Sales tips, leadership communication skills insight and more from Steve Giglio, sales training professional for more than 25 years.

Helping Clients Handle the Brexit and Other Dramatic Events 

Union Jack flag wrinkled“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
-Helen Keller

The Brexit for many is a daring event, one rife with stress either real or conjured. Living in a world where the global economy affects so many businesses, right now your clients and business partners may be at a point of panic.  What next? This is your time to demonstrate why they have you as a trusted adviser. Are you going to figure out the answer to the financial crisis? No. But the larger question is how will you allay clients fear, worry and trepidation when these type of events occur. Here are four actions to take right now:

Action #1: Listen

Similar to 9/11 or the 2008 market crash, people will need to vent their Brexit frustrations and fears. Let them. Listen without any bias. Just understand HOW they’re feeling. Don’t fix anything (like we could). The more clients feel you’re there for them the more they will share with you. The more they share their issues with you the clearer of thought they become. Once they’ve turned this corner you can then offer your context to the reactivating event that has rocked them.

Action #2: Over-communicate

Let your clients hear from you…often. Find out what they need. Keep them up to date on your actions. They need to know you are “on it” and that whatever they might be fearing as a result of a major event like the Brexit, you’ve got your stuff covered. That frees them to focus on other areas that are unstable.

Action #3: Be Available

I remember throughout my childhood how available my father was as a surgeon to his patients. Some nights after dinner he’d get dressed and be out the door on his way to a house call. This never went over well with my mother but, throughout the years, it showed me how deeply connected my father was to his patients. Many never forgot my father from his deep empathy and availability. Show that same level of connection with your clients. Answer their calls, respond to emails or texts at any time of day or night (for now…don’t get trapped in that habit). Let them know that you are there for them “in the fox hole” and are operating at the same level of heightened urgency as they are.

Action #4: Understand Their future

Know their future. It’s important to understand the future your clients see. Once they feel you’ve captured their future, they’re then in a position to action the initiatives you recommend to neutralize their upset.

As they say, this too shall pass. For now, you can remain calm and let your clients know that they’ve chosen wisely in you as their partner. They will remember that when they assess how the crisis was handled.

What’s the biggest issue facing your clients as a result of the Brexit? Let us know with a reply below. Thanks! -SG

Change the Conversation

two business men sitting and talkingOn a recent client assignment, I realized my client’s team could greatly increase their resonance with current and prospective clients by changing their conversations with them. Far too often business development consultants and leaders of teams have too many peripheral conversations, not intimate ones. It happens outside of normal business, too.

Here’s an example from my recent visit to the hospital for what turned out to an appendectomy. While I spent a good amount of time under the care of nurses, the doctor was almost a no-show…except the for the surgery of course. His visit was all of two minutes, during which he diagnosed the issue and said I needed surgery. Never saw him again. Imagine if you tried that with your clients! Sure, he discovered what was wrong but, in no way did he establish any kind of rapport or relationship. Now…his resume/experience kind of speaks for itself or he wouldn’t be a doctor. Yours, however, doesn’t. You need to work at it and you can start by changing your conversations.

Peripheral vs. Intimate Conversations

By peripheral I mean being at the edge of something with a client or direct report but NOT actually inside the issue. By intimate I mean being closely acquainted and familiar with the issue along side the client or direct report. I recommended to my client they forge two types of conversations; a discovery conversation then a solution conversation.

Discovery, Then Solution

The discovery conversation must be facilitated in a confident, wise, unflinching manner. This requires homework. It also requires a bit of curious assumption.

Asking questions that begin with “From my research I noticed that XYZ has occurred…how has this affected your business?” illustrate a good level of homework and courage.

You can also drive an intimate conversation with questions such as these:

  • What is mission critical to your business this year?
  • What are the challenges/headwinds that have prevented this from being achieved?
  • What have you and your team committed to this year?
  • What factors make up your top three challenges?
  • What’s the consequence if you’re not able to surmount these issues?
  • What must success look like this year?

Asking these questions requires a sincere desire to be intimate with your client. They also change the conversation by finding your client’s pain and remaining in it to drive the urgency to resolve it.

