The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life

SalesGravy.com is among the top sales portals on the internet. But Sales Gravy is different - in fact it is different than pretty much anything out on the web today. You’ll notice this the moment you enter the site - the guys over at Sales Gravy don’t take themselves too seriously. The founder, Jeb Blount, says “That is who we are. From the beginning we made a conscious decision to keep our site fun. We didn’t want to look stiff and corporate like so many other sites on the web. Sales is a tough business, it’s brutal, so why not have some fun and a few laughs along the way?” The motto at Sales Gravy is “Sales Professionals are the Elite Athletes of the Business World” For Jeb Blount, this is more than words, it is a way of life.

On SalesGravy.com you will find a huge (and growing) collection of articles from many of the top experts in the Sales Profession. And you will also find fantastic articles written by working sales leaders and sales professionals who are in the field, getting deals done. There is a massive collection of free audio programs and podcasts, feeds from almost every top sales blog and sales resource site (the true meaning on one stop shopping), and one of the largest collections of free sales and motivation videos anywhere (yes, you can check out mine here as well).

Of course the most popular part of SalesGravy.com is the Sales Community, billed by the Sales Gravy team, as the largest online community of B2B Sales Professionals in the world. When you join the community you will literally have access to salespeople on every continent and have the ability to interact with sales authors, speakers, and experts who are part of the community as well. It’s sort of like the Facebook of the Sales Profession.

For Sales Leaders and hiring managers perhaps the most impressive offering from Sales Gravy is Sales Gravy Jobs. I don’t know how they do this, but if you are trying to fill sales positions and build your team these guys have an offer you can’t refuse: Post Your Sales Jobs Free. There are no strings attached and, here is the kicker, after you post your sales job you will have full access to their resume database. According to Jeb the resume database contains more than 2000 sales resumes and grows at an average rate of 200 new resumes a week. Currently there are more than 350 employers posting sales jobs on Sales Gravy including ADP, Grainger, Dell, and Office Depot. In the cash strapped business environment we are in these days, this free offer is worth checking out.

Take a few minutes today and check out Sales Gravy here.

Here two final solutions to be mindful of when attempting to connect with your desired prospect.

Strategy #6: Get On Their Calendar

If you happen to be calling on a prospect that you have connected with in the past who has an assistant, try this approach. “Hi Jane, Keith Rosen here from Profit Builders. Mary and I have been playing the longest game of phone tag in history. If you have her calendar handy, can you please help me by scheduling in a five minute block of time that works for her so that I can answer her question regarding your sales training initiative?” You’ve now succeeded in scheduling a time to call a prospect when you know they are available and are expecting your call.

Strategy #7: The Back Door Approach

Here are a few more innovative ways to connect with your prospects that don’t require speaking to the concierge.

Call Before or After Hours: Call before or after a live person begins to answer incoming calls. Many businesses today have an automated voice mail system when the office is closed. The intention here is to get into their voice mail system and listen for the prompt that asks you to “Please spell out the person’s last name.” Once you do this, the voice mail system will often tell you the prospect’s direct extension before transferring your call. Now, when you call back during normal business hours, you can ask the concierge to “Connect you to extension 2345 please.” In addition, if you want to circumvent the concierge who refuses to patch you through to their voice mail, calling before or after hours provides you with the opportunity to leave a message with your prospect.

Return Receipt: This approach comes in very handy. When sending out an e-mail to a prospect, use the “return receipt request” option in the software you use to manage your e-mails. If the prospect opens your e-mail and sends a receipt, you not only know that they received your e-mail, but you also know when they have received it. This way, as opposed to trying to track down a prospect when they are at their desk, or checking their mobile device, you know exactly when to call on them, since they are now checking your e-mail! Obviously, this strategy only works if you are in front of your computer often enough to retrieve your e-mails as they are sent.

In an effort to combat market conditions, I’ve noticed an increase in cold calling activity within many organizations regardless of industry. Here are some solutions to be mindful of for you to use when you run into the barrier that may prevent you from connecting with your desired prospect. The elusive gatekeeper.

