Understanding and acknowledging the diversity of personality types is essential when dealing with clients. Every individual sees the world from a unique perspective, and their personality reflects this perspective. In this article, we will explore the importance of recognising different personality types and how tailoring our approach to match their communication style can lead to more successful client interactions.

Treat People How They Want to be Treated:

Acknowledging that people have varying communication styles and preferences is crucial in establishing strong rapport with clients. The adage “treat people how you would like to be treated” assumes a one-size-fits-all approach, which may not resonate with everyone. Instead, adopting a customer-centric approach, where we treat people the way they want to be treated, fosters a sense of understanding and connection. When clients feel heard and valued, they become more open to discussing their needs and concerns, leading to more fruitful conversations and improved client relationships.

Introverts vs. Extroverts:

Understanding the fundamental differences between introverted and extroverted individuals helps us tailor our communication style to match theirs. Introverts tend to be reflective, thoughtful, and often need time to process information before responding. When engaging with introverted clients, it’s essential to give them space to speak, avoid interrupting, and provide opportunities for quiet reflection. Patience is key in building trust with introverts, as they may take longer to make decisions.

On the other hand, extroverts are more outgoing, expressive, and comfortable sharing their thoughts openly. When communicating with extroverted clients, active listening and enthusiastic engagement are essential. They appreciate a dynamic, lively conversation and may be more receptive to immediate responses and quick decision-making.

Big Picture vs. Detail-Oriented:

People’s decision-making preferences often fall into two categories: focusing on the big picture or delving into the details. Clients who are big-picture thinkers are goal-oriented and are more interested in the overall vision and outcomes. To effectively engage with them, present a clear and concise overview of your product or service, highlighting its benefits and alignment with their objectives. Avoid overwhelming them with too many details initially, as it may detract from the main message.

Conversely, detail-oriented clients place great emphasis on understanding the intricacies of the product or service. They want to know the specifics, ask detailed questions, and ensure that everything aligns perfectly with their requirements. When interacting with detail-oriented clients, be prepared to provide in-depth information, answer specific questions, and address any concerns they may have.

Adapting to Different Personality Types:

Appreciating that individuals possess diverse personality types is the first step in effectively adapting our approach to accommodate their preferences. By acknowledging these differences, we can tailor our communication style, presentation methods, and engagement techniques to suit each client’s unique personality. This level of adaptability not only enhances client satisfaction but also demonstrates a commitment to understanding and meeting their needs.

Becoming a Chameleon:

In the context of sales and customer interactions, being a chameleon refers to our ability to adjust and adapt to different customer personalities seamlessly. It involves actively observing and understanding the client’s communication cues, body language, and verbal expressions to match their style. Being a chameleon doesn’t mean being inauthentic; instead, it’s about being flexible and versatile in our approach while maintaining our core values and message. This adaptability fosters trust and rapport, making clients feel more comfortable and understood, which, in turn, positively impacts the outcomes of our interactions.

Enhancing Customer Relationships:

When we take the time to understand and adapt to clients’ personality types, we demonstrate empathy and respect for their individuality. This heightened level of understanding builds stronger relationships and fosters a deeper sense of connection with clients. They will appreciate our efforts to tailor our approach to their preferences, leading to increased loyalty, trust, and long-term partnerships. By valuing each client as a unique individual, we create a positive and memorable experience that sets us apart from competitors.

Team Dynamics:

Understanding and discussing different personality types within a team can lead to improved collaboration and client engagement. Understanding each team member’s strengths and communication styles allows for more effective task delegation and seamless coordination during client interactions. By leveraging team members’ diverse strengths and personality traits, the team can collectively create a more engaging and satisfying experience for clients.

Adapting our approach to clients’ personality types is an invaluable skill in fostering successful relationships. By treating clients the way they want to be treated, understanding introversion and extroversion, considering big picture vs. detail orientation, and becoming adaptable chameleons, we can build stronger connections, influence more effectively, and ultimately achieve better results for both our clients and our business. Embracing this customer-centric mindset and incorporating it into an effective sales and communication process will transform client interactions, leading to enhanced performance and greater success.

You can learn more about understanding clients for better results in the best-selling book ‘Inspire, Influence, Sell’. If you’re in a leadership role you will find ‘Coaching Leaders’ equally valuable. If you prefer a more hands on approach to learning, you can enrol on our Inspire Sales Academy or Coaching Leaders Academy courses. Contact Justin directly for more information, his email is justinleigh@focus4growth.co.uk.


You can connect with Justin and access some of the Focus4growth resources here:
https://linktr.ee/JustinLeigh

 

 

The Sales Acceleration Scorecard!

Schedule 15 minutes In your diary, follow the link below, answer the questions and you’ll be starting a process that will change everything.

CLICK HERE to access the Scorecard.
Learn more about the SCORECARD HERE

Many managers find themselves micromanaging their teams, despite being past high performers themselves. Transitioning from being a high performer to a ‘coaching leader’ requires a shift in mindset and approach, one that isn’t immediately obvious.

In this article, I’ll share 10 insights on how to break free from micromanagement and adopt a coaching approach to unlock your leadership superpower and your team’s full potential.

1 – Shift from High Performer to Coaching Leader.

The transition from a high-performing individual contributor to a successful leader involves recognising the distinction between personal success and enabling the success of others. Coaching is about understanding how each team member can tap into their motivation and high performance, even if it differs from your own. Your awareness and appreciation of these differences is the enabler for change and your transformation to a coaching leader.

2 – Understanding the Impact on Team Performance.

Micromanagement tends to make teams task-focused, stifling their creativity, innovation, and commitment. Conversely, coaching empowers individuals to think beyond their daily tasks and connect their work to a greater purpose. It promotes higher performance, personal development, continual improvement, and a sense of ownership among team members. Knowing you have the potential to unlock this in your team members is a duty of all Leaders. As Harvey. S. Firestone said “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”

3 – Breaking Dependency.

Micromanagement creates a cycle of dependence, where team members rely on the manager for direction and accountability. Shifting to a coaching approach transfers responsibility for decision making and delivery from the manager, to the team member. It enables individuals to set their own goals, find motivation, and become responsible to update the coaching leader on their progress, rather than expect to be managed.

4 – Fostering Development and Growth.

A coaching approach inherently focuses on employee development and growth. The coach model, for example, encourages setting future goals and discussing performance and potential. Underpinned by ongoing, regular discussions about performance and potential. By actively engaging in coaching conversations, leaders can support their team members in leveraging their strengths and achieving their potential.

5 – Principles and Skills of Effective Coaching.

Employing a structured coaching approach is vital. The ‘COACH’ model, for example, encourages the agreement of the following stages: Contracting for standards & Values, Setting clear Objectives & Goals, Observing your team take Action, utilising Coaching as a performance accelerator and setting Heroic future goals. It’s important to create space for coaching conversations to give and receive feedback. Developing coaching skills such as active listening, powerful questioning, empathy, support and challenge is crucial for successful coaching.

6 – Building Trust and a Supportive Environment.

Trust and a supportive coaching environment start with the leader. Investing time in building an emotional bank account with team members fosters trust (see the previous article on the Emotional Bank Account). Additionally, leaders can create a supportive environment by encouraging team members to share ideas, implement changes collectively, and take responsibility for their own growth.

7 – Improving Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction.

Coaching shifts responsibility and autonomy to team members, resulting in increased engagement and job satisfaction. With clarity of expectations and a greater sense of ownership, team members feel empowered to deliver more meaningful contributions. Leaders, in turn, experience satisfaction by witnessing their team members thrive independently. Interestingly accordingly to the Gallup ‘Q12’ employee engagement research the number 1 indicator of engagement for team members is ‘being clear on what is expected of me at work’ *.

8 – Challenges and Overcoming Them.

Transitioning from micromanagement to a coaching approach requires breaking the habit of control and building trust in your team’s capabilities. It can be challenging to let go of the short-term rewards of micromanagement, but becoming aware of the need for change is the first step. Deliberate coaching conversations, focusing on team motivations and responsibilities, help overcome these challenges.

9 – Contribution to High-Performance Teams and Organisational Success.

Coaching plays a vital role in the long-term success of an organisation. It fosters individual growth, strengthens performance, and encourages team members to consider their future potential. By investing in coaching, organisations develop a pipeline of talent, succession plans, and a culture of continual growth and improvement.

10 – Take Action, Start Coaching.

Embrace the shift from micromanagement to coaching leadership to unlock your team’s full potential. Commit to developing your coaching skills, building trust, and fostering a supportive environment one conversation at a time. Use every conversation as an opportunity to practice coaching and develop your skills. By doing so, you’ll create a high-performance team that drives organizational success and cultivates a culture of growth and development.

If you’d like to learn more about the COACH model and how you can become a Coaching Leader, check out the latest book from the author of this article Justin Leigh, ‘Coaching Leaders – Unlock your Leadership Superpower.’ You can pick up your copy on Amazon here:

Coaching Leaders

If you’re interested in becoming a coaching leader, explore the resources offered by Focus4Growth and reach out to Justin for further guidance and join one of the Focus4growth Coaching Leaders Academies. The next 12 month Coaching Leaders Academy starts in October 2023, contact Justin if you’d like to be considered for it.

You can learn more about developing your Coaching Leadership skills in the newly launched book  ‘Coaching Leaders’, but Justin Leigh. If you prefer a more hands on approach to learning, you can enrol on the Coaching Leaders Academy course. The next 12 month Coaching Leaders Academy starts in October 2023, contact Justin if you’d like to be considered for it, find more details here:

https://focus4growth.co.uk/coaching-leaders-academy/

 

If you’d like to contact Justin directly his email is justinleigh@focus4growth.co.uk.

