No Excuse Sales Leadership

Feedback on the June Minnesota Business Journal Power Player article (No Excuses, p. 40) suggests that my rural roots are showing – and that sales leaders connect with the down-to-earth business insights they generate. If you haven’t guessed yet, the article focuses on my vision of what accountability means for business today.

So, I’ve been reflecting on the relationship between ranch life and the life of the business leaders I work with every day.

I’ve seen my fair share of tractors. When I was a kid growing up in North Dakota, especially in springtime, our landscape was dotted with these red or green mechanical horses. But unlike horses, tractors had a habit of getting stuck in the mud. And staying stuck until resourceful human beings unstuck them.

Assessing the situation accurately, rolling up your sleeves, and unsticking your tractor was one option. A second was to let the fact of the mud overwhelm you, cause you to curse and throw things, and make you wonder why you kept doing this year after year. A third option was to sit and stare calmly at the tractor, willing it to unstick itself, and when that didn’t work, give up for the day and hope the tractor would be easier to unstick tomorrow, when the mud might be drier.

Options two and three had emotional benefits, sure, but the result was a tractor just as mired in mud as before.

Today’s businesspeople are farmers & ranchers as surely as those I grew up with. Their harvests are a bit different on the surface, but it’s all the same in the end.

Their mud is the sludgy, sticky economy.

Their tractors are their people, their processes, their visions.

Top Sales Experts & “The Power of Sales Process”

 Sales leaders, you’ll find this upcoming roundtable on “The Power of the Sales Process,” sponsored by Top Sales Experts, to be packed with practical, how-to ideas on structuring your sales process. A strong process will give you a competitive advantage, even during this recession.   I’m on the expert panel with well-respected sales process gurus Craig Klein, Steve Matinez, Jonathon London and Jonathon Farrington. You can get more details here.  

I’ll be sharing principles used to create the Hardball sales process for Flint Group, formerly xSYS Print Solutions. They were the largest international supplier of narrow-web tag and label-printing inks struggling to reverse a three-year trend of declining revenues. We help the VP of Sales develop a system of sales management processes that change a culture of excuse making into one of personal accountability to generates predictable, sustainable results.  Listen to Hank tell the story of how we accomplish the following: 

• Market share grows despite an industry recession
• Predictable revenue with more accurate business planning, more efficient operation and higher margins
• Faster, organized sales process generates revenue more quickly
• New hires reach higher performance levels 30% faster

I recently conducted a webinar with EcSELL Institute on the same subject.  Bill Eckstrom, Founder of EcSELL Institute says that it was one of the most practical webinars they had–strong take-aways that sales leaders can implement immediately.  

Hope to see you there!

Sales Leadership Behavior: Know your People

In addition to knowing your business, the authors of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done  also suggest that the CEO, President and VP of Sales need to know their people. What are some practical ways that you can begin to really learn about your people?  

In my most recent tips booklet, Yes You Can: 67 Tips to Raise Sales Results in a Recession, I’ve included a couple of ideas to get leaders started: 

Tip 29: Identify Dreams.  Salespeople work primarily for themselves.  I know it’s disheartening for us to realize, but the company’s profits are not the prime motivator in their lives.  Their own dreams, goals, and aspirations are what inspire them to do the extra effort needed to exceed quotas.  So, what can you do?  Help them develop a game plan to achieve their goals and aspirations.  Link their personal goals to their professional goals.  Create alignment.  

Tip 41: Help your people overcome the high Need for Approval. In fact, help them identify their selling mindsets that support their sales effort.  Then, take the next step and help them identify those mindsets that are sabotaging their selling effectiveness.  Then, with both of you grounded with objective data, you can create an action plan to start Making It Happen!  In my 18 years of sales management leadership, I’ve found the data provided by Objective Management Group to be the most helpful in really knowing my people and knowing how I can help them. 

Tip 37: Understand your salespeople’s Workplace Motivators. Workplace Motivators help explain why your salespeople behave as they do. When you understand their Motivators, you can more easily come alongside them and help them execute at a higher, more intentional level.

I invite you download the entire complimentary tips booklet.  And, I’d love to hear your feedback on what other Know-Your-People tips that you’d recommend adding to future additions.  

So, what steps are you taking to really know your people? 

