How to Improve Performance through Goal-Setting

For most sales reps, meaningful growth comes from working toward clearly defined, individually appropriate goals. As a sales manager, you probably know this. But do you know the best way to help your reps set and achieve their goals? In his book, The Inner Game of Selling: Mastering the Hidden Forces That Determine Your Success (Free Press, 2006), Ron Willingham, CEO of Phoenix, Arizona-based Integrity Selling addresses this critical coaching task by laying out the steps for defining and progressing toward a goal. Here’s a look at each step:

Step 1: Setting Goals. First, you and the rep must define specifically what he or she is going to work toward. Those goals should be written in this format: “By [date], I’ll [verb] [goal].” For instance, “By July 31, I’ll average sales of $200,000 per month.” Or, “By September 15, I’ll close the XYZ account.” Or, “In three years, I will have my MBA.” Tell your reps to write down each goal on an index card and post it where they will see it often.

Step 2: Planning Strategy. As you look at each goal, you’ll realize they have either clear, known steps of achievement and the rep simply needs to take those steps, or the strategy steps will be unknown and you will have to discover them. To work through that process, ask these questions: How can you break your goal down into sub-goals or incremental steps? What different activity levels will it take to reach your sales goal? What activities can you perform today? Once you have the answers, you’ll be well on your way to penning a step-by-step strategy to achieve the goals.

Step 3: Building Belief. This often-overlooked step in goal setting is about building your reps’ belief that they can reach their goals. One way to do this is to teach your reps to visualize success every day. As they go to sleep at night and/or as soon as they wake up in the morning, ask them to think about their goals and what they will do that day to move closer to achieving them. You’ll be amazed at how much faster reps meet their goals once they learn to spend time each day relaxing, visualizing themselves reaching their goals, and imagining themselves enjoying the rewards that come from that accomplishment, says Willingham.

Step 4: Developing Strengths. Sometimes your reps will need to develop some strengths or skills before they can realistically achieve a goal. For instance, if reaching that $200,000 per-month sales goal will require your rep to target a higher level in his prospects’ organization, he might need some training on how to have executive-level conversations.

Step 5: Managing Progress. On an ongoing basis, you and your reps will need to manage their progress toward their goals. You do this by reviewing those goals regularly, asking questions such as, “Where are you with each goal? What sub-goals have you already reached and where should you be to reach your main goal on time? What strengths do you still need to develop – or keep developing – to reach the goal?” Occasionally, you and the rep might decide the goal needs to be revised. When you follow these steps, says Willingham, you’ll find your reps often reach their goals faster than they expected, so maybe the bar will need to be set higher. Other times, circumstances may slow the rep from reaching his goal, in which case the date might need to be pushed back or the sales dollar target reduced.

Willingham promises that if you and your reps “follow this system to the letter, you’ll experience success.” And as we all know, success breeds success, which means you’ll be able to continue pushing your reps to higher levels of performance.

For more details, visit www.integrityservices.com.

Looking for some geat business blogs!

I am looking for some like minded bloggers that focus on the business, leadership and sales world. If you fit in this group or have any suggestions, leave me a comment or shoot me an email with a link.

I want to start a list of links that can point to your site.

Why Sales Managers Fail and What You Can Do About It

By Jacques Werth

Sales managers fail for two primary reasons:

1. They don't know how to manage their people

2. They don't rigorously implement effective selling processes.

Just as an engineering manager needs to be a pretty competent engineer, a sales manager needs to be a pretty competent salesperson. In both cases, however, their essential responsibility is to manage staff performance. Understanding modern management principles beyond a few readings of The One Minute Manager is critical.

Most engineering managers know that technology is evolving too quickly for them to keep up at the level of a functioning engineer. However, they do know enough about the latest technology to effectively manage the engineers deploying it.

In contrast to engineers, most sales managers believe that very little has changed in the selling since they became a manager. Therefore, they tend to manage their people in the same way that they used to sell. However, in the last 20 years, the markets for every product and service have changed dramatically. Information overload, the Internet, massive communications, increased competition, more well-informed prospects, brain science and new sales channels have affected all businesses.

Top salespeople have developed new sales processes to address and take advantage of those changing market conditions. Most other reasonably successful salespeople have not.

The key is developing a sales process that is very different from the one that you are now using. Talk to sales training companies, and look for a company that will customize and optimize the selling process for your company and industry. If you find one that fits your current sales beliefs, one that you are instantly comfortable with, keep on looking. Heed the title of Marshall Goldsmith's book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

Here are 10 reasons salespeople fail, and what you can do about it.

1. Most sales managers don't know how to use highly effective tools to recruit and train salespeople that will perform well in their organization. Therefore, they often hire salespeople who are incompatible with their company's culture and lack the appropriate sales aptitudes for their industry.

How to hire the right people: Contract with a service agency that will benchmark you and your best salespeople, find candidates with similar aptitudes, and select salespeople most compatible with your management style. For about one weeks pay, you can greatly decrease costly hiring mistakes.

2. Most sales managers don't have a highly effective, uniform sales process for their company's products and services. They advocate "best selling practices" based upon past market conditions and obsolete sales strategies. Therefore, they focus on the wrong metrics, which are inevitably flawed.

What to do: Adapt a step-by-step, sales process that is customized for your products, services and markets. It must include exactly what to do when and how to do it. That kind of sales process makes tracking, coaching and realistic quantification easy. Thus, it enables continuous improvement of every step of the sales process.

3. Most sales managers don't know how to train, supervise and track their salespeople's performance to optimize their sales effectiveness.

How to keep salespeople on track: Maintain a uniform and consistent process, monitoring and benchmarking all sales activity throughout the sales process.

4. Most sales managers lack skills in target marketing and prospecting. Therefore, their salespeople waste most of their time with prospects who will not buy.

How to focus on likely buyers: Set demographic, situational and attitude standards for the type of prospects that are most likely to buy. Develop criteria based upon booked business.

