There Is No Shame In Faltering In Your Business!

There Is No Shame In Faltering 

In Your Business!

Not Admitting the Issues and Failing to Seek Assistance,

That is a Different Kettle of Fish

By Nick Ashton, CEO, CommSmart Global

Please continue to strive for perfection and between you and me, there is about one person who might have really made it!  

Setting goals, targets and filling out the budgets on spread sheets is all well and good, but it is pure fantasy.  It takes experience, logic and common sense in understanding that it is not you alone that influences the outcome.

As an owner, whose idea it was to go into business in the first place, was all well and good back then.  If it was totally your seed money in the first place, you know that you believed you were in control and you hired who you thought was right at the time.  With little or no experience in this human hiring field, those that you felt good about, friends, friends of friends and on it goes.

Times have changed since those first exciting days and sales or manufacturing boomed, then…

Do you wish to revitalize the engine and the drive?  Of course you do!

This what we do, we create great sales teams!

What does it take?  Analysis of your existing situations.  Each and everyone concerned and making change.  This can only occur if you and your Board have ownership commitment and allow us to counsel you.

Oh, when looking at Talent Acquisition for sales mangers or sales persons, we use our own process, tools and specifically developed methodology for searching, finding and selecting the right candidate(s) for your proper Sales Team(s). And all of our Certified Partners, wherever they are operating, use the same, enabling us to produce consistent high quality deliverable around the globe.

We even guarantee the selections!

ASSESSMENT - No single great team of people can be created and maintained without assessing its members on their ability to deliver results in the specific environment in which they have to operate! This is particularly true for sales professionals.

COACHING - We do not have a catalog of coaching services to choose from but we discuss with our clients their specific needs and objectives and define tailor made programs which can be based on individual or team coaching activities. We can also discuss so called frame agreements or combinations of success based coaching programs.

COUNSELING - We feel in that respect, that in order to bring our Clients’ Sales Teams from being good to being great, they are much more in need for hands on operational “Tips & Tricks” which we teach based on real life case studies. These mentor programs are heavily interactive and the case studies are developed to fit our Clients’ operational environments as close as possible so that the learning can immediately be used in the field.

Come see what we can do… www.commsmart-global.com

Our dedicated services for you that started successfully in Europe and now here in North America.  

If you are located in Ohio, talk to us now and find out what we feel we can do for you.

North America:

Telephone: +1 (614) 655-1247

Europe: +31 6 11 30 3489

Email: ajv@salesmen4u.com


copyright 2015

What Has Happen To Your Desire For Success and the Logic Behind It?

The original concept, idea and your creative juices was massive in the beginning, where has your company’s sales performance gone and how can you be great again?

You knew from the start that it would be an uphill battle and your adrenalin was pumping, where has it all gone?

Let us show you how this can be done without rocket science and at an amazingly low investment.

Thomas A. Edison said it best:

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up!”

Do us all one favor, before we start ... please clear your mind, be brutally honest with yourself and stay with us. Then take a couple of days to let it “sink in” and think it over once more.

If after all that, and it still makes sense to you and your company, you should do something about it!

Some facts about sales teams

Our longstanding experience in handling sales professionals and teams indicates that no more than 1 out of every 10 sales pros can be called “a (great) sales talent”.

Of the 9 remaining, around half are “average”, some 25% are outright “bad” and only 25% could be called “good”. In other words only 3 out of every 10 salespeople out there are of an acceptable level to any company!

The reasons for “average” or “bad” sales performance are varied but the lack of sound individual “entrepreneurship” is very likely one of the most common.

A couple of years ago Gallup published a very interesting book by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman on the subject “Why do people (Sales staff) leave organizations?” and the conclusions were, to say the least, pretty impressive. The book was all about a survey on the topic conducted amongst more than 1,000,000 employees and 80,000 managers.

We have to admit, to astonishment, that we did not expect the absolute number one reason to be ... the Boss! The study added that "People leave managers not companies!" and further down the line it read: "The manager is the reason why people stay and thrive in an organization and the manager is also the reason why they leave!"

The claim “It’s the salesman, stupid!” is therefore not always borne out in practice. Hence, in many cases the claim “It’s the sales manager, stupid!” could be more appropriate when things go wrong in sales teams.

In B2B sales organizations such as the IT industry or really and company, the attrition rate of sales professionals can be as high as 30% per year during economic upturns and in crisis situations it can still reach the 15% mark! Unless maybe you are Apple, Microsoft, Google or a few others.