Strategy #4: Ask for Help

Now that you have the prospect’s name, you begin the initial steps of contacting the prospect. After several attempts, you still have not successfully connected with them.

Another avenue to revisit would be asking the concierge for help. Think about how you respond when someone asks you for help. Chances are, you do your best to help them. So, appeal to their humanity. Here’s a sample of the dialogue to use.

You: “Hi Jane, Keith Rosen here. We spoke a few weeks ago and you were kind enough to help me then. Well, here I am again in desperate need of your help. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Mary Johnson, but have not been successful in getting her to return my calls. I’m sure she is very busy and I certainly don’t want to keep filling up her voice mail with messages from me. Can you help? Any suggestions you can provide, whether it’s an alternative way to get Mary to return my call, a different way to contact her other than voice mail, or a better time that I should try to reach her would be deeply appreciated.”

You now have the opportunity to develop a relationship with the concierge and become the salesperson who gets preferential treatment that the other salespeople who are calling do not. Finally, you might find that once you ask for help, they will immediately connect you to the prospect!

Becoming friends with the concierge provides some immediate benefits that you can realize. As a matter of fact, you’ll be surprised how much insider information you can get. This includes the name of the decision-maker and their contact information, important information about the decision-maker and how to best approach and appeal to them, company politics and procedures, company status and timely news, internal changes, , initiatives, or challenges.

Connecting with them as a person rather than as an obstacle will make your cold calling efforts much less of an effort. So, acknowledge every concierge you speak with. It’s safe to say these types of calls are not the majority of calls they receive. Some are just downright hostile! After all, the concierge is often the first point of contact and in the hot seat when dealing with certain problems. With the barrage of calls that a concierge fields daily, a sincere and authentic complement goes a long way. You now have an internal advocate on your side.

Strategy #5: Work from the Top Down and the Bottom Up

Get your calls transferred over to customer service, technical support, accounting and attempt to get the intel you need from there.

In an effort to combat market conditions, I’ve noticed an increase in cold calling activity within many organizations regardless of industry. Here are some solutions to be mindful of for you to use when you run into the barrier that may prevent you from connecting with your desired prospect. The elusive gatekeeper.

Strategy #2: Ask a technical question:

Here’s another approach that would cause the concierge to happily pass you on to the person you are looking to contact. First, prepare a question that you know only the person who you are looking to contact can answer effectively.

If you sell printing or advertising, you can try this: “We’re putting some solutions together for you and wanted to know /discuss the (technical requirements for this application service.)”

Since these questions are typically ones that a concierge may not be able to answer on their own, they will often connect you directly with the decision-maker or the person in charge of that department.

Strategy #3: Use Humor

Typically, when asking for the person you want to connect with, a typical response from the gatekeeper may sound like this: May I ask what this is in reference to?”

Here’s a different way to respond:

You: “Of course! I’m a salesperson and I want to relentlessly hound them until they take my call.”

What You Have Accomplished: Lets face it. If you’re talking to a seasoned concierge, they can smell a cold call a mile away. Instead of dancing around this issue, address it head on, yet in a light and humorous way.

This brutal, honest approach will get you to the decision-maker more frequently than trying to manipulate, mislead, or sneak by the concierge. Instead, it gets right to the truth and intention of your call. Since the concierge is always on the lookout for sneaky salespeople, they will actually appreciate your approach. As such, this will diffuse the concierge’s reluctance to helping you.

Cutting right to the chase will actually catch the concierge off guard and often creates a laugh. At this point, the concierge would lower their guard and quite often connect you to the decision-maker or, at the very least, provide you with the information you need for your next call.

In an effort to combat market conditions, I’ve noticed an increase in cold calling activity within many organizations regardless of industry. Here are some solutions to be mindful of for you to use when you run into the barrier that may prevent you from connecting with your desired prospect. The elusive gatekeeper.

Think about your reaction to the word “gatekeeper.” What thoughts does it conjure up for you?