You can connect with Justin and access some of the Focus4growth resources here: https://linktr.ee/JustinLeigh

*The Gallup research article is here: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236570/employees-lot-managers.aspx

 

“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”

― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

In his brilliant book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen Covey introduces the concept of the emotional bank account. You may wonder what is an emotional bank account? This theory is discussed in detail in his book, but put simply, the emotional bank account is a measure of the relationship between you and someone else. This could be with your friends and family in your everyday life but what I want to focus on is the powerful impact the emotional bank account holds within your client, team members and business partner relationships. The measure of the emotional bank account is determined and defined by the actions taken by both you and them, making deposits and withdrawals by each of you as you develop and continue to form ongoing relationships. The emotional bank account is your relationship, and the deposits and withdrawals are essentially the ‘give and take’ within it. As a result of these actions, trust is either built upon or gradually eroded, depending on how much each person deposits (gives) or withdraws (takes) from that account. At any point in time, you can measure your emotional bank account balance with somebody else simply by asking yourself the question, am I in credit or debt with this person? Your intuition will do the rest.

Building a positive emotional bank account for long-term success

Building a positive emotional bank account with your clients and team members is extremely important, particularly as someone within an influential role in your business, whether that be in a client meeting, solving a problem for a client or managing and leading people within your team. In order to make requests and demands, or potentially challenge your clients or team members, it’s essential to have a positive balance in the emotional bank account of that relationship. Without it, trust can be completely eroded, and your clients, and team members will be disengaged or worse, feel they are being taken advantage of. The easiest way to build a positive emotional bank account is to establish a series of regular activities that develop the relationship with your team and/or clients. There are lots of ways to do it by finding opportunities to help, support, communicate and encourage them. If you make a habit of this, you will continually strengthen and deepen your relationships.

Boosting your ‘credit score’ when leading a team

 One of the best ways to consider your emotional bank account, when leading a team, is to ask yourself these simple questions:

•     How much do you know about this team member?

•     What deposits have you made into your relationship?

•     Have you noticed AND acknowledged their good work?

•     Have you shown a genuine interest in them?

•     Have you had a development discussion with them?

•     Have you helped, supported and challenged them?

If you do this regularly, you’ll  avoid slipping into emotional bank account ‘debt’ with your team or clients alike.

Boosting your ‘credit score’ in a client meeting

 During a consultation, the emotional bank account theory encourages your client to want to be loyal to you. Similarly to the list above, if you are considering your emotional bank account with your client, you are making a conscious effort to get to know them beyond the business transaction. To find out more about what is going on in their life, to make intentional deposits into their emotional bank account, to show a genuine interest in them and to support them as they make purchasing decisions. You are starting to create real differentiation through your relationship. When your client starts to think about their own purchasing needs, your business, the service you’re providing and the solution you’re offering, the strength of your relationship and the trust you’ve built, outweighs any thoughts about your competition.

Avoiding a negative emotional bank account

 Sometimes, we can unintentionally make withdrawals from our relationships with other people. Withdrawals can come in many forms, for example, not replying to people, overlooking people, not listening when they are sharing important information and forgetting to follow up as arranged or promised. All these negative impacts in our relationships can start to erode the trust that we worked hard to build with our clients and within our teams.

The best way to overcome this is to put a system in place. Set up reminders using your task planning system, email or calendar reminders. Allow time before your client meetings to review your notes, so your client gets a seamless experience from one meeting to the next. Using a CRM system can ensure proactive follow up for every client. Discuss with your team how you can make sure every client receives an experience that strengthens your relationships with them. If these important activities are left to memory they will be forgotten, ensure you and your team understand the impact they make on your clients.

Providing constructive feedback without damaging the emotional bank account

If you are in a position of leadership, you will understand the importance of constructive feedback, it is likely to be a significant element of your role to develop positive, proactive, high performing teams. However, you need to ensure it’s done in a way that doesn’t damage the emotional bank account, you can do that by considering your approach.

 There are several ways this can be achieved and the first and most effective way is to have a strong positive emotional bank account balance in the first place. We have a five-step process that we work through that helps us to manage difficult conversations when giving constructive feedback. Here are the five steps:

 •     Step 1: Instigate the discussion, Schedule a 1:1 with your team member to have an important discussion.

•     Step 2: Agree on the situation. Explain to the team member objectively what you’re seeing and the impact of that behaviour on other team members, the business, and sometimes on you as the leader. Ask for their perspective, how do they see it?

•     Step 3: Agree on a resolution., Ask for their suggestions on how the situation can be improved. Agree on specific changes that will be made and how you can support them.

•     Step 4: Gain commitment.  Ask for their commitment to action the changes. Discuss the implications if those changes are not made and schedule a date that you will review the improvements.

•     Step 5: Future pace. This is the step that is often missed. Finally, discuss future situations where you  anticipate a recurrence of the behaviour and agree on proactive measures to address them in advance. The idea here is to avoid the issues reoccurring.

Many of our relationships have been developed without much thought or intention.

If you make a simple plan for specific deposits into your most important emotional bank accounts, it will pay you dividends. Without intentional actions, you may find yourself making inadvertent withdrawals from your relationships with clients and your business team. If you plan regular time slots to meet with key people and make proactive deposits into  those relationships,  you’ll increase your value and strengthen their trust.

As a leader, this proactive approach will help you to maintain high morale amongst your team. It is often the little things that count the most, your deposits don’t need to be lavish gestures, investing your time, showing interest and giving support is a great way to get started. The more regularly you do it, the healthier your emotional bank account balance will become.

 By using the emotional bank account theory combined with the five steps to dealing with under performance, you will start to strengthen your relationships with your clients, your team, and create a high-performance culture.

About the author

 Justin is the founder of Focus4growth Ltd, a Sales & Leadership Coaching company specialising in the dental market. He’s the best-selling author of Inspire, Influence, Sell. He has over 25 years’ experience in sales & leadership and is an accredited Executive Coach. Justin runs programs for dental leaders and teams to develop high performance, high growth teams. Justin is privileged to work with market leading companies including; Align Technology, NTT Data, Odeon Cinema Events, Septodont, Biohorizons, W&H, SDI, MiSmile Network and many more. 

 In 2023 Justin is privileged to be speaking for the Institute of Sales Professionals hosting quarterly webinars and roundtables for their members. Justin works with many market leading sales teams to accelerate performance and results using the proven INSPIRe consultative sales system. Justin speaks at many events and on behalf of many leading associations and at corporate events. If you’d like Justin to speak at your event, please get in touch.

Justin is on a mission to show business leaders and teams how they can achieve market leading growth. 

You can learn more about building a winning business team in the best-selling book ‘Inspire, Influence, Sell’. If you’re in a leadership role you will find ‘Coaching Leaders’ equally valuable. If you prefer a more hands on approach to learning, you can enrol on our Inspire Sales Academy or Coaching Leaders Academy courses. Find out more here: https://focus4growth.co.uk/inspire-sales-academy/

https://focus4growth.co.uk/coaching-leaders-academy/

 If you’d like to contact Justin directly his email is justinleigh@focus4growth.co.uk.

You can connect with Justin and access some of the Focus4growth resources here: https://linktr.ee/JustinLeigh

The Sales Acceleration Scorecard!

Schedule 15 minutes In your diary, follow the link below, answer the questions and you’ll be starting a process that will change everything.

CLICK HERE to access the Scorecard.
Learn more about the SCORECARD HERE

Whether you’re new to sales, an experienced sales professional or a leader looking to improve the consistency and performance of your sales organisation, you’ll gain immense value from these articles, the scorecard and the INSPIRE, INFLUENCE, SELL book. Our systems map out a memorable sales process over several steps and also include mastery content for each stage of the system, which will give you deeper insight and expertise. The combination of foundational and specialist material ensures that no matter where you’re starting from, you can become a skilled salesperson.

You might want to work through these articles at the foundational level and return to the Sales Mastery sections once you get to grips with the overall system and have developed your skills. Each article starts with an experience story in which I share relevant, valuable anecdotes. If you prefer to dive straight into the sales system, you can skip that content. These articles are designed to be accessible and flexible, so that you get the most out of them.

As you work through each stage, I suggest you make notes in a journal or notebook. This will help you learn and adopt the content.

 

Don’t settle for ordinary, if you’re ready let’s start our journey together and your extraordinary transformation. You have greater potential than you ever realised, let’s unlock it!

This question was foremost on my mind for a number of years as a sales & business manager.

Sales teams are the growth engine for many businesses and from my experience measuring sales capability is not as easy as it might seem.

As a sales manager the answer I cam up with was a series of field visits with my team, spending time with customers seeing my team in action. It took me a while to get used to ‘sales coaching’ and not ‘joining in’ on the customer meetings and conversations with my team. It wasn’t until I learned how to step back, listen and observe that I was able to truly ‘coach’ my team.

Even during those coaching visits I found my views were distorted by my own experiences and personal views on how sales calls should be conducted. My preferences were impacting my objectivity. With practice I was able to develop a less biased coaching style, supporting and helping my team to find their own way to build confidence, improve performance and results. There was often a time lag between my coaching discussions, the sales teams acceptance of the need to change and the action they took to make those changes.

My own sales experience has been mixed, during my first 2 years in sales I had no training on how to sell to customers. I was taught the company product range, the catalogue, pricing and was given the 11 yellow pages for my territory (yes that really was how we did it back then). I had a hard time figuring out how to engage customers, how I should be pitching the products, identifying buying signals and closing sales. It didn’t even occur to me that I should be asking questions about their business to make myself more relevant! It took my nearly 3 years in sales before I truly understood the value of question and listening.

Later on in my career, I was fortunate that I worked for a large company and we had resources available to support sales team growth and development and for me personally and for the sales teams I led it made a significant impact. I saw my sales manager role as a performance coach, helping my team to fine tune their approach to sales.

When I finally left the corporate world and founded Focus4growth I started working with sales teams to implement principles, models and tools I’d developed during my 25 years of sales, business development and leadership positions. I started each programme with a series of interviews with the sales teams from the businesses I was working with, asking key questions about performance, sales process, strengths, development areas and gaps to be filled. Over the course of 3 years (and hundreds of interviews) there were a number of themes that kept reoccurring. I kept thinking to myself “there must be a better way to measure sales effectiveness than 1:1 interviews”.

