Be Different or be dead

February 15, 2021

How ‘feet-on-the-street’ sales can be way better than online sales

Source: Pexels

How ‘feet-on-the-street’ sales can be way better than online sales.

Online sales is beating offline sales; here’s how ‘feet on the street’ can get their mojo back.

The traditional role of offline sales is pushing the profession closer to extinction

It’s interesting to observe the evolution of sales over the past several years.

Technology affecting the online marketing and sales function has evolved at a blistering pace over the past 5 years.
Artificial Intelligence and web personalization tools allow organizations to track what individuals have researched and purchased and to present them with an array of buying options during their subsequent browsing sessions, and much more.

All under the guise of improving the customer online experience by making the suggested choice more relevant based on their past behaviour.

I personally find the experience anything but pleasant. Irrelevant ads pop up when I’m browsing and despite the claim from marketers that the digital tools they use are improving the customer experience, I find the process intrusive, annoying and frustrating. My reading experience is diminished with advertisers disrupting me with totally irrelevant product offers.

Notwithstanding the fact that the objective of enhancing the online customer experience is being met with varying degrees of success, this aspect of online sales is ahead of its offline cousin by an order of magnitude.

The online salesperson is nothing more than an algorithm devoid of emotion and ego; the offline one has all those constraints.

How can offline sales morph to what online sales is trying to achieve?

It’s all about context. Online sales is trying to improve the customer experience, and be more effective in anticipating products and services an individual might be interested in buying, so why doesn’t the offline sales world attempt the same?

I know offline sales aspire to build deep meaningful relationships with customers, but when you look at what motivates them it’s hard to believe.

My observation is that offline sales remains in the doldrums, holding on to its traditional role, motivated by:
— improving conversion rates.
— managing the sales funnel more effectively.
— get the sale.
— keeping the pressure on and don’t let the person say ‘no’.
— getting (and staying in) the faces of potential buyers.
— terminating the customer meeting if it looks like no sale is in the offing.
— pushing the product and make it fit what the customer wants.
— improving how to make a cold call.
— achieving quota.
— outperforming colleagues.
— winning the annual sales contest.
— earning salesperson of the year award.

With these motivating factors, it’s not believable when they say that relationships matter; their behaviour speaks otherwise. And certainly, without a strong relationship-building bias, the ability to anticipate customer purchasing behaviour is restricted.

So, what’s the solution? How can offline sales be better than their algorithmic online sales cousin?

We need to redefine the function as ‘un-sales’ and describe it as the folks that don’t sell; taking the focus off selling and putting it on building relationships. And change the way sales is compensated.

To get started, here are the rules for offline sales that must be put in place to build better relationships and experiences with the customer.

1. Pay people for relationships — If sales aren’t paid to exhibit the behaviours necessary to build relationships and create better experiences for their ‘target’ they won’t do it. Period.

So if leadership aspires to get closer to their customers but don’t put in place the infrastructure to enable it, nothing progressive will happen and the aspiration becomes an unfulfilled dream. And online sales keeps winning.

2. Stress (and micromanage) the conversation — Relationships and experiences get better when conversations between people are ingratiating and serve the needs of both parties.

Get rid of the one-way sales pitch. Make offliners the best listeners on the planet. Set a performance rule that the customer must occupy 80% of the conversation airtime. Have ego purging classes; strip dysfunctional ego-drive that prevents a productive two-way conversation (or remove the salesperson who can’t comply).

Make note-taking a compulsory part of the sales kit bag; it’s a vital element of giving someone a relevant, meaningful experience. No act shows that the salesperson cares about what the other person is saying than committing what is heard to paper. The act implies that one has been heard and that follow up is promised along with further action.

3. Find human insights — For the offline salesperson, behind every productive conversation (defined as a deeper relationship and a pleasant experience) is an objective; a specific intended outcome.

And for offline sales, the endgame of every customer engagement is to discover an insight on the other person that is useful in feeding the buying process. Further, if the insight is a rare find that no one else — i.e. the competition — knows, it’s a strategic gem that has the potential to achieve and maintain strategic advantage of the organization.

