Active listening is an acquired skill that is critical to your sales success. It is more than just listening, it is:
1. Listen
2. Don't interrupt
3. Don't finish the other person's sentences
4. Don't say "I knew that"
5. If the other person praises you, just say "Thank you"
6. Don't be distracted. Don't let your attention or eyes wander elsewhere while the other person is talking
7. Maintain your end of the dialogue by asking intelligent questions that (a) show you're paying attention, (b) move the conversation forward, and (c) require the other person to talk (while you listen)
8. Eliminate any striving to impress the other person with how smart or funny you are. Your only aim to let the other person feel that he or she is accomplishing that
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Organize Your Priorities
We all have a lot we want to accomplish and don't know where to start. You want it all and you want it now. Where do you start? You're going to have to choose to do one thing first. You may be able to solve more than one problem at a time, but if you try to tackle them all at once, you'll be overwhelmed. You have to put your objectives in order of importance and plan to start at the top of the list.
Whether you have 3 goals or 30, you have to assign an order to each goal, putting the most important at the top of the list. Only you can decide what that order will be. Examine each one and choose which is most important and should come first. The more time you put into prioritizing now, the more time and energy you'll save down the road.
Prioritizing your goals will clarify which ones demand your immediate attention and which are not quite as urgent. All goals are not created equal, so sorting them out is essential. To achieve success, you need to know what you're aiming for. In order to get what you want, you first must clarify what it is you want and in what order you want it. And it is also essential to do this exercise on paper (or computer), it will improve significantly the probability of you taking the necessary follow-up actions to achieve the goal.
Whether you have 3 goals or 30, you have to assign an order to each goal, putting the most important at the top of the list. Only you can decide what that order will be. Examine each one and choose which is most important and should come first. The more time you put into prioritizing now, the more time and energy you'll save down the road.
Prioritizing your goals will clarify which ones demand your immediate attention and which are not quite as urgent. All goals are not created equal, so sorting them out is essential. To achieve success, you need to know what you're aiming for. In order to get what you want, you first must clarify what it is you want and in what order you want it. And it is also essential to do this exercise on paper (or computer), it will improve significantly the probability of you taking the necessary follow-up actions to achieve the goal.
Goal Obsession: The Good Samaritan
A classic example of the adverse consequence of goal obsession was the "Good Samaritan" research done by Darly and Batson at Princeton in 1973. In this widely-referenced study, one group of theology students was told that they were to go across campus to deliver a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan. As part of the research, some of these students were told that they were late and needed to hurry up. They believe people would be waiting for them to arrive. Along their route across campus to the chapel, Darly and Batson had hired an actor to play the role of a "victim" who was coughing and suffering. 90% of the late students in Princeton Theology Seminary ignored the needs of a suffering person in their haste to get across campus. As the study reports, " Indeed, on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!"
What's the implication of this study on our own focus on goals? Do our drive to achieve our goals overwhelm the principles of mutually-beneficial relationship, clients' interest and family harmony? We have to ask ourselves "Am I achieving a task at the expense of our values and longer term aspirations?"
What's the implication of this study on our own focus on goals? Do our drive to achieve our goals overwhelm the principles of mutually-beneficial relationship, clients' interest and family harmony? We have to ask ourselves "Am I achieving a task at the expense of our values and longer term aspirations?"
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Delayed Gratification
Imagine that you are a four-year-old nursery school student. Your teacher explains that you’ll be playing a new game today. She offers you a single tasty marshmallow that you can eat immediately. However, if don’t eat it right away, she will give you two marshmallows when she returns from an errand. What do you do? Do you take the sure thing and gobble the goodie in front of you? Or do you fight temptation, delay gratification, and reap the double pleasure of two marshmallows?
Most four-year-olds and virtually all younger children choose the immediate over the delayed reward and eat the single marshmallow within seconds of being left alone with it. Psychologist Walter Mischel conducted this simple study at Stanford University’s Bing Nursery School.
