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Business Expert Webinars Delivers its 100th Business eLearning Training Session! | Subscribe to this Blog |
October 28, 2008
October 28, 2008, Minneapolis, MN – Business Expert Webinars (BEW), the leading provider of business eLearning, achieved a major milestone today when they delivered their 100th for-fee webinar.
“I am proud of this significant BEW accomplishment. I’m not aware of any other program that has delivered 100 for-fee webinars in this short period of time. BEW has clearly demonstrated that people are willing to invest in business eLearning as a way to enhance the skill development of themselves and their employees. As the economy has tightened, companies and business professionals have been forced to find alternative strategies for skill development. BEW offers an affordable way to increase business aptitude on a limited budget,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars.
“The BEW platform is incredible,” says Jeb Blount, BEW speaker and CEO of SalesGravy.com. “It has provided professional business speakers with a venue to reach a global audience. Participants learn relevant information that they can immediately use in their business career.”
Business Expert Webinars began delivering for-fee webinars in May 2008 and has built a portfolio of over 150 business speakers, with a schedule of over 750 live business eLearning seminars on a wide array of subjects. “What makes BEW unique is that our speakers are not using these sessions as marketing events, but are using the technology to deliver their teachings to audiences around the world. Not only are BEW’s participants worldwide, but so are the speakers. We have speakers in Canada, France, Australia, Egypt, and the U.K. Our mission is to deliver high-quality, business education in a cost effective environment.” said Salz.
“As a result of delivering business eLearning sessions with Business Expert Webinars, I’ve been able to provide business professionals with new ways to affordably benefit from my services,” says Leslie Buterin, BEW speaker and founder of ColdCallingNetNews.com. “With training budgets being squeezed, BEW offers a means to develop teams without breaking the bank.”
About Business Expert Webinars
Business Expert Webinars (BEW) is the leading provider of business eLearning. BEW has an international community of business speakers that comprises best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus delivering training for business professionals. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.
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Leadership! It’s Not Just For Managers | Subscribe to this Blog |
October 24, 2008
People are often told to “be a leader,” but what does that mean? How do people know how to act as a leader when no one defines it for them? There is a simple mantra that defines leadership.
The other day my nine-year old daughter and two sons (seven and five years old respectively) were playing with neighborhood friends. Out of the blue, my two sons came running home upset because the girls in the group told them they didn’t want to play with them. I was puzzled. Wasn’t my daughter also in the group? How could she allow these girls to tell her younger brothers that they couldn’t also play in the group? Why didn’t she defend her brothers?
I sat down with my daughter and asked her about what had occurred. The bottom-line was that the popular opinion of the group was that the boys should not play with the girls. However, my daughter acknowledged that she did not agree with the group’s opinion. She thought it was wrong, but she did not say anything because the popular feeling was that the boys should leave. At times, my wife and I talk with our children about being a leader instead of a follower. Great advice, but if you don’t know what leadership is all about, how can you put it in play? What is leadership?
I’ve read many books, articles, and journals on the subject of leadership and they offer wonderful ideas about being an effective leader. However, I have not found any that made the following statement. “Leadership is about having the self-confidence to do what is right even when it is not popular.”
The scenario that I saw play out with my daughter reminded me of a commonplace business occurrence. How often are business people told to show leadership skills, but not taught what that means? You can yell to people from the highest mountaintop to be leaders, but if you don’t help them to understand what leadership means, what ability do they have to change their behavior? How do you help people to feel confident doing what is right when it is not necessarily the popular thing to do?
Not long ago, Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, was faced with declining game attendance. As Commissioner, he was tasked with reversing the attendance trend. One idea he had was to enact interleague play where National League and American League teams play against each other during the season. Historically, the two leagues only played one another in the World Series. Most baseball fans were appalled. They considered this move to be blasphemous. Yet, Bud Selig was un-phased and put the program in place. Today, baseball attendance is booming and interleague play is a hit. Where would baseball be today if Bud Selig let the popular perspective change his decision?
This leadership mantra is not just for managers. It is for everyone. I worked in workplace drug testing for a number of years. Amazingly, five of every one hundred people who take a drug test, fail it. Do the math. That’s a lot of people. Are these bad people? Or, at some point in their life, were these people faced with right versus popular and chose the wrong one? “Come on, we’re all doing it. Be one of us. Join the crowd.” Many of these people knew that drugs were wrong, but elected the easy route of following the popular opinion. At the moment, popular was made to feel right, but only for the moment.