What kind of conversations are you having with clients? How is it working? Can you see the questions listed here helping? Let me know in the replies below. – SG

Presentation Tips: Planning, Controlling and Closing

I’ve been coaching executives and sales teams for a while now. And I have found there are three main areas in which people have at least one weakness when it comes to presentations or sales calls. It’s either they aren’t planning their meetings well enough, they lose control of the meeting, or (in some case AND), they avoid closing for fear of “selling” or looking bad.

In this video, I take a look at all three:

If you watched that video and at any point said, “That’s me!”…don’t worry. I get that a lot when I talk about these three areas. Setting an agenda, staying in control of the conversation and then effectively closing are skills that, once developed, can help you produce stronger results. The three combined will help you be heard and create a relationship, which is paramount to gaining and keeping the trust of your clients. What you’ve also illustrated is a good degree of empathy towards your client and confidence to run a productive meeting. They will appreciate that, and you, in the long run.

What area resonates with you the most? Let me know by replying below. Thanks! – SG

Barriers to Achieving Objectives, aka No Client Left Behind

Recently, a client lamented that he and his firm lost a multi-million dollar order. The CEO, who had not been involved in the process, stopped the expected transaction…after my client had invested a year’s worth of relationship building with the two execs that reported to the CEO. Hence the phrase; no client left behind!

I felt terrible for my client when I heard the news. As we deconstructed the crime, we realized there were THREE other executives who factored into the decision making process that were not met with, let alone tucked in. We’ve all heard and respected the phrase, “Selling starts at ‘No.'” My client didn’t get a chance to hear “No” from many decision makes until it was too late. A great client once said to me “In business, it’s always good to be a little paranoid.” He’s not wrong. In fact, this needs to be an operating principle.

The Money Guy Does The Talking

When you operate from the idea that something can always go wrong, you naturally understand it’s mission critical to determine early on in the process who the decision makers are who will factor into choosing, or not, your product or service. As I explain in the video below, it’s paramount not only to know who these people are but, to meet with them separately. Otherwise, you’ll only hear from the person in the room who makes the most money!

Do not only meet with people in a group. As you meet/vet each decision maker,  you will uncover what’s core to them relative to your recommendation. This will move you closer to a “Yes” and further away from the “No.” The executive will start to get a feeling that their individual wants and goals are being considered, giving them a vested interest in the outcome…not just a group mentality.

Understand Everyone’s Barriers

Many years ago, my first sales manager, Nick, once said to me “You’ve got five minutes to understand what the barriers are to your recommendation…and it’s the first five minutes.” That’s a little too abrupt, but he was correct in that as you initiate relationships with these four to six decision makers, you must understand what barriers could block you early on in the process. As Nick also said, “If you get the objection when you’re closing, it’s too late.” Give yourself a chance early to discover roadblocks and determine how to resolve them.

You’ve got to endear yourself first, then your recommendation, to each decision maker. You will do that by listening first, selling second.  The deeper you understand what’s important to each decision maker the clearer you’ll be in how to communicate and compel them.

Ever get blind-sided by a “silent” decision maker…the person you never knew about who holds the strings? Tell me about it in the comments. – SG

Seven Tips for Managing Millennials

two twenty or so year olds sitting in airport on phonesMillennials: the workforce born between 1977-97 that some estimate make up half the workers in the world. And with this diverse group, many of whom were raised in the “me” generation of the 1980’s, comes new challenges for companies looking to train executives and keep their talented sales teams motivated. Read more

Five 2nd Quarter Questions Every Leader Should Answer

question-mark-1019820_960_720Q2 of 2016 is at hand. We’re all working hard…let’s work smart too. As I coach executives, I remind them it’s not OK to only check-in with their associates and provide feedback. They need to check themselves, too. Here are five questions every leader should be asking, and answering, so that the rest of year is productive and their teams continue on their developmental paths.

Five Questions to Ask Yourself Now

What are my organization’s three mission-critical goals?

You established goals at the beginning of the year. Remember that? Seems like a long time ago. Things change. Did your company’s goals? Determine what they are now, and once you’ve pinpointed them, the next step is to have a clear plan to achieve them. It’s also important to assess the team you’ve got behind you.

  • Is this the “A” team?
  • What barriers are there?

Presenting these three goals to your organization is empowering and puts you in a leadership position.

How often do I speak with and learn from clients?

Reports are important but hearing and discerning a pattern of desires from clients is priceless. How fleet of foot is your organization in tailoring solutions for these important partnerships?
Meeting with clients keeps you sharp. It sends a great message…you’re in the fight with them. Right now…check your calendar…how many client meetings do you have in the new few weeks? How many have you had recently? If some of your clients haven’t heard from you much or at all this year, now is the time!

How well do I listen?

Assess how well you listen to your team and to your clients. Do you jump into a conversation too quickly with your own direction? Or, do you listen to affirm people? Listening is one of the most important skills a leader can possess. It is also one that gets ignored all-too frequently. Do you tend to want to be THE voice in the room? Perhaps your staff has taken note and holds back their contributions, which could be missed opportunities.

How am I stretching my “A” Players?

You must stretch your “A” Players. This act acknowledges their ability. Never let an “A” Player become complacent. They want challenges…they hunger for them (that’s how they got to be “A” players in the first place, right?).

What must I strengthen in my own comportment?

This answer takes courage to determine. Ask your top managers for their opinion. Taking stock of what you can strengthen and acting on it is highly motivating.

Asking these questions now will help you avoid issues when you wrap up 2016 later on. You will know that you kept yourself moving in a positive direction towards the companies goals, bringing your team along with you.

Which question is the hardest for you to answer? Let me know in the comments. And my advice is…tackle that one first! – SG

Coach? I Don’t Need a Coach!

1508In the 1980’s the Army had a great slogan I often use when introducing a coaching program to an executive; “Be all you can be.” That’s the essence of an executive development program…if you want it. The problem is, many think of coaching as a punishment or a sign that management is not happy with their performance. Most times, it’s quite the opposite!

There Is Honor in Being Coached

There is a great “badge of honor” associated with a coaching program. Your management team is saying, “You’re important to our business. We are going to invest in you so that you become all you can be.”

It is NOT a scarlet letter.
It is not the penalty box.
It is not a demotion.

Executives who worry about the above three labels are too worried about their image and not about growing in their leadership/management ability. What they should accept is that their manager is holding up a mirror so that the executive can get a good look at what’s working and what’s not. A coach will see behaviors in that mirror that perhaps the executive doesn’t want to admit are there and, instead of criticizing, will create a plan that helps eliminate them.

Why Do Leaders Need a Coach? from Stephen A. Giglio on Vimeo.

How to Succeed Through Coaching

To succeed though, requires TRUST:

  • in yourself, that you don’t have all the answers;
  • in your coach, that he/she wants only the best for you and will only stretch you in the places where they know you can stretch;
  • in the process, IT’S THE JOURNEY, NOT THE ARRIVAL.

Coaching is an exciting inquiry into who you are NOW and IDEALLY who you want to become, because YOU said so. Think about how many executives never get the opportunity to put the mirror in front of them and assess their behavior to their teams, public or shareholders. There are many reasons for this but one is simply that their direct superior either doesn’t see your potential and/or doesn’t want to offer it to you.

I’d rather have someone see my potential and say; “I believe in you. I believe that you can evolve into a top flight executive. There a few behaviors that are preventing you from fully succeeding here and I’m going to invest in a program that will develop you.”

Listed below are a brief set of behaviors that can be addressed and rectified:

  • Tuning people out when listening
  • Holding to only your POV
  • Not crediting people when they deserve it
  • Micromanaging
  • Being verbose, lecturing people
  • Not tailoring your ideas & recommendations to your listeners
  • Not fostering an open environment
  • Not having or delivering the vision of your organization
  • Inability to coach/develop people
  • Lack of self confidence

Helen Keller once said; “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

Take the daring adventure.