5. Most sales managers believe that, "You can't close if you don't get in front of prospects." Their salespeople go on as many appointments as possible, spending far more time with prospects who will not buy than with those that will buy.

How to stop wasting time with the wrong prospects: Insist that salespeople find and make appointments only with highly qualified prospects.

6. Most sales managers believe that salespeople should be able to convince prospects to buy. Therefore, they have their salespeople try to persuade prospects to buy when they are merely "interested." It doesn't seem to occur to them that their salespeople cannot consistently convince people to do anything they don't already want to do.

How to stop losing at the "persuasion game": Abandon the game altogether—there is no way to consistently win. Insist that your salespeople treat prospects with trust and respect, utilize an effective sales process, and abandon all forms of persuasion, false urgency and manipulation.

7. Most sales managers don't know the difference between qualification and disqualification. Therefore, their salespeople, who are great at qualifying, create sales resistance by attempting to sell to prospects when they are not ready to buy. That lengthens the sales cycle and decreases their closing rates.

How to shorten the sales cycle: Insist that salespeople only make appointments with prospects that are ready to buy or specify. They should temporarily disqualify all others. Closing rates will increase dramatically.

8. Most sales managers do not understand how the human mind works, and how it accepts or rejects information. Salespeople typically spew features and benefits in terms of industry jargon.

How to communicate with prospects: Use words that prospects can readily understand. Provide only the most pertinent information. Prospects will feel more motivated to keep listening, they will absorb and retain more information, and they will be more actively engaged in the sales process.

9. Most sales managers believe that most prospects make logical buying decisions. If that were true, enrolling in logic courses would be the path to success in sales.

How to really get through to prospects: Engage prospects emotionally. Recent studies in brain science have revealed that most important decisions are made in the part of the brain that deals with emotions. Incorporate that knowledge into the selling process. That results in higher closing rates.

10. Most sales managers don't know how to get salespeople past their fears. Therefore, most of their salespeople stay in their comfort zones by avoiding changes that will provide improvements.

How to get salespeople to embrace change: Teach them to accept the reality that change causes fear and discomfort; that acceptance will enable them to do what is uncomfortable and get over it quickly.

Jacques Werth studies the sales performance processes of the top 1 percent of salespeople in many different industries. He knows what they do that most "reasonably successful" salespeople don't do. That resulted in the High Probability Selling process. The book High Probability Selling has been a best seller since 1999. Visit www.highprobsell.com.

For the library - Secrets of Special Ops Leadership

So many books, so little time. I ordered a couple things from Amazon that I needed and figured I would get something to read too.

I liked the book Leadership lessons of Navy SEALS and figured I'd get another book from a special operations officer that described the parallel into the business world.

The author was a commando in the Air Force and has written numerous papers and given many lectures on business leadership.

I've only made it through the first few chapters, but this is a book that I'm having a hard time putting down. Between the historical events of wars and conflicts he touches on and his insights into business, he does a good job of educating the reader and providing real tools for leaders and managers to follow in a corporate environment.

Once I finish the book, I'll give a more detailed review of what I think, but so far this is a keeper.

Strategic Lead Generation

A mentor and great sales leader contacted me recently to send over a document about strategic lead generation. Brian Berlin who I reported to when he was the VP of America Sales at Phoenix Technologies (PTEC) now works for Mansfield Sales Partners an outsourced sales management and lead generation company.

For those that want to read the document, click here.


Summary
The goal of lead generation is the creation of more selling opportunities. Therefore, lead generation is a critical subset of a company’s sales and marketing strategy, and must be carefully managed in order to ensure the sales team is in front of qualified buyers, selling and closing. By coupling this process with guidance from and close interaction with senior sales management, companies are able to achieve a much higher productivity rate with their sales programs.

About Mansfield Sales Partners - MSP is a leader in outsourced sales management and lead generation for early stage companies and companies going through product portfolio changes. Our consultants are determined to help our clients build a scalable, sustainable sales model and drive increased revenue. To learn more, visit the website: www.mansfieldsp.com.

Principles of Sales Leadership

I have a hard drive filled with every manual and training aid I used while in the Army. Most of it I'll never have any use for in the future, other than for the reason of reflecting back on the 'good old days' but there are folders and documents I look into on a regular basis. One of the folders is called "Leadership". I can hear you already. 'not another post about leadership!' But believe me, leadership is that important. One of the files caught my attention. Actually I shared the files with my Director of Sales who loves to ask questions and hear my war stories, he made a comment on this document and it sparked a conversation, so I feel compelled to write about it.

As you can tell from the title this is about the principles of leadership, Author unknown. My Director (I'll call him "D" since he may not want his name posted in my blog) said that these principles are just as important to know in business as they are on the battlefield because if you lose sight of any of them you are doomed for failure. I've modified the military version for use on a sales floor.

1-1. GENERAL. Leadership is the most essential element of sales power. Leadership provides purpose, direction, and motivation in sales. The leader determines the degrees to which maneuvers, engagements, and protections are maximized, ensures these elements are effectively balanced, and decides how to bring them to bear against the competition.

a. PRINCIPLES OF LEADERSHIP.

(1) BE -

(a) Technically and tactically proficient: Can accomplish all tasks to standard that are required to accomplish the corporate mission.

(b) Possess professional character traits: Courage, Commitment, Candor, Competence and Integrity.

(2) KNOW -

(a) Four major factors of leadership and how they affect each other: The Led, The Leader, The Situation, and Communications.

(b) Yourself and seek self-improvement: Strengths and weaknesses of your character, knowledge, and skills. Continually develop your strengths and work on overcoming your weaknesses.

(c) Your sales reps and lookout for their well-being. Train them for the rigors of sales, take care of their physical/safety needs, and discipline/reward them.

(3) DO -

(a) SEEK RESPONSIBILITY and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS: Leaders must exercise initiative, be resourceful, and take advantage of opportunities on the sales floor that will lead to victory. Accept just criticism and take corrective actions for mistakes.

(b) MAKE SOUND AND TIMELY DECISIONS: Rapidly assess the situation and make sound decisions. Gather essential information, announce decisions in time for sales reps to react, and consider short/long-term effects of your decision.

