice President of Global Research and Design for Wilson Learning Worldwide. With over 25 years in the field, Michael provides leadership for researching and designing Wilson Learning’s diagnostic, learning, and performance improvement capabilities. He has co-authored four books, has published numerous professional articles, and is a frequent speaker at national and global conferences. He can be reached at wilsonlearning-americas.com 

The Curse of Conditioning

By Marshall W. Northcott

We were naturally curious and asked questions until someone repeatedly told us that it was rude and we shouldn’t do it.  We were instructed not to speak with strangers.  Expressing ourselves and letting our excitement show was enjoyable.  It was something we were comfortable with, and then we were told how embarrassing it was that we brought unnecessary attention upon ourselves and the people that we were with.  So we stopped.

Adults, including our own parents repeatedly told us and the people we met that we were shy and we accepted that this must be true, after all they were adults.  For those who were (or still are) unfortunate enough to be subjected to this type of mental and psychological abuse it is purely a curse.  These are simple examples of conditioning that may have happened to you when you were so young that you don’t remember today.  This conditioning caused you to alter your behavior, for better and sometimes for worse.

As adults we can carry these crosses from childhood with us.  They can impact our performance by creating mental blocks that we are sometimes unaware of.

People who condition others in a negative fashion do so consciously or unconsciously.  Either way they transfer their own fears and incorrect beliefs, which impose limitations on others.  They feel justified and sometimes superior by doing so.  No man or woman has the right to restrict another’s potential by programming them in this manner.

Giant elephants are trained when they are young to believe they cannot escape by using a stake in the ground and a chain around their leg.  Eventually they stop trying and give up.  By the time they are adults it takes very little to keep them captive.  Fleas can be trained to remain in a jar or shoe box because they will limit the height of their jumps eventually after repeatedly hitting the lid.  Once conditioned, you can remove the lid and watch them jump around without leaving their new home.  Ask someone who has a dog how they are trained to stay within the perimeter of an electric fence.  It seems cruel but it is very effective and eventually you can let the animal roam free while the power is off.  Imposed psychological barriers also restrict human’s ability to be 100% effective.

Most people have a conditioned belief regarding their income earning potential.  They may be employed in an office where the top income earner makes well in excess of $100000.00 but they can only see themselves earning $50000.00.  Why does this self-imposed barrier exist?  Seldom would this same person say they are half as intelligent, have half the work ethic, work half as many hours as the other person, are half as charming, or are 50% as attractive.  The fact is the higher income earner got past the conditioned belief and they are usually struggling to get past the income plateau where they are stuck.

It’s virtually impossible to excel in sales if you don’t have a healthy opinion about sales in general and the value of the service that you provide.  The more self-imposed (and external) conditions that we live with the more limited our chances for success.  We must know that we can perform with character and integrity without becoming the stereotypical sales person that most of us dread.

 “Don’t let someone’s opinion of you become your reality.” – Les Brown

Marshall W. Northcott is a dynamic trainer, speaker and author. He brings over 20 years of sales, customer services as well as sales training experience to his clients. His career has taken him into a variety of sales environments, including yellow pages, office equipment, training & consulting services and the home furnishings industry. He can be reached at 866-896-6603 or Marshall W. Northcott

Obstacles To Closing

By Brian Tracy

Fear of Failure
There are several other reasons why the end game of selling is stressful and difficult. First and foremost is the fear of failure experienced by the prospect. Because of negative buying experiences in the past, over which you could have no control, prospects are conditioned to be suspicious, skeptical and wary of salespeople and sales approaches. They may like to buy, but they don't like to be sold. They are afraid of making a mistake. They are afraid of paying too much and finding it for sale cheaper somewhere else.

Fear of Criticism
They are afraid of being criticized by others for making the wrong buying decision. They are afraid of buying an inappropriate product and finding out later that they should have purchased something else. This fear of failure, of making a mistake in buying your product, is the major reason why people object, hesitate and procrastinate on the buying decision.

Fear of Rejection
The second major obstacle to selling is the fear of rejection, of criticism and disapproval experienced by the salesperson. You work long and hard to prospect and cultivate a prospective buyer and you are very reluctant to say anything that might cause the prospect to tune you out and turn you off. You have a lot invested in each prospect and if you are not careful, you will find yourself being wishy-washy at the end of the sale, rather than risking incurring the displeasure of the prospect by your asking for a firm decision.

