Emerging trends in professional selling: Volume 1

“The best book on modern selling and sales management I’ve seen in years with a great range of relevant content. I can’t wait for Volume 2.”

Bob Bentley, 25 year sales veteran, ICT industry.

If you sell for a living, you manage a sales team, or are responsible for the growth of your business and you want the best outcomes for your sales efforts – this book is for you.

Some of the world’s leading trainers, consultants and coaches in the world of professional selling bring you detailed ideas on how you can improve your personal performance, and the performance of your sales team. Inside this volume you’ll find 12 chapters to ensure you are informed about the latest trends, research and best practice in professional selling and sales management.

Each chapter is a book in itself – with more up-to-date information on personal selling and sales management than any single book published in the last decade. Each chapter is about 6,000 words long and offer not just observations – but action points informed by research and best practice.

Content is exclusive to the ‘Emerging trends’ series – and is only available in traditional print format. Over time, other volumes will be released to provide a comprehensive library of best practice in professional selling – together with research and best practice observations in other key organisational functions including marketing and communication, leadership and performance improvement.

And there’s also a companion 6 DVD set which contains 12 hours of presentation material from each of the chapter authors where they provide further information on the chapter topics.

You can order the book by itself, the DVD set alone, or save by ordering both together.

You can save further by ordering 5 or more copies of the book, the DVD set or both.

And until August 30, 2011, each book comes with a bonus DVD featuring one of the Companion DVDs – valued at $60.00 – so you can get a feel for the DVD set with our compliments.

Here’s the title of each chapter:

Paul Sparks. The evolution of professional selling: understanding the past to inform our future sales performance.

Michael Schiffner. Building high performance sales teams: going beyond a training mindset to achieve sustained sales success.

Julia Palmer. Strategic networks: the key to sustainable sales success.

Mo Fox. See before you sell: how changing your perception is the key to better sales results.

Michael Foulds. The sale is the negotiation: reframing the sales process for better sales and stronger customer relationships.

Malcolm Dawes. Sales leadership or sales management? It does make a difference for high performing sales teams.

Suzanne Mercier. Are your sales people sales imposters? How to overcome fear to create great sales results.

John Barraclough & Warwick Burgess. Gaining the last yard in sales: the value of persuasive communication.

Mark Purbrick. Simply the best: how to attract, select and retain high performing salespeople.

Jason White & Giles Rhodes. Rewarding the sales force: a taxonomy of sales roles to inform reward and incentive programs.

Sally-Anne Cotton. The alchemy of 21^st century selling: transmuting balance, alignment and intent into golden sales results.

Dr Yvonne Sum. Tribal insights for sales leaders: the power of learning partnerships.

Pricing:

Option 1.  The book only: ‘Emerging trends in professional selling: Volume 1’: softcover, 320 pages.

Single copy – A$60.00 (plus GST if applicable)

Multiple copy purchase bonus: For every 4 copies of the book ordered, a 5^th will be delivered FREE. (eg: order 8, pay for 8, receive 10; order 32, pay for 32 – receive 40; etc).
This represents a saving of 20%.

Delivery & handling: The book is delivered FREE to anywhere in Australia. Anywhere else in the world, the cost for delivery is A$10.00 per book.

Option 2.  The DVD set only: ‘Emerging trends in professional selling: Volume 1, Companion DVD set’: 6 DVDs featuring over 12 hours of presentations and discussions.

Single copy – A$210 (plus GST if applicable)

Multiple copy purchase bonus: For every 4 copies of the DVD set ordered, a 5^th will be delivered FREE. (eg: order 8, pay for 8, receive 10; order32 , pay for 32, receive 40; etc).
This represents a saving of 20%.

Delivery & handling: The DVD set is delivered FREE to anywhere in Australia. Anywhere else in the world, A$10.00 per DVD set.

Option 3.  Order both the book and the DVD set: ‘Emerging trends in professional selling: Volume 1’, softcover, 320 pages;  AND   ‘Emerging trends in professional selling: Volume 1, Companion DVD set’: 6 DVDs featuring over 12 hours of presentations and discussions.

Single copy of BOTH the book and the DVD set – A$250.00 (plus GST if applicable)

Multiple copy purchase bonus: For every 4 book and DVD sets ordered, a 5^th set will be delivered FREE. (eg: order 8, pay for 8, receive 10; order 32, pay for 32, receive 40; etc).
This represents a saving of 20%.

Delivery & handling: Order both the book and the DVD set and they will be delivered FREE anywhere in the world.

LIMITED TIME ONLY: Every book ordered before August 30, 2011 will come with a bonus DVD from the Companion DVD set – valued at A$60.00.

Want to see what the book look likes before you order?

Following is the chapter introduction to each contributor – or simply download a comprehensive extract of ‘Emerging trends in professional selling: Volume 1’ to review personally before you order the whole book.

