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Christmas rewind… Your New Year’s sales stock take
Well, it’s that lovely time of year in Australia where things wind down a little for Christmas. We are taking the opportunity to spend a few weeks away from the blog, in order to focus on other business priorities and perhaps even spend more time with family and friends.
For that reason, we are going to have a ‘rewind’ – a chance to revisit some of our favourite posts from the past 12 months – starting with one that encourages good use of this Christmas and January ‘down time’. A very very happy holidays to you all.
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Your New Year’s sales stock take
5 things your sales team should look at as you head into a new year
It’s a frantic time of year for retail sales. First the Christmas rush, then the last-minute Christmas rush (that’d be me) and straight into the New Year sales. There is not a lot of time to come up for air and much of the planning for this period would have taken place some months ago.
By contrast, in business-to-business sales, the end of the year and beginning of the next is a good time to take stock and re-look at the basics; make sure you are on track for a great year to come.
I certainly don’t mean drop everything and don’t worry about selling. Oh no. But while many people are on holidays and more relaxed, and delaying buying decisions for a few weeks, how about taking a good, hard look at what you are doing and whether it’s still the right approach for you?
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself and your sales team
1) Do we know every milestone in our sales process and can we track it?
People aren’t robots and each sale is different; each relationship is different. But they do share commonalities and if you identify these and track them, you have a more measurable and predictable sales pipeline. Business planning becomes far easier. Nice.
2) Are we using all tools available to us?
By this I mean do you keep an eye on the wider context? Could a more concentrated use of LinkedIn, or some other social networking tools, play a greater role? How about face-to-face networking… do you plan for this and build enough into your year?
3) Do we pull others in to help when we need to?
Sales is not something to leave to the sales team. Like marketing and brand, it is the job of everyone in the company. As a sales person, are you able to recognise when including someone with other expertise in meetings would further your case? Don’t forget the expertise across the wider organisation.
4) Are we cross-selling or up selling to our loyal customers?
Don’t just make a sale and move on to the next new customer. Once people have used your products or services (and hopefully loved them!), they are far more likely to continue buying than someone who has never had the relationship with you. I know you know this. But so many people forget, that it’s something worthy of continual reminders.
5) Do you know how people are really using your product or service?
Are you filling a need you were not even aware of? Have a chat with your customers and really understand how your product or service fits into their business life and how (or if) it makes it easier. This is the path to innovation and expansion. And that’s a good path to be on.
Happy New (sales) year to you all. I wish you success and happiness!
Don’t just leave waste to the waste management industry: What you need to know
Don’t just leave waste to the waste management industry
We did not expect a fashion parade, dancing and big trucks when we signed up to exhibit at the Australian Waste & Recycling Expo earlier this month. But that’s just a little of what we got.
The Expo was a truly worthwhile event. The organisers and exhibitors did a fantastic job at making waste fun, as well as looking at the big issues facing the industry. I think my real takeout was that waste is not just a waste industry issue though; it is an issue for each and every person.
For that reason, and for those of you who were not there, I thought I’d summarise the two biggest things in waste right now.
First, the implementation of the newly passed Carbon Tax legislation. On 8 November 2011, the Gillard government passed a carbon tax in the Senate. Rob Oakeshott, Federal MP and Member for Lyne was present at this conference as a keynote speaker. He presented to the delegates about the implications of this tax and how the waste industry was involved, specifically with regards to the landfill management side of our industry. You can read the full speech here.
And, second, the proposed Container Deposit Legislation (CDL). The South Australian Government has had a working CDL System for sometime, using current municipal systems and other initiatives to support the viability of this system. Currently, each individual state is exploring various schemes; with the Northern Territory recently following South Australia’s policy lead with an eye on implementing this system. A national scheme has also been proposed. Attempts to introduce similar legislation in other states have been unsuccessful to date. It will be interesting to see how this pans out, with all schemes having significant impact on the waste management industry.
academy strives to play its waste management part via education, by targeting sustainability in all of our training packages. We also conduct public place recycling training. We were very proud to be the only training company represented at the Expo and are already looking forward to next year’s event!
Leadership training for servants
Leaders who serve get results
Why humble businesses make money
Australians are not, generally, very good at being humble. Luckily, the flip side of that is that not too many of us lord it above others either, but I digress.
We have a largely egalitarian society, with an egalitarian ethos. Good old ‘tall poppy syndrome’ flourishes here, partly because we believe in equality so – as a collective – will knock people off their perches.
But it’s not the flashy high achievers I want to talk about today. It’s the inherent power of leadership through humility – a servant mentality.
Businesses may exist to make money, but they only ever do this if they provide service. They cannot lose sight of the fact that they are there to make their clients’ lives easier or better in some way; they are there to solve a problem.