That means that every year quite a substantial number of salespeople are leaving their company for various reasons, most of them internal to the company itself! The subsequent cost to any company is huge, can’t be found in the books and can quickly rise to 18 months of lost business for every single sales person leaving!!! This is typically the average time needed for a new replacement B2B sales pro to be found, selected, introduced and brought up to an optimal level of performance ... that is, if the new guy is within the top 30% of all salespeople in the world ... and if everything else in the company is OK!

We feel that, by now, it’ll probably be clear to most, that problems arising from bad or low sales performance can’t be answered simply and quickly in a nutshell!

What we can confirm with deadly accuracy, however, is that the solutions can’t be found in any of the points mentioned in a snap of your fingers!!! It’s a bit more complicated.

These kinds of problems are ALWAYS caused by a set of different issues in the company. They only arise when the total environment surrounding the sales operation is out of balance or even sometimes non-existent and are due, in many cases, to the companies’ unawareness of how essential that environment is.

A sales team is made up of ... PEOPLE! And salespeople do have somewhat different profiles than people operating in other departments. That’s why they’re in sales and not in engineering, support or administration!

Unfortunately for many companies, salespeople require the total environment in which they’ll have to work, to be supportive, motivating and thrilling in order for them to over perform every month and every year, over and over again, without feeling the uncontrollable urge to leave the company for a better “environment”. Only then will that company be able to retain its “performing” human capital in sales and keep the books clear, as far as possible, of dramatic and unnecessary replacement costs.

Can an Entrepreneur assess his/her own company?

No matter what some people say about this issue, our claim is that most people will probably not be able to do this to the extent of discovering the underlying reasons for the ongoing problems AND subsequently defining and implementing the solutions!

It’s really pretty normal because after a while, as the Entrepreneur...

• you’re too biased by your own thoughts, achievements and surrounding;
• you can’t be a specialist in all areas which need to be considered and assessed; 
• you might not have the complete “helicopter view” which is needed to discover the underlying reasons in your company;
• you probably do not have the time to take a couple months off to perform the assessment and implement the necessary changes;
• it’s very difficult for you to think “out of the box” in order to find simple but practical solutions;
• it’s likely that you don’t have the proper tools to pull it off;
• Etc.;

The result is that often such an assessment is either not executed or not given enough importance and effort, which in turn jeopardizes the change management project that should follow, if any at all!

So, who are you going to call?

We Create Great Sales Teams!

www.commsmart-global.com

Email:
nick.a@commsmart-global.com
ajv@salesmen4u.com

Telephone: 

USA: +1 (614) 655-1247

Europe: +31 6 11 303489

copyright 2015

New Social Times, New Rules, Smarter Buyers!

Your Business Must Adapt or Die!

Is Your Company Ready?

The buyer of 5, 10, 20 or even 25 years ago has vanished and gone forever. 

You had better be in the same mode of change or the family business, which has grown substantially, which you created in the garage, or on a napkin, even in in the spare bedroom that you converted into an office, has not kept abreast of this shift in buyer behavior.  

Today’s active buyers have incredible access to more knowledge from more sources than ever before. They even ask questions, get answers, read reviews, do comparison shopping and actually converse with complete strangers all on the web, on their own terms and in their own time schedule. Look at the buying patterns of your own prospects and clients.  

More Lookers than Buyers!

Better than that, look at your own family's buying habits!  You cannot be closer to the facts than that!

It has nearly become a robotic world where the personal touch has gone.  The potential buyer is well armed with data about your company that you have forgotten about, never mind that you are the owner or CEO!

In these New Social Times, we must increase the potential of sales, the sales team and how the buyer can now consult with you on your products/services.

I saw a couple of quotes the other day on the Internet: 

“My old, tried-and-true sales strategy just isn’t working like it used to.”

“The traditional sales tactics we always used in the past don’t seem to get the same traction these days.”

I bet these words have ricocheted around your meetings like day old donuts!

All sound familiar? If it does, your sales team is not alone. Businesses everywhere are beginning to realize that they need to drastically change their sales and marketing strategies to survive.  To keep the business going and release the stress levels of these weekly meeting you have become to dread.

The naked reality of company life
Just a few facts that, year in year out, cost billions of dollars to companies around the world. Facts that are lethal to most SMEs.

Over and over I have met SME owners or managers who were not aware of these facts, had only a faint idea of them or thought that they most certainly did not apply to their own company!

