Sales tips, leadership communication skills insight and more from Steve Giglio, sales training professional for more than 25 years.
It’s been said that you only have one chance to make a first impression. You can change that for your direct reports! Read more
I often have the distinct pleasure and honor to coach/on-board executives beginning new positions, often in a “C Suite” role. It’s an exciting time for them (and for me). They’ve been selected for their knowledge, judgement and ability to lead. The Board or President has a lot invested in making their executive’s assimilation seamless and welcomed.
However, my first bit of coaching to the new exec is…don’t rush it!
If you find yourself in this position, take the time to understand the core issues of the organization. Any good executive will begin to grasp the challenges they will be facing by understanding the “keep me up at night” issues of the president/board. I’m confident most people given this opportunity can, and will, understand the issues facing their new organization, demonstrate their 100 day action plan, and present their one-to-three year vision.
My concern is how you introduce your ideas, action plans and values to the team that will report to you. Here’s a hint…they are as important as the person who selected you. Never discount them. Treat them like a client you’re meeting for the very first time. Forget that they are now reporting to you. Desire to understand their world BEFORE you present your world.
It is implicit in your appearance that you are the new executive that will lead them, but don’t over sell it. Start as an observer. Don’t speak more than they do for the first few months. Hold as mission critical the understanding of their goals and challenges. Illicit their feedback on issues to have a baseline understanding of your new organization and how you’ll introduce the “sea-changing” directions that got you hired. Set a schedule to meet with them individually to let them know their ongoing input is going to be important to you.
If you are thinking “no-sudden-moves,” you’re right. Your direct reports want to follow you voluntarily, not reaction-ally. An essential goal during your first 100 days is to have people speak well of you, endorse you and appreciate the manner in which you interact with them.
They’ll vote you in quicker than you can!
What’s the biggest challenges you’ve faced when starting a new management position? Let me know below in the comments.
Too often leaders get blindsided with direct reports who leave abruptly. Yet, upon the exit interview, HR realizes the issues that catalyzed the departure had been brewing for months. It’s a divorce, business style.
For the leader, departures like these are quite painful and force the leader to do a post mortem in haste. What often gets decided was that the exec just couldn’t take the pace or didn’t have what it really takes. In other words, it was their fault and nothing needs to change.
Often this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Too often leaders who rely on their lieutenants over-use them. They are initially impressed with the preemptive abilities of their direct and assume they can handle double the work from their great performance. While the direct has earned a high degree of confidence, that doesn’t mean he/she can handle an increased workload.
Leaders need to stop right there.
They need to carefully assess their direct’s skills and regularly meet with them to mutually determine this increase in work/responsibilities to insure it’s correctly introduced, welcomed and achievable. This is mission-critical so that the direct embraces the lift in their work without one day coming to work and realizing it’s just become a factory.
How you avoid the factory-like climate is by regularly meeting with your direct and listening to them. I mean really listening to them. Listen without any predetermined opinion, listen for what’s important to them, listen for their challenges, listen for their dreams.
Until you know their feelings you can’t shape their work into the rewarding career they and you truly want.
Recently, I have been working with quite a few CEOs, synthesizing important messages and distinctions about their respective organizations. Content is king, of course, but too much of a good thing can dilute a message to the point that is loses all meaning. This is where the power of three comes into play!
I expect clients to be deeply connected to their message. That’s a good start. If you don’t believe in what you are saying and in the value you are presenting, then you may as well go home. You aren’t going to win any converts today!
But once you craft a message in which you believe strongly, that message can blur and lose its allure from adding too much data. In making your point, more is not better…synthesis is.
Parcel the message into three overarching points much like chapters in a book. Three key supporting facts will make it easier for your audience to digest what you are saying. It is quite the opposite of the presentations most of us have had to endure when a person presents bullet point after bullet point, never really establishing a main idea and losing the audience in a quagmire of details. Have details ready if asked but, if you are making strong, well-reasoned statements, you will be having a dialogue that is a two-way street, leading to a partner-like relationship rather than a client-vendor one.
Try answering that question the next time you are putting together a presentation or having a client conversation. If you can answer the question with specifics, you are going to be far more likely to capture and keep your client’s attention. And once you have that, you can establish the trust we speak about that is only experienced by advisors who create real value for their clients.
