Sales by 5 Blog

Getting Your Culture to Sell Internally and Externally

Today we had an interesting discussion about our culture and how it has dramatically changed. We used to allow the unacceptable and in my previous business it got to the point of ridiculousness. So if you want to change it so that your people are not de-motivating (un-selling) each other, you, your customers, what do you do? Remember the flywheel Jim Collins referenced in Good to Great. Imagine a giant, heavy wheel that moves an inch after much pushing.  With continuously dedicated pushing in a consistent direction you start seeing it speed up. Finally it is spinning.

Once you have your purpose, core values, brand promise and goals and BHAG in place and the leaders are living them, the flywheel starts to move! It is not over a week, but the movement in one month can inspire.  The movement in six months will make you shudder at where you were six months ago and in a year, it is all clarity so you can focus on the vision (BHAG). It can be fun if you have a great coach or a great team pulling, pushing and providing the inspiration. Once you get to this stage, you do not get to rest or relax, you then get to make sure that everyone is realizing how each person is living that brand promise and living the company's purpose. How cool would it be if everyone is moving in the same direction with enthusiasm?  This is similar to a rowing team. What if one person did not row in the same direction once? What if they did not row the same direction two of five days? The rowing team would not allow it, why should you?

Summary: Selling starts with an attitude and reaches success with momentum. Selling on the inside gets sales on the outside and keeps the flywheel moving.  When were things the best?  Who is rowing against the team now and how fast can you fix it?

You are...

...what you eat. 
...who you think you are. 
...who you hang around.

When I was 15. I had ambition, energy, and passion for cars. I was searching for who I was.  I had friends who were encouraging the wrong things, weren't positive, and worst of all, they de-motivated me.

When I was 16 I had a girl friend who was “out of my league” and she inspired me, complimented me and best of all, asked me why these people were my friends. I had no good answer! Within months, I learned that a friend is defined as a person whom one knows, likes, and trusts. But further definition in a dictionary is: a person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade. Further finding is: One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement.

What does all this mean? Friends sell you on doing what is right and wrong.  If you have friends that belittle or de-motivate you or are jealous of you, get new ones! Fire the old ones! People sell bad things sometimes.  It happened to me. I want my children to have friends that inspire them to achieve more, whom they can trust and most of all, ones they respect.  According to Marcus Buckingham, besides having a stable home life, the most influential group of people growing up are friends during your youth.  Their perceptions of you shape you as a person.

At SalesBy5 we practice a core value:  follow your heart, it will not lead you astray.  What's your heart telling you about your life?

Sell New Employees on Your Company with a Great First Day

Yesterday, our new intern Bobby started at Salesby5.  We know that the first day at any job is important and sets the stage for engagement in the culture, fun and quickly feeling like a part of the team.  Kya, our Director of Remarkable Service, set the stage for Bobby with signs and balloons.  We prepared his BlackBerry for use, had his business cards ready, sent him welcome e-mails and had his work area ready. Our friend, Jack Daly, teaches the world to stop celebrating an employees last day and celebrate (sell) the first. How many people get taken to lunch on the last day or given presents and cake? 

All these things seem small, until you realize that most people wonder if they made the right job choice during the first 30 days.  Another gem from Jack: if you want to make a great impact (sale) with the spouse, why not send a bottle of wine/champagne to the house with a note to the spouse with well wishes? We sell or un-sell people on coming to work with a smile and great attitude and ready for day 2!

Take the time to tell a great story about you, your company and your culture instead of making the first day about paperwork and employee manuals. Make work remarkable!

The Project You Were Born To Do - Today's the Day!

Is there a project that is waiting for you to start on it?  Something burning inside you that won't go away, but you haven't taken action yet?  Are the books on your nightstand indicating what that project is?  Why not start on it today?  Have a laser focus on what it is you need to be doing and battle the Professional ADD, as Keith Ferrazzi puts it.  Expect people to tell you that you can't do it and others jumping in your way to sabotage your progress.

The cool part is the momentum will build along the way, others will see the progress and, oftentimes, will want to join you.  If you can speak passionately and clearly about what it is you are trying to accomplish, you will help sell the program to others.  Check out these tips to sell your idea faster, with less effort.