(c) SET THE EXAMPLE: Be a role model for your sales people. Set high, but attainable standards, be willing to do what you require of your reps, and share dangers and hardships with them.

(d) KEEP YOUR SUBORDINATES INFORMED: Keeping your subordinates informed helps them make decisions and execute plans within your intent, encourage initiative, improve teamwork, and enhance morale.

(e) DEVELOP A SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY IN SUBORDINATES: Teach, challenge, and develop subordinates. Delegation indicates you trust your subordinates and will make them want even more responsibility.

(f) ENSURE THE TASK IS UNDERSTOOD, SUPERVISED, AND ACCOMPLISHED: Sales people need to now what you expect from them: What you want done, what the standard is, and when you want it.

(g) BUILD THE TEAM: Train and cross train your sales people until they are confident in the team's technical/tactical abilities. Develop a team spirit that motivates them to go willingly and confidently into sales.

(h) EMPLOY YOUR UNIT IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS CAPABILITIES: Know the capabilities and limitations of your team. As a leader you are responsible to recognize both of these factors and employ your sales team accordingly.

Seems simple enough. BE, KNOW, DO. But it's surprising that some leaders don't know how to BE, couldn't tell you what they should KNOW, and don't DO anything.

Create Lasting Change and Achieve Greater Success At Work

"This year, I’m going to get that raise."

"I will get my desk organized once and for all."

"I'll have better work/life balance."

"I'll start that business I’ve always dreamed about."

At some point we've all vowed to make some big change—similar to the resolutions above. But by the time the rosy blush of good intentions wears off, the resolution gets pushed aside. Not because we don't still long to have what we want, but because we just don't know how to change.
Changing your behavior takes work.

Our brains have enormous "plasticity," meaning they can create new cells and pathways. But our brains create strong tendencies to do the same thing over and over.

Here's why:

The brain cells that fire together wire together. Meaning, they have a strong tendency to run the same program the next time. That's why lasting change takes lots of practice; you've got to create a pathway to the new options.

According to many brain scientists it can take six to nine months to change your behavior. Yet people continue to waste so much money on those seven-day miracle programs and then wonder why they have not experienced lasting change and greater success at work.

Here are the top three reasons why many business entrepreneurs and executives fail to change their behavior and achieve greater business success:

1. They've not yet realized that the change process is not about getting rid of bad habits. The pathway to your current behavior is there for life. Instead you want to focus on creating new, more positive habits that will positively affect your business. Even stopping doing something, like procrastinating, is really about creating a good new habit, starting sooner.

2. They fail to put external reminders in place, at least in the beginning. Unless you have a trigger from the outside like an email reminder, or a buddy it's very likely you'll keep defaulting to the old behavior because it’s automatic. That's also why it’s so important to be willing to start over no matter how often you blow it or get discouraged.

3. They're not concrete enough about what they want and are unrealistic about what they can reasonably ask themselves to change. Here's what an executive client of mine said he wanted to change in three months: "to be more positive with co-workers, staff and colleagues, to be more creative and productive and to take better care of myself." "How about create world peace while you're at it?" I replied. "And what does 'more' mean anyway? As this client demonstrated, we expect too much of ourselves and we expect to change overnight. When that doesn't happen, we resign ourselves to staying the same, convinced that we are hopeless, weak, or unmotivated. Which makes us even more stuck in a rut.

To truly change your behavior and achiever greater business success requires three things: desire, intent, and persistence. You have to identify what you desire enough to be willing to stick to. You have to make SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) like "leave the computer at the office and don't look at the Blackberry after 9" rather than "having more balance." You need determination and persistence to try again no matter how many times you blow it.

Most importantly you need to avoid these top 10 pitfalls:

1. Being vague about what you want
2. Not making a serious commitment
3. Excuse-making—no time, wrong time..."The dog ate my homework..."
4. Unwilling to go through the awkward phase
5. Not setting up a tracking and reminder system
6. Expecting perfection and falling into guilt, shame, and regret
7. Trying to change by yourself
8. Telling yourself self-limiting rut stories
9. Not having backup plans
10. Turning slip-ups to give-ups

Armed with a new attitude and behavior, you can create lasting change and achieve greater success at work. When you have this invaluable tool in your arsenal, you'll be empowered to bring anything you want into reality. You'll become the master of your fate rather than the victim of old choices.

M.J. Ryan is an executive coach and the author of THIS YEAR I WILL…How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution or Make a Dream Come True. To receive a ton of free resources including free daily "I Will Power" e-mails designed to help you keep your promises and achieve greater business success this year, visit www.mj-ryan.com.

Leadership 101.1

I was taking a moment to reflect on some earlier posts and I got stuck on one Leadership 101 and got to thinking I should expand a bit. I wrote the initial post after I had returned from my last deployment and re-entered the professional world. I saw people put in 'management' positions that had no idea how to manage people. They managed spreadsheets and emails but not their direct reports. Managers are responsible for many things. From adhering and implementing corporate policy all the way to measuring specific metrics on their group to show growth/revenue. But what many managers seem to forget is the human factor in all of this. That's where being a leader comes in. If you lead the people in your group well, the other pieces fall into place fairly easily. It should NEVER be perceived a burden to manage the people that work for you. (Which is what I saw.) It should be seen as a challenge and a privileged.

I have been back for about 3 years now and have since moved around a little professionally. I've had the honor of experiencing great managers, true leaders to their people and experienced some not so great ones. Is this a matter of opinion? Sure, I guess, but when all of your staff can't wait for you to get hit by a bus, is it their problem or the managers? I guess your answer to that question will place you in one of my two buckets. :)


Now I know that people hate hearing about my military experience but I find myself deeply rooted in the lessons I learned growing through the ranks. From my lowly days as a Private E-1 to my time getting my Sergeant stripes overseas I took my responsibilities seriously. Again, I was not going to be nominated for NCO of the year or anything, but I did my duty of following orders and then learning to give them to the best of my ability. The Army has a great history of producing outstanding leaders and I had the opportunity to work for some of the great ones. Being a leader for a combat unit is really not different from leading a group of professionals in an office when you boil it down.

