New Sales Manager Life Savers

"New Managers Lifesavers!" Those were the words a couple of new managers in one of my retail training groups used. They were referring to coaching with the 'self management' philosophy that helps develop Self Managing Sales People. The concepts are simple however building self managers takes stretching a bit to get your head around it.

It starts with having meaningful conversations with Sales Reps. This can be achieved by being interested in what your reps are interested in. Sometimes a little listening and enthusiasm by a manager can really get a salesperson going.

Think of the TV show, "Survivor".How many of the contestants fail to start a fire? Even after 30 days with flint and tinder they still struggle. The answer successful survivors use is to fan the spark. And get the fire going.

Same kind of thing with a Sales Rep's ideas. These ideas are fragile too, at the beginning. It works wonders. Fan the fire in your Reps ideas!

After all, what are we more motivated to prove successful, our idea or our boss's? It's a solid example of a meaningful conversation becoming a start point to hatch the new sales plan.
When it comes time to execute the plan, how much should the manager ''help'' the Sales Rep? One of the things that makes the self managing approach really work is to keep things clear - ie.who is doing what. The commitment to specific actions is what makes it work.

Self Managers do what they say they'll do. Managers who coach by supporting and coaching when Sales Reps keep commitments build self managers and amazing performers. New managers may lose traction (and make a lot of work for themselves) when they jump in to help out if a Sales Rep doesn't keep their commitment. It sends the wrong message.

These were a couple of ideas managers told me helped them to build stronger, self managing Sales Reps - the kind people point out as an example of a "Real Pro".

The Golden Rule of Communications

This piece came out of a discussion with Nellie Jacobs, http://www.ignitingimagination.com/, around how people connect and what communication is all about.....
Ultimately this change in understanding can increase the number of contacts and clients you develop by 500%. Read on to find out how.

When we hear expressions like, “It’s a numbers game!”, we have to know this is one of the world’s great half-truths. Whether we are talking about a financial consultant, a real estate agent or a guy looking for a date, the problem is the same. That’s the “Talk to everyone and keep saying, ‘Next’ if it doesn’t work out.” approach and it’s brutal for everyone. The result is a woman saying, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince….”.

Rejection. And a good thing too. Otherwise we’d be jammed up all day with useless meetings and forced polite conversation!

Enter the ‘Golden Rule of Communications’:
“Communicate with others the way you would like to be treated.” ©

When I ask people ‘how’ they would like to meet new friends or business contacts they say, “I like it when it is interesting, exciting and fun”. So that’s a great place to start.

Interesting could mean talking or learning about something or someone I am interested in.
Exciting makes me think of adventure, new ideas and discovery.
Fun is anything that makes me feel good and smile and makes for pleasant company.

Meeting new people, or old friends, or simply doing business could be like that. It can and it is when it’s done based on “The Golden Rule of Communications”. Basic core principles are like foundations for skyscrapers. They support everything we do and they stand up to the test of time.

BUILDING ON THE GOLDEN RULE

The Golden Rule is the foundation, so what do we do with it? How do we build on it?
First, ask yourself a fundamental question about any place or situation you are in or plan to be in:

“What am I doing here anyway?”

It’s a great question for business or social situation. Once you’ve established that you are in the right place, it helps to understand some ‘people’ facts.
Most of us know that in if we look at products, services or relationships, at any given moment some people are actively looking, some will be looking in the next few months, some over the next couple of years and some just won’t be looking.

The numbers used in business can really help:

3-5% Looking
10-15% Looking in the next few months
40-50% Looking in the next couple of years
30-40% Aren’t likely to be looking

Exactly what these numbers are will vary widely from one place to another however the trends are the same. At any given moment in the immediate future about 10 - 15% of the people we meet could be customers. Over a couple of years that number jumps to 50 -75%!!

That means that by making a good contact and keeping in touch I could increase my contacts and business by 500%!

