It is a unique day, of course, so it seems like it deserves some recognition. My friend Clayton Shold over at Salesopedia has posted some interesting, trivial facts regarding this day.
To pique your interest:
The last time February had five Fridays was 1980.
The chances of being born on February 29th are 1 in 1461.
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Here’s a good post on sales “rainmakers” from my friend Bob Rosner. I suspect that most of you are aware of our emphasis on salespeople with strong listening abilities. Part of a rainmaker’s skill set? Absolutely:
DO Listen and synthesize. The biggest difference between an average salesperson and a rainmaker? Mr. Average assumes his most important tool to making a sale is his golden tongue. While Ms. Rainmaker knows that it’s her ears.
That may be the most important aspect of their abilities. Unfortunately, we have seen this work against them in an interview. Some hiring managers want to be wowed in the interview by some form of verbal gymnastics. Often, we have to point out to the manager specific instances from the interview where the candidate was qualifying them.
One other factor that I think is common to all rainmakers is pointed out early in Rosner’s post:
It’s a story that I heard from a sage salesman at my dad’s car dealership when I was a kid. Two shoe salesmen land in Africa. Upon seeing hundreds of people walking around barefoot, one salesman sends a telegram back to his home office. “No sales here, no one wears shoes.” While the second salesman wrote back, “Huge market, everyone needs shoes.”
Rainmakers aren’t witch doctors who dance to make it rain. Rather, they’re salespeople who see markets overflowing where most of us see nothing but desert.
Exactly. Rainmakers have the ability to see opportunity through what appears to be obstacles to others. This reason is why some rainmakers are boat-rockers within a company. They desire to power through these obstacles to reach the goal.
Navy blue hopefully. I say that with confidence based on this article from Selling Power - Design Your Image of Success. From the article (my editing):
While good posture, eye contact, and direct, well-modulated speaking voice have long been deemed important in sales, only in recent years has dress come into its own as an influential factor. And even more recent, says Ms. York, is the realization that colors can also play a basic role in the business of motivating people to buy.
“Colors have a lot to say, and just as sales people should pay attention to the types of clothes they wear, they should also know what colors can say.”
“Salespeople should never wear black, for example,” she says, “because it’s too powerful and overwhelming. However subconsciously, people associate it with death, or the Mafia.”
On the other hand, navy blue is considered the power color, because it is authoritative, like black, but it also evokes trust. Another trustworthy combination is a gray suit with a blue shirt, “just like bankers wear. It commands respect, but it also evokes trust.”
Ms. York agrees with John Molloy (Dress for Success) that solid suits make a man seem more likable than pinstripe suits, and pinstripe suits make a man seem more authoritative. The following are several suggestions for suit and shirt combinations “for the man who want to be well liked”: gray suits with pale blue shirts and maroon ties, beige suits with blue shirts, and dark blue suits with pale yellow shirts.
I’m certainly no slave to fashion so this is valuable advice to me. As we say, much of closing new business comes down to slight advantage. No suit has ever closed a deal, but I bet some attire has cost salespeople a deal.
An interesting article here from CNNMoney.com titled 8 ways to be a better boss. The article focuses on coaching which is a task that many sales managers avoid to their own detriment. There are some excellent points in the article and this tidbit of which I was not familiar:
2. Always follow the 7:1 rule. “You must give seven pieces of positive feedback for every one piece of developmental feedback if you don’t want to be perceived as overly critical,” Frankel says. “Catch people in the act of doing things right and reinforce it with praise” - even if they’re just doing the job they get paid for.
Seems like a good rule to me. Here is another point to consider:
4. Speak up when you see behavior that can be improved. Frankel notes that major league sports coaches don’t wait until the end of the season or even the end of the game to coach their players. “They coach after plays and innings,” she says. “If you offer guidance regularly and consistently, those dreaded performance reviews become pro forma, because you’ve already done the real work of developing employees throughout the year.”
The reason why we work with sales managers to properly coach their salespeople is this exact reason. There is the principle of the teachable moment. Proper pre-call coaching followed by post-call debriefing is critical to developing your sales team.
Seriously, Forbes ranked the top 25…is there anything Forbes won’t rank? Yet, I am a sucker and watched the slide show. I’ll speed it up for you a bit and provide the top 5:
I won’t mention which one of those towns is my hometown…well, I spent the first 5 years of my life there. Lee says that doesn’t count. Unfortunately for him, the Twin Cities did not make the list.
In all seriousness, I’m not sure if there is much value to this type of list. Clearly the top towns are host to a major university which stands to reason they would have a higher rating. The mildly interesting point to me is how these different college towns rated against each other.
Bill Gates is on LinkedIn…are you? I’m behind the curve on the social networking side, but I do find LinkedIn to be a fascinating tool. We are just starting to expand our sourcing activities into the LinkedIn space and it is already paying dividends.
