by Admin | Jan 23, 2014 | Culture
As someone reading this blog you are already demonstrating your own willingness to grow and your ‘Thirst’ for improvement. In a former blog post I related my personal experience with cialis my horse of what happens when someone is not thirsty and how it can be life threatening in some circumstances. While this may be an extreme example, if you have struggled with inspiring people in your own organization you may be feeling a little thirsty yourself but not quite sure how to inspire it in others. I thought I would relate an example of a favorite client we have worked with last year in the banking industry and how an innovative leader is creating a thirsty culture. Alterra Bank is a leading bank in the KC lending market. They are a business-focused community bank founded in 2010; by executing on their niche business strategy, the bank has doubled in size since 2010 with plans to continue a fast pace of growth. We have been working with them on finding and on boarding relationship managers who just happen to be lenders and private bankers. One common thread resonated with me as I interviewed their current team that has been responsible for their success to date – they are all highly competitive. As we were looking for relationship managers to connect them to, we asked a few questions: 1) What do you read? 2) What last class/continuing education did you participate in? 3) Tell me about your extracurricular activities. The answers to these questions brought us individuals that who excel on a very fast paced, results driven team. Did it...
by Admin | Jan 12, 2014 | Sales
In High School I had the dream job of any teenage girl. I galloped racehorses. Animals teach you many life lessons and I thought I would share one that has resonated with me throughout my professional career. I was a pretty good rider, and like most kids, had more than my own fair share of self-confidence. I had been at this job for about a month, and my employer had gotten a pretty good handle on my ability, where I was lacking and decided I needed a bit of education. The first thing to realize is that in order to learn, I had to recognize what I didn’t know. One lovely morning at the ripe hour of 6:00 a.m. my lesson began with learning how the racehorse ‘breaks’ from the gate. My teacher for the day was a Quarter Horse gelding named Dust ‘Em. Dusty taught me many lessons in my first few months at the race barn, but on this day it was the importance of humility. The trainers recognized that you don’t put an inexperienced rider on a green horse, you put the green rider on your seasoned campaigner. Dusty had won many futurities as a 2 and 3 year old and was no slouch in the racing game. He knew the drill. And the trainer, Ron, who was helping me get ready for my first experience ‘breaking’ gave me advice that, of course, I didn’t heed as the amazingly talented rider I was then. The specific guidance he gave me to ‘grab hold of the mane like I’m getting launched off a rocket’ didn’t quite register....
by Admin | Dec 30, 2013 | Accountability
I love December! But why does it have to come so close to January? At least it seems like this year has just flown by, but when does time slow down? As business owners and independent sales professionals we have the same number of minutes every year to spend as we see fit. What choices did you make with your ‘bank account’ of minutes this year? The joy of working in outside sales is you have the opportunity to have your own business without the headaches of ownership. If you are a small business owner, you have a chance to become anything you choose to be and wish to work hard enough to achieve. The pursuit of this excellence often has us focusing on the shortfalls which prevented us from reaching our goals. We see what and who we wish to become or achieve, but yet so many things stop us from getting there. Why does this happen? You see where you want to go, so let’s think about why we’re not there. No, Stop right there! That is what we often do, we spend all of our time thinking about why we are not there, so what do we focus on? The obstacles in our path, sometimes we are the biggest one. Have you ever found yourself the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy? This is what we create if we focus on obstacles-we create more of them! It is interesting how when talking to highly successful business owners and sales people the tone their conversations take. You never hear about what they don’t have or didn’t make. ...
by Admin | Dec 17, 2013 | Change
It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster this weekend in the Filbert Household. My husband and I have another business that breeds and raises Dutch Warmblood horses for the Hunter/Jumper show market. Our very first ‘piece of inventory’ was a lovely filly born in 2005 who was named Adame by my Grandmother in one of her last lucid moments with our family before our passing. Needless to say this horse has an emotional attachment as well as representing a significant business asset. Well she decided with the weather changing and all, she just wasn’t going to drink anymore for a bit. With horses this creates all kinds of problems and hers escalated into a life threatening situation called colic. During the 5 hour long surgery as the vets worked to save her life, I had a lot of time to think. This blog post will share with you a bit of insight that perhaps will help you as you look to your career growth or perhaps inspiring your team. We know how critical water is to life, so is growth to human beings. The phrase, ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink’ is a statement we have heard and often counter with something like ‘you may not be able to make him drink, but you can sure make him blow bubbles’. Which represents how often we force new behavior on ourselves or others. Many people are complacent and satisfied with status quo. Others perhaps may want something different, but have no willingness to go through the pain of change. So they...
by Admin | Oct 30, 2013 | Networking
In every presentation I give it is always fun to talk about where people are networking. Many say chamber events, client appreciation events, networking groups and the list goes on. And then I ask about Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and get the look that says – network? Almost like they used to give when asked to go into a room of strangers and introduce themselves. They spent most of the meeting hugging the wall or hanging out by the bar instead of meeting new people (hence the term wallflower). Do you remember your own wallflower days? When you knew you were supposed to go do something but weren’t quite sure what it was? You know now that networking pays off, but figuring out what to do can be a challenge. Or perhaps you’ve mastered ‘working the room’ but haven’t transferred it to your online networking – social media. Where are you at in your growth cycle of your prospecting skills? To put this into perspective I will share with you the 5 stages of growth I learned when I first entered the coaching and training industry Stage 1 – you don’t have a http://www.trevorturnbull.com clue. Stage 2 – you’ve recognized there’s an issue but aren’t quite sure what to do about it. Stage 3 – you know what to do, you’ve learned the new skill, but don’t have the guts to do it. Stage 4 – you do the new skill and revel in your accomplishment Stage 5 – you do it unconsciously, you don’t even have to think about it. Mastery. So with your networking on line –...
