I recently read this on www.ChiefExecutive.net:
“After plummeting more than 12 percent in June, CEO confidence continued its downward spiral in July and fell to a 10-month low of 5.28 out of a possible 10. The outlook for the American workforce is grim; the unemployment rate reached 9.2% in June, and according to the CEO Confidence Index more than 45 percent of CEOs expect not to do any hiring over the next 12 months. Another indication that business conditions aren’t going to improve anytime soon? Forty-two percent of CEOs won’t increase their capital expenditures in the next year, a 12.6% increase from June.”
Yes, it can be tough out there, in some industries, in some markets, in some companies. But I am highly optimistic, and so are many of our executive coaching clients.
Why? Where’s the pony in the proverbial pile of poop?
I’ll tell you.
Continue reading →
Posted in Christine Comaford, Executive Coach, Executive Coaching, Executive Mentor, Human Resources, leadership
Tagged accountability, board member conflict, communication, conflict resolution, executive coaching, hiring, human assets, human resources, Leadership, navigating rapid growth, next generation of leadership, partner conflict, resource management
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Meetings… love them or hate them?
We love them when they have an agenda, an outcome or intention, and they’re short, sweet and high energy. We hate them when they’re not.
So what’s the difference?
For starters make sure you’re using the effective communication types I mentioned in a previous blog.
Next, Continue reading →
Accountability and execution don’t happen without communication. Communication is the glue between them—with communication we know what we are accountable for, we know it matters, and thus we can then execute with confidence and commitment.
How is your company’s communication going?
Of the 700 Fortune 1000 companies and 300 small and mid-sized companies I’ve worked with over 30 years, I’ve repeatedly seen communication challenges across the board.
I think it’s because we’re not really sure when communication is effective. So let’s figure that out now. Continue reading →
Every CEO knows that the biggest challenge with change is resistance. But what most CEOs miss is that resistance is simply the first stop on the quest for the holy grail: a new standard.
From my work with hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, top executives and their teams and political leaders I’ve learned that organizational change is a continuum. It’s predictable, it can be guided, and here is how it works. Continue reading →
YPO-WPO: How did you get involved with speaking to YPO-WPO?
Christine: I received a call from a YPO member asking me to speak at G2: Gathering of Giants. I received a standing ovation. Everyone just kept clapping! Finally the program chair got everyone to sit down. That was in 2010, and I was invited to speak again in 2011. Again the crowd went wild!
YPO-WPO: What YPO-WPO event impacted you the most and why?
Christine: I am new to YPO, my experiences were G2, and meeting YPO members at EO events. I speak for many CEO organizations, and am now reducing the number of engagements with other groups to have more time for YPO. My experience of YPO members has been remarkable—they are deeply committed, emotionally engaged, and highly results-oriented. My favorite combination.
YPO-WPO: What take-home value do members in the YPO-WPO audience walk away with after your session?
Read my answer and the rest of the interview here.
I was recently asked this question by a business consultant:
“I interviewed a potential COO that has awesome experience, dresses well. The problem is he doesn’t ‘feel’ right. Nothing big, just little things (some of his mannerisms bug me, etc). Do you have any thoughts/suggestions?”
Check in with your ego first… do you feel threatened, jealous, envious of him in any way? Do you judge him to be above or beneath you?
Check in with your gut next… would he be a safe hire? Would you two be mentors to one another in your areas of expertise? Does he want to learn, stretch, grow? Will be foster a sense of safety and belonging in your team? How would you describe him as a leader?
If he passes the above, ask him to lay out a plan as to what he’d accomplish for your firm in his first 90 days, 6 months, 12 months. This will help you understand his level of accountability, communication, execution.
For help with your business needs, contact Christine Comaford, The Executive Coach.