Fortunately there are some things most of us want:

• Someone who is interested in what they are interested
• To be genuinely listened to
• An injection of positive energy
• An injection of positive energy
• To be given the space they need
• Good information or help when requested

So how do we know who’s looking for what we’ve got? How do we communicate with them and stay true to “The Golden Rule of Communication”. Let me use an example of a business communication.

Here’s how Tom Wood of Mastery TV recommends you do it.

You first meet and introduce each other. “What do you do and how can I help you?” Response is “What do you do?” After a brief description of what you do, ask for more about what they’re looking for. If it’s general then look for more detail – an explanation could be that you know a lot of people & may be able to help them.

The conversation starts and is based on getting to know each other and looking for ways to help each other. This is an example of making contact, no matter how it happens. From there on it is a matter of continuing the contact if you feel it’s a win-win!

It's simple and it works.

How To Hire and Train Self Managing Top Performers

#1 Companies constantly look for opportunities to grow their Self Managing culture.

The Self Manager Series May 2009

Each month this e-letter will provide key information on how these companies select their self managing talent and how they train them to be even better.

Hiring Self Managers

So how do you really know what you are getting when you hire a new candidate who then becomes a part of your company?

It helps to know, as close as possible, what you are looking for. Clients have found over the years that the time they spend deciding what that is pays back big dividends. Once you know, as they say, “Accept nothing less”.

The Hiring Manager seeks this lofty goal and must also deal with the demands of finding that right person, and doing it now! It’s possible to let the system do more of the sorting. Before getting face to face with a candidate, because that’s where the time really begins to burn up, there is a lot of information available.

The resume provides basic background and qualifications, plus a record of skills, and gives a place to start. The psychometric profile provides key behavioural information and predicts success with your company.

The profile used for selection is most effective when it is ‘normative’ (based on stats from your company population) and can be validated and adapted to your needs.

Good data saves you time because you are now interviewing for confirmation of Effort and Fit to the company. Time saved means good selection, means good performance which means good retention. Committed employees that stick with us for a long time are just as important as good clients that stick with us for a long time. It’s quality of life and good profit all around.


Training Self Managers

How is an accountant self manager different from a sales self manager?
They’re not, at the core that is.

Self Managing in any position and in personal life is based on figuring out what’s important and then deciding to do that. It happens when we decide what’s important for us and then decide whether we are going to do it or not.

This can sound a little ‘self serving’. Note well that it doesn’t mean it’s always easy or fun and often the term "short term pain for long term gain" may apply.

For self managers it can be viewed as developing new habits that serve those wants better – takes a little persistence to get into that grove and then it becomes, yes, a habit.

Back to the accountant and the salesperson. They are often totally different in the way they ‘roll’. Just picture accountants you know and salespeople you know and think:

Proactive or Reactive
Risk Taker or Conservative
Attention to Detail or Just Give me the Big Picture

Generalizations are risky however there are general differences here.
In terms of self management, do both do things for their own reasons? Do both make and keep commitments? Do both understand they are accountable for their actions and responsible for the results?

Both self manage and both do very different jobs. In a company that recognizes these core traits, there is terrific leverage here. Individuals and managers self manage to a common set of worthy core beliefs and everybody understands the game.

If I say I’m going to do it, I mean I’ll do it, whether I’m an accountant or a salesperson.

Until next month, keep Self Managing!

Cliff Sutton, the Self Management Group, 416-930-6165, csutton@self-management.com
Please refer this monthly e-letter to your colleagues at the email above. Thank you.

How To Hire and Train Self Managing Top Performers

#1 Companies constantly look for opportunities to grow their Self Managing culture.

April 2009

Each month this e-letter will provide key information on how these companies select their self managing talent and how they train them to be even better.