Every single person in a business should operate this way; from the accounts person who provides a payment service, to the HR manager who helps manage people, to the sales person who can’t just sell, but must serve as well (in fact, the two should be interchangeable!).
But all this will come to naught if the senior leaders of the company are ‘in it for themselves’. A servant mentality has to come from the top. And the people the leaders most need to serve are both the company’s employees and its clients.
Our executive development training course, Influential Leadership, focuses on ‘leadership by influence’ rather than ‘leadership by position’.
A leader who serves the people impacted by his or her business (both internal and external) will logically see increased productivity and effectiveness, enhanced branding, streamlined operations (because the leader has worked with people to optimise processes) – and all that before you even get to the potential impact on sales.
A leader’s role in the value chain is essentially to unlock the value of everyone else.
Some leaders behave this way naturally, some realise the potential and model the behaviour and some simply need a small perception shift. Whatever the case, it is worth the time to consider how you lead, not just what you are trying to achieve. In the land of not-so-tall-poppies, leadership by influence will always be far more effective than leadership by position.
Social consumers. Social business.
Brands aren't talking on social media... and they should be
A look at social media and its role in Australian contact centres
The numbers in social media are big, and growing all the time. Facebook is here to stay in Australia, with 10.4 million Australian accounts (half the population!), and Twitter is a big niche… 1.9 million individual Australians accessed Twitter in the month of June 2011. In the same month, two million separate Australians logged on to LinkedIn.
At last week’s Australian Teleservices Association (ATA) NSW Social Media breakfast (which we were delighted to sponsor), we also found out:
- Two years ago there were two million tweets a day, now it’s 200 million
- 12% of consumer tweets mention a brand (and 90% of tweets come from consumers)
- Brand types mentioned most often are social networks themselves (22%), entertainment brands (17%) and technology brands (17%)
- Why people follow brands on Twitter is discounts (66%), contests (48%), interesting tweets (47%) and customer service (30%)
- 800 million people around the world are now on Facebook, which is 28% of the world’s internet population
Just from this, you can already see there is a big opportunity here. Still. Brands are not conversing with their customers; brands are being talked about, not with.
Social media might evolve and change shape, but the basic form of communication is here to stay for some time – and it is led by the consumer. Brands that do a good job in this space will have the opportunity to form relationships with a significant percentage of their potential customers.
The breakfast participants also heard about what is happening with social media in Australian contact centres, via the September 2011 ATA and academy survey. You can see full results of that survey on the ATA website here.
With around 50% of contacts centres using social media (some with confidence and some dabbling), and the other half still assessing it or finding it not yet relevant, it appears the industry is on the cusp of determining the best way to provide customer service via social media.
The other finding that really stood out for me was that one quarter of contact centre managers believe that how staff use social media, and the ability to monitor its use by employees, is still the biggest challenge they have in this area. Well-trained and confident staff are vital to social media success.
Which brings me to the takeouts, as presented by communications consultant Linda Collard. These are brief here, but please feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss ideas or concepts.
Social media only works if it’s social.
- Absolutely key is trust, story telling and human connections
- Measure your efforts, but measure the right things. For example, consider measuring business change that resulted from consumer input, rather than number of fans or follows.
- If it’s about minimising complaints and making your customer go away, there may be issues. For this to truly work, listen. Make changes. Companies must care.
How do you do this?
- Empower (and train) your best brand ambassadors, your employees
- Listen, and be committed to improving the customer experience
- Don’t be afraid to talk with customers
- The social consumer has already changed, business needs to catch up fast
For more on the ATA and academy social media in Australian contact centres survey results, please visit here. Also, keep an eye out for other ATA social media events in early 2012.
Keeping it real at work
Authenticity, success and value
Authenticity is something of a buzzword at the moment. You read about it in business, marketing and sales press, especially in relation to online presence and branding. Authentic Leadership has been the subject of extensive study and thought for some years.
Buzzwords aside, authenticity has probably always been key to any successful person – and by extension, company. It’s not a new idea, just a new application of it.
In business – and in life – be you.
On one level, it is a silly thing to say… who else are you going to be? But reminding yourself of it all the time helps in a few areas.
Personal success in the workplace
Whether you are leading people, building relationships with clients or providing the best possible service for customers (or all three), authenticity is expected and demanded.
Think about leaders you respect. It’s probably their moments of humanity, the tear wiped away in a time of trauma, the heartfelt and unscripted speech, the admission of mistakes and the rising above them, that you admire most. But if there’s even a hint that this has been ‘put on’, you turn the other way.
In our always-on, connected world, people know when you are giving them a show (so don’t do it!). What’s more, others react positively to knowing the real you and perhaps even glimpsing some of your hopes and dreams. People love real people.
Business success, selling more!
