NOV 26TH 2008 / Issue 15
This One’s About Trust
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Lessons for Salespeople from the Election Battlefield
Taking A Shot
Slingshot GM Mark Callander on brand building and taking on giants
Heart Power
Motivating Salespeople From The Heart
NOV 26 th / Issue 15
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INTERVIEW
TAKING A SHOT Mark Callendar talked to NZ Sales Manager about building brands, strategies for smaller players, and getting to the top.
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THIS WEEKS MUST READ
THIS ONES ABOUT TRUST 5 lessons for salepeople from the election battlefield. 9
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NZSM CALENDAR
10 TWO MINUTE TOP-UP HEART POWER Motivating salespeople from the heart. 11 Sales skills boost for Gen-i Waikato School of Managemens new tertiary sales course.
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13 BOOK REVIEW The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power A revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation 14 SALES TRAINING DIRECTORY 15 THE CLOSE
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his week I have nothing to say. So instead we’re going to give away a book on selling. In fact NZ Sales Manager has three copies of Ready Set Sell – How To Succeed In Selling by Wellington’s Richard Buttenshaw to give away just in time for summer holiday reading.
To enter the draw just email subscriptions@ nzsalesmanager.co.nz with Ready Set Sell in the subject line by 4pm Friday November 28, and we’ll post a copy to three lucky winners. Alternatively you can pick up a copy from Dymocks or get in touch with the guys at www.salestoolbox.co.nz and get a copy at the special rate for NZ Sales Manager readers of just $15 plus $2 for postage (RRP$19.95).
ABOUT / Short and sharp, New Zealand Sales Manager is a free fortnightly e-magazine delivering thought provoking and enlightening articles, and industry news and information to forward-thinking sales managers, business owners and sales professionals. EDITOR / Richard Liew DESIGNER / Jodi Olsson ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES / +64-9-361 1375 or email richardl@nzsalesmanager.co.nz CONTENT ENQUIRIES / +64-9-361 1375 or email richardl@nzsalesmanager.co.nz ADDRESS / NZ Sales Manager Magazine,127a Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby, Auckland, NZ. +64-9-361 1375
Let’s face it – us salespeople need all the help we can get at this stage!
WEBSITE / www.nzsalesmanager.co.nz
Richard
Got any thoughts on this topic or articles in this week’s issue? We’d love to know what you think. Email your comments to richardl@nzsalesmanager.co.nz and we’ll share the best ones in future issues.
NZSM / nov 26TH 2008 / 3
INTERVIEW
Name: Mark Callendar Age: 34
RESUME Daily Freight: Marketing Graduate Andrew Brands Ltd: FMCG Sales and Marketing Manager Telecom – Xtra: Acquisition Manager Pillar Limited: Own marketing consultancy CallPlus Services Ltd: Marketing Consultant, Marketing Manager, General Manager
Taking A Shot
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Slingshot and CallPlus General Manager Mark Callander won this year’s New Zealand Institute of Management Young Executive of the Year award for the northern region and competes for the national title in December. He talked to NZ Sales Manager about building brands, strategies for smaller players, and getting to the top. NZSM/ Mark you came into General Management from a sales and marketing background – how do you think this influences the way you go about your role as GM? MC/ It has a very positive influence because the key to running any business is understanding your customers and this is the essence of any good marketers. Having this experience and background results in the development of a very customer focused business which is key to growth and survival in any competitive markets. NZSM/ Over the years Slingshot has been a very vocal proponent of competition in the internet and telco market
– what’s it been like having to compete against New Zealand’s largest company? MC/ Fun, exciting and challenging. The key to taking on any large incumbent regardless of industry is to do things different and constantly challenge traditional models. This can be achieved numerous ways, for example through brand positioning and owning a space in the mind of the consumer that larger companies simply cannot match. You can never out shout or out spend a company like Telecom, but you sure can do things smarter and faster. NZSM/ The market for internet and telephone services is NZSM / nov 26TH 2008 / 4
very price sensitive, how do you compete for the customer dollar if you can’t always be the cheapest? MC/ If one of your core values or propositions is price, you must develop a business that can deliver on it. Price will always be a key factor when you’re a challenger in the market and for this reason it is important that internal cost structures are managed effectively. This means investing in back office systems and processes to eliminate unnecessary overheads or even developing innovative ways to communicate with customers. While both Slingshot and CallPlus are price challengers in the market, both businesses also deliver value added services that are difficult to match. NZSM/ In terms of brand building, what’s the most important thing for businesses to focus on when they don’t have megabucks to spend on advertising campaigns?
