Sales Managers: How to boost your creativity at work
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Great video don’t you think? and a reminder of what creativity can be all about.
Boosting creativity is an ability every one has. Yes even you. The fallacy over the years has been that only people in the arts and media are creative. Not so.
If you look at some of the best sales people ever it often boils down to their unique way of presenting their product. That results in the high volume sales they always seem to achieve.
Being the most creative sales manager in your division usually means you will have the best ideas to motivate and inspire your team to success. The result of which is always an improvement in
your sales line.
So let’s explore some great steps to improve your creativity
1. Nutrition
Think about what you eat and drink. Boring I know. The saying of having a clear head is actually true. The body is well over 80% water particularly the brain. That headache and mid afternoon lull is usually down to dehydration. Not wishing to sound like your mum here and, fruit and water will make a major difference to how you feel and process information.
2. Question Yourself
Ask yourself questions you want the answers to. This primes your subconscious mind to go out and find the answers.
Remember the last time you were wrestling with a problem and then suddenly the solution popped into your head. How often you wake up in the morning and the answer is there straight away.
Tell yourself the answer is on its ways. Not I am not creative!. Positive imprinting on the brain works.
3. Go for a Walk
When you feel yourself getting frustrated. Stop what you are doing and change your physical body position.
If it is possible go for a walk. It is logical when you think about it. Physical movement helps you take in oxygen and increases blood flow to the brain.
4. Listen to Music
On a similar vein listen to music. Researchers in Germany studied in depth the relationship between music concentration and the ability to learn. We know it works. Music has a profound effect on mood. Worry anxiety and fear all block ideas. Music is one of the quickest ways to change how you are feeling and actually allow ideas to come through.
5. Define the challenge
Get a piece of paper, computer whatever. Then write out the challenge in question in real detail. Remember to throw some questions in to get the old subconscious mind working on it.
6. Brainstorm
Great idea. Only if you do this without judgements just throw all the ideas down. Then group and analyse them later. Top tip do this when you are high energy and upbeat or it will be
like pulling teeth.
7. Read
As much as you can whenever you can. About all sorts of different things. It really helps to stimulate the brain. If you put great ingredients into the brain that are varied and different. It can create results you never dreamed of.
8. Meditation and relaxation:
Now I am not going woo woo on you here. Even Harvard business school recommends meditation for managers. We are such busy people juggling so many different things in our life. Both in and out of work. As a new sales manager on a steep learning cure probably more than most.
The brain need to have periods of relaxation so the best thoughts can bubble to the surface. Meditation gives it the space to actually do that
What are your thoughts?
Leave us a comment
Best Wishes
Denise
Popularity: 48% [?]
How To Be A Charismatic Sales Manager!
Are you a charismatic leader of your sales team? There are many examples I could have used . I thought Nelson Mandela was a great one. Having just watched a few weeks ago the
concert in Hyde park.
So on to charisma. A lot of recent evidence really does support the fact that charisma in leaders can have a siginificant impact on a companies performance.
Qualitites like Self confidence, the ability to articulate a vision, strong convictions and the ability to enact radical change.
It has been shown that a person can learn to become charismatic by following a three step process
1. Develop the aura of charisma by having an optimistic view. Using passion and whole body
communication not just words ( back to presentations skills again)
2. Have the ability to draw others in by creating a connection with people that inspires them to follow.
3. Bring out the potential in your sales team by tapping into their emotion.
You may be wondering what the evidence for this is. Well it seems to work according to studies carried out with a group of students who where asked to “play” at being someone with charisma. The classic . Act as if. ( more of this very useful technique in another post)
The where taught to communicate a goal ( talking major here ). To expect a high performance from people. To importantly exhibit major confidence in the abilities of the people they where “managing” along with having empathy.
During the study period they learned to project a confident and powerful presence. They also used an engaging voice tone. Along with some major work on certain confident gestures, eye contact etc.
Surprise surprise the researchers discovered that this group of “acting charismatic leaders” Where more successful than the group that didn’t.
