“First Break all the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman provides 12 fundamental questions that employees ask of themselves, that great managers / leaders need to answer if they hope to keep their employees motivated and engaged.

Are you consistently answering the12 questions employees ask, and need positive answers to for your team to be top producers?

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?

2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

3. Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?

4. In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?

5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?

6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?

8. Does the mission / purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?

9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

10. Do I have a best friend at work?

11. In the last 6 months, has someone talked to me about my progress?

12. This last year, have I had the opportunity at work to learn and grow?

This is a powerful check-list to grow your leadership capability and a complete team of top performers.

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman were asked To analyze a competency model for leadership development that a client had created.

They asked 332,860 bosses, peers, and subordinates what skills have the greatest impact on a leader’s success in the position they currently hold.

Each respondent selected the top four competencies our of a list of 16.

I now ask you – which competencies are most crucial for you to pay attention to right now?

Which ones will be critical in the future?

Now the challenge to you is – DO SOMETHING to build those competencies.

I’m an avid reader and I can’t decide if the internet is my friend or foe when it comes to reading.  It’s become my own personal library at my fingertips – yet if I was to admit to where I lose my productivity – it’s with my getting lost for hours reading about leadership, sales, and/or business on the internet.

Today I came across an article of the 12 up and coming leadership books worth reading by Jenna McGregor of the Washington Post. I’m intrigued and will be checking these books out. Here’s the link to her list.

Yet I can’t resist sharing my short list of favorite leadership books too:

Coaching for Improved Work Performance by Ferdinand Fournies

The One Minute Manger Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard

First Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer by Margot Morrell, Stephanie Capparell

What is your favorite leadership book?  Please let me know!

A 9 year old girl and I were sitting in the waiting area at the salon for our nail technicians.  Striking up a conversation with her, I showed her the two polishes I was considering.

One was the same as I had on my nails and the other was a little bolder.  I asked for her opinion.

She selected the bolder one and added this comment, “I think every time you get your nails done you should pick a different color.  That’s fun for you and if people see you every day with the same color they’ll think you are boring.  And you don’t want to be boring, do you?”

Wow, I selected the bolder color that day and my technician was shocked.  I rarely change colors and when I do I’ll wear the new color for months.  Not any more.  I have been guilted into not being boring by a 9 year old!

Are your sellers boring their customers by being same old same old each time they connect with them?  Are you being boring with your sales people?

Ways you could be boring:

• Ask the same question every day – It may go something like ‘What did you sell today?”
• Introducing new products with only the facts – Leaving out the transition pieces about the benefits to the customer and best tips on how to present to the customer
• Praising the same people – People notice who you highlight publicly and invest the time with behind closed doors.
• Talking more than listening – Engage the people you’re talking to with questions.  What do they think?  How would they take care of the situation?  Even though you’re the manager you don’t need an answer, you only need a question.

What are you going to do today to stop being boring?

Whew, I’m cringing.  I’ve just read this post in a marketing group I belong to:

“How do you deal with burnout and how do you do anger management when some employees suck big time?”

Fortunately, in my previous life as sales manager and VP of Sales I never had that attitude with my sales teams.  And in my current life, consulting and training with sales departments world-wide, I have never heard a sales manager express a concern exactly like this.

Oh, they complain about the non and poor producers all of the time… without the anger management piece.

So, you’re more likely to be constantly wondering, How do I deal with sales reps who burnout as well as the non-performing ones?

In a minute I’ll give you some tips on both of those situations.

First, if it’s your burnout… ask yourself:

Why am I burned out? Take stock of what is draining your energy at work. Which energy drainers at work can be eliminated, changed, addressed?

Although you may not be able to turn every one of your energy drainers around, when there’s a shift in some of the energy drainers – the others may not matter or even go away.

What do I like and dislike?  Humor me and create a 3 column list.

• Column 1: Like
• Column 2: Dislike
• Column 3: What can I do about the dislike?

With these specifics, now you are equipped to catch yourself enjoying what’s in your like column and pat yourself on the back, while also taking action to turn the dislikes around.

What are you thinking?  “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” Wayne Dyer

List what you are being negative about and note who and how much you’re focusing on the negative.

If it’s a decent list and you are talking about it to anyone that will listen, guess what…you are attracting more of the same.

No wonder you are burned out and unhappy.  It’s not your circumstances. It’s how you are responding to them.

You can change your thoughts and actions and have the ideal work situation.

Okay, you are on your way to loving life and work again.

Now what about the under performer makes you nuts? 

Gosh, that’s a big tip in itself.  You’ve got plenty to think about with this information and these lists.

You’ll need your responses to Column 3 from your burnout list.  Keep it handy.

