Have you tried “pitching” Salestarget.co.uk?

Have you ever used salestarget.co.uk to find a new sales job? I signed up for some email alerts some time ago, and had not got around to unsubscribing. I’m glad I hadn’t as I recently had a very fun email from them.

Have you seen the email describing their “SELL THAT!” competition? It’s a great idea.

The competition works like this. They have listed a few items that, to put it mildly, don’t belong in the “these products sell themselves” category.

So, how would you sell:

• An acre on the moon
• A yellow ‘87 Ford Capri
• Your colleague
• An unwanted Christmas gift
• A timeshare in your hometown

Take a look at the website, and the video entries. Did I mention the prize is £2,000? Might be worth a pitch yourself!

And while you are thinking about your pitch, why not make a list of the questions you might ask a potential buyer of that product. Have fun with your pitch.

And remember, it’s the questions you ask before you pitch that will allow you to close the sale.

Anyone for Leadership?

I’m glad I am “posting” this blog on our website today, and not posting it through the mail. The media keep shouting at us about the “POSTAL STRIKE”. So, who wins?

Let’s take a step back from the emotion of political rhetoric for a minute and look at this rationally. Strikes hurt customers. By hurting customers, they hurt the company, which loses market share. The hurt company then has no choice but to lay off workers.

So strikes hurt customers, companies and workers.

Is there a better way? Perhaps you have heard of cases of unions in (mostly Asian) countries around the world asking their workers to “strike” by going to work wearing black armbands. They made their point. The armbands were a direct insult to the management for not having solved the workers issues. The managers “lost face”. But, the unions did not hurt the customers, nor the company. And so no-one lost their job.

OK, you might say. But what if the current management at the Royal Mail don’t care what the workers think? What if they couldn’t care less about workers wearing black armbands?

Well, that’s a different story. It is the responsibility of leaders to care. Notice I said “leaders” and not “management”? So what’s the difference?

Management is making people do what the managers want them to do. Leadership is making people WANT TO DO IT.

Let’s go back in history and pick out two really great leaders, Sir John Harvey Jones of ICI and Sir Ernest Shackleton the great explorer, both would be highly visible 18 – 20 hours a day talking, mixing and working with their people, certainly not hiding away from the action.

If the staff trust and believe in their bosses and the bosses in turn earn the workers’ loyalty every issue can be resolved. Without strikes.

P.S. Note to Royal Mail management. We teach leadership skills. Our phone number is 01608 653 868. Please call. I’d give you our mailing address, but the mail might be late!

Invest in your people

Yes, I declare right up front I do have a vested interest here.

The feel good factor for the majority of people got up and went walkabout some 15 months ago and in the intervening months some business have disappeared, some people in work have been on reduced salaries or working part time, and some have even been made redundant, (not good for staff motivation). Values and expectations have changed but here lies a really big opportunity and challenge. Our staff and our people must also change, the skills of winning business (selling) must be improved. If companies are actually going to reap the rewards, management and leadership styles must also be improved and then there is the really biggest opportunity of all – customer care and services.

So come on business leaders if you really now want to make some money and take market share your people will do it for you, up-skill them with the latest communication skills. Invest a little in some really good, and I mean really good training. They will repay this investment 10-50 times over. New usable skills and knowledge are very inspiring so leaders, managers, bosses are you the inhibitor to your company’s growth?

NHS – How to care?

August has seen a dearth of highly condemning findings, disclosures, malpractice and incompetence within the NHS. Now we all know that it is only negative criticism that gets into the media, nevertheless with an organisation the size of the NHS there will always be horror stories from time to time. Last week it was sickness and absenteeism.

The NHS is possibly the largest employer in the UK but sadly it has the largest number of untrained managers and supervisors, way out of proportion to the rest of commerce. Here lies the biggest problem that could so easily be solved.

Very few NHS employees, and this includes staff nurses, sisters, doctors and all the numerous department heads, have had any good training in management and leadership skills.

They are expected by some God given right, because they may have an academic qualification or have the job title, or have been promoted, that they should automatically know how to lead, manage, and inspire people in their care. This would cost so little but the financial rewards would be mind blowing and the horror stories would be dramatically reduced. All the horror stories that we hear and read about can be fundamentally traced to weak and poor management. It’s not their fault, the fault lies right at the top.

Simple solution – kinder – obvious really; it only needs a decision but unfortunately that will require focus groups, committees, endless meetings, union agreements, and of course government funding – oh dear!!!!

Selling out of date!!?

Would someone out there please tell me why so many sales people are so poorly equipped to win business, while at the same time the government is held to blame for sending our highly trained soldiers into conflict equipped in outdated poorly protected vehicles?

The sales people problem does not lie in outdated equipment but either outdated training or no training at all. Just imagine sending our soldiers into battle with no training, or just as horrific training based on the IRA conflict. Maybe similar but oh so different.

