Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Five Mistakes Made By Salespeople

Like most of us, sales people are no different in the fact that they make mistakes too. When mistakes are made in the selling environment, rarely do they get a second opportunity. These common mistakes made by sales people can be avoided and sales success can be achieved.

Here are some of the mistakes often made by ineffective sales people:

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Ten Steps To Goal Getting

1. Make the commitment to reach your goal. "One person with a commitment is worth a hundred who only have an interest." - Mary Crowley.

2. Commit yourself to detailed accountability. Record your progress toward your goals every night, and list the six most important things you need to do the next day. Daily discipline is the key to reaching your goals. Remember, it is right to eat the elephant in small bites.

3. Build your life on a sold foundation of honesty, character, integrity, trust, love, and loyalty. This foundation will give you an honest shot at reaching any goal you have set properly.

4. Break your intermediate and long-range goals into increments. Make small strides to great success.

5. Be prepared to change. You can't control the weather, inflation, interest rates, Wall Street, etc. Change your decision to move toward a goal carefully--but be willing to change your direction to get there as conditions and circumstances demand.

6. Share your "give-up" goals (i.e., give up smoking, being rude, procrastinating, being late, eating too much, etc.) with many people. Chances are excellent they're going to encourage you.

7. Become a team player. Remember: You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

8. Visualize the achievement or outcome. In your imagination see yourself receiving that diploma, getting that job or promotion, making that speech, moving into the home of your dreams, achieving that weight-loss goal, etc.

9. Each time you reach a goal your confidence will grow so that you can do bigger and better things. After accomplishing any goal, record it in your journal, Weekly Planner, Phone, Blackberry, or iPad.

10. Remember, what you get by reaching your destination isn't nearly as important as what you become by reaching your goals--what you will become is the winner you were born to be!
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Innovative Leadership helps companies grow, one employee at a time! They integrate business consultation, training and development, and coaching with Leadership and Strategic/Forward Thinking to enhance organizational effectiveness, employee engagement and people development. InnovativeLeadershipDV.com

Sunday, March 11, 2012

How to Make Choices as a Team

On a trip to a specific destination, a driver can look for certain landmarks to be sure of taking the correct road. A team also has “landmarks” to evaluate whether or not it is on the path to excellence. Several components determine the success of a winning team. These elements include decision making, creative problem solving, collaboration, and facilitative leadership.

Making choices
  • Standards for making decisions - Decisions are always made with reference to certain standards or values. The organizational counterpart to a leader’s strong self-image is a well-defined organizational plan of action that serves as a blueprint for decisions. Identification of priorities among the various organizational goals provides an index to their relative importance to the organization.

    Do all you can to help team members make wise decisions. The more competent they become in making decisions, the bigger contribution they make to the achievement of organizational goals.

  • Responsibility - Determining who will make a particular decision is another important consideration. Even the most effective leaders must repeatedly judge whether to make a decision themselves, refer it to someone else, or delegate it. As a general rule, decisions should be made at the lowest organizational level consistent with quality. Appropriate delegation of decision making to team members strengthens them, enhances the quality of decisions, prevents morale problems, and maximizes your time effectiveness.

  • Personal accountability - Although you delegate authority and assign responsibility for a decision, you are still personally accountable to the organization for the outcome.

    Good judgment in the type of decisions you delegate makes it unlikely that such action will be necessary very often. In the event that you are ever forced to reverse or modify a decision, be sure to explain fully to everyone involved. Do all you can to help team members make wise decisions. The more competent they become in making decisions, the bigger contribution they make to the achievement of organizational goals.

Next Month: How to Solve Problems as a Team. Sign up here to get Monthly Coaching Emails.

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Innovative Leadership helps companies grow, one employee at a time! They integrate business consultation, training and development, and coaching with Leadership and Strategic/Forward Thinking to enhance organizational effectiveness, employee engagement and people development. InnovativeLeadershipDV.com

The Value of Coaching

I just celebrated my tenth year of Coaching. When I was asked by an executive over ten years ago the following question, “Are you a Coach?” My first response was “in what sport”? I coached almost every sport known to man since I had three very active children so I immediately told him that baseball was my favorite and softball was a close second. He then said that Coaching was now one of the growing professions in business and I should look into it.

I researched the profession and found that there was formal training for Coaching. I ended up choosing an online program called Coach U because the focus of the program was on business application, rather than a life coach, which complimented my business consulting firm. I spent the next 18 months learning the competencies, skill-sets, and practices that would make me a great executive coach and officially became a Certified Business Coach. Later on in my career, I took certification programs in Performance and Small Business Owner Coaching since I was dealing with small business owners and top producers in industries that required immediate results.

I find that Coaching is much more well known today than it was ten years ago, but the term continues to be applied more frequently as a verb and not a noun. Coaching is not the same as mentoring, counseling, or managing. Business Coaching appears to have replaced the term business consulting but I still find the two totally separate. Business Consultation focuses on the effectiveness of the organization and Business Coaching focuses on the individual, whether it be an executive, manager or future leader.

Read: How to Make Choices as a Team

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Top Ten Must Do's to Increase Employee Engagement

1. Create Career Pathing – people development
2. Establish Performance Management Benchmarks
3. Create an enthusiastic energetic work environment
4. Demonstrate the value of the role to the overall success of the organization
5. Focus on people’s strengths and not their shortcomings
6. Communicate this point in time and forward think
7. Promote recognition and the use of public praise
8. Achievement is results-orientation
9. Manage and build relationships
10. Integrate the beliefs of your people with the vision of your organization

Innovative Leadership
helps companies grow, one employee at a time! They integrate business consultation, training and development, and coaching with Leadership and Strategic/Forward Thinking to enhance organizational effectiveness, employee engagement and people development. InnovativeLeadershipDV.com