Monday, June 11, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Build, Maintain & Manage a Book of Business – The New Job Description of an Automobile Selling Professional
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,” is the first part of an ancient Chinese proverb that explains why the majority of salespeople are not doing so well in our industry. If you think about it, our industry is pretty young, a little over a hundred years old and since its inception, not much had changed in the way that vehicles were bought and sold, until the Internet. Much has been written and said about how it has impacted the industry, but the quandary that we face today, is how to equip our salespeople to respond and succeed in these uncharted waters. The challenge is that the Internet not only modified how we sell cars, it totally destroyed it! It disrupted our approach to creating gross profit and exposed our internal processes to scrutiny that no other industry has experienced before. But more important than that, because we use to operate as a microcosm where we made up our own rules to include tailoring the job description of those that sold our product, it was easy to hide their flaws under layers of floor managers and closers. Inexpensive newspaper advertising, inappropriate commercials and other gimmicky campaigns were used to get the prospects to the lot for our people to do their jobs, however when the Internet came on line, it changed everything. Dealerships were no longer the destination for all things in the buying process and without notice what use to work was no more. So what do you do with a sales team that was always taught to keep your eyes on the lot and wait for the next up? Or more importantly, what do you do if you are a struggling dealer with lots of inventory and a staff of individuals that only knows how to stand around and wait for their ‘up’ to show up? In this case, you re-invent the wheel, that’s what you do.
If you step away from the table and look at the sales process, what you will see is that it is linear, where there is a starting point and a finishing point and both ends are properly defined. This explains why salespeople are struggling and why the Internet has disrupted the dealership’s sales process to the extent that it has. Stay with me…because most sales managers focus on the part of the sales process they can see, like the prospect coming onto the sales lot as an opportunity to close a sale today, they scrutinize and emphasize all the steps involve in that onsite client interaction (the road to the sale). However, when it comes to all of the other activities that cause the client to return or send referrals, in most cases they are silent because these activities are so ambiguous that they could not be measured in order to be duplicated. The reason that this is so critical for you to comprehend is that by introducing two new processes to the mix, (Business Development & Customer Relationship Management) it will close the loop by transforming the sales process from the linear, start at the meet and end at the close, to a circular motion where once a prospect enters the system, they never fall out.
Teach a man how to fish and he will always eat….
By redefining the role of the selling professional, we will be able to take into account all the variables that we now have to deal with. By defining the job functions as Build, Maintain and Manage a book of business, we will then be able to outline the things that they will need to know in order to be effective at this new role. A book of business refers to the customer database, and although the business owns the data, the salesperson has a symbiotic relationship with the clients that they sell to thus making them a joint owner of that data. I know that this statement may not be popular, but if you think about it, people do not do business with an entity, they connect with and do business with people that work within that entity. This is why you cannot remove the salesperson from the solution and then generate sustainable results. So by teaching them how Build a book of business, they will know how to generate their own lead sources, they will be able to actively engage in relationship building activities, expand their sphere of influence and connect with past clients to ensure that they remain in the fold. By teaching them how to Maintain a book of business they will be able to actively engage with clients to sustain the relationships during long and short selling cycles as well as throughout the entire relationship life cycle. And by teaching them how to Manage a book of business means that they will know how to leverage the use of technology to include CRM software to sustain all the activities that are needed to grow a vibrant and profitable book of business. But even more important than all these is the fact that managers will finally have a process to manage instead of trying to manage the person.
So right around now you might be saying that all this sounds great in theory but how do you teach salespeople to do all this? That’s a great question, but you will have to wait until next time as the thing that you need to wrap your head around now is that all roads do lead to Rome and all the programs that the business engages in to generate traffic from SEO, to BDC centers to text messaging, to whatever, still directs the prospects to a salesperson to convert. So if their ratios cannot be quantified and if systems are not in place to address the findings, then spending more money on lead generation is just like burning money!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
If you step away from the table and look at the sales process, what you will see is that it is linear, where there is a starting point and a finishing point and both ends are properly defined. This explains why salespeople are struggling and why the Internet has disrupted the dealership’s sales process to the extent that it has. Stay with me…because most sales managers focus on the part of the sales process they can see, like the prospect coming onto the sales lot as an opportunity to close a sale today, they scrutinize and emphasize all the steps involve in that onsite client interaction (the road to the sale). However, when it comes to all of the other activities that cause the client to return or send referrals, in most cases they are silent because these activities are so ambiguous that they could not be measured in order to be duplicated. The reason that this is so critical for you to comprehend is that by introducing two new processes to the mix, (Business Development & Customer Relationship Management) it will close the loop by transforming the sales process from the linear, start at the meet and end at the close, to a circular motion where once a prospect enters the system, they never fall out.
Teach a man how to fish and he will always eat….
By redefining the role of the selling professional, we will be able to take into account all the variables that we now have to deal with. By defining the job functions as Build, Maintain and Manage a book of business, we will then be able to outline the things that they will need to know in order to be effective at this new role. A book of business refers to the customer database, and although the business owns the data, the salesperson has a symbiotic relationship with the clients that they sell to thus making them a joint owner of that data. I know that this statement may not be popular, but if you think about it, people do not do business with an entity, they connect with and do business with people that work within that entity. This is why you cannot remove the salesperson from the solution and then generate sustainable results. So by teaching them how Build a book of business, they will know how to generate their own lead sources, they will be able to actively engage in relationship building activities, expand their sphere of influence and connect with past clients to ensure that they remain in the fold. By teaching them how to Maintain a book of business they will be able to actively engage with clients to sustain the relationships during long and short selling cycles as well as throughout the entire relationship life cycle. And by teaching them how to Manage a book of business means that they will know how to leverage the use of technology to include CRM software to sustain all the activities that are needed to grow a vibrant and profitable book of business. But even more important than all these is the fact that managers will finally have a process to manage instead of trying to manage the person.
So right around now you might be saying that all this sounds great in theory but how do you teach salespeople to do all this? That’s a great question, but you will have to wait until next time as the thing that you need to wrap your head around now is that all roads do lead to Rome and all the programs that the business engages in to generate traffic from SEO, to BDC centers to text messaging, to whatever, still directs the prospects to a salesperson to convert. So if their ratios cannot be quantified and if systems are not in place to address the findings, then spending more money on lead generation is just like burning money!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Professional Standards For Sales Excellence Selling System
The Professional Standards for Sales Excellence training program was designed to teach the specific steps on how to build, maintain and manage a book of business. Surprisingly, this is the first program of its kind to provide this type of in depth training on this most important subject matter because just about every business depends on the movement of goods and services to keep the doors open. I have always been baffled as to why selling is not being taught as a degree program in traditional learning institutions when you consider how important a role it plays in the survival of all businesses that spurs the growth of our economy.
It has taken me over a decade of diligent persistent research to assemble, organize and field test the curriculum that we now call the Professional Standards for Sales Excellence or PSSE for short. This program allows anyone to easily learn the foundational principles that are the core competencies of selling and business development so that each person can enter the work force then add the necessary product knowledge from any business and be effective and successful. These individuals will be competent and confident because they will know exactly what to do, when to do it and most importantly how to build, maintain and manage their book of business.
There are no scripts or word tracks to remember, no techniques that violates professional or moral ethics, just solid process based principles and strategies that are guaranteed to produce results. These processes are not industry or discipline specific, but mandatory for all who depend on selling and business development to generate revenue. It is a system that provides the processes and the step-by-step activities for anyone to follow and achieve any amount of success he or she is willing to work for. Furthermore, it provides sales managers with a program to give each member of their sales team his or her own unique personalized developmental plan in order to reach his or her full potential. Finally, it provides organizations with a viable business development strategy that utilizes their own internal personnel as the drivers by inducing permanent change in their behavior and performance to increase sales.
The expertise utilized to create this program comes from all perspectives in the selling and business development process. So whether you are a leader, a manager, a sales person or all three, you will find that PSSE will deliver the content that makes your business and selling life significantly more rewarding.
I’ve learned that the one common denominator of all truly successful professionals is that they see themselves as a work-in-progress and as a result are constantly working on themselves to improve. It is only by having this correct view that they are able to take full and personal responsibility of their professional development which is the primary reason for their success.
I am excited about the future of those that will use and share this information because I know exactly what the outcome will be.
To our mutual success,
Kurtis
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
It has taken me over a decade of diligent persistent research to assemble, organize and field test the curriculum that we now call the Professional Standards for Sales Excellence or PSSE for short. This program allows anyone to easily learn the foundational principles that are the core competencies of selling and business development so that each person can enter the work force then add the necessary product knowledge from any business and be effective and successful. These individuals will be competent and confident because they will know exactly what to do, when to do it and most importantly how to build, maintain and manage their book of business.
There are no scripts or word tracks to remember, no techniques that violates professional or moral ethics, just solid process based principles and strategies that are guaranteed to produce results. These processes are not industry or discipline specific, but mandatory for all who depend on selling and business development to generate revenue. It is a system that provides the processes and the step-by-step activities for anyone to follow and achieve any amount of success he or she is willing to work for. Furthermore, it provides sales managers with a program to give each member of their sales team his or her own unique personalized developmental plan in order to reach his or her full potential. Finally, it provides organizations with a viable business development strategy that utilizes their own internal personnel as the drivers by inducing permanent change in their behavior and performance to increase sales.
The expertise utilized to create this program comes from all perspectives in the selling and business development process. So whether you are a leader, a manager, a sales person or all three, you will find that PSSE will deliver the content that makes your business and selling life significantly more rewarding.
I’ve learned that the one common denominator of all truly successful professionals is that they see themselves as a work-in-progress and as a result are constantly working on themselves to improve. It is only by having this correct view that they are able to take full and personal responsibility of their professional development which is the primary reason for their success.
I am excited about the future of those that will use and share this information because I know exactly what the outcome will be.
To our mutual success,
Kurtis
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
CRM Success Strategies
To most people when they hear the acronym CRM in a business setting, the first thing that comes to mind is that it is a software program and therein lies the problem. The notion that CRM could stand for a set of processes that promote sound business strategies leading to increased profits is definitely not what they first think about when they hear it; yet that’s exactly what it truly means. Additionally, the thought that there are activities involved in maintaining good human relationships that lead to increased sales is very foreign to most people, yet that is exactly why the software was developed.
CRM application also known as a contact management system is a computer software that businesses use to maintain the customer record for the purpose of selling more goods and services. As widely used as this application is, most people who use the software have no idea what it is and why they are using it, only that they are suppose to put the prospects information in the application and miraculously it will do all the work necessary for them to make more money.Unfortunately it is not all their fault as this is how the software is sold by most vendors citing the tremendous sales increases that companies have experienced using their software. What most fail to mention is that there are other contributing factors that caused the spike in sales such as incentive programs, hot products or even good record keeping. The fact is that no software will increase your sales without some form of human intervention either in the programming, telling it what to do or in the external activities, doing what it told you to do.
So the key to success in CRM is in training the operator and I do not mean put the name and address in this field or that. I mean training the operator on how the application will assist him or her build, maintain and mange their book of business better. Here is the problem, software is written by people who in most cases do not like other people! Think of it this way; imagine someone who speaks C++, a programming language having a conversation with a salesperson who speaks features and benefits and you will understand why you are not able to get a positive return on your CRM investment. However, I am here to tell you that you can begin to make your CRM investment begin to pay for itself and it does not have to take long nor is it complicated. As a matter of fact, it is just a decision and the implementation of a few simple processes away. The key to success in CRM lies in the understanding that C = Customer; R = Relationship; M = Management; stay with me. The reason most CRM programs fail to produce results is that the emphasis is on the software and all the bells and whistles that it possesses and that approach is totally wrong. Let me point out the obvious again, in CRM the R stands for relationship, which means that the operator of the application has a job to do! The problem is that in most cases the operator has no idea what they are doing so the application can prompt all it wants because the operator is just going to keep marking it complete, complete, complete. The true value of CRM is not found in the application, the true value is found in the application’s ability to help you build, maintain and manage your book of business. It is there to help you provide proactive care for those important relationships that secure your business.
So here is the solution: R stands for Relationship. The user of this application must know how to engage, interact and build relationships during long and short selling cycles. It is important that they understand the how the application works especially the marketing sequences so that they are able to speak up when triggers and marketing pieces are in appropriate for the client they are sending it to. Providing people skills and technical skills training is a must so that they are able to interact effectively and communicate with the different personality traits they will encounter. They need to become comfortable using the phone as well as face book and the twitter so that it is not all about business so the relationship can grow and so on. Success with CRM will translate into sales only when the lines of C-customer become blurred by R- a real person, not a sales person is having a relationship with them by sharing this life experience in a natural organic fashion. But the most important aspect of this process that is violated regularly is the M-management, those thoughtful predetermined prompts and triggers and carefully selected marketing pieces being delivered at just the right times in the clients life that shows that you are sincere, such as a hand written anniversary note instead of a computer generated template that you can spot a mile away!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
CRM application also known as a contact management system is a computer software that businesses use to maintain the customer record for the purpose of selling more goods and services. As widely used as this application is, most people who use the software have no idea what it is and why they are using it, only that they are suppose to put the prospects information in the application and miraculously it will do all the work necessary for them to make more money.Unfortunately it is not all their fault as this is how the software is sold by most vendors citing the tremendous sales increases that companies have experienced using their software. What most fail to mention is that there are other contributing factors that caused the spike in sales such as incentive programs, hot products or even good record keeping. The fact is that no software will increase your sales without some form of human intervention either in the programming, telling it what to do or in the external activities, doing what it told you to do.
