How People Learn

 

learnPeople have been studying the science of learning for thousands of years – dating all the way back to the time of Plato and Socrates in Ancient Greece. Educators seek to improve the way they teach students, parents look for ways to improve the way their children learn, and organizations strive to improve the development they offer to their personnel.

At Flannery Sales Systems, we are also staying on top of the latest in learning development, as we seek to make a lasting impact for our clients. The science of learning is constantly evolving, and we continue to adapt our curriculum to leverage the latest in learning advancements.

Here are some learning practices that we employ daily in our work with our clients:

  • Self-discovery. People are most convinced by ideas that they themselves conceive; so don’t resort to a lecture style classroom if you can help it. Provide small group labs and workshops where students can be an active part of the learning process.
  • The experience matters. People learn best when they are in an engaging environment with a trusted instructor. They must be kept interested and entertained. Stories work well. Humor doesn’t hurt either.
  • Tailor, tailor, and tailor. Before you instruct a group, take some time to understand your audience. What is their age, gender, and education level? Where are they from? What are their interests?
  • Edu-tainment. Edu what? Edu-tainment is the idea of mixing education with entertainment for more effective learning. This is an increasing trend with the millennials, who have been raised to believe that learning should be fun.
  • Reinforce. Statistics vary on the number of times an idea needs to be presented before it can be ingrained. But what remains consistent is the theory that repetition matters. And in today’s always-on, hyper-connected world, the amount of times you need to present an idea for it to have an impact is only getting bigger.
  • Practice. Practice makes perfect. Well, maybe not perfect, but certainly better. Practice is key to successful learning, as people need the opportunity to “try on” what they have learned in order to fully master it.
  • Promote a “growth mindset”. This has been a hotly researched topic lately, led by Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck with the publication of her 2006 book entitled “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Having a growth mindset means that you believe that it is hard work more than innate ability that drives advancement. Students that come in with a growth mindset tend to progress farther as they actively strive to learn and improve.
  • Technology. It goes without saying that advancements in technology have revolutionized the way we learn. Technology can be used to reinforce a classroom-style learning environment, or provide “distance learning” allowing people to learn anywhere, anytime from the convenience of their laptop, iPad or any connected device.

What advancements in learning will we see in the coming years? While we don’t know for certain, we can be sure that they will include ideas new and old, and leverage technology and edu-tainment to reinvent the way people develop and grow.

/by

Do You Treat All Your Sales Reps the Same?

 

Sales-Manager

This is a question I often ask Sales Managers.

Many of them respond that they do on the grounds of fairness. They try to distribute their time evenly between all team members and provide similar opportunities for coaching and development.

While I appreciate the intent, I disagree with the practice. At the end of the day, being a great sales manager doesn’t lie in giving your reps a similar dose of the same medicine, but rather in tailoring your prescription to each individual, which will likely result in a disproportionate amount of your time and energy spent with some reps and not with others.

Here’s what I recommend:

First, divide your team into thirds in order of performance – top 10%, middle 60% and bottom 30%. Many managers find this exercise difficult, as they’re reluctant to label certain reps as bottom performers. But it’s a critical first step in optimizing your coaching time.

Next, allocate your time with each rep according to his or her grouping.

Contrary to popular opinion, the bulk of your time should not be spent with the top performers (because they’re the most valuable), nor should it be spent with the bottom performers (because they have the most room for improvement). It should actually be spent with the middle 60%. The middle performers are the group that has the most to gain from focused skills coaching, and statistically speaking it’s with this group that you will see the biggest performance lift.

Of course you should still allocate time for your top performers. But your time with this group should be spent focused on retention rather than skills coaching – are they happy in their current position? Is there anything you can do to make their jobs better? Where do they see themselves 3 years from now?

Very little time should be spent with bottom performers. These team members can be an extreme “time suck” with very little payoff, and allocating the bulk of your time to coach the bottom tier very seldom translates into sales results.

So, is this a fair management strategy? Maybe not. But it is effective. It allows you to align your time and talents with the sales reps that stand to make the biggest gains, thus improving your ability to impact overall team performance and revenue generation. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what you were hired to do?

/by

How Sales Managers and Reps Protect Margins in Q4

Part II

Screen-Shot-2014-06-02-at-8.19.06-PMEarlier this week, we discussed the importance of helping your team avoid discounting, especially during Q4 when sales reps are eager to close business and buyers are ready to play hardball.

The first skill we discussed is teaching your reps to prove value. If you missed that post, take a look here.

The second key skill is negotiation.

You’ll often hear sellers say, “he’s just a good negotiator,” as if it’s something people are born with and you either have it or you don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. All sales reps can be trained to be great negotiators. Here’s what they must know:

Have a negotiation plan – you must be prepared for a negotiation – you can’t just “wing it”. Before walking into any closing meeting, sellers should assume that the buyer is going ask for price concessions and have a plan in place to respond.