This extract contains actual pages from the book:

• Title page

• Contents page

• Volume introduction

• Full introduction to each of the 12 chapters

• Full biography of each chapter author

• The first 2 pages of each chapter

Note: this comprehensive extract is a large file.

Right click on the link below and choose “Save Target As…” to save the document to your computer:

Emerging Trends in Professional Selling Extract

To view the book you will need Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. If you dont have it installed then you can download it for free from the Adobe website.

Before you read the editor’s introduction to each chapter, and see an overview of each of the DVD presentations, let me introduce the contributor team:

Paul Sparks.

Paul Sparks has had a successful career in B2B sales, sales management, training & consulting spanning 30 years. He has worked in sales and sales management roles with market leading organisations including Canon, Ricoh, Lend Lease and AT&T.

Since 2006, Paul has headed up Sales Effectiveness Australasia, an organisation committed to keeping its audience informed about the latest ideas, trends, innovation, research and best practice in professional selling and sales management. As well as a Bachelors Degree with majors in Psychology & Philosophy, Paul holds two Masters Degrees – one in Coaching Psychology and one in Business – both from Sydney University.

His clients range from small businesses, consultants and franchise groups to some of the largest organisations on the globe. They include 3M, News Limited, Fuji-Xerox, Abbott Laboratories, World Vision, the Brisbane Broncos, and Macquarie University. Paul has worked with government bodies, educational institutions, NFP agencies and businesses and organisations based in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the US and the UK.

Michael Schiffner.

Michael Schiffner is recognised by his peers as a thought leader in organisational learning & development based on his success in helping sales leaders construct and execute sales development strategies that realise the latent potential of their people.

As managing director of Collective Intelligence, Michael and his team use a blend of adult learning methodologies which incorporate action-learning, simulations with trained actors, 360 behavioural assessments and integrated field coaching to deliver measurable results in the organisations they work with.

Developing emotional intelligence takes centre stage in his programs.

For the last 20 years Michael has helped business-to-business sales teams in North America, Europe and Australasia transition to a sales approach centred on building genuine trust-based partner relationships. His work has been across a range of industries, with specialisation in pharmaceutical, ICT and financial services.

Julia Palmer.

Julia Palmer is a highly regarded Networking Strategist who has dedicated her career to educating business people on the importance of developing strategies to create and manage quality internal and external business relationships.

As the CEO of the Business Networking Academy, Julia and her team offer diagnostics, training and resources to help people improve their corporate productivity by refining their business relationship strategies.  She has worked with many of the Fortune 500, leading industry associations and all levels of government and has delivered keynotes and led workshops on most continents of the world.

Julia is an accomplished author and sought after presenter. She appears regularly on TV and Radio and in Print Media promoting the growing importance of networking relationships in business today.

Mo Fox.

Mo Fox is an accomplished mixed media artist with 15 years expertise in communications strategy, which means she is just as at home with structured analytical thinking as she is with free-form creativity, and happiest when combining the two.  Mo’s focus is getting to the heart of things and making them work – or work better – to unlock and leverage the value that lies within.

Author, speaker, trainer, consultant, Mo is the director of The Strategy Studio and the creator of Studio Thinking™, a methodology that uses art practices and principles to achieve strategic business results, particularly in the areas of change and innovation, culture and leadership.

Mo has inspired thinking across a wide range of industries in Australia and the UK, with clients such as Kellogg, Toyota, IKEA, Unilever, Yardley and NatWest Bank.

Michael Foulds.

Michael Foulds is CEO of ENS International, a global negotiation consultancy.

Michael has over 25 years of professional experience, across a range of management functions and industries. He has extensive business development and project experience throughout Asia-Pacific, and has assisted clients in the areas of strategy formulation, due diligence, post-merger integration, and profit improvement.

At ENS, Michael brings his commercial and strategic experience to bear in assisting clients with complex ‘high stakes’ negotiations.

Michael holds degrees in Finance and in Information Systems.  His PhD research focused on how peers influence consumer purchase decisions. He lives in Sydney.

Malcolm Dawes.

Malcolm Dawes is a highly respected and sought after organisational performance consultant with a keen interest in sales and leadership development. In particular he is a recognised expert in helping people understand how to increase their interaction effectiveness when managing people and situations.

After a successful career in pharmaceutical sales, sales management and training, Malcolm joined the global consultancy dta Worldwide in 2003, where he is now the Managing Director.  dta Worldwide provides state of the art performance acceleration strategies in disciplines such as assessment, leadership, sales superiority, interaction effectiveness and emotional intelligence.

Malcolm’s consulting and training work has taken him from the UK to Australia, with extensive experience in delivering programs across Asia.

Suzanne Mercier.

Suzanne Mercier, has more than 25 years experience in creating engagement through purpose and meaning and in addressing what prevents us from becoming authentic leaders in our own lives and work environments.

Her skills include business strategy, marketing, advertising, communication and the development of human potential.  Amongst other accomplishments, Suzanne was the first female Board Director of George Patterson Advertising.

