My 7 Best Books for 2012

Here is my reading list for this year. These fine books inspired me, encouraged me and changed my thinking. What will you do with them in 2013?

Enjoy!

To Sell is Human by Daniel H. Pink - Explore the power of selling in our lives.

SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham - A book I revisit year in, year out. There is always something to pick up on to improve sales performance effectiveness.

Sales Cats V2 by Mike Boyle - Yes gratuitous self promotion I know, but version 2 has a significant change. Can you pick it out? It may make a difference in your salesmanship!

Good to Great by Jim Collins - Haven't got the time to spend investigating what you company needs to become a great one? This book has done all the research and discovered  the distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great!

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - What makes high achievers different? Gladwell brilliantly explores why  your personal upbringing and where you are from play such an important part in your success.

Switch by Chip and Dan Heath - How to we balance the rational mind with the emotional mind to achieve change in our business and personal lives? In this book we learn why and how!

Tested Sentences that Sell by Elmer Wheeler - A classic read for any salesmaker. Learn how to uncover the most persuasive benefits in everything you sell. As Wheeler says, "learn to sell the bubbles not the wine"!

Let me know of any great reads you have discovered this year. I can add it to my holiday reading list!

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Storytelling for business - who would have thought!

You all know I like a good story. It's about the shared experience.

Amazingly in this tecnological age, storytelling is making a comeback. Technology is allowing us to share stories in so many ways: video, audio, mp3, pintrest, youtube, animoto etc etc etc.

In business, storytelling is keeping customers engaged. Interested in our company, our products, our services, our developments. The power of this connection lays in the customer seeking out more about us!

When it comes to brands and marketing, the application of story now needs to go beyond the traditional and ubiquitous tool of brand story; rather, it’s about engaging consumers in a brand’s stories and using the construct of stories and storytelling to create powerful connections. While the transition to digital media drove a focus toward content, today with ever more social tools and communication media, there’s a need for cohesive and meaningful connections in a marketing world that is now labeled “always on,” demanding more of brand communication. This is where story comes into play.

Kathy Oneto is vice president of brand strategy at Anthem Worldwide and has great insight on the subject.

"Why stories? It seems we’re all catching on to their effectiveness in connecting with people. When information is communicated in story form, we seem to remember it better and be affected by it more deeply. Brands are telling these stories across a number of different mediums--from packaging to video to visual and verbal content."

 Some tips on storytelling can be found from research consultancy Latitude, which recently released part one of its study, “The Future of Storytelling,” which identifies trends and audience attitudes about content. The tips Latitude provides on telling stories are the following:

1. IMMERSION  - Create an immersive experience through content that is delivered in multi-media and that is multi-sensory;
2. INTERACTIVITY  - Allow the consumer to become a part of it;
3. INTEGRATION  - Ensure there is coherence across the many touchpoints; and
4. IMPACT  - Make it lead to action

"Again, the difference today for marketers is twofold--storytelling is not an internal exercise alone; rather, it is an exercise that should engage the consumer. Brand stories need to now live day to day with the engagement of consumers to create strong, long-lasting bonds across all touchpoints, from packaging to video to visual and verbal content. Such a requirement transforms how marketers need to think about their role. It becomes less about directing and more about curating a brand and consumer journey."

Read Kathy's article and share your thoughts on how you might employ a story to ignite interest in your business, product or service.

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Is your team on your team?

Well if it isn't you're in big trouble!

I was reading a Zig Ziglar article the other day and this point jumped out at me. How true I thought.

More and more we are seeing managers and business owners pulling their hair out, frustrated at their staff going in different directions and missing their targets.

Good business starts on the inside. Your team must believe in you and what you are trying to achieve. 

“The belief in the value of what you do or sell has to be so strong that everyone who comes in contact with a customer exudes confidence in the company and the product”.

When this is the case everyone is prepared to pitch in.

If your team is not on your team – STOP!  Step back and take 5 minutes to reset for yourself the goals for your business. Detail it out in a One Page Plan: the Now – Where – How.

Share this with your team and work together to plan the route to get there. Then set them free on meeting the needs of your customers through your product or service.