So what? A big what! When they were interviewed years later, as eighteen-year-olds, the children who had delayed gratification had developed a range of superior emotional and social competencies compared with the children who had eaten the treat immediately. They were better able to deal with adversity and stress, and they were more self-confident, diligent and self-reliant. Mischel and his team also discovered the intellectual ability of children who controlled their impulses was markedly higher than those who did not. The third of the children who were able to control their impulses at age 4 scored 210 total points higher on verbal and math SAT scores than the impulsive four-year-olds! How big a difference is that? It is as large as the average difference between the abilities of economically advantaged and disadvantaged children. It is the larger than the difference between the abilities of children from families whose parents have graduate degrees and children whose parents did not finish high school. The ability to delay gratification at age 4 is twice as a predictor of later of SAT scores as IQ. Poor impulse control is also a better predictor of juvenile delinquency than IQ.
Most four-year-olds and virtually all younger children choose the immediate over the delayed reward and eat the single marshmallow within seconds of being left alone with it. Psychologist Walter Mischel conducted this simple study at Stanford University’s Bing Nursery School.
So what? A big what! When they were interviewed years later, as eighteen-year-olds, the children who had delayed gratification had developed a range of superior emotional and social competencies compared with the children who had eaten the treat immediately. They were better able to deal with adversity and stress, and they were more self-confident, diligent and self-reliant. Mischel and his team also discovered the intellectual ability of children who controlled their impulses was markedly higher than those who did not. The third of the children who were able to control their impulses at age 4 scored 210 total points higher on verbal and math SAT scores than the impulsive four-year-olds! How big a difference is that? It is as large as the average difference between the abilities of economically advantaged and disadvantaged children. It is the larger than the difference between the abilities of children from families whose parents have graduate degrees and children whose parents did not finish high school. The ability to delay gratification at age 4 is twice as a predictor of later of SAT scores as IQ. Poor impulse control is also a better predictor of juvenile delinquency than IQ.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Change or Die
How difficult is it for people to change their normal way of life? Change to be a better husband or father, to be a better boss or employee, to be fitter or healthier person. No problem you may think. Think again…and again.
FAST magazine in May 2005 published an article titled ‘Change or Die’. This is what Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University has to say "If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle. And that's been studied over and over and over again. And so we're missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can't." In other words, your chance of changing is nine to one against you, even if your life depends on it.
The conventional wisdom says that crisis is a powerful motivator for change. But severe heart disease is among the most serious of personal crises, and it doesn't motivate -- at least not nearly enough. Nor does giving people accurate analyses and factual information about their situations. What works? Why, in general, is change so incredibly difficult for people? What is it about how our brains are wired that resists change so tenaciously? Why do we fight even what we know to be in our own vital interests?
Dr. Dean Ornish, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and founder of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, in Sausalito, California, provides some answers in his successful program. "Providing health information is important but not always sufficient," he says. "We also need to bring in the psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions that are so often ignored." Why does the Ornish program succeed while the conventional approach has failed?
For starters, Ornish recasts the reasons for change. Doctors had been trying to motivate patients mainly with the fear of death, he says, and that simply wasn't working. For a few weeks after a heart attack, patients were scared enough to do whatever their doctors said. But death was just too frightening to think about, so their denial would return, and they'd go back to their old ways. The patients lived the way they did as a day-to-day strategy for coping with their emotional troubles. "Telling people who are lonely and depressed that they're going to live longer if they quit smoking or change their diet and lifestyle is not that motivating," Ornish says. "Who wants to live longer when you're in chronic emotional pain?"
So instead of trying to motivate them with the "fear of dying," Ornish reframes the issue. He inspires a new vision of the "joy of living" -- convincing them they can feel better, not just live longer. That means enjoying the things that make daily life pleasurable, like making love or even taking long walks without the pain caused by their disease. "Joy is a more powerful motivator than fear," he says.
Pioneering research in cognitive science and linguistics has pointed to the paramount importance of framing. George Lakoff, a professor of those two disciplines at the University of California at Berkeley, defines frames as the "mental structures that shape the way we see the world." The big challenge in trying to change how people think is that their minds rely on frames, not facts. "Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have -- the long-term concepts that structure how we think -- is instantiated in the synapses of the brain," Lakoff says. "Concepts are not things that can be changed just by someone telling us a fact. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them, they have to fit what is already in the synapses of the brain. Otherwise, facts go in and then they go right back out. They are not heard, or they are not accepted as facts, or they mystify us: Why would anyone have said that? Then we label the fact as irrational, crazy, or stupid."
