The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VIII
Week 8 and an interesting task rebranding Margate from being “a little tired” to being “a cool place to go”. Not many sales training tips this week but an interesting night and a few good tips.
Leading the two teams this week were Debra and Yasmina. Yasmina declared that she was suggesting herself for this task as it required a “multitude of skills” and that she had them. Nothing if not humble.
The two teams quickly started coming up with ideas for the rebranding. Debra, Mona, Howard and James decided that they would try and tap into the pink pound whilst Lorraine, Yasmina, Ben and Kate settled for the somewhat safe idea of rebranding Margate as a family holiday venue.
Over a two day period our teams had to create the rebranding plan, create a poster and a leaflet and make two sales pitches. One of the would be to branding experts and the other to officials and locals. Both of these groups would score the pitches and the best scoring pitch would win.
Both teams elected to operate with two team members in Margate and two in London. In Margate for Empire were Mona and James and for Ignite, Ben and Lorraine. Whilst Mona and James “subtly” tested the local opinion of chasing the pink pound, Howard and Debra enjoyed casting for their photos. Over on the other team Kate and Yasmina seemed to be gaining equal enjoyment from their casting of a yummy Daddy, Yasmina licking her lips as he bared his chest…
The next day the fog had landed on Margate. It was not perfect weather for appealing photography. Mona and James decided to start off by shooting some shots inside, recreating a night club scene. Nick was not complimentary saying that the models were not getting a lot of direction and that they looked wooden…
Every week we learn from the occasional successes and frequent failures of the apprentices. I am happy to point out what they have done wrong, how egotistical they can be and what they should have done instead but, in this, I disagree with Nick. The apprentices are not photographers or directors. Nor do they pretend to be. How do they know or why should they be expected to know how to direct a photo shoot? Why would they know how to get the best out of a model? Would you? Would Nick? Would knowing how to do this make them any more employable as a leader?
Leadership tip: Being a great leader is not about being able to do everything yourself. Being a great leader is about utilizing the resources you have to get the optimum result. Being a leader is about knowing when a job requires specialist help. Being a leader means understanding how to integrate that specialist help into your business. This was one of those times when specialist help was required and I think it would have been more realistic as a leadership task to have let them lead and manage a specialist in this area.
Later on, James and Mona moved to the beach to continue their photo shoots. “Directing” two guys with ice cream 99s on the beach, Nick continued to look on with disgust as if he had just found a rancid gherkin in his ice cream. Margaret meanwhile looked relaxed and calm, sitting on a seaside bench, eating an ice cream and watching Ben and Lorraine on their shoot.
Back in London, Lorraine and Yasmina clashed over the poster that Yasmina had created. Lorraine really has an ability to rub people up the wrong way fast. But if their arguments were unproductive they were nothing compared to the problems on Debra’s team where just 30 minutes before the print deadline they had not even started the leaflet! Not surprisingly, they could not finish it in time and had to leave it incomplete with gaps on it.
This was not the first time this series that one of the teams had failed to complete a basic task and I was surprised that more was not made of just how incompetent this really was. Remember the plain green cereal box? Tonight’s task was to do a rebrand with a presentation and to back it up with a poster and a leaflet. To not finish the leaflet was inexcusable.
The first sales presentation was to two agency chiefs and a tourism expert…
Kate went first with their family theme “See Margate through childrens’ eyes”. As with all of the sales presentations on the Apprentice we did not really see enough to comment on her presentation skills but what we did see was somewhat fact based and not very sexy at all. Rather too much steak and not much sizzle.
As usual, the professionals had to show their “expertise”, “If you saw your poster without the logo would you be confident that you would recognize it?” one asked. Frankly, I could apply that question to virtually any holiday poster I have seen anywhere and I wondered if they would have taken on the same project from cold in the same time period.
Howard made the presentation for Debra’s team and the idea seemed to go down well but the experts were quick to ask about why the leaflet had gaps on it. Debra, who had obviously been thinking up an excuse over night as to why there were gaps, said that the spaces were for local advertisers. It was fairly obvious that they did not believe her but she continued to dig a hole for herself and her team. Later on, Margaret said that the branding company did not like being lied to and said that you need a relationship of trust between a branding company and their client and that it had been blown out of the window.
Sales training tip: Trust is also critical if you want to be a top salesperson. Trust is essential if you want to close sales. Trust is crucial if you want top class client relationships. Trust is mandatory if you want your clients to open up and speak to you about their real needs, wants, fear and desires. Salespeople are often seen as untrustworthy, untruthful and dishonest. Sometimes this is fair, sometimes it isn’t. To deal with this perception you need to develop deep trust between you and you clients and the only way you can do this is by being honest, open and trustworthy, all of the time.
Back in the boardroom…
We discovered that Empire had scored 4/10 from the officials and residents and 4/10 from the branding experts. Ignite had scored 7/10 from both groups respectively.
Debra, Mona, James and Howard were left to fight it out whilst the others got to race Lotus Exiges around a race track. James hit the nail on the head for me, “We lost because our execution was poor.”
Debra elected to bring back Mona and James…
This was a difficult one because they could all go. Surely none of these three could win this thing. James seems all Tim-nice-but-dim to me, Mona just doesn’t have it and Debra could wind up any team fast…
On tonight’s performance alone, I would have sacked Debra. Sir Alan said that Howard seemed to do nothing wrong tonight and Debra blamed the quality of the photos and creativity on Mona and James in Margate but what exactly were she and Howard doing for two days? Why was the leaflet not nearly completed and just awaiting photos? Why was the poster not laid out and awaiting photos? And how on earth did she think she could lay out a leaflet in 30 minutes anyway?