Maybe it's a flaw to have extremely high standards of my leaders/managers. But I have high standards for myself and think the people above me should have the same. Maybe that will be my undoing, but then again it's probably not a place I want to work if thats the case.

Leaders should first and foremost lead from example. How can you expect your teams to give 100% when they look at you and see you playing video games, watching YouTube or doing nothing most of the day? (That's a rhetorical question.)

It is a frame of mind that needs to adopted to insure success. Too often I saw managers that acted like dictators barking orders to get things done, or worse gave all of the staff a sense of insecurity by implying they would not have jobs soon. The fact is you will either have a mutiny on your hands or worse show up to work on Monday and get a list of emails with letters of resignations. The idea behind being a manager is to retain your stars, not let them fall to the ground.

If you have members of your staff that deserve harsh treatment, let them go. If you can't correct their behavior without acting like Hitler, then they are doing nothing but sucking up resources and wasting the company money therefore they should just be fired. If your entire staff deserves this, then you need to take about 10 steps back and see what the real problem is. I've never been to keen to 'cleaning house' because the fact is that if this needs to be done then the managers are to blame and not the employees. But too often 'cleaning house' is the case because managers have too much pride to admit they failed and they blame it on everyone around them.

In a work environment your job as a leader is to coach, measure and provide feedback to your staff. The 'work' will get done if these steps are taken. I was at a company that was setting itself up for failure but the front line managers led their people the right way and they continued to achieve dramatic results despite the building falling apart around them and they found a way to keep a smile on their face during the process.

I guess I could go on with this topic for a while, but as I said I got stuck on the initial post and did some reflection. Look around you, are your managers really leading their people or merely standing on the sidelines waiting to point fingers when the game ends? If your in a leadership position and the chips are down, suck it up and start leading. Your people are looking up to you for the example.

The Leader as Motivator

How do you motivate others? Should you even try? We've all had leaders who have decided that their employees need to be motivated, so they step in with emotional speeches, cute plaques, or possibly stringent reminders that our jobs are at risk—and all we can think is, "Hey, I'm motivated; just leave me alone so I can do my job." Or consider your typical employee-of-the-month program that's supposed to motivate people to excellence. Maybe somebody's version of structured praise works, but a lot of people find monthly celebrations corny or even become upset when they think it's their turn to be honored and they're not.

So now that you're actually a leader, when you think about motivation, you're sensitive to the fact that not every motivational technique bosses employ actually works—or worse still—is even necessary. What's a person to do—drop every technique and err in the direction of doing nothing for fear of constantly doing the wrong thing? Over the years we both have discovered several powerful principles that help inform when and how to motivate.

Never assume that people lack motivation. We often assume that if people aren't doing what we want them to do they aren't motivated. The truth is that people are motivated. They're motivated to do what they're currently doing more than they're motivated to do what you want them to do. When it comes to motivation, it's never a matter of lighting a fire; it's always a matter of helping people restructure their priorities. People already have the fire; it's our job to capture and direct it toward corporate objectives. It's important to understand this view because if you carry around a model that suggests that it's your job to motivate others, you tend to start giving speeches or making threats or creating plaques when you should be trying to figure out why others don't share your priorities.

So, how does one tap into existing motives to align behavior with corporate goals?

Understand the dangers of extrinsic motives. Don't rely exclusively on extrinsic methods to propel individuals to do what should be intrinsically rewarding. For years behavioral scientists have known that if you try to pile praise or extra money onto tasks that are intrinsically satisfying, it can take some of the joy out of the already joyful. For example, if you pay your kids for reading a book, they just might learn to read for the video game they get to buy from their earnings rather than for the enjoyment of reading. In a similar vein, when you pile extra benefits on a person or team that has just created a marvelous product, you can easily take the focus off the act of creation which in many ways is its own reward. At a time like this, words of praise or simply standing back and admiring the creation are likely to mean a lot more than any formal form of recognition.

The Leader as Motivator
March 22, 2007

By Kerry Patterson and Eric Patten

Promote Productivity in Your Workplace

Employees slumped in their chairs, IM'ing instead of working? In case your office is more chat room than workplace these days, Alex Somos, co-founder of Guelph, Ontario, Canada-based consultancy Juice Inc. has some ideas:

Employees need to understand an organization's measurable objectives, Somos points out. Once they grasp those goals, your leaders will be able to establish processes and systems to support the outcomes your company is after.

Don't overlook what's happening inside employees: "The first response from people is generally an emotional one," he says. "The ability for managers and leaders to understand the feelings economy can create unprecedented results."

You also want to make sure employees stay focused. Somos says to recognize the symptoms of "corporate ADD," such as disorganization and distraction.

Listen to what employees have to say. "The higher up a person becomes in an organization, the less they hear about what's really going on," he explains, "CEOs rarely hear the candid truth, and if they do, it is sanitized and couched, without the real message getting through." So no dilly-dallying…or holding back.

March 05, 2007

By Margery Weinstein

No Motivation? It's Costing Your Company

Motivation is not enough. If you motivate an idiot, all you have is a motivated idiot.

Education alone is not enough either. Many "educated" individuals achieve very little on or off the job. They know what to do, and they know how to do it. The problem is they're not motivated enough to do much about it.

The Gallup organization once analyzed its massive database and determined that about half (55 percent) of today's employees have no enthusiasm for their work. Gallup labeled these people as "not engaged." In other words, they didn't have much loyalty to their organization or much desire to improve their job performance. It found that one in five (19 percent) were so negative about their jobs that they actually poisoned the workplace. In fact, when those employees called in sick, their organizations were more productive and efficient.

You may think, "Big deal. So what if some of our employees are not fully motivated?" But it is a big deal. Their lack of motivation is costing your organization big bucks.