Customers Are Busy
The third reason why the end of the sale is difficult is that customers are busy and preoccupied. It isn't that they are not interested in enjoying the benefits of your product. It's just that they are overwhelmed with work and they find it difficult to make sufficient time available to think through your recommendations and make a buying decision. And the better they are as a prospect, the busier they tend to be. This is why you need to maintain momentum throughout the sales process and gently push it to a conclusion at the appropriate time.

Inertia is Hard to Break
The factor of inertia is the fourth reason that can also cause the sales process to come to a halt without a resolution. Customers are lazy and often quite comfortable doing what they are currently doing. Your product or service may require that they make exceptional efforts to accommodate the change or a new way of doing things. They perhaps recognize that they would be better off with your product, but the trouble and expense of installing it hardly seems to make it worth the effort. They see no pressing need or urgency to stop doing what they are doing and start doing something else with what you are selling.

Everyone Buys at the Same Time
The good news is that everybody you meet has bought and will buy, new products and services from someone, at some time. If they didn't buy from you, they will from someone else. You must find the way to overcome the natural physical and psychological obstacles to buying and then hone your skills so that you are capable of selling to almost any qualified prospect you speak to.

Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, recognize the normal fear of making a buying mistake experienced by the customer. Give him every reason you can think of to be confident in dealing with you.

Second, accept that everyone you talk to is busy and you are interrupting. Always ask if this is a good time for him to give you his undivided attention. If not, arrange to see him another time.

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today.  His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area.  For more information, please go to www.briantracy.com

An unexpected solution to “overstaffing”

By Robyn Davis

Especially in today’s economy, it is difficult to predict which events will be well attended and which will not.  Many companies choose to send a number of existing staff members and err on the side of “overstaffing” but, without appropriate consideration, this can become an issue souring the entire experience for everyone involved. 

When representatives feel as though they could be better utilized anywhere else, they are less likely to take the event seriously.  Unfortunately, this is not just a personal problem for them – a negative attitude in your booth is infectious and can hurt your company’s bottom line – fewer people will leave the event with a positive impression of your company, you are less likely to achieve your stated goals, and future marketing strategies could face resistance when your company remembers this failure.  However, instead of erring on the side of “understaffing” (which brings an entirely different set of challenges); I would encourage you to resolve this issue by adding one more person to your team.

You may be thinking, “If I already have too many representatives – how could the solution be to select one more?”  Keep reading and I’ll show you three ways adding a competent hostess can provide some structure and stability to your booth.

ONE: As a consistent face for attendees throughout the event, your hostess enables visitors to feel comfortable in knowing your booth is under control.  She politely greets attendees and recognizes them upon second and third visits, maintains a general idea of which company representatives are where (and when they’ll return), and passes along the messages left with visitors’ business cards as directed.  Maintaining a booth presence for your company allows representatives to attend sessions, meet with VIP clients and attendees, resolve issues, as well as explore the show floor without worrying about missing important contacts who visit the booth in their absence.

If you have a competent hostess in your booth, your representatives can maximize the use of their time at the event (outside the booth) while your company still appears to be fully committed to maintaining a strong showing inside the booth.

TWO: As she takes a moment to engage attendees, your hostess enables visitors to have more quality interactions and take away positive memories of your company.  With casual conversation, she determines which attendees would be best suited for immediate introduction to a company representative, others who would require a brief overview of company capabilities along with traded business cards, and still others who are only looking for a sweepstakes entry.  At the same time, she can tell which on-site representative is currently the most appropriate to introduce according to attitude, availability, and experience.  Jumping into these conversations is not awkward for anyone because your hostess introduces each party with a short sentence to describe why they needed to meet.

If you have a competent hostess in your booth, your representatives can meet pre-qualified attendees and waste less of their time and energy on interactions with those who may not be a great fit.

THREE: As quality leads are verified, your hostess ensures future contact is possible.  She scans badges, collects business cards, and records notes while your company representatives finish their conversations.  Without drawing your representatives’ attention away from the current interaction or abruptly disrupting the positive connection forming with your visitors, all of the necessary information is collected for follow up at another time.

If you have a competent hostess in your booth, your representatives can focus their efforts on building relationships instead of verifying necessary contact information.
Having a competent hostess in your booth enables your company to make more meaningful connections with current clients, form positive impressions on potential, future clients, and to improve your appearance within your industry as a whole.  Don’t reduce the number of representatives you send to each event – increase it… consider a hostess when you need help, whether you know it or not.

Robyn Davis is an experienced promotional representative, event hostess, model, and more… she is here when you need help!  Robyn has more than ten years of leadership experience and a well rounded background; learn more by visiting her website, www.whenineedhelp.com