A few things happened recently that, together, gave me cause to think about trust, the role it plays in our lives, and (for this post) in business.  Studies just published show that our trust levels are at an all-time low.  Main Street doesn’t trust Wall Street.  Joe Citizen is skeptical (if not paranoid) about what the government is doing, and Jane Employee doesn’t trust her company’s leadership.

Trust is one of the fundamental tenets on which today’s society exists. If, when lost in a city you don’t know, you ask someone for directions to the business meeting you’re attending, you generally follow the directions you’re given.  When driving down the street you trust that the cars coming against you will stay on their own side of the road. When you pay for parking with your credit card you assume that the fee you’re  charged will be the fee posted on the price schedule beside the pay machine. You expect that the contributions your employer committed to make to your pension or 401k are being made, and when you ask your friend for advice, you believe that the advice they give is – in their opinion at least – in your best interest.

Trust is at the heart of our everyday interactions, and central to the machine that fuels business.  In business relationships, such as the relationship between an employer and his or her employer, trust breeds productivity.  For employers, the more they trust their employees, the more the employee feels empowered and more inclined to naturally act in the interest of the business. Too much oversight or granular micromanagement can (sometimes unfairly) be seen as a lack of trust and is at worst serious demotivation.  On the other hand, not enough involvement can be perceived as being uncaring.  That’s a tough balance to strike.

According to Roderick Kramer of Stanford: “Gatekeeping measures may actually have contributed to declines in public trust in business.  These studies have found that ‘innocent employees’ who are subjected to additional compulsory oversight measures often become less committed to internal standards of honesty and integrity in the workplace.”

The thing about trust is; you can’t fake it.  You really need to care. And this is where actions speak louder that words. In fact, action is really the only language of trust. According to Charles Green, the author of The Trusted Advisor, trust can be measured, and combines Credibility, Reliability and Intimacy – all over the denominator of Self Orientation.

Self Orientation relates to how self or others focused you are. Green suggests that people will judge this based on whether:

• You achieve your goals through helping others achieve theirs.
• You interact with others through fear or blaming.
• You interact with others from a perspective of curiosity.
• In dealing with others, you are anchored to a particular outcome.
• You are seen as focusing on the longer term relationship rather than the immediate transaction.

In these difficult times (which unfortunately will be with us for quite a while yet), progression in business demands uncommon levels of trust. My recent observations would suggest that buyers are more nervous than ever before.  The emotions they experience throughout the sales cycle that I outlined in my post‘Understanding the buyer’s emotions’ are today disproportionately weighted to mitigate risk. Reward for trying something new is rare, and career progression is seen as being linked more to not screwing up than innovating.  For the wheels of commerce to keep turning, this has to change, and in the first instance each one of us has a role to play.

Many consultants and business advisors (The TAS Group included) extol the virtues of becoming a ‘trusted advisor’ to your customer.   The value of the Trusted Advisor has itself become questioned.  What happens if your trusted advisor is called Bernie Madoff?  You end up asking yourself “How did that happen?”  “What other trusted relationships do I have that I should question?” A recent article by Danielle Crittenden in the Huffington Post about the Sanford affair (Mark Sanford Governor S.C.) started with . . . “I always feel sorry for husbands on the morning after these political sex scandals break. How many thousands of dark looks are being exchanged across breakfast tables?” That’s the issue with trust.  It’s a complex interwoven fabric that’s not entirely self-controlled – but that doesn’t give us a license to abrogate our responsibility.

I’ve always taken a (perhaps naive) approach to trusting someone, both in my personal and business interactions. I believe that people are inherently honest, and until you betray my trust once, I will assume the best about you.  Through more than 30 years of business this has served me well. On occasion, it has cost me – but overall I would say it has enabled me to build relationships more quickly, and in business it has accelerated the pace at which I’ve developed partnerships that really work.

That’s why I was – at first – a little concerned as I began to read Roderick Kramer’s article in the June 2009 edition of Harvard Business Review. His opening take is that “Despite [the] deceit, greed and incompetence on a previously unimaginable scale, people are still trusting too much.” As I continued to read the article my disquiet abated; his proposition is less about trusting less, but more about not trusting blindly.  Healthy skepticism is just that – healthy, but too much skepticism can be a retardant to progress.