Brand building is established by the way your company answers the phone, what your invoice looks like, what customers say about your service to friends and any other touch points with your business. MC/ Brand building is not just about advertising. Brand building is established by the way your company answers the phone, what your invoice looks like, what customers say about your service to friends and any other touch points with your business. For Slingshot, our Contact Centre staff are the most important people in our business because there is no point advertising and communicating brand values if these are not aligned or shared by frontline staff. The alignment of external and internal brand values in any company is essential and when this does not occur any advertising investment will only deliver short term gains. Lastly it is not how much you spend, it is how you spend it. With limited budgets it is essential that you maximise your reach to the right audience, and If you can’t measure it you’re just guessing. This is a key area where many businesses fail when investing in advertising. NZSM/ As General Manager there’s a lot of responsibility and obviously plenty of things you could turn your attention to - how do you decide what’s most important to spend your time on?
MC/ The most important aspect of the role is valuing staff and creating an environment that breeds success. Just like understanding customers you also need to understand staff - what motivates them, how to get the best out of them and how to create a workplace that they want to be involved in and proud of. This is the most important aspect. NZSM/ What are the most challenging aspects of your role as General Manager? MC/ Time management and the prioritisation of demands from across the business. From an operational perspective, it is a matter of allocating resource to leverage the most valuable opportunities. This often requires an assessment of each project based on the impact to the business which is not always a financial based metric – many factors are considered. In addition to this, the telecommunications environment is incredibly fast paced - managing the business day to day while thinking about what the business will look like tomorrow is always a challenge. We can’t sit still or we die. NZSM/ Do you have any advice for young people who want to accelerate their progress into leadership and management roles? MC/ Firstly make sure your manager knows and understands any aspirations in this area – that is always the best place to start. Also, look for opportunities outside of work. For example, there are often community based organisations that will offer great opportunities for willing individuals and even sports clubs. These opportunities can offer great learning curves as an interim step. Take advantage of any training opportunities within your business and even consider getting involved in associations like Toastmasters which is an inexpensive way to learn and develop some of the skills necessary for leadership roles. NZSM/ As a GM you no doubt you get people trying to sell you things all the time – do you have any advice on what salespeople who are trying to sell to GM’s or business owners, should and shouldn’t do? MC/ Qualify any opportunities before contacting any potential customer so it doesn’t come across as a fact finding mission in the first instance. You are dealing with busy individuals so get to the essence of the opportunity quickly – background information on the company you represent is nice to know, but not always necessary upfront. If it takes more than 10 minutes, chances are it has taken too long. NZSM / nov 26TH 2008 / 5
T H I S W EE K ’ S M US T R E A D
This One’s About Trust
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5 Lessons for Salespeople From the Election Battlefield By Paul Newsom
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abour’s election campaign message will still be fresh in your mind - ‘This one is about trust.’ There has already been much media comment on whether airbrushed pictures, relentless criticism and dirt digging of the competition, and political spin, helps in any way to endear trust. I think not and while trust has been a political theme of the past couple of months it brings a few timely reminders for all salespeople. So why mix politics with sales? Well it is interesting that in the 2008 Readers Digest New Zealand’s most trusted professions list, politicians, sex workers and sales professions fill the bottom 5 places. They do so with a predictable regularity. The sales professions listed are telemarketers (rock bottom), car salesmen and real estate agents.
And why are politicians, sex workers and sales professions in the gutter when it comes to trust? The report states that “sex workers don’t normally speak about their profession – it’s unknown. What people don’t know, they don’t trust.” For sales people and politicians it should be a different reason. After all, politicians and sales people generally do a lot of talking! Of the 70 public figures in the survey, 12 of the bottom 20 are politicians, along with a few high profile convicted criminals. Not surprisingly there are no sales people on the public figures list. Ask someone to describe a stereotypical sales person, and most would probably refer to a used car salesman. Not necessarily because they have had a bad experience buying a car but because decades of self serving sales behaviour has created this image. I must point out that my inference is not that all sales people are not to be trusted, or to say that all car salesmen, real estate agents and telemarketers are not to be trusted. But perception is what it is, and obviously when these professions are mentioned, most people are thinking guilty until proven innocent! Let’s look at a five reasons why politicians are not trusted, as there are some key lessons for the sales profession in this.