Gallup estimated that if companies could get 3.7 percent more work out of each employee, the equivalent of 18 more minutes of work each eight-hour shift, the gross domestic product in the United States would swell by $355 billion, twice the GDP of Greece.

In today's competitive world, the really successful person is not only educated, but also motivated.

If you're educating or training your employees, but you're not motivating them to use what they learn, you're wasting your time and your money.

The famous author, William Butler Yeats, said it quite well: "Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire." A more contemporary figure, Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, says, "In the 21st century, organizations have to achieve peak performance through inspiration by unleashing the power of their people—not by teaching them, not by managing them, but by inspiring them."

If you educate and motivate your staff, you'll see an increase in productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately an increase in profits.

The Mercedes Benz plant in South Africa learned that. For a long time, the managers said their quality problems were due to an unmotivated, lazy workforce. That's why it took them two weeks to make a car that had 70 defects. By contrast, the Mercedes Benz plant in Europe could turn out a car in one week that had only 14 defects.

Then, a fortunate accident occurred. After a year of suffering with productivity and quality problems, it just so happened that a car was being made for liberator and president Nelson Mandela. No particular mention or fanfare was made. The vehicle simply went through the assembly line with a tag on it that read, "For Mr. Mandela."

To the managers' amazement, the car was completed in one week and had only 10 minor problems. A light bulb went off in the managers' heads. Their workers were capable. They were educated enough to do the job and do it well. They had simply not been motivated enough to give their very best. It was at that point that the Mercedes leadership learned that they had to engage their workers' hearts, not just their hands.

Are you doing that in your organization? You're buying your employees' time. Are you also getting their hearts and minds?

Education plus motivation will not only help your organization make more money, but it will also save you a lot of money.

When I was speaking at a construction company, the CEO asked his employees a question. He asked, "What does it cost to put a piece of plywood on the floor? How much does it cost in terms of time and money?" The employees answered, "About ten minutes and twenty dollars."

The CEO replied, "Yes and no." He said that's what it would have cost if the job had been done right. Unfortunately, an employee slapped down the plywood poorly and didn't cover a hole properly. The ensuing lawsuit cost the company $450,000. The employee was educated. He knew what to do, but he wasn't motivated enough to do it right.

Here are my top 3 tips to motivating and engaging your staff’s hearts:

1. Take a look at the training you're offering employees. Is it really motivating them? As a speaker, I find that many people in my audiences are quite well educated. They're filled with knowledge. However, sometimes they don't have enough motivation to use all the knowledge they possess.

2. Listen to what your colleagues are saying when they hear about an upcoming seminar. Do you hear groans and complaints about having to go? Or do you hear comments of excitement, as people can't wait for it to begin? What you hear will tell you how successful your past classes have been in motivating people.

3. If you're not hearing almost unanimous excitement, re-examine the education you're offering and re-examine those who are leading it. One bad class or one poor instructor can leave a negative legacy for a long time to come.

So you see...education without motivation serves no useful purpose.

By Alan Zimmerman

Best-selling author and Hall of Fame professional speaker, Dr. Alan Zimmerman has taught more than 1 million people in 48 states and 22 countries how to get and stay motivated all the time. For more information, visit, www.journeytotheextraordinary.com/.

Looking for more on motivation? Then check out these stories from Sales & Marketing Management's Ultimate Motivation Guide.

Wholly Motivated

A Will to Win: Rick Pitino on Motivation

The Prize Is Right for Ultimate Motivation

Goal Oriented

Sales veteran and mountain climber Susan Ershler shares her top-performance tips

QUICK TIP: "Think Yes! first. The rest that follows will be positive."

By the time Susan Ershler decided to climb to the top of Mount Everest in the Himalayas - the highest mountain in the world - she was managing a 100-person sales team and trying to reach a $300 million sales goal for U.S. West, a small telecom company.

She knew achieving both objectives would require daily dedication. To keep focus over the long haul, she wrote down her goals and kept them where she could look at them every day.

For the sales goal, she wrote "$300 million" on the first page of her business journal. Each Monday, Ershler held a meeting with her team by conference call to measure their progress, and she always reiterated the goal of $300 million.

"There are so many things that throw you off track," she says. "Sometimes, a large sale goes sideways or a customer gets angry or you get distracted by your weekly quota. Sometimes, salespeople will come to you and say, 'I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.' I tell them, 'Yes you do. You have it in writing.' " At the end of the year, her team surpassed its goal, hitting 150 percent of its quota.

She used the same technique with her mountain-climbing goal, writing down the height of Mount Everest - 29,035 feet - on a "sticky note" and putting it on her computer. "That number is really high," she admits. "But if you look at it several times a day, it can become doable in your mind."

The Air up There

Before she started dating veteran mountain- climbing guide Phil Ershler in 1992, Ershler had never climbed before. "I'd never even hiked," she says.

Early in their courtship, he offered to take her up Mount Rainier in Washington State. Climbing to 14,410 feet meant getting used to breathing with limited oxygen and suffering severe headaches (high altitudes can cause the brain to swell slightly).

"You get exhausted," Ershler says. "You're not sleeping right, and you don't feel much like eating or drinking. I found that it was quite emotional. Things that would be very concerning at sea level are extremely concerning up there."

The lows were indeed low, but the highs were exhilarating. "Getting to the top was such a sense of accomplishment," she says. "I was hooked."

Vertical Market

After marrying in 1996, the Ershlers continued to climb the world's most difficult mountains. Eventually, they decided to tackle Mount Everest, with the goal of climbing all seven summits together. A go-getter by nature, Ershler knew big success meant dreaming big.

	"You can learn a lot about success by failing a few times." Max Gitomer

"What I love about sales is that you're evaluated by your performance. But in the beginning, it can be difficult, because you're starting out at the very bottom," says Ershler, who began her sales career as a customer-service representative. In time, a GTE manager recruited her to sell to major clients.

"I was green," Ershler says. "I came in during the middle of the year, and I still carried a full quota." For nearly a year, Ershler courted the top two law firms without any breakthroughs. GTE moved her to small-business sales.

Ershler was crushed, but defeat fueled her desire to land the deal. A couple of months later - a little more than a year after she had set her goal - she made the sale. It was one of GTE's largest equipment sales ever.

"Once that hit, I was moved right back to major accounts," she says.

By 2000, Ershler had completed 31 successful climbs with her husband to summits higher than 14,000 feet, including Mount Kilimanjaro (19,340 feet) near the Kenya border, Mount McKinley (20,320 feet) in Alaska and Mount Aconcagua (22,840 feet) in the Andes. In 2001, the Ershlers set out to conquer Mount Everest. During the climb, however, her husband's eyes began to freeze, and his vision was severely impaired. A mere 1,500 feet from the summit, they decided to turn back. It was a bitter letdown. After taking a couple of months to reflect, there was no question they would try again.

"I'm motivated by someone saying no," Ershler explains. "So, in 2001, we didn't make it to the top. We turned around. Well, in sales, how many times do you put everything into it and work like crazy for a long time, and then, someone tells you no? One of the biggest things that separate the top performers is that they do not accept no."


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10 Ideas for Building Leadership from the Inside

When it comes to leadership bench strength, some company benches are dangerously light. These companies, from large corporations to small and mid-sized businesses, lack the talent needed to sustain or grow the business beyond its current level.

Some companies have depended on the same leaders for years without developing new leaders. Other companies have attempted to develop leaders, but there is no strategic or integrated approach. Still other companies have unexpectedly lost leaders they were counting on.

Each year, about 25 percent of managers in typical Fortune 500 companies change jobs. Most spend an average of four years in a given position. High potential leaders in mid-senior ranks move more frequently: every two to three years. These statistics demonstrate why companies must build solid leadership. Leaders must concentrate on developing their teams, getting the right people in the right jobs and producing results.

Job dissatisfaction is up. Some research indicates that one out of six people expects to quit a job in the next year. There are more opportunities for people to seek "greener pastures." Good leadership can influence a person’s decision to remain with a company.

10 Ideas for Building Your Leadership Bench Strength
If your company wants to build leadership strength, here are my top 10 suggestions:

1. Transfer knowledge and experience from the top.

Companies can capture the wisdom from experienced leaders to aid in educating and developing future leaders.

2. Build relationships across generations.

Leadership skills, talents and values differ across generations. Dealing with these differences constructively strengthens the overall leadership of your organization.

3. Strengthen leadership peer relationships.

Often, large organizations operate like a conglomeration of silos. It's easy for leaders to feel isolated in their roles. Helping leaders learn from each other and strengthening interpersonal relationships build needed peer support and camaraderie.

4. Develop succession plans.

Companies shouldn't wait until the need for a leader is obvious. Careful thought and planning in advance eases the transition.

5. Identify and nurture high-potential leaders.

Pay special attention to those employees possessing strong capabilities operating below the radar. They can be the most likely to leave.

6. Provide needed cross departmental learning and exposure.

With better knowledge of other departments and the organizational system as a whole, leaders can help your departments function more effectively.

7. Offer executive coaching/real-time learning.

Large companies are turning to fresh approaches to help executives learn, get feedback and gain support based on experiential learning. Many executives like the personalized approach.

8. Include more leaders in strategic planning.

In my work with leaders in many corporations across a broad based range of industries, I find one of their most common challenges is the need to think and act more strategically. Busy executives struggle to find the time to think about the issues they most want or care about. Their focus is diffused. Fostering strategic thinking early in a leader's career will serve him or her well in the future.

9. Provide mentoring or coaching support for new managers.

Along with a new title and pay raise, new managers should benefit by having stronger initial support through mentoring or coaching programs to help them get acclimated in their new roles.

10. Assess leadership talent.

There are a variety of assessments in the marketplace to help companies assess leadership skills, behaviors and values. These tools give leaders insights to help them increase their effectiveness.

A Bonus Leadership Idea: Open Dialogue

One of the greatest benefits to any organization is the opportunity to invite conversation about leadership across all levels. Start by asking questions like these:

• What does your company value most about its leadership?

• What improvement would you like to see?

• What is your company’s philosophy about leadership?

• What would outstanding leadership enable your company to do better?

• What leadership skills are critical for success?

• What is the impact of your company’s leadership on your employees? Your organization? Your market? The community?

As you address these kinds of questions, make a commitment to raise the bar on the level of leadership that exists in your organization. Build your bench strength, but don’t let leaders sit too long. They’re anxious to lead.

Gayle Lantz is president of WorkMatters, Inc. www.workmatters.com, an organizational development consulting firm that can help your company improve performance through consulting, coaching and speaking services. For more free tips on how to improve your leadership bench strength and improve your organization's performance, Sign up for WorkMatters Tips at workmatters.com/signup .

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Sales Processes

There are quite a few pieces to the sales performance improvement puzzle - face-to-face selling skills, management style, coaching, account strategy, and so on. One piece that doesn't get much attention is the sales process. The simplest definition of “sales process” is “a linked group of tasks that together create customer value.”

Some sales processes are more effective than others. In his book, Rethinking the Sales Force, Huthwaite founder Neil Rackham asks seven questions that can help you evaluate your organization's sales process:

1.	Does your sales process reflect your customers' acquisition process? If it doesn't, it's working against you.
2.	Is your process self-correcting? Good sales process learns from real-world feedback.
3.	Does your process create value? Good sales process adds value for the customers, for the sales organization, and for the salespeople themselves.
4.	Does your process increase efficiency? If your process has made your selling cycle longer, it's time for a redesign.
5.	Does your process allow mortals to succeed? Nevermind the top performers - a good process should allow average salespeople to get better results.
6.	Is your process scaleable? The test is whether your sales process is a growth enabler or a growth inhibitor.
7.	Are your milestones objectively measurable events? Good process is based on events, not on activities.