Now, think about the word “concierge.” What comes to mind? When you go to the mall and you need to find a specific store, who do you ask? The concierge. When you are staying at a hotel on vacation and are looking for directions, the hotel’s amenities, somewhere to eat or need tickets to a show, who do you ask? The concierge.

How good are you at making friends? Instead of “getting through the gatekeeper” how about “making friends with the concierge”? Now, doesn’t that just sound (and feel) better?

Consider this for a moment. The concierge secretly wants to help you. The only caveat is, you have to give them a reason to.

After all, if you try to sneak behind their back and get busted for doing so, you have succeeded in creating an adversary. Not only that but you’ve now fueled their justification as to why they need to screen all incoming calls! Now, when you need them in the future, it’s a safe bet that they probably won’t welcome you with open arms. Instead, focus on making the gatekeeper your concierge and internal advocate. Here’s how.

Strategy #1: Brutal Honesty that Complements
The old adage, “Honesty is the best policy” certainly holds true when trying to befriend the gatekeeper, I mean, the concierge. When calling to speak with your prospect or to find out exactly who the prospect is, try this approach in the following example.

You: “Hi, I can really use your help. I’m calling to speak with the person who is in charge of (software engineering/product development/ programming, etc) would that be you?”

Here’s What You Have Accomplished: Asking the concierge, “Would that be you?” or, “Are you the expert in that area?” comes across as a complement and makes the concierge feel important. As such, they are now more likely to give you the name of the contact you are looking for.

According to a recent Maritz Poll, the toxic boss is still alive and thriving. Sure, no breakthrough news here but what if you, as the recipient of this type of manager, could actually do something about it?

Knowing the type of boss you have, their limitations, their management style, their priorities, what drives them and how they communicate, helps you determine exactly where you stand, and what you can expect from them. After all, if you’re looking for more individualized attention, support and training it may not be realistic to expect that from your current boss or even possible for that boss to provide you the support and training you need. And if that’s the case, at least you now have the evidence to make a more educated sand informed decision regarding whether or not to stay in your current position.

So, what can you do to turn around your boss’s style of managing and how they communicate with you? Here’s a twist. Start by coaching and supporting them using these three simple steps.

First: Coach Up. What can you to do support your boss? Most are used to their employees coming to them with problems and complaints. It’s an interesting reaction you get when you approach them with, “Hi Mary. Listen I know how much we’re all under the same pressure to produce and for you I can only imaging that it’s even more intense. So, I just wanted to ask you what I might be able to do for you to possibly take some of that burden off, or if there’s anything you see in my production or performance that I could be doing better which in turn we’d all win.”

Next: Create the Opportunity to Discuss Expectations: The law of reciprocity applies. After you’ve determined how you can make their life a little easier, eventually, your manager can ask what they can do for you, which is your opportunity to ask if you can discuss the management style that you best respond to and how you want to be managed.

Finally: Set Your Boundaries: Bosses don’t know boundaries. Like it or not, through many managers eyes, their #1 responsibility is to run the company, not worry about your feelings. So stand up for yourself and establish your role, but always give 100%. While most of the time not premeditated, people, especially your boss will continually test you, over and over again, in the sense of what they can and cannot get away with when it comes to making requests and demands of you and how they can treat you. While a large percentage of people might initially be scared or intimidated to say something to their boss, in fear of some type of consequence or fallout, most of the time, managers are clueless about how they treat people and often don’t even know they’re doing it! Don’t be surprised when you drop off this article on their desk, and they in turn, thank you for it. So, re-train all the people around you, including your boss, how they can respond to you in a healthier, non-toxic way.

If all else fails:
Of course, there are those managers which will not respond accordingly. After all, we’ve already established they’re not the easiest boss to connect with, which is the reason you’re trying these techniques in the first place.

1. Stop Tolerating: Establish what you are willing to tolerate and what you cannot. Tolerating is ultimately a CHOICE.

2. Check Your Integrity: Ever feel something is just “off”? That’s the feeling you get when you’re not working out of integrity and drive. “Outline the rules and guidelines you live by and stick to them!”

3. Write Your Job Description: Not the one they handed you in the HR package, the ideal job YOU want with the company. This will help you identify your career goals.