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Business People Who Sell

There is a common myth in sales circles that sales people are born not trained. Of course this is nonsense. Send me the details of any midwife that recognised an up and coming sales person like Zig Zigler at birth!

The facts are that selling and the science of selling, like any science, is a learnt skill. The basic foundations of this learning are effective communication, planning, goal orientation and problem solving. These elements combined form the foundations of what we call "Sales Swagger” or the “Sales Essence” of an individual.

For many years now I have said consultants are in a privileged position when it comes to selling. They generally have a fantastic ability to solve problems. They have become good listeners by being forced to understand their clients issues in order to offer solutions. They also, if involved in accounting and professional services, come from a ‘trusted’ position via existing relationships and the perception of accounting in the wider community.

So what is the issue with selling if all these factors are stacked in your favour?

Why is it so hard to become “A Business Person who Sells” when the customers prime driver is to go forward, achieve their goals, be successful and achieve growth and profit?

Through observations, training and my own business experience, here are the top key blockages:

• Confidence in your own selling ability 
• Inadequate time allocated to proper sales cycles, from start to finish 
• A poorly thought out (SCA) or Unique Selling Proposition (USP) 
• Lack of sales process or model to find suspects, convert to prospects and then convert to customers 
• Fear 

Fear is not even worth talking about. I have never seen a salesperson shot by a customer! The worst thing that can happen is the customer says “No”! If you have a robust pipeline this will never be a problem.

Selling is not something you can do once a month at the Club Golf Tournament. You need to allocate time to the process of selling. Time for pipeline development, relationship building, sales calls and follow up conversions. Everyone in your organization need to be involved in the process of customer development — not just the ‘rainmakers’.

You need to be able to anchor your sales process with a point of difference to make sure your USP is in fact unique. Understand your SCA. Build a sales process and then consistently use it leaving nothing out. Don’t skip steps.

Lastly, begin to build goals, targets and milestones. Set yourself a meeting target, proposals out for consideration target, conversion goal and win/loss ratio.

Lets be clear. Customers want future goals and success. They are not interested in your products and services, sorry to burst the bubble. I challenge you to ring 20 customers now and ask if you can come over and show them product X, Y and Z. I bet none take you up on your offer. Instead ask them if you can meet to discuss their top 5 blockages to success you can help them fix, and you may even find they offer to pay for coffee!

Here is a model or approach you may have heard of. Sit down with a customer and ask them “Where are you now?” (Listen) Then ask them, “What are your top 5 issues for the next 3 months? You know, the burning ones.” (Listen) Then ask them “Where do you want to be in 12 months time?” (Listen) Then with them, discuss and agree on actions and strategies to get them there. Abracadabra! Looks like a plan!

If you want to be “A Business Person who Sells”, become a person that helps everyone you meet grow in some way. As these people slowly make sense of the value they are getting from the relationship chances are you will become very popular, very successful and well paid.

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The Quiet Sales Cat – Are they Really Selling?

During the production of our book Sales Cats much discussion was had about the behaviours of those Sales Cats—top gun sales people.

Most people's perceptions are that all sales people are gregarious, loud and ego driven. In some cases, elements of this is true. There is no doubt that self confidence, high energy and resilience rank highly in top performing sales people. So what about the quiet ones?

Today I was building a sales strategy with a CEO of a wonderful small business in Perth when we started to discuss one of his high performers. "He has all the attributes you describe in a Sales Cat and a lot of the competencies you outlined in the Banjar competency model" he commented, "but he is unusually quiet and often says, "I'm not really selling."

"What?" I said, "Not really selling! How could that be?"

The facts are this guy is so comfortable in his particular selling environment he has become the ultimate stealth bomber Sales Cat. He knows his product well, he is experienced in the particular trade he sells into and most of all he clearly understands how his product solves problems and helps the customer see this. He is a true business person who sells!

The tip here is this. Recruit sales people who know their product or service well, however make sure you recruit and coach people that are intimate with the application of their product or service in it's business environment. What problem does it solve? How will it add value to the clients business so they get better? Teach your current Sales Cats about the industry they sell into. If it's retail get a retail person to describe the language, issues and gaps to success in retail.

These quiet sales stars will grow raving fans in your customer base and no competitor will hear it coming.