Debra also has very slippery shoulders, casting around to lay blame on anyone but herself in a very aggressive manner, “I wish I was you and James. I wish I had gone off to Margate, done absolutely nothing, ate fish and chips, taken a couple of pictures that weren’t actually relevant to what we were trying to do…”
Sales training tip: Sales success is about taking responsibility. Sales success is about knowing what you’re good at and improving what you’re not so good at. Many average salespeople do not admit any faults or failings and blame their clients, their colleagues, the market or anything except themselves for their failures. Unless you take responsibility, total responsibility for your sales performance you will limit yourself from becoming an absolute top sales performer.
But, as Sir Alan said, he is looking at performance over the whole series now and despite doubts over James and Debra, Mona had to go. “It looks like to me that you might be right at the end of the pier in this process… Mona, with regret, you’re fired.”
“Thanks you for the opportunity,” she said politely. And we were down to seven.
Quote of the week goes to Yasmina on Lorraine, “There is a difference between managing people that have strong personalities and managing crazy people.”
Who is your favourite? Who would you like to win and why?
Better Business Focus Magazine, May 09
One of my articles was feaured in Better Business Focus magazine, the essential key for business owners and managers, again this month. Better Business Focus magazine focuses on the way in which successful businesses in the UK compete and manage their organisations. It focuses on how people are recruited, coached and developed; on how marketing and selling is undertaken in professional markets as well as in markets with intense competition; on how technology and the Internet is reshaping the face of domestic and home business; and on how people are being equipped with new skills and techniques. In short, it offers expert inspiration for a better business.
To read this issue click here now. Featured in this month’s issue are…
- Game of chance by Bob Apollo. Tips and tricks for practive pipeline management. Article for sales directors, CFOs and finance directors.
- Coming over clearly by Amanda Vickers. How to make the right first impression. Article for sales directors, sales managers and salespeople.
- CSR or so what? by Graeme Crossy. How to use CSR to open doors for your business. Article for entrepreneurs, business owners and managers.
- Entreprenurial tips by Theo Paphitis. 5 tips to help you to improve your business. Article for entrepreneurs and business owners.
- How the Bowen technique can help yourposture and increase your productivity at work by Jo Lunn. How to correct your posture and feel more confident and positive. Article for everyone.
- Your slip is showing by Barry Urquhart. How to be different and to maintain your standards. Article for business owners, managers and retailers.
- Time to manage by John Niland. Time management and finance tips for consultants and business owners.
- Successful selling lying on your back by Gavin Ingham. Tips for improving your sales skills. Article for salespeople, sales managers, sales directors and business owners.
- 10 strategies to ensure that your marketing is a success by Chris Cardell. Tips on how to market your business more effectively. Article for marketing personnel, business owners, entrepreneurs and managers.
To read this issue click here now.
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VI
So, here we are at week 6 and this week was all about selling… or was it? The task, to sell two identical lots of 10 new and used items for the best possible prices. The team who made the most profit would win.
Sales training and business tip: Profit is not the same as sales revenues. When consulting, I often come across salespeople, sales managers and companies fixated on sales. “Sell! Sell! Sell!” they shout and run out there selling anything that they can at any price. In 2009 many companies have slashed prices to make sales. It may seem obvious but there is little point selling if you don’t make profit!
Leading the sales for Ignite tonight was opinionated Geordie estate agent, Philip and leading Empire, tubby, wannabe army officer, Ben. Ben sprang into action straight away doing what he seems to perform the best at, boasting about himself, “I am a natural born leader… Sandhurst clearly saw that in me and that’s why I got an army scholarship.” But you didn’t go Ben! Get over it already. He didn’t get over it and he continued to lecture about leading people under “heavy gunfire” and managing when there were “people getting injured.” Ben mate, Margaret says you never were in the army, what do you know about leading men under fire?
Sales training tip: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, sales is not about your CV, sales is not about your background and sales is not about talking a good game. Sales is about getting results, consistent results. I don’t care what you say you’re going to do. I care only about what you actually do. And so do your clients. Salespeople who over promise and under deliver ought to go and do something else less results oriented instead.
As our teams began to sift through the weird and wonderful items that Sir Alan has selected for them it was immediately obvious that some of these items were relatively valuable and others were merely red herrings. A life size skeleton, jellied eels, a mountain bike, some vintage shoes, some books, an Indian rug and several others – it quickly became clear that they were not going to apply any kind of logical methodology to this task but were instead going to base their day’s activities on opinion and guesswork.
There is an old personal development story about a man who is asked to mend a piece of equipment in a factory which no-one else can mend. The factory owner is desperate as he cannot produce any goods with his machinery out of action. When the expert arrives he looks all around the machine and eventually pulls out a hammer and hammers in one nail. The factory owner is delighted and thanks him. When the invoice arrives the factory owner is shocked to see that he has been invoiced for $1000 and complains saying that the expert only hammered in one nail. He asks for a break down of the invoice. The expert responds with the following…
Hammering in the nail $5.
Knowing which nail to hammer $995.
Sales training and business tip: Sometimes knowing where to expend your energy is as important as expending energy. Yes, this task required activity. Yes, this task required selling skills. Yes, this task required negotiation skills. But more than that, this task required planning and preparation.
