Roxi Hewertson, CEO of the Highland Consulting Group, Authors Bi-weekly Column for StrategyDriven

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Roxi Hewertson has joined StrategyDriven as a Principal Contributor and author of a bi-weekly column providing practical advice, tools, and practices for addressing everyday leadership issues and management challenges. Her common-sense advice and practical insights will help emerging and expert executives and managers quantifiably improve job performance and mission critical business results.
 
 
StrategyDriven Expert ContributorNationally renowned executive coach, speaker, and author, Roxi Hewertson, offers StrategyDriven readers insights about how their decisions and actions impact their people and organization. The “Dear Abby of Leadership,” Roxi imparts invaluable advice to executives and managers at all levels; helping them solve problems, become more effective, and realize a higher measure of business and career success.

“We are thrilled to welcome Roxi to the StrategyDriven team,” says Karen Juliano, StrategyDriven’s Editor-in-Chief. “Her extensive experience brings invaluable insights to our readers on organizational development, organizational effectiveness, and talent management.”

“A leader’s behavior creates an impact akin to a pebble landing on a lake,” asserts Roxi. “Everything within the lake reacts to the impact. The ripples grow and spread until they reach the boundaries of their influence. So it goes with leaders, regardless of intent.”

Through her bi-weekly column, Roxi will help StrategyDriven readers become more intentional about their behaviors and actions and truly understand their impact on their people and organizations. Her articles will help readers boost performance in the mission critical facets of their business; including strategic visioning, employee engagement and productivity, customer service, and results achievement.

About StrategyDriven

StrategyDriven provides executives and managers with the planning and execution advice, tools, and practices needed to create greater organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We believe a clear, forward-looking strategy, translatable to the day-to-day activities of all organization members, is critical to realizing success in today’s fast paced market environment. Not only does a compelling, well-executed strategy align individuals to common goals, it ensures those goals best serve the company’s mission.

At StrategyDriven, our seasoned business leaders deliver real-world strategic business planning and tactical execution best practice advice – a blending of workplace experience with sound research and academic principles – to business leaders who may not otherwise have access to these resources.
StrategyDriven refers to the family of organizations comprising StrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC. For more information, please visit www.StrategyDriven.com.

Salespeople have questions. Jeffrey has answers.

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I get a ton of emails from people seeking insight or asking me to solve their sales dilemmas. Here are a few that may relate to your job, your life, and (most important) your sales thought process right now.

Dear Jeffrey, What is your opinion of tracking daily sales dollars versus activities that will result in revenue? Does it really matter if Monday’s sales dollars are lower as long as the month pans out in regard to your goals? My thought is “Who cares which day the dollars get posted as long as they do get posted.” Ocha

Ocha, So I’m assuming your boss is making you do this and he or she is paranoid you won’t make your number by the end of the month. Both of which, tracking the daily sales dollars and the daily sales activities, are stupid. What you need to do is track the sales cycle and know where you are with respect to that sales cycle and what your expected revenues are. Because if your expected revenues are underneath your daily dollars, but your daily dollars are over your goal, you think you’re doing well, when in fact, you could be achieving 20, 30 40, 50% MORE sales by making certain you’re looking at your target dollars not just your actual dollars. Received dollars are real easy to record, but if you’re a salesperson and your boss needs to know what activity you’re doing every day – whether you’ve made five follow-ups and whether you did three cold calls – you’re doing it all backwards and you’ve got the wrong boss. What you need to do is look at the sales cycle and parenthetically look at the dollars, but they have to be compared to what you projected those dollars to be. Best regards, Jeffrey

Dear Jeffrey, I have a regional billboard company with two years of experience. For the smaller, greener, and less connected salespeople of the world, how do you keep a strategy in mind at all times to help land clients such as AT&T, Best Buy, or Taco Bell? Stuart

Stuart, You’re not going to land those people without years worth of trying, banging your head against the wall, seeing their ad agency, and doing all kinds of other stuff. UNLESS somebody in your family, somebody in your circle of friends, or somebody in your circle of influence knows someone up high at those big companies. If they do, and you can be introduced, you can get in the door. And if you can get in the door with some kind of impact, you’re going to win. But here’s the secret: don’t just be selling them a billboard. Give them a design that helps them get a response. And maybe you could even arrange with your company to give it away for 30 days to measure that response and go from there. The biggest mistake anybody in advertising makes is walking into a sales call with some kind of a media kit that shows how big a quarter page ad is, or how big a billboard is, or how many 30-second commercials there are. Go in with something already finished so people can look at it, like it, invite other people in to see it, and ultimately buy it. Best regards, Jeffrey

Jeffrey, You are pretty critical of CRM systems. They are here to stay, so how do you suggest we make them less threatening and more useful to the sales rep? How do you suggest someone shows the value of CRM to the sales users? Mike

Mike, Make the CRM applicable to the sales cycle, not just what they did on Tuesday. Don’t count the number of cold calls. Rather, study the sale from the beginning to the end and coach on that. That will actually help the person who is forced to use it.

Keep in mind salespeople just want to make a sale. They don’t want to be accountable. They got into sales so they wouldn’t have to be accountable. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not responsible. And it’s the managers or the leaders responsibility to help them be responsible for themselves. Best regards, Jeffrey

Jeffrey, I sell broadcast television advertising in a small market. I have mountains of information that shows TV as a great way to advertise, but how do I work that into my sales presentation without being overly analytical and pedantic? I need to give my prospective clients reasons to buy, but I don’t want to overwhelm them with data. Dennis

Dennis, Good. Nobody wants data. Everyone hates data and, in fact, no one believes data. 74% of all people don’t believe data. Where did I get that number? I made it up. But it sounds good. It’s data. What you need are video testimonials from customers who have already advertised on your station, got great results, and are willing to recommend that another prospective customer use your TV station. That’s all you need. If that’s not working for you, or you can’t get them because you don’t have any relationships, then do a 30-second spot where you are the voice. And do a spot about whomever you’re trying to get – the car agency, the car wash company, the cemetery lot salesperson. Whatever it is that you’re trying to get people to buy, do that. You make the commercial. It’s 30 seconds. It’s only 90 words. Figure it out. You’re a smart guy. Your method of being pedantic is too pedantic. Making a commercial in advance and getting a testimonial – those are the only two ways to sell. Best regards, Jeffrey

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The Top 5 Ways Enterprise Social Collaboration Can Boost Organizational Productivity

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The social media revolution has changed the way people interact in their personal lives, and now it is inevitably changing the way they collaborate and connect in the workplace. Enterprise social collaboration is a way for organizations to leverage social tools to improve employee engagement, bolster productivity and tap into a company’s collective intelligence. To simply say enterprise social collaboration is Facebook or Twitter at work is a misconception and gives the impression that these tools are time-wasters that drain productivity. If integrated and organized correctly, social collaboration technology can become a game-changer that empowers both employer and employee. Enterprise social collaboration injects the intimacy and fun of social media into work-related communications and leads employees to accomplish tasks in newer and faster ways. Here are the top five benefits to enterprise social collaboration:

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About the Author

Ajay KaulAjay Kaul, managing partner at AgreeYa Solutions, brings over 25 years of experience in sales, staffing, and IT project management for clients throughout the world. As managing partner, Ajay has led AgreeYa through 15 years of success, leading the company in highly competitive and complex markets and driving significant profitable growth. Prior to founding AgreeYa, Ajay was responsible for managing engagements for Deloitte Consulting, serving private and public sector clients.