While obviously some people like Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs and JFK may be naturals. It certainly shows that modelling behaviours can and actually does work.
Any thoughts
Best Wishes
Sharon
Popularity: 47% [?]
Sales Manager Training:10 Things Not To Do With Powerpoint!
Thought you might like this video I found on You Tube. It achieves an amusing way to deliver what can sometimes be an uncomfortable conversation ! Have a look at the video first it is only just over three minutes.
Over the last few weeks I have been running a series of Presentation skills seminars for a company in the UK. The main focus has been around how to impact the audience through, body language, and voice etc.
Top tip these are the most effect strategies. I am sure many of you will be aware that ony 7% of your presentation impact comes from the words you use.
Anyhow as an additional session I was asked to give some top tips on how to utilise powerpoint to best effect. I think the video above demonstrates it much better than words ever could.
The summary is below. An often missed part of sales manager training is presentation skills. The assumption being you learnt this ages ago so of course you know what you are doing.
Hope you enjoy it!
1. To much writing on a slide is wordy and boring.
2. Your audience will be able to read the slide as well as you do. So let them do it.
3. Spell check. We all make mistakes. Just re read through a couple of times and the most obvious
ones will jump out.
4. No more than 7 bullet points. The brain cannot remember more than this in one go
5. Think of the colur schemes you use. Though boring white backgrounds are best.
With black writing.
6. Two many slides spoil the broth! On average one slide every 4-5 mins of presentation work best.
7. To much data on a slide can be confusing for the audience. I know. I am a scientist and love data.
8. Powerpoint as the name suggests is powerful. You don’t have to use all the builds. Think about
your audience and what works best
9. Ditto animation and sound. It might have felt amusing to you when you where putting it together.
Yet in the cold light of day does it appeal to your audience?
10. Fonts do matter. The brain likes order and structure. If you start with one font stick to it.
Where possible use the same size as well.
All comments gladly received,
Best Wishes
Sharon
Popularity: 44% [?]
Sales Training and Development, the same or different?
As a facilitator and coach it’s gratifying to see the lights go on when Sales Managers realise the difference between training and development. So I thought I’d take a moment to discuss it.An easy way to think of this is Training is an ‘event’ and Development is a ‘process’.
Training is just like a story. Training has a beginning, middle and an end. Delegates are introduced to maybe new knowledge or skills associated with their products or services they are providing during a training event. It’s surprising how many companies think, “all we have to do is conduct some sales training and everyone will embrace the new: strategy, system, method, process, procedure, tactic, tool or product!”
Then everyone will go back to work the next day, use the new way and be an expert within a short period of time. Interestingly, some research I came across recently suggested that:
the training event contributed only 20% of the overall result of the training.
Can you believe that! An incredible 40% of the result was in the planning and preparation of delegates for the course. The final 40% relied upon the degree of follow up after the workshop. Follow up is not something that companies are especially good at doing either.
I have a question for you, “what impact do the above figures have on the return on investment of the training your company provides?”What results do you actually get then?
Well in reality, you will see a temporary positive change in behaviour in some of the learners. After a while things seem to slowly drift back to the way they were. Maybe it doesn’t drift all the way back, but the positive impact you expected fades rapidly and eventually falls short. It would n’t be unheard of for you to experience a mini revolt as some of the team resist applying what they learned:
Some of the reasons you hear from your sales people are:
1. I don’t have time to do it that way
2. I prefer my way
3. I can’t remember how to do it the new way
4. It wouldn’t work with my customers
5. I’ve had good results for a long time doing it the old way, why should I change now?
6. The training was good in theory, but this is the real world
And of course the list goes on and on Now here’s the thing. There is another often overlooked list of reasons. These are the reasons that sales managers use to avoid having their team taken away from their daily activities to attend training workshops.
