the gist of a address at the inuagural of a sales conference of a pan india multinational

SIX KEYS FOR CAREER GROWTH : 

FROM SALES FRONTLINER

 TO NATIONAL SALES MANAGER

(the gist of a address at the inuagural of a sales conference of a pan india multinational )

 

  

KEY ONE; BELEIVE IN YOURSELF

The Self Doubter: A sales rep that sees and believes everything they do is wrong. These frontliner are extremely challenging to coach. If you provide direct feedback it may be met with “I already do that” or reasons why they don’t. The Self Doubter perceives any critiquing as weakness and personalizes it as confirmation that they are doing a horrible job!
 
The trick with this type of individual is to lead them through a process of self-discovery and improvement. By asking them a series of questions you can guide them through a process of self-awareness that will lead to an “ah ha” moment. This breakthrough may seem labour-intensive, but the payback is a stronger rep and increased performance.
 
 
KEY TWO: Proactively Manage your Boss
 Your boss is no different than you. All bosses want to know two things: one, that you know what your issues are and, two, that you are doing something about them. Put yourself in your boss’s shoes. S/he has enough to worry about. If your boss is spending time wondering what you are doing about your issues than they are really questioning  whether  you  are  effectively doing your job.
 
Before your boss figures out your issues, communicate and demonstrate that you have a plan to proactively address them yourself. Remember, the best defence is an offence.
 
 
KEY THREE: Manage Your Own Motivation
 Welcome  to  management.  As  a  rep  you  lived  in  a highly supportive environment. In management the environment is less supportive and filled with stress. It is incumbent on you to stay inspired so you can inspire your sales people. The word inspiration comes from the Latin word “spiarae” which means to breathe, to live. I have found that there are many ways to keep oneself motivated. You can read a leadership book or take a leadership course. Make sure you take care of yourself, take mental health days, exercise and eat well.
 
Regardless which options you choose, it is essential that you stay inspired because your people need your energy as a source of motivation.
 
 
KEY FOUR : LET YOUR ATTITUDE LEAD YOU
 
OK, you have two candidates that you really like. One knows the products, customers and the industry. The other candidate is passionate, driven and eager to prove them selves. The easy answer for a busy manager is to hire the sales rep that comes with all the experience. But have you  thought  about  what  else they bring  to  the table? Have you considered the infamous industry baggage?
 
The experienced rep may be easier on the manager for the first 6 months whereas the driven rep will have a slower start, but in 6 months he/she will likely have achieved better sales. Hire attitude over aptitude!
 
 
 
 
KEY FIVE : COMMIT AND SWEAR BY YOUR PERSONAL GOALS
 
To increase the chance that your sales frontliner will achieve a goal they have set for themselves it is critical to have them commit their plan to paper, write it down! When people put pen to paper it has two key benefits. Firstly, they have thought out what specific activities/steps they need to do to achieve their goal(s) and secondly the process of writing crystallizes in the brain what they intend  to  do.  This  speaks  to  commitment.  With  a written commitment the sales rep takes ownership of the outcome.
  
KEY SIX: SHARPEN YOU SELLING TECHNQIUES AFTER EVERY SALES CALL
 
Time and time again I have seen it. Sales frontliner going through  their  daily  activities  like  robots.  They  have little impact on each call, they just show up and expect the business. I call this “failure to impact syndrome.” It is contagious and can spread throughout an entire sales force. It works as long as the business grows. Everyone gets high fives and there is no need to dig any deeper.But what happens when sales are down and senior management starts  asking questions?  Sales  managers struggle to come up with the answers and frontliner get nervous.The cure: Get out in the field and inspire your frontliner to be innovative.SO IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS EVERY SALES MANAGER IS A SALES COACH

 

with best compliments

Dr Wilfred Monteiro

the meta+coach

 

7 STEPS TO BUILDING A COACHING DEVELOPMENT PLAN:

7 STEPS TO BUILDING A COACHING DEVELOPMENT PLAN:

1st  Set  the  tone. If you’re initiating the relationship, establish

that coaching isn’t a sign  that the other person is lacking in some critical skill or doing something wrong. In fact,  coaching means that you  see untapped potential in the other person and are invested in that person’s success at work.

2nd   Establish the  goals. You and the other person must

set the goals for the relationship. As the coach in the relationship, you  have two responsibilities in goal setting. One  is to identify the goals you  would like to see the other person achieve. The other responsibility is to solicit from  the other person what goals they want to work  toward. Without your  active solicitation, you may  end up being the only  person setting the goals, which moves you  back to the boss/employee relationship.

3rd Set  responsibilities. The two of you  must then decide how you  can  help  each other develop. As a coach, you  have an additional responsibility beyond what you  agree to in this part of the plan.  You must also  model the desired behaviours you  want to see—you must “walk your talk.” If you  don’t model the behaviour you  want to help  develop, then your  credibility and your effectiveness as a coach are diminished.

4th  Define the  process. At a minimum, the two of you  must decide when, where and how  often you’ll meet to check in with each other. One  caveat: coaching isn’t about friendship. You can be friendly, but coaching is about improving performance at work. As part of deciding how  you’ll work  together, you  must also decide how  you’ll address conflict (and there will be conflict).

5th   Acknowledge what you will get. You’ll probably learn a great deal from  the coaching relationship. Make sure that you acknowledge the benefits that you  expect to get. For instance, being able to conduct “difficult” conversations (conversations that include criticism) is an invaluable skill. If you  intend to develop that skill as part of this  coaching relationship, point out that you  will be using this  opportunity to practice in a safe environment.