In the last blog, I talked about how disqualifying leads can boost sales. Having a good sales script is key in the disqualification process. A good script is 45 words max and consists of four elements. Start with who you are (first and last name) and where you are from (company). Then explain what you are selling. Continue with two compelling features of what it is you are selling/offering (this is your offer). Finish with a request for commitment by asking, “Is this something you want?” Here’s an example of a sales script:
Sample Sales Script
a. “Fred Jones, please.”
b. “This is Sue Smith with Speedy Biz Hosting. We specialize in business-to-business ecommerce Web sites that do your marketing for you, and save you money. [Pause.] Is that something you want?” [The offer is clear: The company specializes in business-to-business ecommerce Web sites that do marketing for other companies, and save them money.]
c. If you don’t get a yes or no answer, restate the question.
d. If the question is answered with a no, say “Thank you, goodbye.”
e. If the prospect responds with, “Tell me more,” say “We’ll go over the details shortly. What I need to know is do you want a business-to-business ecommerce Web site that does your marketing for you, and saves you money?” [You’re restating your original offer.]
f. If he responds with a yes to your offer, you now need to continue to try disqualify him. Say something such as “It takes about an hour of uninterrupted time for me to meet with you during a no-cost, no-obligation appointment to determine if I can help you. Would you be willing to make an appointment with me?”
g. If he says no, say “Thank you, goodbye.”
h. If he says yes, continue to disqualify by asking, “If when we meet on this first appointment, and you like what you hear/see, we would plan to schedule a subsequent appointment where I would go over a proposal with you. Is that something you are willing to do?”
i. If he says no, say “Thank you, goodbye.”
j. If he says yes, disqualify he once again by asking, “I only make appointments with all decision makers present for this first appointment. Can we schedule a time when all will be present?”
k. You get the idea. If he says yes, book the appointment and continue to disqualify while there. If he says no, you know what to say.
Take this script and make it your own. From this example, you can see how the salesperson is continuously trying to disqualify the prospect. It’s a quick and efficient process saving you lots of time, helping you increase your sales, and most importantly, helping you to expand your business.
To learn how to significantly increase your sales, click here now http://christinecomaford.com/contact to request a 45 minute complimentary coaching call.
Check out this question I was recently asked on by a business consultant:
“I recently spent 3 months courting a client for a large contract. After all that work time they ended up bailing. I couldn’t believe it! We had rapport, trust, problem/solution clarity–from your perspective how I could have avoided that. What did I do wrong?”
My answer: The prospective client wasn’t really a prospect. Instead, the person was an expertise vampire, sucking up time and advice. The owner of the consulting company ended up giving the person three months of free consulting, when she should have disqualified him or her quickly. I realize the term “disqualify” sounds harsh, but really, haven’t we all chased sales leads only to realize months later that they never had an intention to buy?
Disqualify them.
Too many sales people waste too much time and energy chasing prospects with no potential. To increase your sales, learn to disqualify sales leads.
Sales communication is different from advertising and marketing–it is more personal. Many sales people make the mistake of spewing off hypey sales talk. But no one likes to feel manipulated, so this approach doesn’t work.
Let’s take this advice further. When setting out to sell, we all know how important targeting, building lists, and perfecting scripts are. Here are three key concepts to keep in mind to make the most out of your efforts. In the next blog we’ll look at a sample script you can borrow and make your own.
1. People buy because they trust and respect you. Sure, they perceive a need for the product or service you sell, but why choose you over the competition? Trust and respect. The majority of your best customers rate you with the same trust and respect that you rate them. Countless studies that show customers’ buying decisions have a lot to do with five factors in this order: trust, respect, brand recognition, quality, and price. How much someone “liked” the salesperson ranked much lower. So drop the schmoozing, and start building rapport.
2. Rapport is about disappearing. Building a relationship with a client or prospect is a waste of time because you are not earning respect. It’s phony and an act of insincerity. Rapport builders know that if they disappear into the prospect they’ll foster a sense of safety and belonging. It’s not about you—it’s about them. I’ll cover the most effective rapport techniques in a future blog, but for how the net-net is to use posture, gesture and keyword mirroring and match how they see the world. Do they move toward goals or away from risk? Want lots of options or like a streamlined procedural process? Want the general net-net or like to dive into details? Are reactive and problem solving or proactive and action-oriented? Define success by their own internal measure or by external results?