For the past 12 years, Suzanne has focussed on speaking, training and facilitative consulting to create sustainable and profitable businesses starting with authentic leadership, purpose and meaning.  Suzanne is also an accomplished author, and a recognised authoritative speaker on the topics of personal authenticity and self belief.

John Barraclough & Warwick Burgess.

For more than twenty years John Barraclough has been using his skills, experience, education and drive to commercialise new services and technologies, and to then manage the businesses through growth and transition stages.

Warwick Burgess has been involved in developing effective communication methods for over 30 years. From an early professional career in marketing for multinational companies, to his involvement in several multimedia businesses, Warwick has helped people develop and present successful, strategic presentations.

For the last three years John has been working with Warwick to build Presentation Space (as part of Space Group International) which applies a patented blended eLearning approach to the design and build of effective learning solutions to achieve lasting skills based behavioural change.   Built upon extensive research into cognitive science and adult learning trends, they offer participants an online learning experience supported by focussed instructor lead workshops.

Mark Purbrick.

Mark Purbrick has a proven track record of growing businesses and maximising employee engagement and performance.  Mark is the Managing Director of Peoplogica and also serves as a director on a number of company and government Boards. As well as being the Regional Director of Profiles International, his past roles include CEO/Director of The Wine Society and Trading Manager for The Fosters Group (Wine Clubs Division).

With a background that encompasses the hospitality, retail, wholesaling, direct marketing and people capital sectors, in both executive management and consultative roles, Mark’s experience enables him to develop customised solutions that work.

Mark’s philosophy is simple: Select people based on ‘fit’ not ‘like’, measure their performance, recognise good performance, challenge poor performance, listen to them and then trust them. Get this right then you can spend most of your time on the customer, vision and strategy; all critical areas that are the future of your organisation.

Jason White & Giles Rhodes.

At the time of writing, Jason White headed up the Talent and Organisation Consulting Practice for Aon Hewitt across Asia-Pacific.  He has over 15 year’s senior HR and performance consultancy experience.  As well as spending 10 years with Aon Hewitt, Jason has worked in a consulting capacity with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Cullen Egan Dell.

Jason holds an Economics Bachelor with Honours from the University of Newcastle. In his current role, Jason leads a team which partners with clients across the region to identify and size opportunities to drive improvements in business performance through better people management.

Giles Rhodes is a Remuneration Management specialist as well as an HR Generalist. He has worked extensively with a wide range of business sectors including ICT, Financial Services and Not for Profit.

He has worked with clients to create new pay structures; introduce remuneration strategy policies; manage remuneration reviews; implement and review benefits packages; and undertake executive and general employee pay benchmarking reviews.  He has presented at executive level in Asia-Pacific and across Europe.

Giles is responsible for the delivery of remuneration projects on behalf of Aon Hewitt clients across both Australia and New Zealand.

Sally-Anne Cotton.

After a wide ranging life in the business world, Sally-Anne Cotton began her career as a specialist consultant and experienced facilitator and executive coach with Mercuri International.  She was a thought leader in introducing accelerated learning techniques to delivery of sales development workshops.

For the past 18 years, while maintaining her passion for selling to senior leaders, Sally-Anne has developed expertise in measuring and mapping cultures and leadership styles, profiling leader and leadership team integrity and designing cultural and leadership transformation initiatives and programs.

Sally-Anne continually applies the concepts of lateral and systemic thinking to her work with some of the largest corporations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr Yvonne Sum.

Dr Yvonne Sum transforms leaders of tomorrow today. She provokes senior business leaders to ‘lose their minds and come to their senses’ by integrating their leadership lessons at home successfully back into the workplace.

Yvonne’s depth of international experience and breadth of clientele span across Australia, the USA and Asia Pacific in pharmaceutical, IT, financial services, retail, forestry, entrepreneurial groups, architecture, surveying, education, learning & development and health professionals.

Yvonne has made personal transformations through diverse contexts: from being an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, to dental surgeon in entrepreneurial practice, media consultant, professional actor and presenter, and now expresses her passion as an international keynote speaker, leadership facilitator, transformational coach, business woman, wife and mother.

Ready to order?

LIMITED TIME ONLY: Every book ordered before August 30, 2011 will come with a bonus DVD from the Companion DVD set – valued at A$60.00.

Now here’s the editor’s introduction to each chapter:

Michael Schiffner. Building high performance sales teams: going beyond a training mindset to achieve sustained sales success.

Is there a magic wand sales managers can wave over their teams to raise the performance level of each individual?

If we expect instant results, the answer is probably no.  But if we’re prepared to invest in the long term success and performance of our individual salespeople, then perhaps there is something that can be done.

Michael Schiffner doesn’t have a magic wand, but he does have an approach he calls ‘a sales development mindset’, which can produce magical results. In this chapter, Michael firstly explains why sales training alone will never deliver the behavioural changes needed for peak sales performance and then outlines a three part framework which will form the basis to build high performing sales teams.

