Gold Medal Performances in Sport, Business, and Friendship

Kerri Pottharst in Manly Feb 26 2014

This return trip to Australia has allowed my family and me to rekindle 20 year old friendships and establish wonderful new connections. Last evening was no exception, as we had the pleasure of meeting again with my friend Kerri Pottharst, her husband Max, and son, Tyson.

After blowing her knee out playing professional indoor volleyball in Italy in the early 90’s, Kerri Pottharst ended her “hardwood” career, moving to the sand, for less pounding on her joints.   She overcame great adversity to win a Gold Medal in Beach Volleyball, at the 2000 Olympic Games, in her hometown of Sydney.

I met Kerri playing volleyball on Bondi Beach in 1992, and although we were on the same beach, her level of the play and mine were miles (or kilometers) apart.  My amateur status was not anywhere near her acumen, but a common bond was formed through another good friend, Margo Malowney.  Margo also played in the Beach Volleyball Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, representing Canada.  The three of us met in Sydney in ’92 and have remained friends since, over miles, oceans and hemispheres.

Both Margo and Kerri have gone on to successful careers in business, which is no surprise, based on their dedication to the hard work that it takes to get to peak performance.  Kerri is a motivational speaker based out of Sydney (www.kerripottharst.com) helping companies set their vision for success. Margo is currently the Vice President of Marketing for an environmental restoration firm in Toronto.

Back in 1992, upon my arrival in Australia, I knew ONE person.  To look back on my 3 visits here, my gratitude abounds for the lifelong friendships established through a wonderful sport, in a beautiful part of the world.  The best to you and yours, Kerri and Margo, until we met again.  Cheers, mates!

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Join me in Riga, Latvia, April 23-25, 2014 for ELIA’s Networking Days!

 

latvia

Flannery Sales Systems will be participating in this year’s European Language Industry Association (ELIA)’s Networking Days in Riga, Latvia.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Riga, it is the capital and largest city of the Baltic states, located on an ancient natural harbor formed by the Daugava River tributary of the Baltic Sea.  The richness of the architecture and landmarks unique to this historical city will be enhanced by ELIA a rich program of events associated with the Networking Days.

Top on our list of “things not to miss” in Riga, will be John Flannery’s Networking Days session entitled:  “Differentiate Yourself (your company) by the way that you sell”.  John Flannery, President, Flannery Sales Systems works with his customers globally to develop specific revenue generation programs based on sales process. He also provides supporting implementation services to help companies maximize their investment and drive results.  John’s topic “Differentiate Yourself (your company) by the way that you sell”, has specific relevance in the language services industry today in a competitive marketplace where how you sell may be your biggest differentiator.

For registration and more information, visit:

http://www.elia-association.org/index.php?id=ndrigreg0

 

Join me in Riga – the site of the European Language Industry Association (ELIA)’s Networking Days, April 23-25th 2014.  

 

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4 Ways to Get More Active Selling Time From Your Team

Plenty of sales reps think that productivity is the same as staying busy, or at least “looking busy”.  Strategy meetings, internet research, emails, social networking, golf dates, and dinners may be keeping reps “busy”, but such activities may be inconsequential to the bottom line.  Let’s define sales productivity as the ability to produce.  Productivity is measured by yield or throughput.

Here are four tips to help increase the productivity of your sales team giving them more active selling time:

1.  Analyze Current Processes

Do a health check on the selling processes currently being followed by your team.  Although each sales rep’s process may be unique, consider the following key productivity drains across your team:  How much time is spent weekly on administrative tasks? How many calls are being made on qualified vs. unqualified opportunities?  How many in-person calls end in a sale?  What is the average time of lead to sale?  What is the current cost of sale?   A good sales process based on the analysis of the data retrieved from these questions will provide guidelines for keeping productivity in check.

 

2.  Define Expectations/Goals

Every team member needs to know what is expected of him/her.  Once new expectations are set, look at your team and see who needs help organizing their time and territory.  Help reps prioritize which opportunities are worthy of their time and get rid of the ones that are not qualified.  Being on qualified sales calls is where results will happen.  Once you set expectations, expect them.  Set up a streamlined accountability process of reps’ progress toward outlined expectations.

 

3.  Leverage Technology

Reduce the administrative responsibilities required by your reps by providing an electronic format for as many tasks as possible.  A good CRM system will automate certain tasks and keep customer data organized.   Technology can also aid you in getting quality lead lists.  Monitor social channels.  Set up alerts on topics of interest and respond to those who show buying signals.  Consider timesaving video calls and web conferencing.  There are hundreds of time saving sales technology tools out there that can help increase the productivity of your team.

 

4.  Increase your Team’s Skills and Knowledge

Sales training, and coaching are important for every salesperson, no matter how experienced they are.  There are always new skill sets to learn and new tools to master.  Analyze deficient sales skills in the individuals on your team and coach to those needs.  These skills may include phone etiquette, product knowledge, industry knowledge, customer engagements and rapport, presentations, and everyone’s favorite topic:  negotiation.  Look for a training company that will offer a customized approach to developing specific relevant skills for your team.

 

Try these tips and you will see increased productivity in your team.  The measure of success will be evident in a yield to be enjoyed: More revenue!