In 2019, I started documenting the key areas for sales effectiveness and development and I ended up with 5 key areas; Growth Mindset, Preparing for Success, Customer Focus, Sales Process & Managing relationships. From these 5 key areas I was able to create assessment statements for each and a 5 point scale for ranking. Once I had the compete list I sense-checked them with a number of my clients who were able to validate them and made excellent suggestions for additional statements, which I included. I then found a hosting platform that could manage the statements in a ‘scorecard’ format. I tested again with a number of clients and the response was very positive, once they shared with their teams they were able to see clearly which were the primary areas for development across a sales team.

At the same time I was also writing the book Inspire, Influence, Sell – master the psychology skills and systems of the world’s best sales teams (shameless plug – you can buy it on Amazon here ) and of course running transformational sales training programmes with my clients. “Where did you find the time?” I hear you ask….. I often ask myself the same thing. But seriously, that’s a question for another article…. Coming soon.

So, I managed to create direct alignment between the scorecard assessment, the Inspire, Influence, Sell book, the Inspire Sales Academy Training & Coaching programme and our Sales Toolkit which clients use for implementation, adoption and team coaching. All made possible with the support and feedback of my amazing clients and their teams. Today it’s a seamless solution that creates a simply brilliant experience for sales teams. The starting point in the process…. measuring sales effectiveness with the Sales Acceleration Scorecard.

If you’d like to make a start and measure yours or your teams sales effectiveness you can use the scorecard free of charge, yes…. free of charge and so can your team.

We hear time and again that it’s one of the best ways to create awareness of performance strengths and opportunities within sales teams. So much so that we’ve had more than 2,500 sales professionals use the scorecard. If you’d like to put it (and yourself) to the test, here’s the link:

https://salesacceleration.scoreapp.com/

Feel free to share it with your colleagues and teams and if you’re brave enough challenge them to share their scores and you share yours. The caveat….. be honest when you’re completing it.

When we work with clients and their teams we have an additional tools that helps us collate their scores against the average benchmark scores of everyone who has completed the scorecard to date.

Here are the average scores of all participants so far, you can use these as a comparison for yourself and your team:

Overall Score – 66%

Growth Mindset – 72%

Customer Focus – 66%

Preparing for Success – 66%

Connecting with People – 64%

Sales Process – 64%

So there you have it, there is at least one way to measure sales effectiveness and in the experience I’ve had with my clients and their teams, it’s a great way to create awareness and kick start growth for your team.

I’d love to hear your feedback and your scores. Feel free to get in touch.

You can learn the in-depth principles of the INSPIRe method in the best-selling books ‘Inspire, Influence, Sell’. If you’re in a leadership role you will find ‘Coaching Leaders’ equally valuable. If you prefer a more hands on approach to learning, you can enrol on the Inspire Sales Academy course here. If you’d like to contact Justin directly his email is justinleigh@focus4growth.co.uk.

You can connect with Justin and access some of the Focus4growth resources here:

https://linktr.ee/JustinLeigh

Wishing you every success with your growth in 2023.

The Sales Acceleration Scorecard!

Schedule 15 minutes In your diary, follow the link below, answer the questions and you’ll be starting a process that will change everything.

CLICK HERE to access the Scorecard.
Learn more about the SCORECARD HERE

Whether you’re new to sales, an experienced sales professional or a leader looking to improve the consistency and performance of your sales organisation, you’ll gain immense value from these articles, the scorecard and the INSPIRE, INFLUENCE, SELL book. Our systems map out a memorable sales process over several steps and also include mastery content for each stage of the system, which will give you deeper insight and expertise. The combination of foundational and specialist material ensures that no matter where you’re starting from, you can become a skilled salesperson.

You might want to work through these articles at the foundational level and return to the Sales Mastery sections once you get to grips with the overall system and have developed your skills. Each article starts with an experience story in which I share relevant, valuable anecdotes. If you prefer to dive straight into the sales system, you can skip that content. These articles are designed to be accessible and flexible, so that you get the most out of them.

As you work through each stage, I suggest you make notes in a journal or notebook. This will help you learn and adopt the content.

 

Don’t settle for ordinary, if you’re ready let’s start our journey together and your extraordinary transformation. You have greater potential than you ever realised, let’s unlock it!

Since the pandemic many businesses working in B2B markets have found increased growth opportunities as their clients refocus their own efforts on growth. But not everyone benefits from market growth, only those business teams who are proactive and taking the right approach. Many marketplaces are starting to see a slow down as consumer spending reduces, interest rates rise and real economic growth (not inflationary growth) slows. So what is the right approach to grow your business? Here I share my top 10 tips for unlocking the true growth potential of your business.

1.     Set goals: Define your “why” and set targets to meet your goals

Nothing changes until we change. The first step in growing our business is to set a growth goal. Without a goal, we’re without direction.

Set a straightforward goal you and your team can clearly define and understand. For example, it could be:

“To be the first choice for customers looking for coaching services in the South of England” or “To be the leader in project consulting in the East of England.”

Then understand WHY you want to achieve that goal. Why is it important to you personally? This creates internal drive and motivation so that you are still motivated to continue when the going gets tough.

Finally, define the targets you want to meet. What level of revenue do you want to achieve? What level of profit? How many customers? How many projects and how often? What size team?

By defining these targets, you create a point of focus and understanding why you want to achieve them and it gives you drive.

2.     Enroll your team on the mission

You can only communicate your goals with meaning to your team when you’re clear on them yourself.

Having a bigger purpose is incredibly powerful for teams. We all gain confidence from knowing the business wants to grow, so enroll them in your mission.

When you’re in a growing business, there’s an energy that inspires the entire team, and customers can feel it when they engage with you and your team.

Remember that business growth is a team sport. It can only happen when all of your team are on board. I advise discussing your plans as a team and with each team member 1:1.

Understand the motivation for each of them and agree on a reward for being part of the growth ambitions. Think from your team’s perspective – WIIFM (what’s in it for me).

3.     Find a mentor, coach or trainer

None of us are outstanding at everything in our work and we can all benefit in learning from people who have mastered specific skills and experiences. I recommend reviewing your business goals and asking the question – “What’s missing within our team, that guarantees we’ll meet these goals?” This helps you identify the key gaps in knowledge, skills, experience and systems that you need to address. If your focus is on growth then two key areas are marketing & sales.

Ensure your marketing approach is one that understands your customers and helps you better communicate in a way that’s highly relevant and compelling to potential and existing customers.

Whoever is responsible for sales in your team, make sure they take a customer-centric and question-led approach to their sales conversations. If you have a team that are ‘pitching’ to customers all the time, your business will literally be turning customers away. Customers need to be understood for many reasons, one of those reasons is so that they can choose to buy from you (not be sold to).

If sales & marketing are not core skills in your team then growth will be compromised, find experts who can upskill you and your team. When your team perform better your business grows faster, it’s common sense.

4.     Work on your leadership skills to create a high-performing business team

Leadership is a skill that is developed over time. It’s different from management. I heard a Grace Hopper quote many years ago: “You don’t manage people; you manage things. You lead people.” It’s true, people want to be led, and they need a leader.

Without one, teams drift and engagement and motivation wains. Start to work on leadership, in particular coaching leadership. Engage your teams, and have regular conversations. Ask them questions, understand what motivates them and what they need from you as their leader to perform at the highest level.

Learn to develop your coaching skills, and you’ll build a team that thrives, and when your team thrives, so does your business. Customers can ‘sense’ a happy, motivational environment, and they want to come back time and again, talk about it and refer their friends.

5.     Keep the customer at the heart of everything you do

There is no business without customers. Taking time to regularly discuss the customer experience with your team and keep them focused on improving it raises standards.

When we create a ‘best in class’ customer experience, we set ourselves apart from our competition. The small things are the big things for our customers. Become intentional about the customer experience and the continual evolution of your business team to become truly world-class. I’ve found that just the conversation about becoming world class changes the way a team thinks and acts, and that many teams haven’t even considered it until the discussion about it. Try it yourself, you’ll be surprised at what you find.

 6.     Upgrade your team’s consultative communication & selling skills

The optimal way to communicate with our teams and customers is in a consultative way. That means creating a little more time and space in the conversations, not rushing people, being curious, listening and asking meaningful questions.

When you take a question-led approach to your communication, you’re continually learning from people, and from the feedback, you gain additional insights that help you connect the dots.

Helping our team be more consultative means that everyone starts to learn more and be open to feedback. That inspires personal and professional growth. When we get better, we create more value, and that value is rewarded in the market with increased customer demand, loyalty and rewards. 

7.     Communicate progress and keep your team motivated

Once you’re on a growth journey, it’s too easy to ‘set and forget’ the goals. Without frequent communication, updating, feedback and adjustment, we can lose momentum and focus.

One of the key elements of leadership is continuous communication with our teams, collectively and individually. Make communication and feedback a rhythm in your business. You’ll feel clearer and more confident about progress, and so will your team.

When you measure your progress, it’s easy to communicate progress, and it’s surprising how much you can achieve in a year!

8.     Celebrate every small win along the way

As you communicate progress, remember to celebrate progress. Remember to congratulate and celebrate with your team as you reach your milestones and incremental targets or growth.

It doesn’t have to be an elaborate celebration; simple things make a difference. Bring lunch for everyone, celebrate with a drink or meal at a local restaurant, and present gift vouchers. 

All of these small investments in your team will keep them enrolled in the growth journey. Do something regularly, so your team build a positive association with the growth mission you’re on.

 9.     Find a high-performance peer group

Leadership can be a lonely position, and leaders often feedback that they can feel isolated, even when things are going well. Nobody quite ‘gets it’ unless they’re in a similar position to you.

Finding a high-performance leadership peer group is good for your well-being, and it’s good to support and challenge your thinking. Having a group you can share ideas and learn from can be highly valuable.

That combination of competition and collaboration is very powerful, it works for professional athletes and businesspeople, and you can make it work for you. 

10. Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

When you’re on a growth journey, it can be tempting to focus only on the growth goals, which can create pressure that never ends. Remember to create time to take stock regularly, appreciate the progress you’ve made and measure how far you’ve already come.

Take time each week to be grateful for your business, team, customers, family and friends. Remind yourself to enjoy each day and make an effort to fall in love with the process and the progress.

When you enjoy the work you’re doing, life flows. If your life doesn’t flow right now, and you want it to, make one of your goals to enjoy every day, be present and live your life fully.

 I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this Top 10 list, this approach has helped lots of people transform their businesses.

Justin Leigh is the Founder of Focus4growth a Sales & Leadership Training company specializing in B2B markets. He’s the bestselling author of Inspire, Influence, Sell and works with some of the fastest growing businesses in the world. Justin is about to publish his new book Coaching Leaders – Unlock your leadership superpower in June 2023.

At Focus4growth, our Mission is to ‘share world-class business best practice with our clients, to help them become market leaders and make a bigger positive impact in the world’. We’d love for you to join us on the journey. Sign up to our weekly inspiring email list, where you’ll learn the latest growth strategies from the work we’re doing with market leading sales & business teams. We’ll also give you access to our ‘Growth Mindset’ Programme as a thank you.

Sign up here https://bit.ly/Inspire-Weekly

You can connect with Justin here:
https://linktr.ee/JustinLeigh

 

When it comes to selling, if the process you want to follow isn’t clear, your team simply can’t achieve consistent, reproducible results. It’s no use pushing people harder for results if the process isn’t clear and useable.

I had that very experience when I was a Sales Leader, I felt unclear about the sales process and so did my team, so results were sporadic. I see it now, of course, but I couldn’t at the time!

That’s why I developed my own Sales System, one that’s simple enough to recall instinctively yet comprehensive enough to be of use to all sales professionals, regardless of their experience. It’s called the INSPIRe Secret Sales System.

The INSPIRe Secret Sales System

During my many years as a salesperson, key account manager and sales manager, I received training on countless different sales processes and programs. Some of the content was excellent, and I gained useful insights that helped shape my career. One of the challenges I had early in my sales career was managing the process of selling consistently – and I noticed many people in my sales team struggling with this as well when I started as a sales manager. It could be confusing trying to remember what should happen in what order, alongside managing a portfolio, keeping the clients engaged, handling issues and working in sometimes stressful situations.

As W Edwards Deming stated, ‘A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system.’

The system is important, as it helps with reproducibility and consistency. The aim is just as vital. Understanding both gives us the results we’re looking for. I never attended a programme that conveyed a clear, simple process that also incorporated depth, knowledge and experience. There was always a level of complexity that made the process difficult to adopt. On a number of training workshops, in a number of contexts, I repeatedly heard the acronym KISS (keep it simple stupid) but never felt that it was delivered in any of the sales training models I’d been taught. I was always left wanting. As a leader, the quote above from W Edwards Deming often played on my mind.

Developing a model

Shortly after I started working as a key account manager and began developing my skills as a people leader, I discovered coaching. In coaching, the GROW model is well recognised. GROW is a simple mnemonic (memory device) that provides the coach with a process that will allow them to be consistent in their approach and effectively deliver the result that both the coach and their client desire.

This model is used the world over and is recognised as the framework that underpins many coaches’ work with clients. I started to use the model with my team, family and friends and found it remarkable. It works every time. Here’s a summary of the GROW model:

G Goal (What is the client’s goal?)

R Reality (What is the client’s current reality?)

O Options (What options does the client have?)

W Will (What will the client commit to do now?)

This model is so well used that it has been expanded and adapted by various coaching organisations. A recent enhancement is To GROWME, which broadens the scope of the coaching session:

Topic – The priority topic of the session?

Goal – What is the client’s goal?

Reality – What is the client’s current reality?

Options – What options does the client have?

Will – What will the client commit to do now?

Monitor – What will the client do to stay on track?

Evaluate – How will the client know they’ve been successful?

I have successfully used the GROW and To GROWME coaching models (as have thousands of other coaches and leaders) because they are simple and effective.

When I started using these models, I wondered, ‘Why isn’t there a similar simple and effective model for selling?’ I searched through my previous sales training manuals, had discussions with colleagues and explored the internet but couldn’t find a model that I believed would truly deliver what salespeople (and sales leaders) needed, regardless of market or role. So, I developed my own.

The INSPIRe Secret Sales System is the result of over 20 years of experience in sales, sales leadership, business management, coaching and training. It is trusted by many sales teams and sales managers, and it will help you strengthen the important relationships in your life.

You may be wondering why the Secret Sales System is ‘secret’. There are two reasons. The first is that the system is unique. In all the years I served as a sales and business leader, I never found a system that delivered what the INSPIRe Secret Sales System does: the psychology, the skills and the process. The second reason is that, since its inception, the Secret Sales System has been known only to a select few high-performing sales teams who work with me and my team. When selecting clients for training and coaching on the system, we ring-fence customers in key segments, so that they get access to a true competitive advantage. The system has become a valued secret among those key clients.

Now, I am sharing the secret to help countless teams and leaders dramatically improve their sales performance. This is a fundamental part of my mission: to transform leadership, inspire teams and create legacies in organisations and communities around the world. I’m delighted to let you in on the secret.

When we inspire someone, we infuse into their mind. We connect and communicate with them deeply, enabling us to influence and engage them in a way that is incredibly valuable. As you review the INSPIRe Secret Sales System, I encourage you to keep this representation of the system ever present in your mind. The acronym INSPIRe is a mnemonic:

I Insight and Impact

N Needs Discovery

S Solution Discussion

P Proposal Agreement

I Immediate Action

Re Reflection

The acronym will help you remember, on an unconscious level, the ‘right’ process when it comes to selling. It’s critical to get the process right – you must perform the right tasks in the right order. I like to use the analogy of flat-pack furniture. You can wing it, but if you don’t follow the step-by-step instructions, you inevitably end up with something in the wrong place or the wrong way around or with pieces left over. Sales is exactly like that. If you don’t follow a process, you’re likely to miss something important that your client needs to make a decision.

Sales Mastery: Roles in your client’s organisation

If you’re selling to organisations, no matter how large or small, it’s important to identify the roles of people working within these organisations. When I use the term ‘role’, I’m referring to the part they play in the sales and/or decision- making process.

Not everyone has the same power, influence or ability when it comes to making decisions. You need to understand ‘who’s who’ so that you can invest the right amount of time with the right people – something all successful salespeople learn to do, either consciously or unconsciously. Of course, you’ll use your rapport skills to engage and manage your relationships with all the people working within the organisation, but there are additional things to consider when dealing with certain roles.

Gatekeepers

Gatekeepers are people in the organisation who work to ensure time isn’t wasted. Specifically, they’re in place to prevent people, especially salespeople, from getting to their boss – your client.

It’s important to build relationships with gatekeepers. You want them to like you and to want to get you in front of the client. Here are a few tips on how to engage them:

•     Learn a little about them and personalise the conversation accordingly, eg, ‘How’s your tennis coming along?’

•     Find out something about them you like and genuinely flatter them, eg, ‘I thought it was really considerate of you to do that for your colleague.’

•     Consider how your product or service would benefit them and tailor your impact statement to them (we’ll look at impact statements shortly).

•     Use your rapport skills

Influencers

Influencers are people in the organisation who will use your product or service and have an opinion about it – an opinion that matters. They will usually be well established in the organisation (a member of the senior team or progressing in that direction). They will be able to influence decisions regarding your product or service.

Influencers can help you throughout your sales process, so treat them as you would treat the decision maker (aka your client). They need to be understood and have their needs met. You may want to invite them to be part of the client meeting. This can be flattering to the influencer and help you get them on board more quickly. If they aren’t involved directly in your client meeting, it’s worth investing the time to keep them informed of progress and ensure they feel good about your proposals so that they’ll support your sales process in the background.

Decision makers

Decision makers will ultimately decide which product or service their organisation signs up for. They can secure your business. They are usually the most senior person in the organisation, or a partner, and have the final say in what goes and what doesn’t. This is the key role. Every time you sell, you must understand the decision maker’s needs and convince them that your product or service is the best option to meet those needs.

Decision makers are your client, so you’ll use the INSPIRe Secret Sales System when dealing with the them.

Champions

Champions are influencers who absolutely love your product or service – and you! They may also be a decision maker. Champions will rave about your product or service to anyone who will listen. They are likely to have overcome a significant issue with your product or service and/or to have a positive relationship with you or your organisation. They are one of your biggest assets in sales. The more champions you can create (and harness), the faster your business will grow.

Your champion is likely to be someone you are already managing well, but here are a few useful tips you may not have considered:

•     Ask them about their personal interests to deepen your relationship.

•     Ask them about their career aspirations and goals.

•     Ask about who they know in other organisations or within their network, and if they could introduce you.

•     Ask for their permission to use their name as a reference.

•     Ask if there is anyone they would like to get to know.

•     Consider the opportunity for them to champion your product outside of their organisation.

•     Discuss opportunities for them to speak on your behalf (as an expert on a relevant topic for your business), or to become a leader in their field.

•     Introduce them to your line manager – show them how important they are to you.

•     Talk to your manager (or marketing department) about how your organisation might be able to work more collaboratively with them.

•     Create some time to get to know them outside of their working environment, perhaps over coffee or lunch.

If you’re selling to organisations, no matter how large or small, it’s important to identify the roles of people working within these organisations. When I use the term ‘role’, I’m referring to the part they play in the decision-making process.

If you’re able to harness your champions, they’ll be able to help you broaden your reach and speed up your sales process with new clients, as you’ll already have credibility from a referral.

Budget holders

Budget holders are in charge of the finances. They’ll know whether your client can afford your product (if they’re not also the decision maker), and they’ll know if your client has contracts in place or stock to use or other options your client may not have considered. Ultimately, they’ll do what the decision maker decides, but they can slow down the process and even create barriers if they aren’t supportive of your product or service.