Michael finishes this chapter by describing a practical process to sustain this mindset as he outlines a six part process for effective field coaching for salespeople.

Julia Palmer. Strategic networks: the key to sustainable sales success.

Salespeople working in B2B or complex sales environments must deliver significant added value to clients and prospective clients in order to stand out from their competitors.

It’s not just what you know that matters in building and adding value. Increasingly it’s who you know. And it’s not just who you know. Today, you need to invest in your network to take these relationships to the next level where people know you personally – and actively promote you.

To succeed in today’s complex business world, you need to know – and be known by – the key influencers in your client’s organisation, your industry, your marketplace – and beyond.

In this chapter, Julia Palmer firstly details the reasons why strategic networks are an essential tool for salespeople and how they differ fundamentally from the simple networking approach used by most people. She then outlines a simple, yet effective process to map, connect and invest in your network to build not only your sales success – but your future career success.

Mo Fox. See before you sell: how changing your perception is the key to better sales results.

Selling is about action – doing things.  We visit clients, prepare proposals, deliver presentations, solve customer problems and do a host of other tasks that make selling challenging, rewarding and fun.  But with all the action, we can neglect to spend time analysing situations and understanding the wider sales environment.

Sometimes we need to look for the clues that can result in better deals.  As salespeople we are communicators – and we can’t communicate well if we don’t understand what our clients are seeing.

Mo Fox is both an accomplished artist and a corporate strategist.  In this chapter she draws on this experience, together with recent research in neuroscience, to highlight the importance of ‘seeing’ our sales situations and our clients with greater clarity.

Learn to see more clearly and we’ll be more agile and our actions will be more effective.  See well and better sales results will follow.

Michael Foulds. The sale is the negotiation: reframing the sales process for better sales and stronger customer relationships.

As salespeople we know that negotiation is an important part of getting the order or closing the sale.

But what if we thought about selling being part of the negotiation process?

Michael Foulds is a negotiation strategist.  In this chapter Michael turns the traditional sales model on its head and outlines how we can achieve better sales results and build stronger relationships if we look at the world through a negotiation lens.

Michael will answer the critical questions that challenge us as salespeople as he outlines the what, why, when, how, where and who of the world of negotiation – and sales.

Malcolm Dawes. Sales leadership or sales management? It does make a difference for high performing sales teams.

We hear the terms ‘manager’ and ‘leader’ used constantly in our modern organisations.

Whilst they are often used interchangeably, they are different.  Organisations need both. In today’s environment, leadership is becoming increasingly important for teams – especially sales teams – to achieve the best possible outcomes.

In this chapter, Malcolm Dawes gets to the heart of the topic:

• What difference does leadership make?

• What characteristics make a good leader?

• What can you do to increase the effectiveness of your own leadership – and the effectiveness of your future leaders?

Based on research extending for over a decade, Malcolm outlines 10 competencies that typify good leaders.  Emulate these and your sales teams will thrive.  Encourage the development of these in your emerging leaders, and success in the future will be that much more easily achieved.

Suzanne Mercier. Are your sales people sales imposters? How to overcome fear to create great sales results.

We all feel fear.  And it’s important that we do – or we could end up in some very dangerous situations.  But fear in our sales careers can be a limitation we can all do without.

In the following chapter, Suzanne Mercier examines the nature of fear and how it can play out in the business world – especially in our role as salespeople.  The good news is that there are ways we can all deal with and overcome the fears that can cripple our performance.

Suzanne outlines some simple, yet powerful models, and a seven part process to help all of us deal with our fear – and create great sales results in the process.

John Barraclough & Warwick Burgess. Gaining the last yard in sales: the value of persuasive communication.

Engaging clients and potential clients is harder today than it’s ever been.

People and organisations are better informed than ever before about the products and services they are looking to invest in.  Many are also looking for suppliers who can be partners and deliver value beyond simple transactions – but often struggle to see value through a cloud of product conformity.

How do we engage our clients in this environment?

In this chapter John Barraclough and Warwick Burgess discuss the essential elements of persuasive communication – a blend of the emotional, the analytic and the sensory which will give us a real edge in delivering information to our clients and prospects.

The authors draw upon recent research in human perception and cognition as they firstly discuss why you need to engage across these three areas – and then outline the key attributes of building and delivering authentic sales engagement that communicates with persuasion.

Mark Purbrick. Simply the best: how to attract, select and retain high performing salespeople.

Why do so many sales teams contain so many poor performers?

There are many factors which contribute to performance in the workplace.  But the reality is that many sales managers make fundamental mistakes in how they attract and recruit their salespeople.

In this chapter, Mark Purbrick outlines a robust method of attracting, recruiting and retaining high performing salespeople.

He especially notes two key points which will ensure better recruitment outcomes:

• be very clear about the actual sales role – including specific behaviours and success attributes; and
• ensure that there is a good ‘fit’ between the candidate and the role, the team and the organisation.