Hiring Self Managers

My customers tell me Talent Acquisition means finding the right person, for the job as well as for the company and for the candidate. Sounds like a lofty goal, however why not? When you think about it, the Hiring Specialist holds the destiny of the company in their hands.
It makes perfect sense to go for the best. At a recent seminar, Paul Tobey quipped, “Most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want!” It’s easy to fall into that trap in selecting a new employee, a new key element really, for our companies.
The companies we’ve worked with over the past 25 years have helped develop a formula that works – no surprise, since it came from the people who use and depend on it every day. And these are the best in the insurance and financial industry so they know a thing or two about selecting top people!
You can increase your odds of success in a new hire by taking a balanced look at Talent, Effort and Fit to your company. Even weighting on each seems to work best.
Some quick definitions:
Talent: Combination of learned skills required and natural behavioural characteristics (shown by psychological profiling)
Effort: This is a tweak on the Behavioural Interview. We’re looking for a history of working steadily and working hard enough to achieve consistent results.
Fit: This is the chemistry or gut feel we experience when we meet the ‘right’ person for our company. This ideally shows up when they ‘light up’ talking about the work they want to do with your company.
So by using a system with even weighting on each element, you get a solid hire: They can do the job. They will do the job and they will be passionate about doing it with your company.
Why use a system like this? Because it’s proven and it works, whether you are hiring an HR Specialist, a customer service rep or a top salesperson.

Training Self Managers

You can hire self managers or you can grow them or you can do both – best of both worlds. We are all self managers to varying degrees. It is core to us in fact self management is a core element to our beliefs.
We all want our kids to grow up to be successful, responsible adults who make and keep commitments and make us proud.
Right now is a really good time to bring more of that back. Why is now a good time? Because right now more than ever we are influenced every moment of every day in every way possible, to do what someone else wants us to.
The confusion and potential for overwhelm is very real.
So how does the self manager handle it? The core of managing ‘self’ is making commitments and keeping them. The commitments are based on self motivation. The motivation of the self manager comes from their internal decision about what they want.
So how does that make a difference? It cuts down on the confusion and overwhelm because we have ‘skin in the game’ and are self motivated to get and keep focused.
Want to know what a self manager looks like? Look at the best performers in your company, the key people who make good things happen and they do it day after day, year after year. They are your internal role models.
Tiger Woods has been described as the ultimate self manager. When you think about it in terms of Talent, Effort and Fit it gets very exciting!
He has grown his huge natural skills and his behaviour to a level unique in his ‘business’.
His effort is consistent – he is known for working very hard and very smart.
His Fit to his chosen career is Passionate! It is so total this passion spills over into his love of healthy food and the right exercise – check out his book.
Training to be a better self manager works well when the self manager – that’s you and me - is in charge with the ‘coach’, their manager, constantly growing and supporting this growth.
How do we coach ourselves and how do we coach self managers. By asking ourselves the right questions and really listening for the answers. The source for motivated action is in those answers.

Until next month, keep Self Managing
Cliff Sutton, the Self Management Group, 416-930-6165, csutton@self-management.com
Please refer this monthly e-letter to at colleague at email above. Thank you.

FIVE MINUTE EASTER EGG MIRACLE

Five Minutes to Fame and Fortune – an Easter Egg gift to you

This is the five minute Easter Egg miracle. Last night my son was starting a journal entry for an English assignment on Othello. Something about writing a love letter to Desdomona….

I suggested he use a technique taught to me by Steve Manning. Steve taught me that you could write an article in 5 minutes, using just about any idea – in his case he used three randomly chosen words.

It worked. Everyone in our How To Write a Book in 14 Days class completed a short piece, yes, in five minutes!

Since then I have used the same approach many many times with incredible results. Sharing it with you is a special pleasure.

The idea is, take anything you can think of that you want to get done, get into or get on with. Then sit down and for five minutes, by the alarm clock, start writing and keep writing. Do not let the pen leave the page or you fingers stop punching the keys if you are writing electronically, as I am now!

The results are nothing short of amazing. Simple, eh? You bet!
It works.

