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

Developing Working Relationships with Millennials

Remember those millennials we’ve been speaking about? In a recent blog post on developing your future leaders, I spoke of the importance of understanding how to relate and develop younger executives on your team.

Lets look externally now. Whether you are in corporate sales, private equity or retail sales, meeting and creating professional relationships with this crowd is mission critical to grow your business and deepen your reputation. Read more

Three Effective Networking Tips

Business networking is considered by many to be a necessary evil. Many fear it, others just feel like it’s a great deal of effort. To be effective at networking, you have to understand the importance creating lasting connections will have on your professional life, just like it does in your personal life.    Read more

To Lead: Observe-Ask-Act

Way too often we, as leaders because we are human, make snap decisions and lead from the hip versus the heart. This can lead to confusion on teams and a lack of trust in your leadership because you don’t understand their world.  Read more

Developing Your Future Leaders

As leaders of organizations, we have an obligation not only to find future leaders but to contribute to their development personally. But today’s future leaders, call them “millennials” or by some other name, require alternative ways of being groomed for success.  Too often, I see that this is not embraced and reacted to by companies.   Read more

What’s Best? Strategy or Tactics

Recently during an executive consulting session, I was asked which is the more important conversation to initiate with a client, the tactical conversation or the strategic one? Answer…it’s situational but, it is better to err on the strategic side. Once you go tactical you can’t go back. Read more

Training Leaders: Not Everyone is a Green Beret

Military commanders will tell you that not every soldier is cut out to be a green beret. In fact, very few are. But they will also say that for an action to be successful, the effort needs foot soldiers too. Over 25 years of leadership coaching has shown me how true this is in business. The key is finding, and developing, those individuals who can rise to the occasion and then giving them what they need to win. Critical to this effort is having enough troops who know the mission and can carry it out.

Actually it’s easy, if you systematize the process.

Read more

How to Close a Deal: Think Like an Olympian

Closing deals effectively is one of the biggest challenges to anyone in business.  One way to master the process of closing is to think “Winter Olympics”  and the downhill skier who hits certain flags through their heat to win the race. 

You and I…we are those skiers but in a business fashion.  Let’s break it down to four flags to hit to close a client with integrity and thoroughness. Read more

There’s No Entitlement in Business

In one infamous scene in the movie “A League of Their Own,” Tom Hanks’ girls baseball manager character is shocked to see one of his players weeping after he has scolded her for making a bad play. “Are you crying? Are you….crying? There’s no crying in baseball!”

Right!  And there is no entitlement in business. Only achievement.

You’re Only as Good as Your Last Performance

In a post 2008 world, all of us need to heed this realization. I especially recommend my millennial clients pay attention. Times are tough out there still. And though stories of the economic recovery are in our papers every day, you probably still have many friends and relatives not employed.  We need to keep in mind that often in our new world we’re only as good as our last performance to the organizations and company brass for whom we work. There are people out there hungry to have your job…and they’ll work hard to get it.

Plan Your Success

Therefore, to understand your advancement, create your own development/advancement plan with your superior.

I’m sure the person you report to has their own metrics they will employ to determine your advancement. Job #1 for you, though, is to understand these metrics and discuss them with him/her so that you are clear about what your path looks like. Once you have an understanding of this path, you can then shape your own developmental recommendations given your unique added value to the organization.  You can put forth your ideas of your achievement from the understanding of your superior’s ideas. Then, you both own your development plan without any ambiguity. Now you have a clear scorecard on which to concentrate throughout the year to advance.

So, develop your success plan.  Get buy-in from your superior with goals based on clear metrics. Show progress on that plan by hitting milestones. And then…when you’re confident you have achieved the goals, ask for the promotion. Remember…you won’t get it if you don’t ask!  Good luck. Let me know how it goes. If you need help with your plan, give me a call.

Pain Before Process

A few years ago, I was working with very savvy clients in San Diego on a sales development program. One night,I was dining with my client who expressed to me that after 20 years in selling and negotiating he realized this important distinction:

Process vs. Pain.

Selling to the Pain, Not the Process

What he said was: “I focus so heavily on understanding the ‘process’ of my client’s business that I’ve neglected to pinpoint and understand his ‘pain.”  He realized that it was mission-critical for him to locate a client’s pain and truly size it BEFORE delving into the client’s process of how he/she runs their business. 

In essence, finding their pain first then understanding their process.  If you focus your attention too early on fixing the process, you will miss what is really at the heart of the matter.  And thus, you will lose the opportunity to provide a solution for a much larger set of issues and become a trusted advisor. Listen first, ask the right questions and get to the pain first.  The process will come.  

Ask to Understand

The best, fastest way to understand a client’s situation is to find their pain within the first ten minutes of your meeting. Ask questions like:

  • From my research I see that your organization has declared XYZ, what’s essential now to insure this?
  • What are the challenges to this now?

Size their pain with questions like:

  • What’s been the impact of these challenges now to your organization?

Stay in their pain with questions like:

  • How has your revenue been affected by this? And how are you and your team viewed as a result of this?

Find Yourself Tethered to the Truth

If you think your client doesn’t have pain points in his work, then you aren’t digging enough. Do your research, which includes asking your client the right questions. The more you ask questions like this, the more you will find your champion who will act as your tether-line to the truth!

 

Leadership Trait: Being A Good Shepherd

Strong leadership traits come in many forms. One I see often is from those leaders who are able to shepherd an idea/vision that many on their team didn’t, or can’t, see at the start.  It requires  thinking through a situation and presenting a different viewpoint/paradigm than your team can currently envision.   That says easy…does hard. Read more