The marketplace has changed, customers have changed, buying behaviour has changed, and expectations have changed, hoped for discounts have changed, negotiation has changed yet most sales people have not changed and it is not their fault but the fault of the employers.

Blame the company for sending their sales people out in Cavaliers with skills that were right 10 years ago, do try not to get frustrated but hold the employer to account.

Now I really must be honest here. I personally get so frustrated by pathetic out of date selling practices. I really do try so hard not to chew the poor individual into pieces and spit them out but I confess this does sometimes happen.

How about naming and blaming the guilty employers? As you know I am passionate about professional selling skills. It is such a winner for the world, for companies, for sales people but above everything else for the customer and it is so easy, oh so easy, to learn the skills of 2009.

Recession in or out!!!!!!

Ask an economist and you will get an opinion, but like all opinions it could be right or it could be wrong. I most certainly would not base my life or my future on an economist’s opinion; “bless them!” sic.

So are we in or are we out? Let’s put aside the official government guidelines or systems of measuring economic performance. It’s all out of date anyhow when it’s published. How about some good old fashioned commonsense? What really is happening in the marketplace? Now this may well be anecdotal and possibly challenged as not being scientific but so what, as far as I am concerned it’s real.

Companies are now back re-employing and redundancies have dwindled to the normal healthy trickle. Consumers are spending again as exemplified by the buoyant second-hand car market, always a good indicator. Our experience has shown a healthy growth of interest in business training. Every business person I speak to tells me they are feeling optimistic, and having got the holiday season out of the way decisions will be made. Executives are fed up with standing still; they are fed up with negative retreat. There is a ‘let’s get going’ feeling in the air.

If you have been delivering outstanding customer care over the past few months, if you have been investing by upskilling your people, if you have kept your most valuable asset – your staff, if you are customer led with your product mix you will now fairly quickly experience the rewards.

So in September step up a gear, really now be proactive in your communication in all its forms to your customers, your prospects and most important of all the real diamond mine the ‘No not today’s‘.

Missing A Trick/Opportunity

The mind set of so many business people is really quite extraordinary. We have been in, and thank goodness are coming out of, the worst recession in living memory yet so many are missing a trick/opportunity.

We have all heard the two clichés which are, “Our staff are our most valuable asset” – yet they are the first to go in a recession (why not the director’s cars?) and the second just as galling, “We value our customers”.

I have been amazed how few businesses have demonstrated customer care over the past few months. They have been and are missing an amazing opportunity to earn and deserve customer loyalty and customer spend. Via Denny Training I have had the experience of some progressive businesses investing just a small amount of money in skilling their people in customer care and developing an excellent service culture, the result of which is phenomenal increased profitability.

The current trading environment is intensely competitive and will remain so. I have been preaching for some time now, “You don’t have to have the best products and even the best prices, but if you provide an outstanding service you will WIN, WIN, WIN”. Tom Peters is quoted as saying “It is the greatest kept secret in the global economy today that if you provide an outstanding service you will need new suitcases to carry all the money home”.

It is not too late, your peoples attitude and skills in customer care will put you ahead of the competition. Invest a small amount now and in a few weeks see how you will have increased your market share and excitingly your profits.

If not how about joining THE FAILING CLUB who blame the government, the banks, the recession, the economy and of course the weather?

Fraud, Abuse, or the System? A business man’s perspective

I write this blog on behalf of the majority of business leaders and employers who are decent law abiding citizens doing their very best to achieve success. The frustration, sadness and anger that we are all experiencing with the MP’s expenses scandal continues.

There is a small percentage of MP’s who apparently have committed fraud. If they were employees of any normal company they would immediately have been reported to the police, not to mention losing their job without compensation.

There is a small percentage of MP’s who chose not to claim any expenses at all. That is their right and we can all respect that decision. There is a further group who have abused the system and should be held accountable to repay every penny of their personal gain.

Now we come to the majority of MP’s who have claimed genuinely what they believed to be allowable and were told it is right and acceptable to claim. Here of course lies the problem as we all know. If you create a system that not only allows but encourages people to claim expenses with such a broad remit they most certainly will. For goodness sake it is only human nature to take what is offered regardless as to whether it is taxpayers’ money. As it would be exactly the same in business with any employee. Most employees follow the rules as laid down by their employer. In business most expense claims are checked and of course some are rejected. Just normal business practice.

So the media and the press journalists, who in most cases don’t understand or don’t want to understand, and should lay off beating up those parliamentarians who live by the system. Yes of course the system is wrong. Yes I accept that the parliamentarians themselves created the system. In business we all get our systems wrong and our reward mechanisms have to be changed, improved and developed. In my previous blogs I have said that the salaries are too low to attract the quality of MP’s that we would dearly like to have leading the country. And of course it is wrong for them to stop having either income or involvement from other sources. This, as we all know, builds a far greater knowledge and experience.