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Selling in a downward economy

"Train my sales people – fast!". As the world goes once again into a giddy spin, I'm hearing this time and time again. Let's take a look at the mechanics and dynamics of sales effectiveness, and why sales performance may not be improving?

Mechanics
Sales training has been around for a long time, see John Patterson's NCR Primer from 1887, and every year we see old ideas tossed aside to make way for the new.

It is reported that in 2008, US corporations spent around $6 billion on sales performance improvement, yet sales productivity (pre-recession) was down.

On Amazon there are 40,000+ "how to sell" books and 12,000+ on "sales techniques". Social media and blogs are teeming with daily offerings, free webinars, articles, ebooks, videos, everyone is searching for help to improve sales capabilities.

There are numerous surveys, reports, magazines and firms, including ourselves, circling around sales and marketing ineffectiveness. Add to this Sales 2.0, apps, Facebook, Squidoo, LinkedIn and copious other associations and groups.

People are looking for help. So what Boiler, you may ask?

To us, and many others in the field of sales training, the core issues of sales ineffectiveness are clear. There's plenty of sound advice and answers for anyone that cares to look. There's a proven process, that when properly applied, works.

Regardless whether organisations are large or small, some act and find success while others do nothing and never change.

So, GFC, interest rates, retail slumps aside, why is sales as a profession and function, going backwards?

Dynamics, I think.

It's the attitude of sales people, sales leaders and directors to the function of selling. The loss of passion, attitude and drive to be outstanding sales professionals. Business people who sell.

Rarely mentioned, dynamics are deemed soft and very hard to measure, so often considered not important. Yet in every role, in every business, the whole person comes to work and must be engaged fully – both mechanics and dynamics.

Are your sales team committed to the art and profession of selling? Do they have the energy to be Sales Cats or just mechanical reps, "order takers?" Do you lead, coach and or manage the whole person?

Challenge this idea and let us know the results.

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What sales problem did you solve today?

I found this in Selling Power and thought, "Yes that really makes sense."

An extract from the wonderful work of Dr Norman Vincent Peale - author of The Power of Positive Thinking.

Problems Are Opportunities in Disguise

Dr. Peale suggested that salespeople can be more successful in dealing with problems: "A problem is a concentrated opportunity. The only people that I ever have known to have no problems are in the cemetery. The more problems you have, the more alive you are. Every problem contains the seeds of its own solution. I often say, when the Lord wants to give you the greatest value in this world, He doesn't wrap it into a sophisticated package and hand it to you on a silver platter. He is too subtle, too adroit, for that. He takes this big value and buries it at the heart of a big, tough problem. How He must watch you with delight when you've got what it takes to break that problem apart and find at its heart what the Bible calls 'the pearl of great price.' Everybody I've ever known who succeeded in a big way in life has done so by breaking problems apart and finding the value that was there."

So what sales problem did you solve today?

Do your sales techniques and questioning style have a problem solving inclination?

Think about the great sales calls you have had. Was there a problem solving inclination? Success does leave clues.

Be positive and solve one problem for one customer tomorrow. They may just love it, and you.

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What is it that all good sales people have?

In our sales lab we know that high performance sales comes from training and developing good sales people through four specific stages.

1. Build a sales process
2. Conduct activity around that process
3. Develop 'swagger' from the wins and losses of your activity
4. Create sales effectiveness and efficiency through refinement.

That's how to be a good salesperson, develop a high performing sales team, start a restaurant or grow a business.

In our minds, we see the 'swagger' as being the key enabler of a good sales person. Although the word swagger can often convey arrogance or an overly assertive manner when it comes to sales people, we keep coming back to it. For the record, swagger means: 'to walk with a swaying motion; hence, to walk and act in a pompous, consequential manner'.

Call it whatever you like, but there's no doubt certain qualities make a good sales person stand out from the crowd. The characteristics of a good sales person, are hard to describe and unquestionably rare.

Good sales people, with exceptional talent, usually have a sense of calm urgency, a coolness matched with persuasion, confidence with empathy and directness with rapport. All behaviours that would seem at odds in the dictionary but perfectly describe what we call 'swagger' or 'sales essence'.

If you have a better word to describe these sales cats, please let us know.

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