Try it and let me know what you discover. You can leave a comment below and I will respond!
A few days ago, I visited with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. She told me the reason for the longer duration between visits was due to a brain tumor she had recently removed.
Needles to say, I was floored. Though I became quite emotional, I restrained myself in order to begin my natural style of empathetic probing to understand her epic journey and recovery.
Through her recounting of the ordeal, she spoke glowingly of the surgeon she chose for the resection along with the surgeons she didn’t. The surgeons she walked away from made her feel like a number with hardly any understanding of her actual physiology or the procedure they would perform.
The surgeon she hired came to her bedside with iPad photos of her MRI and X-rays and walked her through the exact procedure he would perform. She felt special and, more importantly, she said because of his explanation and humanity, “I wasn’t afraid, I was ready for it.”
At that moment it hit me. Our responsibility as consultants, business leaders and managers is to make clients feel the same way…at ease.
This past week I received a phone call from a potential client who began her conversation with the phrase: ”I’m in a pickle.” I listened for several minutes about her frustration and recommended we meet.
During our meeting, I fully vetted the frustrations she experienced while trying to find a coach for her executive team. I realized throughout her search she had not felt confident in the people she’d interviewed nor confident in their coaching methodology.
I knew I could help and offered to create a program for her team. As our conversation came to a close, she asked me for my fee for this program. I responded by saying unless I meet with each executive and personally interview them, I couldn’t quote a fee. She smiled and said “let’s get started.” I did a bit of a double take and asked how she came to this automatic decision. She said no one else was concerned about her executives enough to want to meet them.
This interaction, along with my friend reminded me of my father’s great bedside manner with a patient. He would draw the entire operation out and explain every inch of the procedure to instill confidence in them.
My wish for you as a leader is you embody the humanity of a surgeon throughout your client interactions. It pays off!
By this time of the year, as a leader you, should have a firm grasp on your team’s production and capabilities.
You’ve studied your team and know who your “A” Players, “B” Players and “C” Players are. But then you discover that you have a rogue “A” Player, who is in a “start-of-the-year” slump. What’s your plan for this “Diva?”
Having a top performer is, of course, a good thing. But having someone who does things their own way, disregarding process and diluting your value proposition for the sale, can eventually cause this superstar to falter. The person is your most competitive and most independent “A” Player. And they know they are failing recently. Likely, they want, but may not ask for, help.
The issue now is how to get inside their head and establish a path to success WITH them, since they’ve not created it themselves. This is a fundamental challenge of a leader. It forces you to be creative, humble and persistent as a coach. Actually, it’s part of your job as a leader.
Many leaders orphan this Diva believing they’ll figure it out on their own. They won’t.
Unless you rattle their cage in relational way, it will be June and the balance of their year will be just as dormant as the first half you’ve just lived through.
Albert Einstein once said; “In order to solve a problem you have to jump a level to solve it”.
In order to reach your Diva you too must jump a level in your approach. I’ve often coached leaders to be persistent yet likable. Your Diva must think they are driving the process…not you.
To succeed at this, you need to change the climate in which you develop your Diva.
Rather than going to their production numbers or pipeline, it’s better to take it slow and begin with forging a climate of curiosity and empathy.
Try asking these questions:
These questions put your Diva into the driver’s seat, heck, that’s the only way they’d hear you anyway.
Try it and let me know.
The sales person. Over the years, and many, many bad used car sales pitches, the reputation of the sales profession has gotten a bit…ok…a LOT tainted. And yet, the Chally Group states that 39 percent of B2B buyers select a vendor according to the skills of the sales person rather than price, quality or service features. Wow! My mission has always been, and always will be, to bring respect back to the sales person. I don’t need another motivating factor than this. Read more
Most of you know my passion for listening and truly understanding a client well before you deliver your presentation.
We’ve just finished a series of coaching points focused on developing a killer presentation based on your value proposition. One of the sure fire ways to dilute a great presentation is to deliver it too soon! Read more
The jazz great Duke Ellington was right. And it applies to you and your presentation! A presentation has to be entertaining and educating. You need to develop a rhythm and a level of alacrity (cheerful readiness) that’s infectious. Read more