The Solution

1. All indications of dishonesty or fraud – let the police deal with

2. Each and every personal gain from expenses should be repaid immediately and I MEAN immediately. Seven days or serve them a writ.

3. Put into place an ethical salary and expense system that all of us in business have to deal with every day of our lives.

MP’s – what are they really worth?

We recruit executives for our clients and they tell us that we provide the best value in the industry. I say this just to establish a little credibility to this blog.

There will undoubtedly be a great many constituency vacancies very soon as our existing MP’s cut and run. Now if we were asked to put forward suitable candidates I have to say that we would be unable and unwilling to take on such an assignment. The basic salary of £64,000 with no bonus, no commission, no share option and thoroughly messy expense/benefit arrangements would not bring forward any quality candidates that we would submit to our client. Furthermore this job has unsavoury hours, little family life, no privacy, guaranteed press intrusion and a public perception below that of a double glazing sales person.

This has to be solved if we are going to get the calibre of candidates and future MP’s who will have the ability, the intelligence and experience to run our country. So here are my recommendations for a suitable package:

1. Basic salary £80 – £100K dependent on experience

2. For each re-election (long term service award) a further £8,000

3. A reward and recognition system for attendance and contribution to Parliamentary debates. (I am intentionally not specific here)

4. Expense on a par with normal business, but not the public sector. For example business travel should be business class, all reimbursement of out of pocket expenses attributable to parliamentary and constituency purposes. Any Member of Parliament whose constituency and/or home is outside a radius of 50 miles from Parliament has an overnight accommodation allowance. Foreign business travel has to be approved by the Party Leader or nominated executive.

5. Employment of staff can be open to family members but their performance, qualifications and ability has to be approved by their Constituency Party Chairman.

I suppose the above is too simple and too loaded with commonsense to be adopted, all I know is that we could find some good quality people that the public would be very pleased with as Members of Parliament and who would bring back the respect and trust to the Mother of all Parliaments.

Top 10 Tips for building a mindset of success

Richard told mygoalsbuddy.com “The one thing that all successful athletes, musicians, singers and self-made millionaires and billionaires have in common is an attitude of success. They didn’t acquire this after their achievements.”

1. Expect the best: build your success attitude with a positive attitude. Expect each day to be wonderful. It’s amazing how the interruptions to your enjoyment become fewer and fewer.

2. Make it a habit to be positive: some habits take a while to cultivate and transform into subconscious automatic behaviour. Make it a habit to be positive every day. Avoid negative thoughts – they damage your self image.

3. Use repetition: athletes build muscle by continual repetition. In a similar way, we need to continually send the right messages to the brain. Ten repetitions of a thought will create the foundation on which the skyscraper of positivity will stand.

4. Smile: you will find it so much harder to have negative thoughts when you are smiling.

5. Try not to burden others: despite enormous pain and discomfort or other difficulty, some people remain positive and avoid burdening others with their problems. They demonstrate a success attitude and are a joy to spend time with or chat to on the phone.

6. Plan doing something positive each day: positive actions equal positive results. By planning and doing something constructive each day, you will progress towards your goal. Seeing ourselves progressing motivates us.

7. Be honest: by being honest with other people and with your self, you will become more self assured and more confident. Honesty with yourself allows you to know where you are and what you believe. Honesty with others enables them to know where you and they stand.

8. Discard negative thoughts: when you’ve taken photographs, you discard those that are out of focus or where badly lit and keep the quality images. Your mind works in the same way – cast out the negative images and replace them with positive ones.

9. Think of problems as challenges: use the word “challenge” rather than “problem.” Your mind positively embraces a challenge whereas a problem is a de-motivator. In Chinese, the world “wei –chi” literally translated means “crisis” and “danger.” The same characters together also mean opportunity.

10. Managing change: during your lifetime and mine, change will be with us. You can view it an s threat or an opportunity but you cannot stop it. Embrace change positive, enthusiastically see what might be and not what was.

Let’s go bust – bankrupt – and be out of work

If customers are such a nuisance, at least stop wasting their time and yours and invite the administrators in – they equally are not interested in customers.

At a time which some claim to be the worst trading conditions for 70 years wouldn’t you think that every business and employee would be enthusiastic to meet, see or hear a customer? Kind of obvious really and probably even common sense!!

Well as we all know, sense is very uncommon and sadly, customers for many businesses and their staff are an interruption to their work. Customer care and service is non-existent. Yet no doubt their corporate website and literature claim “we pride ourselves in our service.”

Bob Wilson, one of our specialists in customer care development for our clients tells me of two experiences last week.

