Fear and Trembling at the Cold Call

One of my first experiences coaching professionals with no sales experience in business development involved a former chief financial officer who was working for a consulting company. The company brought me in to help this former CFO and others bring in business.

I gave him what I thought would be a simple assignment. All I wanted was for him to call one of the firm’s former clients, introduce himself, ask whether the company had any need for the firm’s services again and if not, could the former client could refer him to someone else.

"Top Sales Rep gets slammed, shot and beaten up by this down economy"

"Top Sales Rep gets slammed, shot and beaten up by this down economy" - This was in the subject line of an email I received from Sharon in San Diego.

How tough is it to be a salesperson in today's economic environment? How do the best deal with it?

I contacted Sharon to learn more about her situation. She is the #1 sales rep for a national direct marketing company. If the #1 salesperson is feeling like this, imagine how everyone else is feeling. To put things in perspective, she sold over $1 million dollars in advertising last year which is truly amazing when you consider her average sale was $ 3,000.00

When I asked her what she was feeling and how she was dealing with this economic environment she said, "I am not scared, or nervous or mad. I am more discouraged than anything else, but I am trying to work harder and smarter to overcome it. My self talk is that I am a winner and I know that I am a warrior! I won't give up, ever!"

I'm Paralyzed

Here's a story from a friend of mine that speaks to these times of continuous layoffs, uncertainty and fear. 

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Phoebe got a phone call from a neighbor. They chatted for a minute about some weekend dinner plans. Sounds good, Phoebe thought, until an awkward silence on the other end of the line.

"I don't know what to do," the neighbor said. "I'm paralyzed."

Phoebe was still in her pajamas. She put down her cup of coffee and started hunting around for the car keys, imagining the worst.

"What do you mean you're paralyzed? Can you move your legs? Is it your arms? When did this happen? Can you get out of bed? Do we need to call 911?"

The neighbor laughed.

 "I can move," she said. "I just can't make myself look for a job."

 "Thank God," Phoebe said. "At least I don't have to haul you to the emergency room."

 There's a lot of what I call job-search paralysis going around. And there's no easy fix.

Don’t Lose Sight... of Your Customer's Point of View

In today's extremely challenging economy there is an overwhelming tendency for leaders of most companies to focus internally, on expense reductions, operational efficiencies and the other demands of keeping a company in the black. The challenge for most leaders is to seek balance and to remember the other part of the equation and that is the revenue side. In other words, the customer.

I spoke at the annual meeting of Career Partners International, a consulting firm that specializes in executive training, recruitment, coaching and these days a lot of outplacement.  CPI has 160 partner firm offices in 20 countries.

My consulting firm is affiliated with Williams, Roberts, Young Inc., a Career Partners International firm. I was invited as the closing speaker, to wrap up a four-day meeting.

As you would expect, there was a lot on the agenda about internally focused issues. There was the sharing of best practices and lessons learned and all the other internal matters companies worry about — especially in these uncertain times. All important stuff, no doubt.

But I was impressed that CPI also made sure that the agenda allowed time to pause for the cause and that they didn't lose sight of their customer's point of view. In my presentation I challenged everyone to continue to ask the hard questions that we should be asking ourselves about our customers, constantly.  Here are some of those questions.

Two Ears, One Mouth... Listen UP!

Is it a coincidence that we have two ears and one mouth? Do you think we were made to listen twice as much as we talk? Now that’s an interesting concept.

In my career from a rookie account executive to the chief sales officer of a Fortune 500 company, I have come to learn the power of listening. Particularly into today’s economic environment, with so much changing, almost daily, listening to the customer is more important now than ever.

But before we go straight into the sales side of listening, let’s talk about the lost art of listening. Almost nobody listens anymore! In the corporate world our leaders, bosses, peers, our direct reports, they don’t seem to listen. The same holds true in our personal lives: our parents, children, friends or spouses (well the spouses really never listened to us) don’t really listen anymore. Why is that?