Just a few of the initial facts about companies:

Of every 100 start-up companies, 75 go bankrupt in the course of the first 3 years and of the remaining 25, only 1 at best succeeds in becoming a successful medium-sized enterprise!

Of every 100 worldwide “perfect ideas” at the start-up time, 99 are doomed to disappear due to unexpectedly steep competition, a hostile takeovers or more commonly, bad, weak or non-existent foundations!

For every 100 companies in any vertical market niche, only a maximum of 5 can be found in the “LEADERS” area of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant! The remaining 95 are struggling hard every day to (at best) either “to get there” or “hang on”. 

In other words they “participate” in that market space but do not “influence” it (yet). For most of them it is much worse even than that ... they slowly die without realizing it until it is too late.

Our experience tells us that over 90% of our today’s SMEs do not have a proper detailed 5-year rolling business plan with the strategic and tactical choices and decisions for their operations!

Scary, isn’t it?

Some facts about people in companies

There is a short eBook by Steve Satterwhite based on a large study in North America by the famous GALLUP Organization that really blew me away! 

Here’s why: this study says ... that 63% of all employees are “not engaged” ... and ... 24% are “actively disengaged” in the company they work for!!!

By "Actively Disengaged", they mean people who aren't just unhappy at work. They're busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged co-workers are trying to accomplish. These are the people that come to work every day actively looking for ways to bring the organization down.

That's 1 person out of every 4 and of the remaining 3, 2 don't really care what happens with the company!!!

I believe you have got the picture!

Are you satisfied with your company’s sales performance?

If you answered yes, then skip this short 90 second presentation!

I am Max, the reason to drop in like this is, that I am more than happy to help you improve your sales performance. 

If you have the same commercial challenges like us, than I would like to suggest you take 90 seconds to watch the Salesmen4u video.

These have helped us to improve our sales performance letting us understand sales is not a gamble but a strategy. 

Because of this, we have the best sales team needed in these new social times.

Click here for my 90 second video

Available in Europe and now in North America

www.salesmen4u.com

Email: ajv@salesmen4u.com

Telephone: +1 (614) 655-1247

copyright 2015

Are you satisfied with your company’s sales performance?

Are you satisfied with your company’s sales performance?

If you answered yes, then skip this short 90 second presentation!

I am Max, the reason to drop in like this is, that I am more than happy to help you improve your sales performance.

If you have the same commercial challenges like us, than I would like to suggest you take 90 seconds to watch the attached Salesmen4u video.

These have helped us to improve our sales performance letting us understand sales is not a gamble but a strategy. 

Because of this, we have best sales team needed in these new social times.

Click here for my 90 second video

Thank you for watching, please contact me with your questions or an appointment time.

Available in Europe and now in North America

www.salesmen4u.com

Email: ajv@salesmen4u.com

Telephone: +1 (614) 655-1247

copyright 2015

Who is Wagging the Tail?

In your Company, Who is the Dog and Who is the Tail?

Is your sales manager and sales team communicating

conducively to you and contributing to your businesses success?

Some CEO’s and Boards have vivid images of sales managers and salesmen: Egomaniacal, Slimy Schmoozers, Embellishers, Flamboyant Story Tellers and Downright Liars.  

They are Shortsighted Bulldozers who level everything in their path, even their own Mother-in-law.  With all that cursed baggage, no wonder CEO's and the Board view the sales manager role as a necessary evil.  The devil in disguise so to speak.

Why do we have sales managers in the first place? 

It is said that the sales manager position was invented because most CEOs are willing to do anything in their power to avoid having salespeople reporting to them and under their wing.  In fact, even those CEOs who have the hankering to go on sales calls for the full process, from the initial presentation to closing the deal, the hint of having to manage a salesperson, let alone a sales team, sounds as pleasant as being handled by airport security or having a rectal exam.

The work of a small business leader (or a larger business leader, for that matter) should be focused on the things that will push the business forward, and that doesn't include deciding what sorts of tablets and smart phones to buy, the specific language in a marketing piece or banner headline, an area that has many small business CEOs drown themselves in, to the point of desperation, or even the terms and conditions of an normal deal. If you let them get to you, the issues and details will own you, and your staff will never learn to take the reins on the smallest “important” thing in daily and normal business.

It is all processes, adaptability and proven success.

"Just like a pack of wolves, leadership establishment is absolutely necessary. No, not a fight to the death or bloodletting!