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1. It seemed to me that Labour were asking voters to trust them because you can’t trust the competition. Labours ‘Two John’s’ ad got a reaction - it fell foul of the advertising standards authority (NBR 30 Oct) for carrying misleading information. Lesson 1 // You can’t ask someone to trust you and expect them to do so. Trust is earned. Telling your customers that your competition is not to be trusted is unlikely to instill their trust in you. In fact, it will have the opposite affect. 2. Winston Peters’ political career is over for now. Establishing whether he did or didn’t accept donations or go electioneering in a helicopter is not the purpose of this article. The point is, his behaviour does not allow me to trust or believe him.
“What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that I can no longer believe you” Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher Lesson 2 // Not giving a straight answer, avoiding the question and only giving the part of the story that you want people to hear will not get you re-elected. The customer will not trust you, and won’t come back to buy again. 3. ‘Self serving’ behaviour is rife among politicians as they defend their territory and seek to gain support of the public. While the media has a lot to answer for in the way it reports this, no-one other than the politicians themselves would disagree that they spend too much time with their playground antics. Their interests seem to be about themselves rather than the people they serve. They say the right words but their actions tell a different story.
night. Let’s give the caller the name Mary. It went like this: (In brackets is what is going through my mind.) - “Hello, is that Mr Paul Newsom”? - “Yes” I reply (I’m suspicious) - “Hi, this is Mary from the Self Serving Bank, How are you tonight”? - “Good, thank you” I reply (what is she trying to sell me?) - “That’s good Mr Newsom, may I call you Paul”? - “Yes” I reply (after all it is my name. Why are you calling me to ask me if you can call me by my name? – your credibility is fading fast. You are working to a tired old script.) - “So how has your day been Paul”? - “Good” I reply (I have no idea what you are selling yet, but even if you have the deal of the century I will not buy from you – I don’t trust you, your credibility is shot). - “That’s excellent Paul, the reason I am calling tonight is to Blah Blah Blahdy Blah……..” A minute later I interrupt Mary to tell her that I already have adequate life insurance or whatever it was she was selling. - “Oh” says Mary. “Well that’s really good, I’m pleased because it is important for you and your family. Our product is the only one with blah blah blahdy blah” and so Mary started again. At this point Mary did not know how to end the call, she just dug herself into a bigger hole, nailing the final nails into her telemarketers coffin. These people are set up to fail by their employers. No wonder we don’t trust them. Lesson 3 // You are not likely to be trusted if selling is only about what you want. You may know that you are trustworthy, but your customers don’t. If you sound and behave like a self serving sales person you are unlikely to be trusted.
Trust is established through action, not words. Lesson 3 // comes with a look at why telesales people are at the bottom of the trust pile. In the Trust survey report, Vanessa Hall business consultant and author of The Truth About Trust says “They don’t appear to have the best interests of people at heart.” She cites their pushiness and need to reach targets as the key impediment to trust. “We suggest they change their approach, put the interests of their customers first and stop calling at mealtimes,” says Hall. Here’s an example that I’m sure will be very familiar to you all. I received a call from one of our high street banks the other
4. I consider some politicians to be trustworthy, yet they are let down by less scrupulous colleagues or poor party policy. Similarly many salespeople are highly trustworthy. They are personally trusted by their customers yet that trust is undermined by corporate shareholder driven policy and behaviour, and business decisions that are not customer focussed. Unreasonable changes to terms and conditions, unjustified price increases and obscene profits are just a few examples. The behaviour of the corporation is not trustworthy, yet the behaviour of the sales person is. As a case in point, in December 2005 Westpac employees NZSM / nov 26TH 2008 / 7
protested in Wellington because they felt they had to sell services like home loans even if they were not in the best interest of clients - otherwise they felt they might lose their jobs. Lesson 4 // Pass this test - Would you do yourself what you are recommending to your customer? 5. So what is trust anyway? Jack Welch, ex CEO of GEC, describes it simply – ‘you know it when you feel it’. We get that feeling that something is not quite right. How often do we get ‘that feeling’ when listening to politicians? Steven M.R. Covey’s excellent book The Speed of Trust, The One Thing That Changes Everything is one of the best books you can read on the subject of trust. Covey’s key message is a trust formula: When trust goes up, speed goes up and cost comes down. As an example, consider this simple selling situation. The seller helps to identify and solve a problem in the customers business. Trust is quickly established between the buyer and seller, and speed goes up as the customer makes a quick buying decision. The seller knows it and does what is required to progress the sale. The cost of doing business comes down through a quick and efficient sale and purchase. Contrast this with a seller who makes repeated calls to a business trying to sell a product, having no idea whether
there is a really a need. Finally the seller is given the opportunity to trial their product for a 3 month period, but at their cost. There is then a protracted negotiation, and multiple meetings as the buyer cautiously works their way to a decision. The buyer eventually decides not to change supplier for another 12 months. With little trust, speed goes down and cost goes up. Lesson 5 // Trust is the one thing that changes everything. When you come out of a meeting with a client, ask yourself, what did I do to build trust with the client? As we all know, every sales meeting must have a purpose. One key purpose should always be to build trust. Read the book The Speed of Trust, particularly the ‘13 Behaviours,’ to find out how. As Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes, says on the back cover of the book, ‘we often take this critical intangible for granted, and we do so at our ultimate competitive peril.’ As a final thought, consider one of the old sayings of the sales industry – ‘he could sell ice to an Eskimo.’ That is, he is so good he can sell something to someone that they don’t need. Well, I don’t know many Eskimo’s but I would imagine they wouldn’t trust this sales person sufficiently to go back to buy again. I would rather have a sales person on my team who sold ice to people to fill their chilly bins, and who sold radiators to Eskimos. I would trust him, and he would probably sell a whole lot more too.