Pursuing Sales Execution

I’m slowly working my way through Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. I usually speed-read books, especially if it’s the second time I’ve read them. However, one of the largest gaps that I see in sales organizations is lack of execution.  They “talk the talk” but don’t “walk the walk.”  Where should leaders focus their behaviors in order to build a culture of execution?

Larry and Ram have a great list of leadership behaviors that lay the foundation for a high-performance sales team (pg. 57):

• Know your people and your business,
• Insist on realism, 
• Set clear goals and priorities,
• Follow through,
• Reward the doers,
• Expand people’s capabilities, 
• Know yourself. 

How would you rate yourself on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being “This is an area where I’m weak” and 10 being “This is an area where I’m a hero!”?

Over the next couple of posts, I’d like us to talk about each of these. Where are you strong? What can you leverage to create a recession-busting sales team? Where does your leadership need “enriching”?  What will it take to “Make it Happen”?  

Leaders Improve Sales Execution

I had a great conversation today with Kurt Theriault from Business Efficacy about  the relationship between excuses-making/blame-gaming and execution. It was insightful because  both of our companies specialize in helping companies execute.  I lamented to Kurt that my advisors tell me that I should be more PC. However, we concurred, “Excuses kill execution.”  

Kurt talked about his work with companies that have great strategies, great training &  great insights….however, they aren’t executing.  That reminded me of a quote from Execution, “Organizations don’t execute unless the right people, individually or collectively, focus on the right details at the right time.” (pg 33).

So, do you have the right people in your sales organization? 

And, are the focusing on the right sales issues?  

Finally, are the focusing on them at the right time with the client? 

Where do you need to improve execution in your sales organization?

Lack of Personal Accountability Kills Sales Execution

Excuses kill execution, even with the best sales teams with the brightest sales management leaders. 

Everyone who knows me concurs, I disdain excuses.  Everyone—husband, kids, friends, colleagues, clients.

And, advisors coach me to be less harsh, to use more PC words, i.e. externally or internally focused, etc.

I work at it.

However, when I net it out, I hate excuses.

Why?

Because excuses kill execution.

According to Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, “Execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it.” (Pg 22) Excuses do the opposite. They distort reality. People start emotionally blaming anything external to them (economy, competitors, manager, company policy, etc) rather than objectively examining what’s really going on and taking appropriate action.

That’s theoretical. Here’s practical. In the last 10 years of consulting, I’ve send the correlation between the percentage of people on the sales team who lack personal accountability and the lack of the team’s ability to exceed goals….even when there’s a great strategy.

In studying DICE+1 through my work with Dr. Mark McCloskey at Bethel University, I see why excuses are so cancerous. Here are some of my insights:

D (Dynamic Determination):  Playing the Blame-Game erodes one’s willpower to accomplish the task. Excuse making kills determination.

I (Intellectual Flexibility):  Justifying the pasts stunts creativity. If you’re content to stop your thought process at the economy, competition, etc., then you’re selling yourself out to mediocrity. Excuse making kills intellectual creativity.

C (Character Soundness):  A key virtue in virtue-based leadership is courage.  It’s more courageous to face reality saying, “In light of the new situation, I/we need to change or improve in order to get the results we want,” than the oh-poor-me alternative. Excuse making sabotages one’s character.

E (Emotional Maturity): Only a leader with clear thinking can wisely execute in light of the gray zone. (Larry Jullian talks about the gray zone in his new book, God is My Coach) Excuses clouds thinking.

+1 (Partner Up Ability): Synergy only happens when there is hope, when people see possibility. Excuses kill hope.

As leaders, there are four steps that we can take to nurture a culture of Personal Accountability…and execution. Which steps do you need work on? 

The Laffer Curve and Your Sales Execution Strategies

Dr. Arthur Laffer, a world-renown economist known for The Laffer Curve, spoke at a meeting co-hosted by Turnaround Management Association and Association for Corporate Growth. Even though this YouTube interview is from Oct. 2008, his views remain consistent today. And, his predictions are worth considering as you craft your Strategic Plan and finetune your Sales Execution Strategies. Any and all flaws in your Strategies will be exposed this year and in the years to come. Now, is the time to optimize your sales efforts, to improve your sales efficiencies, and to ensure that a robust client solution!