If your budget holder is a decision maker, manage them using the INSPIRe Secret Sales System. If not, you’ll need to consider these things:

•     Are they a user of the product?

If they are, manage them as you would the influencer.

If they aren’t, ask how involved they are with the product or service (you don’t want to sell to them if they’re not interested).

•     Give them the headlines of why your client has chosen the product or service:

‘[The client] has [xx] need.’

‘Our [product or service] will meet the need better than any other available.’

‘[The client] has decided that [product or service] will be introduced from [date] into [departments], and we have agreed on a cost of [xx].’

•     Check that they are supportive and will process the order in the way agreed with your client.

•     Thank them for helping to make the improvement your product or service will deliver.

Remember to confirm with your client that you have met with the budget holder and that everything is progressing as agreed.

Disruptors

As the term suggests, disruptors are those people in your client’s organisation who will try to get in the way of your success. They don’t want you to win the business. There may be any number of reasons for this: loyalty to a competitor, fear of change, a previous issue with your organisation, maybe they dislike you! Whatever the reason, you need to be aware of them and their intent and be clear on how you’ll manage them.

It’s important to be respectful of every member of your client’s organisation. The disruptor is no exception. Here are some pointers for managing them:

•     Be calm, considerate and interested in their position.

•     Don’t give them any reason to justify their cause/ issue/position.

• Understand their rationale, perspective or argument.

 

•     Don’t agree with them – empathise and seek to understand.

•     Consider how they fit in the organisation’s hierarchy – find out who they look up to.

•     If possible, engage and manage the person who is senior to them (this will influence the disruptor).

In the worst-case scenario, if they just won’t change their mind:

•     Consider how you can get them to a neutral position.

•     Agree to disagree, but appreciate their points.

•     Minimise their influence or impact (through more senior relationships).

•     Be clear on their objection and how it could be overcome/handled, even if they can’t be persuaded.

Some people simply will not see another point of view. Don’t be overly concerned. Manage them as best you can and move on.

Time sinks

I’ve purposely left this role until last. Time sinks may have some influence in your client’s organisation, but they’ll be a real drain on your time. They will generally be people

who have been with the organisation for a long time and are stuck in the same position – they may be bored, less productive and unambitious. They won’t necessarily know they’re wasting your time and are often quite pleasant people, but ultimately, they won’t help you to be successful, now or in the future.

It bears repeating: be respectful of everyone in your client’s organisation. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it will also make you feel better about yourself and it will be noticed by your client and their team. Plus, you never know how much influence someone has and where or when you might meet them again, so always be kind!

There are a number of techniques you can deploy for managing time wasters:

•     Engage with them only as part of a scheduled slot of time and say something along these lines: ‘Hi, it’s good to see you. I’m on my way to meet with Bill, but I have a couple of minutes. What’s up?’

•     In advance, think of a legitimate reason to leave your discussion.

•     Show just the right amount of interest (but don’t be too keen or you’ll get yourself stuck).

•     Ask questions that get to the point and keep them on track.

•     If they get distracted, steer them back on topic. • Consider asking closed questions to keep the conversation short.

• Know when to leave, be firm and make your exit.

 

You must be able to identify and manage time sinks appropriately, otherwise they’ll slow you down, leave you feeling drained or frustrated, and prevent you from growing your business at the optimal rate. Before we move on, reflect on this chapter and write down your thoughts in your journal or notebook.

Get comfortable with a process

Many salespeople who don’t follow a process justify this decision by saying they’ll come across as sounding scripted. This is just a poor excuse, or a cover-up. It’s true that when you first start following the process you may have to concentrate on it – but that’s why we use a mnemonic. The acronym makes it easy to remember the order and flow. Once you’ve practised it and it becomes engrained, you won’t have to consciously think about it. You will flow through the process. And once you have it committed to your unconscious memory, you will naturally better understand and meet your clients’ needs. And you will win more business.

As you can see from the diagram below, the process is designed to be ongoing and continuous. It will help you establish a methodology that you can use in all your interactions with people, whether it’s a dynamic sales call or as part of building a long-term relationship with a client.

You may also have noticed that the process flows in both directions. INSPIRe is a fluid system, and each stage must be completed before the next can be successfully progressed through. If you get stuck or your client is resisting, orient yourself to this system and return to the stage that’s necessary to get you and your client back on track. You will find answers simply by letting the system guide you.

Once the process is imprinted in your mind, whether you use the acronym or the flow chart or a combination of the two, you will be able to relax and be yourself in your sales interactions with your clients.

 

How would you like to be among the top 10% of the sales population? Condition yourself to properly prepare so you perform at your best consistently, and you could be!

Having worked as a sales & business manager, I know first- hand the importance of comprehensive preparation. Years ago, I had an important client meeting. A member of my team and I were due to meet with, and present to, a number of senior decision makers from a public organisation. The business proposition, the team, the product portfolio and our service offering were all strong, but so was the competition.

To prepare for the presentation, the salesperson met with the client to understand their requirements. This provided us with the insight we needed, and we designed our presentation around meeting their true needs. We were also aware that they wanted to see how committed we were to winning the business and supporting the teams working in the organisation. I had this in mind as I researched the organisation and I uncovered the CEO’s blog. In it, she wrote about a recent challenge due to severe flooding. She recognised the efforts of the teams working in the organisation and their commitment to their own clients and service users. There was a story about a member of staff who had borrowed her father’s tractor to overcome the floods and get to work to keep the organisation functioning. I was impressed by the commitment this team member had shown and by the fact that the CEO had recognised it. I took a screen shot of the blog and included it in the presentation.

During the presentation, I referenced the commitment of the clients’ team (this team member in particular) and drew a comparison with my team members – who were committed to the client and their service users. Several companies submitted proposals to compete for the business, but our team won. We received excellent feedback, especially in terms of how we demonstrated our commitment. This was due largely to our preparation. Preparation is without a doubt a key to sales success.

The importance of preparation

I know that talk of preparation and planning can seem unnecessary, perhaps even boring. But there’s a common misperception that good salespeople don’t need to prepare – they can ‘wing it’. While they may well achieve short-term results, these same people could double or even triple their performance if they invested time in preparation. Give yourself the opportunity to be in the top tier of salespeople.

When you’re occupied with a task, you adopt a state of mind without conscious effort or thought. This mental state may or may not be the ‘ideal’ state of mind with which to engage your clients. You can make a hugely positive impact on your performance simply by getting yourself into an enabling state of mind: one where you have an outlook and attitude that enables you to perform at the highest possible level.

Your mindset is a vital component of success.

Revisit your performance goals. Now recognise that you’ll achieve them faster if you develop the habit of preparing for each sales interaction with your clients. In your journal or notebook, write ‘The reason I need to prepare for each of my sales interactions with clients.’ Then write down your reason. Now that we understand why preparation is important, let’s look at the Prepare2 framework.

The framework

For many people, preparing for customer meetings can feel overwhelming. They don’t know where to start, so they don’t start. They don’t do any preparation and risk being not only ill-prepared but also drastically reducing their chances of success. If you or the team you manage are having low success rates with client meetings i.e. the client isn’t choosing to work with you or your team, it’s likely to be one of two things: poor preparation or a poor sales process.

Some sales teams I led in the past often didn’t prepare because they made it seem more complicated and time consuming than it needed to be. With the right framework, preparation can be simple and powerful.

Over the years (and through many mistakes and successes), I identified four areas on which attention should be focused when preparing for a client meeting. I call it the Prepare2 (or ‘prepare squared’) framework. 

My client 

We should always start here. The client is the most important factor in any sales interaction. We must orientate ourselves around them, their business and their perspective. Without the client, there are no sales. There is no growth and no business. It’s obvious but often overlooked.

Internal

This is about researching the client and what’s happening to them in their business. Consider the following when seeking information about a potential client and their organisation:

• Strategic vision and plans
• Company announcements
• Website and social media channels
• Network and third parties
• Key decision makers

 

By understanding our potential client and their business, we are stepping into their world. We can be empathetic. Once we know about our client and how we can serve them and create value, we can have more meaningful interactions with them.

However, don’t make too many assumptions. Be informed in advance of a meeting, but still ask questions. Be infinitely curious about the potential client’s business and how you can best serve them. 

External 

This is about understanding what’s happening in the client’s marketplace and external environment. Consider these areas to gain further insight: 

• Future market trends
• Competitive activity
• Market landscape
• Potential opportunities
• Potential threats

 

Once we understand what’s happening externally for our customers, or potential customers, we can start to align our messaging and preparation. We must consider how we might help them navigate these external factors more effectively, now and in the future.

After preparing on behalf of our client, we must prepare ourselves.

Me

Internal

We must make sure that we know our products and/or portfolio. We need to be clear on our value propositions, our points of differentiation, our unique selling points, the benefits that our product or service provides and how we can position these benefits in a way that is meaningful for our client.

Consider these areas when doing internal preparation:

• Personal preparation
• Insights and knowledge
• Relevant experience and examples • Sales system
• Tools, assets, resources, programs

 

External

It’s critical to think about our business from an external perspective. Many clients will want to see external validation of our work or services, and that external validation must come from independent and objective sources. If it doesn’t, it won’t seem valid and could actually work against us. 

Here are some areas to consider in terms of external preparation:

• Use cases and/or studies
• Results data
• Whole-life cost models/return-on-investment
• evidence
• Models and systems
• Testimonials, references and referrals

 

The Prepare2 framework is a powerful model for preparation. You can download a copy of the template I use to help my clients prepare for every important client meeting here.

By using this template in advance of any significant client meeting, you’ll drastically increase your rates of success. Combine this with a proven sales process and you’ll be unstoppable!

Sales Mastery: Preparing for success and engaging your client

Personal preparation

To be at your best, you must tap into your most resourceful state of mind. Before an important competition, athletes get themselves into ‘the zone’ or state of flow to heighten their performance. You can do the same.

Here’s a proven way to create this powerful, positive state of mind. I recommend doing this preparation immediately before every interaction you have with a client. Complete this exercise as a starting point, and then revisit it before each client meeting to create a positive experience for you and your client.

