Surround Yourself With "Happy Suckers"

It's a new year...time for new year's resolutions. I went to a seminar last week with Harvard psychology professor, Shawn Achor. (www.shawnachor.com) He has done a tremendous amount of research on the happiness advantage in the workplace. He's being paid thousands of dollars by corporations to teach them the 7 core principles pf positive psychology. Shawn is a fabulous speaker and presenter....I highly recommend you listen to his YouTube video! As a result of his seminar, I have being thinking about happiness. It has reminded me of a seminar I did a few years ago for Kansas City Media Professionals. Words that spilled out of my mouth then are my mantra for this year. Ready? "Get rid of the "happy" suckers and surround yourself with "happy suckers." Ah, this is where a video blog would be so much better. My challenge, one-percenters, is that you rid your life of people who suck the happiness right out of you. You know who they are. Make this the year you rid yourself of their negativity. And then replace those "happy" suckers, with truly "happy suckers." These are the people who bring positivity to your life, energy to your sales spirit! Shawn has all the research to back up how you can be more productive, i.e. make more SALES, if you have happiness as a part of your daily decision. Business bad? Tough to be "happy" in first quarter? It's a decision. So I challenge you....just do it! Shawn has a few suggestions to help you. Two I loved. Start each day just writing 3 things you are thankful for. They may be simple....like the blizzard we're supposed to have tomorrow. Or meaningful, like the blessing of having the mental capacity to organize your day. He suggests identifying your strenths and staying focused on them. Journaling and meditation are two ideas I hope to get better with. In the meantime, I'll make it simple for you: Get rid of your "happy" suckers and surround yourself with "happy suckers!"

Heart of a Warrior,Soul of a Servant, fun-loving attitude

Does the title of this post look familiar? Check out the Southwest Airlines Web site and you'll see that's the kind of employees they're looking for. The language is so simple, yet when you think about it, isn't that what we want to ask of ourselves as one-percenters? The best salespeople have without question the heart of a warrior. They will absolutely anything within their power to win for their client and their company. A true one-percenter is prepared and armed with every tool and resource at their disposal. But more than that, a true one-percenter arms themself with a winning attitude. There are never any excuses for us. We know it's about getting the job done regardless of obstacles in our path.

That winning attitude is coupled with the soul of a servant. A true one-percenter knows they are here to be problem-solvers for their client. We're not about pushing product. We are only about educating our clients and hopefully solving a business problem for them with our product. A true one-percenter works to help a client uncover a need they may not even know they have and always works to solve that client need. One percenters have a soul of a servant.

Ah, and certainly we must work hard to maintain our fun-loving attitudes. When you get a "no" eighty percent of the time, it's easy to get discouraged. But as my friend Mansour Zarinkia says, "no one cares about your miserable life." Clients want to buy from people they genuinely like. Use tools like music, pictures, exercise, to help you turn around your attitude to give you the Southwest Airline's fun-loving spirit. Oh, that poor flight attendant in the news a few weeks back on that other airline....he could have used a dose of fun-loving attitude!

So as you face your week this week, prepare for battle with the heart of a warrior, soul of a servant and a fun-loving attitude! Success will be yours!

Smoke & Meers: What the client wants vs. What the client needs — and the Account people who know the difference.

Smoke & Meers: What the client wants vs. What the client needs — and the Account people who know the difference.

Sales Skills for Non-Sales People

Read my new friend Sam Meers blog at: http://smokeandmeers.blogspot.com. Sam's latest blog laments that advertising agency account service people are becoming order takers. Account service people within an agency are exactly what their title says: they meet with the agency's clients and present advertising solutions to them. Sound like a familiar task? None of them would ever consider themselves salespeople. The title "salesman" has such a nasty ring to it! I know from teaching college students at the University of Kansas, all are quick to distinguish: sales people represent the media and well, agency people are a more sophisticated lot. Yet the function Sam discusses so clearly are sales functions. Great account service people must probe and question their clients to truly understand their needs. They must then to look find solutions that will solve a client's advertising problem and present their solution to that problem in an effective way that demonstrates their wisdom to a client. It's a skillset traditional sales people who are one percenters understand and constantly work to improve! So I challenge those of you who don't carry the title of "saleman" for your company, to examine your skillset and see if "sales training" could be a valuable tool for you to improve your relationships with your clients. It's a simple question; I'm anxious to hear your answer!