The Operation Order (OPORD)

The OPORD or Operation Order is the single most important piece of mission planning. A directive issued by a commander to subordinate commanders for the purpose of affecting the coordinated execution of an operation. (Joint Pub 1-02)

The format has not changed much over the years because of it's effective nature. Every troop has experience with them and if you're in a leadership position you better know the format by memory. To hammer the subject home, the Army Rangers have a 10' 10' board at the entrance to the infamous Darby Queen obstacle course outlining the OPORD and stress the importance of reading it twice.

When used effectively, it is possible to gain complete clarity of mission goals and execution. These are created by Generals for the important task of maneuvering troops on the ground and for much smaller tasks of getting some ice in downtown Nasiriya.

Having this clarity on your obstacles, goals, and plan of execution hands troops the power of the outcome. Imagine going into battle and having your commanding officer say "Here you are, now go North and do something." What do you do? We'll save the discussion about being set up for failure later. Lets focus on the solutions for a while.

You NEED a plan and most of us unless we have had some exposure to mission/project planning in the past have zero clue on what to do next. As my Drill Sergeant used to say. "Without clarity, there is chaos." He left out that sometimes there is chaos anyways. But it's always better to have a plan.

The same is true in business. Since I am a sales guy, I'll use that as the example. I have created an OPORD for every one of my positions since I understood what they do. If you play semantics with me for a moment, I'll explain.

1. Situation (Whats going on?)

a. Enemy. (Who are my target companies)

(1)Weather. (Is the industry hot or cold?)

(2)Terrain. (Do they have an advantage because of market share, informed sales people?)

(3)Enemy Forces. (Who's the competition?)

b. Friendly. (Do you have partners to help with the goal?)

c. Attachments and detachments.

2. Mission.

This is an explanation of what you plan to accomplish. Not a short summary of what you want, put some thought into it and write out a couple paragraphs of 'what' you want and 'why' it NEEDS to happen.

My goal is to saturate my sales region with information about the NetSuite product learning the details of the businesses I come in contact with and understanding their needs. Working with them to solve their pain by implementing a solution that gives them business clarity and a means to create a positive cash flow.

By doing this I will gain new contacts in a growing industry by selling awesome products and gaining market share for my growing company insuring a long and profitable career in sales.

That's just an example.

3. Execution. (this is where the rubber meets the road.)

a. Concept of the Operation (Understanding line item 1 how are you going to position yourself?)

b. Specific tasks. ( How many calls are you going to have to make? How many hours are you going to put into it? Brainstorm on everything you can think of that will bring about the result you want.)

c. Coordinating instructions. (What marketing campaigns are being executed? What features are being released? Create a starting point.)

4. Service Support. (Who's going to help you?)

a. General. (Who's in your chain of command, managers peers?)

b. Material and Services. (What tools do you have available? White papers, demonstrations, communication tools?)

c. Medical evacuation and treatment. (When something goes wrong in the deal, who do you turn to?)

d. Personnel. (Do you have product marketing or engineers to back you up?)

e. Miscellaneous. (Every other support platform you can use.)

5. Command and Signal (Who do you report to and how do you close the deal?)

a. Command. (Usually your boss.)

b. Signal. (Ring the bell!!)

6. POC (Point of Contact) (Sign your name.)

This seems like sales 101, but I'd venture to say that 60% of the sales professionals I know do not have a clear written plan of what needs to be done and how they plan on achieving the task. and the other 30% never follow through. The 10% of high achievers in any company will have some variation of this report handy and revise it as needed.

For sales people, having a plan and executing it, is the difference between steak, lobster and a BMW or PB&J and a Yugo. Consistently hitting your numbers or worrying how you are going to pay the bills this month. Where do you fall in the mix?

Some sales methodologies use the same principles and they call them 'Blue Sheets' using Miller Heiman as an example. What ever you call it. You WILL get further in your career by having a plan to get there!

The difference between business and war.

This is a topic I find myself thinking about more often than not. Mainly I believe that people in general understand and excel at things they feel most comfortable and confident with. When you can put an unfamiliar scenario or topic into terminology and draw on past experiences you have had through your life, you will understand them and relate to them in a more positive and effective way. You can train your mind to learn anything you want by doing this. But I digress a little.

By the comparison between business and war, I am not trying to trivialize the boots on the ground. Being an ex-soldier myself, war in it's rawest form is a very dark subject. What I mean to do with this series of posts is generalize and raise specific points of tactics and training I have had and how the parallel between being in the trenches is the same with business as the military when it all boils down to it. Many of you in the business world may already be familiar with some of the terms I bring up. I'll be separating each topic into it's own post as time goes on. Here is the first.

I will start with the most basic. If the fundamental steps are not taken before your work day or before your next mission, you have already begun the process of failure.

Discipline defined: 1 a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order b : orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior.

My personal definition is "Doing the right thing all of the time regardless of who is or is not watching."

The concept of discipline was drilled, pounded and beat into me as a recruit in the US Army. The wonderful Drill Sergeants I had made sure I/we understood this from day one. Because without it, the transition between being a civilian and becoming a soldier would never happen.

The same concept rains true in business. Following direction and doing your job seem like adolescent comments, but where would you be with out them?

Day one of basic training after the initial shark attack. (This is the event that takes place the moment you walk off the bus. When the fear of God is being thrown at you. A dozen men that look like NFL linebackers, that want nothing more than to yell and yell some more.) I was standing at attention in formation getting directions from the Drill Sergeant running the 40 man platoon and before he released us he gave one order that superseded everything. "Each of you will drop and do 15 push ups after you are released. Not just this formation, but EVERY formation for the duration of Basic Training. There is a standard in the Army and everyone will meet it, my platoon will exceed it!" You could feel the unpleasantness in the air from the recruits. Formations can be held 4 or 40 times a day, between that and the daily regiment of push ups that were going to be dealt out by all of the Drill Sgt's as physical punishment, that was surely going to be a lot of pain. To lock in the deal, he made a statement to the other Drill Sgt's and their platoons that we would have this extra duty and he wanted to know if someone did not comply.