So the key to success in CRM is in training the operator and I do not mean put the name and address in this field or that. I mean training the operator on how the application will assist him or her build, maintain and mange their book of business better. Here is the problem, software is written by people who in most cases do not like other people! Think of it this way; imagine someone who speaks C++, a programming language having a conversation with a salesperson who speaks features and benefits and you will understand why you are not able to get a positive return on your CRM investment. However, I am here to tell you that you can begin to make your CRM investment begin to pay for itself and it does not have to take long nor is it complicated. As a matter of fact, it is just a decision and the implementation of a few simple processes away. The key to success in CRM lies in the understanding that C = Customer; R = Relationship; M = Management; stay with me. The reason most CRM programs fail to produce results is that the emphasis is on the software and all the bells and whistles that it possesses and that approach is totally wrong. Let me point out the obvious again, in CRM the R stands for relationship, which means that the operator of the application has a job to do! The problem is that in most cases the operator has no idea what they are doing so the application can prompt all it wants because the operator is just going to keep marking it complete, complete, complete. The true value of CRM is not found in the application, the true value is found in the application’s ability to help you build, maintain and manage your book of business. It is there to help you provide proactive care for those important relationships that secure your business.
So here is the solution: R stands for Relationship. The user of this application must know how to engage, interact and build relationships during long and short selling cycles. It is important that they understand the how the application works especially the marketing sequences so that they are able to speak up when triggers and marketing pieces are in appropriate for the client they are sending it to. Providing people skills and technical skills training is a must so that they are able to interact effectively and communicate with the different personality traits they will encounter. They need to become comfortable using the phone as well as face book and the twitter so that it is not all about business so the relationship can grow and so on. Success with CRM will translate into sales only when the lines of C-customer become blurred by R- a real person, not a sales person is having a relationship with them by sharing this life experience in a natural organic fashion. But the most important aspect of this process that is violated regularly is the M-management, those thoughtful predetermined prompts and triggers and carefully selected marketing pieces being delivered at just the right times in the clients life that shows that you are sincere, such as a hand written anniversary note instead of a computer generated template that you can spot a mile away!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
BDC - Business Development Center Success Strategies
Business Development Centers have always been a strange abnormality and a sticking point for me because they were created and sold to address a systemic issue that no one really wants to tackle. Slumping sales and under performing salespeople that are routinely described as order takers, because they lack the ability to be business developers, have created an opportunity for this anomaly in the sales and customer relationship management process.
A Business Development Center also known as BDC is nothing more than a system for generating prospects from predetermined sources and activities. The system consists of a series of processes and as such, any well trained individual under the correct supervision of a manager who knows how to manage processes will be able to produce results that are predictable, repeatable and track-able.
Unfortunately, the elephant in the room that most people are not willing to talk about is that the majority of salespeople in dealerships do not have the basic skill sets to do their jobs, and I am not referring to the usual in-dealership client interaction activities. I am referring to the ability to develop their own prospect sources; cultivate their natural markets that include their clients, business associates as well as their sphere of influence.
I am referring to them communicating effectively with prospects to sustain the relationships during long and short selling cycles as well as interacting with customers throughout their ownership life cycle; and finally leveraging the use of technology to keep all these activities together and running smoothly. If you query the average BDC expert, the argument they will put forth for having a BDC department is that it will serve primarily as a lead generator, a call center and a great follow up tool to produce and induce good survey responses. However, when you tabulate all the expenses that are involved, both hard and soft costs, what you have, in most cases is a department generating expenses that cannot be justified. What further re-enforces this fact is when you take into account where these leads eventually end up, on the salesperson’s desk.
The fact of the matter is that avoiding the root cause of a problem does not make it go away, it only postpones the inevitable and in this case, we are talking about maintaining a staff of salespeople performing like clerks that should be business developers. The issue is that in most businesses the key players do not have a well defined job description and the training to support the skill demands of the position. With this understanding, when most leaders in this situation are pressed with mission critical decision will resort to social proof for guidance in making their decisions. Many will hire a BDC team in attempts to increase their sales instead of holding the sales team accountable for doing the job they are hired to do because they know that in most cases these individuals cannot! Here is the solution, define the job description of the individuals responsible for generating sales. Spend the time necessary to identify, attract and develop the right talent because your business depends on it. Finally, train and hold them accountable for the outcome. What I mean by that is, if you need them to be good on the phone, train for that, if you need them to be good prospectors, train for that, it sounds simple but if you analyze the current skill sets of the people on your sales teams then you will appreciate why so many external software developers are creating products in attempts to address issues only your salespeople can solve.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
A Business Development Center also known as BDC is nothing more than a system for generating prospects from predetermined sources and activities. The system consists of a series of processes and as such, any well trained individual under the correct supervision of a manager who knows how to manage processes will be able to produce results that are predictable, repeatable and track-able.
Unfortunately, the elephant in the room that most people are not willing to talk about is that the majority of salespeople in dealerships do not have the basic skill sets to do their jobs, and I am not referring to the usual in-dealership client interaction activities. I am referring to the ability to develop their own prospect sources; cultivate their natural markets that include their clients, business associates as well as their sphere of influence.
I am referring to them communicating effectively with prospects to sustain the relationships during long and short selling cycles as well as interacting with customers throughout their ownership life cycle; and finally leveraging the use of technology to keep all these activities together and running smoothly. If you query the average BDC expert, the argument they will put forth for having a BDC department is that it will serve primarily as a lead generator, a call center and a great follow up tool to produce and induce good survey responses. However, when you tabulate all the expenses that are involved, both hard and soft costs, what you have, in most cases is a department generating expenses that cannot be justified. What further re-enforces this fact is when you take into account where these leads eventually end up, on the salesperson’s desk.
The fact of the matter is that avoiding the root cause of a problem does not make it go away, it only postpones the inevitable and in this case, we are talking about maintaining a staff of salespeople performing like clerks that should be business developers. The issue is that in most businesses the key players do not have a well defined job description and the training to support the skill demands of the position. With this understanding, when most leaders in this situation are pressed with mission critical decision will resort to social proof for guidance in making their decisions. Many will hire a BDC team in attempts to increase their sales instead of holding the sales team accountable for doing the job they are hired to do because they know that in most cases these individuals cannot! Here is the solution, define the job description of the individuals responsible for generating sales. Spend the time necessary to identify, attract and develop the right talent because your business depends on it. Finally, train and hold them accountable for the outcome. What I mean by that is, if you need them to be good on the phone, train for that, if you need them to be good prospectors, train for that, it sounds simple but if you analyze the current skill sets of the people on your sales teams then you will appreciate why so many external software developers are creating products in attempts to address issues only your salespeople can solve.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Redefining Sales Training
I get asked many of times if I am a motivational speaker and I usually smile when I hear the question because I know why they are asking. I am extremely curious so when I’m engaged in a conversation, I ask a lot of questions that usually get people thinking differently about what they have come to accept as normal. Let’s take sales training for example, did you know that just about every company and everyone on the planet that exchange goods or services for dollars are involved in selling? Every teacher, minister, parent, politician, doctor, lawyer and so on is actively selling their ideas and or services on a daily basis. But did you know that as important as selling is to just about all professions it is not taught as a degree or credential program in most, if not all institutions of higher learning? The fact is that a great majority of the individuals involved in professional selling are struggling to make a living because they are making it up as they go and unfortunately the businesses and their families that they represent are struggling as well.
Selling is near and dear to me as it is responsible for transforming my life from a struggling manager at a fast food restaurant where I was told I was not worth $26,500.00 to making well over a $100K less than two years later. The fact is that regardless of your current economic status or where you live, selling something, an idea, a product or even a service, changes everything. Selling is the great equalizer because anyone can do it and what most people are not aware of is that the highest paid professionals on the planet are not doctors, lawyers or any of the so called educated professionals, they are salespeople! Furthermore, what’s even more encouraging is that if you look at the demographics of the majority of the millionaires and billionaires on our planet, what you will find is that a great majority of them are...you guessed it, salespeople!
So how do you learn to become excellent at selling? Where do you start? What books should you read and which speakers do you listen to and so on and so on? That was me and that does not have to be you anymore. Please allow me to cut through the clutter as I have spent a great deal of time and money asking and answering those questions to the point that, according to some, I actually know what I am talking about. You see, success leaves clues and if you do not use the clues like a road map, what usually happens is that you end up reinventing the wheel.
Selling is not complicated, but becoming good at it to the point of generating a meaningful income requires systems. Systems that will teach you how to build- generate your own leads; maintain – interact and communicate effectively to secure the relationships; and finally manage – leverage the use of technology to coordinate all the activities that secure your book of business! In addition to the aforementioned systems, there are two skills that must also be developed. The first is people skills - also known as Human Relationship or Interaction Skills that focuses on the specific activities involved in effective communication between two or more people. The second is technical skills that focuses on the specific activities or tasks involved in being productive as a professional salesperson such as using the phone, writing letters, negotiating correctly and leveraging the use of a computer and its pertinent software. Acquiring these two skills are necessary to execute the activities involved in the three systems.
With that being said, these three systems and the two skills will form the foundation, also known as the core competencies and is the first layer of knowledge of a professional sales person. These core competencies are non-negotiable and must come first before all other type of training can be truly effective. The biggest mistake that most people make is that they start engaging prospects before they have correctly built their foundation, and like an athlete who does not warm up before a race, they will get injured.
Technique based training programs like power negotiating or 1000 closes that are guaranteed to work are ineffective without the correct foundation. Just as learning how to negotiate before you understand people skills and telling a new salesperson they need to get referrals without them understanding what that really means or how it’s actually done is in most cases a complete waste of time.
The problem with traditional sales training that is offered in most companies is that the content that is delivered varies, and the emphasis is usually heavy on internal products and processes and very light on skills. Unfortunately, 99% of the time, there is never an emphasis on the systems and skills that I’ve just mentioned. It never ceases to amaze me how little salespeople and businesses know about managing a sales pipeline, activity tracker and how to correctly use CRM software. It’s time to get back to the basics, to insert a new and required layer of training for all selling professionals so that the businesses they represent and the families they work for have a better chance of succeeding.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Selling is near and dear to me as it is responsible for transforming my life from a struggling manager at a fast food restaurant where I was told I was not worth $26,500.00 to making well over a $100K less than two years later. The fact is that regardless of your current economic status or where you live, selling something, an idea, a product or even a service, changes everything. Selling is the great equalizer because anyone can do it and what most people are not aware of is that the highest paid professionals on the planet are not doctors, lawyers or any of the so called educated professionals, they are salespeople! Furthermore, what’s even more encouraging is that if you look at the demographics of the majority of the millionaires and billionaires on our planet, what you will find is that a great majority of them are...you guessed it, salespeople!
So how do you learn to become excellent at selling? Where do you start? What books should you read and which speakers do you listen to and so on and so on? That was me and that does not have to be you anymore. Please allow me to cut through the clutter as I have spent a great deal of time and money asking and answering those questions to the point that, according to some, I actually know what I am talking about. You see, success leaves clues and if you do not use the clues like a road map, what usually happens is that you end up reinventing the wheel.
Selling is not complicated, but becoming good at it to the point of generating a meaningful income requires systems. Systems that will teach you how to build- generate your own leads; maintain – interact and communicate effectively to secure the relationships; and finally manage – leverage the use of technology to coordinate all the activities that secure your book of business! In addition to the aforementioned systems, there are two skills that must also be developed. The first is people skills - also known as Human Relationship or Interaction Skills that focuses on the specific activities involved in effective communication between two or more people. The second is technical skills that focuses on the specific activities or tasks involved in being productive as a professional salesperson such as using the phone, writing letters, negotiating correctly and leveraging the use of a computer and its pertinent software. Acquiring these two skills are necessary to execute the activities involved in the three systems.
With that being said, these three systems and the two skills will form the foundation, also known as the core competencies and is the first layer of knowledge of a professional sales person. These core competencies are non-negotiable and must come first before all other type of training can be truly effective. The biggest mistake that most people make is that they start engaging prospects before they have correctly built their foundation, and like an athlete who does not warm up before a race, they will get injured.
Technique based training programs like power negotiating or 1000 closes that are guaranteed to work are ineffective without the correct foundation. Just as learning how to negotiate before you understand people skills and telling a new salesperson they need to get referrals without them understanding what that really means or how it’s actually done is in most cases a complete waste of time.
The problem with traditional sales training that is offered in most companies is that the content that is delivered varies, and the emphasis is usually heavy on internal products and processes and very light on skills. Unfortunately, 99% of the time, there is never an emphasis on the systems and skills that I’ve just mentioned. It never ceases to amaze me how little salespeople and businesses know about managing a sales pipeline, activity tracker and how to correctly use CRM software. It’s time to get back to the basics, to insert a new and required layer of training for all selling professionals so that the businesses they represent and the families they work for have a better chance of succeeding.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
From Salespeople to Business Developers
Expectations - we will perform in direct proportion to the way we see ourselves and the way that those whom we respect see us. The expectations of the individuals wearing the title of salesperson have been evolving as the reality of a new market place becomes apparent. The Internet has impacted a great many things about the world that we live in to include how we work. Gone were days that salesmen use to go door to door carrying their wares selling them to housewives. Now you have homes and many businesses with signs taped to the screen door that says no solicitors allowed. The job of a salesperson has become harder and harder and unfortunately their skills have not been upgraded simultaneously in response to the market changes. Here is the question, whose responsibility is it to upgrade your skills to become a better selling professional?
Personal Responsibility – I am often asked what the secret is to making more money in selling, and to that question my response is always the same, upgrade your skills. Some of the highest paid professionals in the world are salespeople, do you see yourself as one of them or are you just another sales guy? What do you know about interacting with different personality traits also known as social styles? Are you still trying to sell to everyone the same way, or are you using this information to your benefit? How effective are you with managing your activity tracker or reconciling your sales pipeline? Do you even know what I am talking about? How many prospect sources do you cultivate weekly? Or are you like most still a one legged stool? How effective are your branding materials? Or do you still believe a business card is adequate to compete with others vying for your prospect’s business? Did you hear me say that some of the highest paid people in the world are salespeople? Are you one of them or are you just another sales guy?