Technology Working for You?

Social Marketing Specialest for VML, Kyle Hoedl, gave a fabulous presentation to my class at KU yesterday on how to build your personal brand with social media. I was glowing about his presentation to my husband over dinner which led to a conversation about his day. His company now uses a contact management system, Salesforce.com. It's a fabulous tool and one we agreed would have made us millions when we were starting our sales careers. He was reviewing the sales pipeline with one of his sales people. A particular client had been in her pipeline for over a year and nothing has happened. As Rob questioned her about the account, it became obvious she knew nothing about the account other than it was a referral from someone. She didn't even know if the account would have any ROI to be worth her time. She really didn't even know what business they were in. What? I challenged him that in 10 minutes with a Google search, I could give all the details of the account. We agreed so many sales people don't engage in understanding the client until that first sales call when they say "tell me about your business." With just simple research ahead of that first call, you can demonstrate you genuinely care about the client's business, you're not wasting their time by asking stupid questions and you're ready to be a problem-solver for them. With so much information readily available to you, there's simply no excuse to not put technology to use for you. Ten minutes of research will make you money! Are you using social media for your sales efforts? Send me an email and let me know; I'm working on a research project!

Business Schools Are Failing Business

A friend of mine, Julie Edge, has just accepted a position with Washington University. Wash U is establishing an outpost in Kansas City for their MBA program. http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/20037.aspx Julie is on the ground floor working to pull in resources and buy-in from the community. As I reviewed my own MBA experience at Rockhurst University and looked at KU's program, I see a glaring ommission. No where in my program did I learn anything about specifically about sales. My focus was management since I knew I wanted to run my own station one day. Curriculum included everything from accounting to operations to marketing. Sales is a function of marketing, but little attention was given to the topic. How many MBAers out there do you suppose are responsible for sales within their organization? I would venture to guesss it is an extremely high number either in a management role or in an actual day-to-day sales person role. Why aren't our business school teaching the topic? I teach a course in sales at the University of Kansas but in the journalism school. Our budding journalists are smart enough to know sales drive both the news and advertising business. I often get b-schoolers who venture over to Stauffer-Flint for a 5 month sales training course I offer. Sales is a process. It isn't about being "good with people" or putting up a fabulous Web site you hope potential customers discover. It's about understanding a client's needs and how your product helps them to achieve their goals. The concept and process is simple, but it is a process! Please feel free to pass this along to all you know!

Sales People Drive Your Business

Most of you who follow this blog are sales people. I caution you: I'm about to rant about the lack of respect for what you do every day gets recognized within your company! It's easy for me to forget since most of the people who hire me as a sales consulatant understand the critical role sales people play within their organization. I was fascintated to meet with a new client who has been asked to drive sales within her organization in her spare time. She's an accountant and her boss is a CFO. She's has been given a marketing plan complete with a SWOT analysis; she's also been given revenue goals. Now "Mary" is phenomenal with clients; she simply knows her financial business inside and out and understand the onepercenters principle of always doing what's right for the client. She describes herself as the "implementer." She has absolutely NO motivation for cold calling and generating new clients. Her work day is full at this moment. We all know she might be able to tighten her time management skills to save 20 minutes in her day. Will that be enough to generate new business? Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Sales is a skill set and a process. It isn't something you can do in your "spare" time. Successful people who follow the steps close maybe 20 percent of their business. How can you ask someone who hasn't been trained in the sales process and has NO motivation to be trained in the sales process to generate revenue? It simply doesn't make sense!

Sales Goal Setting

Happy New Year! So with a little inspiration from the sound of the surf here at the beach, I decided it's time for that annual goal setting. There's just nothing I love more than having a 365 day blank calendar ready for me to outline the goals for the year. So you know the secrets of goal setting: every goal must be measurable, quantifiable and certainly a stretch, but every goal must be achievable. Now for so many that blank calendar is intimidating. To make the process easier, I break it down.

Feng shui tells us the magic number is three. So my first goal is to think in terms of 3's. The first question I ask myself is what are the 3 main accomplishments I want to have this year? Now if I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I may break those out into two categories: business and personal. So in truth, I'm making 6 goals for the year; 3 for my business life and 3 for my personal life.

The next step is to break those goals down by quarter. What are 3 things in first quarter I can do to help me achieve my goals for the year? For example, if one of my goals is to increase my client base with 4 new clients for the year, I know I need to work to secure one in first quarter. To secure one new client, I know I have to pitch at least 5 prospects. To get 5 pitches, I may need to make 25 calls. Sound tough? No! That's just 6 calls per month with at least one pitch per month. That's just over a phonecall a week! Breaking it down quarterly, then monthly, then weekly and finally daily, makes any annual goal easier to achieve!

Goal setting is just a critical part of the sales process. Every client I work with says their goal is to make more money this year. But when I ask them how, I get the blank stare. Selling without goals is like taking off on a trip with a definite destination but no roadmap. If you're content to wander aimlessly (and believe me, sometimes that's the vacation for me,) leave without a map. But if you want to make 2010 the year you truly accomplish your goals, take the time to write them out. Take the time to break them down by quarter, month, week and day. Commit them to writing; it makes them real. Send them to me and I'll help you stay on track. Goal setting at the beginning of the year can truly make for a happy new year!

Sales solution

Sales people give so much lip service to being solution minded. They can recount all the verbiage. Me? I love seeing it in action! Yesterday, I had an appointment to meet a sales person at Panera Bread in the late afternoon. It's warm, it's sunny....I want something cold to drink. A young lady asked if she could help and I quickly said, "how about a decaf iced tea?" Sorry, iced tea here has caffeine. Yikes! I can't drink caffeine this late! I turned away and thought I'd just get a glass of water....lost sale for Panera! But, no! Manager Erick turned to me and said "I've got an idea. Let's brew a decaf hot tea and I'll give you a cup for ice and you've got what you want and it will be freshly brewed." Can you imagine? He didn't try selling me on a bottle of water or a soft drink, he listened to what I wanted and then found a solution using his product and with an additional benefit. Now that $2 sale didn't make or break Panera yesterday, but for me it was a tremendous testament to the power of solution selling. Think about your day today. Are you helping your clients to find solutions?

Sales motivation

What is the source for motivation? This is a question that stumped me as a young sales manager. The first hire I ever made was a recent college graduate, had an extremely well known name in our market, was so bright and engaging. I was sure I had hit a home run. As days turned into weeks, weeks into months, it was clear he wasn't going to make it. I simply couldn't understand why. He never had any trouble getting into see a client. His clients enjoyed him, they just never bought anything from him. He couldn't make the "ask". Now we could turn this into a tip into how to close a sale (maybe in my next post!), but this was clearly a tale of someone who had all the talent but didn't want success. He had all the tools, all the resources and he had ME! I wanted so badly for him to succeed. The problem is he didn't really care about succeeding. With my first failure told, I can now tell of countless successes of sales people I've worked with who maybe weren't the brightest, didn't have the sharpest skills, but would literally walk through walls to help solve a client's problem. Where does that inner burning desire to win come from? My first sales manager told me most top performers had overcome some great tragedy in their lives that pushed them to succeed. I don't buy that. So one-percenters out there; clear up this mystery. Where does your inner drive and motivation to succeed come from?