Sisu Thinking: Turning the Conditions You’ve Got Into the Business You Want
The majority of my speaking engagements are to CEO, Owners, Presidents and Board of Directors who’s are tired of investing in sales development initiatives and sales training courses and not getting the ROI they expect…and yet they are committed to finding a better solution to improving their 2010 revenue and margin results.
However, I have an upcoming speaking event just for sales professionals. You’ll want to encourage your sales people to attend this PSA-MN event: SISU Thinking: Turning the Conditions You’ve Got Into the Business You Want.
Here’s a snapshot of what we’ll be talking about:” Learning from the past and the present is essential to being in sales. But, dwelling on these is a surefire way to stall growth and rob you of your unwavering determination, unapologetic perseverance to future success. Leave 2009 behind and look forward to a profitable 2010 with noted sales turnaround specialist Danita Bye and her new presentation, SISU Thinking: Turning the Conditions You’ve Got Into the Business You Want. An improvement in sales performance don’t have to wait for the economy to get better. In this energizing presentation, attendees will learn the following:
- sales process tools to exploit the possibilities present in your resources,
- tactics to build a better business in any economy, and
- techniques to tap your creativity.
If needed, you can forward this bio to your staff: ”Danita Bye, sought-after speaker, sales turnaround specialist, and author of Accelerate Sales Revenue: 67 Ways to Shift Your Sales Team into High Gear, Energize Your Dreams and Target Sales Focus rapt audiences everywhere that timing doesn’t have as much to do with business success as learning to deliver and committing to results at all times – regardless of competitive landscape or economic conditions. In addition to working on a Masters in Transformation Leadership at Bethel, she’s been developing SalesGrowthCoaching.com, an on-line sales & sales management program. She’ll also appear on a new syndicated TV show, The Ruthless Entrepreneur, which will air on the Oxygen Network in 2010.”
Hope to see some of your sales people at PSA-MN!
Cover All Your Sales Executive Management Bases
I’m excited to kick off 2010 with my first leadership webinar sponsored by Top Sales Experts entitled, “Cover All Your Executive Management Bases and Win
the Sales Series in 2010.”
Like baseball (and football, considering that we’re in Super Bowl season!), sales is a team sport where every position is critical to winning the game. And, without strong sales executive leadership, even the best salespeople and managers will lose to the competition. To play baseball, you need to have nine players, each specializing in a different skill set, on the field. Your sales staff need to be trained in sales techniques, sales skills, including professional selling skills. To captain the sales game, you need nine distinct, yet complementary, leadership types suited up and ready to go – especially if you plan on playing to win in 2010.
In this new webinar, we’ll show business owners and CEOs how to draft an unbeatable executive team. Building on the nine game-winning management styles identified by the Key Management Dynamics Sales Assessment, this webinar is a must-attend presentation for business leaders who want to take charge of the playing field this season. Join me on Thursday to learn the following:
- Who’s missing from your player roster and how to draft the heavy-hitters you need
- How to do business better, faster, and cheaper with the help of the Innovator
- What the Problem Solver needs to work through your most complex business problems
- How to create unstoppable momentum with the Developer & Motivator
The Sales Lesson: Sales executives can use the Key Management Dynamics Sales Assessment to evaluate their team and adjust their sales coaching accordingly.
The Sales Question: Do you really know the strengths and opportunities of your sales team, and how to address it?
2010 Sales Outlook in Manufacturing
If you don’t follow George Buckley, Chairman, president and CEO of 3M Co., I recommend that you do. Matt Meents, president of Reside, invited me to First Friday Speaking Series, sponsored by University of St. Thomas, where George Buckley was the guest speaker in Feb. 2009. His ideas regarding the economic climate for 2009 were valuable; he has a unique engineering-manufacturing-business view worldview that I find insightful.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal recently asked 14 Industry “movers and shakers” about what they see as in store for their industry in “2010 Outlook.” Mr. Buckley’s comments about the state of manufacturing caught my attention since it’s one of the trends that I’m seeing also. He says, “I think a year of separation is coming–a year where the strong and the weak are going to get separated. As the economy does come back, it is going to be hard for people to fund their growth, so the strong are going to get stronger and the weak are going won’t.”
If you consider yourself as one of the “strong who are getting stronger,” then now is the time to streamline your sales processes, strengthen and optimize your sales efforts, ensuring that you capture market through improved sales performance.
And, if you consider your company as one of the weaker, than it’s just as critical to evaluate your entire sales effort, review your Strategic Sales Plan and ensure you have the right sales people and sales process in place so that your sales operation is as “lean and mean” as it needs to be. You can’t afford any wasted effort, time or money.
The Sales Lesson: When you review your Strategic Sales Plan pay particular attention to ensure you have the right sales people and sales processes in place to optimize your sales efforts.
The Sales Question: So, what steps are you taking to ensure your sales efforts will accomplish your 2010 objectives?
Transformational Leadership Messages
Even though I’m pursing my Master’s in Transformational Leadership at Bethel University, I must confess that I’m a bit cynical about most leadership books that I read. It seem like they are “same old, same old.”
However, the first reading assignment for my current class, Communication and Organizational Leadership, is Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders by John Baldoni, caught my interest with the Purpose of Leadership Communication (pg.6-7), “Leadership communications are designed to do the following:
- Engage the listener,
- Gain commitment, and
- Ultimately create a bond of trust between leader and follower.”
The “trust” concept caught my attention, as a colleague of mine from both Bethel and NSA-Mn, Dave Horsager recently published a dynamic book, The Trust Edge, where he asserts that he reveals the single uniqueness of the greatest leaders and organizations of all times….trust.
This raises a host of questions, i.e.:
- How am I building trust with my followers?
- What am I doing that might be destroying trust with my team?
- What might I do differently that would build trust?
Baldoni then goes on to list the purpose of leadership messages:
And, these raise a different set of questions:
- How do you rate your leadership messages in each of these areas?
- Are there some areas where you are stronger then others? why?
- What might you do to strengthen some of the weaker areas?
I’m certain that over the next couple of weeks, you’ll be hearing more about my studies.
And, I’m looking forward to hear about your assessments of your leadership challenges.
Sales Management Coaching: Part 1
Coaching Keys for Sales Managers: 1 – 7
I’m in the process of actively coaching a sales manager as part of our Turnaround Sales Management Program. These are some “mantras” that I’ve learned from some of trusted colleagues (Jill Konrath, Dave Kurlan, John Condry, Terry Slattery, Steve Montague and Hunter Byington) throughout the past couple of years that I’m sharing with him…..and thought I’d share with you.
- Don’t educate a prospect, educate a client.
- When you are talking, you aren’t selling. Selling happens when you’re asking- a critical sales skill to master.
- When your prospect goes negative, so do you.
- Every time a prospect asks you to do anything that involves an expenditure of your time or resources, make certain you know before you do it EXACTLY what happens afterwards and that you like it.
- Take no vague words – practice your sales techniques.
- If you’re not last, you lose.
- You can’t lose what you don’t have.
Plus, you’ll love these Sales Paradoxes by another Top Sales Experts colleague, Keith Rosen.
I’ll have more for you next time, so stay tuned.
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