Mdina blog

More selling and less presenting

Sales people feel good when they are transferring knowledge to others, but they need to think as carefully about what information they receive from clients as they do about their presentations.

It is not surprising that sales people are comfortable talking about their products and services, they know the features and how to present them. Questioning clients is more difficult as it is a less defined path, especially if the client is perceived to be more senior.

At Mdina Partnership we are often requested to help with sales teams who all too quickly go into presentation mode with their clients without exploring the target business needs and key decision drivers.

How to solve this? If you are not in a position to use an external training company, here is an idea that we use in some of our sales development sessions.

1.    At the next internal development programme, advise the sales team that they are going to do some role plays (we call it Action Learning, but everyone sees through this and groans!).

2.    Develop an “out-of-industry” role play where you create a client with a Need and a sales person who has been asked to go and see the client. The role playing sales person sells a range of a well known goods or services that are unrelated to your business. For example, if you sell photocopiers, make the role plays about selling commercial drinks vending machines.

The sales person has little or no knowledge of the products he or she has to sell in the role play so they are forced to use good questioning instead to understand the client's needs. If the sales person does not have a questioning plan, then this soon becomes obvious.

During our training programmes we ask the teams we're working with to develop some key questions which they then prioritise related to their industry and clients. We help them develop a structure for each meeting (ensuring that they retain their own personalities) which increases the confidence in managing each sales meeting.

3. When the sales person eventually presents their solution, it is tailored to what they have just learned from the client and this is much more effective for sales, profit and forecasting.

When reviewing the role play and explain the full scenario, ask the group what they would do differently next time. Typically this raises awareness of the importance of asking good questions and the pit falls of relying too much on product knowledge.

If handled positively this is a very effective developmental approach – good luck.

Mark Jacobs - Mdina Partnership Ltd

 

How do I find Good People to join my team?

I have been asked this question by Managing Directors and CEO's for over 30 years in the people development business.

The truth is that many managers have some great talent within their organisations but they are not always aware of this talent. Some managers will recruit externally because they do not see the potential of the people sitting in front of them.

I have noticed in recent years that due to high recruitment costs, managers are now more prepared to coach and nurture that talent to fit into their respective teams and get results.

At Mdina Partnership, we are now holding a conference in Malta on the subject of spotting, developing and making talent work for you.

Steve Tarr

How can I measure if my training has been succesful?

Dropping the hard sell gets 96% rating

 

Angela scores with mystery shopper after dropping the hard sell

 

With the property market the way it is at the moment, you’d think there would be plenty of hard selling happening at new housing developments.

 

But not so for Taylor Wimpey, the UK’s largest house builder.

 

It is working with The Mdina Partnership to train and develop its sales people throughout 2009.

 

The focus is on developing an understanding of what prospective customers actually want and then helping them find it.

 

And it’s an approach which is paying off for Taylor Wimpey sales professional Angela Nurse.

 

She recently scored a very impressive 96% during a videoed visit from a mystery shopper.

 

“I didn’t spot this person at all and so didn’t realise I was being videoed,” said Angela, who works at Taylor Wimpey’s development in Westminster Road, Walsall.

 

“There are certain pieces of information we are supposed to find out when talking to a new customer. The Mdina training makes it very easy for you to find out exactly what people are looking for without seeming to be pushy.

 

“That’s really important when it comes to closing a sale. The prospect feels you are helping them make a good decision rather than push them to buy something. And that makes them more open to listening to your advice.”

 

Angela’s 96% score indicated she did virtually everything Taylor Wimpey wanted from the marketing suites of its developments.

 

She added: “It’s great to discover you have performed so well while just doing your job. The training made it easy. It certainly makes your job more motivating!”

How do you choose a training company?

 

All training and development companies will tell you how good they are so how can you judge if a  training company fits your requirement? 

Introduction

Training is about causing people to do things differently so we would recommend looking at these key areas:-

 

Experience

 

You are really looking to see if the company has some experience in your industry because the more the trainer knows about the langague and processes in your industry, the greater the credibility he or she will have with the delegates.

 

Trainers experienced in your market may spark some good ideas and discussions that could be useful to you, if they are particularly experienced you may be able to use them for consultancy.

 

Action: Look at the web site for their client list and any testimonials for names you recognise.

Action: Why not ask for a reference with whom you can speak within your industry.

