I think that there is a huge difference between skill and talent. In my opinion, skill is something you learn and talent is something you are born with. And with very few exceptions, everything in our own lives is a skill, for example, learning to read is a skill, being brave enough to speak up with the truth is a skill, caring about customers is a skill, etc. When telling yourself that you don’t have the talent, “I wasn’t born able to do that!” That story is not based on facts, in fact it’s letting yourself off the hook, it’s an excuse. Remember, skills are easier to acquire today than ever before.
The amygdala is part of the brain's limbic system and it’s here where we process emotions. It’s here where the voice in our heads says, “don’t do that, you are in danger”. This resistance is what makes us hesitant, it’s resistance that makes us nervous before we try something for the first time.
In the western world we have been conditioned to look out for ourselves, ”survival of the fittest”. We are judged on individual performance - how well we do on exams, work, projects, etc. - and are rewarded with awards, promotions and increased wages. How can we connect and collaborate on a level where we are looking at that common mission? People may be rated individually, but what can we do to align and more in the same direction?
Contact me via e-mail for coaching, consulting, workshops and lecturing.
Integrity issues
As a sales professional I think that we should always focus on the buyers needs and how we can solve them. How we can guide the buyers through the decision making process, and if we authentically succeed in this task, we will more than likely close the deal.
Recently, I wrote about how HR hire sales persons, perhaps HR would be better served by writing sales job descriptions from the buyers’ perspective. No one wants to be sold to, everyone wants to be guided through the process - therefore, sales persons do not need to be hunters, closers or extroverts.
I think the buying experience is the most crucial function as in the mind of so many buyers, sales is not necessary. The role of the sales person is to guide the buyer through this process:
1. Identify the needs.
2. Explore the potential solutions for the needs.
3. Define the requirements.
4. Select the potential suppliers.
Remember, influence always wins over persuasion.
Questions vs. Stories
My favourite part of sales is solving problems and maintaining relationships. You need to be able to formulate a conversation, you need to be intelligent and you need to be genuinely curious if you want to work in sales. I mean that you REALLY have to have a genuine curiosity to understand your clients, their needs and ultimately tie those needs to a solution.
You will need to be good at listening and asking the right questions if you want a career in sales. You will need to be good a storyteller and be coachable. As it’s the season of goodwill, I am offering a free 30 minute non-binding discovery consultation from today to the 30th December. Send me an e-mail to book your time.
Workshop idea & role play
“To inform is for free, the ‘how too’ requires a fee.” I have been using this quotation for almost 30 years. Anyway, here is a workshop idea based on an exercise from the wonderful “Kill The Company” book by Lisa Bodell.
Play the role of one of your top competitors for a day and see how if you switch perspectives you could figure out ways to kill your company metaphorically. When CEO’s speak about change and innovation they are usually asking the cliche questions, for example, “How do I think outside the box?” or “What’s the next big thing?” Cliche questions generate cliche answers.
Think about ways to eliminate and put your company out of business. Play the game and ask your executives to come up with ways to put your company out of business, then they by definition will be moving out of their current perspective or box, and look at it from the perspective of a competitor, who wants to destroy your company. Once you identify the threats, you then switch to the opposite perspective and return to being company executives and figure out ways to defend against those threats. You can also use this exercise in other contexts, e.g. “Why did I not get that job that I am applying for?” or “Why are people buying our competitors products?”
The answers may be simple! Maybe it’s because they see something that you are not seeing or because they believe something that you don’t believe. Perhaps this is because they are telling themselves a different story and you are not able to see that story if you are looking at the world from your own limited perspective. Kill the company is a great way of forcing yourself out of that perspective and into the perspective of someone else. This is better than a collective brainstorm session or being told to think outside of the box. Send me an e-mail and let’s arrange a physical or virtual meeting to discuss a workshop for your organisation.
Learn together, stay together
Cultural and societal shifts over the past 9 months has seen a rise in working from home, a substantial increase in e-commerce and dependency on technology. This in turn has led to a change in the sales function for many companies.