Our teams needed to know which products were the valuable ones, who would want to buy them and where they would best locate those prospects. Time spent understanding this would have increased the value when they came to hammer in their nail. Smart selling is all about maximizing the impact and effectiveness of your sales activities.
Ben split his team into two taking 7 products for his half of the team and leaving the other half of the team only 3 between them. Hmmm. Meanwhile, Philip was continuing his spat with Lorraine by studiously ignoring her comments that she thought that the Indian rug could be valuable. It was.
Sales training and sales leadership tip: As a salesperson or a sales leader it is essential that we judge the reality of a situation not just what we believe. It is really easy to believe that your prospect cannot afford to pay or that you will have to discount to win the deal for example.
People have a habit of seeing what they believe rather than believing what they see. Philip clearly believes that Lorraine is “erratic”. She may well be but because of this, even when she did come out with valuable comments, he dismissed them believing them to be nonsense. As a sales leader you need to get the best out of your sales team and this means utilizing all of their skills. This can be impossible to do if you have such negative beliefs about people that you fail to see even when they can add value to your sales efforts.
That said, Philip was about to prove two other sales truism namely that activity produces results and that you have to ask to get. Undertaking what has to be one of the silliest activities I have ever seen on the Apprentice – walking into a pub (albeit near a hospital) and asking if anyone wanted to buy a skeleton – Philip actually stumbled across someone who had always wanted one and sold it for £160. As I always say to sales teams, you need to work smarter AND harder. This was harder without the smarter and on this occasion it paid off…
Noorul meanwhile was on the phone trying to sell their skeleton. After finding a prospect they drove to him only to be told, “I’m a student, would you be interested in giving a good price?” With nowhere else to go and having driven all the way there, Noorul’s negotiation stance was weak and the best he could come up with was, “What’s the best price?“ to which the prospect said, “£50 really.” Noorul looked gutted and, as tumbleweed blew through Noorul’s negotiation, Ben stepped in to the breach saying that £50 was a bit low and he asked for £60. Nice step in Ben but come on… you should have gone higher than that.The skeleton was sold for £60 to one happy “student” but they’d just been had!
Meanwhile, Philip was hawking the “valuable” rug door to door frustrating Margaret into saying, “I’m speechless… that rug was the most expensive item they had and they have completely ignored its value all day apart from Lorraine.”
Over on team Ben, Debra and Ben were struggling to sell their ambitious 7 items and Ben rang Yasmina and co for help. Yasmina was quick to say that they ought to stick to their plan and that they had things to sell too.
In the board room…
Sir Alan confirmed that this task had nothing to do with selling and everything to do with valuation. The “devil is in the detail” he quipped.
Unfortunately, this was the downfall of tonight’s task as with neither group grasping this concept and both treating it as a purely sales task – sell as much as possible as fast as possible – the resulting results were really more about luck than skill…
Philip and Ignite had oversold some items by £96 and undersold two for a net loss of £34.
Ben and Empire had been somewhat less lucky making a profit of £78 and a loss of £242 giving a net loss of £169.
Not really representative of much but a win for Philip who remains safe despite ignoring his team and focusing on the wrong things so it was over to Ben who elected to bring back Noorul and James. Sorry, Noorul and Debra, or was it James? No, definitely Debra…
Noorul had to go.
He has been hopeless since his first words on the show (“I talk posh and I look posh”), has contributed little of value and was floored by the simplest of client objections today. Ben is too full of himself and too TV friendly to go at this stage much as the arrogant, pumped up, self-aggrandizing twerp needs a kick up the pants…
Suffice to say that there was much shouting in the board room. This mostly involved Debra and Ben although Noorul, perhaps sensing that he was the small fish in a pond full of pike, did give a spirited, yet pointless, defence of himself. This was all more kindergarten than professional business.
Ben tried to sell his somewhat dubious case, “Grafter,” not really mate. “Sales,” err yeah righto. “Good team leader,” are we on the same planet? “I can win this competition,” do you really think so?
But annoying as he may be and mouthy as Debra might appear there was only one ailing fish here, “Noorul, I don’t know what you’ve been doing here, I think you’ve escaped the radar… You’re fired.” And then to Debra, “If you ever open your mouth like that again don’t even bother to come back in this board room.”
So an interesting week with many sales and business lessons but also a week in which I was left feeling that if only we could have sacked 6 (or more!) tonight we could have cut to the chase and let the few real contenders to fight it out. So, here are the remaining 9, fill in the comments form below and share your opinions about what you would do with them!
James.
Ben.
Kate.
Debra.
Lorraine.
Philip.
Howard.
Mona.
Yasmina.
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part V
This week on the Sales Apprentice the task was for our two intrepid teams to come up with a brand identity for a new product – Sir Alan’s new breakfast cereal concoction. He wanted them to name it, create a brand, think up an identity and produce an advertisement to pitch it to an agency. The team with the best campaign would be the winner.
Leading Ignite this week was marketing consultant Kimberly and leading Empire was licensing development manager Kate.
From the start of the task the two teams could not have been more different – Empire seemed to run smoothly and harmoniously whilst on Ignite Kimberly, Lorraine and Philip picked up where they left off last week with bickering and arguing appearing more important than the task in hand.