The future has not been created yet and it belongs to business developers. Employers need proactive hunter-gathers that can produce results. They are quickly realizing that 10 years of experience only means you have been doing the same thing over and over again for 10 years and that time by itself is not an indicator of competence! The economy we now live in is unlike any we have ever seen so the skills that got us to this point have an expiring shelf life. It’s time to re-tool yourself so that you can actually compete because salespeople are everywhere but business developers are in high demand.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Personal Responsibility – I am often asked what the secret is to making more money in selling, and to that question my response is always the same, upgrade your skills. Some of the highest paid professionals in the world are salespeople, do you see yourself as one of them or are you just another sales guy? What do you know about interacting with different personality traits also known as social styles? Are you still trying to sell to everyone the same way, or are you using this information to your benefit? How effective are you with managing your activity tracker or reconciling your sales pipeline? Do you even know what I am talking about? How many prospect sources do you cultivate weekly? Or are you like most still a one legged stool? How effective are your branding materials? Or do you still believe a business card is adequate to compete with others vying for your prospect’s business? Did you hear me say that some of the highest paid people in the world are salespeople? Are you one of them or are you just another sales guy?
The future has not been created yet and it belongs to business developers. Employers need proactive hunter-gathers that can produce results. They are quickly realizing that 10 years of experience only means you have been doing the same thing over and over again for 10 years and that time by itself is not an indicator of competence! The economy we now live in is unlike any we have ever seen so the skills that got us to this point have an expiring shelf life. It’s time to re-tool yourself so that you can actually compete because salespeople are everywhere but business developers are in high demand.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Misdirection – Deflecting the Real Issues.
Zig Ziglar puts it best when he asked, “Are you a wandering generality or a meaningful specific?” The issue has always been sales or the lack there of, so regardless of the product the primary topic at just about every business meeting is how to get more. The tendency how ever to deal with the urgent vs. the important is a real one especially when your livelihood is at stake; the challenge however is getting a complete picture before taking action. Here is the problem, with so many experts saying that this is what you do first or this is more important than that, how do you discern when to scrap the experts and redesign the model so that you can actually understand it enough so that you can make it better. Could it be when it comes to business development, that we maybe asking the wrong people how to approach this process? Could it be that in this business environment where the buyers and their buying habits are nothing like anyone has encountered before that it is time to redesign the entire process? Could it be that all the trick plays or fancy programs and software that are being recommended are nothing more than a misdirection in order to deflect the real issue which is we are not selling enough cars and they really do not know how to fix it?
Last night I saw the movie “Moneyball” and it made such an impression that I believed I shed a tear once or twice during the movie. My wife says that the older I get, the mushier I become and so I’m sticking to that as my reason for being emotionalJ. The movie was about the Oakland A’s baseball team and its General Managers who was given the impossible task of rebuilding the team with a budget that was less than half that of the competition. Although on the surface it seemed like an impossible mission, especially with the experts and their years of experience telling him that it could not be done. However, as fate would have it, the GM found an assistant that had an unconventional approach to picking players that destroyed the paradigms of the experts and those that were institutionalized by the system and with this new approach changed the game forever.
What struck a chord in me were the similarities between that story and its players and the retail automotive industry and its dealers at this junction in time. We as an industry are in the process of re-inventing ourselves form the ground up to include how our products are made to how they are sold. In the movie, the “experts” continually reasoned that their years of experience and instinct was much more important and valuable than data the GM’s used to measure a players true worth to the team. With that being said, because we as leaders, managers and solution providers look to “experts” for answers and we use time as a measure of someone’s experience, I am curious to know how you define experience for our business model. Is it years of doing the same thing over and over again? Or is it the demonstration of their evolution and ability to adapt, improvise when necessary and rebuild from scratch when they had to? The reason this question is relevant and so important is that the information and mindset that got us to this point is not capable of getting us to the next stage of our evolution and unfortunately most experts are still relying on what use to be and using deflection and misdirection to support the recommendation.
The harsh reality is that the industry is not changing, it has already changed and our approach to leading, managing and even selling has to change as well, so just like the Oakland A’s GM who had to find new ways of evaluating and attracting talent, we need to look at the real reason that dealerships are not selling cars and fix that first before more resources are spent on client generating programs. Its time to acknowledge that salespeople are the only ones that are face to face with the prospects, getting them to say yes or causing them to say no and consequently are at the center of the business development process. Do managers know the numbers? I mean the current ratios of those that sell the product; do they know what the suspect-to-prospect to pipeline then to sold customer to returning customer ratios are? Do they know the activities or the specific areas of the salespersons skill needs to be improved? Do they have access to the educational tools that are needed to cause the improvement to take place? Or do they still believe if they put up a big tent and advertise more, the prospects will come?
Are we still behaving as a “wandering generality?” - Constantly being distracted by flashy lights, bright colors of the sales materials and ideas that promise results without work and without paying the price? Or, are we ready to become a “meaningful specific?” – Focused on demanding measurable results from the activities and solutions that drive business? Are we willing to ask the tough questions and demand process based solutions in the areas of selling and business development training or do we still believe that because the trainer is famous or works for a brand name company they must know what they are doing. Are you a wondering generality or a meaningful specific?
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Last night I saw the movie “Moneyball” and it made such an impression that I believed I shed a tear once or twice during the movie. My wife says that the older I get, the mushier I become and so I’m sticking to that as my reason for being emotionalJ. The movie was about the Oakland A’s baseball team and its General Managers who was given the impossible task of rebuilding the team with a budget that was less than half that of the competition. Although on the surface it seemed like an impossible mission, especially with the experts and their years of experience telling him that it could not be done. However, as fate would have it, the GM found an assistant that had an unconventional approach to picking players that destroyed the paradigms of the experts and those that were institutionalized by the system and with this new approach changed the game forever.
What struck a chord in me were the similarities between that story and its players and the retail automotive industry and its dealers at this junction in time. We as an industry are in the process of re-inventing ourselves form the ground up to include how our products are made to how they are sold. In the movie, the “experts” continually reasoned that their years of experience and instinct was much more important and valuable than data the GM’s used to measure a players true worth to the team. With that being said, because we as leaders, managers and solution providers look to “experts” for answers and we use time as a measure of someone’s experience, I am curious to know how you define experience for our business model. Is it years of doing the same thing over and over again? Or is it the demonstration of their evolution and ability to adapt, improvise when necessary and rebuild from scratch when they had to? The reason this question is relevant and so important is that the information and mindset that got us to this point is not capable of getting us to the next stage of our evolution and unfortunately most experts are still relying on what use to be and using deflection and misdirection to support the recommendation.
The harsh reality is that the industry is not changing, it has already changed and our approach to leading, managing and even selling has to change as well, so just like the Oakland A’s GM who had to find new ways of evaluating and attracting talent, we need to look at the real reason that dealerships are not selling cars and fix that first before more resources are spent on client generating programs. Its time to acknowledge that salespeople are the only ones that are face to face with the prospects, getting them to say yes or causing them to say no and consequently are at the center of the business development process. Do managers know the numbers? I mean the current ratios of those that sell the product; do they know what the suspect-to-prospect to pipeline then to sold customer to returning customer ratios are? Do they know the activities or the specific areas of the salespersons skill needs to be improved? Do they have access to the educational tools that are needed to cause the improvement to take place? Or do they still believe if they put up a big tent and advertise more, the prospects will come?
Are we still behaving as a “wandering generality?” - Constantly being distracted by flashy lights, bright colors of the sales materials and ideas that promise results without work and without paying the price? Or, are we ready to become a “meaningful specific?” – Focused on demanding measurable results from the activities and solutions that drive business? Are we willing to ask the tough questions and demand process based solutions in the areas of selling and business development training or do we still believe that because the trainer is famous or works for a brand name company they must know what they are doing. Are you a wondering generality or a meaningful specific?
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Recipe Part I - The Ingredients for Building a Super Salesperson
I am a chef by training and as such my wife tells me that I am a food snob. I am not sure if that is true or not, but what I do know is that I hate foo-foo food, meaning food so complex that it becomes unrecognizable. I love dishes that are simple, and where the chef loves what he or she does so much that you actually taste the love in their food, kind of like how your mother would cook it. To me, selling is no different; some salespeople are knowledgeable about the “mechanics” of the sales process that as soon as you meet them you know that the dance has begun, while others are so bad at it that as soon as you meet them you cannot wait to get away. The trick has always been to find that happy median where rapport makes buying or selling seem like a casual affair. Selling is one of the most challenging career paths with an extremely high attrition rate, not because it is difficult, but because a great portion of those that call themselves salespeople have never received proper training on the subject matter. I use the word training loosely because of the picture that it paints when you hear the word, but what I should have said is that they never received the proper education on the subject matter, so that when they received sales training it would stick. More on this a little bit later.
The 80/20 rule has always been tossed around to explain the failure to success ratio of selling professionals, but the reason that it has lasted so long and continue to be quoted even today, is because the majority who refer to it do not have a plan of action to effect the 80%. But because the statistics points to the 20%’s ability to figure it out on their own, they easily rationalize the failure of the 80%. It’s not that we do not train or that training is not available, it’s our understanding and approach that needs to be re-evaluated. Okay, you are probably asking what exactly do I mean by that; well in order to truly understand my comment, I want you to take a moment to ponder the following statement: “we interpret what things mean based on all of our life experiences to that moment.” In other words, whatever it is that we think we know about what we are asked to do, will determine how to perform that task. Does that make sense? The primary reason why our salespeople are struggling to perform to the level of our expectations is that we teach them activities. For example, step one do this and step two do that and as a result, they interpret how to do these tasks based on their training and life experiences to date. Does this make sense? The toughest pill to swallow is that the majority of our salespeople have significant knowledge gaps that are preventing them from doing their jobs correctly.
The term core competency refers to the mandatory things that the individual must know in order to do their jobs correctly. These core skills are things that the selling professional must know first and be proficient at before they can take advantage of traditional training. This explains why technique based training programs will always fail to meet expectations because it demands that the learner have preexisting knowledge of the skills required to benefit from what is being taught. For example, if I am teaching a specific closing technique or negotiating skill and the learner does not know how to listen correctly or how to interact with different personality traits, then their effectiveness at that skill will be drastically diminished. So you see, it’s not the training that’s the problem, it’s the learner’s interpretation that must be addressed. I have been a student of my craft for over two decades and during that time I have read countless books and attended numerous seminars on sales, management, leadership and motivation; however, I have never seen or heard about the core competencies for selling professionally. It finally dawned on me that what I picked up over the years was a result of my personal quest for knowledge or my own personal development plan, if you will. But as in all great recipes, the ingredients may be simple and readily available but if the chef does not have access to it or does not know in what proportion to use it, then the food will not taste the same way that mama made it. So with that being said, let me share with you the ingredients for creating an effective selling professional that knows how to Build, Maintain and Manage a book of business.
The ingredients that we will use to create an army of super selling professionals will come from six buckets consisting of skills, systems and processes and they are: People Skills, Technical Skills, Professional Development skills, Business Development processes, Customer Relationship Management processes and finally Business Management Systems also known as how to manage a book of business. The skills are the individual ingredients that the learner must know first to be effective at executing the activities found in the systems and processes. Let’s take People Skills for example and apply it to the road to the sale. The very first step in this process is the meet and greet where we currently teach our salespeople how they should behave; for example, they should smile, be courteous and so forth. With this form of instruction, the individual will have to rely on their varied personal experiences to determine how to interpret how to execute each activity. On the other hand, when the learner is first taught Effective People Skills which includes topics such as, The Art of Listening, The Art of Asking Questions, and Understanding Social Styles and then they are taught The Road to the Sale, the meet and greet takes on a totally different meaning. The professional will be able to use their knowledge of asking questions and listening effectively to identify what social style the prospect has in order to establish rapport quickly.
So with that being said, I can remember when I first started selling, my sales manager would often tell me that people will always tell you how to sell them, if you listen well enough; but the funny thing was that he never taught me how to listen!
In PART 2 of the Recipe, we will connect the dots even further by discussing systems and processes and why they are the keys to producing predictable, repeatable and track-able results!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The 80/20 rule has always been tossed around to explain the failure to success ratio of selling professionals, but the reason that it has lasted so long and continue to be quoted even today, is because the majority who refer to it do not have a plan of action to effect the 80%. But because the statistics points to the 20%’s ability to figure it out on their own, they easily rationalize the failure of the 80%. It’s not that we do not train or that training is not available, it’s our understanding and approach that needs to be re-evaluated. Okay, you are probably asking what exactly do I mean by that; well in order to truly understand my comment, I want you to take a moment to ponder the following statement: “we interpret what things mean based on all of our life experiences to that moment.” In other words, whatever it is that we think we know about what we are asked to do, will determine how to perform that task. Does that make sense? The primary reason why our salespeople are struggling to perform to the level of our expectations is that we teach them activities. For example, step one do this and step two do that and as a result, they interpret how to do these tasks based on their training and life experiences to date. Does this make sense? The toughest pill to swallow is that the majority of our salespeople have significant knowledge gaps that are preventing them from doing their jobs correctly.
The term core competency refers to the mandatory things that the individual must know in order to do their jobs correctly. These core skills are things that the selling professional must know first and be proficient at before they can take advantage of traditional training. This explains why technique based training programs will always fail to meet expectations because it demands that the learner have preexisting knowledge of the skills required to benefit from what is being taught. For example, if I am teaching a specific closing technique or negotiating skill and the learner does not know how to listen correctly or how to interact with different personality traits, then their effectiveness at that skill will be drastically diminished. So you see, it’s not the training that’s the problem, it’s the learner’s interpretation that must be addressed. I have been a student of my craft for over two decades and during that time I have read countless books and attended numerous seminars on sales, management, leadership and motivation; however, I have never seen or heard about the core competencies for selling professionally. It finally dawned on me that what I picked up over the years was a result of my personal quest for knowledge or my own personal development plan, if you will. But as in all great recipes, the ingredients may be simple and readily available but if the chef does not have access to it or does not know in what proportion to use it, then the food will not taste the same way that mama made it. So with that being said, let me share with you the ingredients for creating an effective selling professional that knows how to Build, Maintain and Manage a book of business.
The ingredients that we will use to create an army of super selling professionals will come from six buckets consisting of skills, systems and processes and they are: People Skills, Technical Skills, Professional Development skills, Business Development processes, Customer Relationship Management processes and finally Business Management Systems also known as how to manage a book of business. The skills are the individual ingredients that the learner must know first to be effective at executing the activities found in the systems and processes. Let’s take People Skills for example and apply it to the road to the sale. The very first step in this process is the meet and greet where we currently teach our salespeople how they should behave; for example, they should smile, be courteous and so forth. With this form of instruction, the individual will have to rely on their varied personal experiences to determine how to interpret how to execute each activity. On the other hand, when the learner is first taught Effective People Skills which includes topics such as, The Art of Listening, The Art of Asking Questions, and Understanding Social Styles and then they are taught The Road to the Sale, the meet and greet takes on a totally different meaning. The professional will be able to use their knowledge of asking questions and listening effectively to identify what social style the prospect has in order to establish rapport quickly.
