In today’s rapidly changing marketplace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate your company from your competition.  If you cannot differentiate, the only weapon that will be left in your arsenal is dropping prices, cutting deeply into your profit.  Ask yourself these questions:

Is My Company Differentiated? 

In 20 words or less, how would you say your company is differentiated in the marketplace?  (Better Service?  Best Pricing? Better Products? Highest Quality?)

If I asked your biggest competitors, what would they say differentiates THEM?

Are their differentiator(s) very different from yours? 

If not, is your company TRULY differentiated in the minds of your prospects?

If so, how long do you think you can maintain your differentiated advantages?

Are You and your Salespeople Differentiated?

How would you say you are different when compared to your selling opponents?

What do you think your PROSPECTS would say?

What do you think you can do today to improve your advantages and develop qualities so that you are ALWAYS differentiated and show up as the MVP (Most Valuable Person)?

For some specific guidelines to becoming a differentiated MVP, email GrowMySales@zthree.com and write MVP in the Subject Line.

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If your company is like many today, you may be experiencing the perfect storm of a shrinking market, shrinking margins and greater competition.  You may also be trying to deal with this storm without a surplus of available cash, or under conditions of tight credit.  Many business owners are frustrated with the lack of new business and the fact that few, if any, of their people relish the role of obtaining it.  Some currently have people in a selling role, but the results are sub-par.  They feel they are being held hostage by mediocre salespeople who may have valuable information or relationships.  The answer to these seemingly perplexing situations is YOU.  By virtue of a simple choice, you possess much more power than you might think to dramatically upgrade your Sales Team and grow now.  Upgrading to a true Sales Culture will not only affect your top line revenue, but can also improve your margins and net profit.  If you decide to go for it, here are simple steps that will be required: 

1.   Acknowledge the Brutal Facts:  If you want to upgrade to a powerful Sales Culture and reap the rewards that doing so will bring, it is vital to realize that the very people you would like to change have chosen to behave in the way are currently behaving.  They act the way they do for one reason–because they want to.  So despite your strongest desires, they probably will not choose to do what you would like them to do – Hunt and Close.

2.   Needle in a Haystack:  Hunters and Closers represent a microscopic portion of the “salesperson population.  In fact, only a very small percentage of people are really suitable for taking on any part of a sales or business development role.  

3.   Use Effective Tools and Processes:   You must be able to identify that small percentage of people.  This isn’t hard to do if you use the right types of assessment tools and processes.

4.   Raise Your Expectations, Trumpet Your Intentions:  This is not the time to be wishy-washy or vague.  You must clearly communicate your desire and commitment to create a powerful, lasting Sales Culture, especially to those who must carry part of the Sales Culture load.   For example, let’s say you want the regional managers at your professional services firm to go out and find local business customers, the customer service call center to become proactive by making outgoing calls, or your professional service providers to bring new clients into your firm.  In all of these cases, a common mistake management makes is to neglect the clear communication of expectations to those very people they would like to change.

5.  Appoint a Competent Culture Transformation Director:  Again, this is going to take steady commitment on your part.  But it will pay off.  Appoint someone who understands what needs to be accomplished as well as how to accomplish it.  Then hold them accountable for executing.

6.  Train and Coach:  Make sure that the chosen people are provided with the training they’ll need to succeed in this strange new world of selling and new business development.  The assessment tools can provide you with a development roadmap.

7.   Demonstrate a Path to Success:  Don’t throw them out to sink or swim.  Even with the most talented of salespeople, it is up to you to clearly define what it is they should do and how often they should do it.

8.   Don’t Try to Push Water Up Hill:  You must get buy-in from the people that will participate in your culture transformation.

9.   No Surprises:  You must be clear as to how their success will be measured.

10.  Hold Them Accountable:  The Culture Transformation Director must hold the participants accountable to doing what they agreed to do.

A sluggish economy is the absolute best time to perform a Sales Culture Transformation.  With a simple choice, the right tools, and a simple checklist, you’ll be well on your way to higher revenues, increased profits and consistent performance.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2009.   All Rights Reserved.