3. A good sales script is essential. It should contain four elements. Start with who you are (first and last name) and where you are from (company). Then explain what you are selling. Continue with two compelling features of what it is you are selling/offering (this is your offer). Finish with a request for commitment by asking, “Is this something you want?”
Your script should be 45 words tops for a cold call. After 30 seconds your listener will begin to have negative feelings about you. That means you’ve really only got about 20 seconds—which works out to about 45 words. Also keep in mind that roughly a fifth of your prospects will not give you a yes or a no to your question. Why? Because most weren’t listening! They won’t admit this, though, so restate the question. Practice your offer with a 14-year-old. If he or she understands it, your offer is likely clear and concise enough. An offer a prospect will respond to is something he or she isn’t getting from his or her current supplier–from someone they supposedly trust and respect. So you’ll have to earn that trust and respect from scratch.
Remember:
- Avoid saying “I know your time is important.” This invites people to hang up. Don’t make it so easy for them.
- If people take offense to the truth, you don’t want to do business with them.
- Don’t handle objections—that comes later. Handling objections in the script is sales suicide.
I only want you chasing real sales prospects, not false ones. We’ve all wasted time trying to make someone into a prospect—someone who has no hope of ever being one. And often we make this mistake because we aren’t disqualifying–instead, we’re doing all we can to qualify him or her. This is an inefficient approach. Learn how to disqualify–it’ll save time, boost sales, and ultimately help you expand your company.
To learn how to significantly increase your sales, click here now http://christinecomaford.com/contact to request a 45 minute complimentary coaching call.
Challenge: How can management keep their top sales producers motivated? Losing a top producer not only impacts the bottom line–it also decreases team morale. In addition, it costs your company more money to hire and train someone else.
Client Scenario: Company X had a challenge—their VP Sales had left in a huff. He insisted that he just couldn’t make enough money at the company. Trouble was, it was true. And within a few months he had convinced 2 other sales stars to leave too. Now all 3 were working together… at a competitor.
When we parachuted in the first thing we did was lay out sales team member needle movers [see our needle mover tutorial and examples at www.ChristineComaford.com/resources ], starting with the new VP Sales. Next we tweaked the sales compensation plan to include accelerators.
Action/Prescription
- Clearly define your sales team members’ needle movers.
- Tie specific rewards and consequences to achieving or missing their needle movers.
- Set commission accelerators in order to make the sales quota the baseline. Often the quota is viewed as something to hopefully one day achieve. By using accelerators, where commission increases at sales levels above the quota (we like 25% increments) the quota becomes perceived as the baseline—the beginning and not the end. With this approach your sales will team meet their quotas quicker, and will often exceed them.
- Make sure marketing is working. Is marketing generating enough quality leads fast enough and with consistency? Are the campaigns multi-channel and compelling?
- Make sure post-sales support is working. Provide incentives to your post-sales client service team to upsell, downsell, cross-sell.
Result
By following these actions, your sales team will clearly know what’s expected of them and what consequences may occur if they do not deliver. In addition, by getting the rest of the company on board to support the sales team, the team will feel motivated, empowered, and be inspired to continuously perform at a high level.
To learn how to significantly increase your sales, click here now http://christinecomaford.com/contact to request a 45 minute complimentary coaching call.
Want to supercharge your sales with more eager buyers?
Managing the emotional state of 
your prospects is one of the best ways to do this. Addressing a prospect’s emotional state involves assessing their readiness to buy, and then guiding them through an increasing experience of safety and belonging.
There are six stages to effectively manage your prospect’s emotional state. In each stage, you want your prospect to experience a particular emotion regarding your product or service. The emotional range you’ll be working with is from curiosity to hope to empowerment to a feeling of having already engaged with you. So first you want your client to be curious.
To build curiosity in your sales prospect, you want to create a sense of scarcity and mystery around your product/service. Focus only on the results that your product or service will provide, not the process.
Are you managing the emotional state of your prospects?
If so, do you have a proven process?
If not, why not?
At CCA, we guide sales people through a six-stage process of how to manage a prospect’s emotional state. To learn how to significantly increase your sales, click here now http://christinecomaford.com/contact to request a 45 minute complimentary coaching call.
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