team,leadership,culture,world-class,Z3,TAB Austin,Joe Zente,performance,success,focus,commitment

All great teams possess certain characteristics.

It does not matter if we are talking about sports, music, sales, military, or business teams.  The ingredients that produce great teams are identical.

All World-Class Teams have:

Great Players:  A Great Team must start with great people.  You would be hard-pressed to go to the Super Bowl without great athletes or to produce a Broadway hit without great performers. All great players have a sense of Personal Responsibility.  When something goes wrong on the Team, they always point the finger at themselves first.  When the Team does well or when they receive personal accolades, they always look to congratulate others (not themselves) in a spirit of gratitude.  Great players don’t only set goals and plan to win, they expect to win.

Great Leadership:  Great leaders are multipliers.  They understand that leadership applies to people and that management applies to things.  Multipliers know how to inspire vigorous debate and understand that “all of us are smarter than any one of us”.  They are confident in their ability to lead, but they do not believe that they are the smartest person in the room.  They inspire their team to place “the elephants on the table” and to disagree without being disagreeable.  They are self-aware and always Walk their Talk.  Great leaders are trustworthy and know how to trust others. They are happy to admit when they are wrong or if they have made a mistake.  They understand that vigorous debate trumps false agreement every time.   Multipliers get people to perform far beyond their wildest imagination, attain new heights, and accomplish things they have never accomplished before. Success breeds success and belief breeds belief.  They understand how to create and maintain momentum.  Soon, everyone performs better.  A rising tide floats all boats.

Great Culture:  Great teams possess a culture of abundance, leadership development, discipline, and accountability. The leader and all of the teammates of a world-class team seek to grow their slice of the pie by growing the entire pie. The leader World-class team members have no tolerance for any form of zero-sum mentality, politicking, spin, or CYA.  Great cultures understand that the goals, mission and values of the team are always more important than those of any one of its players.  In no way does this philosophy imply a lack of loyalty.  Great teammates are extremely loyal, but will not allow any member to give anything less than their best, because poor effort by any player can do harm to the overall team mission. If a fellow teammate is dogging it, they will call them out respectfully, but directly.  Players in world-class culture possess optimism, but they never sugar-coat.  They always face the brutal facts and deal with them head on, even if the facts don’t support their pre-determined hopes and conclusions.

Great Focus:  Focus is a hallmark of performance, on both an individual and team basis.  Great Teams work hard to keep their goals, objectives, and KPIs to a minimum, permitting intense focus on only those most critical items that will produce the highest return on time and energy and the greatest overall results.  They create strategies and success recipes based upon this small set of objectives, then focus intensely upon execution.  Everyone understands effectiveness and efficiency.   All members are constantly asking themselves the question “What ONE THING should I focus on now to provide the greatest value to the mission and produce the greatest result.”  There is absolutely no tolerance for time-wasters or distractions.

Great Commitment to Continuous Improvement:  Great Team leaders and players never rest on their laurels.  They are happy to celebrate their great achievements, but are never satisfied and are constantly looking to improve.  They are masterful at overcoming adversity and obstacles.  They recover quickly and know how to quickly get back on the horse whenever they fall off.

Even the best teams in the world don’t win all the time.  Perfection is unattainable; the pursuit of perfection is golden.  You will rarely, if ever, see a professional or college sports team go undefeated in a season.  However, there are programs and leaders that seem to consistently make it to the championship or finish in the top 10% year after year.  World-class, consistent performers and teams understand that in most cases success is a marathon, not a sprint - a journey, not a destination.  As such, players and leaders on great teams are highly committed to continuous training, coaching and development.

How does your team measure up?

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2013.   All Rights Reserved.

Bookmark the CEO Success Blog!

As a business owner, have you ever wondered why your employees don’t perform better?

Have you ever thought to yourself: “If our salespeople would just knock on twice as many doors or make the effort to visit with twice as many prospects, they’d probably double our sales.” A very basic assertion. You are obviously correct.
Furthermore, your salespeople also know you are correct.

For some reason, the increased activity just doesn’t happen.
It didn’t happen this year and didn’t happen last year. And for the majority of companies, it won’t happen next year, either. How can this be????

There is a perfectly good reason.

The reason is that salespeople (in fact, all people) behave the way they behave is because they choose to behave that way.

The distance between knowing and doing is nowhere greater than in the domain of sales.

This principle does not only apply to salespeople. It also applies to Sales Managers and to Owners. And change always starts at the top. So if you are serious about creating consistent growth in your sales growth and profits, I would suggest that you first take inventory of your Personal Comfort Zone.