Time - Safety - Meaning
I think that we can increase human psychological safety with training, insight and connection by taking root in moments of vulnerability. In my experience learners should be challenged to connect the learning to what matters to them as this is a reliable formula for creating self connection. Send me an e-mail to book a Zoom meeting.
Success vs. Happiness
Image c/o Haiku Deck
I have always believed that success will not make you happy if you were not happy before becoming successful. I have never tied my self worth together with my accomplishments. There are many people who believe that happiness is over the next mountain and as long as they conquer that next thing or achieve that next milestone - then, that’s going to bring them happiness. In reality, if you are not happy before success, you will not be happy after achieving success.
I think happiness comes not from those big moments that you anticipate, but in the little joys of life, for example, the pleasure of walking in the park and observing the colours of the leaves; the joy of creating a morning smoothie, etc. Happiness comes from the the small moments, not from the big accomplishments, regardless of what it looks like from the outside.
In my opinion, happiness and success are two different things. Success is based on what I’ve achieved and happiness is based on what I feel about myself and about how I feel about what I am doing. Whenever I attempt to interconnect them, I remind myself that happiness and success give a separate sense of meaning and fulfilment.
Question: Why me?
What can I bring of experience and competence that can potentially beat a candidate with industry experience?
The love of winning! Sometimes an “outsider” can see a smarter way of doing it as I would have to learn the procedures and performance routines. And when you are learning a performance, you model yourself after the smartest way, which more often than not is also the best way.
Too many of us think the best people are the people who are metaphorically speaking, screaming “look at me” the loudest, and talking down to the rest of us. They are not the best!
The best people are out in the field - doing it - showing you the distinctions, articulating to you about what has worked for them, so you can benefit from their experiences. I think it’s genius to learn from other peoples mistakes, not in a miraculous way.
Too many of us have to learn from our mistakes several times before we really learn from them. Contact me via e-mail for sparring, mentoring or guidance.
The future will be confusing
Purpose drives profits
Over the last few years I have really studied sales people to find out precisely what the best sales people have in common. What I discovered was those sales people who truly want to make a difference in the lives of their customers outsell sales people who are solely focused on sales quotas and targets. And organisations where their purpose included “improving their customers lives,” also outperformed organisations who had a solely profit based purpose.
According to a Gallup study from 2017 on the American workplace, of the country’s approximately 100 million full-time employees, 51% felt no real connection to their jobs. Employees can do a lot of things to increase their engagement and they could begin by attaching a sense of meaning to their work. I think there are three questions one could ask oneself:
1. How do you make a difference in the lives of your customers?
2. How do you do it differently that your competitors and peers?
3. On your best days, what do you love about your job?
Remember your job matters and that it has a meaning. Contact me via e-mail when you are ready to take a look at your individual or corporate sense of purpose.
The natural progression of a B2B sale
The last few years has seen me move from the front line to helping people out in advisory positions. It’s understanding what they are going through and walking them through the process of seeing the world through their customers eyes. This requires a little bit of art and a little bit of science, and there is no better way to learn this than from somebody who has done it before, someone who has been teaching these processes.
To get something done in an organisation is a bureaucracy and from my perspective sometimes this bureaucracy doesn’t make sense and is counter intuitive. And when you try to attach logic to it, you only get even more frustrated. You have to understand how each person on the value chain gets rewarded and what they need to see. You have to provide them with what they need even though in some cases it does not make any sense to us.
I think the process of teaching salespersons how companies buy is a necessity as what they initially need to show buyers is not a demonstration, presentation or proposal. It’s the understanding of what the buyer cares about, it’s about building “know, like and trust” relationships. Don’t waste your time with cold pitches! Learn how to make personalised, relevant pitches if you want to be a top salesperson. Learn how to warm-up the buyer to start a business conversation. Learn how to build this conversation into a meeting. Learn how speak to buyers about their needs and what they care about, the problems they face and how you can help them.
Usually these processes take a little bit of reprogramming! Learning not to speak about yourself or the features and functions of your products. For organisational guidance and personal mentoring, contact me via e-mail.