The same Action step goes hand in hand with the under performer that drives you nuts:

Ask yourself about this person who drives you nuts:

• What are you thinking?
• What are you saying about this person?
• How are you acting around them?

If you are thinking you can’t count on them, they aren’t any good at selling, they never bring in the deal the right way – guess what – you are reinforcing that message and behavior.

And you’re probably doing this with more non-verbal messages than verbal ones.

Without knowing you are doing this, you, yes you are setting the expectation of what this person will rise to.

When they approach you, is your body language engaging as if your top producer was in front of you?  Or do you have the oh no, what’s wrong now, look and body language.

When you’re chatting with some other sellers and this particular person approaches, do you disengage and walk away?

Stop and really think about the non-verbal messages you are sending.

Your lack of belief in this person begins to show up in their performance.

Be honest with the answer to this next question – When was the last time you rode in the field with this person, held consistently weekly one-on-one coaching sessions and truly sought out finding the positives and not the negatives?

Another question for an honest answer – in  these building performance opportunities did you ask the sales person to describe  how they perceive their sales situation, the barriers that may be keeping them from better performance and their solution to fixing it?

Or did you do the typical – point out their shortcomings and tell them how to fix it?

Too often sales managers are doing the later – and I can’t resist the Dr. Phil opportunity… “How’s that been working for you?”

So stop.  Get out in the field, get them in your office and have a different conversation.  And not just once.

Commit to 8 – 12 weeks to be the best coach.  You may be pleasantly surprised.  This non-performer can be your next top producer.

Believe in them more than they believe in themselves.

If I asked you…

There are lots of things about managing sales teams that can cause you to get “stuck”…

So, what has you stuck?… and how can I help YOU?

…..what would you answer?

One manager, who I’ve know for 15 years, (yikes I may be aging myself), responded with two requests… one being confidence.

Confidence is an interesting one because how do you build confidence in someone?

You can’t really pour confidence in or sprinkle some confidence powder and have their power turned on.

Confidence and lack of confidence is a state of mind and each person’s state of mind is based on multiple life’s experiences.

When a person is confident, they are more productive, more effective, can raise the morale of the entire group, and works in favor of achieving life goals.

Here’s an activity for sales managers to reinforce as well as build people’s confidence:

1. On an index card place one seller’s name at the top and list as many positive qualities and strengths you see in that person.  Do this for each seller.

2. Each day for 2 weeks, look for opportunities to comment and praise  the person when they exhibit  any of the positive qualities and strengths.

3. Praise both in public and private.

Try this for 2 weeks and enjoy the shifts, smiles and confidence building conversations!

The Secret Sauce to Meet Sales Quotas Consistently:

1.  Conduct field sales ride alongs or for an inside sales team set up telephone monitoring.  Ride along with every seller.  Ride alongs give you the real story.  You see each seller in action.  You are able to build on their strengths and coach to their weakness.  A batting coach wouldn’t coach a ball player without watching them in practice and in real time games.  Why are you coaching from the office?  And let me add – conduct regular ride alongs.  One time is not enough to build people and skills.

2.  Conduct One-on-One Coaching Meetings either weekly or bi-weekly with each and every seller. Even though you have the Cheat Sheet of Questions from last week, add questions about what’s working and what’s not and what’s going on outside of work and how can you help.  You’ll be plugged in to each sales person, their territory, and their accounts.  Now planning sales and department strategy is based on the key market indicators you’re seeing first hand.

3.  Deliver high-energy, high-payoff skill boosting sales training meetings. Turn your sales meetings into skill builders.  Perfect practice makes perfect.  Practice, prepare, build on current skills and add new ones.  There are a variety of ways to use 15-30 minutes of every sales meetings to build skills.  Keep thinking like you are coaching your team for the ultimate award – like a football coach going to the Super Bowl or a baseball coach going to the World Series.  Do what they would do at every practice session.

The sales organizations I’ve worked with over the years who committed to these 3 actions met and exceeded sales quotas.

You can too if you’re willing to commit to these 3 actions.

Take out your calendar now… block out your field ride days, your one-on-one coaching days and your sales meetings.

Send an email to your reps to schedule the above… and in 90 days… write me… I’ll be eagerly waiting to hear what’s happening with your team.

“Greatness is achieved through the discipline of attending to detail. We had a simple catchphrase that we used, that said, ‘If we can do 100 things 1% better, then we can become world champions.’  Will Greenwood 2003 England World Cup Winner

Success doesn’t come from a magic bullet. I began by trying to create my list of 100 things I could do better and realized it wasn’t so easy to come up with 100 things to take action on, yet think I could really work on that many actions at once.

To make this work for me, I am comfortable with 10 items in my personal category and 10 in business as my starting point.  My plan is to review these 20 every Monday morning and Friday afternoon and work diligently on taking action to make up my 1% improvement.  Once the majority of these 20 are every day habits, I’ll add more to the list!