Kate’s team came up with the idea of calling their cereal Treasure Flakes and used a quirky little cartoon, parrot pirate called Captain Squawk. Ben, clearly taking on all the “action” tasks this series, dressed up as the parrot and did his bit for the advert.
Kimberly’s team meanwhile were struggling to have an idea of any credence and eventually settled for an off-the wall campaign using a cartoon character called Pants Man. This was possibly the maddest idea that any apprentice has ever come up with and was the brain child of Philip who steam rolled it through by sheer force of will. Check out this incomprehensible nonsense from Mona who clearly had no more idea what the messages was than I did, “…when you eat our serial you won’t dress up like Pants Man because you’re not pants man and only Pants Man can wear his pants over his clothes”. What?
To top it all, the box of cereal they had designed was puke green and was only illustrated on the front facia, the others being left blank because they “ran out of time”. Kimberly was uninspiring, uninvolved and unworthy of the role of project manager.
She wasn’t supportive either. When Mona was practising her pitch Kimberly was full of criticism and when asked why she didn’t make the pitch herself (as she was so experienced) she said that she did not have the time to prepare that late in the day. Later on, when challenged by Sir Alan on this point, she admitted that she was not “completely comfortable in front of an audience”. On the evidence we saw, I am not sure quite what she would be comfortable doing.
She did however score one of the best lines of the show when she was “apologizing” to Mona for her lack of support which she managed to do without taking any responsibility for her apology and blaming Mona again at the same time, “I’m sorry you’ve misinterpreted my body language.” Fabulous – she has to go.
After the presentations and in the board room Kimberly’s team were relatively supportive of her with the exception of Lorraine who seemed determined to rub Sir Alan up the wrong way by distancing herself from the team and the project and coming across as genuinely awkward. Even Sir Alan, clearly bored with her, had to hold up his hand and say, “Shhh! I’m getting vibes from you.”
Kate’s Empire team had obviously enjoyed working for her and if there was anything to be learnt from tonight’s show it would be about the importance of having the right personality and attitude to be a leader. Kate is beginning to look like a possible contender. Even Captain Squawk acknowledged she was good a project manager and the team really did seem to have worked well as a team.
Not surprisingly, Kate and Empire were safe leaving Kimberly and Ignite to face the music…
“This is total garbage… how you think you can possibly believe you can have an advertising campaign based around pants… this is total rubbish”, yelled Sir Alan.
Kimberly elected to bring back Lorraine and Philip.
In her defence Kimberly claimed, “I am not a creative, I manage creatives.” Hmmm, a definite case of delusions of grandeur. At no stage did she appear to manage anything, she couldn’t even manage a side or back illustration onto the packet, she didn’t manage Philip and she didn’t manage to win.
That said, I’d have cut my losses and let both girls go. Sir Alan had this to say, “Lorraine I’ve listened to you and I’m trying to weigh up in my mind whether you are responsible because you are disruptive… Kimberly you have a marketing background, you should really have walked this thing… Philip, you know, very cock sure people that bulldoze ideas through is not what I am looking for… I have to weigh up who I am going to forgive… Kimberly you remind me of the final scene from the Wizard of Oz you look very impressive but in my mind behind the curtains there is nothing there.”
And Kimberly was gone.
So not many sales training tips tonight but some examples of leadership – from Kimberly how not to do it and from Kate on how to do it. Here are just a few…
- Be approachable and personable so that your team will communicate with you, confide in and support you.
Despite their competitive, cut-throat, egotistical personalities, Kate’s personality and approach really did seem to ignite Empire.- Encourage involvement and participation.
Kate encouraged discussion and equality from the off. She delegated well and got the best out of her team.- Create team spirit.
By involving all and creating one common direction, Kate crafted a team which pulled together, took responsibility and got results.- Take responsibility and make decisions.
Kate got her team moving forwards whilst Kimberly flannelled around and failed to make decisions leaving her floundering team with too much time on their hands to fight petty arguments.
So that’s it for another week. What did you think of tonight’s show? Who do you think is looking good? Who has to go soon?
Help Me, I Need Motivation! 10 Tips For Getting Motivated…
When I’m at parties and people find out that I am a motivational speaker and sales training expert they often say something like, “That’s fab, can you motivate me?” Flippant questions aside, motivation is a huge part of what I do when I am consulting with companies to increase sales results and is essential if you want to build a high performance sales team or if you want to be a successful salesperson.
Understanding how to motivate yourself to be proactive, positive and focused is critical if you want to be a sales superstar. Check out this email I received…
Thank you for sending me the newsletter, it really helps. I am having a particularly horrible time at the moment as I work in…… and the whole thing is a mess. I am losing the will to live rapidly and I feel like I want to leave. My boss has cut commissions, rightly, so I suppose, but with the financial worry and the ever decreasing market I really don’t know how to stay positive……
Please help with some advice. We have been on two of your seminars and they were brilliant. I would love to come on another one, but have no money, and the company is not spending at the moment.
I run whole sales training sessions and give sales conferences talks on motivation, but here, in a nutshell, are my top 10 sales training tips for getting and staying motivated to sell more, even in the most competitive of markets.
Motivational sales training tip 1: Remember that motivation is internal.
Many salespeople treat motivation as if it is something that happens to them. They allow themselves to be buffeted by difficult prospects, client challenges, lost sales and poor market conditions. This leaves them out of control of their personal motivation and out of control of their sales destiny.
