Why is Culture King? Part 3 of 3

Number Three in a Series of Three Articles Promoting the Value of an Efficient Sales Culture

A day in the life of a top performing sales professional.

Before I get started, here’s what it's not: a mixed bag of random activities based upon what comes to mind next, neither for an individual or a sales staff. If you don’t believe, as Aristotle did, that “success is a direct result of good habits that you execute regularly and not an act you perform”, you will hate this final installment about how to have a well performing sales culture. You ARE your habits and disciplines, or lack thereof. 

The hardest thing for me as a CEO, with a sales past and a passion for selling, is working my way through the non-sales duties I have to try and carve out a little time to prospect or follow up. Oh how jealous I am of sales professionals that get to go to work and just focus on the creative act of selling. Yes, I know, and am reminded, that being a CEO means I help a lot of people but I do remember fondly the days of “hitting the bricks” and just making it happen. I still relish the presentations and opportunities to figure out and meet peoples' needs by providing them with the right thing. Please feel grateful for what you are empowered to do by the dealer you work for, without the encumbrance of being an owner which they have taken on. Remember that their risk-taking and being an independent business person through every kind of economic climate is a blessing to you. Take advantage of it and take care of yourself and those you love with a grateful heart. Years ago Zig Ziglar used to teach that a smile would come through on the other side of a phone conversation. The same is true with being grateful. If you are, it will be felt by those you wish to sell to.   

If you come out of the chute with an "attitude of gratitude” you will remind yourself you are beginning another day where you may be able to find people you can help learn more about what their best buying decision may be, that your job is that of being a giver, a giver of dependable information and advice. As my father used to say, ”make sure you have your head screwed on straight!” Your attitude and excitement about uncovering opportunities as a singular sales person or a staff should always start with PMA (positive mental attitude).

Before we get into the progression of what a great sales day looks like, let’s revisit a reality many are hesitant to admit. You need a coach. Does having a coach, whether it is an older sales person who mentors you, books you read and podcasts you watch, or a sales manager, mean you don’t know what you’re doing? Unless you are a newbie, absolutely not! It means you will accept stimulus and self-examine and endeavor to be the best version of your sales-self.  

A huge advantage of a sales education is the power to improve and evolve. This is necessary both personally and as a staff. If you are a solo act make sure you sharpen your saw mentally with some reading, audio or podcast material . If you are a staff, pick a sales activity topic and examine it as a team. Better yet, choose a book and read it and examine it one chapter at a time together. You’ll be amazed at the different ways other people digest and translate sales ideas. Challenge one another and share approaches and role play. 

Look, Tiger Woods has a swing coach, professional musicians rehearse to keep up their chops, and professionals get re-certified.  Where did so many sales individuals get the idea that “shooting from the hip” and never sharpening their skills is a good idea? Learning is your friend. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking of it as an oppressive thing or it won't be fun, and learning and selling can and should be fun in spite of the responsibilities and inherent challenges. When you get really good at it, it is fun.

If you are a manager or coach, look for those individuals who have their dobber down and prop them up. Sound elementary? It is, but so is keeping your head still when you swing a bat. Knowing something that can establish a good habit to start your day right is a no-brainer. Be honest, many times don’t you just dive in without setting the tone? Job #1 is always to look for positive opportunities and that starts with a positive attitude. If you’re not excited about your day and what you do, don’t expect to be able to get anyone else excited about it.

If it is a Monday (or whatever day of the week you set aside for it) and you have a weekly sales meeting, have a plan. If not, you plan to fail. Random, unprepared “so what do you have working?” meetings where you try to prognosticate what you might be able to sell that week is not a sales meeting. It’s a prediction drill. If you share ideas on how to deepen relationships and what the next most productive steps are, that is a sales activity meeting. Simply answering questions about what you have in the hopper that might close is simply a reporting process.

So how should the sales day begin? 

Action#1: Get your tone and posture correct.

If you are a spiritual person, a prayer or some meditation that includes being grateful for another day in the saddle can get you ready mentally instead of allowing the events of the day to unfold without you deciding the context. If you are not a spiritual person, it still makes a ton of sense psychologically. There’s not a therapist on earth that will argue against taking a moment to be in control of how you approach the day on your own terms.

Action #2: Get your juices flowing.

Warm up mentally by surveying your CRM and getting a feel for the best follow up protocol. Even if you have an appointment, it is best to go over the topics in chronological order that you need to cover to accomplish the best possible meeting. If you sell at a high level you will ask questions that will cover the real estate you need covered. Selling should be a conversational process where you shepherd the prospect through the things it will benefit them most to think about. Don’t go in and shoot from the hip. Go in warmed up mentally. What you have on your calendar will dictate what you need to prepare for mentally.

Action #3: Gather your Assets

Now it is time for another cup of Joe and a look at the schedule to gather the assets you need to do your presentation, or if you are prospecting the catalog of articles, links and product pictures and specs you need to share with your prospects to deepen the relationships one at a time.  

So to summarize the first three actions recommended: 

Pray or Meditate to Get Centered. 