John Wooden RIP
“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”
The most courageous act
Image via Shutterstock
It’s usually more important to be in the right room than to be the smartest person in the room.
A person with great judgement and average intelligence will usually beat someone with great intelligence and average judgment. And judgment is knowing what room to be in.
Sales tips
The best salespersons are empathic, when I say empathic, I mean putting yourself in your customers shoes. You cannot pitch with features and function if you have not previously established exactly what the buyers needs and want are by asking open ended questions.
Most salespersons are focused on feature and function, I think that the ideal method would be learn as much as possible about companies you are trying to sell to and ask a lot of opened questions. For example, T.E.D questions:
- Tell me,
- Explain to me
- Describe to me
Do you know the difference between an order taker and salesperson?
People buy from people they like and if you cannot have a conversation with them it is unlikely to go very far. How to stand out as a salesperson?
- Don’t be scripted
- Don’t sound robotic
- Be someone who is remembered
- Be coachable (as every day we need to get better)
Sharing is caring
What are the fundamental capabilities of a human system that are crucial to its capacity to execute flawlessly and innovate consistently?
I think the simple answer is sharing. When I say sharing, I mean sharing knowledge, expertise and secrets. I think that in order to get what you want you will need a roadmap, not a conventional roadmap - a roadmap that contains an idea, plan and a series of steps to execute that plan.
Knowledge isn’t everything, you may need a guide - someone who’s been there before - someone who understands what you are going through and wants you to succeed. Someone who can give feedback, motivation and pick you up when things get tough. When you combine a proven roadmap with a skilled guide and an army of supporters - this makes an unstoppable combination. It’s important to have likeminded people beside you on your journey, people who understand what you are going through and want you to succeed.
Who is Responsible for Your Return to Work Strategy?
”CUE” illustration by www.ved5tiden.dk
The most successful global leaders in fighting coronavirus have communicated clearly, displayed empathy and always favored science over politics. When challenges arise we don't rise to the occasion, we sink to the level of our training. We have to recognize that things are not going to back to what they were before the coronavirus. The pre-COVID world was all about performance, agility and efficiency, the post-COVID world will be all about one thing - survival. Does your organisation have a plan for how we get people back to work? Are you ready to tackle the challenges ahead?
Health and safety of the workforce should be management’s top priority and managing employee numbers will be critical to protecting workplace health, as the higher the number the higher the risk. Have you thought about the benefits of a staggered reintroduction, e.g. rotating who works from the office and who works at home?
”ROUTINE” illustration by www.ved5tiden.dk
Once open, how can you keep your employees safe? There will be more questions than answers, for example:
- What will be the new physical setup?
- How much distance should there be between desks?
- Have you made restrictions on your office building capacity?
- What about employee gatherings around the coffee machine?
- What about the cafeteria and lunchtime procedures?
- Have you developed new office sanitization protocols?
- Will there be guidelines for wearing personal protective equipment, e.g. face masks and/or gloves?
- What are the rules for checking employees who are returning to work after illness?
- Will your employees need help to manage this mindset change?
- How will you deal with employees who are reluctant to return to the office?
- Do you have a Crisis Management team to deal with ethics and compliance complaints?
Would you like to have a training plan for implementing new operational procedures, processes and policies during your “back to workplace” transition and beyond?
Contact us on sb@peakbalance.dk to hear more on how we can help your organisation.
“REWARD” illustration by www.ved5tiden.dk
Why Do We Do What We Do?
The great Zig Ziglar said, “Motivation gets you going, and habit gets you there. Make motivation a habit and you will get there more quickly and have more fun on the trip. You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you have, be and do in the tomorrow of your life.”
We are not in the business of knowledge transformation we are in the business of skill acquisition. Do you know the difference between a skill and a habit? A skill is the ability to do something well and a habit is something you do mentally or physically, that starts as a choice and then becomes a nearly automatic pattern.