Recruitment is hard work at the best of times. Apply this process and you will reduce the number of poor performers on your team.

Jason White & Giles Rhodes. Rewarding the sales force: a taxonomy of sales roles to inform reward and incentive programs.

If there’s a role in today’s organisation where you need to get the rewards structure right – it’s the sales team.

One of the main problems in getting rewards for salespeople and teams right, however, is finding a good method of benchmarking the role because sales jobs come in so many shapes and sizes.

The folks at Aon Hewitt have developed a taxonomy that may help solve this problem.

In this chapter, two of their senior consultants, Jason White and Giles Rhodes, outline a way to measure appropriate rewards by breaking down sales roles across 12 dimensions.  Not only will applying this taxonomy assist in getting rewards right, but it could be the start of a way to be more precise about specifying the unique skills and behaviours required in any particular sales job.

Sally-Anne Cotton. The alchemy of 21^st century selling: transmuting balance, alignment and intent into golden sales results.

As organisations have grown over the past 100 or so years something strange has happened to how we live our lives as human beings. As organisations have grown, it’s become increasingly common for people to act differently at work than they would at home.

But not everybody’s happy with this change. More and more people want to be able to ‘be themselves’ at work – to look for purpose and meaning in how they spend their days, and to live at work as they do away from the office.

• Is it possible to do this in a competitive sales environment?
• Can salespeople act with integrity and authenticity and still achieve high sales performance?

Sally-Anne Cotton thinks these things are possible. In this chapter she outlines how individuals and organisations can deliver golden sales results when they are balanced and aligned in their approach to selling, and when they have a shared intent to work for the common good.

Dr Yvonne Sum. Tribal insights for sales leaders: the power of learning partnerships.

Leadership for 21^st century sales teams is undergoing a generational shift.

Command and control styles of sales management may have worked in the past – but with Generation Y now providing a large proportion of team members, a different approach is required.

Dr Yvonne Sum sees parallels between today’s sales teams and how tribes and families have functioned when operating at their peak.  In this chapter she outlines the elements of authentic leadership which – when applied with wisdom and care – will bring out the best in this dynamic generation.

The application of this model of authentic leadership will lead to engagement, commitment and a successful, sustainable sales team.

Paul Sparks. The evolution of professional selling: understanding the past to inform our future sales performance.

Ready to order?

LIMITED TIME ONLY: Every book ordered before August 30, 2011 will come with a bonus DVD from the Companion DVD set – valued at A$60.00.

What’s on the DVDs?

The 6 companion DVDs were filmed at a series of public breakfasts where each author – and some special guests have the opportunity to go deeper and wider into their topics. Nearly 500 people attended the series – with popularity growing as the series progressed.

So join me for 12 hours of presentations and discussions that will help you – and your team – get better outcomes for your sales efforts.

Each DVD contains a short introduction, and then you can sit back, grab a coffee and be a virtual attendee at each event.

Here’s a brief overview of what was covered in each DVD presentation set.

Disc 1 in ‘Emerging trends in professional selling Companion DVD set’.

John Barraclough & Warwick Burgess.  “How to deliver effective sales presentations”

A presentation can make or break any sales proposal.  Here’s a summary of what you need to do to connect with your audience at the point of presentation:

• Understand your audience – deeply
• Connect with your audience at an emotional and sensory level – use visuals to create a connection
• Understand that all human decisions are made using both our rational and emotional selves
• Respect your audience
• Accept that it is normal – and human – to feel a degree of fear in addressing an audience. Learn to harness this fear
• Put yourself into the presentation at a personal level.  Allow yourself to be vulnerable to deliver a human connection

Mark Purbrick.  “Selecting and retaining top performing salespeople”

When was the last time you recruited someone hoping they would underperform?  Silly question, perhaps.  But it seems that all sales teams have more underperformers than they should.  The reason for this is that – quite often – the wrong people are selected in the first place.

Here are 5 common mistakes most sales managers make when they recruit new hires:

1. The recruitment process often lacks rigour and process
2. The role has often not been fully understood in terms of “job fit”
3. The job advertisement doesn’t ask the right questions to attract a full range of candidates
4. Recruiters often rely too heavily on emotional connections at interview in their decision making process
5. Managers don’t use the full range of selection tools available to allow them to be more scientific in their recruitment decisions

Here are some of the answers Mark Purbrick covers in his presentation:

• Use the full range of assessment tools – including interviews, reference checks, ability and personality assessments, interest assessments and look for a good “job fit”
• Don’t rely on the emotional and personal interpretations of candidates at interview.  Conduct structured interviews with an emphasis on situational questions
• Fully understand the nature of the job you’re recruiting for – and eliminate superfluous criteria – eg, don’t ask for experience and formal qualifications if these aren’t really necessary
• Be realistic about the amount of training that will be required to prepare someone for the role once they are employed
• Look to align personal values and needs of the candidate with the culture of the organisation

Jenny Cartwright – “Don’t Get Hung Up”

Jenny spoke about her pet topic – using the telephone to help us get the sales results we need.  She reminded us about a couple of critical points to get the most from our phone efforts, including:

• Plan your calls
• Have a reason to call
• Integrate your phone calls into your sales strategies

And most all – have fun!

