The Art of Living

What “Lifestyle Package” do you want?

You can accomplish your goals in a fun, graceful, fulfilling, healthy way, or you can do it in a way that exhausts you and makes you unhappy.

How do you want to do it?

A Salute to Salespeople!

Salespeople are the lifeblood of businesses.  They go out there as disciples of the team everyday, facing apathy and rejection.  Many are very dedicated to their profession and work to improve their craft.  Let us recognize that these men and women are as important as any man at the forge.

Today, I salute Salespeople!

Thank you!

Remember the big picture

It’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of tasks and details each day.  A leader must keep the big picture in mind.

When we can see it, we function better, and understand that no one event is the whole story.

What’s your big picture?

The Art of Recruiting

After you know exactly what kind of person you are looking for and what you want them to do, you need to find the perfect person to fill the role.  

The idea is to get to know who the candidate really is before you hire them.  This takes time.  It takes asking lots of the right questions.  It takes research and multiple meetings and settings.

Don’t hire someone and hope.  Miss-hiring is expensive and wears on the rest of your team.

Do you hire well?

Changing people

You can’t.  Any effort in trying to change an employee to be something they aren’t so that you can be happy with their performance is wasted.

Instead, think about what position is best for their inherent personality and mindset, and move them to that position.  If you don’t have such a position in your company or one that is open, then you you’ll have to set them free to find the perfect position at another company.

Don’t try to change people, let them be who they are.

Role Playing with Salespeople

There is no better way to know if your salespeople know their stuff than to role play with them (except for riding with them or watching them work with a customer).

Ask your salespeople, “Pretend I am the customer.  Let’s start from the beginning…”

You are looking for where they can do better, not to catch them saying something wrong.  Don’t be extra tough on them, be a normal customer.  

Ask yourself – “Is it my fault they aren’t better?”  If it is, then you need to prepare your salespeople better.  You should have a complete system for them to follow.  Tell them where they can do better and what you expect.  

Role play again the next week.  Getting better doesn’t have to take long.

Remember, the salesperson’s skills are leveraged on behalf of your company over many customers, day after day, and week after week.  Ensuring they are very good is high value work.

Qualities of Superstar Salespeople

Here’s my list from my own experience –

1) Likable – everyone likes this person – and they like everyone.

2) Competitive – They want to win and hate losing.

3) Smart and trainable – They can learn what is necessary to get things right.

4) Integrity – They act as if the whole world is watching, even when nobody is.

Do you have superstars working for you?

Is your company "Predictable"?

Can customers rely, and can YOU rely, on the same excellent customer experience and result for every transaction?  Or does it depend on who they dealt with, what day of the week it was, or a little bit of luck?

Install processes, expectations, training, and the right culture so that the customer experience is predictable – every time.

Laughter in the workplace

It’s a pretty good measure of the health of your team.  Do people laugh in your company?  Do people laugh with people from other departments?  Do leaders laugh?

Heed your Plimsoll line

I don’t know about you, but business owners and leaders get asked to go to a lot of events, be on boards, support lots of causes, and do many things that take up your time.  You don’t want to be rude or have people think you don’t like or support them, so you say yes – too much.

Besides taking up your time, these commitments take up your mindshare.  You wind up getting drawn in and thinking about it, when it may not be the best use of your bandwidth.  

Years ago ships were being loaded heavy to cross the ocean, and many of them sunk on the journey.  A guy named Plimsoll had the idea to paint a line on the hull.  When the ship was loaded to where the Plimsoll line was at the waterline, you stop.  No more, or risk that ALL will be lost.

There are seasons in life and times when you can and should say yes more.  But if saying yes will take you away from your most important mission this year, thank them for the invitation, and just say no.