Get Them Talking

In sales it is important that you listen to your prospect or customers needs. All too often sales representatives will talk over their customers or prospective customers. 70% of all communication is listening. A good listener will always walk away from a conversation learning more from the exchange than the talker. The talker might walk away with a feeling of accomplishment because they dominated the conversation but will not have learned much from the interaction that just took place.

While this is of the utmost importance in sales this is also an important life skill. People like talking about themselves, their families, etc. Find out what is important to someone and you can turn them into a friend for life by making them feel special. Make people feel that they are special and they will line up to support you and what you do. With all of the focus of late that has been placed on the political scene, you do not have to look far to see a great example of this at work.

Ask people open ended questions. Let them speak, and listen intently (and by this I mean give the person you are engaging your complete attention). Do not answer the mobile phone, quit texting, do not check email, let your office phone go into voicemail, etc. Your undivided attention is necessary to make this person clearly understand that what they are saying to you is truly important to you. If you are in sales you will uncover needs. The more needs you uncover, the greater the opportunity you have to sell your products and services. Outside of sales you can use this simple guideline to build stronger relationships with people, to gain buy-in from those that you lead and to motivate others.

Have you ever been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment or lack thereof? How did it make you feel? Next time it happens to you, let us know about it.

What is your greatest distraction? Checking Email? Your text messages?

Review of the book "Lead Well and Prosper"

I was recently contacted by Nick McCormick, author of the book Lead Well and Prosper, and was asked to review his book on my blog. I love to read business related books, especially ones that are focused on the topic of leadership, so I was pleased to accept the request.

Lead Well and Prosper is a quick read. It is the kind of business book that you keep on your bookshelf and reference to remind yourself of the core basic fundamentals that leaders need to follow in order to be effective managers. The book also provides helpful tools in the back of the book as good suggestions in how to better maximize effectiveness.

The subjects that are covered in the book are coveted longstanding principals that Mr. McCormick points out as being critical if you are to achieve the status of a "good" manager. He also points out that being a "good" manager will separate you from your peers by virtue of "good" managers being few and far between.

There is a management practice or principal covered in the book that will speak to each individual. One such topic that I personally am completely on the same page as Mr. McCormick and feel that in today's business world more leaders need to follow is in Chapter 5, which is titled “Listen.” In today's business world, all too often the art of listening and paying attention has been pushed aside for the "art" of multitasking. Have we as leaders forgotten that as much as 70% of all communication is in fact listening? Mr. McCormick reminds us in his book that we should be giving our team members our undivided attention and that bringing a laptop to a meeting or answering your phone when you have a team member in your office are both leadership errors. In Mr. McCormick's words, these types of actions will lead to members of your team shutting down and not coming back to you when they have quality ideas that they would like to pitch to you, which include the ones to which you could add greater value. I could not agree more! Again, this is just one example of the "15 successful strategies for becoming a good manager" that Mr. McCormick covers in his book.

Pick this book up once a quarter and take it to lunch in order to get a good refresher and to ensure that you are executing the basics well. It is an investment of your time that will be well worth the effort.

Thanks again to Nick McCormick for the offer to read and write about my experience with his book titled Lead Well and Prosper. I wish him all the best in his future writing endeavors!

Professional Resolution

The process of establishing a New Year's resolution is very similar to the goal setting process. Two key aspects of developing a resolution are writing it down and the fact that it is time sensitive. New Year's resolutions are typically personal in nature, but I have found that using this process in business can be an effective means by which to lead individuals to establish personal work-oriented goals.

If you are in a leadership position, you can resolve to mentor or work on the development of the individuals that you lead. You might also resolve to improve one area of your leadership skill set to a new level. This could include the improvement of listening skills, organizational skills, presentation skills, writing skills, etc. If you lead a sales team, you can use this exercise to have each member of your team establish a resolution that would be activity based. Agree to be your sales team's income coach throughout the year to keep each person on track to hit their personal income goals by measuring activity. This can be broken down into individual resolutions in the areas of increasing the number of sales calls being made, number of prospects being called or improving his or her ability to execute a sales call from the opening to wrapping up the sale, etc. This will not only demonstrate your interest in his or her success but your commitment to helping in the obtainment of their income goals. Weekly one-on-one meetings with your team can have a segment in which you analyze each team member's progress towards staying on track to achieve their income goal. This will mean establishing new activity-based targets throughout the year to act as a road map to success against the backdrop of, say, “If you do this you will be on track to hit your income goal for 2008.”

A side benefit of this process is in the fact that each member of your team has a vested interest in following your direction. Weekly coaching sessions do not include, "Your activity levels are too low...make more calls," which in my mind is a lot like a track coach running behind a runner yelling "run faster" (doesn't work). Instead, your coaching sessions now sound more like, "Your goal is to make $90,000 in 2008, and based on your sales and activity levels, you are not on track to hit your goal. However, let me show you that if you increase your efforts (here and here) you will get/be back on track." This is a great example for sales representatives, but this process can also be imperative in developing goals for those in leadership positions who (verses higher commissions, etc.) might aspire to achieve higher levels of responsibility. Therefore, developing a resolution that is focused on their professional development over the year could make this individual a better candidate for any promotional opportunities that might arise in 2008.

I have yet to finalize my own resolutions (professional or personal) for 2008. Professionally, I do know that I am going to continue to be a student of leadership and continue working on my own professional development. Reading a book each month on leadership is a good option and one that I am considering. Attending seminars on leadership is another good option. Personally, I am giving some thought to training for and running in a marathon. I completed my first half-marathon in 2007 and feel as though this could be the year that I could cross "run a marathon" off of that proverbial "life list." I only have a couple of days left to make a decision. The Chicago marathon in October could be the ticket...

What is your professional resolution for 2008? How about your personal resolution? Have you ever used this process in the establishment of goals for those that you lead?

Happy New Year!

Best regards,

Jeff Littlejohn
Vice President and General Manager
The Employment Guide

Listen to Lead

Listening is a skill. Listening is 70% of all communication. In today's business climate of rushing and working at a fast pace while multi-tasking, listening can become an afterthought. People tend to speak over one another and even will finish each other's sentences. I even find myself doing the same thing at times and have to pull back, slow down and make sure I am giving someone my full attention or take the time to summarize what someone has just communicated to me to be certain that I understand what they are trying to tell me. Once you find yourself in a leadership role, the importance the skill of listening takes on is amplified. Through listening you find out what works and what will not. What the organization will buy into and what they will not. You also gain credibility with those that you lead because they know that you care enough to listen to their thoughts, ideas and concerns. Listening goes hand-in-hand with leadership.

In our company the most successful ideas always "bubble up" verses being pushed down throughout the organization. I can readily count off many such examples of projects that started at the local level and become successes verses a few that were forced down. It goes to show you that people like to innovate and be original. It is exciting to try something new or to take a new spin on an old idea. As a leader, it is important to listen to the ideas of your people and find out what is working and what is generating excitement and passion, to provide any needed tools or resources, and then get out of their way and let your folks execute.

The next time someone comes into your office to speak with you, listen. Truly listen. Then summarize your conversation back to that person before they leave your office as a way of saying, "Hey, I respect you, and what you are saying to me is important enough for me to make sure I completely understand what you are trying to communicate." Did you hear something more than you might have in the past? Did the person walk away from your conversation feeling good about the exchange? By slowing down and giving people your time and attention you will effectively motivate, have a better understanding of what is going on in your business and will be in a position to make better decisions. Listening is leading.

Try to do this with every one-on-one conversation over the course of a day. Let me know what you learn from the experience?