Your salespeople enjoy living in their comfort zone; that happy place that is safe, warm, and cozy. For most salespeople, they feel great and comfortable when they are:

Talking about themselves and their company
Giving presentations
Searching the Internet
Sending emails
Demonstrating
Preparing proposals (often multiple times)
Entertaining
Asking leading questions and softball questions
Engaged in small talk
Calling hot, pre-qualified leads
Developing relationships with peers
Listening selectively
Name dropping
Managing crises
Avoiding accountability

All of the above activities lie squarely inside most salespeople’s comfort zone. Unfortunately, none of these activities allow a salesperson to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Few, if any, provide you and your company with any advantage, even when competing with a non-human, web-based purchase. Furthermore, just about all of these activities will actually cost precious margin dollars (e.g.: wasted time, personnel costs, resources, design, engineering…)

Conversely, the activities that lie outside of most salespeople’s comfort zone are the ones that will produce results. The activities most salespeople avoid lead to differentiation, consistent sales growth, increased market share, and higher profit. They include:

More prospecting
Asking tough questions
Using an effective selling system and success recipe
Calling key targets, including cold and warm leads
Active, empathetic listening
Developing relationships with Decision Makers and Key Partners
Time & event management
An unconditional commitment to continuous improvement
Uncovering true buying motives
Seeking accountability

How does your sales team measure up in these areas?

You should not expect a salesperson to leave their comfort zone unless you go first. Maximizing performance requires efficient execution and discipline, so all great performers (including great salespeople) seek an accountability partner to keep them focused and on-task. Effective sales management, including accountability, is an absolute game-changer when it comes to growing market share and profitability.

Unfortunately, most companies are completely ineffective in the area of sales management. Like salespeople, sales managers (and owners) also choose to play inside their own comfort zones.

A company culture that attracts and nurtures employees who live inside their comfort zones is one that is about to get stomped.

Great sales teams are not great because of intelligence or strategy. They are not great because of the knowledge they’ve accumulated or because of any special secrets.

They are great because their people, from top to bottom, do the things that mediocre sales teams do not. They are great because they choose to live outside their comfort zones.

So if you want your team to blow away its sales goals in 2014, make a simple declaration. Effective immediately, declare that only over-achievers will be tolerated on your sales team and that over-achievement requires each team member to make a unconditional commitment to live outside of their comfort zone. Challenge everyone to encourage their teammates to love this new reality. Then hold everyone accountable to your declaration.

GO FIRST. Walk Your Talk. Change starts at the top and begins with YOU.

Best wishes for an amazing 2014 and beyond!

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2013.   All Rights Reserved.

Bookmark the CEO Success Blog!

sales,sales management,market share,Joe Zente,Z3,TAB Austin,recruiting,profit

Are you the undisputed industry leader in your market?  Does your marketplace perceive your company as the safest, lowest-risk choice? 

If so, you need not read further.

For those of you who do not happen to fit into this very elite group of companies, you are faced with a brutal reality.  You are an underdog.  And as an underdog, your only path to consistent revenue and profit growth is to outsell everyone else.

“We almost won that sale” is much worse than it sounds.  We’re not dealing with horseshoes or hand grenades here.  In sales, “almost” simply doesn’t cut it.

Second place is the worst place to be.  In fact, when it comes to selling, “almost winning” usually costs far more than getting blown out of the water.  Second place always costs more than not being considered at all.  Fighting hard until the end of a sale can cost a fortune in time, travel, proposals, resources, energy, and profit.  In just about every selling situation, it is more profitable not to play at all than to play and lose.

In every industry, only one company is the market leader.  The rest of them are underdogs.  If you’re still reading, odds are high that your company may be one of them.

If your company is not outselling its competitors and consistently exceeding its sales goals, it is likely that the weak performance stems from deficits in one or more of the following areas:

• Salesperson Selection/Hiring

• Ineffective On-boarding

• Selling Skills

• Lack of Accountability

• An Entitlement Mentality

• Lack of Motivation

• Ineffective (or non-existent) Training and Development

• Ineffective (or non-existent) Sales and Sales Management Processes

Most of these issues point to a general lack of effective Sales Management, an epidemic problem among private businesses.

The results of this epidemic are staggering and very visible.  75% of private business owners rank their organization’s overall selling effectiveness somewhere between “Poor” and “Average”.  Not a very high bar.  This is great news for any business owner seeking to grow revenues and profit.  You may be wondering: “what is so great about that?”

Here’s your answer.  In most cases, an “Above Average” sales effort will allow your company to win an abundance of sales contests and gain significant market share over your self-proclaimed mediocre sales competitors.  Although it would be fabulous to have an amazing sales team, it is not necessary to win the majority of cases.

In less than one year, an effective sales manager (or the implementation of an effective sales management function) can quickly change everything.  Effective sales management, a function that deals with the bulleted items above, will have the single greatest impact on your market share, growth, and profit.

As business owners, it is up to us to decide exactly how to spend our very precious time, money and resources.  It doesn’t matter if your company has one salesperson or a thousand salespeople.  If you are serious about growing your business in 2014, there is no better place to invest resources than in the area of effective sales management.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2013.   All Rights Reserved.

Bookmark the CEO Success Blog!

profit-killer,profit,sales,bottom line,joe zente,z3,zthree,tab,tab-austin

Many business owners invest significant time and energy attempting to build consistency and growth into their top line sales growth.  Few, however, pay much attention to the more important portion of the sales-effort scorecard, the Bottom Line.