Once the flywheel is moving, take the time to see it through.  Overnight successes take about ten years.  Need help seeing it through? Call us, the Salesby5 SWAT team is ready!

Pic from Flickr - thanks heyjohngreen

Knowing When It's Right - Fitting the Culture

We've recently been interviewing students and new graduates for our coveted summer internship position.  You might be shocked at what you see.  We would ask questions and get a response like "yeah" or "uh-huh."  Some were chewing gum, had no eye contact and exuded entitlement, while others had sub-par email skills.  Today, we got what may be our winner, Bobby.  He was well dressed, had a great (one page) resume that gave us more depth into his life, spoke clearly and had a well written introductory email. 

We have a very special culture and guard it highly.  What if he doesn't speak to a client respectfully?  What if he drops the ball?  What if an email of his unsells?  We realized, though, that the culture of the organization is not only something to be defended, but it is also provides protection.  The culture doesn't allow for these things to happen.  Every new person is directed to the brand promise, core values and purpose of Salesby5.  Additionally, questions are welcomed hourly!

So, if communication is sub-par, a team member is on it to clean it up and explain how to avoid this in the future.  If a customer is not receiving the proper attention, someone else helps give them the right touch.  Everyone is concerned about keeping our quality at an extremely high level in communication and service. 

Now, let's say you start getting used to this and then you go to a doctor's office or a business who still thinks it is 1980.  They believe they are special, when they are really a commodity. It makes us appreciate what we do, how we do it, and how we'll never go back. Our culture and attitude is the salt and pepper of 2020. Call us and see!

We have serious fun at work.

How to Get the Most of Employees, Vendors

We were recently given a nice compliment from our awesome web guy, Drew.  He said "you all are exceptional at letting me be exceptional."  After a bit more discussion, Drew further defined it by explaining that often times clients get in their own way and decide to run projects rather than providing a vision and letting the expert, Drew in this case, do the right thing. 

When we over-direct, we tell our vendors that we can do things better than them.  In doing this, we do everyone a disservice.  We turn these people into waiters (taking an order for the hamburger) instead of recognizing their strengths and letting them give us more than we could ask.  Try this today, instead of telling your highly talented people what to do today, rely on their strengths and let them surprise you with something amazing.

When you start asking, instead of telling, great things can happen for both involved. We practice this and the benefits are amazing!

Me, taking the "strengths thing" too literally.

Ten Days to Selling More with Less Effort - Living It!

Yesterday: Great stories start inside the company and go out. Great stories capture the hearts of people including buyers, prospects, and even cold leads.

Today: Living It! "It," is your product or your service.

A few years ago I walked into a nice department store, I wanted to buy nice shoes and a nice suit. The man, a "fashion adviser", selling the suits and shoes was dressed in an  unattractive suit and bad shoes!  His credibility was lost because he wasn't living “it,” so I didn't buy anything from him.

Here's a story from our friend and former intern, Carlton Douglas.  We were blessed to have him and we're proud to know him.  Carlton "lives it" and we could feel it when we hired him. Here's his story, in his own words. 

From the Desk of the FORMER Intern

I logged onto the website to get the address of Sales By 5 for a resume (I’m trying to get a Promotions Manager position at Indie 103.1 here in Los Angeles). Seeing the familiar SB5 color scheme and then Erik and Nan’s video posts, my mind jolted back in time to the months in which the company employed me.

Some people feel like crap thinking about past jobs. I, too, have a few of those jobs, but Sales By 5 wasn’t horrendous enough to make the list. In fact, it was the best job I’ve ever had. Out of everything it taught and reinforced in my working behavior, the most important was that I could do anything. ANYTHING. I don’t mean that in a sappy, Reading Rainbow way, either. If someone asks me to do something, the truth of the matter is that I can do it… if I want to do it.

Present Day: I’m in Hollywood. That’s pretty cool. I met a guy on Sunset Blvd. and La Brea, Antonio, whose brother writes music for Lil Bow Wow. He hooked me up with these guys who do just about everything in music business – booking, management, PR, and pretty much anything else you can think of. I snag a short gig doing miscellaneous work for them.