Motivation is something that you do (or don’t do) for yourself. It is a set of mental processes. It is something that you can remain in control of irrespective of market conditions and irrespective of what happens to you. I’m not saying that staying motivated to sell is easy but it is inside of your control. And what’s more, the more that you work on controlling your personal sales motivation, the better you will become at harnessing it to get the sales results that you want.
Motivational sales training tip 2: Take the daily motivation challenge.
Many salespeople career through their lives unaware of their lack of motivation or their “average” levels of motivation. It might be ok to do some jobs whilst operating from average levels of motivation but not selling.
Salespeople need to be up for it and motivated.
One good way of staying motivated is to set yourself a daily challenge to keep motivated so here’s my challenge for you…
Take your “motivational temperature”, so to speak, several times a day. Simply stop and ask yourself honestly, “How motivated am I right now?” Just stopping momentarily to check your motivational temperature will make you more aware of your habitual levels of sales motivation and will awaken you to the possibility of doing something about it.
Motivational sales training tip 2: Remind yourself “WHY”.
Many salespeople and many people in general spend their lives “going through the motions”. They get up, they go to work, they go home, they watch the TV, they go to bed, they get up, they go to work, they go home, they watch the TV, they go to bed…
Same old, same old, over and over, day in and day out.
Now don’t get me wrong here, I have no problem with routine; what I do have a problem with is that same routine blunting your hunger, that same routine dulling your passion, that same routine killing your spirit…
Top salespeople have passion, drive and hunger and one way they maintain this is by waking themselves from their “going through the motions” reverie by reminding themselves “WHY” they are here and “WHY” they are following the path of a sales superhero. When I am sales training and consulting, helping individuals to know “WHY” something is important to them helps them get and stay motivated more easily.
Motivational sales training tip 4: Fizz it up.
One of the quickest ways to change your mental state is to change your physical state. Your physical state is hard wired to the way that you feel. Every physical state has an emotional state associated with it. Conversely, changing your physical state will change the way that you feel – fast.
Feeling short of energy? Get some air in your lungs, punch your arms in the air, stand up straight, jump up and down, run on the spot, yell out loud, smile stupidly, breathe more quickly…
Remembering to take control of your physical state can work wonders for your motivation on a moment to moment basis.
Motivational sales training tip 5: Be your own internal sales coach.
We all talk to ourselves, the question is not whether you do or not but what you say to yourself. Many salespeople have an inner critic who deserves shooting! Many salespeople berate themselves in a way that they would never allow anyone else to do. Many salespeople get beaten up by their own inner sales critics on a daily basis.
It doesn’t have to be this way. By taking control of our self-talk and training our inner critic to be our inner sales coach we can change our persistent internal dialogue from destructive to constructive and from cynic to coach.
Motivational sales training tip 6: Set BIG goals and go for them.
Demotivated salespeople do not set ambitious goals. Lack of ambition when goal setting will not motivate you. Lack of ambition when goal setting will not drive you. Lack of ambition when goal setting will not set you on the path to sales success. Lack of ambition when goal setting will not help you to perform in the sales super league.
Demotivated salespeople do not set ambitious goals because they think, “Well, hey, I won’t hit it anyway so why bother?” or “I’ll set it low because I’ll manage that”.
Top salespeople set BIG goals to motivate, stretch and focus themselves. Top salespeople set BIG goals knowing that even if they don’t hit them they will develop and improve along the way. Top salespeople set BIG goals because they expect success.
Motivational sales training tip 7: Reward yourself.
Reward yourself for a job well done. Reward yourself when you deserve it. Reward yourself when you work hard. Reward yourself when you work long. Reward yourself when you win. Reward yourself when you learn.
Rewards motivate so make sure that you reward yourself for the sales behaviours that you want and need to do more of. Reward yourself for doing what you told yourself that you’d do. Reward yourself even when others don’t.
Motivational sales training tip 8: Hang out with top sales superstars.
Hang out with sales superstars. Spend time with sales rock stars. Roll with top sales aces. If you spend time with demotivated, uninspired losers they will suck the sales juice right out of you. Spend time with motivated winners however and they will teach you how to be more motivated, how to stay more motivated and how to create the life that you want.
Motivational sales training tip 9: Get the sales edge.
One of the best ways of motivating yourself is to invest in yourself and your personal development. Enrol yourself on a sales training seminar, buy a sales training book, listen to a sales training audio or watch a sales training DVD.
When you invest in your own personal development you send a message to yourself that you are worth investing in and that makes you feel good about yourself and that, in turn, builds motivation. Don’t know what to do? Stuck for choices? Check out my sales training shop here…
Motivational sales training tip 10: Get your buddies involved.
Misery likes company. Losers like support. But then, so does motivation. Get yourself upbeat and motivated and then enrol your buddies into your “motivated” group. Run competitions, create energy, encourage, cajole and persuade each other to go the extra mile and make selling more fun.
Teams that motivate and support each other in being more motivated, up beat and up for it are more effective and make more sales.
Motivational sales training comment:
So there you go, 10 top sales training tips for getting and staying more motivated. Where are you going to start?
Getting The Sales Superstar Mindset, Sales Training Video 1 Of 3
The first of 3 sales training videos on how to adopt the mindset of a sales superstar and make more sales.
Why You Must Run Sales Competitions
A well run sales competition can stimulate and motivate both you and your peers like nothing else. Some of you will be lucky enough to work for companies that run great sales competitions. Some of you won’t. But you know what? It doesn’t matter.