When I wrote that Early Failure is Better than Late Failure, I was addressing early qualification of opportunities in a sales cycle.  The principles therein though – and expounded in the title itself, could just as easily have referred to the development of trusting relationships.  By adopting an open and trusting approach to a new relationship or business partnership, it lays before you an avenue of trust that allows you to say …“Ok, let’s first be clear as to what we are both trying to achieve from this relationship.  Let’s figure out why this might fail, and together in an open and honest way, let’s make sure that if the partnership is going to fail, then it fails early.” Kramer suggests that our readiness to trust makes it likely that we will make mistakes, but I’d suggest that his proposition is only true when we don’t take a measured approach to trust. In fact Kramer sets out some guidelines for safer (my qualifier) trust. (The content in parentheses is mine.)

1. Know yourself (understand how you interpret cues you receive)
2. Start small (build in checkpoints early to trust where there’s manageable risk)
3. Write an escape clause (be clear about how, when, and under what circumstances, you should disengage)
4. Send strong signals (confront instances of trust abuse, quickly and clearly)
5. Recognize the other person’s dilemma (consider the other person’s perspective)
6. Look at roles as well as people (the role an individual plays – e.g. procurement officer – will inform their objectives and approach)
7. Remain vigilant and always question (trust assessment is not a one time event)

At a corporate level, organizations that fail to be transparent will suffer in two ways.  Firstly, through the increased regulation that is now deemed necessary on foot of the incredible breach of trust we’ve witnessed, organizations will have transparency forced upon them, but then it’s too late – the incredible benefits of a trusting culture will have been missed.  Secondly, customers and employees alike will focus more on self-preservation in their interactions with the organizations, and that will impact the bottom line in no uncertain terms.

In that same issue of Harvard Business Review, an accompanying article is called What’s Needed Next: A Culture of Candor. For me that’s the place to focus, and it gives guidelines to each of us (though its positioned to the leadership of companies – which for me let’s everyone else off the hook).  There should be no surprises here – but these are good practices to embrace or revisit. (Once again, the content in parentheses is mine.)

1. Tell the truth (Well, yes!)
2. Encourage people to speak the truth to power (Ignore hierarchy when it comes to truth and trust)
3. Reward contrarians (Allow all assumptions to be challenged)
4. Practice having unpleasant conversations (Sometimes being honest is unpleasant – but it’s always necessary)
5. Admit your mistakes (Then everyone else can)
6. Build organization support for transparency (Through actions, not just words)
7. Set information free. (Trust your employees to do the right thing)

My experience would suggest that trust is a potent weapon in sales, as in all of business. But someone has to show leadership and someone has to take the first step – which involves exposing themselves to some risk. But it’s worth it. Clarity results and relationships develop. Quickly you can discover whether the particular relationship (sale, contract, partnership) is worth pursuing and whether there is true alignment between the parties. When the parameters of mutual benefit is understood, and the parameters, borders, or guardrails are clearly established, the fog lifts, objectives are shared, and business velocity ensues.

If you fail to establish trust you will fail. Put yourself on the line. Remember, action is the only language of trust. Deliver more than you expect to receive.  You might be surprised at the return.

Orignally posted HERE

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Editor’s note:  Salesforce Work.com is proud to welcome Donal Daly as a guest author on the Work.com blog.  Donal is CEO of The TAS Group, a recognized author, and an expert on Sales Performance.

The Agile Sales Imperative

When change happens, it’s often hard to predict what’s next.  When it’s extreme change, as we experienced in the  economy over the last year, you need to be prepared to ‘turn on a dime’ to respond to the adjustments in your environment as tasks once well understood metamorphose into unforeseen and unfamiliar challenges.  The business context in which we now operate is extremely volatile, and while growth is returning in many quarters, the lack of predictability or reduced visibility of future sources of revenue continues to confound. There are four immutable facts:

1. Volatility is here to stay
2. (Mini)organizations must ‘turn on a dime’
3. Demands Now Information now
4. Accessible real-time metrics required

So, it seems we’d be well advised to consider how to be better equipped to deal with these continuously evolving scenarios.   Here’s where we can learn something from a new breed of software developers. For many years, software was developed using what was called the Waterfall Method.  Using this method the software project went through a very rigorous process that went something like:

• Requirements
• Analysis
• Specification
• Design
• Coding
• Testing
• Deployment

Each step was fully completed before progressing to the next step.  In theory this made sense, but in practice it placed unreasonable and almost clairvoyant demands on those responsible for the early stages of the cycle – requiring that all eventualities to be foreseen at the very outset.  Any mistakes made in the early stages would stay with the process right through to the end and would only be evident when the project was over – and then of course it was too late.  The consequence is one we’ve all experienced; software projects that were delayed or deployments that didn’t work, or didn’t work the way we wanted.