I get a call the night I might them telling me to get them a list of all of Whitesnake’s managers and label affiliations since the mid-70s. I tell them that it’ll be done by morning - without a doubt. Then, I realize that its one in the morning, and I’m still too poor to have Internet access at my apartment. I don’t want to disappoint these guys, so I proceed dialing every number in my phone to get some help, but everyone is asleep. Just great! Thirty minutes later, I remember that I have web access on my phone, and I’m off searching through Google to find almost 40 years of management and label information about a band I’m too young to care about. By four in the morning, my task was complete, and I had impressed guys who would end up giving me a few more gigs.

Hopefully that sounds impressive to you. If not, you should give it a try. On top of doing the research, try it ON A CELL PHONE! It was the Sales By 5 attitude I had embraced that got me through this trying task.

My first day on the job, Erik had me figuring out where to get beer bottles with custom labels, filled with beer of course. Oh, and it wasn’t just your average Sunday afternoon football 24 case of Budweiser. I needed to find 1,000 bottles! Google was always my friend, but I wasn’t that great at it. Erik tosses a few pointers my way, and I’ve got at least 10 options in front of my face in 5 seconds. I never knew that being a Google Master could be so beneficial to your career!

Six months after last stepping into the office, I still use my Sales By 5 learned abilities. It wasn’t that one instance in which what I learned while working with the company helped me out. Most recently, I wrote up a bio for a country singer at the request of Shakira’s former publicist – using a similar format to press releases done for SB5. She wants to give me more work! I “marketed” myself to a wealthy jazz enthusiast, who heard me playing sax on Hollywood Boulevard, about financing the recording of a jazz album. He’s digging the idea.

Sales By 5 didn’t change my life. My life had yet to begin before working with them! Things are beginning to take off, and I can credit so much of that to this company.

Erik & Nan -keep your eyes on the mail. Your million-dollar check will be there soon enough.

Carlton D.

------

Do you see the difference between living it and just going through the motions?

A Way to Avoid E-Bombs

You have likely been on the sending or receiving end of an email that de-motivated you or ruined someone's day.  We call them e-bombs.  Here's a way to avoid having such a negative effect.  When you receive an e-bomb, you'll notice one consistency - the tone in which you read it.  Your emphasis on words and pronunciation goes negative, even if the person sending you the email NEVER speaks that way.

Next time you are writing an email that you feel could be the least bit negative, do yourself a favor and read it back to yourself in a snippy, ugly tone.  Of course, if you're writing a flowery and 100% complimentary email, it isn't an issue.  If, on the other hand, you are providing a suggestion, it might sound condescending.  The point is not to censor yourself, but merely to pay attention to how you word your emails so you share information with the proper tone.

Natural Selling - Catch People Doing Something Right

Do you see great traits in others that they don’t recognize in themselves?  Please take time now to catch people doing something right.  Do this for at least three people, then tell us how contagious it was. 

Think about this – you wouldn’t let your friends/family/employees not eat.  How long has it been since you fed someone with a genuine compliment? It feels incredible. It can be simple, but make it real, such as, "Awesome hair cut!" or "You look great."  or "Thank you for your input, you are an incredible asset to our team."

Say it, write it, blog it, twitter or e-mail it, but please do it!

High Five shot courtesy of horizontal.integration - Flickr

Why Tradeshows Are Crucial...

We go to numerous tradeshows and conferences annually. We sometimes forget what it's all about before we get there, because we get excited about the speakers and the new things to see.  Then we remember, it's about the relationships.  Let me be more clear -  IT'S ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIPS.  It's not about the schwag, new gadgets, ideas, products, services - that's salt and pepper.  The people you connect with and whom you provide value to is the most important thing.  Take the time to invest in the most important thing when you go, the people.  Everything else will take care of itself.

My new friends from Viigo and I.  Viigo is an excellent (free!) mobile application that lets you read our blog and other sites on your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device.  Download it now!

Check out more pictures from WES.