Knowledge is strategic power, and the offline salesperson is key in the process of learning what people desire and converting this knowledge into economic benefits for the firm.

4. Develop a serving culture — amazing long term relationships and memories can only be created by offline salespeople who like putting the needs of others before their own; they like serving people.

There are serving salespeople out there but in my experience they are rare because of the traditional role sales played and because of past hiring practices that reflected traditional sales values. Servants weren’t coveted; those with aggressive, pushy, and domineering attributes were given the priority.

As a start, how about devoting equal time to product and serving training? Teach the offliners what serving (to gather strategic insights) ‘looks like’ and why it’s critical to the future of the organization.

And, as an aside, if a serving culture were successfully created, offline sales would forever outpace online sales which depend on algorithms and predictive models produced by people who know the digital tool world, not people.

5. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up — Perhaps this might be viewed as a small thing, but it’s HUGE in terms of influencing experiences and relationships. If someone promises you something and you don’t hear from them for 2 weeks, how do you feel and what’s your conclusion? Most people would conclude that they lied to you and they really don’t care about your needs.

This is the one activity offline sales has the advantage. Yes, Amazon can inform us of the status of our delivery but it doesn’t fulfill any other follow up function. For example they don’t enquire on how we liked the purchase (relying on us to advise them if we were dissatisfied) and other more qualitative aspects of the buying process. Humans, only humans, do this the way it needs to be done.

6. Advocate for the customer — Wage battle for the customer inside your company.
There is nothing worse for a customer than having to battle the bureaucracy of an organization when they need something or when something has gone wrong and their expectations haven’t been met.

They are literally on their own to fight the rules and policies and other restrictions that make the experience extremely unpleasant and in many cases annoying.

The salesperson needs to put themselves on the line among their peers and bosses on the inside to represent the best interests of their customer.

Online sales cannot do this; only offline sales can. And it’s critically important to an experience and relationship. When a customer has an issue with their order and they have to deal with the ‘inside world’ of an organization, they feel alone. The offline salesperson can be their advocate to take the pain and suffering away; the organization is rewarded with loyalty and referrals.

Online selling has captured center stage because of the plethora of new digital tools available. But they have limitations that can only be remedied by offline sales.

The successful sales organization will learn how to balance online vs offline to optimize the strategic benefits of both channels.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 2.15.21 at 06:55 am by Roy Osing
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January 21, 2021

Why fantastic leadership skills can be made in ‘the bear pit’

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Why fantastic leadership skills can be made in ‘the bear pit’.

Survival in The Bear Pit is a critical leadership skill; if you have the jam for it, this should be your happy place.

Amazing leaders have an uncanny ability to know what’s really going on in their organization. And one of the leadership skills they draw on from their toolkit is venturing into and surviving The Pit.

What’s ‘The Pit’?

It’s a people cluster where the leader invites people to provide their honest feedback and opinions on a variety of topics that matter to the leader. The Pit doesn’t have to be face-to-face meeting; it can be virtual and it works just as well.

The Pit consists of a group of individuals in the workplace who have a point of view on how things are going and are very willing to candidly share their feelings to the leader if asked.

The Pit is all about the leader subjecting themselves to the crowd in an effort to learn what will make things better for people. A leader who puts themselves at personal risk are endeared by all, and that’s what makes this skill so key in leadership development.

A bear pit session is managing by wandering around on steroids.

Venturing into The Pit is not for the faint of heart.

The Pit encounter is not a formal event, but a casual meeting between the leader and a group of up to 12 employees (larger meetings generally stifle the flow of conversation and the ability for everyone to be heard.

The leader enters The Pit solo; no accompanying entourage is allowed. He or she stands naked in the cluster to entertain their desire to want better things to do the organization’s business.

It’s a fundamental element of leadership by serving around where the leader seeks feedback on improvements required to increase organizational performance and make things easier for employees.

When the leader ventures into The Pit, it is a free-for-all, no-format session.