Know your floor – calculate the lowest price you’ll go in order to preserve margin and revenue opportunities for you and your company.

Push back – remind your buyer about the agreed-upon value of your product and/or service and ask if anything has changed, or if they’re prepared to deal with the cost of not moving forward.

Offer other concessions – be ready to offer your customer other concessions that aren’t related to price, things like extended warranty, training, a dedicated service rep, etc. These offer your customers value without eroding your margins. But…if you do offer something, be sure to ask for something in return. What can your customer give you? Think about things like exclusives, referrals, testimonials, etc.

Be prepared to walk away – there are times when a buyer will not move forward without unreasonable discount requests, and good sellers must be prepared to walk. This can be especially hard in Q4, but it is essential to upholding the value of your offering. Tell your buyer, “I’m not going to be able to offer you the discount you’re requesting. But, what I would like to do is take some time to think about our conversation today and get back together next week.” Sometimes knowing that they’ve pushed you as low as you’ll go is all a buyer needs to move forward.

Practice – as with all skill development, practice is key to mastery. Role-play negotiations with your reps to get them prepared for big meetings. Have them practice pushing back and offering non-price concessions in exchange for something of value to your organization. The more they practice, the more successful they’ll be when they go to close business.

In summary, Q4 is upon us. It’s time to focus your team on proving value and smart negotiating in order to help them avoid discounting and maximize revenue achievement.

 

/by

How Sales Managers and Reps Protect Margins in Q4

Part I

Screen-Shot-2014-06-02-at-8.19.06-PMQ4 is upon us.  How are you going to focus your team in the coming months to successfully close business and maximize revenue potential? One way is to avoid discounting. This may be easier said than done, especially in the fourth quarter when buyers are working hard to get the best deals possible. But, there are two proven methods of avoiding price discounts that we teach our clients in nearly every workshop we run.

The first is to prove value.

Proving value is one of the most fundamental and important skills we work on with our sales reps, and it is central to any customer-focused selling methodology. In order to avoid heavy discounting at the end of the sales cycle, sellers must thoroughly understand their customers’ primary business objectives, the key challenges they face that prevent them from achieving those objectives, and the financial impact of doing nothing. Then, they must align their product/service capabilities with those challenges in the form of a question, such as “if you had a printing service that could turn around jobs in 24 hours and offers free delivery, would that solve the challenge you’d mentioned related to compressed timelines and skyrocketing costs?”

Once that value has been established, when buyers ask for the discount at the end of the sales cycle (and they will ask for the discount), sellers can return to the value they had both agreed their product or service would bring. When asked for the discount, a seller might say, “during our previous conversation, you agreed that using our printing services would save you an estimated $50,000/yr in rush charges and delivery fees. Has anything changed since our last conversation?” Reminding buyers of the value of your solution and the cost to them of not changing is key to closing business without price concessions.

For more on the questions sellers should ask in order to thoroughly establish value, take a look at our three-part series “Helping Your Customers Achieve Their Objectives”.

The second method is skillful negotiation, and we’ll cover that in our blog post later this week, so stay tuned.

Click here to go to Part II

/by

Flannery Sales Systems in New York City

Flannery Sales Systems traveled to New York last week to conduct a training workshop. In this video, John talks about our upcoming content for the month of October. With the beginning of Q4 upon us, we’ll be focusing on how to effectively coach your reps to hold margin and maximize their revenue performance. Click to play video.

Screen Shot 2014-09-30 at 12.33.19 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

/by

Flannery Sales Systems in Phoenix, AZ

Flannery Sales Systems traveled to Arizona this month to conduct a training workshop and attend the Anytime Fitness conference. Fortunately, John was able to prepare for the fitness-related show with an impressive hand stand during his tour of Facebook earlier in the month (if you missed it, take a look here…be sure to scroll down to see the photo). In this video, John talks about the importance of content customization for his clients.

/by

Observations from My Tour of Facebook

 

Facebook Tour Sept 4 2014Last week I had the opportunity to take a tour of Facebook (FB) in Menlo Park, CA. The offer to visit the campus was extended to me back in April during the conference I spoke at in Riga, Latvia, where Iris Oriss, Director of Internationalization and Localization for FB, was the keynote speaker. Iris is responsible for managing the deployment of the 65 plus additional languages that FB supports worldwide.

During our two meals together at the conference, Iris and I shared fascinating conversation around the vision she builds and executes on for FB, her family and travels, and her thoughts about Hillary Clinton in 2016. I found 2 of the 3 topics of interest. Anyhow, at the conclusion of the conference, Iris invited me to come tour FB, and my reply was “Hell, yes!”

My key observations from the tour include: 

1-    FB doesn’t have Rules, they have Values: this means that all employees are provided with broad parameters to get the job done, and share the common company mission of “helping people to share and make the world more connected”.