There is no point in thinking there is a stereotype check list. It has to be natural not manufactured, otherwise it is seen as a falsehood. It depends on the individual and the adaptability that can be created.

Leadership is not dominating the scene, it is the ability to listen, adapt and then act." 

"Selfies" do not personify team success or collaboration. 

This is a team effort that requires fresh eyes and ears and we will assist in your capabilities of moving forward.  CEO’s and Board are focused so closely on what they know, their interpretation of the wants and needs of the clients, customers and internally, their sales staff.

Sales managers: Forecasting is the art of saying what will happen, and then explaining why it didn't!

Those who have knowledge don't predict.  Those that predict, don't have knowledge!

It is fully understanding by being that stranger asking the questions, you obtain such different answer that when the company or supplier is asking the same questions.  It is then being able to transfer the answer into solutions to make the difference.

That is how Salesmen4U creates great sales teams.

With decades of real experience, our proven methodology is built on a proper foundation.  Your sales team is an extremely important strategic asset.  They must therefore be created, enhanced, maintained and retained with the highest possible priority.  This is particularly true in Small & Medium Enterprises around the world.

It is also very hard to find affordable and professional services in this particular area.

Some scary facts

·         Less than 30% of all current sales professionals are worthwhile to be retained by the companies they work for!

·         75% of all start-ups go bankrupt within 3 years and of the remaining 25%, only 1% succeeds in becoming an SME.

·         Only 5% of all companies in any vertical market niche, can be defined as “leaders” in their domain. The rest are struggling daily to “hang on”.

·         99% of the businesses worldwide, are active in a RED OCEAN.

·         >70% of all active sales managers have no real leadership profile.

·         63% of all worldwide employees are “not engaged” and 24% are “actively disengaged”.

·         Some 40% of worldwide SMEs do not have a Sales Manager function.

·         >85% of companies do not enforce a tight sales cycle management discipline resulting in wasted time and missed sales opportunities.

·         Very few business software systems support true Sales Performance Automation and companies are therefore not in control of their salesmen’s’ activities.

  Salesmen4U was founded as an international service organization

• Specialized solely in finding, retaining and developing professional Sales Teams thus substantially improving their Sales Performance
• 
  
• Targeted towards the Small and Medium Enterprises because...
• 
  
• We are all entrepreneurs ourselves
• 
  
• We know what is missing
• 
  
• The Global economy will be more influenced by SMEs due to faster adaptation to a changing world

A real down earth company that brings results, contact us, not next week, next month or next year.  Contact us now, never put off what you know needs fixing and if not, will only continue in a downward spiral.

www.salesmen4u.com

Email:               ajv@salesmen4u.com

Telephone:       North America: +1 (614) 655-1247

           Europe: +31 6 1130 3489

copyright 2015

Well Hi there, I am Max...

I am Max, the reason to drop in like this is that I am more than happy to help you improve your sales performance.

If you have the same commercial challenges like us, then I would like to suggest you take 90 seconds to watch this Salesmen4u video. 
These have helped us to improve our sales performance letting us understand sales is not a gamble but a strategy. 

Because of this, we have best sales team needed in these new social times.



                                         

Successfully in Europe & North America!

www.salesmen4u.com
Email: ajv@salesmen4u.com
Tel: +1 (614) 655-1247

Do Not Let The Winter of Your Discontent Bleed Over Into Your Companies Performance!

Do Not Let The Winter of Your Discontent 

Bleed Over Into Your Companies Performance!

Adversity hits us all!  For all of America, it has been in the form of incredible cold weather, with snow totals beating all records.  Annoying and requires planning to assist to adapt to your method of travel, shopping habits and staying sane!

It is people and neighbors helping each other in their times of need.  Winter storms can be lonely and people die.  Understand, just like the loneliness of a storm, business and companies need help too!  Not just because of the weather, but being a business, making the right decisions on sales processes, talent acquisition, training and importantly, expert coaching. 

Yes, we want to be your adviser, business listening ear, not just from you, the owner, from your customers/clients, employees, those that are around you.

Our working expertise in finding out the inner situations are not only from the top down, but from, the bottom up.  We listen to it all and with the decades of asking the right questions, we able to provide you, with the solutions, we guarantee this! 

Take just 90 seconds and understand we can assist you.

Now Available in North America!

Tel: +1 (614) 655-1247

email:

salesmen4u@commsmart-global.com

ajv@salesmen4u.com

www.salesmen4u.com

We Create Great Sales Teams!

www.commsmart-global.com

copyright 2015