Disc 1 finishes with an informal discussion between the presenters as they discuss some of the points raised during the morning.

Disc 2 in ‘Emerging trends in professional selling Companion DVD set’: Disc 2.

Julia Palmer.  “Understanding the face to face revolution”

We’re all connected in this electronic world – but are we really connected to those who can help us achieve our personal and business goals?

Julia’s presentation emphasised the importance of building our networks personally – and planning how, when, where and why we should be networking face to face.  Using a set of group activities we all discovered places and people we could connect with to build relationships to help us all achieve the outcomes we’re looking for.

And Julia finished with a warning – to be balanced in our approach to networking.  Less is usually more – so don’t try and win the business card collection race – instead, look to build quality connections through an authentic approach to building your relationship network.

And try to do as much as you can “face to face”.

Michael Foulds.  “Six coaching questions for improved negotiation outcomes”

Michael set the scene for discussing how to coach for better negotiation outcomes by firstly highlighting research which indicates that most of us have an over inflated view of our abilities as negotiators. He then addressed the three main barriers to coaching sales negotiations:

1. An over focus on content – the what of the negotiation – as opposed to the process of negotiation
2. We tend to have a narrow view of negotiation – and often think it’s the bit “we do at the end”, when the negotiation process should start much earlier in the sales cycle
3. We often end up gaining vital information too late in the process – things we should have known much earlier

Ciaran McGuigan – “The World’s Best Sales Tips”

Ciaran spoke engagingly about some of the many tips contained in his book.  He highlighted the following simple – but critically important – point in selling:

“All things being equal, people buy from people they like.  And things being unequal – they still buy from people they like”

Many of us had heard this before – but it’s always worth being reminded about this truism.  Selling is the most personal of vocations – if we can be personable, authentic and genuinely interested in our clients’ world – we’re more than halfway there.

Talking Point – “What will professional selling look like in 5 years?”

Our talking point for the month of May, was enthusiastically embraced by those in the room.  A number of trends impacting the world of professional selling were highlighted.  Two themes which were raised by a number of groups included the changing make-up of sales teams, and the impact of the growth of social networking.

Disc 2 again finishes with an informal discussion between the presenters as they discuss some of the points raised during the morning.

Disc 3 in ‘Emerging trends in professional selling Companion DVD set’.

Malcolm Dawes.  “The future of effective sales leadership”

High performing leaders are distinguished by two qualities – their ability to interact effectively with other people and the ability to think strategically and tactically.

Malcolm Dawes shared the results of an extensive 10 year study of over 6000 managers. The implications of the study have a critical impact on all sales teams.

Malcolm discussed two key capabilities and 10 competencies that are the base of this study and showed what sales leaders of the future must do to ensure that they and their teams achieve – and exceed – their sales targets.  Here are the capabilities, with the 5 competencies that support each:

1. Interaction Effectiveness.  This comprises the behaviours between two or more people that result in the achievement of maximum productivity.  The competencies which support this are:

• Interpersonal flexibility
• Clear and effective communication
• The ability to counsel others
• A win-win approach to negotiation
• A commitment to team work and team building

2. Thinking Effectiveness.  This is defined as the appropriate use of those thought processes that provide strategic and/or tactical leverage.  The competencies which support this are:

• A positive orientation
• Creative innovation
• The ability to analyse situations perceptively
• A commitment to continuous learning
• The ability to problem solve

For modern organisations to achieve their full sales potential, sales managers need to lead their teams by utilising and developing these competencies.

Suzanne Mercier.  “Overcoming fear to create great sales results”

Fear affects nearly all salespeople at some point in their career.  This presentation was extremely well received by the audience as Suzanne lifted the veil from an area of performance which is often known – but rarely discussed.

Suzanne discussed the origins of fear – and explained that, in itself, fear is both normal, and often, healthy.  However, we can let fear control our actions, and consequently reduce our ability to achieve the goals we’re working towards.

Suzanne detailed how we can move from a world of fear to a world of possibility by changing our focus from reluctance to commitment; from frustration to stimulation; from doubt to confidence; from insecurity to security and from protection to expansion.  She also shared details of her 7 steps which help us to move from fear to possibility:

1. Developing self-awareness
2. Being able to separate feelings from truth
3. Finding purpose in what you do
4. Finding and accepting your unique talents
5. Building your emotional resilience
6. Understanding how to address practical issues
7. Putting things into action

It is possible for all to address – and overcome – our fears to create great sales results.

Ian Segail – “Bulletproof Your Sales Team”

Ian Segail gave us a short – but powerful – insight into effective sales management.  His message was that all sales managers should have a one-on-one meeting with each of their salespeople every week.