Paul Newsom is Learning & Development Manager of the Rev Sales Network overseeing the content and quality of the RSN’s executive sales training programs.
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WED 26 NOV
NZSM CALENDAR SAT 29 NOV
SUN 30 NOV
FRI 5 DEC
MON 1 DEC
Presentation Skills David Forman Auckland Sales Prospecting NZIM Auckland Sales Skills Level 1 EMA Auckland
FRI 28 NOV
THU 27 NOV Sales Basics Geewiz Christchurch
TUE 2 DEC
WED 3 DEC
Sales Basics Geewiz Christchurch
Sales Development David Forman Lower Hutt
Sales Development David Forman Lower Hutt
Sales Development David Forman Lower Hutt
Advanced Sales Development David Forman Auckland
THU 4 DEC Sales Development David Forman Lower Hutt
Advanced Sales Development David Forman Auckland
SAT 6 DEC
MON 8 DEC
WED 10 DEC
TUE 9 DEC Hit The Ground Running Seminar Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland
SUN 7 DEC THU 11 DEC
FRI 12 DEC
SAT 13 DEC
MON 15 DEC
TUE 16 DEC Hit The Ground Running Seminar Top Achievers Sales Training Hamilton
Fundamentals of Selling Workshop Top Achievers Sales Training Auckland
SUN 14 DEC WED 17 DEC
THU 18 DEC
FRI 19 DEC
MON 22 DEC
SAT 20 DEC
SUN 21 DEC TUE 23 DEC
WED 24 DEC
THU 25 DEC
FRI 26 DEC
SAT 27 DEC
28 DEC NZSM / novSUN 26TH 2008 / 9
TWO MINUTE TOP-UP
Heart Power
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Motivating Salespeople From The Heart
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et’s face it, most salespeople think they go to work for their pay packet. The bigger their salary and higher their commissions the happier they are….and so is the boss with increased sales. However, happiness is intrinsic and what the heart desires, the head has to provide methods and systems to assist in creating those dreams. Recently I attended a sales course with Sales Star and was reminded that most purchase decisions are based on emotion. Then, they are supported by logic to rationalize and justify the process. If a company is in pain, find the pain and offer a solution which is their “buy in” as you provide a method to fix their need. It is the same with your sales staff. Whereas the pay packet is fantastic, include some emotion in the motivation process and you not only tap into their needs, you elevate their hearts desires by focusing on fulfilling their dreams. Sales people are from the personality group who make decisions based on emotion so this motivation works best for them.
By Janice Davies
3 Tips For Creating A Motivated Sales Team 1. I mprove their attitude. Understand the traits of negative and positive attitude and provide tools to keep their ‘thinking’ and attitude positive. 2. C reate a confident team by boosting their self belief or esteem. A sales person who lacks confidence will not ask for the sale or up-sell. To help create a confident sales person, consider offering them the opportunity to attend Toastmasters, where they will not only learn how to increase their communication technique, they will also boost their self esteem. 3. Uncover your sales team members’ personal 2009 goals. Support their desires and dreams when goal setting and tap into their emotional needs to motivate them.