 

Methodology

 

The training company will have its framework for development but it is worth exploring its methodology for transmitting this framework to delegates.

 

Action : Ask for the typical development process (research, development, managerial involvement, review etc)

Action: Ask how a session is typically managed by the trainer (what happens, what tools / games are used etc).

Action: Ask how the training company ensure that the learning practices are embedded into the organisation in to long term.

 

Culture

 

This is perhaps the hardest to understand, but the most important. It is important that the values and approach that you have within your organisation is broadly in line with the training company.

 

Action: Give the training company one or two scenarios and ask how they would typically train their delegates to manage those situations.

Action : Ask about the size and location of the training business as it will need to be of a size that suits your business (internationally locations with multi-lingual capability through to a one man operation).

 

Personality

 

First of all, find out if the person that is selling the training will be doing the actual training. If not, at a minimum we would recommend a telephone call with the prospective trainer and if possible a face to face meeting would be preferable.

 

Action: Consider if the personalities in the team to be trained with gel with this person.

 

Effectiveness

 

You do not want your people to go on training courses, you want them to do things differently following an effective training course. This would include immediate improvements that stuck long into the future.

 

Action : Ask how the training company measures and rates its effectiveness.

 

Timescales

 

If the trainer has lots of availability does this mean that not many clients use the services:-

 

Action : Ask for a series of potential start dates from the trainer as you will have a number of delegates to schedule into one date.

 

 

We are happy when prospective clients ask us these questions because it shows that they are serious about developing their personnel and spending the development budget wisely.

 

Mark Jacobs

Fewer jobs but it seems it is still hard to find good staff...

The CIPD recently published their 2009 annual report on Recruitment, Retention and Turnover.

These are the highlights (click here for the full report)

Resourcing strategies and objectives

• 58% report having a formal resourcing strategy.
• 76% cite attracting and recruiting key staff to the organisation as the main objective of their resourcing activities. Enabling the achievement of the organisation’s strategic goals (63%) and meeting future skills requirements of the organisation (48%) are the second and third most important resourcing objectives according to survey participants.

Recruitment difficulties

• Although there was a dramatic decrease in the number of vacancies organisations tried to fill in 2008 compared with 2007, a high proportion of these organisations still experienced recruitment difficulties (81%).
• The key reason for recruitment difficulties is reported to be a lack of necessary specialist skills (73%).
• Appointing people who have the potential to grow but who currently don’t have all that’s required for the job role is the most frequently used initiative to overcome recruitment difficulties (74%).
• The most effective recruitment initiative was deemed to be providing additional training to allow internal staff to fill posts (75%).

Attracting and selecting candidates

• By far the most commonly used methods for attracting candidates are through the organisation’s own corporate website (78%), recruitment agencies (76%) and local newspaper advertisements (70%).
• Competency-based interviews (69%) and interviews following contents of a CV/application form (68%) are the most frequently used selection methods.
• The average recruitment cost of filling a vacancy per employee is £4,000, increasing to £6,125 when organisations are also calculating the associated labour turnover costs.
Resourcing in turbulent times
• Half of the organisations surveyed say the recession is having a negative impact on next year’s resourcing budget and activities.
• 56% of organisations are focusing more on retaining than recruiting talent.
• 40% of organisations say they will be recruiting fewer people in 2009 than in 2008.
• 72%  think employers will use the downturn as an opportunity to get rid of poor performers and bring about culture change.

It would appear from these figures that finding the right poeple for key roles is still hard depsite the drop in overall recruitment. A number of  commontators have suggested that in recession, organisations retain their star players but use the exercise to remove under performing individuals. If true, this begins to explain why it is so hard to find people with the right skills and knowledge.

It is important that organisations find ways of retaining staff when wage increases may be hard to justify. This can only be done by finding regular ways of checking on their aspirations and motivation levels. If a key player does leave this means that they have been planning the move well in advance.

So wether organisations are trying to hang on to staff, develop better performers or reduce their recruitment costs, employee engagement continues to surface its ugly head. It is shame then, that effective staff engagement so often takes a low priority for managers.

Let me ask, what would it mean to your organisation if managers could consistently develop their teams, identify people at risk of leaving and reduce the need to advertise externally?

We feel we have the unique solution to these problems called Development Complete.

