Ron Canelli | Business and Sales Coach

Nothing organic has a neutral mode. If it’s a living organism it’s either growing or dying. Relationships are alive and dynamic. They do not stand still. They either move forward or backward. There is no neutral.

A sales department is a living organism and is either moving forward or moving backward. There is no neutral. It can seem like a sales department has plateaued but there is really no such thing as a plateau, a sales department is either making progress or it’s preparing for its decline. It’s difficult to assess because sales departments can move in either direction extremely slowly. So it may look like it just plateaued and everything is status quo but don’t be fooled, that is not the case.

Sales departments do experience seasons of ebb and flow, of high momentum during big rains or loss of momentum during dryer periods, they do. You will sense energy in either fluctuation, where in the case of plateau there is no energy or movement at all. This slowly and eventually gives way to decline.

A car left in a garage unattended for a long period of time will eventually corrode and rust. A house that has been neglected will eventually deteriorate. The same is true of a sales department, a sales team that isn’t constantly training is in a state of decline and eventually move backwards and this is when your competition takes hold and makes in roads to be more of a force than they should be.

Let me back up to relationships, as a leader the relationships you are engaged in are either moving forward or moving backward. There is no neutral. It’s important for you to assess which relationships you are in with your salespeople and the one’s in possible decline that you want to reinvest in. The amount of investment required is in direct relationship to the level of depth you want to experience in that relationship.

The relationships you are engaged in will either pull you forward or pull you backward. There is no middle. People either grow or hold you back. A marriage, for example, is either getting better or getting worse. As the leader of your team you are pulling them forward because you are giving, preparing, training and investing in your team and you are growing, or they are pulling you backward.

What is the Main Thing?

In sales the main thing can be broken down to categories:

• Recruiting talent
• Equipping your team with the tools necessary to succeed
• Provide “WOW” service to your customers
• Make a profit

Recruiting talent is a never ending quest for the best. It is the most important function you as a manager can do, is having the right people on your team. Never lower your standards just to fill a position, you will pay for it later. Here are two quick tips when interviewing –

1. Look for the very best in their behavior in the interview because it will not get any better.
2. Use the Rule of Three

• 3 Candidates (to compare)
• 3 Times (different times of the day – morning, mid day, late afternoon)
• 3 People (different managers to get different perspectives)

Equipping your team with the tools necessary to succeed is easy, you’re not reinventing the sales wheel. All you need to succeed is at your disposal.

• Dealers only section of the website gives you access to videos, manuals, presentations and so much more.
• 10 Steps to a Sale Hand Book for sales training.
• The “Closing Trail” posters
• Audio programs

To help your team succeed you need to role play. Rod Fox from Midwest Basement Systems starts his meetings every week by having his team come in to the meeting and doing a proper “Warm up” and “Agenda”. Rod says if his guys can’t do it properly in front of their peers and friends, how are they going to do it in front of the customer. Rod is what we call a “Training Champion” because Rod knows the 10 Steps to a Sale is vital to the organizations success. Rod uses the dealers only section of the website to his advantage. He said they just watched the “Ladder of Rapport” video and the guys loved it. Rod uses everything and he will not do it any other way. To prove his point he says he has 8 salespeople and the lowest ADL is $2400.

Providing “WOW” service is everyone’s job. It’s a philosophy which your company can implement to excel in customer service, both internally and externally. Each manager should be a champion of “WOW” service and make it the company culture. Follow up with your customers prior to and after the install. Ask for referrals.

Make a profit is why we stay in business. The sales department is responsible for pricing their goods and services so the homeowner sees the value while staying competitively priced with the competition. When you make a profit you can do more for your company to grow. Spending your profit is a whole other topic, I’ll leave that one to Larry.

Focus On the Future
First, whatever challenges you face, focus on the future rather than on the past. Instead of worrying about who did what and who is to blame, focus on where you want to be and what you want to do. Get a clear mental image of your ideal successful future, and then take whatever action you can to begin moving in that direction. Get your mind, your thoughts, and your mental images on the future.

Think About the Solution
Second, whenever you’re faced with a difficulty, focus on the solution rather than on the problem. Think and talk about the ideal solution to the obstacle or setback, rather than wasting time rehashing and reflecting on the problem. Solutions are inherently positive, whereas problems are inherently negative. The instant that you begin thinking in terms of solutions, you become a positive and constructive human being.

Look For the Good
Third, assume that something good is hidden within each difficulty or challenge. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a major proponent of positive thinking, once said, “Whenever God wants to give us a gift, he wraps it up in a problem.” The bigger the gift you have coming, the bigger the problem you will receive. But the wonderful thing is that if you look for the gift, you will always find it.