Reframing alone isn't enough, of course. That's where Dr. Ornish's other astonishing insight comes in. Paradoxically, he found that radical, sweeping, comprehensive changes are often easier for people than small, incremental ones.
For example, he says that people who make moderate changes in their diets get the worst of both worlds: They feel deprived and hungry because they aren't eating everything they want, but they aren't making big enough changes to quickly see an improvement in how they feel, or in measurements such as weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol. But the heart patients who went on Ornish's tough, radical program saw quick, dramatic results, reporting a 91% decrease in frequency of chest pain in the first month. "These rapid improvements are a powerful motivator," he says. "When people who have had so much chest pain that they can't work, or make love, or even walk across the street without intense suffering find that they are able to do all of those things without pain in only a few weeks, then they often say, 'These are choices worth making.' "
Another vital factor is to give people the multifaceted support they need. That's a big reason why 90% of heart patients can't change their lifestyles but 77% of Ornish's patients could -- because he buttressed them with weekly support groups with other patients, as well as attention from dieticians, psychologists, nurses, and yoga and meditation instructors.
Neuroscience, a field that has exploded with insight, has a lot more to say about changing people's behavior -- and its findings are guardedly optimistic. Scientists used to believe that the brain became "hardwired" early in life and couldn't change later on. Now researchers such as Dr. Michael Merzenich, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, say that the brain's ability to change -- its "plasticity" -- is lifelong.
What lessons do we have here on changing ourselves? And also for managers on strategies to help their reps improve their performance. How do we reframe the issue of getting out of poverty into achieving a grander lifestyle by helping others. How do we perform radical, widespread changes rather pursue small, incremental changes in our behavior. And let’s not forget the support infrastructure that needs to be in place to ensure feedback and positive reinforcement to our efforts to improve.
FAST magazine in May 2005 published an article titled ‘Change or Die’. This is what Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University has to say "If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle. And that's been studied over and over and over again. And so we're missing some link in there. Even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle, for whatever reason, they can't." In other words, your chance of changing is nine to one against you, even if your life depends on it.
The conventional wisdom says that crisis is a powerful motivator for change. But severe heart disease is among the most serious of personal crises, and it doesn't motivate -- at least not nearly enough. Nor does giving people accurate analyses and factual information about their situations. What works? Why, in general, is change so incredibly difficult for people? What is it about how our brains are wired that resists change so tenaciously? Why do we fight even what we know to be in our own vital interests?
Dr. Dean Ornish, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and founder of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, in Sausalito, California, provides some answers in his successful program. "Providing health information is important but not always sufficient," he says. "We also need to bring in the psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions that are so often ignored." Why does the Ornish program succeed while the conventional approach has failed?
For starters, Ornish recasts the reasons for change. Doctors had been trying to motivate patients mainly with the fear of death, he says, and that simply wasn't working. For a few weeks after a heart attack, patients were scared enough to do whatever their doctors said. But death was just too frightening to think about, so their denial would return, and they'd go back to their old ways. The patients lived the way they did as a day-to-day strategy for coping with their emotional troubles. "Telling people who are lonely and depressed that they're going to live longer if they quit smoking or change their diet and lifestyle is not that motivating," Ornish says. "Who wants to live longer when you're in chronic emotional pain?"
So instead of trying to motivate them with the "fear of dying," Ornish reframes the issue. He inspires a new vision of the "joy of living" -- convincing them they can feel better, not just live longer. That means enjoying the things that make daily life pleasurable, like making love or even taking long walks without the pain caused by their disease. "Joy is a more powerful motivator than fear," he says.
Pioneering research in cognitive science and linguistics has pointed to the paramount importance of framing. George Lakoff, a professor of those two disciplines at the University of California at Berkeley, defines frames as the "mental structures that shape the way we see the world." The big challenge in trying to change how people think is that their minds rely on frames, not facts. "Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have -- the long-term concepts that structure how we think -- is instantiated in the synapses of the brain," Lakoff says. "Concepts are not things that can be changed just by someone telling us a fact. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them, they have to fit what is already in the synapses of the brain. Otherwise, facts go in and then they go right back out. They are not heard, or they are not accepted as facts, or they mystify us: Why would anyone have said that? Then we label the fact as irrational, crazy, or stupid."