The Pit is an opportunity for people to tell it like it is to the leader without their immediate boss being in the room. When I started doing these sessions,

I had pushback from some of my direct reports who quite frankly were threatened by my being in front of their people without them being there as a filter. This spoke volumes about their worth as leaders. If they didn’t want their people to be able to speak freely to me, what did it say about how they were leading their team?

The type of issues I raised in The Pit for reaction, opinion and solutions included:

— What’s generally working in the organization and what’s not. What’s the number one thing people think i as the leader should be worrying about?

— How the business plan of the organization is being executed.

— How effective the leadership of the organization is at helping them do their jobs better.

— The barriers in the organization that prevent them from doing their jobs the way they want to.

— Customer service problems and opportunities to solve them and enhance customer experience.

— Ways to reduce costs without sacrificing service to customers.

— Information on what the competition is up to, and suggestions to counter their moves.

— The dumb rules in the organization that enrage customers and threaten customer loyalty.

I had a Bear Pit session organized every week on my calendar. It mattered to me and after I did a number of them, it mattered to the people in my organization. They came to expect the clusters and they looked forward to putting me on the spot.
They came to believe that their priorities and suggestions for improvement made a difference.

I made it a priority; it mattered.

It was one of the most important drivers of my effectiveness as a leader as long as the issues raised were followed up on and that the improvements people wanted were implemented.

Try it.

If you have honed your Pit leadership skills, you will stand out from others who will watch you with amazement.

The Pit isn’t for everyone, just those who want to pump up their career and leave others in their dust.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.21.21 at 06:23 am by Roy Osing
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January 18, 2021

Why is ‘line of sight’ a great leadership skill?

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Why is ‘line of sight’ a great leadership skill?

Having ‘line of sight’ is the leadership skill that will set you apart from every other leader.

A colleague of mine, Ron Cox, Founder and CEO of Tailwind Consulting in Tampa Florida says that “a staggering 95% of employees in a company are either unaware of or do not understand the strategy”.

No wonder execution fails!

One of the biggest issues in any organization is the lack of congruence between what the strategy says and what people do on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy says one thing and not only do people do another, they do different things out of sync with the strategy.

Massive inconsistency and dysfunction results.

This is a failure of leadership.

Leadership tends to place more focus on direction-setting rather than on determining how the strategy will be executed.
Precision is applied to getting the strategy exactly ‘right’ and less attention is given to how it will be implemented in the trenches where the real work gets done.

The gap between strategic intent and actual results is due to this skewed attention.
If only 20% of leadership’s attention is placed on the details of how the strategy will be implemented, the strategy will likely be hit and miss as employees find it necessary to execute the plan the way they believe it should.

Effective strategy execution occurs when there is clarity between the functional roles that employees play in the organization and its strategy.

It is about translating the strategy into what it means to each function involved in delivering it. What specifically should the call center rep do differently? The product analyst? The sales person? The internal audit manager?

If at the most granular level each employee in the firm doesn’t know how to behave and what results to produce within the context of the new direction change will simply not happen and improved results expected by the new business plan won’t be achieved.

Line of sight

Line of sight to the strategy means what it implies; each employee can ‘see’ the strategy from their position and they understand what they specifically need to do to contribute to the strategy.

If direct line of sight is defined for every role, flawless execution results whereas indirect line of sight results in people having a clouded understanding of what action the strategy demands.

Most leaders absolve themselves of ensuring activity and strategy are aligned. It generally gets delegated to functional heads to sort out by declaring their priorities that they contend are homeomorphic with strategic imperatives.

The problem with this process is that subjectivity is introduced at a very high level in the organization and is magnified again and again as teams are asked to do the same thing through middle and junior management levels.

And the tipping point, of course, is that leadership doesn’t approve detailed functional plans which would at least show whether they were bordering on out-of-alignment or not.

Any inconsistencies between activity and strategy at the highest level in an organization are multiplied by an order of magnitude factor before it reaches the frontline people.

Under these conditions it’s not difficult to see why strategy and organizational activity diverge and not converge.

What can leadership do about this problem?

First, ease the precision around the strategy creation and tighten it up around execution. Get comfortable with getting the plan just about right and applying rigour to implementation and adjusting the plan on the run.

