SAXTON | people | connecting and communicating

#1. The most successful people in business, no matter what their position or title may be, use only one very high standard when it comes to how they treat people, and it applies to everyone they come into contact with... and the standard gets higher, year after year.

#2. The challenge in business is not to 'be positive', it is to be accountable for your actions and results... and when people accept this responsibility, they will have no choice except to 'be positive'!

#3. If you need to convince management, staff or colleagues about your ideas... then make sure that the ideas are seen as improvements and not changes. 'Change' merely threatens to rearrange what people have become comfortable with, while progress is something that everyone wants and needs now! And by the way, progress is impossible without change, but progress is the goal and change is the strategy.

#4. Remember that there is a big difference between 'failing' and 'being a failure'. Successful people in business see mistakes as stepping stones to progress.

#5. Here are some thoughts that drive successful business people: 'rust rots the steel that good use preserves' (meaning that work is good for us). 'The dictionary definition of 'winning' is progress through struggle' (meaning that business is not supposed to be easy, but remember that the struggle should also be enjoyable). 'There is a significant difference between 'being busy' and 'being successful' (meaning that 'getting the job done' is more important than just 'doing the job').

#1. The primary role of management is not to motivate staff... it is to hire motivated staff.

#2. Good managers know that you can't do the right thing with the wrong people.

#3. Invite staff to become 'warm-hearted mercenaries' ('gung-ho!' rather than 'ho-hum!')

#4. The four areas of focus for effective leaders are: 1. understanding the wants and needs of the market, 2. leading their sales team to success in the market, 3. cooperation with other internal business units, and 4. achieving results (remembering that all results originate in the market and are either won or lost by the sales team, in unison with internal colleagues).

#5. Help team members to develop an 'author mentality' in their work (planning for happy endings)... not a journalistic attitude (reporting on problems that stop them succeeding).

#1. If you are sure that your selling or service role will help customers, then never ask permission to do your work.

#2. In a joke, the punch line obviously comes at the end, but in selling, the potential payoff should be featured very close to the start... otherwise, why would customers listen to your entire story?

#3. Always sell far more than you charge for... and when you do, you have created a 'value gap'. For example, a restaurant sells a pleasant experience but charges for food and drink... so salespeople must sell improved results and then charge for products. Many suppliers sell products and then just charge for those products... and so they do not possess a value gap. Very dangerous!

#4. The best sales people 'up-serve' rather than 'up-sell', meaning that they see selling as being part of service. Up-serving involves pleasure and up-selling conjures up thoughts of pressure!

#5. Form your own sales queue when entering the market... by selling in the second gap! (details of second gap selling can be found here).

Picture the scene: a sales person manages to win an appointment with a prime prospect... so as to present his company's product or service. He then tells his story, and while doing so the prospect is thinking 'I already have what he is offering.' At the end of the meeting the sales person says, 'so, what do you think?', and the prospect says, 'yes, sounds good, thank you... leave me your card please and a brochure and I will talk it over with my colleagues.' The sales person does this and feels 'quite good', noting in his CRM report that the call went very well. It didn't, and no sale will be made... and follow up calls and emails will not be returned. The mistake of course is that we cannot go to market with ingredients that are merely good or a little better than other offerings. The real challenge, beyond having good and better elements... is to provide a factor that is unquestionably 'best'. Here is a run down on the good, better and best constituents...

Most 'prospects' perceive first time sales calls to be negative raids, however they easily repel such attacks... sending sales people away empty handed and more depressed than ever. However, it is possible to make a positive raid on a prospect, using this simple, professional formula...

Since all of us will be in business for the whole of our lives, I think it pays to come to terms with what business is all about... using a simple and direct explanation. When making this statement at the start of meetings, I can immediately see that many people are at odds with this view, and so I elaborate in this way: 'You are in business now and even if and when you choose to retire, you will remain a customer of various businesses, plus your children and grandchildren will go into the world of business... and so we should help them to develop a good attitude about their role in business.' People nod and so the first stage of complication is addressed, and then I offer the following comment:'My belief is that your business is supposed to help me, and that my business is supposed to help you... and if we both perform this task well, then we will make a good income, enjoy ourselves and know the feeling of independence.'I then ask what the audience thinks I mean by this assertion, and the usual responses add up to a common belief that I am referring to 'good customer service'. However, this is not correct, and so it becomes important to reveal where service sits in the scheme of things, prior to explaining how we can best help each other in a meaningful way.

To be first in sales it is critical to take 'the second service stance'

When speaking at conferences I often attend evening functions, at which time 'awards' are presented for great achievement. At all business events I have been to where this happens, the awards usually relate to key commercial results. However, I was once at a dinner for a conference attended by cancer surgeons, where I was due to speak to the group the next morning, and their awards night was very different. All of the accolades were given to doctors that had made extraordinary efforts on behalf of patients. Not a word was said about how much the doctors had earned, for themselves or for their institutions. I must say that I was quite taken aback by this reversal, and I wondered why business does not take the same professional path when it comes to purpose, effort and results.

Have you ever heard someone annoyingly whistle a non-existent tune, or a known melody that they then deform until it makes you wish that you were deaf? This is the kind of awful experience that customers and prospects go through when they listen to sales people who have become the message that their companies deliver to market. It is very important then to get straight the critical difference between ‘the message’ and ‘the messenger’, and the importance of combining the two related factors to achieve one positive result. Here are the choices available to companies...

Memo to Managers: "You can have your backside in the office now and then, but your mind and heart must always be in the market!"
- John Lees

In 1975, the city of New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, and due to this precarious position the main bank partner was in danger of going under too. In an effort to correct the situation, the president of the bank left the bank to join a group of financial experts, whose joint task was to steer the city out of trouble... which they eventually did. This is just about the most extreme case imaginable when it comes to defining the role of management: the president had to leave the bank to save the bank!

Imagine that a general gives the following speech to his troops as they prepare to do battle with the enemy: "Men, I want you all to give your best in this encounter; to fight with a do or die attitude and a fervour that would make your loved ones proud. Now, as you prepare to put your lives on the line to ensure victory, are there any questions?" At that moment a solider puts his hand up and says: "Yes, just one quick question sir. Is it possible to have some weapons please?" Such a situation would be farcical in a war, but in business the fact is that most sales people are not armed to do serious battle and to be triumphant.