So with that being said, I can remember when I first started selling, my sales manager would often tell me that people will always tell you how to sell them, if you listen well enough; but the funny thing was that he never taught me how to listen!
In PART 2 of the Recipe, we will connect the dots even further by discussing systems and processes and why they are the keys to producing predictable, repeatable and track-able results!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Recipe Part II – The Formula for Building an Army of Super Selling Professionals.
In Part I of this two part series, I shared in general terms the ingredients needed to create a super selling professional. I also hinted at several of the different processes that he or she would need to learn in order to be truly effective. My objective over the next few lines will be to introduce you to four processes that all super salespeople use on a daily basis to build, maintain and manage their businesses as well as impress upon you the importance of making these processes a standard by which you evaluate sales effectiveness. I realize that many of you are not cooks, so before we get too deep using cooking analogies, I thought I would use a different approach to expound upon this most important topic.
My son is an athlete and plays left tackle for his high school football team and while at his game this past weekend, it dawned on me that the same principles that are used to teach and coach football players applies to the selling profession as well. Truly effective professionals never guess, they are well versed on the skills of their trade and they use these skills in varied combinations to make moves or plays that seem almost magical to the onlooker. They never deviated from their training methodology or regimen and are fastidious about working on and improving their execution of the fundamentals. Walter Payton, Michael Jordan and Vince Lombardi are examples of ordinary people that have mastered the fundamentals at an extraordinary level. None of these individuals by themselves could ever win a game, but as part of a team where everyone knew what to do, when to do it and most importantly how, they were champions.
True top performers are no different, because no one knows that they are better or worse until you compare their results to someone else. Here is the point, although the formula or recipe for success in selling has been modified over the years, the core skills or fundamentals that the learner must master are almost the same. Here are the skills that my research has proven that all high performing selling professional possess and those that struggle lack.
They are:
#1- Effective people skills such as listening, asking questions and relationship building and understanding the different human personality traits.
#2 - Basic technical skills such as how to leverage the use of technology such as CRM software, the phone and other forms of devices that will be used to communicate with clients to build, maintain and manage a book of business correctly.
#3 - Professional Development to include dressing for success, negotiating skills, effective networking skills and a personal ongoing development strategy.
These skills form the foundational knowledge that all salespeople must have in order to be truly effective at their jobs, and in most cases, point out the gaps in their knowledge base that are preventing them from being truly effective. This brings us to the reason there is a part 2 of the recipe, Business Processes, the formula for producing consistent results in any area of selling. All processes are made up of activities that require the individual to use certain skills to complete the activity correctly. If the individual learns the process and does not have the necessary skills to complete the task correctly, then they will struggle to be effective. This revelation explains the poor ROI dealerships are getting on their training investment. Okay, there are four plays or business processes that the selling professional must master in order to be effective at their craft.
They are:
# 1 – Business Development or lead generation, the different activities that will be used to get the prospects in the door
# 2 – The actual sales interaction process that is currently known as the Road to the Sale that takes place when the client comes in to the dealership
# 3 – Customer Relationship Management, the activities that take place when the client leaves the dealership
# 4 – Managing the book of business, the activities that keep everything in its place so that you can sleep well at night knowing that nothing is falling through the cracks
These four processes cover the different areas of client interaction and are the required knowledge for those wishing to sell professionally. If you can get this, then you will understand why the majority of salespeople are struggling and are inconsistent in their performance. It will explain why they stand around waiting as well as show you where to start focusing your efforts.
Making these process-distinctions is extremely important because they provide specific areas of focus to measure the individual effectiveness in the execution of the fundamentals. It provides management with a measuring tool for the successful completion of each activity within each process, thus allowing them to offer constructive feedback coupled with tangible things for the individual to work on. In other words, it allows mangers to manage the task and not the person. I call this approach managers managing for effect.
The overarching benefit to adopting this approach is that it allows dealerships to take a look at their current processes or the lack thereof and measure their effectiveness against a defined standard to determine the appropriate action to meet the standard. Here is the point, you cannot fix a problem or improve upon a process that is inherently broken, never been defined or does not exist. So if sales are slumping, these processes would allow anyone to step away from the table to evaluate the how, why and what of their current activities so as to ascertain why it is not working in order to take action that is sustainable. Just like in sports or in cooking, you must follow the recipe in order to produce the desired results. So with this approach, if you decide to omit an ingredient or skip a process, you will be able to identify what went wrong and know how to fix it. The important thing to note here is that managers that try to manage a person instead of the process will have a difficult time producing measurable results on a consistent basis because without associating an individual’s performance to a predefined task or activity, so the question that needs to be asked is: what then are you asking the individual to work on?
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
My son is an athlete and plays left tackle for his high school football team and while at his game this past weekend, it dawned on me that the same principles that are used to teach and coach football players applies to the selling profession as well. Truly effective professionals never guess, they are well versed on the skills of their trade and they use these skills in varied combinations to make moves or plays that seem almost magical to the onlooker. They never deviated from their training methodology or regimen and are fastidious about working on and improving their execution of the fundamentals. Walter Payton, Michael Jordan and Vince Lombardi are examples of ordinary people that have mastered the fundamentals at an extraordinary level. None of these individuals by themselves could ever win a game, but as part of a team where everyone knew what to do, when to do it and most importantly how, they were champions.
True top performers are no different, because no one knows that they are better or worse until you compare their results to someone else. Here is the point, although the formula or recipe for success in selling has been modified over the years, the core skills or fundamentals that the learner must master are almost the same. Here are the skills that my research has proven that all high performing selling professional possess and those that struggle lack.
They are:
#1- Effective people skills such as listening, asking questions and relationship building and understanding the different human personality traits.
#2 - Basic technical skills such as how to leverage the use of technology such as CRM software, the phone and other forms of devices that will be used to communicate with clients to build, maintain and manage a book of business correctly.
#3 - Professional Development to include dressing for success, negotiating skills, effective networking skills and a personal ongoing development strategy.
These skills form the foundational knowledge that all salespeople must have in order to be truly effective at their jobs, and in most cases, point out the gaps in their knowledge base that are preventing them from being truly effective. This brings us to the reason there is a part 2 of the recipe, Business Processes, the formula for producing consistent results in any area of selling. All processes are made up of activities that require the individual to use certain skills to complete the activity correctly. If the individual learns the process and does not have the necessary skills to complete the task correctly, then they will struggle to be effective. This revelation explains the poor ROI dealerships are getting on their training investment. Okay, there are four plays or business processes that the selling professional must master in order to be effective at their craft.
They are:
# 1 – Business Development or lead generation, the different activities that will be used to get the prospects in the door
# 2 – The actual sales interaction process that is currently known as the Road to the Sale that takes place when the client comes in to the dealership
# 3 – Customer Relationship Management, the activities that take place when the client leaves the dealership
# 4 – Managing the book of business, the activities that keep everything in its place so that you can sleep well at night knowing that nothing is falling through the cracks
These four processes cover the different areas of client interaction and are the required knowledge for those wishing to sell professionally. If you can get this, then you will understand why the majority of salespeople are struggling and are inconsistent in their performance. It will explain why they stand around waiting as well as show you where to start focusing your efforts.
Making these process-distinctions is extremely important because they provide specific areas of focus to measure the individual effectiveness in the execution of the fundamentals. It provides management with a measuring tool for the successful completion of each activity within each process, thus allowing them to offer constructive feedback coupled with tangible things for the individual to work on. In other words, it allows mangers to manage the task and not the person. I call this approach managers managing for effect.
The overarching benefit to adopting this approach is that it allows dealerships to take a look at their current processes or the lack thereof and measure their effectiveness against a defined standard to determine the appropriate action to meet the standard. Here is the point, you cannot fix a problem or improve upon a process that is inherently broken, never been defined or does not exist. So if sales are slumping, these processes would allow anyone to step away from the table to evaluate the how, why and what of their current activities so as to ascertain why it is not working in order to take action that is sustainable. Just like in sports or in cooking, you must follow the recipe in order to produce the desired results. So with this approach, if you decide to omit an ingredient or skip a process, you will be able to identify what went wrong and know how to fix it. The important thing to note here is that managers that try to manage a person instead of the process will have a difficult time producing measurable results on a consistent basis because without associating an individual’s performance to a predefined task or activity, so the question that needs to be asked is: what then are you asking the individual to work on?
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Redefining the Sales and Training Models
Building a successful selling career is not complicated, but it has remained a mystery to most of us in the profession. We celebrate the superstars because they have figured out their own personal formula and we punish the underperformers because they just cannot seem to get it. The fact of the matter is that if there was a formula for doing the things that successful salespeople do consistently, then you could move more of the underperformers into the high achievers rank. Well, there is such a formula and it is guaranteed to work every time…more about this later.
We all want to know that we are at least good at one thing and when we are not, we know it. Many would agree that the majority of those involved in dealership selling are okay at best and are struggling because they have an outdated perspective on what they should be doing daily. Consequently they, in most cases, fail to meet the expectations of their employer and the consumers in the market place because if the truth be told, they have no idea how to meet those expectations. Zig Ziglar puts it this way, “You cannot hit a target or a goal that you do not have”, yet that is exactly what happens in so many dealerships daily when sales teams try to hit goals given to them by the owner without any form of strategy to achieve it. What many of the managers from these teams fail to realize is that the easiest way to reach the business goals is to help each salesperson set and reach their own personal goals first.
Many of them continually point to the solution for increasing sales as a function of the amount of advertising and marketing that the entity engages in or the product or technology that they currently lack instead of helping the individuals that they lead hit their mark. The reason that this is a problem is that if you believe that the solution is out there then you will miss the obvious which in this case is right in front of you. I have a quote that I use that says, “what you cannot define you cannot measure, what you cannot, measure you cannot reproduce, what you cannot reproduce you cannot control or manage.” What that means in this case is that if you do not have predefined processes to measure performance against, what then are we asking the individual to improve upon? Even more importantly, what is it that we are managing? Here is another perspective; the quality of the questions that we ask will determine the response we receive. So if the desired outcome is not clear before we counsel a selling professional what is it that we hope to get out of the counseling session? Having this type of clarity about what it is that we want to achieve is important when analyzing a struggling business or salesperson because the emphasis will be on a tangible item or a specific issue that must be acted upon then measured to see the improvement.
Here is an example, when ever I hear sales managers say that a particular salesperson is struggling, I usually ask, ‘In what areas are they struggling in? Is it business development, customer relationship management or is it in the actual sales process, and if so, what part of the process are they having trouble with?’ Ironically, 9 out of 10 sales managers would normally give me a confused look until I explain further. Here is the point, because the dynamics of the sales process has changed so drastically over the years, it is going to take this type of clarity and segmentation of the sales process to identify the specific areas that the salesperson is struggling with in order to cause performance improvement that can be measured and sustained. Remember I spoke about the formula for success earlier; well here it is: Defined processes + skill based training + technique based training = a selling professional that can produce results that are predictable, repeatable and track-able; that’s it. Defined processes allow both parties to speak the same language. It provides the salesperson with a path or template to produce the same results every time, and it allows management to pin point the specific activity within the process that the salesperson is struggling with so that it can be improved upon.
So with this new information, I ask you, what is the real cause of the performance or sales slump that your career or business is currently experiencing? Is it really a lack of traffic, technology, or even text messaging, or is it a lack of clarity regarding the processes you use for business development and customer relationship management? Or is it that you are still trying to manage the person instead of the process and trying to tell instead of teaching them specifically in what areas and how to improve.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
We all want to know that we are at least good at one thing and when we are not, we know it. Many would agree that the majority of those involved in dealership selling are okay at best and are struggling because they have an outdated perspective on what they should be doing daily. Consequently they, in most cases, fail to meet the expectations of their employer and the consumers in the market place because if the truth be told, they have no idea how to meet those expectations. Zig Ziglar puts it this way, “You cannot hit a target or a goal that you do not have”, yet that is exactly what happens in so many dealerships daily when sales teams try to hit goals given to them by the owner without any form of strategy to achieve it. What many of the managers from these teams fail to realize is that the easiest way to reach the business goals is to help each salesperson set and reach their own personal goals first.
Many of them continually point to the solution for increasing sales as a function of the amount of advertising and marketing that the entity engages in or the product or technology that they currently lack instead of helping the individuals that they lead hit their mark. The reason that this is a problem is that if you believe that the solution is out there then you will miss the obvious which in this case is right in front of you. I have a quote that I use that says, “what you cannot define you cannot measure, what you cannot, measure you cannot reproduce, what you cannot reproduce you cannot control or manage.” What that means in this case is that if you do not have predefined processes to measure performance against, what then are we asking the individual to improve upon? Even more importantly, what is it that we are managing? Here is another perspective; the quality of the questions that we ask will determine the response we receive. So if the desired outcome is not clear before we counsel a selling professional what is it that we hope to get out of the counseling session? Having this type of clarity about what it is that we want to achieve is important when analyzing a struggling business or salesperson because the emphasis will be on a tangible item or a specific issue that must be acted upon then measured to see the improvement.
Here is an example, when ever I hear sales managers say that a particular salesperson is struggling, I usually ask, ‘In what areas are they struggling in? Is it business development, customer relationship management or is it in the actual sales process, and if so, what part of the process are they having trouble with?’ Ironically, 9 out of 10 sales managers would normally give me a confused look until I explain further. Here is the point, because the dynamics of the sales process has changed so drastically over the years, it is going to take this type of clarity and segmentation of the sales process to identify the specific areas that the salesperson is struggling with in order to cause performance improvement that can be measured and sustained. Remember I spoke about the formula for success earlier; well here it is: Defined processes + skill based training + technique based training = a selling professional that can produce results that are predictable, repeatable and track-able; that’s it. Defined processes allow both parties to speak the same language. It provides the salesperson with a path or template to produce the same results every time, and it allows management to pin point the specific activity within the process that the salesperson is struggling with so that it can be improved upon.