Procrastination is a real killer. I just completed a customer letter that was due back a while. It took me a little more than five minutes but the five minute idea got me started. He was delighted to hear from me and we are back on track and in business with a mini-project in the works.

Innovation pays. I wanted to send out a contact letter to my clients, and wanted to do it for a while. I applied the 5 minute principle and wrote it. Then, what do you know, one of my colleagues said he wanted to test his new distribution system and sent it for me. $15,,000.00 in orders later I was smiling – it was simple and was appreciated.

Each day I commit to innovation and writing about what I am doing. Getting a job done, fixing the BarBQ or something, and it works out.

New Ideas become action and reality. The five minute miracle means I can write down my idea and keep it safe. I don’t need to worry about forgetting it because the really key stuff is on paper and I can take it where it needs to go when I am ready.

The 5 minute Easter Egg miracle is: challenge yourself to write about what you are thankful for in your life right now. Write for 5 minutes and remember, what makes it work is you keep writing until the alarm goes off!

Cliff Sutton

416-930-6165, www.getsalesconnected.com/ csutton@self-management.com

Self Management in Tough Times

We are all looking for solutions, particularly when and the media and our personal experiences feature fear and uncertainty. What do we do about it? The secret to creating a successful life in any tough times or in any times may well be in self managing. My wife, Moira, read from James Ray's book, Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want and reminded me of the story he told of Ivy Lee consulting with Charles Schwab, the Bethlehem (and later US Steel) Steel entrepreneur around the turn of the century.

Schwab was looking for high value advice and Ivy Lee suggested he write down 6 things he wanted to do the next day and then put them in order of priority. The next day he committed to start with number 1 and finish it, then go to 2 etc. but not to be distracted or stop until he had completed all six, and to move any left over to the top of the list the next day.

Schwab found this advice so compelling and effective he tried it for a few weeks and then sent Lee a cheque for $25,000.00 in appreciation (average wages were about $2.00 a day at the time).

This is a fantastic example of Self Management. Make a plan. Prioritize it. Stick to it and evaluate.

The article below expands a little, from a Sales Perspective.

This blog will be all about sharing ideas and information that really works. Not simply theory, rather tried and true, tested in the arena of life and work, concepts and 'how to' that is proven. I encourage you to share your gems and we can all grow richer together. Best for last, it has to be something I and you can get passionate about - for me the source of fun and meaning.

Are you ready for the Self Managing Salesperson?

Why do High Performance Managers love them?

Let me see now, what would selling be like with a Self Manager on your team?

Self Managers come up with sales ideas and a plan of action. They have thought it out and usually look to their managers and support team for help in fine tuning their plan of action rather than looking for a plan of action to begin with. The sales plan is based on what the client wants because that’s what’s important to the Self Manager. Selling solutions means solving problems and bringing clients opportunities!

Oh yes, when the plan is agreed upon Self Managers make a commitment to it and they mean what they say. The result is that important things get done quickly. Plans become reality and the reality is often bigger and better than expected.

One of the great things about working with Self Managers is that you know whether the plan worked, because you know the effort was made. Vital Statistic: Nine out of ten times, when a salesperson fails it is because more effort, not more talent, was required.

Let’s not leave out PASSION. Self Managers put their efforts into what they are passionate about, whatever that may be. Passion is what gives them the drive to keep going the extra mile. Passion is what makes them light up with emotion and light up those around them. This e-motion – energy plus action – gets everybody going and brings about commitment in the whole team. Clients buy these solutions because they know they are going to get great results.

Now assuming we all want to have Self Managing Salespeople working for us, how do we recognize one? Take a look at your top performers and there’s a good chance you’re looking at a Self Manager. The # 1 competency of top performers is their ability to self manage.

Keep in mind the DNA of a Self Managing Salesperson is all about being proactive and focused on solutions. Combine this with an action orientation and the commitment to do the work required. Now add in genuine passion for delivering value to clients and you’re there. The secret ingredient is in knowing how to weight and evaluate these factors for you and your company.

Cliff