Strategic Discipline Blog

How important is culture to your organization?   The Rockefeller Habits Four Decisions for Growth offers the outcome of The People Decision is a harmonious culture of accountability.

Jack Daly, author of Hyper Sales Growth: Street Proven Systems and Processes went a step further and said something that should alert you to how critical People and your culture are. Daly said, “If you get culture right everything else is easy!   IF not, it’s hard!”

Jack used a more colorful word between it’s and hard which I won’t include here.  Daly’s insights were sprinkled with colorful language, and after investing one and a half days listening to various speakers it seemed to enliven the audience.

Here are a few of Jack’s more powerful observations:

• Action is the only thing that matters!
• People and companies preform below their potential because they focus on the urgent.   Focus on the important.

Two Basic Foundations he outlined for success:

1. Systems and Process:  Daly often hears sales people say they have their own style.  They don’t follow any system.  Yet, watching the Super Bowl what did he notice each team had - A Playbook.  He asked is the playbook different for each game?  Does a team practice the playbook?  He asked the audience how many companies out of a 100 that he speaks or trains have a sales system?  He responded after a dramatic pause with 2/100.  He punctuated this with, “And one of those is complete (add colorful word) garbage!” How can you track your team and each salespersons performance without metrics?  No pro football team coach would dare have his players on the field without a playbook.  And yet almost every business he knows fails to have a playbook for their business, specifically their sales process.
2. Leverage:  The key question, how can I generate more business with less work?  Jack described a story of being 13 years old and starting his first paper route.  He started his route with 32 customers.  He quickly determined he wanted more customers.  He asked the audience, “are you comfortable where you are at?” His first move was to ask the newspaper if he could get 10 more papers for his route the first week.  They asked why?  He said he wanted more customers, again they asked why?  Finally they relented. In just one week he had 42 customers simply by knocking on doors asking if they would like to receive a free copy of the paper for a week and subsequently getting them to subscribe after this trial period.  One year later he had 275 customers.  He then recruited 5 -11 year old boys to deliver his papers, giving them 50% of the money he earned, noting he collected the money because that way he got to keep the tips.  When he marched into the newspaper office he asked them why he hadn’t heard from them.  Wouldn’t you think they would have been curious to discover how he did it?

Jack’s point was if you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.  His question to the audience, “Do you have an assistant?”  His answer, “if you don’t have one, you are one!”

WE all need to be doing high pay-off activities.  Understand what your hourly rate is.  Hire an assistant for $10 an hour so you can hear $50 and you’re making $40.  It means you avoid doing low pay-off work!

Jack success comes from modeling the masters.  Sales systems should leverage what the masters do.  Build the system based on best practices and then have others duplicate it. 

Any business with sales force must be constantly looking for top performers. Jack feels sports teams are run better than most companies. Do you think any sports team doesn’t have a recruiting list? 

In college basketball, the team has 12 players, in most cases today these players only stay 1-2 years.  Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski loses 25% of his team every year.  How does he stay on top when his best player Jabari Parker leaves after one season?  90 days before Parker committed to Duke, Krzyzewski sent Parker ten personal notes.  We say we can’t find sales people, yet someone like Mike Krzyzewski has 100’s of players on his list. How many do you have on your list?

Jack provided 4 Key Ingredients for hiring good sales people:

1. Have  a list of contacts
2. Open up the net (Don’t be concerned about hiring from your industry.)
3. Courting Process (Have minimum of two touches a month with everyone on your list,
4. Life Happens:  Compensation plans change, someone else gets a promotion your contact felt he should have, the company is sold, a manager change occurs. These events trigger a consideration to move or change the company sales people represent.  Remember the number one reason people leave a job: Their boss.

Many of my customers don’t like role playing.  From what I’ve discovered that’s because they’re doing role playing improperly.  You don’t role play with your sales team without having prepared them for what to practice.  Football players don’t make it up when they practice.  They know what to do, where to go, and what technique to use to win their confrontations.  Do your sales people have similar resources?

Jack noted that 50% of sales success is in your head.  It’s known that customers never get beyond 7 objections. What are your 7 objections?  Discover the best responses to each of these objections.  Then role play until each of your sales people knows exactly how to respond, and can do it automatically.  If you’re not practicing this stuff inside your offices, where are your sales people practicing?  Answer: With your customers. 

Keith Ferrazzi is the author of Never Eat Alone, Secrets to Success and One Relationship at a Time.  He asked us which people (customers and employees) behaviors are going to be critical for you to achieve your growth trajectory.  We’ll explore the answer next blog.