So with this new information, I ask you, what is the real cause of the performance or sales slump that your career or business is currently experiencing? Is it really a lack of traffic, technology, or even text messaging, or is it a lack of clarity regarding the processes you use for business development and customer relationship management? Or is it that you are still trying to manage the person instead of the process and trying to tell instead of teaching them specifically in what areas and how to improve.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Key to CRM Success - How to Get the Most Out of Your CRM Investment
One of the most underutilized software applications within a dealership is its CRM software. This application has also been the source of much disappointment in regards to its ability to show a quantifiable return on investment. The reason that this is the case is that in most instances it is improperly sold and implemented as an application only and not as a process. The second reason that CRM gets a bad rap is that the users of the application are usually trained from the perspective of the software developer meaning this is how you do this and this is how you do that, and not from the perspective of a proactive business developer in the dealership selling environment. However, by far the greatest culprit contributing to the ineffectiveness of the CRM application within dealerships is the current ambiguous job description of the automotive selling professional…more on this later.
True selling professionals are always looking for ways to sell more; that’s all that they think about. They are profit motivated, purpose driven and most importantly, ambitiously lazy, so they look at the CRM software as an extension of themselves just like gladiators would use their shields and swords. A gladiator would never think about going into combat without first learning how to correctly use their tools because their very lives depend on it. Likewise a true selling professional knows that their most valuable asset is their book of business, and they also know that the CRM tool is the carrier of that book of business and is worthy of in-depth study and mastery.
Most managers in our industry will acknowledge the importance of the CRM software from the perspective that it beats using the paper logs, and if it is integrated to some form of desking tool to monitor salespeople, all the better. But they miss the mark when it comes to leveraging this powerful application’s ability to take their business to a whole new level. CRM the software and CRM the process sit quietly at the heart of every business development strategy. Its ability to identify, track and measure selling and marketing opportunities as well as personnel performance often goes unnoticed or overlooked by its users. The reason that this usually happens is that most of its users fail to see the connection between the software, the sales activities and the human interaction experience so as a result, mapping out the processes that connects all three is foreign to them. Making this distinction is the essence of CRM and the reason that many businesses are having a difficult time maximizing their ROI of the CRM investment.
To some of you this may sound like gibberish, but please hang in there with me a little while longer as it is all about to make sense. By redefining the job functions of a salesperson to include outlining the expectations of everyone who will be affected and then matching up these job functions with what today’s dealers are going to need to succeed, then you will see that there are gaps in what they know and what they need to know that are preventing them from meeting the performance expectations. Here is the big deal, by breaking down Business Development, the Road to the Sale and Customer Relationship Management into activities and then mapping out these activities into processes to be associated with the appropriate marketing sequences, triggers and branding pieces etc., will reveal the necessary ingredients to redefine the job description that will not only make the salesperson better, but also make CRM as software begin to pay a tremendous ROI.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
True selling professionals are always looking for ways to sell more; that’s all that they think about. They are profit motivated, purpose driven and most importantly, ambitiously lazy, so they look at the CRM software as an extension of themselves just like gladiators would use their shields and swords. A gladiator would never think about going into combat without first learning how to correctly use their tools because their very lives depend on it. Likewise a true selling professional knows that their most valuable asset is their book of business, and they also know that the CRM tool is the carrier of that book of business and is worthy of in-depth study and mastery.
Most managers in our industry will acknowledge the importance of the CRM software from the perspective that it beats using the paper logs, and if it is integrated to some form of desking tool to monitor salespeople, all the better. But they miss the mark when it comes to leveraging this powerful application’s ability to take their business to a whole new level. CRM the software and CRM the process sit quietly at the heart of every business development strategy. Its ability to identify, track and measure selling and marketing opportunities as well as personnel performance often goes unnoticed or overlooked by its users. The reason that this usually happens is that most of its users fail to see the connection between the software, the sales activities and the human interaction experience so as a result, mapping out the processes that connects all three is foreign to them. Making this distinction is the essence of CRM and the reason that many businesses are having a difficult time maximizing their ROI of the CRM investment.
To some of you this may sound like gibberish, but please hang in there with me a little while longer as it is all about to make sense. By redefining the job functions of a salesperson to include outlining the expectations of everyone who will be affected and then matching up these job functions with what today’s dealers are going to need to succeed, then you will see that there are gaps in what they know and what they need to know that are preventing them from meeting the performance expectations. Here is the big deal, by breaking down Business Development, the Road to the Sale and Customer Relationship Management into activities and then mapping out these activities into processes to be associated with the appropriate marketing sequences, triggers and branding pieces etc., will reveal the necessary ingredients to redefine the job description that will not only make the salesperson better, but also make CRM as software begin to pay a tremendous ROI.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Changing of the Guard – A Message to the Next Generation of Automotive Selling Professionals
Yesterday I received a comment and a question from Terrell to a post I recently made that was titled Redefining the Sales and Training Models. The gentleman wanted to know what advice or tips that we, as experienced professionals could offer to a future leader in our business. I have been asking a similar question of anyone that I meet who exhibit the qualities that I would like to emulate, and my question goes something like this: “Knowing what you now know, if you had an opportunity to live your life over and keep the knowledge that you currently have, what would you do differently?” The answers that I have received from that question has affected me so much that I have redesigned my life so as not to make the same mistakes that kept coming up.
Terrell’s question has impacted me because it is so important and relevant. I believe that we want different things when we are shifting our gaze from success to significance and it is only then we feel the need to sow seeds to grow trees, under which we may never sit. He is curious and still asking questions that we as leaders should be answering because our very way of life depends on it. Many leaders in our business will acknowledge the fact that they were self-made, but what they are reluctant to say is that they were self-made in a time that looks nothing like this. As one veteran use to say, “Selling cars in my day was like shooting ducks in a pond, all you did was show up and the chances of you selling a car was good.” All of us have to admit that it is not that way anymore, yet some persist on trying to sell, train and approach business development and customer relationship management in the same way that they once did. The next generations of selling professionals that will lead our industry into the future are different; they are smarter, technology savvy and curious to a fault. But most importantly, they will not take a brush off answer because they want to know why so that they can apply the answer to the next event.
So here is my answer to Terrell:
Commit to your craft – Become a student of this business and when I say business I am not referring to the car business. This current model is broken and is being redefined so it will be important for you to understand other successful models so that you can be a player when it is time.
Master the fundamentals – There are certain skills that you must learn in order to truly be successful as a selling professional. Take People Skills for example, you sell to other people but you have never taken a class on how to identify and communicate with the different human social styles so as to establish rapport quickly; doesn’t make sense does it?
Learn to work by the numbers – You must learn the different processes that drive your business. Every activity that you engage in on a daily basis in the selling or business profession is either a process or a part of another process. Identifying what they are is the key to building a large and profitable book of business that can be sustained. I use the terminology Build, Maintain and Manage a book of business because that is exactly what you should be doing as a selling professional.
Manage the System, not the person – As a manager, if you cannot identify specifically where the person made an error so that it can be fixed and improved upon for the next time, you are winging it. Systems and processes provide managers with the template they need to focus specifically on the real issues instead of the person. It is the key to producing results that are predictable, repeatable and track-able in every area of your business.
Terrell, I have been a part of this industry for over two decades and have spent the last 10 plus years in research, development and field-testing systems and processes that would standardize the required curriculum for new salespeople in order to give them a better fighting chance for success. Your question is being asked by many struggling salespeople who can’t figure out why they are not able to be consistent. So with that being said, thank you for having the courage to articulate what many are feeling but afraid to ask. The following story is true and will make sense if and when you question your commitment to your own success.
On June 16th, 1986, about 2am in the morning, the biggest and scariest man I had ever encountered walked on to the green school bus and began screaming: “You have 10 seconds to get off this bus and on my yellow foot prints and five are already gone - Mooove your asses!” Those words were my introduction to the whirlwind of disorientation, awkwardness, physical and mental fatigue which eventually transcended into competence then confidence in order to be called a United States Marine. Back then, the transformation seemed like an impossible feat. I mean how do you go from being a clumsy, scared, undisciplined civilian to the polished and well-oiled machine that I saw on TV called a Marine? But that is exactly what happened. Thirteen weeks later I walked off that base wearing my uniform, 40 pounds lighter and never looked back.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Terrell’s question has impacted me because it is so important and relevant. I believe that we want different things when we are shifting our gaze from success to significance and it is only then we feel the need to sow seeds to grow trees, under which we may never sit. He is curious and still asking questions that we as leaders should be answering because our very way of life depends on it. Many leaders in our business will acknowledge the fact that they were self-made, but what they are reluctant to say is that they were self-made in a time that looks nothing like this. As one veteran use to say, “Selling cars in my day was like shooting ducks in a pond, all you did was show up and the chances of you selling a car was good.” All of us have to admit that it is not that way anymore, yet some persist on trying to sell, train and approach business development and customer relationship management in the same way that they once did. The next generations of selling professionals that will lead our industry into the future are different; they are smarter, technology savvy and curious to a fault. But most importantly, they will not take a brush off answer because they want to know why so that they can apply the answer to the next event.
So here is my answer to Terrell:
Commit to your craft – Become a student of this business and when I say business I am not referring to the car business. This current model is broken and is being redefined so it will be important for you to understand other successful models so that you can be a player when it is time.
Master the fundamentals – There are certain skills that you must learn in order to truly be successful as a selling professional. Take People Skills for example, you sell to other people but you have never taken a class on how to identify and communicate with the different human social styles so as to establish rapport quickly; doesn’t make sense does it?
Learn to work by the numbers – You must learn the different processes that drive your business. Every activity that you engage in on a daily basis in the selling or business profession is either a process or a part of another process. Identifying what they are is the key to building a large and profitable book of business that can be sustained. I use the terminology Build, Maintain and Manage a book of business because that is exactly what you should be doing as a selling professional.
Manage the System, not the person – As a manager, if you cannot identify specifically where the person made an error so that it can be fixed and improved upon for the next time, you are winging it. Systems and processes provide managers with the template they need to focus specifically on the real issues instead of the person. It is the key to producing results that are predictable, repeatable and track-able in every area of your business.
Terrell, I have been a part of this industry for over two decades and have spent the last 10 plus years in research, development and field-testing systems and processes that would standardize the required curriculum for new salespeople in order to give them a better fighting chance for success. Your question is being asked by many struggling salespeople who can’t figure out why they are not able to be consistent. So with that being said, thank you for having the courage to articulate what many are feeling but afraid to ask. The following story is true and will make sense if and when you question your commitment to your own success.
On June 16th, 1986, about 2am in the morning, the biggest and scariest man I had ever encountered walked on to the green school bus and began screaming: “You have 10 seconds to get off this bus and on my yellow foot prints and five are already gone - Mooove your asses!” Those words were my introduction to the whirlwind of disorientation, awkwardness, physical and mental fatigue which eventually transcended into competence then confidence in order to be called a United States Marine. Back then, the transformation seemed like an impossible feat. I mean how do you go from being a clumsy, scared, undisciplined civilian to the polished and well-oiled machine that I saw on TV called a Marine? But that is exactly what happened. Thirteen weeks later I walked off that base wearing my uniform, 40 pounds lighter and never looked back.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
How to Unlock and Unleash the Hidden Potential of Your CRM Tool
It’s November and the weather is changing, so it’s time to get ready for our slow season. This is the time of year that many of us in the car business often dread because the days are long, quite boring and in the windy city where I live, you can actually feel your brain shrinking after one too many days of snow. However, this is the perfect time of year to do some housekeeping in preparation for spring, your true selling season. This is the perfect time to generate some momentum by taking your CRM software and tuning it up so that the work you do this winter can pay dividends all year long beginning next spring. The facts are that 8 out of 10 CRM software databases located in dealerships are so corrupted that they are not useable from a marketing perspective. Even worse those companies that do not use a CRM software fail to realize the benefit from the compounding effect generated from a properly configured CRM software or process because the focus is on the new, and not on the recurring revenue of repeat and referral sales.
The unfortunate reality is that the majority of CRM users are unaware of how to correctly use or maintain the application, much less engage in right Customer Relationship Management Processes. They fail to see the connection between the measureable activity they engage in, the resources that they spend and the ultimate goal which is customer acquisition. Consequently, they may never have associated or measured new vs. returning clients with the various campaigns that they run so as to determine its effectiveness because, in truth, they probably have never looked at it that way before. The fact is that CRM is the foundation on which all campaigns are built and its proper maintenance and usage is the key to funneling hard dollars to your bottom line. With that being said, I am going to give you a few exercises from my Effective CRM Course from the PSSE training program that will give you an action plan to get your business ready for spring.
#1 – All data is not good Data. The Key here is to wrap your head around the fact that when a database is not maintained, all you have is data and most of it becomes unusable.
#2 – Scrutinize the data and be ruthless. Your first task will be to begin cleaning up the database, this cannot be done by a third party; it needs to be done in house. Get rid of everything that you cannot use, be ruthless about getting rid of bad data because what’s left when you are done is pure gold.
#3 – Segment the Database; Now that you have completed the first two steps, it’s now time to segment the database into is useable buckets of customers such as, Lease, Finance, Cash, Service, Orphans, etc.
#4 – Make the initial contact. Once you have done step 1 – 3, it’s time to take your next step which is to make initial contact. The types of questions that need to be asked here will be critical in determining what your next step will be when assigning the appropriate marketing sequence.
#5 - Assign the appropriate Marketing Sequences &Triggers. The key to success in this section will be in determining the appropriate itch cycle based on product and demographic type, but at bare minimum the national figures can be used to define estimates for you.
#6 – Maintain database on a monthly basis. Last but least, once the database is complete, monthly maintenance will be necessary to keep it productive. Countless deals are lost and overlooked monthly because clients that you own free and clear are overlooked while you are off looking for new prospects. But, with a little effort many businesses could easily see sales increases in the double digits from their own client bases. The truth is that this activity only has to be done once, but once it has been completed, all of your marketing efforts can actually have a fighting chance.