4. Manage the FEAR: Either you’re running away from what you don’t want or being pulled by the goal and vision of what you want to create most for your self in your career and your life. The fact is, your fears aren’t real but you’re making important life decisions as if they were.

And with all the efforts those who are managed, the mass, put forth in a regal and often last attempt to salvage a once positive work environment, at the core of every toxic working environment is the toxic boss, manager or supervisor that breeds it. All roads go back to the manager. And if the manager isn’t willing to change, then it’s a safe bet that nothing will.

That’s why to impact long lasting change, managers need to upgrade their style and approach to managing their people.

A great partnership is like a great marriage - precious and rare. And like any marriage, after the honeymoon period ends and the realities of life kick in, a good partnership is always worth saving. Here are a few things you can do to ensure you’ve done everything to salvage your partnership.

1. Revisit the Company Goals: Are all partners still bought in?

2. Revisit Job Descriptions: is each person doing their best in the role that’s been designed for them? Or worse, is the lack of clarity around each person’s job position causing the dissention and conflict in the first place?

3. Revisit your Vision: Are all partners still in agreement regarding the end game and where they ultimately want to company to be?

4. Get a Coach. a coach can facilitate the difficult conversations that partners are reluctant to have. Whether it’s due to avoidance behavior (avoiding conflict and controversy) or a lack of skill in communicating a coach can uncover resentments be an unconditional third party and help facilitate solutions that the partners were unable to do or even see on their own.

5. What Has Changed? Life changes, people change, priorities change. Has there been any changes in the lives of the partners, either personally or professionally? Sometimes partners grow out of their roles or simply lose interest. Sometimes changes in a person’s personal life affect their decisions that relate to their business. So, is there still a fit?

6. Over-Communicate: Rather than talk honestly and openly quite often people seem to do the opposite; they shut down their communication, making the costly assumption that “This is a dead end. My partner doesn’t understand me.”

7. Facts or Assumptions? I can’t begin to count the number of times that the very problems that have destroyed the partnership were based more in assumptions rather than on the facts. Don’t react to what you think is happening but really isn’t. Instead, focus on getting the evidence that supports your feelings to avoid making decisions you may later regret.

8. Take the High Road. Like a good marriage no partnership is ever going to be an even 50-50 split of responsibility and effort all the time. If you’re playing the “That’s not fair, I’m working harder than my partner” game, this will only lead to greater resentment and ultimately a toxic relationship. Are you standing on your Ego Pedestal and your principles, or can you let some things go that really don’t make a difference in the long run. Stop majoring in the minor things that you can overlook, especially if your partner’s natural skills, talents and the value they bring to the company exceeds their minor hang ups or idiosyncrasies.

9. Regular Partner Meetings focused on You. I’ll never forget the first time going to the doctor after my first child was born. After the initial check up, the doctor turned to my wife and I and asked a question I have yet to hear from any doctor since. She actually asked, “So, how are the both of YOU doing?” When parents only focus on their children, they lose sight of focusing on each others personal needs which they need to continue to focus on in order to maintain the integrity and strength of their relationship. Schedule partner meetings more frequently. A partner meeting is different from a strategy meeting or a meeting to discuss employees or goals. This meeting is about YOU and making sure all your needs are being met and how the partners can work better together and support each other.

EVENT: FREE WEBINAR – LIVE Q AND A!

DATE: Thursday, June 26, 2008
TIME:
12:00 PM Eastern
11:00 AM Central
9:00 AM Pacific

Duration of Webinar:
30 Minutes

REGISTER: Click here to register

Last week, I delivered a webinar for Hoover’s and their new site, bizmazing.com entitled, What Recession? How Top Managers Keep Their Salespeople Motivated and Productive During Good and Bad Times
Over 500 people registered and the positive feedback was overwhelming. Participants walked away with practical solutions and strategies to:

Many small business owners rank weak sales as one of their top challenges. When sales start slipping, managers are often quick to react by micromanaging and pushing for results. While there’s always an opportunity to refine your selling strategy in response to certain market conditions, companies are missing the mark, not focusing on and recognizing what the core issue truly is that will ultimately determine success or failure. That is, how they manage, motivate and develop their people, especially during times of uncertainly.