If managers do this – religiously and without fail – for 90 days, sales will improve by 20%.

Ian’s extensive experience in coaching sales managers in the corporate environment had proved this to be true.  The challenge – of course – is for sales managers to take this simple action.  Those that do, says Ian, will be sold on the merits of the approach forever.

Talking Point – “Is Australia ready for a Master’s degree in professional selling and sales management?”

We were joined in this discussion by Martin Hale, adjunct senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University (CSU).  CSU have recently launched a graduate certificate in account management – and are looking for input into the possibility of upgrading this qualification to a full Masters program.

The audience views on this topic were mixed.  Whilst most agreed that the idea of a formal qualification in selling and sales management was of value, there was some reservation about how “theoretical” such a program should be.  Another key thought was that – more than most business topics – strong connections with practitioners would be necessary for formal courses in sales to have the necessary content to be relevant to the “real” world.

Overall, there was healthy debate from the room on a topic that is emerging – and one that will certainly grow in support over ensuing years.

Disc 4 in ‘Emerging trends in professional selling Companion DVD set’.

Sally-Anne Cotton.  “The alchemy of 21st century selling: aligning balance, congruence and intent to deliver golden results”

Sally-Anne opened her presentation by pointing to a growing body of evidence to demonstrate that organisations with strong adaptive cultures which are based on shared values will outperform companies with a rigid or weak culture by a significant margin.

Based on these studies, Sally-Anne presents a compelling case for the need for all sales teams to achieve balance, congruence and alignment to allow positive cultures to thrive, and, consequently, for organisations to thrive.  These items can be summarised like this:

Balance – between the needs of customers, salespeople, sales teams and organisations

Alignment – between the values and beliefs of the individual salespeople and the vision and mission of the organisation

This balance and alignment between individuals and organisations then needs to be delivered with intention.  This intention needs to be purposeful and focussed on the common good.  When combined in an authentic manner – the chance of long term individual and organisational success is dramatically increased.

Mo Fox.  “What you see is not always what you get: changing how you perceive things to achieve better sales results”

Mo’s presentation was in interactive delight.

Her message for salespeople – in fact for all of us – is that we need to understand that underlying structures and patterns exist everywhere – and that the better we understand these structures and patterns, the better outcomes we will achieve.

Mo took us on a journey to discover our inner artist.  Artists understand structure – and the structure that Mo taught us was the human face.  Despite some protestations and suspicion, we all took up our crayons, and proceeded to draw one of our breakfast companions.  For most of us, our early efforts were somewhat juvenile – and a touch embarrassing.

However, when we were learnt some basic underlying structures – where eyes sit in faces, the relationship between our ears and our eyes, and a few more – our second efforts overall were much better than our first.

A great lesson for those of us in sales.  Look for underlying structures in our customers and prospects business.  Look for patterns in our clients industries.  Take the time to look and the picture we build will take on greater clarity – and deliver vastly improved outcomes.

Special Guest – Eddie Paterson (Telstra) – “Getting things right: An introduction to Human Performance Improvement approaches, tools & techniques to maximise sales performance & avoid wasting time, effort and budget”

Of all organisational functions, the sales function has the greatest focus on outcomes – and outcomes are determined by performance.  In this short presentation, Eddie Paterson introduced the group to a range of little known – but highly effective – performance models and tools.

We were reminded of Tom Gilbert’s base model of performance:

P(erformance) = B(ehaviour) X E(nvironment)

Building on this, Eddie suggested we consider the following questions in terms of sales performance:

• How much of traditional classroom training gets applied in the workplace?
• What proportion of the causes of an employee’s performance gaps can be attributed to a lack of knowledge and skills?
• If training is the answer, what was the question?
• How often do we treat the symptoms of performance issues and NOT the cause?
• How many of the root causes of performance gaps are likely to be successfully closed by a single intervention?

This leads to a summary of Human Performance Technology (HPT), as expounded by the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI).  Put simply, HPT is:

1. A process to influence behaviour and accomplishment.

2. A systematic combination of three fundamental processes:

–      performance analysis

–      cause analysis (pain chain)

–      intervention selection

Disc 5 in ‘Emerging trends in professional selling Companion DVD set’.

Yvonne Sum.  “Learning partnerships: practical sales leadership lessons from the home front”

Dr Sum gave one of the most inspiring presentations in this year’s breakfast series.  Yvonne set the scene for her insights into leadership by talking about change and how we face a world of rapid and often unexpected change.

One way to be an effective leader in this environment is to engage and build “learning partnerships”.  Put simply – this means that as leaders we need to partner with our team members – and to harness the power of mutual learning and support.   Leaders need to move from being judges – and become partners with their teams to build connection, knowledge and deliver effective action.