Now it’s your turn to write your list!

Business

1. Respond to each inquiry within 30 minutes.

2. Send a thinking of you email with a tip to 1 customer per day.

3. Keep my email box to 50 messages maximum per day.

4. Write and review a to-do list every morning, or the evening before.

5. Eat My Frog on the to-do list first.

6. Complete my to do list before doing anything else.

7. Opt out of unrelated email blasts – eliminate any distractions.

8. Tweet for 5 minutes each morning and each evening.

9. Praise each employee a minimum of once per week.

10. Make 1 extra call back per day.

Personal

1. Smile more.

2. Read my 10 affirmation cards each morning while getting dressed.

3. Write one surprise of the day in my daily journal. (This has gotten me GREAT new surprises each day!)

4. Call Mom (87) every day.

5. Every day, thank a different person that I come into contact with.

6. Drink more water.

7. Take my calcium pills every day.

8. Compliment 1 stranger per day.

9. Turn music on when in the house.

10. Jump rope 100 times on the days I don’t go to the fitness center.

What would you like to do 1% better to make a difference to sales or life?  I shared mine, how about sharing yours?

It doesn’t matter if you’re one quarter, five months or down to the last four weeks of the year, it’s always the right time for sales leaders to assess themselves on their leadership capabilities.  Sales managers invest more time evaluating their sales team and their performance and often overlook their own responsibilities for the success of their people.

Top performing sales leaders look at their past performance, what did and didn’t work, why, and what can they do differently or even better.

If you want to see a positive shift in performance ask yourself these questions today, next month and every month thereafter:

1. How much time I have been spending on one-on-one coaching?

2. Who on my sales team would benefit the most with a series of field ride coaching days?

3. Who on my sales team are the top performers and what I have been doing to reward them?

4. Who on my sales team have I been neglecting and there’s a chance they do not feel valued?

5. What barriers has my staff expressed that they think are keeping them from making more sales?  What can I do to remove those barriers?

6. How relevant, engaging and skill building are the weekly sales meetings?  What can I do to maximize on this training and motivating opportunity? (Dust off your 30 Minute Sales Meetings Collection!)

7. How can I improve the feedback I provide?

8. How can I continue to make the invisible visible (expectations, goals, assuring people feel important)?

9.  How can I increase the amount of time my team spends interfacing with the customer?

10. What major time waster can I help minimize or eliminate to free up selling time?

11. What is one Purple Cow (Seth Godin) from ordinary to extraordinary that you can implement to increase sales productivity?

Now you are on your way to a positive shift in performance to continue to meet and exceed sales quotas.

According to Kindle I’m only 29% through Alison Levine’s book, On the Edge:  Leadership Lessons from Mount Eerest and Other Extreme Environments.

I’m riveted by her gumption, experience and lessons while she survived sub-zero temperatures, hurrican-force windes, sudden avalances and a career on Wall Street.

Alison served as the team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition and has earned her place in history books for other feats that fewer than 40 people have ever done.

In my 29% completion, I’m sharing several compelling quotes on leadership:

• The way you react to something in the moment will depend heavily on the way in which you prepare to ace challenges.
• Everyone is in a leadership position – regardless of age or title or tenure or where we work.
• Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top – it is the willpower that is the most important.  This will power you cannot buy with money or be given by others – it rises from your heart.
• Don’t wait for mentors to come to you.  Seek them out.
• If you try to win alone and you’re successful, you’re going to jump up to celebrate alone.  No one will share the moment with you.  If you win as a team, you’ll all jump up together.”
• Good leaders understand it’s their duty to develop leadership skills in others by routinely asking team members to steAp into roles of greater responsibility so they grow as leaders themselves.

I recommend this book for you and for your sales teams. Each chapter has nuggets of leadership examples.

In fact, It’ll be a great book club to discuss a chapter per week.

Remember some of the sales meetings you sat in as a seller when the sales manager used the meeting as an opportunity to point out who left the lights on or didn’t refill the coffee pot?

Or the meetings where the sales manager gave a monologue on something to do with selling… yet of course you can’t remember the topic since you were so bored with the ramblings on.

Sales meetings aren’t about the logistics of taking care of an office or speeches… and you, nor your sales reps, enjoy those kinds of meetings.

Your meeting should be different.  It’s an opportunity (with a captive audience!) to boost each person’s skill or will to do what they do even better.

And continuous improvement is the name of the game – that’s how companies grow.

As you plan your next meeting – do what I call reverse recap… answer these two questions first…

1. My team is better after attending this meeting because….

2. I am confident my team will do _______ with the information by _______.

Now you are all set to begin building valuable meeting content and propelling your sales team to close more deals.