Here are a few examples, you may have heard colleagues say, or even found
yourself having similar thoughts:
1. I’ve got other pressures so we can’t focus on this right now
2. I never agreed with this in the first place
3. I don’t understand why this is important to the company
4. The compensation, recognition, and rewards system still reinforces the old behaviours
5. I didn’t get this training and I did ok!
So how come a training event doesn’t create the sustainable behaviour change you’re looking for? The answer is simple and straight forward. Doing something new involves taking risks, maybe even failing. People don’t want to fail. Not everyone can appreciate that truly successful people believe the only way to learn, is to fail. So, what happens? People naturally resist change.
If that’s true then how do you realise the return on your investment? And how do you effect sustainable positive behaviour change? It’s really simple. You develop your people.
You develop your people through your daily relationship and interactions with them. As a result you can develop the person so they move from operating in a dependant way to more independent over time.
Sustainable behaviour change takes time. People learn and embrace change at different rates.
As a Sales Manager, it’s about viewing the development of your team as a marathon rather than a sprint.
Two of the key things you can do as a manager to develop your sales people is, ‘delegation and coaching’. Which are probably topics worthy of discussion another time?
Our blog and the work we do is all about development. Thought to a number of uninitiated we call our selves trainers so we are talking a common language. However we are in the business of development. Why because it is sustainable and prepares people for the laong haul rather than a quick fix.
Take Care,
Sharon
Popularity: 49% [?]
Sales Management: How do you manage a sales person, when you haven’t been one yourself?
How do you manage a sales person, when you haven’t been one yourself? a very interesting question.
By the way. High everyone , I am Sharon the other part of managing sales people. Well I am excited to finally be able to have some time to share a few thoughts and ideas with you.In case you have been wondering, how come our blog posts have been written by Denise so far?, I have been out and about working with some of our clients and delivering a variety of management and leadership training.
During some of my leadership training recently, some new sales managers have found themselves managing sales people when they have not been a salesperson themselves. At times, they have experienced a few challenges that initially they believed were
unique to themselves.The reality is though, that the only thing they haven’t experienced is the salesperson’s situation and also understanding the role of the sales person.
Of course, just like many other specialist roles, a salesperson is a unique individual. The highly motivated ones are driven by the chase of the next sale. They are focused and thrive on the challenge of finding a potential customer, building loyal long term relationships, identifying a need for a product, selling their product or service and then closing the sale.
Oh and potentially earn some bonus or commission too.
Occasionally I come across managers who believe sales people are loners. Well it is true that they often work and sell on their own. Sales people are often highly driven by results and what they can achieve.
They can also be quite focused on ‘what is in it for them’. This can be judged by others as ‘being a loner’, or even ‘selfish’.
However remember people are individuals. You will also find many sales people today work as part of a business development team and need to be as good a team player as they are at working on their own.
Whether you are managing a sales team and have or haven’t done the role of a sales person, if you aspire to be a successful sales manager here are a few things that highly successful
sales managers do.
Have a success focused ‘mindset’
What I mean by this is, believe in yourself and your abilities. In contrast, if you believed that you are at a disadvantage because you haven’t done a sales persons role, these thoughts will affect how you manage your sales people. Ultimately these thoughts will affect your success.I’ll be talking more about ‘Mindset’ over the coming weeks so look out for these blog posts.
Manage your sales people as individuals:
Everyone is special, treat them this way.Sales people are motivated by many things:
Recognition, money, incentives are only a few. Take the time to find out what else, you
may be surprised!
Let your sales people know what you expect from them:
Then let them get on with the job.
Recognise and reward your sales people and team:
For their successes and fortheir efforts. People can work incredibly hard even if the end result isn’t what you wanted. Let them know how much you appreciate their contributions.
Finally, walk your talk.Be prepared to do what you ask your team to do and set the standards in terms of the behaviours you expect.
It’s good that you have considered the impact of having done the sales persons role.
What’s even better is that you have invested your time in reading this post.
I’m not sure when now might be a good time to start practicing the suggestions above. How about now?
Take Care,
Sharon
PS Early next week look out for a post on the difference between training and development!
Popularity: 50% [?]
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