Janice Davies is a professional speaker, author and success coach known as The Attitude Specialist. Visit her website www.attitudespecialist.com for more tips and articles. NZSM / nov 12TH 2008 / 10
JOHN WOODYARD
Sales skills boost for Gen-i
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eing a good sales person requires a lot more than product knowledge and the ability to talk up features and benefits. Sales are key to business survival yet selling is not regarded as a prestige occupation and rarely is it taught at tertiary level. That’s about to change with a new collaboration between Telecom’s corporate ICT subsidiary, Gen-i, and the University of Waikato Management School. From 2009, Gen-i staff will be able to study for a Postgraduate Certificate in Management Studies, specialising in sales management. Gen-i already has its own Sales Academy and graduates from its in-house programme will be able to enrol in the new qualification that’ll be delivered by faculty from the University’s Centre for Corporate and Executive Education. “Too often sales is seen as a subset of marketing,” says John Woodyard, sales and service academy manager at Gen-i. “But it’s a stand-alone discipline far removed from the silver tongued sales person or product hustler of old. Today’s sales people have to have leadership skills and need to understand business and the wider world they’re operating in. They have to be able to move easily in any sector of business and be able to map technical solutions to business pressures. To do that, they require a depth of business understanding and education.”
Woodyard says Gen-i chose Waikato Management School to deliver the postgraduate sales qualification for a number of reasons. The School has successfully led Telecom’s Leadership Development Programme for a number of years, it’s ranked the number one business school in New Zealand, and Woodyard says he liked the people he was dealing with from Corporate & Executive Education. “They talked through what we wanted in a constructive way, they weren’t overbearing and didn’t come loaded with theory and preconceptions.”
“Too often sales is seen as a subset of marketing, but it’s a stand-alone discipline far removed from the silver tongued sales person or product hustler of old.” Associate Professor Roger Brooksbank has already worked with Gen-i on its salesperson assessment panel and he’s impressed by what Gen-i has already achieved in its academy. “It’s probably the best in-house training that I’ve come across by a country mile,” he says. Fifty Geni-i staff have graduated since 2005 and it was Gen-i graduates who asked to extend their education still further.
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“It’s about providing our people with more tools to enhance their revenue generating capability,” says Woodyard. “ICT is a tough market, and the better service we can provide for our clients, the more successful we will be. Doing this qualification with Waikato Management School will enable us to take client relationship skills to an advanced level.”
Brooksbank...says it’s probably time New Zealand followed the US lead and placed sales as a stand-alone subject in tertiary education. The four postgraduate papers that make up the PGCert may count towards the Waikato MBA if Geni-i staff wish to continue with tertiary study. The papers will cover
relationship management, strategic marketing, global marketing and action learning - where students apply an area of their study to their daily work. Gen-i staff will fit their study round their jobs and use case studies relevant to ICT. Waikato Management School dean Professor Frank Scrimgeour thinks it’s a win-win for both organisations. “The qualification will give Gen-i access to some leading researchers in sales and marketing, while for us, we can use aspects of Gen-i’s best practice models in our research and teaching.” Brooksbank, who’s the author of Hot Marketing, Cool Profits and How to Close More Sales, says it’s probably time New Zealand followed the US lead and placed sales as a stand-alone subject in tertiary education. “You could say that sales has been a bit of a late developer in academia, but perhaps that’s changing now.” www.execed.ac.nz
From re:think, the Waikato Management School’s Newpaper for Business
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NZSM / nov 26TH 2008 / 12
R ES O U R C E C O R N E R
The Corporation
The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power By Joel Bakan Published by Free Press
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ver the last 150 years the corporation has risen from relative obscurity to become the world’s dominant economic institution. Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends that today’s corporation is a pathological institution, a dangerous possessor of the great power it wields over people and societies.
In this revolutionary assessment of the history, character, and globalization of the modern business corporation, Bakan backs his premise with the following observations: • The corporation’s legally defined mandate is to pursue relentlessly and without exception its own economic selfinterest, regardless of the harmful consequences it might cause to others. • The corporation’s unbridled self-interest victimizes individuals, society, and, when it goes awry, even shareholders and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as $33.66 from recent Wall Street scandals reveal. • Governments have freed the corporation, despite its flawed
character, from legal constraints through deregulation and granted it ever greater authority over society through privatization. But Bakan believes change is possible and he outlines a farreaching program of achievable reforms through legal regulation and democratic control. Featuring in-depth interviews with such wide-ranging figures as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, business guru Peter Drucker, and cultural critic Noam Chomsky, “The Corporation” is an extraordinary work that will educate and enlighten students, CEOs, whistle-blowers, power brokers, pawns, pundits, and politicians alike.
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09 573 1484
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I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.
French writer, Francois Rabelais (1494-1553)
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