For the last few years, Agile Programming has gained prominence.  With this method, a high-level plan or overall picture is crafted at the early stages, but in multiple ‘sprints’, elements of functionality are delivered and tested, and introduced early into the feedback loop. This resulted in a much more iterative process, built-in course correction, and major screw-ups could be avoided. You can see the difference in the graphic below.

The business and sales worlds have a similar challenge to deal with.  Long term planning is somewhat redundant in a world of extreme change.  Chasing that one big deal or major business initiative without many interim deliverables can only lead to uncertainly and probable disappointment.  Your main business sponsor gets replaced half way through the project – what do you do?  The business strategy that’s not crafted with flexibility in mind is doomed to fail.  The sales plan that doesn’t have alternatives is very risky. Building your account plan at the start of the year and not treating it as a breathing, living, evolving map can only lead you to one destination: failure.

Image courtesy of The TAS Group

The core idea here of course it that the pulse of your business needs to change. Short-terms wins are really very important to strive for, and to achieve – while at the same time keeping an eye on the overall strategic plan to ensure your long-term direction is on track. As you begin your journey through 2010, you might consider it worthwhile to consider how applicable these thoughts are to your environment, and if you think there’s merit, ponder these four consequences of this more Agile world:

1. Volatility is here to stay
2. (Mini)organizations must ‘turn on a dime’
3. Demands Now Information now
4. Accessible real-time metrics required

Then figure out your (flexible) plan to address. Better be Agile than Fragile.

Originally posted HERE

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Sales Coaching Master Class with Tony Robbins – On-Demand Webinar, watch HERE.

Boosting CRM Adoption: Emphasize Revenue Generation

Let’s be very clear about one thing: sales organizations exist to generate revenue! Sales organizations offer products and services, yes, but not for the pure pleasure of producing a wonderful widget. Sales is about revenue, and no matter how great your product is or how proud of it you are, if you aren’t driving revenue you are going out of business and you are going to be stuck with a warehouse of widgets. For this reason, every single thing – every operation, every process, every policy, every program, every principle — a sales organization implements needs to be measured against this one master metric: Is this helping us drive revenue, and if so, how much and how fast? Don’t waste your time or anyone else’s time on things that can’t somehow be quickly traced back to driving revenue for the sales rep and the entire organization.

Which brings us back to the topic of CRMs. To the degree that CRMs are perceived as simply being accounting and measurement tools, it is easy for sales reps to feel like CRMs are not really going to help them drive revenue. When sales reps don’t perceive that the CRM will help them drive revenue they will resist adoption, and this means the CRM will also not create meaningful value for the sales organization. The truth is, a CRM is not simply a measurement tool or a data storage tool; above all it should be deployed as a powerful sales process management tool that has the potential to make the job of every member of a sales organization’s easier, faster and more profitable. Time is money; information is money; flexibility is money; efficiency is money. Any sales organization that is interested in closing and even exceeding quota must learn to view the CRM for what it truly is: the next best thing to a printing press when it comes to making more money and making it faster.

The central mission of CCI is to help our customers CRM adoption through the roof by making it an indispensable part of driving revenue for their sales teams. We teach them how to customize it so that it provides information to sales reps that they can easily access and use to better manage their accounts. In addition, We make sure that the cadence of the sales process is built around the use of the CRM. And we make sure that sales reps know how they can leverage the features and functions of the CRM to do account planning, develop and track proposals, store and update critical contact information, schedule meetings, do account analysis, and a dozen other things that will target high value opportunities and shorten the sales cycle.

Once you help everyone in your organization connect the dots so they see that the CRM is a fantastic tool for driving more revenue, they will be standing in line to learn how to use it, and your CRM adoption worries will be over. You will also notice a boost in your bottom line, and wasn’t that the reason for deploying the CRM in the first place?