The key here is sustainability. Regardless of where you spend your marketing or advertising dollars, your success in either area is directly connected to the viability and functionality of your CRM software. The truth is that the brand of the application is not that important or should I say not as important as the configuration of the application and how its marketing sequences and triggers are designed to function based on how you sell.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The unfortunate reality is that the majority of CRM users are unaware of how to correctly use or maintain the application, much less engage in right Customer Relationship Management Processes. They fail to see the connection between the measureable activity they engage in, the resources that they spend and the ultimate goal which is customer acquisition. Consequently, they may never have associated or measured new vs. returning clients with the various campaigns that they run so as to determine its effectiveness because, in truth, they probably have never looked at it that way before. The fact is that CRM is the foundation on which all campaigns are built and its proper maintenance and usage is the key to funneling hard dollars to your bottom line. With that being said, I am going to give you a few exercises from my Effective CRM Course from the PSSE training program that will give you an action plan to get your business ready for spring.
#1 – All data is not good Data. The Key here is to wrap your head around the fact that when a database is not maintained, all you have is data and most of it becomes unusable.
#2 – Scrutinize the data and be ruthless. Your first task will be to begin cleaning up the database, this cannot be done by a third party; it needs to be done in house. Get rid of everything that you cannot use, be ruthless about getting rid of bad data because what’s left when you are done is pure gold.
#3 – Segment the Database; Now that you have completed the first two steps, it’s now time to segment the database into is useable buckets of customers such as, Lease, Finance, Cash, Service, Orphans, etc.
#4 – Make the initial contact. Once you have done step 1 – 3, it’s time to take your next step which is to make initial contact. The types of questions that need to be asked here will be critical in determining what your next step will be when assigning the appropriate marketing sequence.
#5 - Assign the appropriate Marketing Sequences &Triggers. The key to success in this section will be in determining the appropriate itch cycle based on product and demographic type, but at bare minimum the national figures can be used to define estimates for you.
#6 – Maintain database on a monthly basis. Last but least, once the database is complete, monthly maintenance will be necessary to keep it productive. Countless deals are lost and overlooked monthly because clients that you own free and clear are overlooked while you are off looking for new prospects. But, with a little effort many businesses could easily see sales increases in the double digits from their own client bases. The truth is that this activity only has to be done once, but once it has been completed, all of your marketing efforts can actually have a fighting chance.
The key here is sustainability. Regardless of where you spend your marketing or advertising dollars, your success in either area is directly connected to the viability and functionality of your CRM software. The truth is that the brand of the application is not that important or should I say not as important as the configuration of the application and how its marketing sequences and triggers are designed to function based on how you sell.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Becoming a Tactical Seller - The Secret to Giving Yourself a Pay Raise Anytime You Want.
It is no secret that we are all experiencing some difficult times in our respective economies and that these times are causing many in the automobile industry to question their career paths. However, even in these challenging times, there are those that continue to flourish because they seem to know something that many or their counterparts do not. These individuals continue to give themselves pay raises every month and every year. They have figured out some time ago that they have to make up in volume what they lack in skill or make up in skill what they lack in volume.
For decades we have known that the majority of those selling on the frontlines of automobile dealerships have lacked the necessary skills that they need to be effective, but due to the abundance of prospects that used to walk through the doors, this issue was continually ignored. Today it is common place to see these salespeople jumping from dealership to dealership chasing the hot product or compensation plan to compensate for the roller coaster effect in their income. This unfortunate reality is one of the symptoms of an individual that lacks the knowledge of how to effectively build a book of business or create a customer following. The irony is that many of these salespeople will boast about having a significant amount of years in the business simply because they lacked the formal education and skills. It’s seems that it’s Reckoning time!
The key to not just surviving in these challenging times, but to flourish is to become a tactical seller, to go on the offense by being proactive instead of standing around waiting for prospects, which is being reactive. These individuals who have gone on the offense have learned not only to sell professionally, but to sell differently and become proficient in packaging their offering in different combinations so as to appeal to each buyer uniquely. They have modified their selling style and their processes because they have accepted the fact that consumers have access to more information than ever before to include invoices, incentives and so on. They have come to terms with the fact that their customers prefer to negotiate from the bottom up, not the other way around, so they have redefined their strategy to increase their gross margins and therefore increase their personal income. In addition, as tactical sellers, these professionals realize that it’s futile not to give the client exactly what they want, so consequently they spend a good amount time building value and cultivating the relationships in order to position themselves as the expert when making buying recommendations.
It is important to note that the fundamental value to selling accessories is that they have no published invoice price, and like art or fine jewelry, the perceived value to the consumer rests in the seller’s ability to articulate and transfer the benefits of ownership though a proper presentation. The tactical seller knows this and through a proper needs analysis, they are able to identify potential opportunities before they begin to make a presentation. These add-ons are introduced by the tactical seller earlier in the selling process and they are able to demonstrate and present the accessories as a must-have instead of a should-have. The difference here is that most salespeople discuss accessories as an afterthought where their “oh by the way” approach diminishes the value and importance causing it to be perceived as unnecessary.
With that being said, here are a few things that you can do as a salesperson to up your game so that you can join these selling professionals who are currently flourishing in these difficult times.
#1 Upgrade Your Skills – You have to make up in skill what you lack in volume. If your dealership client count is low, then you have to increase your business development activities. Engaging in Business Development activities is your responsibility and as such, it should be a part of your daily work plan. The benefit of this process is that you will have clients walking through the door asking for you by name.
#2 Keep More Clients Than You Lose – When you are building a book of business, your objective is to find and keep customers. This means that you have to become good at CRM as a process by becoming knowledgeable about CRM the software. Customer Relationship Management is the key to growing a large and profitable book of business. This tool and process in the hands of a capable selling professional is the key to experiencing compounding sales and income.
#3 Commit to Selling Accessories – If you cannot beat them, join them. The best part about selling accessories is that your cost is not a published item, so it leaves you room to actually create a profitable deal even though the vehicle selling price may be low. The key to selling anything starts with knowing your product and accessory product knowledge is critical to knowing what item in your tool bag works best with what vehicle. Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of these items when making recommendations to your clients will be perceived by them as counseling instead of selling which makes you look like the expert.
This is tactical selling at its best, and is a strategy that anyone can use to give themselves a pay raise today!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
For decades we have known that the majority of those selling on the frontlines of automobile dealerships have lacked the necessary skills that they need to be effective, but due to the abundance of prospects that used to walk through the doors, this issue was continually ignored. Today it is common place to see these salespeople jumping from dealership to dealership chasing the hot product or compensation plan to compensate for the roller coaster effect in their income. This unfortunate reality is one of the symptoms of an individual that lacks the knowledge of how to effectively build a book of business or create a customer following. The irony is that many of these salespeople will boast about having a significant amount of years in the business simply because they lacked the formal education and skills. It’s seems that it’s Reckoning time!
The key to not just surviving in these challenging times, but to flourish is to become a tactical seller, to go on the offense by being proactive instead of standing around waiting for prospects, which is being reactive. These individuals who have gone on the offense have learned not only to sell professionally, but to sell differently and become proficient in packaging their offering in different combinations so as to appeal to each buyer uniquely. They have modified their selling style and their processes because they have accepted the fact that consumers have access to more information than ever before to include invoices, incentives and so on. They have come to terms with the fact that their customers prefer to negotiate from the bottom up, not the other way around, so they have redefined their strategy to increase their gross margins and therefore increase their personal income. In addition, as tactical sellers, these professionals realize that it’s futile not to give the client exactly what they want, so consequently they spend a good amount time building value and cultivating the relationships in order to position themselves as the expert when making buying recommendations.
It is important to note that the fundamental value to selling accessories is that they have no published invoice price, and like art or fine jewelry, the perceived value to the consumer rests in the seller’s ability to articulate and transfer the benefits of ownership though a proper presentation. The tactical seller knows this and through a proper needs analysis, they are able to identify potential opportunities before they begin to make a presentation. These add-ons are introduced by the tactical seller earlier in the selling process and they are able to demonstrate and present the accessories as a must-have instead of a should-have. The difference here is that most salespeople discuss accessories as an afterthought where their “oh by the way” approach diminishes the value and importance causing it to be perceived as unnecessary.
With that being said, here are a few things that you can do as a salesperson to up your game so that you can join these selling professionals who are currently flourishing in these difficult times.
#1 Upgrade Your Skills – You have to make up in skill what you lack in volume. If your dealership client count is low, then you have to increase your business development activities. Engaging in Business Development activities is your responsibility and as such, it should be a part of your daily work plan. The benefit of this process is that you will have clients walking through the door asking for you by name.
#2 Keep More Clients Than You Lose – When you are building a book of business, your objective is to find and keep customers. This means that you have to become good at CRM as a process by becoming knowledgeable about CRM the software. Customer Relationship Management is the key to growing a large and profitable book of business. This tool and process in the hands of a capable selling professional is the key to experiencing compounding sales and income.
#3 Commit to Selling Accessories – If you cannot beat them, join them. The best part about selling accessories is that your cost is not a published item, so it leaves you room to actually create a profitable deal even though the vehicle selling price may be low. The key to selling anything starts with knowing your product and accessory product knowledge is critical to knowing what item in your tool bag works best with what vehicle. Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of these items when making recommendations to your clients will be perceived by them as counseling instead of selling which makes you look like the expert.
This is tactical selling at its best, and is a strategy that anyone can use to give themselves a pay raise today!
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Game Plan 2012 Series – How to Intentionally Use Training as a Business Development Strategy – Part I
One of the toughest decisions that most business owners struggle with is deciding whether to commit to training programs that are not associated to a capital investment.
Unfortunately, this resistance stems from the poor track record that many of these training programs have in producing measurable results. Although these concerns are often unspoken, it explains why many business owners are hesitant to commit to outside training solutions even though they know that it is desperately needed in their organizations.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the dealership environment, where in most cases they operate as microcosms that are cut off from traditional business associations and methodologies, where the solutions to some of their most pressing issues have already been discovered.
The fact is, what’s not being said, is that outside of the usual suspects for business failure or success the education levels, demographics and psychographics of the frontline employees within dealerships have played and will continue to play a significant role in their outcome because in most cases these individuals are homegrown and lack the knowledge from formal training that is usually derived from advanced degrees.
This explains why when traditional training programs are introduced into the dealership environment, without accounting for the pre-existing knowledge gaps, the results vary greatly. This fact can be attributed to the wild card effect, which in this case is the knowledge that the learner brings to the table that is void of the required content needed to correctly execute the activities being offered in the training program.
So as a result, these individuals will try to use their own experience, which is limited to interpret what they think they are being asked to do, instead of what is actually required, thus meeting with the aforementioned varied results.
It is critically important that you get this point because it will explain a lot. It will explain why there is such a high attrition rate for employees within the dealership environment; it will explain why, even in the presence of so much “training” that the salespeople will continue to fail to meet expectations; and it will also explain why there is such a slow adoption rate for new concepts, technologies and ideas that can help because the learner is ill-equipped to connect the dots in order to make the investment pay dividends.
An example of this can be seen when individuals who are hired to sell or engage in positions that involve customer relationship management activities, they may, on the surface, seem qualified or even over-qualified; however, when they are further evaluated through this new lens, what will often be seen is that they lack the necessary people skills to include how to listen effectively, ask qualifying questions and how to adapt to the different human personality traits in order to establish rapport, which are fundamental to the success of these roles.
So in essence, what you cannot define, you cannot reproduce; what you cannot reproduce, you cannot measure; what you cannot measure, you cannot control or manage and in this case, by not having the core skill sets defined and taught prior to skill based training, the definition of insanity will continue to apply.
The solution to this opportunity demands that a new approach to personnel development be implemented to fill these knowledge gaps as a strategic initiative to address the fundamental challenges that are quietly affecting the revenue streams of all the profit centers within the business. In other words, by identifying and defining the core skills, systems and processes that are shared between the different profit centers and providing them via an ongoing, reoccurring training process within the business so that the individual can master these skills, then and only then can technique and skill based training programs that require the use of these fundamentals for their correct execution begin to pay dividends.
So with that being said, business leaders must begin to take a new and more proactive approach to training by viewing it as a capital investment and as such, a strategic initiative. This approach will provide them with the opportunity to look at the entire business and the different roles and responsibilities that are within each profit center so as to determine the different layers of reoccurring training that will be needed to make the initiative sustainable.
Conversely, failure to do so will result with a continued feeling of frustration when faced with another expensive training program that has failed to meet expectations because their employees are ill-equipped to follow through on what is being taught. So in essence, ongoing personnel development cannot continue to be an afterthought that is in response to some form of economic pain such as slumping sales because this approach is just too expensive.
To be continued…Part II – The Layers, The Process for Setting up Training as a Strategic In-house Solution That is Sustainable
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Unfortunately, this resistance stems from the poor track record that many of these training programs have in producing measurable results. Although these concerns are often unspoken, it explains why many business owners are hesitant to commit to outside training solutions even though they know that it is desperately needed in their organizations.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the dealership environment, where in most cases they operate as microcosms that are cut off from traditional business associations and methodologies, where the solutions to some of their most pressing issues have already been discovered.
The fact is, what’s not being said, is that outside of the usual suspects for business failure or success the education levels, demographics and psychographics of the frontline employees within dealerships have played and will continue to play a significant role in their outcome because in most cases these individuals are homegrown and lack the knowledge from formal training that is usually derived from advanced degrees.
This explains why when traditional training programs are introduced into the dealership environment, without accounting for the pre-existing knowledge gaps, the results vary greatly. This fact can be attributed to the wild card effect, which in this case is the knowledge that the learner brings to the table that is void of the required content needed to correctly execute the activities being offered in the training program.
So as a result, these individuals will try to use their own experience, which is limited to interpret what they think they are being asked to do, instead of what is actually required, thus meeting with the aforementioned varied results.
It is critically important that you get this point because it will explain a lot. It will explain why there is such a high attrition rate for employees within the dealership environment; it will explain why, even in the presence of so much “training” that the salespeople will continue to fail to meet expectations; and it will also explain why there is such a slow adoption rate for new concepts, technologies and ideas that can help because the learner is ill-equipped to connect the dots in order to make the investment pay dividends.