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Who will drive Change in YOUR Sales Organization? 

Over the last two weeks, I gave five talks on Upgrading Sales.  I spoke with over 200 highly engaged entrepreneurs.  I asked all five groups to raise their hands if they would rank their Sales Organization as “Great”.  Less than 2% of them raised their hands.  Next, I asked them to raise their hands if they would rank their Sales Team as “Good”.  Maybe another 8% of hands went up.   In other words, approximately 90% of a diverse group of private business leaders in varied industries in multiple states ranked their Sales Organizations as Average or Poor.

So here is my question:  “Since Sales in the Lifeblood of Consistent Success, why do so many owners TOLERATE Mediocrity?”

If you are a business owner seeking to build a consistent, scalable and predictable Sales Team, don’t look far.   It all starts with YOU.  This doesn’t mean that YOU need to Sell.  You don’t even need to know how to sell.  It also does not mean that you need to Manage Sales.  It does, however, mean that you need to DECIDE and COMMIT to Upgrading Your Sales.  Building a Great Sales Team takes no magic, just a decision, a checklist and execution.

If you’d like a copy of the Uncommon Sense© World Class Sales Checklist, email me and write “Checklist” in the Subject Line.  If you’d like to expand on your biggest sales challenge, I will reply in short order. 

Stay tuned–I’ll be expanding on this step-by-step approach to Upgrading your Sales in the coming days…   

Onward!

Joe

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The world is changing—fast.  If you are a business owner, you know how quickly your company can become commoditized. 

Commoditization can mean lower prices, lower margins, and (if you don’t do something about it soon), the demise of your business.

Over the last several months, I have discussed the notion of commodization with several hundred successful entrepreneurs.  We have discussed this phenomenon in our TABBoards and are developing specific tools and strategies to address it.   Many owners see great opportunities in hyper-rapid change, others are petrified.  Just about all agree that if they do not lead and stay differentiated, that they can quickly get trampled.  The question is HOW.  Here are a few tips to prevent you and your company from becoming a commodity:

1.  Develop a Proactive De-Commodization Strategy:    If you think your product or service is so unique that you are immune, you may want to think again.  Over one million people have viewed the Did You Know 3.0 video.  If you haven’t seen it, please take 5 minutes to check it out on YouTube.   Those who have watched it are struck not only by the speed at which the world is changing, but also the rate with which this speed of change is increasing.  In your business planning, make sure to incorporate the fact that commodization happens 10 to 1000 times quicker in the Information Age than in previous generations.

• Develop an Innovation Mentality:  This is not an easy feat.  It requires an unconditional commitment from the owner and from the entire leadership team.  Changing the way people think can be tough, but the rewards of developing an Innovation Mentality will be well worth the effort in the face of changing marketplace that all businesses face today.

• Develop a World Class Sales Organization:  Your competitors are the biggest readers of your website and marketing material. If a product or service is valuable and there is a decent sized market for it, someone, somewhere will soon be trying to duplicate it.   An effective, differentiated, scalable Sales Culture is something that can not be duplicated.  I have developed a simple checklist you can use to create a high-performance World Class Sales Team.  If you’d like a copy, click here and write “WCSO Checklist” in the Subject line.  

• Develop your Reputation by Becoming Your Industry’s Most Trusted Advisor:  Products and services can be copied quickly, but overcoming your reputation as being the most trusted source is difficult.

• Become a TAB Member:  Many of you who are reading this are already members of The Alternative Board and have developed an edge over your competitors by virtue of the proprietary TAB process.  This process includes peer learning, accountability coaching, effective planning tools, operational and financial assessments, business education and much more.  If you are not a TAB member, but have an interest in learning more or seeing if you qualify for membership, call 512-331-1822 or click here.

In our rapidly changing global economy, the great idea that you worked so hard to develop into a business advantage can likely be re-engineered in India, China, or a host of other places that can deliver your product or service at a fraction or your cost.   An idea that took years to pirate a generation ago can today be re-manufactured and delivered in a period of weeks or months.   By following these simple steps, you can create an amazing competitive advantage for your company.   

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2009.   All Rights Reserved.