Some of the best and most successful sales competitions that I have seen have been set up by the team, for the team. There’s nothing stopping you and your buddies getting together and running your own competitions today!
The best competitions have several key elements present and these include action, excitement, involvement, rewards and fun.
Competitions need to be inclusive, with everyone having an equal shot of winning. If salespeople feel that they have no chance then the competition may well end up demotivating them rather than motivating them!
Elements of your competitions should also be activity based rather than purely performance based. Why? Because you already have a commission structure to reward you for results; your competitions should be linked to the sales behaviours that you need for success.
Copyright Gavin Ingham 2008, extract from Real World Sales Attitude!
Achieve Your Goals From ‘Motivate People’ By Motivational Speaker Gavin Ingham
One subject seems to have dominated my week this week and that’s goal setting and motivating using goals. As a sales expert and motivational speaker this is something that comes up quite often so I thought I would share with you one of the techniques from my book Motivate People which was published by Dorling Kindersley last year…
Using imagery is an important and often forgotten part of successful goal setting. By clearly visualizing, your brain will be able to “experience” the achievement of your goals prior to your having achieved them. Repeat this exercise often.
- Pick a goal from one area of your life. Picture it in detail.
- Imagine stepping into the “you” in the picture and actually experiencing your achievement of that goal. Notice how it feels, what you see, hear, and think. Notice how others are treating you.
- Look into the future beyond your achievement of the goal. How does achieving this goal benefit all areas of your life?
- Look back at the past and your route to achieving your goal. Note your successes and the obstacles you overcame. Notice how different they are now that you have overcome them. Appreciate how you feel about your achievements.
- Imagine yourself walking backwards from your future achievement to the present. Notice what resources you needed and what you learnt from specific steps you took to help you along the way.
- From the present look forwards to your goal and appreciate the journey. Map out key stages of the journey and the resources you require right now.
Copyright Gavin Ingham / Dorling Kindersley 2007.
Motivate People will help you to develop skills, realise your full potential and make your life work.
- Discover the core attitudes and skills to motivate yourself and others, and ensure your team delivers results.
- Practical techniques, effective tips, five-minute fixes and case studies equip you to success in the real world.
- Set your goals and check your progress with self-assessment exercises.
If you want to get hold of copy of this useful little book you do so in the UK here Motivate Peoople UK book or in the US here Motivate People US book.
The Magic Of Thinking Big Or Even Bigger Still
OK! OK! So I borrowed part of the title but so what, it’s a good one and I like it! If you’ve been following my missives on goal setting so far, you’ll know that I have already alluded to the fact that when setting goals you ought to set them big.
So here it is for the record, think big and set big goals!
If you’ve ever read a book on goal setting or personal development you will have read this somewhere or other. If you’ve ever had a boss who told you to set goals he will have said this to you at some point. If you’ve ever listened to a motivational speaker you will have heard this woven into the fabric of their talk…
As Les Brown says, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
Or David Joseph Schwartz, “Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success.”
Or Earl Nightingale, “To achieve happiness we should make sure that we are never without an important goal.”
And Mark Victor Hansen, “Big goals get big results. No goals get no results or somebody else’s results.”
Let’s face it, everyone knows that they ought to set big goals. This is not a new concept. What’s interesting however is how few people actually do set big goals.
Think about it for a moment…
- When was the last time you were enjoying a drink in your local pub and your mate who runs in the local running club every Thursday night came up to you and told you that he was going to run in the 2012 Olympics?
- Or when was the last time that your friend who canvasses for the local political party said to you, “I’m going to be the next prime minister or president?”
- Or the last time one of your friends said that they were going to chuck in their job and work 4 hours a week and become a millionaire?
Get my drift?
I once worked for a well know training company. They really liked the work of Anthony Robbins and several of their courses and programmes were based on Robbinsesque type material. I remember once saying, quite seriously, that I would like to be the “next Anthony Robbins” and they all looked at me like I was either a) mad, b) arrogant or c) both (aside – I have very different plans and goals now!).
Interesting.
So here were a group of people who teach goal setting and personal development. They’re all about thinking big, dreaming big and going for it but I had made them feel uncomfortable with my goal. Was this because I have had just started as an employee with them and I should have been in “humble learner” mode? Or was it because it was ok for me to be good but not that good? Or was it because they didn’t believe that they could be that good so therefore they could not believe that I could be that good either? Who know? Frankly, who cares?
Small minds limit dreams.
Remember that. I said we’d be straight in this column and we need to be because some personal development learns require tough love. If you set big goals people will rain all over your parade. All over it. Not just light April showers either but full on torrential typhoon-like downpours. Big storms. People do not like big goals, they make them feel uncomfortable and that’s before we consider how they might make you feel yourself!
And these are not small-minded people either.
Often times the barriers to thinking big are rooted in common wisdoms or perceived truths.
Stuff that is just accepted as true. Big lies if you like. They probably weren’t designed to hold you back but hold you back they will and do.
Here’s one I accepted as a truth…
“You cannot make millions out of a (non-fiction) book, you have to use it as a back end for bigger products and that’s where you make your money.”
Now in this “truth” is a wisdom. It sure makes sense to have something else to sell. If you can sell 10,000 books and make $2 per book profit that’s ok but if you can upsell a product that makes profit of $100 to 10% of those people that bought a book that’s 1,000 times 100 = $100k. So good advice for sure but that does not hide the truth that there is a “dont think big” lie in there too… You cannot make millions out of a book…
Really….?