Truth be told, I’ve made this mistake myself. Years ago, when I ran sales for a mid-sized company, my manager had me terminate the employment of a sales person (for performance) prematurely. This employee had not gone through traditional progressive discipline procedures. However, the COO of the company had decided that this sales person was not going to be successful in the company and should be let go immediately. While I agreed that the sales person was not going to be successful, I disagreed with the timing and the methodology. I pushed back a little, but not hard enough. I should not have let popular win over right.
Sales people allow popular to win versus right, too. Imagine a sales person has been working with a client for three years. He has gotten to know the people in the account. He knows them personally. Now it is time for an account review, a periodic meeting on the performance of the relationship. A manager inserts himself into the process and informs the sales person of what is going to be done in that meeting. The sales person listens to the strategy and knows that it is not right for the account. If anything, it will jeopardize the relationship and cause the decision-maker to look foolish. However, the sales person says nothing to the manager because, after all, he is the boss.
The mantra is not about arrogance. It does not operate under the auspice that you know everything, and thus, your decision is always the right one. Those of you who are Greek mythology fans would call this hubris. No one knows everything. However, it is always easiest to follow the popular direction and not research to form your own opinion of what is right. In today’s information world, there is no excuse for not taking a few minutes to research meaningful decisions before making them.
The mantra is not an advocation for insubordination. Yes, that sales person was correct. His manager is the boss. However, managers don’t always have all of the necessary information to make an informed, educated decision. Managers count on their employees to share with them, in a diplomatic manner, information that will help them make the right decision. Few managers try to make decisions without the counsel of others. However, not enough employees step up and raise their concerns early in the process. They are masters of water-cooler speaker. “That will never work. They don’t know about this factor that will cause the project to fail.”
Executives have some responsibility for this issue. Employees are often fearful of repercussion when sharing their thoughts, particularly when they are not consistent with the mainstream feeling (a.k.a. not the popular opinion). “Rather than get rebuked, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Companies need to create a culture where it is not only acceptable, but encouraged, for employees to raise their hand before the ship hits the iceberg. Growth comes from people challenging the status quo and feeling confident that they can present ideas, in contradiction to the popular, without retribution. At the same time, companies should show intolerance for those who fail to raise their hand, but say, “Yup, I knew we would sink when we hit the iceberg. I knew it all along.”
The “ivory-tower” is famous, or is it infamous, for making decisions without having all of the most relevant information to do so prudently. The “ivory tower” is called a tower because of the gap between executives and employees. That gap might as well be an ocean if employees are not empowered to share what they feel is right when it is not popular. If it is culturally encouraged for employees to participate in decision-making, data gathering, the company is better positioned to be successful. Oftentimes, the best ideas are found by talking with those who do the work every day. People need to feel empowered to share what they feel is right. Some refer to this as “no sacred cows.”
I recently started a new company and I’ve had so many people tell me what a great job I’m doing. “This idea is brilliant!” However, I’m not looking for a pat on the back, but rather a kick in the pants. The easy thing to do is to tell me that my idea is great. However, I’d much prefer those who tell me what can be better. Tell me you see an iceberg before I hit it.
Lee B. Salz is a sales management guru who helps companies hire the right sales people, on-board them, and focus their sales activity using his sales architecture® methodology. He is the President of Sales Architects, the C.E.O. of Business Expert Webinars and author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager.” Lee is an online columnist for Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, a print columnist for SalesforceXP Magazine, and the host of the Internet radio show, “Secrets of Business Gurus.” Look for Lee’s new book in February 2009 titled, “The Sales Marriage” where he shares the secrets to hiring the right sales people. He is a passionate, dynamic speaker and a business consultant. Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitecture.com or 763.416.4321.
Keywords: sales management, leadership, management, motivation, leader, growth, personal development
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The Secret Peril That Causes Sales to be Lost | Subscribe to this Blog |
October 24, 2008
One of the biggest mirages in sales is the proverbial rubber stamp. Sales people believe that they have won the business, but have left a deal-killer in play.
It’s September, also known as back to school time. My neighbors and I escort our children to the bus stop for the first day of the new school year. However, we’re puzzled about the location of the bus stop. It isn’t in the same place that it was in prior years. Instead of the children walking down the street, just a few houses, they now had to cross two, very active streets to get to the bus stop.
Vigilant, we parents made calls to get the stop moved back to where it was before. It seemed to be a fairly easy process. We called the administrator who coordinates the bus stops and he easily acquiesced. The supervisor of the bus drivers visited the bus stop and agreed with us about the safety concern. The administrator told us that the paperwork just needed to get signed by his boss, but to let the driver know the decision was made to move the bus stop back to the old location. Victory was ours. Or was it? We left someone out of the process and what occurred next will sound painfully familiar to any sales person who works in a complex, multi-buyer, sale.