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3 Ways to Align Communication with Corporate and Customer Needs

Sales leadership is always on the hunt for new sales tactics and strategies to transform their sales team into the dream team. When you take away sales training and costly CRM’s, what resources are left? Free (or almost free) tools and tactics are coming to light with the new age of selling. With a culture consumed by social media and the idea of marketing combining forces with sales, the industry’s relationship with its prospects is being challenged. Here are three, cost-efficient tactics to help improve the performance of your sales team and ultimately fill the pipeline:

1.    Social Selling

Free, simple and effective are three words to describe social selling. Encourage your sales team to leverage platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ to listen, engage and establish relationships with prospects. Hootsuite does an incredible job of outlining the pillars of social selling; the process is as follows:

  1. Listen and learn
  2. Research and relate
  3. Engage and impress
  4. Collaborate and close

Take advantage of everything social platforms have to offer. Get into the conversation; encourage your employees to respond to posts on the LinkedIn and Twitter newsfeeds. This is an almost effortless way to engage with prospects in the social community. Speaking of effortless, LinkedIn offers something called the Daily Digest which is an alert that it sent to you daily informing you when a contact changes jobs, gets a promotion, or even tells you when it’s their birthday. Similar to LinkedIn’s Daily Digest, Newsle is a free online tool that connects to your Facebook or LinkedIn accounts and alerts you when one of the people in your network are in the “news”.

These are all opportunities to engage, which can have a big impact for a small about of work. Just remember, social engagement is the gateway drug to lead generation.

 

2.    Partner with Marketing

Does your sales team understand the role marketing plays in the success of the business? Marketing exists to make the sales process easier so the company can hit its bottom line. Break the communication barrier and explain to your team where marketing fits into the sales process.

Sales can provide marketing with valuable information, including hindrances, prospect objections, customer feedback and market activity. With this information marketing can create programs and materials to streamline the sales process (follow-up emails, communication scripts, collateral, etc.). Working together can prove successful for both departments and the company as a whole.

 

3.    Identify Your Purpose

How does your business change the life of your customer? Everyone on your team should have an answer to this question. What are your customer’s issues? How will your product make their lives easier? Can you list product benefits?

  1. Among the obvious reasons, your team should be able to communicate an understanding of customer pain points when speaking on behalf of the organization. It’s easier to believe in something if you are able to relate to it; case in point, if you can’t relate to the customer then they surely won’t be able to relate to you or the product you’re selling. Once your staff understands the overall purpose of the organization from the customer’s perspective, their role in the company and how it fits into the big picture will become clear.
  2.  Identify the individual’s purpose and department purpose so they are able to see how their actions can help or affect the success of other departments. For example, we help marketing accomplish x, y and z. Sales helps marketing with a, b, c. When all team members understand not only their role, but the role other departments play to determine the success of a company.

Ultimately, a clear understanding will help build the foundation for good communication with clients. As well as helping the team identifies aspects of their conversations that would be helpful for marketing or trending issues so you can continue to relate to customers at their level.

 

These three strategies are designed to help you and your team reach your goals the most effective, cost-efficient way possible.  I hope you’re able to take these ideas back to your team and put them in action to help create your sales dream team.

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Successful Selling, Successful Business: How to Lead Your Team Well into the New Year

It’s easy to get caught up in your day-to-day routine of checking emails, project management, checking emails, attending meetings and checking more emails. As a member of sales leadership, it’s your responsibility to take a step back and reexamine how you’re doing things. When was the last time you cleaned your contact database? Are you taking advantage (or even aware) of new sales tools? These routine jobs may be time consuming, but they’re necessary. Simply said, it’s time for Extreme Makeover: Sales Edition.

1.    Take Two: Look at the Customers POV

Do the messages on your website connect with your customers? Part of understanding your customers’ needs is communicating it to the customer. Avoid overusing the word “we” in any type of communication when describing your organization; instead exercise more customer-facing messaging. Successful businesses know how to market to customers so they clearly understand what the product can do for them. Here are several questions to ask when reevaluating your customer’s point of view:

  • Do you speak their language?
  • Do you anticipate and answer their questions?
  • Does your product fulfill the customer’s needs or solve their problems?

2.    Sort and Clean Databases

Don’t wait three years to scrub your database, make life easier for your team by doing an annual cleanse to remove duplicates, stale clients/prospects and organize sales stages. Here are five tips to keeping your database squeaky clean:

  1. Don’t waste space, identify duplicates and remove
  2. Set up alerts to be notified of duplicates so you can determine whether or not the contact is truly a duplicate.
  3. Get rid of inactive contacts
  4. Check for nomenclature uniformity (i.e. Business Name Inc., Business Name, Co.)
  5. Eliminate the junk or contacts with fake information. For example, some people will use false email addresses like asdf@hotmail.com.

3.    Take Advantage of Webinars for Lead Generation and Client Retention

Cost efficient and effective, webinars are a simple way to generate leads and maintain an active relationship with current clients. Webinars are an opportunity to display your industry expertise and increase brand awareness, as well as engage in conversation with prospects, customers or peers.

4.    Get Closer to Your Numbers

Digging deeper into your numbers and what they mean can help your team understand what is working, what’s not working and what areas need improvement. This is easier said than done. An article on Forbes.com says today’s successful companies are doing three things well:

  1. Use analytics to identify valuable opportunities
  2. Start with the consumer decision journey
  3. Keep it fast and simple by investing in an automated data system

What’s your strategy to staying on top of your team? If you can’t succinctly describe how your product/service helps your target customers, then you’re in trouble. Prospects can see fluff copy and messaging from a mile away—cut to the heart of your product’s benefits and you’ll be surprised how effective more targeted words and messaging can communicate to your customers.

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