In your journal or notebook, write the answers to these questions:

• Who does your client need you to be in order to choose you?
• What attitude and mindset do you need to adopt to be at your best?
• Think of a time when you were at your best – confident and in the zone. What did you see, hear, feel or say to yourself?
• Imagine the perfect interaction with your client. Both of you are enjoying the discussion, and the client thanks you for supporting them to make the right decision. Capture what you see, hear, feel and say.

 

Take a few moments to read through your responses. Allow the full potential of this exercise to resonate with you. Become aware of how excited and positive doing so makes you feel. Capture what you notice in your journal or notebook.

The importance of this preparation ritual will become apparent once you start using it as part of your sales practice. You’ll be able to consistently bring your best self to your clients. And they will notice this and appreciate your intention to be your best self for their benefit. While it takes effort at first, if you prepare this way for every client interaction for the next three weeks, you’ll not only realise the benefits but also create a habit that will take over. You’ll no longer have to think about doing this. In fact, it will seem easier to prepare than to ‘wing it’.

Simply returning to this page and reading your notes will help you to develop this ritual and form a positive habit for the future.

Engaging your potential client

If you’re in a field with a longer sales cycle and your role involves pre-arranged client meetings and developing relationships over time, there are important additional considerations when it comes to preparing for meetings.

Regardless of whether you’re tasked with engaging your clients or working from leads passed to you from your organisation, the way in which you engage with your clients and manage your meetings with them will be similar.

You must:

• Research your client

• Engage your client (the ‘hook’)

• Set meeting objectives

• Prepare personally

We’re going to work through these in order. 

Research your client

We live in a wonderful digital age. People’s interests, activities, successes and even failures are likely to be posted somewhere on the internet. With this wealth of information, you would be remiss not to use it in preparation for a client meeting. Here are a few pointers on how to go about conducting research.

Google your client:

You may be surprised by what you find. I once found out one of my clients was involved in a charity. Learning this about him gave me a new level of respect for him and also gave us a topic for a discussion that created a stronger relationship.

Check out their social media profiles:

If you find your client on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn, you’ll see what they like and share. Which groups are they a member of and who or what are they following and contributing to? You’ll also see who they’re connected to and which of those connections you have in common. You’ve probably heard about six degrees of separation? In my experience, it’s now closer to two or three.

Review their organisation’s website:

Look for the organisation’s vision, mission and values.

If it has a strategic plan, read the headlines and get an understanding of what your client’s aspirations may be. Knowing about your client’s organisation, whatever their position in it, will help you to create some common ground which is critical for building rapport.

Engage your client (the ‘hook’)

Now that you know a little about your client from the research that you’ve completed, you’re in a great position to engage them with a strong ‘hook’. The hook is a statement (or series of statements) that does one or more of these things:

• Highlights potential common ground between you and the client
• Identifies potential issues the client may have and hints that you might have a solution
• References a relevant connection, interest or mutual acquaintance
• Share evidence of how your service or organisation is helping clients or the industry
• Ask for a meeting (or call) to discover how you might work together
• The hook should not be an attempt to sell to your client, it’s too early at this stage of the relationship. If you position your hook (either over the phone or in an email) in the right way, conveying only a benefit to your client, your likelihood of getting a positive response is high.

 

Whether you prefer phone calls or emails, I suggest you try both, in that order. Ask yourself, ‘If I received this call or email from a complete stranger, would I respond?’ If the answer is no, look at your script and reword it until it’s so compelling and focused on you (as the client) that you’d be convinced by it and respond. This will create a template for you to work from – and it will likely be relevant to a number of your clients.

Here’s a template you can download and use to guide you in writing your hook.

Set meeting objectives

So, you’ve engaged your client. Now you need to confirm the meeting and share your suggested objectives for the discussion. Here’s a structure I recommend for setting meeting objectives – it will prime the meeting for the sales process:

1. Discuss your client’s current and future priorities and challenges.

2. Provide examples of [your organisation’s] successful client programmes.

3. Discuss possible solutions and next steps.

This structure will integrate into a standard email template and look something like this, a fictional email to Daniel at Success Trading Ltd:

Dear Daniel,

Many thanks for the confirmation of our meeting next Wednesday, the 20th of June, at the London office of Success Trading at 9.30am.

Here is my suggested agenda for the meeting:

1. Discussion about Success Trading’s current (and future) priorities and challenges.

2. Examples of Inspire Ltd’s successful client programmes.

3. Discussion about possible solutions and next steps. I hope this agenda meets your expectations and approval.

I’m happy to discuss other topics during the meeting. If there is anything specific you would like me to prepare or bring with me, please do let me know. 

I look forward to seeing you next week and to a productive and inspiring meeting.

Having a format that you know works and that you can use to communicate with your clients in advance of meetings will make you more effective, save you time and deliver more value to the client.

Prepare personally

To ensure that you go into your client meetings in the best frame of mind and give yourself the optimal chance for success, it’s important to prepare yourself on a personal level.

Make sure you have what you need. Necessary items may include some or all of these things:

• Literature folder
• Product catalogue and codes
• Demonstration product
• Samples (where appropriate)
• Case-study documents
• Evidence
• Client testimonials
• References
• Technical data sheets
• Pricing workbooks
• Discount structures
• Distributor details
• Promotional literature
• Notepad and pen
• Business cards
• Laptop/tablet/projector (if relevant)

 

This may seem obvious to those of you in sales. But the number of times I’ve been in client meetings with salespeople who realise that they don’t have everything they need to hold a meaningful discussion about their company, the product or the service is truly incredible. Always be prepared.

Over the years I’ve learned that while I don’t always like the process of preparation, when I’m fully prepared, my confidence, ability and performance skyrocket. I’m sure you have experienced this yourself. Appreciate the value of preparation, it pays dividends.

The following is another simple visualisation script. Read through it to familiarise yourself with it, and then follow the instructions.

Relax and take three deep breaths. When you’re ready, close your eyes and imagine this:

• You’re at the end of the meeting with your client

• You’re both smiling as you shake hands to say goodbye

• The meeting has gone better than you expected

• The client shared a number of relevant priorities and challenges with you

• You understood exactly what your client needed

• Your client agreed you were the one who could help • You have agreed on a plan that will help them and deliver the results you want

• Notice how good this feels

I hope you enjoyed this activity. Remember, when you practise visualisation regularly, it will become a formidable force in your preparation for client meetings. You’re now ready to work through the INSPIRe Secret Sales System. But before we move on, reflect on this article and write down your thoughts in your journal or notebook. 

Creating your Future

With visualisation, you create the future in advance; and with routine practice and clearly defined outcomes, you can make visualisation an extraordinarily effective force in your life.

Done correctly and regularly, visualisation can be a powerful tool to boost your confidence and, in turn, your success. We all visualise a lot of the time but don’t always realise it. We also don’t always realise how visualisation affects us and that we have the power to control our thoughts. Try it for yourself and see. 

Imagining a future that holds incredible success can be difficult and a little scary. Depending on your upbringing, self-image and unconscious programming, it can be stressful to think about a big change, even when that change is positive.

Believe in your goals

I’ve faced this challenge several times in my life. Whenever I’m looking to make a significant change, I’m aware that, on an unconscious level, it’s going to require a considerable amount of effort. I’m not telling you this to put you off but to get you in the right frame of mind – you need to get momentum and maintain it to make a lasting change. During these times in my life, I’ve worked through exercises like the one we’ll look at now to help me create a clear vision of the future I want to achieve and to experience it in advance. 

This is the best way to connect with and believe in the goal you’ve created. The exercise below will help you start to make an unconscious shift in mindset. 

What does the future look like?

Take a few minutes to write down in your journal or notebook why it’s important for you to improve your performance in the future. 

To prepare for this exercise, I recommend doing this: 

Take five deep breaths – in and out. 

Think about a time in the future – at least a year from now. Imagine that you have transformed yourself: 

• You are the highest-performing salesperson in your organisation. 
• You have made an incredible impact on yourself and the people around you – your clients, family and friends. 
• You have become recognised as highly accomplished and successful. 
• You have unlocked a high level of skill and experience. 
• You have a strong sense of satisfaction, pride and achievement. 

 

Make notes in your journal or notebook. 

What does this look like? 

How does this sound? 

What are you feeling about yourself? 

Now that you’ve experienced what it’s like to go through this transformation, let’s look at what you will have achieved. This is an opportunity to address key goal-setting areas and gain greater clarity about what success looks like to you. 

Consider these areas to set yourself performance goals (you don’t need to set goals in all these areas, but make sure you’ve set some in the areas most important to you): 

• Finances (earnings, savings, investments) 
• Family (your influence and example) 
• Career (roles available to you) 
• Personal growth and development (skills you have mastered and are working on) 
• Freedom (sense of flow and achievement) 
• Time (working patterns and personal time) 
• Life fulfilment (how you feel about yourself and your life)
• Mastery (being the best you can be) 
• Your choice – what else is important to you? 

 

Once you’ve captured these future performance goals, take a few moments to read through them and really connect with them. 

These goals are going to be important for your motivation to change as we go through these articles. They’ll keep your engine running, especially when old habits and behaviour patterns try to resurface. 

I recommend revisiting this exercise regularly to remind yourself of the change you want to produce in your life. This will keep you focused and motivated. You might want to note this page so you can come back to it. 

Before we move on, reflect on this article and write down your thoughts in your journal or notebook.

If you’ve never measured your, or your teams, sales capability, then you’re missing out on priceless insights, awareness and potential. The act of measurement and creating self awareness can trigger intrinsic motivation and start the ripple of change that drive exponential future growth for your business.

There’s a simple and powerful way to do this for your team, and It’s completely free of charge.

The Sales Acceleration Scorecard!

Schedule 15 minutes In your diary, follow the link below, answer the questions and you’ll be starting a process that will change everything.

CLICK here to access the Scorecard.