The same principle carries over to selling stuff. And let’s face it, if you are a success in business, somewhere along the way you have sold a lot of stuff – be it products or services.
The more unique you can be, the less price competition you will face. A sense of exclusivity, accessing a one-off, and people feel special. One example is of course hand-made or customised goods. You can customise almost anything… from shoes, apparel, through to even board games (Monopoly with your own streets!).
In the world of services, you live and die by customisation. academy prides itself in giving people their learning in context and tailored to their needs. While we offer nationally accredited courses, the extra value – the exclusivity – comes in taking that accredited curriculum and turning it into something that speaks to each and every client’s individual needs.
How does your business express its uniqueness?
A smart idea from a small business
You don't have to be the big cheese to have great ideas
I’ve written before about Small Business September, a month-long series of events addressing business issues run by the NSW Government. The launch event was really quite inspiring.
Kochie, the Sunrise host and business commentator who was MC-ing, peppered the event with anecdotes and gems he gathers while interviewing some of Australia’s leading business people.
But one story he told was not about a leading light of business – and it was probably the one that inspired me the most. After all, we cannot all be leading lights, but we can all apply the same business principles for our own success.
Kochie’s story was about his local newsagent.
After enjoying some fairly extensive business from Kochie for some months (when you’re in the media, you read!), the newsagent invited he, his wife and a few other good customers for wine and cheese just after closing one evening. A nice way to give back to cherished customers, right?
Or was it?
You see, after a bit of chit chat and a couple of glasses of wine, the newsagent started asking questions about his business… how to improve it, fishing for new ideas and so on. He was basically running a focus group.
More power to him. He told the assembled group that the best business ideas he ever had came from his customers… so he keeps asking. There is something so simple and so smart about this.
Obviously you provide what your customers want – our customer contact courses are built on that idea – but, also, if your customers have suggested a business initiative for you, they will feel ownership. They will work more actively, be it via word of mouth or whatever, to boost your business too.
Smart man, that newsagent.
Your customer is in pain… and you are just the person to fix it.
Fix your customer's pain
Tips from sales training to you
It was at the recent launch of Small Business September that one of the speakers uttered words we should all live by:
“Find your customer’s pain. Find the pain you solve.”
We all know that.
But it’s fairly easy to get caught up in not getting through to the decision-maker, bemoaning the current economic pessimism, or attributing some other reason to why you are not making those sales.
Often there is a real reason that right here, right now, you were not able to make a sale. But, if you always – always – think of your customer and their needs, I am convinced you will make more sales. After all, assuming you have a great product or service, you are selling a solution to their problem.
The example given at the launch was a great one actually. One small business owner was producing organic snack foods and having a tough time getting his product in front of the people who could distribute it to a wider market. Off the cuff, the speaker said, “So you say… “organic food is growing 60% (or whatever) year-on-year and this product enables you to tap into that growth story…”. Even if you have to leave that message on someone’s voicemail.
For our business at academy, we can help companies reduce turnover, increase productivity, reduce the need for supervision, improve job satisfaction, reward people and even attract great talent when recruiting. We can help take away a world of pain. But the challenge exists for us too. We need to first understand each client’s pain – and then work incredibly hard to remove it for them.
Flip it around for a moment and think about the last time someone understood your needs. It genuinely gives you a good feeling. Be the person who gives that feeling.
How do you find your client’s pain? And how do you make it go away?
Why doesn’t my team come up with business ideas?
Why doesn't your team come up with ideas?
Today’s post comes courtesy of Steve McLean, one of our highly knowledgeable financial services training specialists. Steve has some disturbing news for many managers…
When I sit down to discuss our financial services training with managers across Australia, I quite often hear, “I want my staff to come forward with positive ideas to improve the business.”
Makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, who knows the business like the people working in it day-to-day, dealing with your customers, using the processes.
But there is a disconnect here. And potentially a huge loss of innovation and productivity in many Australian businesses.
When I am in training sessions, I pose the question, “Do you take your ideas to your team leader or manager?”. Often the answer is no. Yikes.
So what stops your staff from presenting new ideas?
“I wouldn’t know what to say”
“They wouldn’t listen to me”
“I just come and do my job”
“I don’t have time”
“I presented an idea to my manager once and they took all the credit for it”
What can we do about it? academy helps by teaching skills your team members need in order to come up with positive ideas like:
- Identifying problems that need to be solved
- Thinking outside the box
- Bringing solutions not problems
- Writing a proposal with a recommendation
- Being open to feedback
- Not expecting that every new idea can be implemented
- Seeing the big picture beyond the immediate job
We can also help managers learn how to create an environment where new ideas are welcomed. There also seems to be a growing movement to create KPIs around continuous improvement and I applaud that.
What do you do to ensure your team knows they can come forward?