In reality, a habit is the function of our subconscious mind. There is no greater evidence of the marvelous power of our subconscious than the force and sway habit holds in our life. We form habits in our subconscious mind by repeating a thought or behavior and act it out over and over again until it establishes tracks in our subconscious mind and becomes automatic. What percentage of our daily behaviors are choice? Studies have shown that between 40 and 45% of what we do each day are habits. Therefore, when we understand how habits work, then rather than being the consumer of our lives, we become the creator.
The Power of Habits training is about teaching leaders and individuals how to leverage habits so that they can improve results. The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive and achieving success is understanding how habits work. The Power of Habits training will do 3 things: increase performance, improve outcome and ignite culture. Performance is what we do, results is what comes from our actions, and culture is how we behave.
We change the world by changing behavior and there’s a process to that and at Peak Balance (Vital Smarts), our digital learning tools can help facilitate training outside the traditional classroom settings. We have put together a series of micro-trainings which consist of a series of short, focused learning modules that are delivered through Adobe Connect. These trainings have proved to be highly effective at accelerating onboarding and improving retention.
For further information - contact: sb@peakbalance.dk
Crucial Conversations Training
Did you know that I am a certified Crucial Conversations Trainer?
Crucial Conversations teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional and risky topics - at all levels of your organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), you’ll surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions and then act on your decisions with unity and commitment.
What Is a Crucial Conversation?
A crucial conversation is a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong. These conversations - when handled poorly or ignored - lead to strained relationships and dismal results.
What Does Crucial Conversations Training Teach?
Crucial Conversations teaches participants how to:
• Speak persuasively, not abrasively
• Foster teamwork and better decision making
• Build acceptance rather than resistance
• Resolve individual and group disagreements
Who Needs Crucial Conversations Training?
Does your organization suffer from taboo topics, deference, disagreement, analysis paralysis, information hoarding, office politics or alienation? Is your organization battling declining productivity, safety violations, low morale, reduced quality, poor customer satisfaction or other bottom-line concerns? Then you, your team, or your organization needs Crucial Conversations Training.
My aim is to guide teams, leaders and entrepreneurs on how to focus on your company’s performance and culture by integrating open communication into the heart of your business. Crucial Conversations workshops are two days and ideally have a minimum of six participant. For further information please contact me.
Your Dreams May Not Come True
Image: via standard.co.uk
I think that if your dreams are big enough they will not get completed during your lifetime. For some human beings the song in their heart will die if the situations around them does not work out the way they think it should happen.
Your inner experience should not be determined by what is happening around you. In the very nature of things, life is made in such a way that the outside will never happen 100% the way you want. And it should be that way, as if everything happened 100% your way - where do I go, where does everyone else go? Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it goes my way, sometimes it goes someone else’s way - everything is fine.
What do you want for yourself could be either blissful or miserable!
Remember fundamentally everyone wants the same thing: Pleasantness within themselves and pleasantness around them. I think what you want for yourself is the highest level of pleasantness 100% clear - the highest level of pleasantness.
· If pleasantness happens in our body we call it health, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it pleasure.
· If our mind becomes pleasant we call it peace, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it joy.
· If our emotions becomes pleasant we call it love, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it compassion.
· If our life energies becomes pleasant we call it bliss, and if it becomes very pleasant we call it ecstasy.
· If our surroundings becomes pleasant we call it success and this is all that we want in our life.
The outside pleasantness is determined by many forces, not just by ourselves. And all of these forces must cooperate to create outside pleasantness, but to create inner pleasantness we do not need anybody’s cooperation, just ourself!
This one thing, if we can make it happen will enhance our dream in such a way that it could not be fulfilled in one lifetime. The fear of suffering is what is making people dream small, think small, work small because if I dream big and it doesn’t happen what will happen to me.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO NOW IF YOU KNEW THAT YOU COULD NOT FAIL?
How would you answer this question? You can share your answer here or you can keep it to yourself, but mostly I hope you do something about it.
The Same Old Cycle
Demonstrate Value Before Turning Up The Volume
Happy New Year - 2019
It’s that time of the year when everyone is planning for the new year, and the journey can be scary. As you already know, it’s wise to know in advance how to get where you want to go before you embark on any journey.