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If you want to be great in 2009, simply model the behaviors of leaders who have consistent records of greatness.   Achieving greatness in 2009 consists of three components:

• Thinking
• Behaviors
• Alignment

Check out this excellent article on Becoming Great from Ray Brun, who directs The Alternative Board in the Bay Area of California.

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for Health, Wealth and Prosperity!

Joe Zente

How Your Business Can Be Like the Miami Dolphins in 2009

The biggest one-season turn-around in NFL history! Worst to First. How does a team go from 1-15 to 11-5 in just one short year? The answer is simple. When Bill Parcells took over the reigns in Miami this year, the first thing he did was let everyone there know that losing would not be tolerated.  He had won everywhere he had been and the Dolphins would be no exception. He started out by raising the standard from Good(or was it Awful?) to Excellent.

Once those who accepted losing were kicked off the bus, everything else fell into place, because there was no one to drag everyone else down. And that, my fellow business owners, is how you are going to make it easier for positive change in the challenging year ahead.  That is how you are going to go from good (or bad) to great. There will be no shortage of gloom and doom and naysayers in 2009. To survive, you must be around people who have a mindset of “I refuse to participate in this recession!”

Parcells fired all the leaders of the 1-15 calamity and hired a disciple of discipline, who had been his offensive coordinator when Parcells was the Big Ka-Tuna for the Cowboys. He then went on to do what all great companies do, and what Jim Collins, author of Good to Great calls, "getting the right people on the bus”. Collins had discovered in his extensive research that great companies made it their top priority to get great talent. For Parcells this meant 29 new players out of a 53 player squad. Out with all those who weren’t right for his bus and in with those who were.

I find it amazing that with new front office staff, new coaches, new players and a new system that everyone had to learn in a short period of time, they still went from 1 win to 11 wins in just one season. What would happen in your business if you went “Out with everyone who accepted failure, In with those who would do whatever it takes to win?”

Members of The Alternative Board have heard what Collins says- “Money is a commodity but Talent is not”.  Here at TAB East Bay North we have honored many members with, “The Good-To-Great TAB Bus” as reinforcement to taking positive actions. Actually for most of the award winners it was not because talent they hired but because they finally harnessed the support and accountability they needed to make the tough decisions and get certain people off the bus. Attitude was right there with Talent when it came to improvement.

Speaking of attitude, this week’s Fairfield Daily Republic asks, “What housing crisis?” as it discusses TAB East Bay North member Steve Spencer, managing partner of Gateway Realty in the article, Realty Firm Turns Tide in November. The DR says Gateway Realty “posted their best November in five years”, but I know that this was actually their fifth straight strong month.  I am not surprised that they are profitable during a recession because Steve has always stood firm with his philosophy of looking for opportunity when others just see problems. Steve, his partner, Bev, and their hundred-plus real estate agents have managed to survive one of the toughest markets anywhere, Solano County, and are now leveraging on the unique opportunities of an emerging entry-level market and investor opportunists.

Please pardon my USC bias for just one more football example of what you must do in 2009. Eight years ago, Peter Carroll was brought in to coach a ghastly football program of losing at the University of Southern California.  For seven straight years he has continuously pounded his philosophy of “Win Forever” deep into the fibers of everyone associated with the USC program. His positive mindset as represented in that simple two-word mantra has been internalized by every USC team member.  They have gone on to deliver him seven straight top-five national ranking finishes, seven Pac-10 championships, seven major bowls, and seven 11-win seasons for the USC Trojans.

What is your philosophy? Can you state it in one short sentence?  As you develop your philosophy, remember that wherever you need to improve, all you must do is to change old belief systems and automatic, moment- by-moment "unthinking" thought patterns. What you do dictates what you get in your life. Thoughts and beliefs of yourself and your people are what determine what you do and how well you do it. All growth starts there. It starts inside your mind.

What is in your mind as you begin 2009? What is in the minds of your team members? Can you think of any time in our business lives where this type of mindset and leadership has been more important?

From the team here at The Alternative Board, we wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Ray Brun

Owner/Facilitator of TAB East Bay North

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