In this second webinar of a two part series, I will be delivering an exclusive, timely and information packed Participant Driven Webinar™. This will be an interactive forum; your chance to address and discuss your specific goals and challenges as it relates to what you can do to motivate your salespeople and bring in more sales, even during tough economic times.

Whether you’re a sales manager, executive or business owner, get your specific questions answered and find out what it’s going to take for you to manage, motivate and coach your sales team to achieve their production goals during this challenging economic time. This isn’t about what you can do tomorrow but what you need to start doing today to impact positive change.

This is Participant Driven. So when you register for this free event, all you need to do is send us your most pressing question that you want answered during this event.

And if this isn’t enough, we’ve put together a special package so that you can get my Sales Mojo ebook, as well as the Art of Enrollment and other chapter excerpts from my book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions absolutely free.

So, I hope to hear you on the call this Thursday!

EVENT: FREE WEBINAR THURSDAY – LIVE Q AND A!

DATE: Thursday, June 26, 2008
TIME:
12:00 PM Eastern
11:00 AM Central
9:00 AM Pacific

Duration of Webinar:
30 Minutes

REGISTER: Click here to register

With all the efforts those who are managed, the mass, put forth in a regal and often last valiant attempt to salvage a once positive work environment, at the core of every unhealthy working environment is the toxic boss, manager or supervisor that breeds it. All roads go back to the manager. And if the manager isn’t willing to change, then it’s a safe bet that in the end, nothing will.

That’s why to impact long lasting change, managers need to upgrade their style and approach to managing their people.

Throughout my years of coaching managers, business owners and executives, I’ve been able to identify seven types of managers. Using these seven types of managers as examples, identify the critical competencies necessary to become an effective coach. It all starts with the way we communicate. Which one best describes you or your boss?

1. The Problem-Solving Manager
This boss is task-driven and focused on achieving goals. These problem solvers are constantly putting out fires and leading by chaos. The paradox here is this: It is often the manager who creates the very problems and situations that they work so hard to avoid. Continually providing solutions often results in the lackluster performance that they are working so diligently to eliminate.

2. The Pitchfork Manager
People who manage by a pitchfork are doing so with a heavy and often controlling hand: demanding progress, forcing accountability, prodding and pushing for results through the use of consequence, threats, scarcity, and fear tactics. This style of tough, ruthless management is painful for people who are put in a position where they are pushed to avoid consequences rather than pulled toward a desired and collective goal.

3. The Pontificating Manager
These managers will readily admit they don’t follow any particular type of management strategy. Instead, they shoot from the hip, making it up as they go along often generating sporadic, inconsistent results. As a result, they often find themselves in situations that they are unprepared for. Interestingly, The Pontificating Manager thrives on situations like this. Often adrenaline junkies themselves, these managers are in desperate need of developing the second most essential proficiency of a coach: masterful listening. The Pontificating Manager is the type of manager who can talk to anyone and immediately make people feel comfortable. This character strength becomes a crutch to their leadership style, often blinding them to the need to further systemize their approach. As a matter of fact, the only thing consistent about these managers is their inconsistency.

4. The Presumptuous Manager
Presumptuous Managers focus more on themselves than anything else. To them, their personal production, recognition, sales quotas and bonuses take precedence over their people and the value they are responsible for building within each person on their team. Presumptuous Managers often put their personal needs and objectives above the needs of their team. As you can imagine, Presumptuous Managers experience more attrition, turnover, and problems relating to managing a team than any other type of manager. Presumptuous Managers are typically assertive and confident individuals. However, they are typically driven by their ego to look good and outperform the rest of the team. Presumptuous Managers breed unhealthy competition rather than an environment of collaboration.