After the conversation with the supervisor and administrator, we went to what we thought was the new, old bus stop. The bus turned down our street, we gave our kids a farewell kiss, and awaited their boarding of the bus. Here comes the bus. There goes the bus. The bus driver drove past us as if we weren’t even there. Needless to say, we were furious and got on the horn. All roads led to Jack (name changed) who is the ultimate decision-maker on bus stops. He had not been consulted on any of these discussions or decisions and was blind-sided by this situation. “I see no reason to change the stop from where I assigned it, he barked.” We immediately knew this was going to be problematic. With the urging of the school and the parents, he agreed to “re-assess” the bus stop.
Following his re-assessment, he called each of the parents to inform them of his decision. “Well, I don’t think the bus stop is unsafe, but I’m going to move it.” Don’t think for one second that he used this opportunity to say that the parents’ solution was better than his. Instead, he didn’t move the stop to the requested location. He moved it across the street from where we asked him to assign it. He even changed the entire bus route to accommodate for his solution, a tremendous amount of work for a small issue. However, assigning bus stops is Jack’s domain. He owns it. He’s responsible for it. He is in control. No one is going to tell Jack how to run his business. He is a thirty-year expert in bus safety. However, this wasn’t a decision on expertise, it was old-fashioned bravado, ego. And, it is not limited to bus stops. It impacts every sales person who needs to engage multiple people in the buying process to get the account awarded to them.
As I hung up the phone with Jack, it dawned on me. I coach sales people on how to work strategically in an account and we failed miserably in this circumstance. One of the perils I share with sales people is leaving the ultimate decision-maker out of the solution development process. Think about a sale that you lost, that you thought you were going to win. And, you thought you were going to win because you had a great relationship with the administrator. You and the administrator had crafted the entire solution in such a way that he could march into his boss’s office for the proverbial rubber stamp.
Many years ago, I learned, painfully, that there is no such thing as a rubber stamp. Many sales people hear “rubber stamp” and feel confident that they are working with the right person. “The sale is mine!” If anything, the rubber stamp is simply the fuse on a stick of dynamite. Better get under your desk, your deal is about to implode!
Here is what happens behind the scenes as your administrator visits with his boss. “Mr Jones, I’ve found a new supplier for our widgets. The sales rep is terrific. We’ve worked together and developed an ideal solution that makes everyone’s life easier and we’ll save 10% on our spending.” “Put it in my inbox,” says, Mr. Jones. Days become weeks as the administrator pings Mr. Jones about his rubber stamp, but no signature is forthcoming.
Finally, Mr. Jones develops an interest in his widget purchasing and surfs the web for potential suppliers. He meets with three of them and finds one to his liking. “This supplier is going to save the company 10.25%”. Guess who got the deal? However, the sales person never knows about this because the administrator is too embarrassed to call him. After all, the administrator said this was just a rubber stamp, you had been awarded the business. Communication with the administrator goes dark; he just stops responding to your emails and voicemails.
What sales people often forget is that as you go up the corporate ladder, business leaders maintain accountability for the lower rungs of their responsibility. Thus, they want to feel as if they are involved in the solution development phase, or at least be offered the opportunity to participate. When administrators fly into their office with what they feel is a great decision, they are rebuffed. And, for one core reason, EGO! While the administrator’s plan may very well be a great one, it is met with resistance for the simple reason that his manager was not invited to participate in the process. When he finally becomes interested enough to look at this issue, his goal becomes proving that there is a better deal to be had. In essence, this approach creates a saboteur of your deal.
If you are the sales person dealing with the administrator, how do you have the conversation where you share the concern of their manager not being involved in the process without offending? It takes a tremendous amount of finesse and strategic planning. However, if you truly have your client’s best interests at heart, it is easy. This is the ultimate key. If you are committed to ensuring that your clients achieve their goals, you can have this conversation. After all, you know that they won’t get what they want if you continue down this path. Need help with a strategy to have this discussion with your clients, send me an email: lsalz@salesarchitecture.com.
Lee B. Salz is a sales management guru who helps companies hire the right sales people, on-board them, and focus their sales activity using his sales architecture® methodology. He is the President of Sales Architects, the C.E.O. of Business Expert Webinars and author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager.” Lee is an online columnist for Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, a print columnist for SalesforceXP Magazine, and the host of the Internet radio show, “Secrets of Business Gurus.” Look for Lee’s new book in February 2009 titled, “The Sales Marriage” where he shares the secrets to hiring the right sales people. He is a passionate, dynamic speaker and a business consultant. Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitecture.com or 763.416.4321.
Keywords: sales techniques, sales strategy, lost sales, sales management, sales consulting, sales training, strategic accounts, closing skills
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