An example of this can be seen when individuals who are hired to sell or engage in positions that involve customer relationship management activities, they may, on the surface, seem qualified or even over-qualified; however, when they are further evaluated through this new lens, what will often be seen is that they lack the necessary people skills to include how to listen effectively, ask qualifying questions and how to adapt to the different human personality traits in order to establish rapport, which are fundamental to the success of these roles.
So in essence, what you cannot define, you cannot reproduce; what you cannot reproduce, you cannot measure; what you cannot measure, you cannot control or manage and in this case, by not having the core skill sets defined and taught prior to skill based training, the definition of insanity will continue to apply.
The solution to this opportunity demands that a new approach to personnel development be implemented to fill these knowledge gaps as a strategic initiative to address the fundamental challenges that are quietly affecting the revenue streams of all the profit centers within the business. In other words, by identifying and defining the core skills, systems and processes that are shared between the different profit centers and providing them via an ongoing, reoccurring training process within the business so that the individual can master these skills, then and only then can technique and skill based training programs that require the use of these fundamentals for their correct execution begin to pay dividends.
So with that being said, business leaders must begin to take a new and more proactive approach to training by viewing it as a capital investment and as such, a strategic initiative. This approach will provide them with the opportunity to look at the entire business and the different roles and responsibilities that are within each profit center so as to determine the different layers of reoccurring training that will be needed to make the initiative sustainable.
Conversely, failure to do so will result with a continued feeling of frustration when faced with another expensive training program that has failed to meet expectations because their employees are ill-equipped to follow through on what is being taught. So in essence, ongoing personnel development cannot continue to be an afterthought that is in response to some form of economic pain such as slumping sales because this approach is just too expensive.
To be continued…Part II – The Layers, The Process for Setting up Training as a Strategic In-house Solution That is Sustainable
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Writing is on the Wall – 200 Millions Reasons to Wake Up or True Car Will Be Hosting the Death of a Salesman!
For many years consumers have been complaining about the buying experience at the local dealership and have often compared the experience to pulling teeth without the benefit of a painkiller. However, in the post internet era where easy access to information has changed the way that vehicles are bought and sold, consumers have expanded the radius for what they consider their local dealership to include those within the length of time they are willing to travel to avoid the hassle and to get a better deal. The fact is buying clubs and services only exist because the consumer wants to avoid the car buying experience to include the antiquated sales practices that still persist in our industry even to this today. The reality is that $200MM is a lot of reason for everyone in the local dealership to take this threat not just seriously, but also as a call to action for personal responsibility that leads to change.
Over the past few weeks there has been an outcry from business leaders who stand to lose from the success of the business model being introduced by Truecar.com to include myself. But what’s even more fascinating is that the group that really stands to lose the most from True Car’s success has been silent! True Car wants to get rid of salespeople across the board and what many of these individuals fail to realize is that they might actually succeed! What I have come to appreciate in these last few years, is that there is no such thing as impossible, and if you do not believe me, just ask General Motors, Chrysler and oh by the way, Saturn. Even to the bitter end they were running commercials stating that they, meaning Saturn, were never going out of business, but as we all know, they did.
Many of us are reluctant to acknowledge that change is inevitable, but just like the United States who at one point was a manufacturing giant and whose citizens are now complaining about the fact that their jobs are being shipped off to third world countries, for us the writing is on the wall. If we as a body of selling professionals do not begin to take responsibility for our own development, it will not be too long before the True Car scenario claims the livelihood that we use to provide for our families. Oh by the way, those that are complaining about the manufacturing jobs going overseas constitute the largest portion of Wal-Mart’s customer base, Hmmm.
The fact of the matter is this, we, meaning salespeople have got to take responsibility for our own personal development by seeking out and committing to ongoing skill development, because it is the only way to secure our professional and financial future. Successful selling professionals are never unemployed and are always in high demand. He or she has the ability to write their own ticket wherever they go. They have developed and possess skills that make them inflation and poverty proof and in this case, True Car proof. Here is what I mean; the only reason that this company has any form of bite is that you the salesperson do not own your very own book of business. Many of you still believe that you have a job working for someone else instead of the real truth which is that you are in business for yourself but just not by yourself. The quicker you can come to this realization about your employment status, the quicker your life and your income will take on a whole new meaning.
The first thing that will happen is that you will realize that your success is totally in your control so it is your responsibility to seek out the information to fill those knowledge gaps that are currently keeping you from what you want. The second thing that will become apparent is that you most go on the offense and become proactive about developing your own book of business. It will become immediately obvious the importance of developing multiple streams of client sources that does not include standing at the door waiting for the next up. And finally it will become really evident the importance of developing and protecting your customer base. If you have a real relationship with your clients, then no one, not even True Car can get between you and them.
The reason that they have raised $200MM is they think that people buy cars from dealerships instead of from the people who work at those dealerships. The clients that have no relationship with you, but are just sitting in the CRM tool dormant, are the ones that will shop your deal and will sell you out just to save a few dollars. But your ignorance to this fact keeps you at the door waiting for them to show up, instead of investing in yourself by upgrading your skills to protect what’s rightfully yours, your right to a career…
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Over the past few weeks there has been an outcry from business leaders who stand to lose from the success of the business model being introduced by Truecar.com to include myself. But what’s even more fascinating is that the group that really stands to lose the most from True Car’s success has been silent! True Car wants to get rid of salespeople across the board and what many of these individuals fail to realize is that they might actually succeed! What I have come to appreciate in these last few years, is that there is no such thing as impossible, and if you do not believe me, just ask General Motors, Chrysler and oh by the way, Saturn. Even to the bitter end they were running commercials stating that they, meaning Saturn, were never going out of business, but as we all know, they did.
Many of us are reluctant to acknowledge that change is inevitable, but just like the United States who at one point was a manufacturing giant and whose citizens are now complaining about the fact that their jobs are being shipped off to third world countries, for us the writing is on the wall. If we as a body of selling professionals do not begin to take responsibility for our own development, it will not be too long before the True Car scenario claims the livelihood that we use to provide for our families. Oh by the way, those that are complaining about the manufacturing jobs going overseas constitute the largest portion of Wal-Mart’s customer base, Hmmm.
The fact of the matter is this, we, meaning salespeople have got to take responsibility for our own personal development by seeking out and committing to ongoing skill development, because it is the only way to secure our professional and financial future. Successful selling professionals are never unemployed and are always in high demand. He or she has the ability to write their own ticket wherever they go. They have developed and possess skills that make them inflation and poverty proof and in this case, True Car proof. Here is what I mean; the only reason that this company has any form of bite is that you the salesperson do not own your very own book of business. Many of you still believe that you have a job working for someone else instead of the real truth which is that you are in business for yourself but just not by yourself. The quicker you can come to this realization about your employment status, the quicker your life and your income will take on a whole new meaning.
The first thing that will happen is that you will realize that your success is totally in your control so it is your responsibility to seek out the information to fill those knowledge gaps that are currently keeping you from what you want. The second thing that will become apparent is that you most go on the offense and become proactive about developing your own book of business. It will become immediately obvious the importance of developing multiple streams of client sources that does not include standing at the door waiting for the next up. And finally it will become really evident the importance of developing and protecting your customer base. If you have a real relationship with your clients, then no one, not even True Car can get between you and them.
The reason that they have raised $200MM is they think that people buy cars from dealerships instead of from the people who work at those dealerships. The clients that have no relationship with you, but are just sitting in the CRM tool dormant, are the ones that will shop your deal and will sell you out just to save a few dollars. But your ignorance to this fact keeps you at the door waiting for them to show up, instead of investing in yourself by upgrading your skills to protect what’s rightfully yours, your right to a career…
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Upgrading Your Operating System – The Key to Producing Bottom Line Results That Are Sustainable.
When you know better, you do better - Maya Angelo-via Oprah Winfrey
When most people hear the word operating system, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a computer, and in this case, that is exactly what I want you to visualize. I would like you, for moment, to imagine your brain as an operating system and all your current skills and abilities are the software that is being controlled by it. To further this point, think about it this way, a child coming into the world, is a blank slate without any judgment, prejudices or reference points. So everything that they know how to do, the belief systems that they hold and the reference points that they have are all acquired information that they have picked up like luggage along their journey. With that being said, no one intentionally sets out in life to be a failure or to be anything less than the best at whatever it is that they choose to be because as I said earlier, we all begin with a blank slate on which to begin designing a life.
This brings me to the heart of the matter and my reason for introducing the elements of a computer as the analogy I will use to explain why individuals succeed or fail in life and the business environment.
An operating system is considered the brain of a computer and without this brain, the computer is nothing more than just an expensive paper weight. To take it one step further, in addition to the operating system, all computers must have software that is designed to produce an effect. The operating system and the software must be compatible in order for the computer to work properly. So, if any incompatibility exists, the machine or the program will never perform as originally intended or expected. It is extremely important that you understand this analogy because as you look around your showrooms and the different profit centers within the dealership and observe individuals who are struggling to meet expectations, regardless of the “training” that has or has not been provided, it will now be clear that there is a compatibility issue with the operating system, which is the skill set of the individual and the software, which is the requirements of the position that exist. To bring this point home further, the operating system is the knowledge that the individual possesses and brings to the table that they are using to interpret how to execute the activities outlined for the position and the software is the actual standard or the right way for executing the activities required to achieve success in that position. In other words, telling someone to go prospecting without providing them with a template consisting of step by step activities along with training on the specific skills they will need to be effective will result in the individual struggling at each turn to figure out what they should be doing, when they should be doing it and most importantly, how.
Here is the elephant in the room, many dealership professionals come from a diverse background and lack the core competencies, education and training to perform their job functions. These individuals and the results that they are producing can be compared to a computer with an operating system that does not meet the minimum requirements of the software that is being installed. In other words, these employees are struggling to excel because they lack the critical skill sets or the core competencies that the activities of the position is demanding. Furthermore, in the absence of these core skills, they are using their own personal experience to interpret what is being asked instead of following a proven and predetermined path towards excellence.
Let’s talk solution. The facts are these; everyone is capable of succeeding at any given position if they are first taught all the activities they will need to know in order to excel. However, in addition to being taught these activities, they should also be trained on the core skills that they will need to execute each activity correctly and these skills are continually monitored and reinforced until the individual achieves skill mastery. For example, in the current sales process being used in dealerships today the first activity is the meet & greet, but the necessary skills that will need to be reinforced in just that first step is the art of ask questions, listen effectively, dressing for success and so on. What most fail to realize is that if the professional lack these skills, it diminishes their opportunity and ability to see the sales process all the way to the close because the client has already prejudge the individual’s ability to serve them. So in essence, it’s time to upgrade the operating systems of many of our professionals in our businesses by installing some mission critical updates that include the core competencies required to be effective at achieving sustainable results.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
When most people hear the word operating system, the first thing that usually comes to mind is a computer, and in this case, that is exactly what I want you to visualize. I would like you, for moment, to imagine your brain as an operating system and all your current skills and abilities are the software that is being controlled by it. To further this point, think about it this way, a child coming into the world, is a blank slate without any judgment, prejudices or reference points. So everything that they know how to do, the belief systems that they hold and the reference points that they have are all acquired information that they have picked up like luggage along their journey. With that being said, no one intentionally sets out in life to be a failure or to be anything less than the best at whatever it is that they choose to be because as I said earlier, we all begin with a blank slate on which to begin designing a life.
This brings me to the heart of the matter and my reason for introducing the elements of a computer as the analogy I will use to explain why individuals succeed or fail in life and the business environment.
An operating system is considered the brain of a computer and without this brain, the computer is nothing more than just an expensive paper weight. To take it one step further, in addition to the operating system, all computers must have software that is designed to produce an effect. The operating system and the software must be compatible in order for the computer to work properly. So, if any incompatibility exists, the machine or the program will never perform as originally intended or expected. It is extremely important that you understand this analogy because as you look around your showrooms and the different profit centers within the dealership and observe individuals who are struggling to meet expectations, regardless of the “training” that has or has not been provided, it will now be clear that there is a compatibility issue with the operating system, which is the skill set of the individual and the software, which is the requirements of the position that exist. To bring this point home further, the operating system is the knowledge that the individual possesses and brings to the table that they are using to interpret how to execute the activities outlined for the position and the software is the actual standard or the right way for executing the activities required to achieve success in that position. In other words, telling someone to go prospecting without providing them with a template consisting of step by step activities along with training on the specific skills they will need to be effective will result in the individual struggling at each turn to figure out what they should be doing, when they should be doing it and most importantly, how.
Here is the elephant in the room, many dealership professionals come from a diverse background and lack the core competencies, education and training to perform their job functions. These individuals and the results that they are producing can be compared to a computer with an operating system that does not meet the minimum requirements of the software that is being installed. In other words, these employees are struggling to excel because they lack the critical skill sets or the core competencies that the activities of the position is demanding. Furthermore, in the absence of these core skills, they are using their own personal experience to interpret what is being asked instead of following a proven and predetermined path towards excellence.
Let’s talk solution. The facts are these; everyone is capable of succeeding at any given position if they are first taught all the activities they will need to know in order to excel. However, in addition to being taught these activities, they should also be trained on the core skills that they will need to execute each activity correctly and these skills are continually monitored and reinforced until the individual achieves skill mastery. For example, in the current sales process being used in dealerships today the first activity is the meet & greet, but the necessary skills that will need to be reinforced in just that first step is the art of ask questions, listen effectively, dressing for success and so on. What most fail to realize is that if the professional lack these skills, it diminishes their opportunity and ability to see the sales process all the way to the close because the client has already prejudge the individual’s ability to serve them. So in essence, it’s time to upgrade the operating systems of many of our professionals in our businesses by installing some mission critical updates that include the core competencies required to be effective at achieving sustainable results.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Correct Diagnosis & Solution - Getting a Handle on What Your Business Needs to Succeed.