by Admin | Sep 29, 2013 | Failure
Surprise, surprise, surprise! Every day gives us moments where we say ‘Where did that come from?’ So what does it for you? Listening to the sermon on Sunday the minister asked a thought provoking question ‘ Are you surprised by moments of success surrounded by failure? Or are you surprised by moments of failure surrounded by success?’ Deep question for a Sunday afternoon. I just celebrated my birthday this weekend, my good friend called it my 41-1 party. One day past my 41st birthday. I looked at turning 40 a little differently than many of my friends, having fully lived 4 decades I felt it deserved a year long celebration to have survived, been married for 22 years to an amazing man, borne 4 children, held down wildly different jobs started and failed at a small business, began another, and another and have been very, very busy. So this question made me reflect this afternoon on what surprises me… and my clients that I coach… Every coaching session begins with the question – what have you accomplished? This is normally followed by long periods of silence while my client contemplates their week to find the moments of success. Which often time get overlooked because something goes wrong. And many successes get forgotten when there is a failure in there. We think about it, agonize over, relive it, think about what if, instead of just taking it as one moment among many, experience it – then move on. So what happens over time? If I have a coaching client who gets stuck in the ‘mullygrubs’ where it’s hard to stay...
by Admin | Jun 24, 2013 | Goal Setting and Achievement
“Eek! I’ve got all these things I have to get done this week, and I just don’t know where to start to make a dent! I am behind on my quota and not quite sure where to go or what to do to hit my numbers for the year/month/week.” Sound familiar? Let’s talk prioritization… This is actually an area I find the most challenging. Most of us gravitate towards activities that we are the most comfortable doing and procrastinate on those we are less comfortable with. Most sales professionals have their favorite activities, and these are those that get done consistently. I, like many sales people, hate reports. I will procrastinate with the best of them to avoid filing out my own sales projections, invoice requests or following up with that billing issue. “The new phone book has arrived, I bet there are business I haven’t contacted yet, I have to get my prospecting calls in” is my mantra when it is time for bi-monthly billing. My Midwestern work ethic and the fulfillment I get from prospecting (my favorite activity) help me do the things I enjoy and that bring me success – but don’t help me fix that procrastination. We all deal with some variety of this issue, just in different areas and some manage it much better than others. The best way? It comes down to… Let’s talk through developing your priorities for sales. 1. Who has already engaged you? What have you sold that you are responsible for delivering on those commitments. Take care of those who are committed to you because of you. Remember your...
by Admin | Jun 10, 2013 | Goal Setting and Achievement
Wow! Can you believe the year is nearly ½ over? And every year I look around at this time and marvel at how off course from my goals I may be at this point. Sometimes in a very good way due to opportunities landing in my bath, and sometimes in a not so good way due to opportunities vanishing. End of quarter reviews are good to take stock of where you are, refocus and direct your energy where it can do the most good to make 2013 your best year ever! Step 1 – organize your opportunities. I love pipeline management tools, CRMs, Sales reports and all those things that most people hate for one simple reason. Properly used I can greatly increase my productivity and my income. So whatever tool you use you need to make sure is updated with each prospect in their proper stages. Keep it simple. Here are mine: Suspect – someone I think is an opportunity but I haven’t spoken with yet. Prospect – I have had a conversation with this person and they have an interest in my service. Qualify – Meeting held and there was enough of an interest to warrant next steps. They have also shared with me their commitment to addressing the problem. I will also flush out Proposal – I will work with my prospect to outline the best solution to address their needs, this is not about ‘throwing something together’, but working with the prospect for them to have ownership in this solution. Decision – Review the proposal with prospect for them to clarify additional steps and determine...
by Admin | Mar 22, 2013 | Prospecting
A career in sales is hard. It has always been a challenging career choice, but my observations over the past 10 years are that it is twice as hard to sell half as much stuff. Not cool averages. Too bad. If it were easy anybody could do it and why would your employer (or client) need you? I visited with a business owner today who was lamenting the deal that went away. We spent a couple of minutes reviewing the details of the project and I discovered that while they expressed their regrets with the prospect, they really didn’t know why the deal went away. I remember when I sold cars, I had a sales manager who told me ‘selling doesn’t start until you get your first no’. Getting the no means an obstacle came up in the course of the deal happening. The current economic climate has proven it’s the rare deal that doesn’t have some obstacles to it. Rarer still is the prospect that doesn’t have some degree of fear of making a mistake. If your solution is in any way outside the box or as I like to say New, Different, Exciting and Wonderful your job is to uncover and address all of the ‘no’s’ and they are probably plentiful – to get to the closed deal. This doesn’t happen ‘til the check clears my friend… Make it a great day and go sell something! Do it now! I wish http://www.varley.net/online/ you good...
by Admin | Mar 20, 2013 | Prospecting
In a coaching session this week, I was debriefing a previous day’s sales call with my client. The discussion was around needs uncovered during the sales call and structuring follow up to reiterate the issues discussed during the conversation, recap next steps and clarify next meeting date. The conversation took place at 3 in the afternoon and I asked when the follow up email was going out (mildly surprised http://gulfcoastretirement.org/admin/generic/ it hadn’t happened yet). My client responded with ‘I don’t want to appear too anxious.’ Sound of record needle screeching across the vinyl (yes I’m dating myself). This isn’t the morning after a date and you’re worried about appearing clingy or too aggressive by calling too soon. Right now things are way too competitive for you to let one minute slip by that isn’t reminding the prospect about why they should hire you and only you to solve their need. Time kills deals even good deals! Go sell something! Do it now! Good...
