Moving Past Survival
4 Competencies Critical to Move Past Survival
You must develop and work on these, and if you don't have a trainer, do it yourself.
OBJECTIVE SELF AWARENESS - the ability to know yourself, have knowledge that you are objective and can tap into that self-regulation and how to use it to create flexibility, self control, changes and emotional control, be able to pace yourself, control positive emotions. Parents and those who work with different generations understand this very well.
EMPATHY - not sympathy. This is where you understand others, recognize their communication, culture and style differences. A key concept is to develop your antenna, which will give you the ability to learn how to read people as opposed to getting caught up in your own emotions.
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS - how to elegantly influence and persuade people, learn how to read, match and mirror them. Manage your change as well as the change of the organization and build very strong, positive relationships.
INTER DEVELOPMENTAL SKILLS - developing and growing through positive exchange and relationship with your staff and clients.
How we sold, marketed and prospected in the past are old, obsolete and don't work.
Develop the concept of a client base, working with four categories:
- Platinum Clients - top 4% of the people you do business with (they come from the gold clients). They are unconditional givers. Take very good care of them and let them take care of you too. If you don't ask for help, a referral, advice, counsel, information, they may stay a client but if a stranger asks for help, they'll give that info to them.
- Gold Clients - top 20% - they bring in 80% revenues, referrals and introduction. Stay in contact on a regular basis. Build relationships with them to get and sell and to be a resource person for them.
- Silver Clients - 60% - They will bring in 15% of your business.
- Bronze Clients - 20% that may bring in 5% of your business. These have been around for awhile, are not your favorites, want more service for less money. The others in this group are brand new, they have just signed up. In both cases, it's your job to build and grow them into silver or gold. If you can't, give them to someone who needs the business.
Because of intensity or competition, in order to keep clients you must set up golds and silvers and know who platinum clients are. I strongly suggest you get rid of bronzes. To grow your business, you will have to drop off 5 - 10% of the bottom.
When you bring in clients, ask yourself how much you like them as people, not just for the business or buying and selling. If you don't like most of your clients, if they are not respectful of your values, think hard about what you are selling and who you are selling to.
The bottom line is you, regardless of the product or service. How good a resource person are you? If you work for a company that isn't providing you with the training, resources or quality product to make you a significant resource for your clients, then you have to find way to make a difference. Those days when you kept one job for 20 years and were perceived as loyal and hard working because of it, are gone. Today, if you are with one company for 20 years, people think something may be wrong with you.
Today, YOU, INC., has to be the first company you work for.
To grow and retain clients, you must develop on-going communication. You need to stay in touch, with a minimum of quarterly contacts. Try a quarterly newsletter or white paper. Use email, broadcast fax, snail mail – whatever it is you must keep an on-going communication no less than four times a year and not just a telephone call.
Technology:
If you think the internet and web sites and email and beepers and pagers and relational databases and broadcast emails are going to overwhelm you today, you ain't seen nothing yet.
It's going to grow faster and more complex. As a nation, it seems as if our productivity has gone so high because we've learned how to do much more much faster, but it's not true. We're downsized and everyone who's still working has two jobs to do.
Our economy is heavy-weighted with CEOs and not people making millions while the rest of us are putting in 20 more hours a week, and not necessarily getting paid for it.
You do need to be on the internet and have a web site. You must have some kind of net presence, even if it's a single page, a place where people can find you. You must have email, a two line phone, a desk phone that can conference, hold, mute and a fax machine.
Brian's advice for the technology-challenged? Don't run or jump quickly – pace yourself. Select the items you want to use, that will let you work smarter. Find people you can learn from who am more technically savvy than you and ask questions. Remember, the Lone Ranger is Dead. You can't succeed alone. You need a few good people that you can collaborate with, work with, even if they're not in your industry.
Questions and Comments:
Q: How do you find the right people to build a MasterMind with?
A: Two things are particularly important: 1. Find out what your qualities are – positive, enthusiastic – like a job description. It is amazing how many companies hire people to fit a position but will not ask or look for core beliefs and values. 2. Find people who have similar energies, chemistry and values. You need to ask about these qualities as complementary to your own. It takes nine months to build a successful MasterMind of between 6 - 8 people who you trust, admire, respect and relate well to that you feel like you can do this with. Initially, start with three people, meet on the phone or in person and then build out from selectively from there.
Q: How do I incorporate my changing and adapting in the world with the changes that my company is making?(Editor's note: the person asking is with Nexus/Lexus, a major information resource for the legal and news world.)
A: Because of the proliferation of free information and data on the internet, your company may be in for some serious, painful changes. They will need to look in terms of sales and marketing to shift from being an informational web site to a customized consulting organization. The good news is if we learn to customize, adapt and be able to serve as a resource people, there will be plenty of opportunity for us. There are thousands of web servers, information providers and list providers, but they are missing the mark in not offering something customized and personalized to meet the needs of individual people or companies. Find out what your current client base or prospects' needs and wants are, how they would like it personalized, how they want to be treated and apply that. Client serving is the key to your success.
Q: What about the concept that all sales comes down to two human people at either end of the transaction. Will that change?
A: Selling as we know it – push/present/benefits/push/sell – is obsolete and can be detrimental. Those who are still doing it are in the wrong place. Right now, collaboration, coaching and sharing ideas is selling in the 21st century. Selling in the U.S., as well as in the rest of the world, has changed substantially, so that even the feature/benefit style is outdated and often disrupts the sale process.
Q: Can you comment on the future of relationship selling? (Please note that the two areas growing most quickly have no relationship building currently – Internet and shopping channels).
A: The good news is that the internet has offered many more people a chance to connect and do business. The bad news is that the building of rapport and face-to-face selling is missing in the way the internet is set up today. (Example: Brian has contacted over 150 major companies now on the net. They refer him directly to the president through e-mail contact and promise a response. He has gotten two return calls, basically to sell him something. He calls to say, "Hey, why no response?" He then he calls again to say, "Where's your customer service, you're not delivering anything as promised!"
If you create a web site and use it as a tool, make sure you follow up and follow through elegantly, on a timely basis, including your e-mail. If you will talk person to person, dialogue, and follow through with an effective communication system, you will be able to build relationships that lead to business success.
You need three systems to succeed:
- A simplified business plan for your business/career/sales territory that covers a step-by-step approach of what you want to accomplish in the next year. It should also cover what you've done in the last few months.
- A sales interview system that not only gives you the numbers you need to learn where business is going to come from, but also a tracking aspect in which to communicate successfully and know where you're going.
- A marketing system of at least five different low or no cost ways to attract people to your business. You have to learn how to interview, listen, qualify and create appropriate market niches.
A final note on a personal level, relationships that you have with friends, clients, family are going to be pressured and tested. There's going to be more work for everyone that they love to do, just follow your heart, your talent and your intuition. Remember, pace yourself, learn, grow, don't get burned out, and when you hit plateau, take a break and review where you are, where you've been and where you want to go. If you have one, use your MasterMind group as your informal board of advisors, support system and feedback tool.
Brian Azar www.salesdoctor.com [email protected] 919-620-1551