coaching

5 Tips For Managing in a Social Selling Environment

kirk_wakefield 2015, Lead, Sales Management, Sell, Tickets , , , , , , , 0 Comment
5 Tips For Managing in a Social Selling Environment
by Justin Gurney – April 2015

Does this sound familiar?

“Great job Brandon! You made 150 calls today, those will be sure to turn into sales, so keep it up.”

“Ryan, wow you set 10 appointments this week leading the way.”

“Mark, you were on the phone for 200 minutes today, way to dig in with your prospects!”

Whether you are a sales manager or sales rep, it probably does. It’s how most sales managers in sports manage. In fact, I did this same thing and even copied my CMO and VP of Sales on this e-mail every day so they could chime in and reinforce the point.

How did my top reps respond to this?

  • I had to write up the top performing rep in the entire company for faking calls and even fire a couple of talented ones.
  • One of the most talented Inside Sales reps I ever had went to Enterprise Rent-A-Car rather than accepting a promotion to Group Sales.
  • Rep burnout –
    • What they say: “I want to manage one day.” What they mean: : “I want to manage so I don’t have to deal with these annoying Hustle Metrics.”
    • What they say: “I want to ultimately get into marketing.” What they mean: “I can’t see myself doing this much longer.”
    • What they don’t say: “I want to be a career sales person!”

Do you want to be a manager?

When I asked one of the top performing sales reps at Linkedin if she wants to manage one day she responded by saying…

“Absolutely NOT, who would want to deal with all that comes with managing when I can control my own paycheck, have total autonomy, and be challenged by working with different businesses every day.”

Note: This particular sales professional was recruited to Linkedin from a world of “pounding the phones” because she discovered how to use Social Selling to become more efficient.

My reaction? “WOW!”

In three years working in the NBA’s Team Marketing and Business Operations Department, meeting with hundreds of sellers at various levels, I don’t think I’ve heard one sales rep, at any level, say something like that to me.

I could site a number of different research projects that show that this kind of sales environment is BAD – regardless of the source–because we know sales rep tenure drives business growth and rep turnover costs a lot.

So how do we solve this?

There is one finding, above all, that I learned directly from a Linkedin study of 100,000 business professionals that inspired me to study and understand social selling:

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”550px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Sales professionals with a high “Social Selling Index” feel more inspired at work.[/dropshadowbox]

So, what are Linkedin managers doing differently to attract top performing sales reps that are grinding out hundreds of calls/day and turning them into inspired sales professionals?

My co-workers at TMBO and I recently took a field trip to the Linkedin office at the Empire State Building for a “Managing in a Social Selling World” training session. Here are the 5 keys to success for managers:

1. Become The Expert

Social selling is here to stay and sales managers have to master it in order to manage it. This will take time, effort, energy and intellectual curiosity. I’ve been studying this now for over a year and I learn something new every day. If we aren’t willing to to take the time to master this than #2-#5 aren’t possible.

2. Train, Train, Train

Did you know that sales reps forget 87% of sales training after a month and 70% of it within a week?[ref]Download the report from Qvidian [/ref] Once we become the expert, we must reinforce how to weave social selling into the sales process. Don’t flip a switch or pile more work on top of the 100 call minimum. Share success stories on how to build a proper profile, how to use Advanced Search, how to ask for a warm introduction or referral, how to write a proper connection request or inMail, and how to maximize groups.

3. Practice What We Preach

Be active on Linkedin. Connect with your reps’ top clients. Post sharable content. Do everything top performing reps are doing. Pull up profiles in your one-on-ones. Coach your reps on how they can use Linkedin to find a warm introduction or engage with insights. This is way better in one-on-ones than reinforcing that reps are not making enough calls.

4. Use Social Selling Index as a Primary Measurement tool

Click Here to Understand the New Formula For Calculating Social Selling Index. Caution for control freaks out there, you are going to have to learn to let go – but your reps will be more inspired and love the autonomy.

5. Reverse Pipeline Management

Rather than focusing on how many calls are made or appointments are set, first focus on sales! Sales reps gravitate to what we measure and recognize. If we continue rewarding quantity in the first stage of the sales pipeline, regardless of quality, we will continue to have high rep burnout and fake phone calls.