Seek the Valuable Lesson
Fourth, assume that whatever situation you are facing at the moment is exactly the right situation you need to ultimately be successful. This situation has been sent to you to help you learn something, to help you become better, to help you expand and grow.

Decide to Be Positive
A Positive Mental Attitude is indispensable to your success. You can be as positive as you want to be if you will simply think about the future, focus on the solution and look for the good. If you do what other successful people do, if you use your mind to exert mental control over the situation, you will be positive and cheerful most of the time. And you will reap the benefits enjoyed by all successful people.

How easy is it to set goals?

Sounds simple – “I want to make a million dollars”, yeah like who doesn’t. Although I made a million dollars it took me my entire working career to do it, but I don’t actually have a million dollars. I don’t even have a million dollars in assests, so what does that mean “I want to make a million dollars”, if I don’t clearly define what I want and when I want to do it by or even how I’m going to do it, it’s just words I say with no plan of action but that’s the starting point.

- Conceive the Idea
One of my favorite quotes is the famous line spoken by Napoleon Hill in Think & Grow Rich: “What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” Sounds good doesn’t it? When our minds accept that something is true, a belief, then our mind sets in motion any and all events to make that our reality.

- Self-Assess
Do a SWOT Analysis on yourself. Attached is a worksheet to help you write down your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

- Writing it Down on Paper
Use the attached Goals Grid and the Goals Grid worksheet to clearly define your objectives.

- Clarify Your Objectives
This is where you write down your goals in your words, date it and sign it.

- Positive Self-Talk (Affirmations)
Affirmations are a declaration that something is true. Is it true right now, probably not, but like Zig Ziglar says “I’m only telling the truth in advance”. Start your affirmation with “I will …, I am…, I see myself…, I deserve…, I can…”. Paint the picture in your minds eye and you to can achieve all that is yours for the taking.

Hot Tip
Have Personal Goals, Career Goals, and Financial Goals

I love this book. It is a contractors life struggle. If only we all had a Cy in our lives.

Motivation: Without motivation there can be no learning at all. As a leader, you should recognize the need for proven and effective training (10 Steps to a Sale); training that offers new levels of sales productivity.

Technique: Assess your salespeople’s current skills and recognize their strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats (S.W.O.T).

Training: Develop your knowledge and use of the key selling skills that have the greatest impact on increasing sales productivity (Training materials also resources on the website -The Edge Series Videos).

Technique: Role Play or as Layne Gebers so eloquently describes it, Simulated Selling Scenario’s. Those who master role playing sell on average 3x more than those who do not.

Reinforcement: Without a system or mechanism that reinforces newly acquired skills, salespeople relapse into old, unproductive sales behavior.

Technique: Follow up after training – coaching.

Retention: Studies of retention demonstrate the impact of training that lacks a systems approach to reinforcement and learning transfer. 87% of learning is forgotten within the first 30 days following the training.

Technique: Train once a week on a new step for no more than an hour. Shorter durations but more frequent training is more effective than longer and less frequent trainings. Start each meeting with a review and role play of the last meeting. (week one you role play the introduction, week two you role play the introduction and warm up, week 3 introduction, warm up, customer interview, etc)

Transference: Transference is the ability to take what was taught and apply it in your sales related activities. Learn it, implement it, teach it.

Technique: Transfer is dependent on your attitude, the post training environment and owner/manager support.

This salesman is just not performing, can you help?

Sure thing, it’s your fault, you’re responsible for not training them properly!

I work with alot of owners and managers and the common thread they seem to have is their sales team is just not performing to the potential they can be. Their numbers could be better can you help train them. Of course I can help them but that’s a quick fix to the bigger issue, I need to help train the trainer. The trainers are the one’s who have to be held accountable to a low performing salesman or sales team.  Sales skills are learnable but who and how is the training being done, ahh and there lies the problem in most cases. If you are training and your sales system works and is proven then your still responsible for the success or failure of that salesperson, you want to know why, you hired them. Get better at hiring and always be recruiting.

If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get the same results they are getting. What are you doing differently?

• What does your customer want?
• Why is your product/service better from a customers point of view?
• What do you have that no one else has?
• How will you know what your customers want?

Reading gives us Breadth, but Study gives us Depth.

It takes 10,000 hours of study and practice before one becomes a true expert in that field.

15 Seconds – Go (tick tock, tick tock)

Are you stuck in a rut, do you feel you can do better, are you ready to change?
Look no further I can help. I have made a career by helping people just like you find the answers they were searching for. Your response determines your future. Yes or No? If the answer is yes, I’m Ron Canelli, how can I help?

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