Warm up Your Mind for the Tasks at Hand

Gather Your Assets Needed for the Engagements of the Day

Getting started right is crucial; it is the steering wheel for your sales day. 

Action #4: Promote the Customer Journey of Your Prospects

It is time to start working the prospects that deserve the most attention in your CRM. If it is set up properly, you should be able to identify the prospects that need attention the most and work to deepen those relationships and get them into a presentation appointment, should they be that far down the sales funnel. The simple goal is to take one action that you believe is on topic and helpful and informational to each prospect to help move them through the sales funnel. This all sounds pretty fundamental, right? Something I should assume every hard working sales person or staff should naturally do. But here is the reality. Very few sales professionals are set up with a catalog of past online informational posts, or pictures of happy customers and helpful articles and links to share to do a good job of becoming the prospects concierge on the way to their best buying decision. Most sales people simply keep trying to get the fish in the boat without making double damn sure the hook is set. 

Many sales individuals are diving down to the bottom line long before the client has shown they are ready because THEY need a sale. Here’s the real world: it doesn’t matter how bad you need a sale. If you have enough lines in the water there will always be a fish ready to be hauled into the boat, but these aren’t fish!!! These are human beings with a heart beating in their chest and their wallet is tied to their emotions, and THAT will determine when they are ready to buy, not when you need to sell.  So you have to have enough content to crank them in a “little at a time” and if you try to bring them in too fast they’ll break the line and bolt in the other direction. What you are in control of is having better  information, inspirational content, and advice than their other choices. Win the friendship. Win the position of being the concierge and the sales will take care of themselves. If you personally aren’t active and therefore have your own content with which to nurture, it’s OK, as long as the company does. If neither is true, you are operating like it is still 2007. 

WARNING: If you don’t have at least thirty prospects you are working with in your pipeline and your job is primarily to sell, you are not set up for success and there is something seriously wrong with the culture, prospecting habits,  your exposure, or “D” all of the above.  (separate social post)

Action #5: Plan When to Write, Post or Gather Nurturing Assets

Depending on your schedule and how many prospecting activities you have made (anything less than 25 outbound attempts to create or deepen a relationship is lame), you must continue to position yourself as the most helpful and informative resource in your marketplace. This is where the majority of sales professionals fail today. They continue to call, text and email all about setting the appointment or making the sale. This doth not “nurturing” make. If you want them to pull the trigger with you, be encouraging but patient. A pushy salesman (no gender intended) will make them run and position you as perpetuating the stereotype. Be a decision-making friend, not a foe. Keep gathering assets so that you have a stockpile that you can disseminate for every type of product you sell and “out-info” the competition. In the luxury marketing space there is always much more business to write than a sales organization can get to if you network and prospect well. . 

Action #6: Mop up

Near the end of the day, look for undone activities or little gentle pushes you can make to forward your prospects down the funnel: an article about the value of an appointment without asking for one, a random “feel good” Instagram picture to let someone know you were thinking about them without asking for the sale. Little things mean more than you know and don’t do it to get a response, do it because they will continue to position YOU as the most helpful and caring person in their world where what they are thinking about buying is concerned.    

Action #7: Document and Analyze Your Activities of the Day

Document your activities, as you go along, for the sake of identifying what it takes to make a sale and to make sure you execute enough quality activity to reach your goals. Sales are a “by-product of quality activity”, not a thing in and of themselves that you stumble upon or an event that happens to you. A good sales culture creates as many prospects as possible entrusting you with the position of being their “go to” place for dependable and entertaining content.

Action #8: Plan the Next Day 

Before you head for home or wherever you want to go, know what your tomorrow’s schedule is and make notes to prepare yourself for the next day. 

This includes blocking out time on the calendar for prospecting, nurturing, and content gathering and/or creation if they must (hopefully) occur in between presentations and meetings. Leaving the day behind well executed doesn’t always mean you sold something and that’s OK. But it MUST mean you moved the ball up the field with some relationships and you feel some impending future sales. The bottom line to all of this is that if you execute quality activity and fill your pipeline with a new relationship or two every day, things will come out the other end. IF you have enough of them, something will ALWAYS be coming out the other end. 

As far as “people capital” is concerned, "Culture is King.” As far as sales material and activities are concerned, “Content is King.” If you want your culture to be a royal community that outperforms the other options, content has to be your “subjects” and you need plenty of them. Culture is how you deliver your subjects (content) to the community. These two work hand in glove. Creating, finding and sharing the best content, complete with happy customer faces and magic moments, showing people that purchasing something from you will enrich their lives, is the most successful nurturing activity you can perform. That is an experience others will want to have more often if you put it in front of them.  

That is a winning culture for you and those you serve. Happy Selling!

Here are some quotes from the bottom of Part 1 of this series you would do well to commit to memory. They will keep you on track and remind you of how important the culture you create and sell in is:

“Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.” - Steve Jobs, Founder and CEO of Apple

“Company culture is the backbone of any successful organization” -Gary Vaynerchuck, Author, Motivational Speaker, Entrepreneur 

“Time is the only currency you spend without ever knowing your balance. Use it wisely.” - Unknown.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle