When is it TIME to innovate?

I've just returned from the Albury BMI week where I ran a workshop on Innovation.

On the morning of the workshop, I drove down Dean Street and noticed the town clock, in the iconic building on the corner of Kiewa Street, was stuck on 3pm. You know a regional centre has stopped thinking about its future when the clock has stopped and the battery not changed! 

I challenged my group on this point and an innovative concept.

With a population of around 60,000 there is a massive opportunity to build something better when it comes to retail and the regional experience.

I boldly suggested that they put a roof over Albury and rebrand it 'Albury One dot com.' There were looks of dismay. Their brains were thinking one way, and mine, another.

Not corrugated iron roofing I suggested, which was the conclusion they all clearly jumped to. A brand, a destination, an experience, a performance I explained. 

See, I believe their shopping precinct has lost it's mojo. It has turned into rows of shops with stuff on shelves with nice flower pots and speed humps as the attraction.

Shopping should be a performance, an experience of the senses. It should be like poisonous gas! It should make you clammy, cry, laugh, sweat, run, stop and drop. Albury needs to rethink it's retail purpose. 

Create an environment like Disneyland where everything they do in the magic kingdom is a performance. As 'Albury One dot com' the hundreds of retailers in Albury/Wodonga could leverage their marketing spend, logistics expense, website presence, training and supply chain. They could align themselves into categories like a Chadstone or Highpoint West shopping centre. Once that was done they could then entertain attracting customers to the value, not just the product. They need to  develop innovative ways to attract people to experience their shops again. Create clever events, entertain, engage customers and bring back the pizazz so sorely missed in retail today.

Think about it. Why do you really go to a restaurant? For the food? Be honest, you go for the experience. To catch up with friends, to laugh, to share and to engage the senses. Food is a given. The problem is most owners of restaurants charge for food only which demonstrates they think they are in the food business when they really should be in the entertainment business. There is no competitive advantage in selling just stuff.

It's time to change the clock Albury.

Boiler

Key Account Management

The Sales Science of gaining, developing and keeping Key Strategic Customers with multiple projects.

With sales changing so rabidly for all sellers of products and services post GFC, Key Account Management is the one area that has seen major shifts in the buyer behaviour model and the skills needed to respond through sales effectively.

Unfortunately for most sales organisations this is one of the most organically developed, poorly skilled and resourced areas of a sales teams. Most organisations key customers have grown via an organic simple sales approach into large high value business using the same simple sales approach.

This is a problem, a big problem in 2012.

If these customers supply a large part of the organisations revenue and we still treat them as ‘simple’ customers who we simply call on more often, wine and dine sometimes, and keep via price/margin shrinkage, we will inevitably loose them. Ask these questions of your sales team:

‘Is sales getting easier or harder?’

‘Are we being treated in sales as a commodity more today than before?’

‘Are customers demanding more support, technical expertise, knowledge and time of our sales people?’

The answers, nearly without fail are yes, yes and yes. 

But hang on a minute. They want commoditisation and yet more ‘consultative’ support? Surely this is an impossible position for a business to fund with the massive cost of running a sales team? 

Of course it is, however that is the reality due to many reasons and the real reason it is essential for sales groups to build their Key Account Management Expertise.

At Banjar Group we take a unique approach to developing the skills of Sales Teams when it comes to Key Account Management.

Science + Experience + Skills + Strategic + Planning = KAM

Science – With Sales so often devoid of any ‘science’ we must bring a level of science to improve the effectiveness of KAM within organisations. The science may involve:

• Consumer behaviour modelling
• Use of DISC, MBTI and or TMS profiling behavioural tools
• KAM Competency Modelling
• Innovation
• Key person analysis

Experience – The collective global wisdom of Banjar Group combined with its 180+ years of selling experience mean one thing, we know what it takes to win big business. We have:

• Run customer ‘war room’ scenarios
• Planned and been successful in winning major accounts of up to $50 million in value
• Lead, coached and participated in large scale key account management at both B2B and B2C levels
• An understanding of the culture and skills required to win big and keep big
• The knowledge to communicate this wisdom and create effective learning beyond just ‘ego’

Skills – What are the skills needed to create great sales behaviours, techniques and outcomes at the KAM level? They are over and above the simple sales training matrix. They may include:

• Coverage modelling
• Team selling
• ‘War’ room principles
• Strategic Business Meetings - SBM
• Question techniques for high level selling
• Negotiation skills
• Call structure for KAM phases
• Follow up matrix
• Account planning
• Problem solving at KAM level
• ‘Octopus’ selling in layers
• A pure consulting model – the art of sales consulting

Strategic – What are the strategic foundations of why we must develop this business? The essential reason for selling. Does it affect the critical success factors of our business? This may include:

• Sales Strategy – Vision, philosophy, story, principles, product, resource
• Coverage
• Product portfolio analysis – what fits?
• Forecasting
• Justifying resource
• Short term v long term
• Value proposition
• Revenue, cost, risk
• Business cases for profitability

Planning – If we have all the above checked and taught, then implementation is required. For this the best KAM planning skills will lead to the most effective sales results. High-powered planning is key to KAM success, fact! The areas covered here are:

• Planning as a culture for sales
• Tools – 1 page plan and beyond
• Project planning
• Follow up
• Activity at sales levels
• 3 Tier plans
• Short term v long term
• Decision process
• Forecasting Goal, Budget and Target
• Phases of activity
• Change force fields

Boiler.

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.

Boiler

Farewell Steve Jobs

Banjar Group would like to acknowledge the passing of Steve Jobs and recognise the innovative brilliance of the Apple co-founder. 

In our work we often reference the address that Steve Jobs made to the Stanford Graduates on June 12, 2005. In this talk he pointed out the importance of “connecting the dots.”

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, and karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

If it wasn’t for Steve dropping out of College he may have never taken a calligraphy class that showed him how to make type beautiful. This opportunity resulted in the creative simplicity of Mac’s, not to mention the beautiful typography, multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts!

Steve often commented that being fired from Apple was the best thing that ever could have happened to him. It freed him to enter one of the most creative periods in his life. The result of this creativity was Pixar.

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

In closing, Steve made mention of a publication, The Whole Earth Catalog. A bible for his generation it was full of ideas, tools and notions. In the days before personal computers it was lovingly hand-made.

“On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it was the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.”

Our wish for all is to find what you love and do your best at it. Never stop looking for what is right and what makes you happy or makes a difference. 

Vale Steve Jobs.

You can read the full Commencement address here.