From that moment on in every formation, if it was at 1PM or 1AM we would drop and follow our orders. We hated it. At first we were laughed at by the other platoons. We had to do twice as many push ups as the rest of the unit. They and we thought that having to do this was for the shear pleasure of our Drill Sergeant. His own personal evil desires. We sweat for his smile. Even when our Drill Sgt went away for a couple of days and the other Sgt's could care less if we did them. Even telling us we could take a break while he was gone. We did them anyway. Partly because we feared a man that was on vacation, partly because we knew we had to.

Towards the end of Basic Training our platoon hit the final phase of training. Since our platoon was breaking training records and being as high speed as we could. The Drill Sgt congratulated us on our work thus far and asked what we would like as a 'reward'. We could have anything within reason. The concept of a reward was well beyond us at that point. We were machines, we did what we were told. We didn't know what we should ask for. One of the recruits asked if we could stop doing the extra push ups and only do the ordinary 150-200 each day. The Platoon Sergeant asked if the rest of the recruits agreed with this. All of us looked around at each other and then agreed that this would be a great 'reward'. By the look on the Sergeants face we either called his mother a 4 letter word or just ran over his beloved dog. He said something so profound that only a Drill Sgt could have thought of it.

He explained to all of us that from this moment on we were no longer required to do the push ups at the end of each formation. But there is a distinct difference between a good soldier and a great one. That difference is discipline. Even though we are no longer required to drop, if we want to retain our honor we would exercise discipline and continue the push ups because it is the right thing to do. Each of us had been following this order for months and all of us had received the pain as well as the benefits. We had been able to get stronger than many of the other platoons which helped us break those records. Which was how we got into the position we were now in. Discipline is doing the right thing all of the time. Don't cut corners and do your best. Hold yourself to that standard and develop it continually. That's discipline. That's what we had exercised. He told us to remember that. He made a statement to the other platoons assembled in the area that we were no longer required to do the push ups.

He called us to attention and released us. One by one we dropped and threw out 15 push ups. By then 15 was a piece of cake. After a few seconds we started standing up and realized that we could have asked for anything. An extra 30 minutes of sleep, a day pass, anything within reason. We chose to ask for something that was literally 12-15 seconds of time and as easy as reciting my 3 General Orders. Doom on us. We were recruits, not the sharpest forks in the drawer.

We continued the extra duty for the duration of Basic Training. With all of the other classes and events that transpired, we kept the idea of discipline in our heads. Without being asked or told we did the right things. Knowing that discipline was what made us better than we ever were.

That belief is just as true now in business as it was for me in Basic Training for me over eight years ago. Do the right thing all of the time regardless of who is or is not watching. Do you hold yourself to a standard in your daily work life? Are you making all of the calls you need to make everyday? Even when your boss is out of the office? Do you meet and try to exceed the standard? There are many capable and promising professionals out there. Only some of them are actually disciplined. That's what separates the good from the great.

All of us know what the standard is. If you don't, you better ask someone quick. The idea of the standard is for you to know what is expected. What is expected is for you to exceed that standard. Work hard, lead from the front, do your job.

For the next post I'll go over one of the fundamental planning techniques I know. The OPORD or Operation Order. These are used all of the time in the military and I'll explain how they will help you gain laser focused clarity on your job or project and give you the road map to execute and complete your task.

Leadership101

“I will not send troops to danger which I will not myself encounter.” ----The Duke of Marlborough

I believe that the only advantage that the great leaders have over the good leaders is that GREAT ones will stand on the field with their men. We need leaders who are not just willing, but are inclined to lead from the front. Leaders show their people that a task is not impossible and that what-ever happens, they will be standing with you if the pieces fall to the floor.

While deployed, I had some of the best leaders I may ever meet. People who under the most chaotic of times, stood up, looked at their men and said “Follow Me!” Being in a leadership position myself I was naturally drawn to that mentality and was always looking for the opportunity to take all of the risk and make the decision for the benefit of my men.

That’s not to say that I’ve also met “leaders” that were sub-standard. One that comes to mind for me is the person who is awarded a Bronze Star for having soldiers who stepped up to every challenge that was thrown at them and then never thanks his troops for what they have done. (Unless the cameras were on.) The fact is that we found out about the medal through the grape-vine because this "“leader” was embarrassed to say anything to the soldiers. You see, he knew he didn’t deserve this award.


Being a leader means that you take responsibility of the people you look over. Using your influence to set them up for success and not failure. Regardless of the mission, or the project, leaders should be looking out for the best interests of their team. Leaders take every opportunity to motivate their people because they know that if the people aren’t happy, their also not doing their job to a 100%.

People are not born with a ‘leader’ gene. Leaders are created. Through sweat and hard work. People who make the conscious decision to take charge only have half of the puzzle. True leadership comes from taking charge and having the wisdom to know what will work. I watched a 20 year old kid that had a hard time standing up for himself turn into a man that could tell someone twice his size and rank for that matter “I am right and you are wrong!” Believe me, I was floored when I saw this happen. The kid had so much conviction in his voice the person twice his size was broken down. The fact is that the kid was right. He saw that his friends were being handed to the wolves and he wanted to do something about it. He knew it was the right thing to do and he took charge of it. Leaders own their responsibility and don’t care if they look bad doing the right thing.

In reality, leaders will make mistakes. It happens. But leaders will be the first to stand up and say it and have a solution that will correct the problem.

I find myself focusing on the leadership that is always surrounding me. From my office, to the people that we vote into office. Which of these are real leaders? Will your management stand by you or hide in their office when the right thing needs to be done? Will the people you work with own their responsibility or push the blame on others? We live in turbulent times both in politics and the business world. Wars are being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Corporations are being bought, sold and dismantled. All of these things are out of my pay scale, but I can decide that I will be a leader for the people around me and I will hold my leaders to a higher standard because they have the position of influence. For the rest of you, make a conscious decision to be a leader or a follower. There is no wrong answer. Just make the choice. Its one of the most important decisions you will ever make!

“Lead, follow or get out of the way.” ---lee Iacocca