If you have reservations about working with a coach, or just want to learn more about what coaching can be for you, give me a call. – SG

The Seven Secret Wants

yellow-seven-1144677-640x640I often talk, and write, about how important it is to know your clients’ goals and objectives. You can’t offer an effective recommendation without doing so. However, most of the discussions around this focus on company or department goals. For you really to be effective, you have to get beyond that and find out what motivates your client contact. You need to understand their “secret wants.”

What is the Secret?

Everybody has secret wants…from the barista at your local coffee shop to the office manager to the company CEO to YOU! These wants motivate and inspire. Sometimes they cause fear.

Your job is to discover your client’s wants, understand them and respond to them. The easiest way to know if you are successful in this endeavor is if you’ve got somebody lamenting about their problem, providing detail about how it is affecting them. Now you’ve got them beyond the numbers, spreadsheets and plans to the heart of what motivates them. This is your opportunity to shine!

The Seven Secret Wants

Though they take many forms, most of the secret wants of your clients fall under one of seven simple categories:

  1. Looking Good: How people are perceived by their peers and superiors is important. Your recommendations, if implemented, should have the potential to make them “heroes” within their organization.
  2. Easing a Burden: Your clients face significant pressure to deliver favorable results to their customers, shareholders and management teams. You and your teams should deliver solutions that significantly ease one or more of these burdens for them. If they don’t, perhaps you are making the wrong recommendation, which does not make them look good (see #1 above!).
  3. Avoiding Embarrassment: If you’ve been effective, you now have a relationship with your client that goes beyond simple selling/buying. They trust you. One way to bolster that trust is to stay ahead of their issues, providing recommendations that prevent problems, rather than just solving them. For example, a few years ago I worked with a Fortune 100 company that was about to put a sales executive in front of an important customer. I worked with the person and quickly determined he was not the right person for this assignment. To my client contact, I recommended another course of action. This helped avoid his (and the sales exec’s) embarrassment and likely a whole chain of events that could have been unpleasant.
  4. Solving a Problem: Everyone has problems that need solving. Clients don’t see you because they want another friend. They see you because they believe you might help them solve at least one of their problems. It’s your job to find out what that problem is and make a recommendation that directly addresses it.
  5. Working Painlessly: People have enough headaches, they don’t need you creating more! If you are acting as a partner, staying ahead of their issues, keeping them on track and delivering on the promises you make, you will come to be someone on whom they can rely. They will know you’ve got your stuff handled and thus, can focus on the other issues creating their headaches!
  6. Generating Positive Results: We all want to achieve something. And we need some kind of proof that we’ve achieved it. Want to get healthy? Losing weight might be a goal and it comes with a simple metric….pounds! When you make a recommendation, does it come with a metric to prove it worked? It should. Your client can then take that result and show it to their supervisors, thereby looking good (again…see #1 above).
  7. Time Saving: Who has an abundance of time these days? Scant few. So, if you bring forth a solution that requires your client put in a lot of hours analyzing it, considering it, weighing it against other options…all of sudden, you’ve created a burden (see #5 above). Make sure what you bring to the table is easily implemented. Create timelines, goals, success metrics…and then keep your client informed. Don’t let them waste one moment of time worrying about what your company is doing for them. Peace of mind!

Take a look back at this list and personalize it. If you were the client, how important are these seven wants for you? How would you prioritize them? This kind of advanced thinking will help immensely as you engage with your clients. Let me know how it goes in the comments below. – SG

 

Change the Person, Not the Job

words NOW (in red) and Hiring (in black)Filling open positions on your team usually boils down to this: find the right person for the job. But what about the people already ON your team. Do they meet this basic qualification? Perhaps they did at first, but the job has changed. How well do they match up now?

Too many times I see leadership change a job’s requirements to match the skills of the person doing the work. So I ask, how can you expect to achieve the team/company goals in that situation?

What Do They Think the Job Is?

As you study the business landscape, it’s essential to notice what each direct report believes their job to be. Contrast that with what you know the job needs to be NOW. Often direct reports believe they are doing what needs to be done but are basing it on old information. Is it their job to anticipate what the new requirements are?  Perhaps but, how can you be sure they make that leap correctly? That’s your responsibility.