Waste not, want not
5 inspiring waste management opportunities… from chopsticks to barcodes
Our academy Green team conducts waste management training with Local Government and private enterprise waste management companies. We believe that waste is not rubbish, but an opportunity.
Our courses are designed to help all participants understand that, not only are they engaged in work that will help their organisation, they are also helping the world be more efficient with its resources.
Most of us recycle our paper, glass and plastics these days, but there are loads of other opportunities too. Nearly any business that produces waste can find something else to do with it. For example, there is the opportunity to feed the hungry via leftover restaurant meals. OzHarvest does a spectacular job and has ‘rescued’ over 8 million meals to date to feed the needy.
It made me wonder what other waste management opportunities were out there…? Here are some inspiring examples that I found:
1. An entire waste management education centre created from (what else?) waste in Texas. Do have an explore via the video.
2. Absolutely spectacular light fittings made from landfill plastic bottles in South Africa… scroll down to the interview to see pictures and read how they are made.
You can find up-to-date information on the designer here.
3. An entire website devoted to people making things themselves, many from household products or materials that would otherwise go to waste.
4. A chic clutch purse made from barcodes.
5. In China alone, an estimated 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are thrown out annually. I hate to think how big that number grows when you add in the rest of Asia and beyond. Enter… chopstick art!
These are just a few of the ideas and re-uses for materials out there. It’s not rubbish, it’s opportunity.
What does Vegemite have to do with sales training?
Simon Bennett on the fly during sales training
Some of the most interesting people I know, with the best stories, work here at academy. Earlier this week I went for a coffee and a chat with one of our sales training guys, Simon Bennett.
Simon has an interesting background. Like many people, he discovered the joys of training people by accident. After 11 years in Asia and Europe – working as a motorcycle tour leader, a dive instructor, in bars, at whatever furthered his adventurous travels – Simon found himself back in Australia and looking for a career. He applied his travel experience and spent four years with Singapore Airlines, much of that training people within the organisation’s global network.
And thus a truly passionate trainer evolved. The beauty of training, of course, comes when you are led by someone who ‘gets’ the real world as well as the course material. That combination is certainly enjoyed by Simon’s students.
I asked Simon a little about his more than three years with academy…
What is that keeps you training Simon? What do you most like about your job?
I love the creative outlet, love it. Training is ‘always on’ and a performance in some ways, guiding people to be the best they can be. I enjoy passing on things that I know, and learning the things that my students know.
I get a huge amount of satisfaction from teaching Business Sales to a group over 12 months, but also love the occasional one-off sales motivational seminars. They are very intense and it takes me hours to come down.
Why do you like sales training?
I like sales people. I love people who can stick with the challenges of sales and emerge with a smile. I love the power struggles we sometimes enjoy in a room full of talented sales people, all trying to prove themselves to each other – and to me. I love the dynamics of the room when it’s full of sales people.
They test me. There’s always one or two who test me at the beginning – to see how much I know – and I relish it.
How do you kick sales training off if you know that’s coming?
We always establish what type of sales people we have in the room. People tend to either be relationship builders, who can build rapport with others, and get things done that way. Or they might be stronger at discipline and process.
Rapport or discipline… if you are good at one of those things you have the right stuff to be an excellent sales person.
If you hire a sales person and they have both these things, within a year, they will either have your job or have moved the next step in another way. That’s my bold prediction!
So just two types of sales people…?
Well, no, there are all the shades in between, but that’s a great starting point for understanding people’s strengths.
Oh, there is a third type! The song and dance, chuck hard sell, sell ice to Eskimos, type. I always show the ‘ShamWow’ guy in my class and people know exactly what I mean!
[At this point, someone sitting opposite us butts in and says “Oh yeah, the ShamWow guy… that’s direct response TV at its best!”]
So do you learn from participants too?
Wow, do I! I am constantly learning from participants. I’ve had three personal promotion / sales type jobs so I have three views from that… the rest I get from all the professional sales people through our doors. My material and my knowledge gets better and better from all the accumulated experience I am lucky enough to have access to.
What’s something, a little tip, you have learnt?
Well, I always remember the guys whose best sales tip was to get people talking about Vegemite. It kind of breaks the ice… people wonder why they are talking about Vegemite, nearly everyone has an opinion on it, and this guy had the opportunity to build rapport. People were taken aback so gave him a little more time.
Of course there are many ways to do this… but your ultimate goal is to get the person talking, to get them to tell you their motivation to buy.
So what do people who are already good at sales learn from you?
It depends on the person. If they are good at rapport, we look to build on that and then include some discipline and process into what they do too. And vice versa.
Plus the more sales techniques you have up your sleeve, the better. You are dealing with real people, people who don’t have the sales script and might respond to you in infinite ways. The more you know, the more ideas and skills you have, the better.
