Lies, damn lies and statistics

As an avid follower on LinkedIn I was following (and participating) on a discussion concerning what percentage of target should we expect sales people to achieve. One of the contributors, from a well known sales methodology and training company, excitingly told us that "in our annual sales performance study we have consistently found that 78% - 80% of your revenue comes from 20%- 22% of sales reps"!

Now it doesn't take a genius to recognise that Pareto's law (80:20) drives our lives and that there must be better things to do than spend money on a survey that states the obvious. Perhaps we should conduct a survey of surveys to find out that 80% of surveys tell us what we already knew and 20% are just made up stats.

Isn't it about time consultants stopped trying to be clever and instead tried to help their clients help themselves!

By the way can anyone tell me the time as I have a client who needs to know the time........

If you don't ask you will not hear

I recently facilitated a workshop between an account team and their client, the silence from the account team was deafening! They seemed in awe of the CIO, who was remarkably open about his issues, but not one question came from the account team. In fact the only contribution from the team was to try and invite the CIO to an open day and even though he politely declined they had 2 more attempts.

So why is this? I can only assume that the account team are so used to customers buying technology that they could not deal with "business issues" that the CIO wanted to talk about.

Does this sound familiar. So what can we do about it.

1. Let's ensure that we coach our people in asking questions beyond the technology
2. Give them a structure to follow, it does not have to be complicated but they should find out about: Current projects; financial challenges; strategic imperatives; risks that may concern them; buying process, etc.
3. Attend meetings and watch them do it
4. Ensure that they not only ask the questions, but also listen to the answers

By the way, I am sure you want to know what happened with the meeting, well we uncovered 2 major opportunities that are driven by the need to create a more flexible business model, move from a fixed cost to a variable cost model, provide high service levels, and a desire to move to utility pricing. Now it is over to the account team

Sales Coaching - easily said but often poorly executed

Someone once asked me if I had a mentor to which I replied, "yes hundreds". What I meant was I try to learn something from everyone I meet. In effect I use others great tools, techniques and ways of learning for my own personal growth.

I guess it is a kind of self coaching - learning from others by listening, observing and trying something new.

I coach many people and one of the things I am often told is, "I don't have a coach or a mentor and that is why I am not improving. My boss just doesn't have the time to coach me".

How about using all of your business and personal encounters as opportunities to be coached?

Now I am not advocating that you do not need a coach to help you improve - maybe that is your boss, perhaps it is a mentor outside of your immediate job - but you can use your everyday encounters as coaching sessions. Listen to how some people introduce themselves, observe how some carry themselves, look out for tips on how to act in certain situations when you are with your clients.

Treat everyone you meet as somebody you can learn from and be "coached" by. The difference between being managed and being coached is that managing is about data, projects, doing stuff. Coaching is about improving by communicating, adapting and trying out different methods and ways of doing stuff.

In these challenging times change is inevitable and indeed healthy. Those who thrive will be the ones who are constantly learning, constantly coaching themselves and constantly improving.