The closer my clients look into the business behaviors their direct reports/leaders need, the more they discover that many of them have been operating at a sub-par level to the vision and direction they want their organization heading. A new job description is needed.

Let Them Know What You Know

You’re the leader. What this presumes is that you understand what needs to occur to bring the organization to a level of prosperity that your board has deemed desirable. You are more aware than your team is about how the company’s goals have changed due to market conditions, customer needs, the competitive landscape and product/service development. Make your team aware of it, too. That way, you will know they are attacking their work like green berets, armed with intelligence that allows them to adapt.

But what happens if someone doesn’t, or can’t, adapt?

Changing the Job Can Require Someone New

Many times I coach leaders who have a direct who isn’t “getting with the program.” However, instead of doing something about the person, they simply adapt the job around that person’s skill level, thereby diluting the effectiveness of the whole team.

As an example, you may have a COO whom you’ve noticed is reticent to engage and cannot ask tough questions of others while remaining objective. You need this done, otherwise it falls to you. Do you have time to do your job and his?

This skill is now a requirement of the job. A strong leader will detail what is expected to the direct and create a development plan that gives him/her the chance to succeed. However, you must create a timeline that establishes a deadline beyond which you are not willing to accept sub-par performance in this area. And, you must be ready and willing to replace that direct with someone who possess the skills needed for the new job description.

In other words, a new job description may require a new person to fill the position. Right person for the job!

Successful completion of the development plan or the hiring of someone who has the sought-after skills accomplishes three important goals:

  1. Ensuring that a position’s required skills are aligned with the experience each direct has.
  2. Demonstrating a commitment to current employees if they are willing to adapt and learn.
  3. Consistent adapting of your team’s objectives so that they always map back to the company’s goals.

The more you pinpoint the essential behaviors of your directs and coach them to develop these skills, the quicker and easier it will be to lead your organization. Directs will also be grateful that you’ve taken the time to study them, contribute to their success and raise their development bar. They will also know that the new expectations of the position require developing new skills. If they can’t/won’t develop those skills, the job will not be adapted to their skill level.

When was the last time you redeveloped your directs’ job descriptions? Do you have the right people in the right positions? Post a comment below to tell me about it. 

The Importance of Resolutions

one page of a calendarI’m writing this at the end of December 2015 and sitting outside determining 2016 Resolutions I’d like to share with you. I believe in resolutions as a way to give you a benchmark upon which to start things off right. Whether your resolutions are 100% kept or not, it’s important to make them.

Why Have Resolutions?

Resolutions declare a new way of being and acting. They say to the world, “this is how I’ll operate this year, this is my intention.” To strengthen your adherence to them, share them with your family/friends. Make them public, so to speak. Ask friends, family and associates for their support. It’s good for you and it inspires others.

To that end, here are my resolutions for 2016.

Listen First, Speak Second

I’ve often blogged about the importance of listening. I’m always amazed at how forthcoming people are when I forge a climate of interest in them. The more they share, the more I’m able to offer coaching that’s in-line with their desires.

Be Grateful

I start my day thinking of twenty people/aspects of my life I’m grateful for. This transforms my energy and prepares me for my day. Being grateful for what you have and for those with whom you share it is a great character trait. So, I will continue my daily practice of consciously being grateful.

Make Lemonade Out of Lemons

I’ve learned from my wife, Ellen, that life often serves you lemons. The miracle is turning these foibles/challenges into lemonade. It starts with your declaration to do this, once you’ve declared it you can then manage the challenge in a positive-solution way. I’ll focus this year even more on how to take those challenges and make them work for me and my clients. Let’s all raise a glass of lemonade. Cheers!

Over-communicate with Clients

Over communicating says I’m committed to partnering with you. The more you edify your client/stakeholder, the more receptive they’ll be to your ideas/recommendations.

If you wish to, please share you top resolutions with me so that I can support you in your goals. In the meantime, I wish you the best of success, prosperity and fulfillment in 2016!