On the flip side, recognizing and rewarding sales performance along the pipeline, regardless of whether it was through e-mail, text, in-mail, networking events, in arena activity, etc. will lead to more inspired sales professionals. In fact, you may want to remove the term “Hustle Metrics” altogether.

 

Students: Finding your Perfect Sports Business Employer

kirk_wakefield 2015, Careers, Learn , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
Students: Finding your Perfect Sports Business Employer
by Brian Norman – January 2015

Students: Finding your Perfect Sports Business Employer

It’s your senior year. You’ve been through hundreds of hours of classroom instruction, completed multiple industry internships, and built your network extremely well. You’ve taken advantage of every opportunity. You are ready to jump head first into a full-time position within the sports business.

Now that you’re ready for the real world, how will you choose your perfect employer?

This is a simple question I ask every job candidate I interview, yet I’ve found it is very hard for many to answer with ease.

How can you find your perfect fit? Be honest with yourself, and decide what job characteristics are most important to you. You’ll find many of the biggest factors below.

Coaching

Who will you report to? Personally, I believe this is the most important aspect of finding the right fit. Your first boss in the sports business should be someone who will actively coach you in your first role.

They should genuinely care about your long-term success and develop a personalized plan to help you accomplish your goals. You should expect them to push you to accomplish your goals while also serving as a resource and support system along the way.

This individual should be proactive in providing feedback, as it is important for you to consistently understand your strengths and areas for improvement. They should know how to best deliver feedback, and how they can assist you in applying it in real time.

Finally, their reputation matters! It is important that your first supervisor is well respected and well connected as, more often than not; they are your primary connection to the rest of the industry.

Culture

Simply put, culture matters. Some questions to consider asking your future employer:

  1. Does the leadership team promote and foster success at every level?
  2. What type of traditions are unique to their organization?
  3. Are best practices both shared and celebrated?
  4. Do employees truly root for one another?
  5. Is the organization proactive in seeking new opportunities and trying new ideas?
  6. Is executive leadership accessible?
  7. Do business departments collaborate well across the board, or do they operate in “silos?”

Training Program

You will learn more in your first 12 months in the business than you can ever imagine. Your training program is vital not only to your success in your first year, but it serves as the foundation for your entire career.

In Philadelphia, new sales executives with the 76ers go through an intensive two-week training program before they begin reaching out to prospective ticket buyers. This ensures they are truly ready to communicate with prospects, while also giving them the confidence to succeed early on.

While your initial training is important, consistent ongoing training is equally as crucial. Just like professional athletes, you must continue to fine tune your craft and work on making yourself better everyday.

In Philadelphia, the sales leadership team provides consistent ongoing training to their staff every Wednesday and Thursday morning. This training focuses on different topics each week, keeping in line with the current sales process in order to give members of the sales team the tools necessary to succeed.

Opportunity for Growth

The best hiring managers aren’t looking for the next entry-level candidate. They’re looking for someone to groom to be the next great sports business executive.

In order to do so, they must provide opportunities for entry-level employees to grow within the organization. Therefore, you should ensure these types of opportunities exist when applying for your first position.

Further, be sure to ask about additional opportunities that may exist after your first promotion. Does the organization you’re interviewing with offer their senior level employees the opportunity to further grow their careers through “track” programs? Remember, career growth doesn’t end after your first promotion!

Exposure

Your first job in the sports business should serve as an extension of your college curriculum. You should constantly look for opportunities to learn more about the industry.

In order to do gain this knowledge, you’ll undoubtedly need exposure to other members of the organization you work for.

Does your potential employer facilitate these opportunities?  Are you given access to materials to broaden your knowledge of the business?

Pay Scale

Unless you’re a 20-year-old who can hit a 100-mph fastball, throw a 50-yard touchdown pass, or guard an NBA All-Star, chances are you’re never going to get rich off of your first job in professional sports.  A typical first year sports business executive in ticket sales used to be less than $35,000 (when this was first written), but better offers today (2021) are in the $40s with a chance to make more on commissions and bonuses depending on the position and level of success.

Should an additional few thousand dollars be the deciding factor on which job you take?  My advice? It should not.  Make sure every other category measures up before relying on pay scale to make your decision.

For those looking to learn more about sports business compensation, click here to see inside sales rep salaries from Ziprecruiter of roughly $45k or $22/hour. The question really isn’t what your starting salary is; the question is where are you going?