1. He went into a motor retailer to consider changing one of his cars and you would think, wouldn’t you, that a car salesman would be really excited and enthusiastic to have a real live customer on their forecourt? Well after approximately 5 minutes of him standing around, a salesperson appeared and said “I’ll be with you in a few minutes, I am finishing some paperwork.” Bob, being the charming delightful chap he is waited with his wife for a further 5 minutes. The sales person appeared again and said “I am sorry to keep you waiting, but I am nearly finished and will be with you soon.” Bob and Mrs Bob were now no longer feeling quite so nice and after a further 5 or 6 minutes left out in the cold on the forecourt they decided that changing their car wasn’t really that important. They got into their car, which now had a whole new attraction and drove home. They were genuinely a customer with money.

2. The same Bob working with our clients stayed in a reputable hotel in the North of England – it begins with an M has a couple of r’s in the middle and ends with a t. He went into the restaurant and was shown to a table and given a menu. He waited and waited and waited. After what seemed like an eternity of reading the menu front to back, staring at the ceiling, trying to attract attention eventually a person appeared to take his order. He made his selection and the order taker told him that his selection was off the menu at which point Bob replied “and so am I.” He walked out and went some where else.

If ever there was a time to invest in developing the skills of customer care, it is now. (yes I do have a vested interest because this is one of the things that we do) However, we put our money where our mouth is by guaranteeing our clients profits on a small investment.

It is tragic that so many people are losing their jobs because of gross incompetence in management towards the customer care culture.

Bankers Bonuses

Bonuses paid to bankers have attracted hysterical abuse not only by an aggrieved public but also by journalistic comments.

Now let’s get real. Big bonuses paid to directors and departmental heads should be forgone. The chiefs are at fault not the Indians as they are paid to carry out orders and deliver. They are incentivised to perform and over-perform and they of course should be rewarded. When I educate directors and managers on the subject of incentives and performance enhancement I start by laying the foundation “you will get more of whatever you reward and recognise” so be careful in what you do recognise and reward. If you reward or recognise long hours of work you will get people doing just that but not necessarily enhanced performance.

A few years ago I was asked to sort out a problem with a major parcel carrier. They were experiencing a high level of customer complaint of non-delivery with too many parcels returned to the depots. A bright young executive put in an incentive programme for the drivers. If the parcels were not returned to the depot – the drivers earned more money. You can guess what happened - a good incentive but rewarding the wrong result

This is exactly what has happened to the chiefs in the banking fraternity. The right incentive but for the wrong result. The vast majority of the Indians who have performed well and who have had little or no impact on the mess that the banks are now in should be getting their bonuses.

Crass Stupidity

Branding

In the current economic climate where every sane business leader is striving to keep customers, to keep their brand visible and to attract new business in a declining market; there is one company that has joined Gordon Brown’s ministry of silly decisions…Norwich Union.

Norwich Union, a giant and a brand of 200 years. A great name reassuringly safe that appears to be conservative in this turbulent economic climate where there appears to be little safely in financial institutions. I can only presume that the decision to re-brand Norwich Union to Aviva must have been taken by a banker, accountant or lawyer (sorry to offend my friends in these professions). Maybe Norwich Union are going to diversify and don’t want to be identified with providing good value insurance products. Or perhaps they are going into construction, ship building or furniture retailing (great markets to lose money in right now).

Anyhow they probably spent a million or two in dreaming up the name Aviva and are now spending “trillions” (fashionable word) on their re-branding and advertising etc. This is money that could have been spent on winning new business and increasing shareholder value.

If you have a minute……how about some ideas to destroy other great brands with a new name.

Royal Mail – you can’t suggest Consignia as they tried that one Virgin Microsoft Scottish Widows Tesco Marks & Spencer McDonalds

BIG spin

Beware of the major beneficiaries of the recession, credit crunch or market place realignment or whatever you want to call it. Yes, you are right, it is the news media.

With 24 hours news reporting on TV and the intense competition of newspapers, journalists have to find copy to fill their editors’ insatiable appetite.

For all of us no news is good news. For the news media it is BIG trouble. So the news journalists are pressurised to find stories or items that will also satisfy the public’s insatiable appetite for the negative. As we all know the standards of newspapers are deteriorating and this is emphasised by the propensity of the overuse of the words catastrophe, disaster and calamity with all of the adjectives that can go with those words. It seems that the majority of the British public, (Brits…no offence caused, I hope) thrive on the negative. There is nothing like a disaster (9/11) to sell newspapers or get people tuning into the TV news.

Do we really want a recession, credit crunch etc. No of course not. But nevertheless there is a fascination with big companies going into bankruptcy or thousands of people losing their jobs.

Today’s journalists have learned the art of spin from some excellent teachers. It really is not too difficult to make no news into big news with a bit of a spin or the right inflection in the voice. May I suggest that you try just for one week to resist buying a newspaper. Switch off the radio news and don’t tune into the TV news…you will survive. Then buy The Week Magazine because the stale news will keep you informed but will hopefully preserve your sanity.