Go tell that to Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield and Stephen Covey.
For sure, they all made big money from upselling seminars, audios etc but they did make millions from their books alone.
The problem is that people aren’t happy with setting uncomfortably big goals. We weren’t taught this way. We were trained to be accepting, to make the most out of our life, to do the 9 to 5, to be a good little “soldier”. Most of us were not encouraged to think big.
We bought the mediocrity lie.
Remember when you said that you wanted to play football for a living? Or maybe you said you wanted to be a famous actor? Or a racing driver?
Few parents or teachers support these kinds of dreams…
And they’re right in some ways because not everyone can be the president. Not everyone can win the golf open. Not everyone can break the world mile record.
But someone has to be president. Most people have far more potential than they are currently using.
And that’s the rub.
When I run seminars I ask people to set goals for the coming year. Few set what I would call big goals. Let’s say I am working with a sales team and I ask what they would all like to sell this year. Few tell me a figure that is significantly at odds with the target given to them by their managers. So if their manager has targeted them at 250k of sales they will tell me their goal is 250k of sales or at the outside 300k.
Why not $1 million?
So I think it’s time to test your limits. I am going to suggest some goals for you to think about. I am not for a moment suggesting that you want or have to go for any of these but we need to start somewhere and I want to help you to really get this. As I list each goal I want you to honestly think about how you would feel about setting this as a real goal for you. Not whether you want it or not but how you would feel if you wrote it down, committed to it, told everyone that you were going to achieve this, took consistent action towards achieving this, made your life achieving this…
- Become the prime minister or president of your country
- Become a top 5 in the world film actor or actress
- Live in a $10m house
- Have a fleet of $100k+ sports cars
- Own your own private jet
- Be the CEO of a billion dollar company
How did you do? I’m guessing you struggled with some if not all of them. Don’t worry. That’s to be expected. It’s your anti-ambition conditioning (AAC).
This is a war you have to fight and you must win. You need to defeat your AAC and the only way you can do this is to start to think about what you really do want in your life and then to set some really big goals.
I remember looking for my first sales job. I hadn’t intended to get into sales but several people had suggested to me that I might be good at it so I thought, “What the heck, I’ll give it a go”. I had resigned from my last job and had looked up a couple of recruitment agencies who specialized in placing salespeople. I still remember the conversation I had with one of them. He was trying to “sell” me on a job with a basic of 15k but with an OTE of 50 to 75k. I told him that I wanted something more realistic, something that wasn’t just wishful thinking. Probably more like 15k with an OTE of 25k.
My conditioning stopped me thinking big.
I thought that 50k was a ridiculous figure. My brain at that time could not cope with the idea of setting a goal to earn 50k or more!
Guess what I got? A job on 16k with a first year OTE of 25-30k. Touche.
A couple of years ago I set mnyself a goal to charge a certain amount per day and to only deliver seminars or keynote speeches a certain number of days per year. At the time that goal made me feel very, very uncomfortable indeed but time has proven that not only was my BIG goal not that BIG but actually that it wasn’t BIG enough.
I have since achieved it and have had to set new goals.
I don’t want to get into a political debate but it is quite topical to “rubbish” the salaries of “fat cat” CEOs these days saying that they are not worth the money and that no-one should be paid that much. The media usually equate their salaries to how many shop floor workers the company could employ for the same figure. This seems to fire up rage in a large proportion of society, probably because they don’tt have this money or do not have any belief that they will ever have this amount of money.
If you want to set big financial goals the last thing you want to do is join in with this conversation. You need to forge your own path. See, the way I see it you can either sit around moaning about it or you can use this information to challenge yourself to set yourself a bigger goal.
Several speakers allegedly charge 50 -100 thousands pounds (GBP) for a one hour speech. Are they worth it? Who knows! But what they really demonstrate is that it is possible so use the information around you to set yourself a bigger goal.
We’ll talk more about big goals int the future but for now I challenge you to share your big goals in public and on this blog. Batter through your AAC and do it, now!
Goal-setting resources:
The Magic of Thinking Big, Achieve Your Goals, Unlimited Power, The Ultimate Goals Programme.
5 Strategies For Building A High Performance Sales Team
Tips for sales managers, sales directors & business owners.
Creating high performance sales teams is essential for any business wanting to achieve sales growth. Proactive, positive, consistent new business winning teams and salespeople are the holy grail of any sales organisation.
All of my clients have their own unique ways of motivating, managing and leading their sales teams yet they all have problems from time to time in keeping those teams on target, focused and “up for it!”
I’ve recently finished a tour with my Motivate People sales training seminar for sales managers, sales directors and business owners and I thought now would be a good time to review some top tips for building a proactive, results oriented, high performance sales team that achieves top sales results.
In this article I am going to outline 5 of the most effective motivational strategies and techniques that I have used to help many of my clients to overachieve on their personal, their team and their business goals.
1) Focus on the individual
You need to concentrate on helping your salespeople to understand and motivate themselves better. Help them to understand why they are in a sales role and what they want to get out of it. Ask them what’s important to them about their work.
What do they want to achieve? Why do they want to achieve this? What will happen if they achieve it? What will happen if they don’t? What importance does winning new business play in the achievement of those goals?