Location

This factor is entirely personal and unique to every one.  One thing is for sure, having the ability to move out of your hometown, city, or state drastically opens up your opportunities.  There are 122 professional teams within the four major American sport leagues, or over 140 counting MLS.

Limiting yourself to 2-3 throughout your career can inhibit your growth.  Nonetheless, it is important to find what makes most sense for your personal situation. Just know that you’ll spend about one-half of your waking hours with people you work with (see the graph in the cover photo). That’s a lot of time to spend with people if you pick the “right” location, but the wrong job.

The Six D’s of Destruction: How to Recognize and Avoid Sales Burnout

kirk_wakefield 2014, Lead, Learn, Sales Management, Sales Training, Sell, Tickets , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
The Six D’s of Destruction: How to Recognize and Avoid Sales Burnout
by Kris Katseanes – May 2014

What happened to all the excitement?

We all seek to hire highly competent, highly energized, hard-working individuals who invest everything they have in the effort of growing a career in sports.  We strive to find individuals who have excelled in life, and are eager to translate that pattern of success to the sales floor for our team.

Yet, some of these same individuals have come to me after a few months on the job and share something like this, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  I’ve always succeeded in everything I’ve done, but this is really difficult and I don’t know if it’s for me.”  What changed with this person over just a few months? What happened to the person who was so confident (borderline arrogant), excited beyond measure, determined, and capable/willing to take on the world?

Recognizing destructive emotional patterns

Assuming that we set a proper expectation and are managing well, the easy answer then becomes that they are burned out by the long hours, the monotony of the calling and solicitation exercises, or the feeling of being enamored with ‘working in sports’ has faded.  I believe that there is definitely a little of each of those sentiments sprinkled in throughout.  But, I also believe that a negative emotional pattern in our human nature is most often the culprit.  This negative emotional pattern was something I came across recently.  An ecclesiastical leader by the name of Kevin Pearson coined it the “Destructive D’s.”  His application was a bit different, but the core principles apply to what we do every day.

1. Doubt. Doubt is defined as a lack of confidence in self and/or ability. Doubt starts to creep in.  Anyone who has been on a sports sales floor is going to experience this.  There is too much rejection involved in what we do for it not to ever be a factor.  The key is recognizing that it grows and leads to…

2. Discouragement.  Discouragement arises from missing expectations or goals.  The goals and numbers we ask for are always on the stretched side as that’s the world we live in.  The red flag we need to watch for is if missing goals or numbers causes discouragement, resulting in the sales representative:

  •  lowering expectations,
  • decreasing effort, or
  • displaying a weakening desire to stay in the job/industry.

Someone who becomes discouraged at a high level, then experiences….

3. Distraction. The sales rep that gets to this point begins to lose focus on two things:

  • what s/he needs to be effective &
  • the ultimate goal of succeeding in the sports industry.

They also lose focus of why we want to be excellent, succeed, and move up the management ladder: The opportunity to influence this industry and to help others in their careers.

One important thing to note is that both discouragement and distraction can become habits.  We should be looking for these traits in the hiring process as much as possible, and also be very mindful of those tendencies early on in a sales representative’s efforts. Whether habitual or circumstantial, distracted sales reps then begin losing their…

4. Diligence. The distracted sales representative gravitates toward time wasting activities and excuses to avoid the extra effort needed to become successful.   The biggest concern is if  this spreads or affects the productivity and attitudes of other reps.  This is where a rep starts to bring others on your team down with them. Obviously, not doing one’s job results in….

5. Disappointment. The sales rep without diligence will miss goals and expectations, ultimately leading to disappointing performance and reviews. While not surprising to supervisors, the end result for reps at this stage if often…

6. Disbelief. The emotional disappointment grows to the level that they actually start believing that they can’t do the job, or that it’s too hard and too demanding.  The sales rep that only months before had the world by the horns, now has internalized the emotions to the point they can no longer do what is asked.

Solution: Catch it early

The key as managers is to understand that the first “Destructive D” will happen to everyone.

Coaching, encouraging, and training to ensure we curb the second and third from setting in is absolutely critical.  Once it reaches the fourth level of losing diligence it is very difficult to restore what you once had. A new setting or a new role may help, but chances are the behavioral pattern is too far down the road and ingrained in the mindset/routine of that sales representative. 