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Changing the Future – The Power of Leading Indicators

One of the questions we are often asked is how can a manager improve the performance of their sales team.  Well, the truth is that like most other things in business, selling is a numbers game.  Most sales organizations keep track of their numbers in some way.  But not all numbers are created equal.  Some tell you the score, and others can help you impact the score you will get. That is the difference between Lagging and Leading Indicator. They are both important but have completely different purposes.

Lagging Indicators tell you how you are doing. These include things like

• total sales
• total margin
• total customers

They are the outputs and results that are measured “after the fact.” In most companies, this category gets a lot of attention because they tend to be in reports to executives and shareholders. They basically tell you the score of a game without telling you how you got there.

Other numbers, however, show you the likelihood of achieving your goals.  These are called Leading Indicators.  These numbers help managers coach and develop their teams. These are the numbers that can actually help you change the future. They provide visibility into the current activities that will impact future results.  They allow you to identify and close gaps as the game unfolds. They provide insight into how each member of the team – as well as the whole team – is actually playing, and gives managers a coaching blueprint to follow.  Leading Indicators are the activities and actions that directly link to ultimate success and include things like:

• Opportunity age
• Opportunity stage
• Number of customer visits
• Number of proposals submitted
• Number of demos completed
• Number presentations delivered
• Number and Value of opportunities
• And so on…

When you focus on Leading Indicators you receive two main benefits:

1. They set expectations and improve communication by highlighting the activities that produce results, and provide a blueprint for coaching conversations. Once the team understands the activities they are supposed to concentrate on, they will devote more time and energy to them. This takes the guess work out of evaluation and coaching. Without them, it is difficult to have any objective basis for evaluating performance.
2. They keep the execution of high impact activities consistent. What gets measured gets done. When teams understand what you are going to review every week, they are much more likely to execute consistently on what matters most.

Each company needs to determine its own most important Leading Indicators, but there are three fundamental principles you should follow:

1. Focus on Leading Indicators in two separate categories

• The Prospecting Cycle
  • This is what happens before a qualified opportunity is identified
  • The Sales Cycle
    • This is what happens from the time an opportunity is qualified until it is won or lost

1. Don’t focus on too many.  Teams that are given too many goals tend to achieve only a few of them.  Focus on the vital few that matter most to your business and hyperfocus on them.
2. Make them visible and review them in team, one-on-one, and executive settings

The bottom line is that identifying, measuring and coaching from Leading Indicators leads directly to improved execution. Leading Indicators help you guide your team and make better decisions. They eliminate guess work and provide insight so that you can make decisions and take action to change the future. Leading a sales team without these types of indicators is like driving a car at night without any lights. You may or may not get there, and who knows what you will hit along the way.

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Just a reminder that our Sales Coaching Master Class webinar with Tony Robbins and Walter Rogers of Cloud Coaching International is tomorrow May 14 at 11am PDT.  This will be a great webinar with a ton of valuable information on how to coach your sales reps for better performance.

Sign-Up for Sales Coaching Master Class Webinar is HERE

• Understand set up a discipline routine of sales coaching.
• Learn coaching strategies that will improve pipeline and forecast accuracy.
• Hear how sales managers should structure each coaching session.

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CEO of Hubspot, Brian Halligan, explains how HR is being transformed by the Millennial generation.  He draws a great comparison between the baby boomer, GenX, and Millenial generations—but the big point is that Millenials know how to get stuff done.  While many leaders often complain about Millennials demanding feedback and constantly needing new challenges, they are are also digital natives.  They’ve grown up with broadband and mobile, and they understand how how to truly take advantage of today’s technologies to communicate and collaborate with efficiency.

Their generation isn’t beholden to a dominant communication technology (telephones, TV, etc), but rather they are hyper aware of the fact that technology changes quickly.  It’s wrong to identify Millennials with a specific technology–instead it’s more accurate to say they know how to assimilate any technology–and put it to work for them.

Companies should embrace this.  Companies can cater to the millennials need for new challenges, and leverage technology to better collaborate together. And working with their Millennial workers companies can ultimately create a better place to work.

We at Work.com couldn’t agree more. In fact, this is the reason WHY we built work.com.  We have created a platform to promote better performance, better collaboration, better engagement, and happier workers across an organization.

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