Yvonne outlined a simple – yet powerful – 3 part framework (ABC) to help us all do ordinary things well and in the process build extraordinary performance.  Here are the key words in this framework:

• Authenticity
• Be present
• Communicate

If leaders embrace and action these things they will over time build a personal platform to allow learning partnerships to flourish.

Rob Salisbury.  “Building a successful personal identity and sales career: being CEO of YOU Pty Ltd”

Rob’s lively presentation emphasised the importance of understanding your personal strengths – and building upon them.  He gave some great examples of the characteristics of successful people – and the actions they’ve taken to ensure their success.  As well as mentioning well known business people and sporting stars – Rob also used less conventional examples, including Sarah Marie who had her period of celebrity following her appearance on “Big Brother”.

Rob then outlined a 6 part process to build your identity and sales career:

1. Promote your personal strengths
2. Market your unique skills
3. Present your personal style
4. Sell benefits to clients
5. Deliver unprecedented value
6. Position your expertise

Special Guest – Barbara Lichti (legal counsel) – “Legal pitfalls every sales professional needs to avoid”

Barbara took us on a quick tour of some of the aspects of Australian consumer law which impact salespeople today – including discussions on competition and misleading and deceptive conduct.  We were reminded of the consequences of acting in a collusive manner, and provided with concrete examples of how people had made mistakes – both intentionally and unintentionally – by having discussions with competitors.

She also discussed the implications of how social media can have a negative impact on our work relations – and can also lead to possible legal problems.

Barbara left us on a positive note by giving us three things to remember about handling the myriad of laws which can impact our sales activities:

1. Always act independently and stick to non-business topics when mixing with competitors
2. Ensure that the information you provide to others, and the overall impression you convey is truthful and accurate
3. Don’t say anything on social media you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the local newspaper

Disc 6 in ‘Emerging trends in professional selling Companion DVD set’.

Giles Rhodes.  “A taxonomy of sales roles: matching performance & reward mix with different sales roles”

Are you paying your sales people what they’re worth?

Are you paying too much – or too little?

Giles Rhodes gave us some insights into a recent study by consulting firm Aon-Hewitt which looked at over 25,000 sales roles and the pay structure associated with each role.

We know it’s important to get pay right – but with such a variation in sales roles, how is it possible to compare roles?  The study Giles discussed shed light on this by breaking sales roles into their components, and by so doing, a taxonomy of sales roles begins to emerge.

The Aon-Hewitt analysis identified 12 components that informed sales roles.  These included:

• Sales mode – direct or channel
• Sales focus – new business or account management
• Team selling – sole operator or team member
• Product or service selling
• Sales cycle – long or short
• Product focus – single product or product range
• Plus another 6 parameters

This structured approach to describing sales roles by activities informs the pay structures of roles with specific requirements to ensure that managers match appropriate reward structures with particular sales activities.

Michael Schiffner & Robin Gibson.  “Why sales training doesn’t work”

Michael and Robyn began their presentation with a quick activity designed to both engage the audience (it’s an early morning event, after all), and demonstrate how our competitiveness can sometimes get in the way of achieving our goals.

Not only did this get the group up and moving – but it laid the platform for an engaging discussion on what is the function of sales training.  Michael’s key point is simple – but has extensive ramifications for how we approach training and preparing our sales teams.

Many of our current training models are mechanistic and more attuned to a time when our people were viewed as cogs in organisational machines.  Whilst this may have worked in days gone by – it doesn’t work in today’s world with today’s people.  What is needed is an organic approach to training – a developmental mindset.

Key to establishing this mindset is the application of the following three frameworks:

1. Create a sales development blueprint
2. Define individual development plans
3. Cultivate a coaching culture – with a focus on field coaching

Michael then shared his six step process for coaching sales people in the field:

Step 1 – Define the coaching objectives for the day

Step 2 – Pre-call Planning

Step 3 – Document your observations

Step 4 – Post-call Debrief and Feedback

Step 5 – Developmental Actions and SMART Goals

Step 6 – Feedback for you as a coach

Special Guest – Michelle Newton (Sales Training Manager Fairfax Media/Rural Press) – “Lessons from 3000 hours of sales coaching”

Over the past 6 years Michelle Newton has co-ordinated the delivery of over 24 sales development programs to a sales force of over 500.  During this time she has personally delivered over 3000 sales coaching and training sessions in all parts of Australia and New Zealand – from Mt Isa to Launceston; from Perth to Auckland.

Michelle gave a wide ranging presentation, drawing on her extensive sales development experience, and also shared some insights to some emerging research about how the sales function differs due to the influence of gender, geography and generation.  Here are just a few of the many insights she presented:

1. A casual approach to the sales function tends to be used by salespeople in the 40s who have resided in a town for 15 years or more
2. Women salespeople like to know a lot about their clients but prefer a distant rather than a close relationship with clients
3. Men talk more than women (really!)

Ready to order?

LIMITED TIME ONLY: Every book ordered before August 30, 2011 will come with a bonus DVD from the Companion DVD set – valued at A$60.00.