Consequently, most companies burn up huge profits by confusing salesperson activity with productivity.

99% of salespeople become salespeople by default.   Few, if any, had any preparation or formal training before jumping into sales.  Most children do not dream of becoming a salesperson when they grow up and most were not encouraged by their parents to pursue a career as a salesperson.  You would be hard-pressed to find a curriculum (or single class) on Sales in most universities, and if you do, it is likely more focused on Marketing than on Sales.   And Marketing ≠ Sales.   As a consequence, the “profession” of Sales is loaded with incompetence and mediocrity.   This situation not only effects top line growth, but cuts deeply into the bottom line as well. 

Unfortunately, there is NO quick fix to this problem.  Building a consistent, predictable, world-class sales effort takes very serious commitment on the part of company leadership.  However, there are things you can do today to eliminate one of the biggest profit-killers in your company.  This profit-killer is called Premature Satisfaction™.

Premature Satisfaction™ occurs when a salesperson spends precious (and often expensive) company resources in behaviors they enjoy versus behaviors that effectively produce profit.

Most salespeople spend a lot of time being rejected.  They rarely “feel the love” in their selling efforts.   When they finally stumble upon a “hot prospect” or “buying signal”, most experience an adrenaline-rush and immediately launch into pitch-mode.   This is often the beginning of the end—the end of profit.  

The vast majority of salespeople love to be “the expert”.  They enjoy talking about things that are comfortable – their company and product benefits, “unique” features, industry “intelligence” and competitive advantages.  They often start dropping names and presenting solutions.  Many strive to arrive at the perceived Holy Grail – the Demo and/or Proposal.  

As salespeople progress through this dysfunctional journey, few ever consider the large COSTS associated with each of these steps.   Some of these costs are relatively easy to quantify (e.g.:  the cost of proposal creation).  For some organizations, proposal costs can be enormous as a percentage of revenue (engineering, design, preparation,…).   Even more surprisingly, many companies routinely send MULTIPLE proposals in pursuit of a single opportunity.  What a huge waste of money!!!

For most companies, the true bottom line costs of Premature Satisfaction™ are dramatically under-estimated.   In fact, Premature Satisfaction™ has a cost in 100% of cases.   In the best case, there is wasted time and lower margins.  In the worst case, there is lost business, destruction of trust and perhaps company reputation.  These types of costs can sometimes be difficult to quantify.  They are silent killers that can send a company into bankruptcy.

All solutions begin with awareness and acknowledgement.  Is Premature Satisfaction™ an issue in your company?  If so, you can begin to re-capture many thousands of lost profit today.   It is easier than you think.  Here’s how to begin:

• Declare that you will no longer tolerate Premature Satisfaction™.
• Measure your true cost of demonstrations and proposals.
• Develop metrics around conversion rates and proposal effectiveness.
• Use a Qualifier Checklist to improve Sales and PROFIT Growth.

By following these simple steps, most companies can realize a doubling of profit in less than one year.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2013.   All Rights Reserved.

Bookmark the CEO Success Blog!

self-employed,business owner,joe zente,z3,zthree,entrepreneur,CEO,tab,tab austin,the alternative board

There are only two ways to (legally) earn a living:

• You can be EMPLOYED

• You can be an ENTREPRENEUR

There are two types of entrepreneurs:

• The SELF-EMPLOYED

• The BUSINESS OWNER

I have worked closely with many hundreds of entrepreneurs, and I have interviewed thousands of CEOs and Presidents.  When we first meet and I ask them what they do, most tell me they own a business.  However, most of them do NOT own a business.  They are self-employed:

Do you really own your business?

Which type of entrepreneur are you?                                                                       

The more your business needs you, the less your business is worth.

I understand that some entrepreneurs do CHOOSE to be self employed. Some people absolutely love to develop software, prepare wonderful meals, or design buildings. They start their business not to build value or lead, but so they can do work they love to do.

Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs start their businesses hoping to become Business Owners, yet never achieve their dream.  I love entrepreneurs, so this saddens me.

I founded my company 15 years ago to help entrepreneurs find personal FREEDOM.  Freedom Through Results, Results Through Responsibility™_.

Achieving Entrepreneurial Freedom and transforming from being Self-Employed to being a Business Owner certainly does not happen overnight.  Be that as it may, the transformation is entirely formulaic.

Business owners come in many different shape and sizes.  They vary dramatically with regard to levels of intelligence, skill, education, technical competency, leadership ability, etc, etc. etc.

However, they all share one trait.  All entrepreneurs that propel beyond being self -employed into the ranks of true business ownership and the freedom that accompanies it possess an Unconditional
Commitment.

The good news is that unconditional commitment is a choice.

The rest is up to you.

Copyright ©   Joe Zente  2013.   All Rights Reserved.

Bookmark the CEO Success Blog!