Learn more about the SCORECARD HERE

Our Mission to elevate the Sales Profession

Many people working in sales today have never been trained to use a true ‘Consultative Selling Approach’. This doesn’t just impact their performance and capability, it affects their confidence and enjoyment of their work. Very often they can feel anxious, uncertain and concerned that they aren’t fulfilling their true potential. Our Founder Justin Leigh knows this only too well from personal experience early in his sales career, before he discovered the impact of personal development and committed himself to lifelong learning and growth.

At Focus4growth we’re on a mission to elevate the Sales Profession! 

Sales should be a position that is respected, professional and trusted. We believe Sales Professionals (and all business professionals) should feel proud of the work they do, have confidence in their abilities, enjoy their work and know they are performing at the highest level possible. When Sales Teams make this transformation, they create enormous value for their clients (and their business) and they begin a positive cycle that continually improves their performance, results and future potential.

This is the reason Focus4growth exists!

About the author

Justin is the founder of Focus4growth Ltd, a Sales & Leadership Coaching company specialising in the dental market. He’s the best selling author of Inspire, Influence, Sell. He has over 25 years’ experience in sales & leadership and is an accredited Executive Coach. Justin runs programs for dental leaders and teams to develop high performance, high growth teams. Justin is privileged to work with market leading dental companies including; Align Technology, Septodont, Biohorizons, W&H, SDI, MiSmile Network and many more. 

In 2020 Justin was invited to partner with the British Dental Industry as their preferred Sales Trainer and works with BDIA member sales teams using the proven INSPIRe consultative sales system. Justin speaks at many events and on behalf of leading associations, like the BACD, the Institute of Directors, the Association of Professional Sales and many more.

Justin is on a mission to show sales leaders and teams how they can achieve ‘best in class’ sales growth. At Focus4growth our vision is to ‘Inspire our Dental Clients with the confidence, capability and consistency so they become the market-leaders in their field.’ 

You can connect with Justin and learn more about how he helps clients become world class here or you can contact him directly by EMAIL

Once you’re motivated to change, you’re committed to being the best you can be, and you know what you want, set your goals and clarify the actions you’ll take towards them. Setting and achieving goals is what separates high performers from the rest of the population.

In recent roles leading business teams in organisations, I was approached to act as an adviser, or mentor, to people within the organisation who wanted advice on how to ‘get on’ in the company. While each person had different needs, skills, experiences and ambitions, similar themes emerged. In these discussions, the key point I emphasised was that without the openness, willingness and desire to change, you cannot develop, improve and achieve your future goals.

The ability to change is everything

Once the person and I had established and agreed on the importance of change, the conversation would focus on three simple but powerful ideas:

• Commit to mastery and decide on a future role
• Gain future role experience immediately
• Set goals and take consistent action towards them
• Let’s look at each more closely:

 

Commit to mastery and decide on a future role

First, you must commit to becoming the best you’re capable of being in your current role. Become the go-to person. Someone who is known to be an expert and who consistently delivers their best over the long term. No spotty performance, no slacking – always delivering and searching for ways to improve and stay at the top. Second, you must be clear on what you want your future role to be. For some, this might involve a promotion. In the right company, performing at your best gets you recognition and promotions. I appreciate there are exceptions to this, but it’s worth remembering that even if this isn’t true for your organisation, there is no downside to this approach. If you’re focused on development, you’ll become so valuable that you can move on elsewhere, if not within your own organisation. What’s important is to define the future role. This will give you a point of focus – a target to aim for.

Gain future role experience immediately

I learned early in my career that it’s difficult to be ready for your next role if you don’t have experience doing it in some way. There is immense value in gaining experience in advance. It pushes you outside of your comfort zone, forces you to learn new skills, adds value to your business and prepares you for the future. There may be some pressure involved in the learning process, but this is fantastic preparation and life experience. It will make you a more well-rounded, confident person.

Once you’re clear on your next role, speak with your line manager and peers about your aspirations. They can help you find opportunities to ‘step up’ and develop. Most people wait for a promotion and then get frustrated when they’re overlooked, even though they haven’t done anything tangible to prepare themselves. Don’t wait for the promotion to get the experience. Take action. One other thing to consider – don’t get hung up on being paid more or getting rewarded for taking on additional responsibilities. The money and rewards will come when you have the experience and are able to move upwards to that role. For now, appreciate the opportunity to develop yourself. Once you’ve learned a skill or gained experience, it is yours to keep. It becomes part of you, and that is priceless.

Set goals and take consistent action towards them

Once you’re motivated to change, you’re committed to being the best you can be, and you know what you want, set your goals and clarify the actions you’ll take towards them. Setting and achieving goals is what separates high performers from the rest of the population. Make a habit of setting goals and taking action and it will pay you back tenfold over time. A number of goal-setting templates allow you to document and track your performance against your goals, including apps that you can use on your mobile, tablet or PC. Click here for an example.

Goal-setting fundamentals

When setting goals, it’s important to use positive statements. Be clear about what you want rather than what you don’t want. While this advice may be overused, it cannot be overemphasised. Our minds cannot process negative goals. The unconscious mind will work to achieve whatever you put your focus and attention on. While you can use consequences to spur you into action, you must not let them be the defined goal. Clearly state your goals (and write them down whenever possible) so that you give your mind (and your actions) a target.

Consider these statements:

• I really don’t want to miss my sales targets this year.
• I’m going to over-deliver by 10% against my sales target this year. 

 

The second statement is much more effective. Even if you don’t achieve the 10% growth over your target figure, your mind, your plan and your actions are firmly centred on overachievement. Repeatedly asking yourself how you will achieve the 10% over target will stimulate thoughts and actions that will drive you to greater success. Be conscious of the goals you set for yourself, and make sure you use positive statements when writing them down. This simple principle will revolutionise your results.

Your career journey

In my working life so far, I’ve had twelve different careers (including being an author/speaker/executive coach). While this number might sound high, it falls within an average. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average US worker will have 12.3 jobs in their working lifetime, and that number is rising. Workers now stay, on average, just four years in a role or an organisation. While companies are trying to figure out how they can keep employees loyal, employees are focusing on increasing their value so they’re ready for change when the time is right.

The best way to prepare yourself is to acquire skills and experience that can be easily transferred – skills and experience that will be valuable in the future as well as now. Once you set your mind to it, you can achieve virtually anything: you just need the time, practice and determination to improve yourself every single day. With this commitment, you can become one of the highest- performing people in your field (or any field). What’s more, you’ll have a highly valued, transferable skill set. My career has been a journey with numerous stops and changes along the way. Each part of the journey has formed the foundation for the next and given me a helping hand. As you develop skills and competence in one area, you’ll naturally aspire to improve or challenge yourself further. This level of internal desire presents amazing opportunities for personal growth and satisfaction.

Initiating change

Changing our behaviours and habits can take a tremendous amount of effort, but the results are well worth it. Before we can change, we must be aware of and break through our existing blocks, resistance and forgetfulness. The well-documented ‘Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve’ describes how we lose memory of learned knowledge over time, with as little as 25% of knowledge retained after just six days. But with action planning, reflection, repetition and coaching, this can be increased to as high as 90%.

Through my client work and career to date, I’ve learned that to make lasting change, you must envision a powerful and compelling future and then clearly identify your personal motives (your motivation for change), capture them and revisit them regularly. Awareness of your resistance to change and a compelling reason to change will be a source of energy that keeps your motivation levels high. Throughout these articles you’ll find opportunities to identify your reasons for change and actions you can take. This will help you gain clarity on your motivation and the ways in which you’ll make that change happen.

Taking notes, reflecting on them and then committing to action will fuel your desire to improve and ensure your future success. I recommend making a commitment to yourself in advance – a commitment that evokes a powerful emotional response in you. We’ll revisit it often, so you’re held accountable to change and can access the best version of you.

Before we move on, reflect on this chapter and write down your thoughts in your journal or notebook.

• What level of performance would you like to reach?

• Why is it important that you embrace change and strengthen your skills?

• How will you keep yourself on track when you’re busy or you lose focus?

You may also want to consider other points covered in this article and write about them. What are your thoughts and some possible actions you can take? 

What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done better and what gets rewarded gets repeated! 

If you’ve never measured your, or your teams, sales capability, then you’re missing out on priceless insights, awareness and potential. The act of measurement and creating self awareness can trigger intrinsic motivation and start the ripple of change that drive exponential future growth for your business.

There’s a simple and powerful way to do this for your team, and It’s completely free of charge. 

The Sales Acceleration Scorecard!

Schedule 15 minutes In your diary, follow the link below, answer the questions and you’ll be starting a process that will change everything.

CLICK HERE to access the Scorecard. Learn more about the SCORECARD HERE 

Our Mission to elevate the Sales Profession

Many people working in sales today have never been trained to use a true ‘Consultative Selling Approach’. This doesn’t just impact their performance and capability, it affects their confidence and enjoyment of their work. Very often they can feel anxious, uncertain and concerned that they aren’t fulfilling their true potential. Our Founder Justin Leigh knows this only too well from personal experience early in his sales career, before he discovered the impact of personal development and committed himself to lifelong learning and growth.

At Focus4growth we’re on a mission to elevate the Sales Profession!

Sales should be a position that is respected, professional and trusted. We believe Sales Professionals (and all business professionals) should feel proud of the work they do, have confidence in their abilities, enjoy their work and know they are performing at the highest level possible. When Sales Teams make this transformation, they create enormous value for their clients (and their business) and they begin a positive cycle that continually improves their performance, results and future potential.

This is the reason Focus4growth exists! 

Don’t settle for ordinary, if you’re ready let’s start our journey together and your extraordinary transformation. You have greater potential than you ever realised, let’s unlock It! 

About the author

Justin is the founder of Focus4growth Ltd, a Sales & Leadership Coaching company specialising in the dental market. He’s the best selling author of Inspire, Influence, Sell. He has over 25 years’ experience in sales & leadership and is an accredited Executive Coach. Justin runs programs for dental leaders and teams to develop high performance, high growth teams. Justin is privileged to work with market leading dental companies including; Align Technology, Septodont, Biohorizons, W&H, SDI, MiSmile Network and many more.