Begin to identify areas where they can gain quick wins. Helping your team members to secure small successes paves the way to larger successes, increased motivation and more activity. Make sure that they fully understand the links between increased activity, increased results and increased rewards.
Working mostly on their own and with your support you are looking to open their minds to a new way of thinking. Why not create a questionnaire or an audit of where they are at right now? What about creating a coaching form or process? This need only take a few minutes per team member per day but can produce phenomenal sales results.
2) Train on key sales attitudes, skills and techniques
Decide what the key attitudes and skills are that your team need to be successful in winning new business consistently. Create a simple, repeatable training programme and bring your team up to speed in these techniques and skills as fast as possible.
It always amazes me how so many sales teams have no formal process for new business generation with different team members working substantially different strategies to try and generate new business.
Putting together a programme of proven skills, techniques and activities will become associated with professionalism in the minds of your salespeople and when you are looking to change beliefs, attitudes and skills this is paramount.
Start your training right now. You don’t need to be a great trainer or an expert to do this. You can always call an expert in sales training (like me or one of my team) later on! For the moment, what you’re trying to do is help your sales team to feel valued, focus on what’s important to them, and improve fundamental areas of the sales process.
Training Tip 1: Before you even start training you need to get your staff to view sales skills training in the most productive light. There will be some on your sales team who think that they don’t need sales training at all, or who think that they’re above it or that it’s a waste of their important time! If you don’t change this limiting mindset before you start then the results you get will be unpredictable at best.
Try telling a story about peak performers and how training is important to their success. Get your staff to do a brainstorming exercise on why it’s essential for them to really take on board this sales training. Make sure that you ask them what their outcomes are prior to every training session.
Training Tip 2: When doing sales training you will find that there may be many conflicting sources of information with one sales trainer saying one thing and another saying another. Try to stick to simple repeatable sales structures and processes and one or two sales methodologies that work together.
3) Teach personal responsibility
It is impossible to force individuals to change and even if you could, doing so would only create resistance. That said, once you have the "buy-in" of your sales team you need to empower them to take control of their sales development programme for themselves.
Creating a personal action plan for each salesperson helps to consolidate their thoughts, hones their personal sales skills and enforces the key attitudes and behaviours necessary for sales success.
Your company may well have suitable action plans already that you can use and I’m sure that they will be well thought out and structured. It’s worth noting however that in my experience it’s usually more effective for the sales coach to develop their own sales coaching and action plans because they will be totally focused on your sales teams and your style of sales coaching.
4) Reinforce key behaviours
One of the questions that gets asked by business owners and sales training buyers for companies is, “What return on investment will I get from this sales training programme?” I’ve seen many convoluted answers from training and development companies however the most honest answer is probably, “It depends what you do when I leave!”
Even as an sales speaker and sales training expert I aim to engage your sales staff, create mindset change and inspire them to take massive action. Unless I am paid to stay around however I cannot guarantee success! Success is down to action and many members of your sales team will need support from you to ensure that these new behaviours and skills become part of their habitual behaviours.
You need to create ongoing, measurable and simple support tools to ensure that the new behaviours happen. I follow the management-coaching-autonomy model. Initially I manage people in their actions, then I step back into a more reflective coaching model and finally I release them to take autonomy for their own actions. When I work with teams I take time to help managers to ensure that they know how to reinforce key behaviours.
I went to one company where the HR Department was briefing the sales teams by asking them to “assess the training and see what they thought of it!” This was a team who weren’t making hardly any proactive calls at all! What were they likely to take from this training? With a focus like that, not a lot! How easy would it have been for them to walk out saying, “Not for me that!” or “I don’t think it’s that relevant!”
The focus should have been, “We’re getting an expert in to help us. After this training we want you to come up with your own action plan on how you are going to use this to increase your daily activity and sales!” That way they know they are expected to act differently and that their ability to change and adopt the key sales training messages will be measured and managed.
It always amazes me when staff that are seriously under-performing are sent on training and come back and say they know it all. If they do then why aren’t they top performers?
Don’t let the wool be pulled over your eyes in your business or your sales team! Make sure that you create simple, repeatable tools that ensure new behaviours and that help to create a fun and energised environment, which is supportive of the new sales behaviours that you want in your business.
5) Celebrate success
It’s important that any achievement is recognised and that as your team put the work in you create ways to recognise their success. In my experience many directors are internally orientated when it comes to motivation that is they know when they’ve done a good job and don’t necessarily need telling.
Many of your sales staff, on the other hand, will need that recognition from you because they are externally motivated. When I’m consulting with businesses the number of staff who say things like, “I don’t feel appreciated” or “I just wish that someone would say well done” is phenomenal. Directors and managers often “forget” to tell them because they don’t need it themselves or tell them but not in a way that is explicit enough for their salespeople to hear it…
I worked with one director who thought that he always gave praise saying, “Well done” to his staff yet they thought that he never said anything to them an did not appreciate the work that they did on a daily basis.
What the director usually said was actually, “So what’s next then?” In his head that meant, “Job well done. Now we can feel good and move on!” Unfortunately, what his staff heard was, “I’m never happy with anything you do, I always want more out of you!” As you might imagine this was an easy problem to solve once I heard it happening.
Exercise: Get a sheet of paper and write down as many ways of celebrating success that you can. Try a simple “thank you”, competitions, games, wall-charts and email reminders for starters.
Most of all remember that taking action in developing a proactive, new-business sales team is not only essential it’s fun!
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