5. The Perfect Manager
Perfect Managers possess some wonderful qualities. These managers are open to change, innovation, training, and personal growth with the underlying commitment to continually improve and evolve as sales managers, almost to a fault. This wonderful trait often becomes their weakness. In their search for the latest and greatest approach, like Pontificating Managers, Perfect Managers never get to experience the benefit of consistency. This manager is a talking spec sheet. Their emphasis on acquiring more facts, figures, features, and benefits has overshadowed the ability of Perfect Managers to recognize the critical need for soft skills training around the areas of presenting, listening, questioning, prospecting, and the importance of following an organized, strategic selling system. Perfect Managers rely on their vast amount of product knowledge and experience when managing and developing their salespeople. Because of this great imbalance, these manager often fall short on developing their interpersonal skills that would make them more human than machine.

6. The Passive Manager
Also referred to as Parenting Managers or Pleasing Managers, Passive Managers take the concept of developing close relationships with their team and coworkers to a new level. These managers have one ultimate goal: to make people happy. While this is certainly an admirable trait, it can quickly become a barrier to leadership efforts if not managed effectively. Although wholesome and charming, this type of boss is viewed as incompetent, inconsistent and clueless often lacking the respect they need from their employees in order to effectively build a championship team. You can spot a Passive Manager by looking at their team and the number of people who should have been fired long ago. Because all Passive Managers want to do is please, they are more timid and passive in their approach. These managers will do anything to avoid confrontation and collapse holding people accountable with confrontation and conflict.

7. The Proactive Manager
The Proactive Manager encompasses all of the good qualities that the other types of managers possess, yet without all of their pitfalls. Here are the characteristics that this ideal manager embodies, as well as the ones for you to be mindful of and further develop yourself.

The Proactive Manager possesses the:

The Proactive Manager is the ultimate manager and coach, relying on their newly developed skills, mindset that every manager needs to develop in order to build a world class team.

If you happen to have missed the book launch, my new book, Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions has several chapters dedicated to these manager types and how you can transition into the Proactive Manager. You can even download a few chapter excepts here.

For those managers, business owners and executives who still haven’t registered, here’s the link to register and program description for today’s event brought to you by Hoover’s and Bizmazing.com.

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To register, click here.

DATE: TODAY! June 19, 2008
TIME: 12PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME
LOCATION: Your Computer

What Recession?
How Top Managers Keep Their Salespeople Motivated and Productive During Good and Bad Times

When sales start slipping, managers are often quick to re-evaluate their sales process. Compound that with challenges in the economy and the tightening of budgetary spending within some organizations, leaders are quick to go into a reactionary, fear based survival mentality that can have detrimental consequences on team morale, even with their best intentions. While there’s always an opportunity to refine current systems and your selling strategy in response to certain market conditions, companies are missing the mark, not focusing on and recognizing what the core issue truly is that will ultimately determine success or failure. That is, how they motivate and develop their people; especially during uncertain and challenging economic times. Rather than blaming lackluster results on the economy, your salespeople, product or selling process, it is how you manage your team that is in desperate need of reinvention and an overhaul.

Keith Rosen, best selling author of Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions, has reinvented the rules of engagement for managers and executives when it comes to attracting, retaining, motivating and building a world class team. During this exclusive one hour event, you will discover that traditional management is “dead” and why the majority of managers are simply doing it all wrong, creating the very problems they are desperately looking to avoid. Managers who want to shift from surviving to thriving need to develop an entirely new skill set and mindset, which is counterintuitive to how they currently do things.

Discover what the top companies and managers are doing to motivate their people, especially their salespeople, during tougher economic times.

LEARNING POINTS:
• Prevent your team and yourself from being a victim of the media which can poison a once healthy culture.
• Turn underperformers into super-achievers; fast.
• Handle difficult salespeople and determine when to let them go without collateral damage or being held hostage by your people.
• Stop micro-managing and eliminate the heavy burden of dependency that traditional management styles create.
• Get people into action without resistance.
• Make the shift from a fear based, toxic culture to a coaching culture.
• Avoid the seduction of potential which can erode your team from the inside out.
• Determine who the players are on your team that would benefit from your support and coaching, rather than the uncoachable which simply wastes your precious and limited time.

To register, click here.