6th  Establish benchmarks. The plan  must include clear “measures of progress” and a schedule of when those measures will be met. Benchmarks provide both of you  with markers to determine how well things are going. However, be aware that not  reaching the benchmarks isn’t a sign  of failure—it just means that a timetable adjustment or course correction may  be needed.

7th   Review the  relationship. When looking at a course correction or the achievement of a major benchmark, take the time to assess if the coaching relationship should continue. If you  decide to discontinue the formal coaching relationship, be sure to debrief both the work  you  did  together and how  the co11aching experience enriched both of you

GOALS TRIGGER THE PROCESS OF SELF DISCOVERY: THE FIRST STEP IN THE META-COACHING MODEL

ART OF THE META COACH: INSTRUCT THROUGH CLEVER QUESTIONS WHICH THE LEARNER HAS TO REFLECT UPON AND SEARCH FOR A SELF SATISFYING ANSWER

DON'T QUIT : an inspirational poem for life's dire moments ... think of the big failures of history who believed in the motto FIGHTBACK AFTER A SETBACK

DONT QUIT A POEM OF THE 19TH CENTUREY _ POET ANON

There are literally thousands of examples of people repeatedly failing before they succeeded. Here are just ten more examples.

1.Henry Ford 
The first automobile Ford designed was the Quadricycle, which wasn’t fit for mass production. Then Ford founded the Detroit Automotive Company, which failed because Ford’s perfectionism got the better of him and he couldn’t stop tinkering. Ford had little to show for his work 18 months into the effort, and the company was disbanded.

Ford eventually started Ford Motor Company and built the Model A. The first batch had so many problems that Ford had to send mechanics throughout the country to fix the cars. The good news, the mechanics came back with ideas to improve the cars, and that knowledge went into correcting the future builds. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

 2. Orville and Wilbur Wright

After several years of building kites and gliders (and numerous crashes), the brothers changed the world on Dec 17, 1903 when they broke the bounds of gravity and flew a manned heavier-than-air machine. And this was achieved by two men with no formal engineering training. The two brothers were originally inspired by a toy helicopter that their father brought home and flew around the room.

Orville took his father on what was his dad’s one and only flight. As Orville gained elevation, his dad enthusiastically yelled out… “Higher Orville, higher!”

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, inside his spacesuit pocket was a piece of fabric from the wing of the original Wright Flyer.

3. Thomas Edison
His school teachers said he was “Too stupid to learn anything.” He was tutored by his mother at home. He broke all records  with  many inventions that ushered in the modern age, including the motion picture camera, the phonograph and a practical light bulb. Edison was also an extraordinary businessman too  who was an early advocate of mass production and teamwork in the process of innovation, with over 1,000 US patents( another great record) When he died all the lights in the world were switched off for two minutes as a mark of respect to the GREAT INVENTOR

4. Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln had his share of setbacks including failing in business, failing to get into law school,  being defeated for nomination to Congress and being defeated for nomination for Vice President.THERE WAS A GREATER FAILURE THAN HIM... WHICH A STING OF TERRIBLE FAILURES he even suffered from depression He continually kept moving forward, and was elected President in 1860.

5. Vincent Van Gogh 
Van Gogh sold a single painting during his lifetime, yet he completed over 800 works. Once he gave a painting to a Doctor Rey as thanks for his services, and the physician then used the gift to cover a hole in the roof of his chicken coop. Today his painting “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” (different than the one mentioned above) has an adjusted valuation of $149 million. “A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.”

6. S Honda 
Honda started a machine shop in 1937 to produce piston rings for Toyota, where he labored long hours and even slept in the workshop. To keep things going, he pawned his wife’s jewelry. Unfortunately, his product failed to meet Toyota’s quality inspection standards and was rejected. Rather than give up, he went back to school and kept working until winning a contract with Toyota two years later.

As steel was not readily available during the war, he collected surplus gasoline cans discarded by US fighters, calling them “Gifts from President Truman,” which he used as raw materials for manufacturing. Honda endured his factory being devastated by a bomb and then later being destroyed by an earthquake.The gasoline shortage was a breakthrough opportunity;  after the war resulted in people walking or riding bicycles, so Honda started modifying bicyles by attaching a small bicycle engines. Honda Motor Company ‘s revenue was $119 Billion in 2014.

7. Elvis Presley
The King of rock-n-roll  hardly needs an introduction. Yet when Presley tried out as a vocalist for the Eddie Bond band, Bond rejected him with the advice to stick to driving “because you’re never going to make it as a singer.” Similarly, Presley was told by Jim Denny, the Manager of the Grand Ole Opry, “You aint going nowhere son, you ought to be back to driving a truck.”

8. J.K. Rowling

At one point a single mom without a job, Rowling was living off unemployment benefits, had an unfinished book and two mouths to feed. She was rejected by twelve different publishers, and began to lose confidence in her book. Finally, Barry Cunningham, an editor at Bloomsbury Publishing agree to publish the book (in part because his 8 year old daughter liked the first chapter), though Rowling was admonished to get a day job because she wouldn’t make any money writing children’s books. She said, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebult my life.” Today, JK Rowling is worth approximately $1Billion.

9. Oprah Winfrey 
Born in economically troubled neighborhood and raised by a single teenage mom, Oprah experienced considerable hardship, including being physically abused as a teenager. Winfrey is a media proprietor, talk show host, actress and philanthropist. Her net worth is $3 Billion.

And the NUMBER 10 on  this list could be you! 


Keep up your morale in downtime. Success is never permanent but failure can be a stepping stone to further failure. If you don't fightback after a setback.

Best wishes

Dr Wilfred Monteiro