We are starting to receive 2nd and 3rd degree of separation contacts from job seekers, business owners and old classmates. It it almost like drawing a “Chance” card in monopoly - you’re not quite sure who is contacting you, but it always draws your attention.
I’m presently working on some leadership projects with our customers so these topics are probably on my mind more than usual. ManageSmarter.com presents an article Communication for Managers 101 that provides 5 steps for better communication between managers and employees.
Some of the suggestions are rudimentary, but we encounter many managers who simply do not follow these basic tenets. The reason why good communication is important, in case you had to ask (emphasis mine):
Harvard Business Publications recently confirmed what many have always known: effective communication is the number one skill for executives to develop.
…
A Gallup poll of more than 1 million U.S. workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is because of problems with their immediate supervisor. Also, surveys show that over 80% of work-related problems are due to a breakdown in communication (Felber 2002).
It doesn’t get any more straight-forward than that. The suggestion I appreciated the most:
2. Offer your employees time to prepare. It is only fair that you allow your employees some time to prepare for the meeting too by giving them a heads-up on what the meeting will be about. Communication is a two-way process. When an employee isn’t given time to prepare, they are left hearing your thoughts and unable to provide sufficient input that might be necessary. When you call a meeting without giving them time to collect their thoughts on the subject, you are setting yourself up for 2 big problems:
• You are being unfair to the employee, which will affect their workplace satisfaction and morale. After all, no one likes to be blind-sighted by their boss.
• You are causing productivity problems. You will not be getting all the input you may require.
Did anyone else think the proper phrase was “blindsided” instead of “blind-sighted?” The things you learn here at the Hire Sense.
There might be nothing more important to a business’ success than strong management. When management struggles, the entire company pays a price no matter how large.
ManageSmarter.com offers an article with 10 excellent tips for leadership. Here’s a taste:
• Have a vision and communicate it. Make sure you clearly communicate your vision for the company. No one follows a leader who cannot communicate the way in which the company will succeed. The future of all your employees is tied closely to the success of your company. Make sure they believe in your company, what it stands for, and its products and services, and make sure they know that the hard work they are putting in now will payoff.
I have been stuck in companies where the compass is always spinning and no one can find true north. I didn’t stay long at the company since most tasks and accomplishments seemed almost pointless. All of us knew that any ground we gained (in sales) would be given back in the very near future.
• Don’t be too serious. Make the business environment fun at times. While being professional and taking things seriously is important, nothing can beat the effects of a company-wide midnight round of bowling after you reach an important milestone, a lunchtime pizza party once a month, or a spontaneous Nerf-dart duel.
Been there, done that. Work is serious enough so having the chance to deflate every once-in-awhile is a complete morale booster. Unfortunately, I worked for a manager who was a complete taskmaster. His view was that everyone should be working all the time and, worse yet, no salespeople should be seen having fun at the office. This was a young, vibrant technology company that had ping pong, darts and other games. No salespeople were allowed in the game area no matter what time of day it was. Nothing was spontaneous.
Finally, a point that keeps coming up no matter what the position:
• Listen. You have built a great team and are paying top dollar for it. Hold meetings with your management team at least every other week. Also have frequent informal ad hoc discussions with your partners, managers, and employees. Get their feedback, discuss the business and its strategy, and inquire every so often if there is anything that is frustrating them that you can help with. A few weeks ago I had a quick spur-of-the-moment meeting with the lead developer for iContact. After inquiring whether he had any job frustrations, it came out that he felt he was working in an environment in which he became distracted too often. We quickly devised a solution whereby he would work at home four hours a day until we could move into a larger office where the development team could work in a separate room, away from the distraction of the sales and support team. This small change has doubled the developer’s productivity.
I love the line - “…away from the distraction of the sales and support team.”
I received an email from Amy Quinn pointing me to this article - Where the Talent Is: 100 Sites to Find the Elite in Any-Given-Field. This is a comprehensive list of job boards and sites for employers looking to hire in specific fields (sales included).
Here are the sales boards listed in the article:
That’s a good list of sites that perhaps you have not visited yet. There are 91 more sites listed in the article - may I suggest a bookmark?
Asking the right questions is the backbone of successful selling. The reason they are so important is that the right questions qualify the right information. This information allows the salesperson to determine how good of a fit exists between the prospect’s needs and the salesperson’s solution.
Simple, right? But what questions should the salesperson ask? JustSell.com has an excellent starting point where they list 30 open-ended questions.
An example:
qualifying
What do you see as the next action steps?
What is your timeline for implementing/ purchasing this type of service/ product?
What other data points should we know before moving forward?
What budget has been established for this?
What are your thoughts?
Who else is involved in this decision?
What could make this no longer a priority?
What’s changed since we last talked?
What concerns do you have?
Yes, I bolded that question since it is an excellent one. The operative word is “else.” Rarely does the decision maker contact you first. The goal of this question is to open the discussion to who else will be involved in the final decision. This question asks for that information without belittling the initial contact person.
These questions are starting points, but there are many good ones in the short list.
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