Reframing alone isn't enough, of course. That's where Dr. Ornish's other astonishing insight comes in. Paradoxically, he found that radical, sweeping, comprehensive changes are often easier for people than small, incremental ones.
For example, he says that people who make moderate changes in their diets get the worst of both worlds: They feel deprived and hungry because they aren't eating everything they want, but they aren't making big enough changes to quickly see an improvement in how they feel, or in measurements such as weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol. But the heart patients who went on Ornish's tough, radical program saw quick, dramatic results, reporting a 91% decrease in frequency of chest pain in the first month. "These rapid improvements are a powerful motivator," he says. "When people who have had so much chest pain that they can't work, or make love, or even walk across the street without intense suffering find that they are able to do all of those things without pain in only a few weeks, then they often say, 'These are choices worth making.' "
Another vital factor is to give people the multifaceted support they need. That's a big reason why 90% of heart patients can't change their lifestyles but 77% of Ornish's patients could -- because he buttressed them with weekly support groups with other patients, as well as attention from dieticians, psychologists, nurses, and yoga and meditation instructors.
Neuroscience, a field that has exploded with insight, has a lot more to say about changing people's behavior -- and its findings are guardedly optimistic. Scientists used to believe that the brain became "hardwired" early in life and couldn't change later on. Now researchers such as Dr. Michael Merzenich, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, say that the brain's ability to change -- its "plasticity" -- is lifelong.
What lessons do we have here on changing ourselves? And also for managers on strategies to help their reps improve their performance. How do we reframe the issue of getting out of poverty into achieving a grander lifestyle by helping others. How do we perform radical, widespread changes rather pursue small, incremental changes in our behavior. And let’s not forget the support infrastructure that needs to be in place to ensure feedback and positive reinforcement to our efforts to improve.
Relationship between Recruitment and Performance
Some managers regard recruitment as more important than performance management. Recruit as many people as possible…let those who can't perform leave and replacing them with those who can. This erroneous practice is based on the assumption that: the supply of good candidates is plentiful and you can recruit easily, and recruitment and performance are unrelated issues.
Performance and recruitment are not mutually exclusive because one of best sources of recruitment is recommendations from your existing reps…and they will only recommend their friends and clients only if they are succeeding and they feel that the agency environment is conducive for growth. If they feel negative, or even neutral, of their agency culture and their own performance, it is highly unlikely that they will take the initiative of helping you recruit people.
Performance and recruitment are not mutually exclusive because one of best sources of recruitment is recommendations from your existing reps…and they will only recommend their friends and clients only if they are succeeding and they feel that the agency environment is conducive for growth. If they feel negative, or even neutral, of their agency culture and their own performance, it is highly unlikely that they will take the initiative of helping you recruit people.
Commitment to Follow-Through
Even when a sales system is well-designed, it doesn’t guarantee successful implementation if the culture within the team is not performance-oriented. The analogy is joining a well-equipped fitness club to lose weight…if the commitment is weak, you would not persist and your objective will not be met.
On the other hand, if the commitment is strong, you would not only lose weight but you may be able to develop a nice physique due to the wide range of the equipments that allow you to develop your muscles. In a high performance sales team, the sales manager ensures that the sales team embraced and follow through on the sales system. The high adoption of the sales system a cause or an effect is immaterial…what is important is that high performance sales teams adopt sales system that work for them.
On the other hand, if the commitment is strong, you would not only lose weight but you may be able to develop a nice physique due to the wide range of the equipments that allow you to develop your muscles. In a high performance sales team, the sales manager ensures that the sales team embraced and follow through on the sales system. The high adoption of the sales system a cause or an effect is immaterial…what is important is that high performance sales teams adopt sales system that work for them.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Objectives of SPM
SPM is an integrated system to facilitate the improvement of sales results of Financial Services Representatives (Reps) in the following areas:
1. Systematic Planning
2. Self-organization System for Prospecting and Activity Tracking
3. Evidenced-based Coaching by Managers
4. Professional Advisory Process
5. Client Relationship Management
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