By Jennifer Dawson @ 1:00 pm
By Keith Rosen
Review by Jennifer Dawson
Management is dead.
Keith Rosen admits it’s a bold statement, but it underlies his innovative approach to creating sales champions and is certainly a thought-provoking sentence to slide into the opening chapter of his book.
Since Rosen isn’t advocating for flat organizational structures or axing all sales management positions, it might be more accurate to say that management is on life support. The prescriptive, problem-focused, and punitive approach of traditional management, Rosen asserts, is failing today’s salespeople. Enter coaching, which Rosen defines as “the art of creating new possibilities.” Coaching’s collaborative, creative and solution-focused approach, while not a quick cure for managerial ills, promises to breathe new life into any sales department. (more…)
By Jennifer Dawson @ 1:00 pm
“One of the biggest challenges in measuring coaching is that tangible, behavioral change is usually linked to intangible mindsets and beliefs. Effective measurement strategies require that we make those intangibles measurable.”
—Terry Bacon, Lore International Institute
Without a doubt, coaching is the hottest approach to enhancing the performance of the people in an enterprise-whether it’s teams of coaches working with managers in a Fortune 500 company, transition coaching for new C-level executive hires, or coaches working with the owners of small businesses or sole proprietorships. It is clear from the increasing acceptance and investment in coaching, among the broad spectrum of business in many countries, that we believe coaching works.
But how well does it work? And how hard is it to measure?
In recent years, there have been a couple of detailed, well-documented studies that put the ROI of major coaching engagements within Fortune 500 companies between 600% and 700%, depending upon how improved retention was calculated.
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By Melanie Parish @ 1:17 pm
1. Invite your prospect to attend a public event with you. This is most effective in a business-to-business selling environment.
2. Learn about your prospect’s family. Be curious about your potential client’s life outside of work but always be sensitive in your approach. Avoid issuing a barrage of questions. Know what questions are appropriate to ask and which are none of your business.
3. Share something personal about yourself. Choose something that is funny and magnifies a similarity you have with your prospect. Again, exercise good judgment and avoid anything too personal. I sometimes share the challenges of having both a teenager and twin four year olds. This works well because many prospects can identify with my experiences: those with young kids, those with teenagers and those who have grown children.
4. Find a way to laugh with your potential client. Learn the art of humor that doesn’t cross any ethical boundaries but makes it fun to spend time together. I often poke fun at my challenges, inviting laughter with comments like, “I can’t believe after 20 years in this business, I still can’t figure out how to get past your receptionist…”
5. Have a conversation where you allow your natural curiosity to come through. Forget about yourself for a moment and focus on the other person. Don’t just act interested, be interested.
