by Art Waskey | Dec 21, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
A commitment to resolution
The owner of a distribution business complained that his staff was not following through on commitment deadlines. I had been consulting with this team for over a year. They were excited by our implementation of “The Oz Principle”, a method of being accountable for your actions. The Oz Principle’s definition of accountability is “a personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results.” I had worked with the team on moving past blaming others for problems. They were now on the next steps — seeing the problem, owning it, and making a commitment to resolving it. The owner saw solutions being recognized by his team but was finding it difficult to hold them accountable.
Steps to accountability
This is a common scenario. Identifying the problem is often easier than solving it. “The Oz Principle” authors recommend the following steps.
- Clearly define the desired results – Be sure a specific outcome has been established. Often, next steps are not consistent with getting the required results. Ask the lead person to send notes on any purposeful conversation. These should summarize expected results with a timeline.
- Determine a mutually agreeable time for a progress report – Specify a time to review progress on a commitment. I find that this is often the stimulus needed to ensure you stay on track. Scheduled reporting sets you up to succeed by creating deadlines and a chance to make adjustments to your progress where needed.
- Deliver praise or coaching – Reviewing steps progressively gives you the opportunity to praise and motivate the team as they work toward a common goal. It also provides a chance to brainstorm and make modifications when needed. Be careful with your assistance. Do not allow the team to think you are making them less accountable.
An opportunity to help
As a leader, you have the opportunity to help those around you mature through accountability. By following the simple steps outlined above, you can hold your team accountable and achieve desired results.
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by Art Waskey | Dec 15, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
The changing sales landscape
In my 50 years of distribution sales and sales management, I have worked with all types of sales reps. By nature, I am a relationship builder. As a Chief Sales Officer, I tended to be most comfortable working with other relationship builders. For me, the time and marketplace favored this model and yielded successful results. The sales landscape is constantly changing, however, and recently, at an accelerated rate. To build a successful sales organization in today’s complex marketplace you need a mixture of sales types. Sales managers need a balanced sales team made up of individuals who can address varied needs.
Which type of rep are you?
In their book, “The Challenger Sale”, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, describe five types of sales reps. Take a minute and see which one best describes you.
- The Hard Worker – These “nose to the grindstone” sellers are always willing to go the extra mile. They will make more calls, send more texts and emails, and respond to all RFQs (request for quotes). They are self-motivated. To the hard worker, sales is a numbers game.
- The Challenger – Challengers are assertive. They tend to “press” customers as well as their own managers and senior leaders. They look for a deep understanding of the complex issues at hand and will push customers to think outside the box. A challenger can teach a customer how their company can compete more effectively.
- The Relationship Builder – These are natural networkers. They build and nurture strong personal and professional relationships. Relationship builders will advocate across the customer organization and are generous with their time.
- The Lone Wolf –These reps are self-confident, don’t like paperwork, and are difficult to control. They are loners but diligent in the pursuit of their goals and tend to be very successful.
- The Reactive Problem Solver – Detailed problem solvers fit into this group. Every organization needs them. Reactive problem solvers are more concerned with solutions than sales results, but they keep you out of trouble.
Achieving Balance on Your Sales Team
Each type of sales rep brings a particular strength to a sales organization. In a rapidly changing marketplace, a mixture of talent provides balance and the ability to meet new sales demands. Examine your sales profile to determine how you can make the most effective contribution to your team.
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by Art Waskey | Nov 30, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
Problems and Solutions
We all need to take steps to accountability. Throughout my career in executive leadership, I have had relationships with people who were critical of the company that employed us. These were generally successful, mid-level managers. I would listen to their issues, ask questions, and consider their opinions. My parting words were always the same, “Please get back to me with possible solutions to the problem.” Most did not follow up on that request and perhaps felt that I was being dismissive. However, I have always believed if you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
The Blame Game
In “The Oz Principle”(oz-principle), authors Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman classify complaining individuals as being part of The Blame Game. These people typically take a wait and see attitude or cover their trail, do some finger pointing, and ignore/deny the facts. “It’s not my job,” or, “I’m confused: tell me what to do,” are common refrains among the complainers. Unchecked, malcontents can demoralize an organization. They can operate at what Connors, Smith, and Hickman call, Below the Behavior Line, an environment where no one acknowledges the truth of the situation.
Steps to Accountability
If we are honest, we probably all have times when we’re functioning Below the line. To operate Above the Line, “The Oz Principle” lists these progressive Steps to Accountability:
- See it – Recognize and acknowledge the full reality of the situation.
- Own it – Accept responsibility for the experience and realities you create for yourself and others.
- Solve it – Change the reality by finding and implementing solutions to the problems. Be creative. Avoid the trap of falling back Below the Line when obstacles present themselves.
- Do it – Have the courage to follow through with the identified solutions, even if they involve a lot of risk.
Be Accountable
Practice the four steps to accountability. See it, own it, solve it, and do it. These actions will keep you out of the Blame Game and Above the Line for productive behavior.
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by Art Waskey | Nov 23, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
One of the benefits of retiring from the corporate executive world is that I now have more time to read, write, teach, and give keynote speeches. I was a stereotypic go-getter — in at 6:45 AM and at work until I got it done. While I always believed in working with others, my personal drive to get things done ASAP made that challenging. Today, I am working on being more of a go-giver.
The value of people
What’s changed? Since leaving the corporate world I have worked as a consultant. In this position, I can see just how valuable people are to each other in the business world. For example, I counsel a senior executive who lost his job in the recent economic downturn and had to deal with a sudden illness at the same time. By working together we have rebuilt his strength and belief in himself. Today he is ready to re-enter the labor force. I find good people who work well with others generally find the next venture is better than their last. I believe this will be my client’s experience.
Five Laws of Stratospheric Success
The reward and joy one finds in working through people is summarized very effectively in “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann (thegogiver.com).
Here are Burg and Mann’s Five Laws of Stratospheric Success:
- The Law of Value – “Your true value is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”
- The Law of Compensation – “Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.”
- The Law of Influence – “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.”
- The Law of Authenticity – “The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.”
- The Law of Receptivity – “The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.”
A Passion for Giving
In my work, I derive the greatest joy from working in the hearts and lives of others. Paid compensation pales in comparison to the richness of the relationships I have formed. As Burg and Mann write, “All the great fortunes of the world have been created by men and women who had a greater passion for what they were giving – the product, service or idea – than for what they were getting.”
We need go-givers in the world now more than ever. Stay open to receiving and give the gift of yourself whenever you can. Giving leads to the most rewarding kind of success.
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by Art Waskey | Nov 16, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Enterprise Selling occurs when you demonstrate where customer needs meet your company’s innovative capabilities. According to Mark Dancer, “B2B companies should work more closely with partners not to specify how they work, but to understand how they work. By comparing methods across multiple partners, new insights may be gained that can lead to unexpected innovation opportunities.”
Know your Customer
Spend time getting to know your customer’s business. Analyze that business in terms of your capabilities. A salesperson’s priority is to understand where each player fits in terms of the customer’s and the distributor’s business objectives. Build customer relationships with key executives in sales, marketing, operations, and administration. Question each on their specific needs.
Learn New Methods
Enterprise Selling involves the use of new sales methods. To make this type of selling work, both sales people and customers need to learn about these new ways to transact business. Train your sales team in Enterprise Selling techniques. Lead customers through any new external sales processes so they are aware of its value to their bottom line. For example, once a distributor makes the transition to eCommerce, he must teach the customer how to use it to their benefit.
Ask Questions
The goal of Enterprise Selling is to implement changes that enhance the traditional role of the distributor’s value chain partnership. To make this work, you need to ask questions. Are you training your field sales force to understand and take advantage of these changing trends in the industry? Are your reps speaking to the customer about how to achieve better outcomes in their own language? Do reps know the stakeholders and their reasons for making a decision to use your products or services?
Create Customer Value
As new ideas gain traction, intentional mindfulness is needed to stay aware of how value is created for customers. Remember, Enterprise Selling works when customer needs are met with your innovative capabilities.
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by Art Waskey | Nov 9, 2021 | Art of Sales Weekly
A distributor asked for advice on creating new opportunities for his company. It was experiencing sales erosion to alternative channels. While sales of the company’s added value items that require technical assistance remained strong, its higher profit-margin products were not being ordered. The distributor bemoaned, “Since the pandemic, 15-20% of our revenue has been lost due to reductions in sales of our basic products.” The company’s bread and butter items— like consumables, safety products, and hand tools — were being shopped online elsewhere.
Digital marketing
Paradigm shifts like digitization are disruptive but can inspire the creation of new opportunities. Mark Dancer notes that digital marketing can be a game changer “by teeing customer opportunities that are assigned to sales or support resources not according to their physical proximity to a customer but by their ability to deliver the right experience at the right time.”
Enterprise Selling
To identify and deliver these right experiences have your field sales team use Enterprise Selling. Capitalize on your long term local customer relationships and your team’s command of the latest technological developments. Find the opportunities inside the customer by asking their executive team these questions:
- What are your company’s strategic objectives for the next one to three years?
- Where are you the strongest against your competitors? Where are you lagging?
- What business problems are you focusing on with your customers?
- What are some of the latest trends in your industry?
- How will these trends affect your company?
- What is unique about your position in the marketplace?
- Where are you most vulnerable?
Use Insight
Today’s customer is awash in information — and it can all look alike. To make a good decision, he needs insight from a knowledgeable supplier. Introduce ways your customer can save money and increase earnings using your products. In “The Challenger Sales, Taking Control of Customer Conversation,” Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson relate, “We have found that 53% of loyalty was by the sales experience – namely the supplier’s ability to deliver unique insight to the customer.”
Creating Those New Opportunities
Get creative in your approach to selling. For example, Mark Dancer suggests, “Local distributors
and manufacturers could band together to pitch ‘quality of business,’ which is achieved through
their coordinated local products and services.” (Read the whole article here). Use
your product knowledge and insight to create new opportunities and recover revenue lost
to digital channels.
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