 

Tackle work stress, bosses told

Employers need to pay more attention to the levels of stress and anxiety in the workplace, key NHS advisers say.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said the cost of work related mental illness was £28bn - a quarter of the UK's total sick bill.

Bad managers were the single biggest cause of problems, the group claimed.

But it said simple steps such as giving positive feedback, allowing flexible working and giving extra days off as a reward could cut the impact by a third.

As well as taking measures like these, NICE urged employers to invest in training for managers and

More than 13 million working days a year are lost because of work related stress, anxiety and depression.

Once the pay of staff, lost productivity and replacing ill employees are taken into account, the cost to employers hits £28.3bn a year.

To convince employers to act, NICE has designed a calculator to show the potential savings of supporting staff more.

It suggests that for the average firm of 1,000 staff, £250,000 a year could be saved.

Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in workplace psychology from Lancaster University who helped draw up the recommendations, said: "You cannot overestimate the importance of saying 'Well done' to staff, but so often it does not happen.

"Managers will tell you when you are doing something wrong, but not when you are doing it right."

Recession

But he said the problem was not just to do with staff taking time off.

"Presenteeism, where people come to work but add no value, is if anything more of a problem, especially during a recession.

"People are so scared that they go to work when they are not fit to," said Prof Cooper.

His remarks are supported by a recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development which revealed a quarter of UK workers describe their mental health as moderate or poor, yet nearly all continued to work regularly.

The NICE report said with the right environment work can even be a force for good as it can offer stability, purpose, friendship and distraction.

Dame Carol Black, the government national director for health and work, who produced a report calling on employers to take more of an interest in the health of their workforce last year, welcomed the recommendations.

She said it provided "clear, practical advice to promote mental well-being".

But a spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry said: "The mental health of staff is something firms have been making a priority.

"More and more schemes have been set up to support staff in recent years." mentoring for staff to help career development.

Hendon Hall - Presents! NW London Expo - 29th Thursday 2009

Here we are at Hendon Hall for the above exhibition organised by organised by thebestof and thebusienssclub. 29th October 2009.

Gideon Bard on the left and Andy O'Callahan on the right. What a couple of beauties.

 

 

 

 

The difference between team building and team bonding

A number of different companies will offer you a huge variety of different 'team building' activities. This, however, isn't strictly true. Briefly, a clear differentiation must be made between 'team bonding' and 'team building' activities.

Team bonding encapsultes a number of activities, from a group visit to the pub to treasure hunts and paintballing (and a number of things in between)! Essentially, it is an organised gathering where the main aim is for people to have fun and to help break down some barriers. There are no real goals or expectations and the gains are usually quite short term.

Team building has a different emphasis in that it should have clearly stated objectives and the session should be developed with these objectives firmly in mind. This can, of course, take many forms and can be wholly plenary, or wholly experiential. The important thing is for the clearly stated goals to be achieved and achieved effectively so that the team becomes more enlightened as to its function, and therefore becomes more effective.

So, if you are thinking about booking a 'team building' session, bear these differences in mind. Both have their place in organisations, but forgetting the difference may leave you dissappointed with the longer term outcomes from the session!

Andy O'Callaghan

3 common workbased "crimes"

A few years ago I noticed that different managers in different companies had similar problems with their staff.

I tracked the problems, and over a few years have noticed there are three that seem to blight most companies. The good news is they are all relatively easy to fix with a little extra management time.

The top 3 workplace crimes, and the solutions are:

1. Staff wasting time at work: Wasting time is actually a symptom of an employee without a clear goal. When you measure employees by their workload rather than their progress towards a specific goal, you inadvertently encourage them to waste time when they perceive they have done everything expected of them. Every employee needs a clear goal and the knowledge of how to achieve it. That focus in their job makes them feel more accountable.

2. Pulling sickies: Staff get away with pulling sickies regularly because managers don’t keep accurate records. Many senior managers would be horrified how often some of their junior staff call in sick. If it happens regularly across a whole department, it’s often a warning sign that the manager isn’t performing well. An inter-net based Talent Management System can help to raise the alarm to senior staff early on.

3. Moaning about pay:  Employees complain about pay when they are not being managed properly. When they understand what the company is trying to achieve and their part in that, it is easier for them to understand why they earn what they do. At the same time every business should give its employees the opportunity to earn extra money with performance-related bonuses.

 

Mark