If you are sick and needed a doctor’s advice, would you settle for someone telling you that I think this is what is wrong or I think this will make you better, or would you keep looking until you find a physician that would correctly diagnose your symptoms and then say this is the problem (diagnosis) and here is the remedy (solution) to fix the problem. As business leaders dealing with sales, productivity and personnel performance issues, this type of specificity in the diagnosis and solution being offered is critical to your success. Unfortunately, many accept ambiguous ‘solutions’ because it happens to be the popular trend at the moment. We rely on social proof by seeing what our colleagues or even the competition is doing without determining if that solution will actually work in our unique situation or not.
What’s interesting however is that another way to describe social proof is the herd mentality, where the follower follows the other followers because the herd has begun to move and they are afraid to be left behind. The justification that is often used for this type of approach is that if everybody is doing it, then it must be right. The fact is that we are all at some point in our lives guilty of this type of behavior; however, in business when we lack clarity regarding how the results that we depend upon to run our businesses are achieved, we are vulnerable. We become susceptible to the charlatans who offer their solutions to our under-defined needs even though they suspect or even know that their offerings will not solve the problem.
An example of this is the overly promoted use of social media marketing and SEO programs and their questionable ability to deliver an actual paying client to the dealer or business owner’s front door. Because of my in depth understanding of technology and how it applies to business and the sales process, I have been a participant in many debates with technologists and social media strategists regarding the viability of these programs to deliver actual paying customers that would justify their hefty & continued expense and have yet found one who could build a compelling argument to justify it. The point is that when you lose sight of the goal, it is easy for what’s hot or sexy at the moment to be a distraction, which in this case is getting and keeping clients. I often get asked how I came up with the title, My $500,000 Master’s Degree for my recent book. I would share that it was from all of the numerous mistakes I made from hiring people that had their own agenda, buying products promoted to be the solution to fix my then problems, and engaging in activities that, although sounded right at the time, was totally wrong for me and my business. I would tell them it was because I, the leader, did not have enough clarity about what the end result needed to look like before I engaged, so a price that even now I shudder to think of was paid.
Which brings me to the first point of this article; many companies that are struggling with slumping sales caused by ever changing market conditions and customer satisfaction issues are failing to make the connection these opportunities have with mediocre customer service strategies, processes, personnel and selling professionals. They are unknowingly taking a page out of the same playbook that I once did and are on track to acquiring their own personal master’s degree by not seeking to diagnose the problem correctly first, before pursuing the solutions that are being promoted to them.
The fact is that when you don’t know what it is you are looking for, it is easy for the so called ‘experts’ to tell you with conviction that their solution is what you need and with enough social proof as justification, you will believe them. An important point to stress here is that we are living in a time of transition where what used to work no longer applies and there are those who have a vested interest in keeping business owners in ignorance via the use of smoke and mirrors as a means of justifying their position. The fact is that the real reason that many businesses have been struggling has little to do with technology, the economy or other external factors, but because they are simply suffering from an overabundance of individuals who are ill-equipped to do their jobs, which is to get and keep customers. They struggle because the process required to produce the desired outcome for the activity has not been properly mapped to ascertain the required skills the individual will need to know to correctly complete each task. Additionally, even when the training needed to effect change is available, the timeline for it to be administered is usually in conflict with the day to day operations of the business. So like a victim suffering from a poisonous snake bite that does not receive the required antidote (solution) in time, the training will have little, if any effect because it was not given at the right time to cause performance improvement to occur.
Which brings me to my second point, it’s not the bite that will kill you; it is the lack of an antidote (solution) and the way (delivery method) it is administered. If you are serious about improving your business and those that work in your business, administering the correct solutions that will cause you and your people to take flight cannot wait for the next program to come to town nor can you depend upon an off- the-shelf solution to fix the problem that is specific or unique to the business or the individual. Furthermore, you also cannot wait for managers to learn everything they will need to know so they can coach each and every person in every area they need to improve upon to succeed. There has to be an introduction of a training solution that will deliver the specific content that address the specific issues the individual is struggling with to cause performance improvement to occur. This approach would promote personnel development by making it a process that is mapped throughout the day-to-day activities of the professional so that it becomes indistinguishable. Then, and only then, can managers and selling professional engage in proactive business development and customer relationship management strategies because the activities that they will engage in can be quantified, measured and the individual’s activities coached to promote constant and never ending improvement.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
What’s interesting however is that another way to describe social proof is the herd mentality, where the follower follows the other followers because the herd has begun to move and they are afraid to be left behind. The justification that is often used for this type of approach is that if everybody is doing it, then it must be right. The fact is that we are all at some point in our lives guilty of this type of behavior; however, in business when we lack clarity regarding how the results that we depend upon to run our businesses are achieved, we are vulnerable. We become susceptible to the charlatans who offer their solutions to our under-defined needs even though they suspect or even know that their offerings will not solve the problem.
An example of this is the overly promoted use of social media marketing and SEO programs and their questionable ability to deliver an actual paying client to the dealer or business owner’s front door. Because of my in depth understanding of technology and how it applies to business and the sales process, I have been a participant in many debates with technologists and social media strategists regarding the viability of these programs to deliver actual paying customers that would justify their hefty & continued expense and have yet found one who could build a compelling argument to justify it. The point is that when you lose sight of the goal, it is easy for what’s hot or sexy at the moment to be a distraction, which in this case is getting and keeping clients. I often get asked how I came up with the title, My $500,000 Master’s Degree for my recent book. I would share that it was from all of the numerous mistakes I made from hiring people that had their own agenda, buying products promoted to be the solution to fix my then problems, and engaging in activities that, although sounded right at the time, was totally wrong for me and my business. I would tell them it was because I, the leader, did not have enough clarity about what the end result needed to look like before I engaged, so a price that even now I shudder to think of was paid.
Which brings me to the first point of this article; many companies that are struggling with slumping sales caused by ever changing market conditions and customer satisfaction issues are failing to make the connection these opportunities have with mediocre customer service strategies, processes, personnel and selling professionals. They are unknowingly taking a page out of the same playbook that I once did and are on track to acquiring their own personal master’s degree by not seeking to diagnose the problem correctly first, before pursuing the solutions that are being promoted to them.
The fact is that when you don’t know what it is you are looking for, it is easy for the so called ‘experts’ to tell you with conviction that their solution is what you need and with enough social proof as justification, you will believe them. An important point to stress here is that we are living in a time of transition where what used to work no longer applies and there are those who have a vested interest in keeping business owners in ignorance via the use of smoke and mirrors as a means of justifying their position. The fact is that the real reason that many businesses have been struggling has little to do with technology, the economy or other external factors, but because they are simply suffering from an overabundance of individuals who are ill-equipped to do their jobs, which is to get and keep customers. They struggle because the process required to produce the desired outcome for the activity has not been properly mapped to ascertain the required skills the individual will need to know to correctly complete each task. Additionally, even when the training needed to effect change is available, the timeline for it to be administered is usually in conflict with the day to day operations of the business. So like a victim suffering from a poisonous snake bite that does not receive the required antidote (solution) in time, the training will have little, if any effect because it was not given at the right time to cause performance improvement to occur.
Which brings me to my second point, it’s not the bite that will kill you; it is the lack of an antidote (solution) and the way (delivery method) it is administered. If you are serious about improving your business and those that work in your business, administering the correct solutions that will cause you and your people to take flight cannot wait for the next program to come to town nor can you depend upon an off- the-shelf solution to fix the problem that is specific or unique to the business or the individual. Furthermore, you also cannot wait for managers to learn everything they will need to know so they can coach each and every person in every area they need to improve upon to succeed. There has to be an introduction of a training solution that will deliver the specific content that address the specific issues the individual is struggling with to cause performance improvement to occur. This approach would promote personnel development by making it a process that is mapped throughout the day-to-day activities of the professional so that it becomes indistinguishable. Then, and only then, can managers and selling professional engage in proactive business development and customer relationship management strategies because the activities that they will engage in can be quantified, measured and the individual’s activities coached to promote constant and never ending improvement.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
The Importance of Implementing Quantifiable Strategies to Produce Sustainable Results – Everything Else is Just Feedback
I have a saying that goes something like this, ‘What you cannot define you cannot measure; what you cannot measure you cannot reproduce; what you cannot reproduce, you cannot control or manage.’ I came up with this quote while designing the K-Method Systems & Processes to explain why most salespeople and the businesses that they work for are continually at odds when it comes to expectations and the results being produced. What I have come to realize as the ‘norm’ for most people is that they will openly admit or profess that they want more from life, and by that I mean that they want success as defined by the culture, but wrestle with paying the price of admission. They will day dream; play the lottery and do just about anything that promises instant gratification instead of committing to the change in themselves that will all but assure them of the success that they seek. You see, committing to oneself takes courage and honesty about our short comings & fears so that a formula or strategy can be developed to take you from where ever you are now to where ever it is you want to go.
Achieving success has and will always take a defined strategy for its attainment, but the type of strategy or formula that the individual will need to execute will be based on their own definition of success. This is important to note as many of us are living in times where our personal economy is in turmoil, meaning that we are not happy with the results that show up in our paychecks or the envelope from a utility company with the pink notices. `We continually re-enforce our beliefs via self-talk that the reason we are not living the life of our dreams is that ‘they or it’, which is always out there is responsible for and are keeping us from living the life we want. The good news is that the future has not yet been written, which means that the information you are about to receive is timely. Your future, which begins right now with your next breath will be limited by one of two things, the strategy you use to propel yourself forward or the fear that you have decided to own, that’s it. The reason I call it good news, is that you have the power to affect both of these things when you are armed with the correct information, so let me share some of what I know with you.
A strategy allows us to lay out the game plan that we will use to achieve any goal that we set for ourselves. It forces us to think it through from start to finish and connect the dots to make sure that we are in fact on the right track. If the dots do not connect, the strategy is flawed and better questions need to be asked to resolve the conflicts. Since we are selling professionals, let’s look at the strategy we currently use to achieve the results we are getting. Most salespeople that work in the dealership environment are severely handicapped by their limited knowledge about what it is that they actually do as selling professionals. In most cases, outside of the initial training that they received when they began their careers, many of them have never picked up a book, taken a class outside of product knowledge or invested in tools to help them grow. They do today what they did yesterday and continually compare their successes and failures with those who are just like them; instead of a standard based on what is actually possible for those who are truly excellent at their craft.
What many fail to realize is that the frustration that they feel is not about the results they are getting, but their perceived powerlessness to change the outcome. If you look at a roadmap for what it really is, you will see that it is just a series of strategies for getting to a myriad of destinations. However, you the reader of the map still have to choose the starting point and destination in order to determine your specific strategy for arriving at your destination. Here is the point, if you do not have a plan that includes actual steps that you can take and activities whose results can be measured to determine areas you need to improve in, then all you have to do is look behind you to see where you have been to see where you are going.
As I stated earlier, the future has not been written as of yet, but it is coming! If you fail to lay out the strategy for your business or career by not engaging in intentional activities that can be quantified, then by default the next ‘X’ amount of years will look like the last ‘Y’ amount years. In this competitive market place we now live in, change is not an option it is mandatory for survival and so is an intelligent approach to how we do whatever it is that we do. Being knowledgeable about how the dots are connected when it comes to the systems and processes we engage in daily is no longer optional, but a requirement for producing sustainable results. The future is coming. The question is will you be ready to meet the life you have been dreaming about? Or will you be dragged kicking and screaming by circumstances to a future that looks a lot like the past from which you came.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Achieving success has and will always take a defined strategy for its attainment, but the type of strategy or formula that the individual will need to execute will be based on their own definition of success. This is important to note as many of us are living in times where our personal economy is in turmoil, meaning that we are not happy with the results that show up in our paychecks or the envelope from a utility company with the pink notices. `We continually re-enforce our beliefs via self-talk that the reason we are not living the life of our dreams is that ‘they or it’, which is always out there is responsible for and are keeping us from living the life we want. The good news is that the future has not yet been written, which means that the information you are about to receive is timely. Your future, which begins right now with your next breath will be limited by one of two things, the strategy you use to propel yourself forward or the fear that you have decided to own, that’s it. The reason I call it good news, is that you have the power to affect both of these things when you are armed with the correct information, so let me share some of what I know with you.
A strategy allows us to lay out the game plan that we will use to achieve any goal that we set for ourselves. It forces us to think it through from start to finish and connect the dots to make sure that we are in fact on the right track. If the dots do not connect, the strategy is flawed and better questions need to be asked to resolve the conflicts. Since we are selling professionals, let’s look at the strategy we currently use to achieve the results we are getting. Most salespeople that work in the dealership environment are severely handicapped by their limited knowledge about what it is that they actually do as selling professionals. In most cases, outside of the initial training that they received when they began their careers, many of them have never picked up a book, taken a class outside of product knowledge or invested in tools to help them grow. They do today what they did yesterday and continually compare their successes and failures with those who are just like them; instead of a standard based on what is actually possible for those who are truly excellent at their craft.
What many fail to realize is that the frustration that they feel is not about the results they are getting, but their perceived powerlessness to change the outcome. If you look at a roadmap for what it really is, you will see that it is just a series of strategies for getting to a myriad of destinations. However, you the reader of the map still have to choose the starting point and destination in order to determine your specific strategy for arriving at your destination. Here is the point, if you do not have a plan that includes actual steps that you can take and activities whose results can be measured to determine areas you need to improve in, then all you have to do is look behind you to see where you have been to see where you are going.
As I stated earlier, the future has not been written as of yet, but it is coming! If you fail to lay out the strategy for your business or career by not engaging in intentional activities that can be quantified, then by default the next ‘X’ amount of years will look like the last ‘Y’ amount years. In this competitive market place we now live in, change is not an option it is mandatory for survival and so is an intelligent approach to how we do whatever it is that we do. Being knowledgeable about how the dots are connected when it comes to the systems and processes we engage in daily is no longer optional, but a requirement for producing sustainable results. The future is coming. The question is will you be ready to meet the life you have been dreaming about? Or will you be dragged kicking and screaming by circumstances to a future that looks a lot like the past from which you came.
Let's connect on:
My website: www.thekurtissmith.com or www.kmethod.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtismith
K-Method blog: http://kmethod.com/blog/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TheKmethodGroup
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thekmethodgroup
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)