In 2020 Justin was invited to partner with the British Dental Industry Association as their preferred Sales Trainer and works with BDIA member sales teams using the proven INSPIRe consultative sales system. Justin speaks at many events and on behalf of leading associations, like the BACD, the Institute of Directors, the Association of Professional Sales and many more.

He is on a mission to show sales leaders and teams how they can achieve ‘best in class’ sales growth. At Focus4growth our vision is to ‘Inspire our Dental Clients with the confidence, capability and consistency so they become the market-leaders in their field.’

You can connect with Justin and learn more about how he helps clients become world class HERE or you can contact him directly at justinleigh@focus4growth.co.uk

“While some sales techniques may sound obvious, it’s amazing how many people don’t realise their importance, fail to adopt them and then wonder why they fail.”

The Fundamentals of selling

When I first became a sales representative, in 1994, I worked for a medium-sized company based in Dundee, Scotland. It was a company that sold dental products to dentists, and I had previously worked as a dental technician. I remember how nervous I was starting at a new, larger company (the dental laboratory had four staff, and this company employed about 500). I had no experience in sales and knew little about the way dental practices used and ordered products.

I spent just one week in training at the Dundee head office, where I was introduced to the key people in the organisation and trained on the products the company manufactured. I also spent two days in the field with members of their senior sales team covering different parts of Scotland. At the end of that first week, I was given the keys to my company car, a selection of the Yellow Pages that corresponded with my sales territory, a box of record cards and a fax machine. I was allowed to leave early (at 4.30pm) on the Friday afternoon so that I could make the seven-and-a-half-hour drive home from Dundee. I got home late but still feeling a buzz about the exciting journey I was starting. I spent the weekend thumbing through the dental practices in the Yellow Pages, making my record cards and planning my journey for the first week on my new sales territory (previously vacant and unmanaged).

It was a true voyage of discovery. I worked for that company for almost two years and was fairly successful – without ever being taught how to sell. It wasn’t until I moved to the next company that I was put through a formal sales training programme with the company’s sales trainer. The programme was comprehensive but complex, and remembering all the elements of the training was difficult. But once I’d grasped the fundamentals of the model and practised selling, my confidence with clients and, more importantly, my results improved dramatically. I took what I’d learned and applied it to my client meetings, and the difference it made in my ability to meet my clients’ needs, and win more business as a result, when I got it right, was revolutionary.

Becoming client-centred in your approach is a fundamental principle of sales

To sell (or serve) effectively, you must focus on your client – even if it creates more work for you. This is a fundamental principle of sales.

Committing to meeting the needs of your client gives you a huge competitive advantage. It also has many positive side-effects.

• Your mindset will shift to one of service towards your clients.
• You will unconsciously communicate a deeper level of commitment to your clients.
• Any pressure you feel to ‘make the sale’ will be reduced.
• You’ll foster stronger, more meaningful relationships.
• You’ll create authentic, genuine propositions that truly meet your clients’ needs.

 

If you start from this position and remind yourself (and your teams) that the most important perspective is always that of the client, the experience you create will mean so much more for your clients

This reframing of your point of view will put you among the best salespeople on the planet!

At every stage of interaction with your clients, ask yourself, ‘if I look at this ONLY from my client’s perspective, how does it need to be?’

Process or personality – the importance of ‘knowing how to sell’

There’s a common misperception that selling is only about relationships and the salesperson’s personality. While having personality and being able to build relationships is helpful in sales, knowing how to sell will trump relationships and personality every single time. I’ve seen this over and over in my career as a salesperson, sales leader/coach and sales trainer. In fact, my experience has shown me that reliance on relationships and personality, to the detriment of the sales process, can negatively affect the salesperson’s performance. For example, I’ve seen salespeople get invited to clients’ weddings or special events, while at the same time, they slowly lose business from those clients. 

Not everyone is born with an outgoing, strong and positive personality, but you can develop your relationship skills, or ‘rapport development’ skills, over time. So, don’t be concerned if you feel that your personality isn’t ‘big enough’ – I certainly worried about that in the past too.

Once you learn the INSPIRe Secret Sales System and the fundamentals of rapport development, you’ll have the keys to a successful future as a sales professional.

It’s also true that once you utilise a sales process and begin to realise results from it, the increase in your ability and confidence can be staggering. This in turn strengthens your client relationships and helps you develop your own ‘sales personality’. Your starting point is simply sales structure rather than personality. If the reverse is true, and you have personality already and start to use the process effectively, you’ll be unstoppable! 

The ten commandments of sales

These 10 commandments, combined with a solid sales structure, show what it takes to be successful in sales and business. I teach them to all my clients.

1. Focus entirely on your client

2. Use a value-led approach

3. Tap into your intense passion

4. Continuously develop your expertise 5. Be exceptionally curious

6. Listen intently and create space

7. Enjoy the process and the results

8. Believe in your solution and yourself 9. Persevere until you succeed

10. Get to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ 

I won’t expand on these here, but throughout the following articles we’ll look at them in the systems, stories and principles we cover.

Three important components of your client proposition

Your client is looking to see if you, your product and your organisation can be trusted to deliver what they need and if these things ‘fit’ their business – they may not do this consciously, but they will do so intuitively. We’ll cover how this fits within the sales process, but at this stage, it’s important to consider how you consistently represent yourself, your product and your organisation to give your client confidence in these three priority areas. A gap in any one of these areas will create doubt for your client and jeopardise your chances of success.

Your clients will be assessing:

You, the salesperson:

Can you be trusted? Will you deliver what they need? Are you knowledgeable, credible, engaged and likeable?

Your product or service:

Does your product or service do what they need it to do? What is different or unique about it? Is it a brand they recognise or trust?

Your organisation:

Is your company reputable? What is the feedback from other clients? What are the independent ratings of the service provided? How well does it deal with issues, complaints or refunds?

Your personal vision

As you work through these articles, you’ll learn many principles and practices that will help you hone your sales skills. You’ll set yourself personal goals. I also recommend that you create a personal vision of the salesperson you wish to become. As an executive coach, I’ve worked with business leaders to clarify the visions they set for themselves and their organisations. While there are many different types of visions, two have stood out to me

Provide world-class service to my clients.

Be the most trusted and respected supplier to my clients.

Imagine if you made it your intention to be both ‘world- class’ and ‘the most trusted and respected supplier’ to your clients. It would force a new level of thinking about how you operate. This is an incredibly high aspiration.

I hope that when you consider this for yourself, you feel a mixture of emotions, as I do: a little fear, some scepticism, increasing curiosity and a swelling of excitement. Keep in mind that the achievements of every successful person, product and organisation were once no more than aspirations. This is where you are right now. If you identify your own personal vision and start ‘living it’ from this day forward, you’ll be setting a course for an astronomical breakthrough with your clients.

I hope this discussion is already stimulating thoughts and ideas. Let’s get started with the reflection. Take a moment now to write about your personal vision in your journal or notebook.

• What will inspire you to become the best sales professional possible?
• What do you want your clients to experience when they choose to work with you?

 

You may also want to consider other points covered in this article and write about them. What are your thoughts and some possible actions you can take? If you want to discuss anything in these articles please connect with me by following the link at the end of this article. Or, if you want to get future content faster you can order your own copy of INSPIRE, INFLUENCE, SELL HERE

What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done better and what gets rewarded gets repeated! 

If you’ve never measured your, or your teams, sales capability, then you’re missing out on priceless insights, awareness and potential. The act of measurement and creating self awareness can trigger intrinsic motivation and start the ripple of change that drive exponential future growth for your business.

There’s a simple and powerful way to do this for your team, and It’s completely free of charge. 

The Sales Acceleration Scorecard!

Schedule 15 minutes In your diary, follow the link below, answer the questions and you’ll be starting a process that will change everything.

CLICK HERE to access the Scorecard. Learn more about the SCORECARD HERE

Whether you’re new to sales, an experienced sales professional or a leader looking to improve the consistency and performance of your sales organisation, you’ll gain immense value from these articles, the scorecard and the INSPIRE, INFLUENCE, SELL book. Our systems map out a memorable sales process over several steps and also include mastery content for each stage of the system, which will give you deeper insight and expertise. The combination of foundational and specialist material ensures that no matter where you’re starting from, you can become a skilled salesperson.

You might want to work through these articles at the foundational level and return to the Sales Mastery sections once you get to grips with the overall system and have developed your skills. Each article starts with an experience story in which I share relevant, valuable anecdotes. If you prefer to dive straight into the sales system, you can skip that content. These articles are designed to be accessible and flexible, so that you get the most out of them.

As you work through each stage, I suggest you make notes in a journal or notebook. This will help you learn and adopt the content.

Don’t settle for ordinary, if you’re ready let’s start our journey together and your extraordinary transformation. You have greater potential than you ever realised, let’s unlock It! 

About the author

Justin is the founder of Focus4growth Ltd, a Sales & Leadership Coaching company specialising in the dental market. He’s the best selling author of Inspire, Influence, Sell. He has over 25 years’ experience in sales & leadership and is an accredited Executive Coach. Justin runs programs for dental leaders and teams to develop high performance, high growth teams. Justin is privileged to work with market leading dental companies including; Align Technology, Septodont, Biohorizons, W&H, SDI, MiSmile Network and many more.

In 2020 Justin was invited to partner with the British Dental Industry Association as their preferred Sales Trainer and works with BDIA member sales teams using the proven INSPIRe consultative sales system. Justin speaks at many events and on behalf of leading associations, like the BACD, the Institute of Directors, the Association of Professional Sales and many more.

He is on a mission to show sales leaders and teams how they can achieve ‘best in class’ sales growth. At Focus4growth our vision is to ‘Inspire our Dental Clients with the confidence, capability and consistency so they become the market-leaders in their field.’

You can connect with Justin and learn more about how he helps clients become world class HERE or you can contact him directly at justinleigh@focus4growth.co.uk