2-    Hacking is a Good Thing: despite my previous connotation of the word (pilfering data), Iris assured me that the Hack-a-thon mentality is designed to embrace creativity in pushing innovation, and not just following a set of rules for coding (see #1)

3-    Iris has a Global Window to the World: her travel schedule makes me look like a homebody, and her position requires that she understands how to connect 7 billion people through 65 languages that her team manages. She will be published in a MIT publication in the next month; I will send it to you if you wish.

Facebook Handstand Sept 4 2014

4-    My upper body strength improved in Menlo Park (see picture #2): must have been the amazing quality and range of food served on campus.

5-    It Takes a Village: and that is what FB has in Menlo Park, a beautiful campus that is well appointed but not overdone. A place that enables 7,000 employees to thrive and create connections worldwide

6-    FB Cares:  about their employees, the environment and everything on this planet. The Facilities team gently re-located a mother and litter of baby foxes who took the campus as home. And have a look at Internet.org to see the dedication that Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders have to sharing technology with all people.

Many thanks to Iris for the great experience – one I will not forget.

/by

An Interview with Olympic Gold Medalist Kerri Pottharst

John E Flannery of Flannery Sales Systems sits down with long-time friend and Olympic gold medalist Kerri Pottharst. Since retiring from professional volleyball in 2005, Kerri now works with businesses executives, managers and staff to help them overcome fears and reach their goals. John and Kerri discuss these topics as they relate to sales professionals.

 

 

 

/by

John E Flannery Invited to Speak at a Local AME Event

 

john-for-feb-2011-cropped-2John E Flannery, President of Flannery Sales Systems, has been invited to present at a San Diego event sponsored by the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME).

AME is the premier organization for the exchange of knowledge in enterprise excellence. Members come together to explore Lean thinking and other enterprise improvement methods, network and exchange best practices.

During this event, John will be presenting ideas for building a lean, customer-focused sales process and discussing how sales and operations can work together to support business planning.

Topics include:

  • What does a customer-focused sales process look like?
  • What are the ins and outs of operations planning?
  • How can operations glean information from field sales (and vice versa) in order to optimize internal resources?
  • What are the key leading indicators from the customers that help to allocate resources
  • How can other departments benefit from this information?

The event will take place from 8am – noon on October 21. For more information or to register, visit the event page.

/by

Helping Your Customers Achieve Their Objectives: A How To Guide Part 2: What to Ask

what_to_askEarlier this week, we introduced you to the idea that thoroughly understanding your customers’ key business objectives and the challenges inhibiting their fulfillment is the most important element to the sales process, and that traditionally salespeople do a poor job in this phase. If you haven’t read the first part of this series, “Why It Matters,” you can check it out here.

So, the question becomes – how can we help sales reps be more successful? First and foremost, we can arm them with a series of questions designed to get their prospects talking about their challenges in their own words. People are most convinced by ideas they themselves originate, so getting your prospects to define their own objectives and challenges is critical to getting their buy in throughout the sales process.

The following are three types of questions designed to get your prospects talking about their challenges.

Open Questions.  Your prospect has discussed his primary business objective – now how to get him talking about why he’s not able to accomplish that objective. These questions are designed to do just that. They uncover the tip of the iceberg, and are the first step in the discovery process.

  • “What are the main concerns you’re having with respect to…..?”
  •  “Usually people come to us for help in one or more of the following areas (list 2-3 problems you solve for people); are any of these issues for you?”
  • “Tell me more…” or “Tell me why…”

When you ask questions like this, look for the prospect to make statements like:

  • “My sales are not where I want them to be.”
  • “We’re spending too much on…..”
  • “We’re not happy with…..”

Cause Questions.  Now that you have the problem defined, the next step is to look for the reasons for the challenge.  What’s causing the disparity?  Typically there are several causes.  Pay close attention as these are the issues you will ultimately try to resolve for the prospect. This information leads you to your presentation.

  • “What are the reasons this is going on?”
  • “Why do you suppose this is happening?”
  • “Do you know what’s causing these problems?”

It’s vital for you to understand – even better than the prospect – what’s causing their challenges.  You’ll hear things like:

  • “Our current supplier is having quality and delivery problems.”
  • We don’t have the right software and our people need training.”

Keep Them Talking. Learn to direct the conversation and keep your prospects talking.  When they are talking, they are giving you valuable information. When you’re monopolizing the conversation, you’re losing an opportunity to discover what will motivate them to take action.  Add these types of questions to your repertoire and you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the issues.

  • “Tell me more about that.”
  • “What else is there?”
  • ”Is there anything else?”
  • “Could you be a little more specific?”

With these three types of questions, your sales reps should be able to encourage prospects to fully define their key challenges, which is a critical first step in the qualifying process.

But, there is more. Next sales reps need to get prospects to quantify the impact these challenges have on their business. What is the cost of doing nothing? Here’s where they will be able to establish the value and ROI of your offering. To learn more about quantifying your prospects challenges, stay tuned next week for the third and final installment of our series.

Back to Part 1 | Go to Part 3

/by