In thinking about all of the successful sales industry leaders I know well, they all have in common the ability to recognize and squash “Destructive D” number one before it progresses further.   We should work as managers to recognize doubt and discouragement and find ways to foster courage and confidence among newer sales representatives. Part of that training can simply be to show reps this article (or explain the 6 D’s to them) and give them the freedom to ask for help when they believe they may be experiencing any destructive symptoms.

One of the best cures is really preventative: We must recognize the early symptoms to mitigate turnover and increase team chemistry and production.

 

Cover photo courtesy of Molair. 

 

 

Are you coachable?

kirk_wakefield 2013, Learn, Personal Development, Sales Management, Sell, Tickets , , , , , , 0 Comment
Are you coachable?
Jason's Fortune Cookie
Jason’s Fortune Cookie
by Jason Fortune – September 2013

Simple question, one would think. When we ask ourselves if we are coachable, most of us would say,  “Absolutely I am.”

But let’s dig a little deeper. Would your manager say you are coachable? If so, you will do four things.

1. Be Open Minded.

Simple questions you should ask yourself to make sure you are as open minded as you can possibly be:  

    1. Do you apply the feedback that you receive from your manager?
    2. Are you open to new ways of doing things, even if you have to step outside your comfort zone?
    3. Are you willing to give something a try that works for others, that you are not doing currently?

Managers don’t ask you to do something they don’t believe would work.  Be open to change. Step out of your comfort zone. If you’re uncomfortable trying new approaches, you may not be as coachable as you think.

2. Be Willing to Learn.

You can always expand your knowledge of the industry or company. Whether you are a rookie or a veteran, challenge yourself to learn new techniques. Don’t just use the knowledge from your manager; seek out your colleagues too.  If you haven’t asked for help lately, you may not be as coachable as you think.

Coach K (Duke Blue Devils Basketball Coach) said it best: “When I first started with USA Basketball, people would say, ‘You’ve won three national championships, you’re in the Hall of Fame.  You know it.’  No, you don’t.  There’s always something to learn.  To think otherwise would be arrogant and narrow-minded, and not very smart.”  

When you reach your sales goals, what do you do? Does being at the top of the sales charts mean you know everything there is to know about selling?  Never stop learning.  The day you think you know it all is the day you ought to get out of the business. 

3. Plan and partner for success

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Wade Graf
Wade Graf

“When hiring new reps, we always look for those looking to advance professionally. When we ask someone during an interview where they see themselves in five years, it is very impressive when they discuss how they want to have success as a sales representative, but ultimately want to be a sales manager. As sales managers, we love to invest significant amount of time and energy preparing our staff for career advancement, so it is imperative for the representative to share that same desire to learn, grow and develop their skill sets.” [/dropshadowbox]First, do you have a plan?  What specific steps do you need to implement to reach your goals?

Second, if you’ve not met with your manager to discuss this plan and how to work together to reach the goals, you may not be as coachable as you think.

Develop a strategic plan with your manager. Invite your manager to be a part of your personal goals, not just your company goals. The biggest hurdle in success is complacency.  It can be a career killer.

4. Listen. Really.

This is the most challenging and important characteristics of coachable people. Too often we spend too much time speaking, suggesting, solving, and selling!  We forget to listen.

You must listen to know client needs. You must listen to know what your manager expects.  What’s the difference between hearing and listening? Hearing doesn’t become listening until you allow in what is being said and actually apply it. If you haven’t changed behavior based on what your manager said lately, you might not be as coachable as you think.

Good coaching

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Chris Faulkner
Chris Faulkner

“The best sales people I have had over the years have the unique ability to be quiet and listen to the client or prospective buyer. Buyers will tell you exactly what they are looking for if you give them the opportunity. Too often sales people think they need to fill dead air with conversation, when in actuality they need to just ‘shut up’ and listen.” [/dropshadowbox]

As a manager, we are searching for superstars to coach.  Anyone can be a part of the team, but superstars are open minded, have a strong desire to learn, are 100% determined to succeed with our help, and most important, employ a willingness to listen to direction.

We would love to hear some feedback or characteristics that you have noticed that makes someone coachable. In fact, we’d love to hear your thoughts on what makes a good coach!

Cover photo courtesy of Kevin Krause.