Next, take ownership of aligning organizational activity to strategy.

Alignment Plans

Institutionalize ‘Alignment Plans’ with functional heads; ask for sufficient granularity to the determination of whether or not a team has direct line of sight to the strategy or not. Make them work at it until they get it right and your leadership team approves.

Alignment Plans submitted to the leader should:

▪️ Define the key elements of the strategy that everyone in the organization must align with.

There are many dimensions to any strategy but it is critical to prioritize and focus on the critical ones. Greater alignment success will occur by focusing on a handful of the critical strategic imperatives rather than trying to ‘herd the cats’ around a dozen.
                         
▪️ Define what needs to change in every functional team with an action plan to achieve it.

If the organization is pursuing a new or revised strategic direction, there will most certainly be projects, company values, people skills and technology that will have to be re-vectored to enable the execution of the new plan. Details of everything that needs to change must be defined in detail.

▪️ Identify activities, projects and behaviours that have to be dropped in order to take on new activities required for alignment.

Leadership is just as much about what has to be stopped as it is about what has to be started.

If out-of-alignment activity is not stopped, additional unnecessary resources will be most certainly requested. All non-strategic activity must be isolated and resources removed and redeployed to new challenges that must be undertaken.

Personal initiative

If you’re an employee in an organization that chooses not to impose a process to explicitly align activity to their strategy, take personal initiative to align your own work priorities to what the organization wants to achieve.

Successful careers are built on the backs of the organization’s strategy and those that execute more effectively than others are quicker to reach their personal goals.

These personal actions will propel you forward.

1. Translate for others

Help others translate what the strategy means to them in the organization.

Once you have determined your own line of sight, help others through the same process.

Everyone needs to understand the new things they will have to do and the CRAP they will have to dispose of. Unless this translation for all employees is done, the organization will be frozen in momentum management and no progress in the new direction will be achieved.

Get involved in organizing and leading workshops with various departments in the company and explore a new blueprint for each that represents the new course for them to follow. 

The role of translating the new strategy for various employee groups is one that rarely gets performed. It’s a difficult task as it requires an intimate level of understanding of the strategy.
You can’t drill a strategy down into individual action if you don’t truly understand it at a detailed level.

If you’re a leader, you must dedicate much more of your time seeing that people treat this as a priority and hold them accountable.
Wander through the workplace asking people to clarify the top three things they are going to do to help deliver the new strategy and what dozen-or-so things they are going to give up.

And get the expectations hard wired into the performance planning process. It is the difference between an effective one where everyone is working in parallel to support a common purpose, and a dysfunctional one where people are working at odds with one another to deliver some things that are on strategy and other things that are not.

Synchronized outcomes release the power of execution - and competitive advantage; inconsistent outcomes zap the energy of the organization, encumber execution and impair competitive success.

2. Set your calendar

Let the organization’s strategy guide your daily calendar. The ultimate manifestation of direct line of sight is a calendar composed only of activities relating to the outcomes you have deemed necessary for you to deliver the new strategy.
If you can’t strategically relate a particular activity you plan to do on a given day, question why it is occupying your time.

Zero base your calendar and build it through the weeks and months ahead in the image of your strategy.
If you are in a leadership position, ask to see the calendars of those reporting to you. Is each of them doing the things required of the new direction or are they continuing on as custodians of the past?

3. Communicate the strategy personally

Communicate face to face with others in your organization as the most effective way of injecting the emotional component necessary to get people to believe and act.
E-mail blasts to a broad distribution list, employee newsletters and other mass means of communication don’t work as effectively. Use technology like ZOOM if physical distancing is a challenge.
These mass communications vehicles preclude the ability for people to engage in a conversation to enhance their understanding of where the organization is going.

You need to press the flesh even if it’s virtual, and make it matter by showing up in person, explaining the strategy and answering the tough questions.

In non-pandemic times, I used ‘Infonet sessions’ to communicate the company’s strategy to all employees.

They required high levels of energy and were extremely time consuming, but what else could be more important?
People in the organization need to understand where it is going and they have a right to challenge it if they are not convinced it is appropriate. You can’t capture their hearts and minds if you’re a ‘no show’.

4. Use the strategy as the context for solving problems

When confronted by a business problem or issue, always assess it and talk about it with others from the perspective of your strategy.
Create the strategic context for the discussion and then assess your options. What does your strategy suggest is the appropriate action to take?

It’s an effective way to increase understanding and awareness of your strategy and establish you as a leader and the strategy hawk for your organization.

People suddenly forget that they have set a new course in motion for the organization and they look for solutions to problems in the old strategic context.

The opposite is also true; people often don’t relate the visible changes being made in their organization to the new strategic direction that has been put in motion. They don’t get that the cause of the changes they are witnessing is the new strategy.

Assume the role of connecting the dots for people in your organization. Reinforce that the changes that everyone is seeing are the result of your new strategy.

Line of sight leadership is necessary to build teamwork and commitment to the organization’s strategic intent. Take a personal role is making it an essential ingredient in your culture.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.18.21 at 05:58 am by Roy Osing
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January 1, 2021

Great leaders spend their week doing these simple but important things

Great leaders spend their week doing these simple but important things.

Leaders require context for what they do and how they spend their time. A philosophy that guides their behavior and the things they treat as a priority.

Without context, leaders tend not to lead.

They flit.

They spend their time on the crisis of the day and chasing what their boss wants them to do.

The appropriate leadership context for today’s rapidly changing and unpredictable world should be all about serving people ‘on the inside’— employees—and people ‘on the outside’—customers.

You can’t plan your activities for the week without getting your thinking straight on which philosophy YOU believe in as a leader.

Do you want to control and direct people or do you want to serve and take care of them, believing that happy engages employees will deliver amazing results?

For some, subordinating oneself to another person is completely out of their comfort zone.

The issue is: which leadership philosophy better serves an organizational strategy today in a world where long term success and survival depends on the ability to stand out from the competitive herd?

Where execution separates the winners from the losers; where employee engagement determines if your game plan rocks or goes down in flames.

My money’s on serving.

If you decide to serve rather than control people, this unprecedented book is for you.

I will give you some simple, practical things you can do every day of the week to promulgate serving both within your organization where your warriors live, and on the outside where customers live.

Key concepts

Here are only a few of the powerful weekly tasks I share with you in my book:

— Get into a customer’s face constantly.
— Practice Leadership by Serving Around.
— Exercise your role as the organization’s strategy hawk.
— For God sakes, micromanage!
— Be nosy.
— Live with the frontline.

— Have regular bear pit sessions.
— Practise your speech style.
— Copy weird people.
— Treat unexpected events as emergencies.
— How to engage your people.
— DON’T be a great leader.

— Make sure employees understand their role in executing the organization’s business plan.
— Hire people when they give you goosebumps in an interview.
— Tell stories—lots of them—that describe success.
— Focus on DONE, not doing.
— Surprise others; don’t be predictable.
— Eat your own dog food.
— Nudge your strategy to success.

What some of my readers say…

“Leadership isn’t about titles, rules of thumb, processes and control. Rather, leadership is about being available – to listen, to guide, to create memorable experiences at every touch point. Be different – or be dead. Be ourselves – or not be ourselves. If we aren’t different, well, we might as well be gone. Thank you so much for writing this piece – a valuable guide for years to come.”—Elena Iacono, Communications Professional, Toronto Canada

“If you want to enhance your personal leadership style to transform your organization in a way that differentiates you in the marketplace, then I
would highly recommend you check out Roy Osing’s arsenal of leadership tools, and business enablement strategies. In his Weekly Calendar for
Leaders Roy outlines a week’s worth of simple, yet effective steps, and strategies that will help you create your own unique, servant leadership
style, and build a personalized, leadership blueprint for success.”—Gina Campbell, Senior Communications Manager, Soupcan Marketing, Vancouver Canada

A Weekly Calendar for Leaders is available at these retailers.

Cheers,
Roy
For all of my books, check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.1.21 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
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