Fire Tempers Steel
Posted on October 8, 2008
Filed Under Business, Coaching, Customers, Revolution | Leave a Comment
Anyone else finding it tough out there recently? I’m finding it challenging getting people to make decisions around coaching and seminars. It seems like we are in the middle of a huge upheaval in business at the moment - a time of momentous change for all of us and nothing will quite be the same again. R’evolutionary.
A time of fear, nervousness and uncertainty. But also a time when ingenuity, flexbility and innovativeness will be rewarded.
When the news struck last week I was working with a group of bankers on the 7th floor of a hotel. Needless to say I made sure that the doors and windows were immediately locked! These guys did not want to be in my room learning how to coach their teams. My co-facilitator turned to me and said ’so how do we make this r’evolutionary Seán?’. Good questions..wished I’d thought of it.
So we turned the day into a practical exercise on how they were going to coach their reports on how to handle the crisis situation. By role playing they internalised the learnings - and learned from each other. Then we role played using their coaching skills to coach clients on remaining calm - I couldn’t have asked for a better example of coaching the ‘reluctant client’.
A friend once said to me that ‘fire tempers steel’ - we are being forged in the fires of chaos now. But the steel will shine through in the end. Innovate, adapt and triumph.
Website Changes
Posted on September 29, 2008
Filed Under Business, Customers, Sales | Leave a Comment
I am in the middle of updating the data on the web with a view to improving the quality of information visitors can access.
The press page, for example, needs some serious tidying-up! In addition, having joined the Information Marketers Association while in New York city recently, visitors may see the site changing as I release the first of the R’evolutionary Sales CD training packs and start the process of e-commercing the site to provide services to a broader global client base and empower existing clients, with the kind of training products that can make a real difference to imbedding learning in these challenging times.
I am also working on a new article for The Winning Edge magazine - the magazine of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Managers in the UK - called ‘Top Gun Sales Directors’ - so watch for that on the site shortly.
The current article on how to lead a new generation of Millenial sales people will be up shortly or is available by emailing me at sean@seanweafer.com
The ‘Co’ Factor
Posted on September 17, 2008
Filed Under Coaching, Digital Age, Reflections | Leave a Comment
I was coaching a client on the values and benefits of ’soft power’ as opposed to his more traditional ‘hard power’ directive approach. The client has made huge (and measured) changes in his leadership style - so much so that he is getting positive recognition and re-inforcement of his change from his own immediate boss and is able to influence and persuade his team to move to even higher levels of performance.
However in explaining what ’soft power’ means, I was struck by the number of ‘co’s’ that appear in its values. Co-Leadership, Co-Operation, Co-mmuncations, Co-Creation and so forth. It seems that ’synergistic leadership’ is a factor of ‘Co’.
What is meant by ‘Co’ - simple - parity of esteem - shared understanding, ownership and commitment (another ‘co’!).
Objections Are Better Than Indifference
Posted on September 12, 2008
Filed Under Sales, Selling | Leave a Comment
I am constantly amazed at how fearfully many sales professionals face objections to their propositions.
Wouldn’t the world be a wonderful place if everyone immediately understood the huge value that we bring to them and opened their cheque books and wallets to us without question? But seeing as they don’t - we need to consider sales objections in a different light - as something positive rather than negative.
Look, I can work with an objection - I can probe it further, I can change the way I’m communicating. If they’re objecting to what I’m presenting at least they are engaged in the sales process and trying to understand what it is we are presenting. They are looking for more information, or clarity or a reason to buy.
What I can’t sell to is indifference, where someone has zero interest in what I’m selling. This can only occur where we got our prospecting criteria wrong in the first place and we are talking to the wrong person. Alternatively it may be happening because I have committed some major ‘faux pas’ that I’m not aware of, that has caused them some degree of annoyance and hence passive resistance to me or the proposal.
Either way, it’s time to move on - selling is about service, not about trying to ram what we have to offer down their throats - that was the old days. The age of ‘hard power’ selling and not the modern market place where ’soft power’ selling is required. The world is an abundant place and it is so much easier to sell to those who have a need and desire for our services and products.
Where objections can never be met by probing, engagement and uncovering the real need behind the objection - retreat, re-group and move on.
