Chris Lytle

How long is a “Got-a-minute?” meeting in your office? I’m guessing it’s more than a minute. Shoot, I remember a “Got-a-second?” meeting that lasted an hour and a half! Salespeople ask you for a minute whenever they have a fire for you to put out for them. Maybe you have trained your reports that you’re willing to do their firefighting for them. Why not? After all, you know more than they do and you’re their boss. Here’s why not. Your real job is developing your salespeople so they can do their jobs better. Yes, developing people takes a lot more time on the front end. As a sales manager, the quick and easy thing for you to do is this: Give people the answers to their questions. Solve their problems for them. Put out the fire. Then, move on to your next “Got-a-minute?” meeting. This can go on all day. And it probably will unless you change your approach. Developing people starts with your willingness to coach. Chris Lytle’s Critical Rule of Coaching is to ask at least seven questions before you give an answer. “But, Chris, I don’t have the time to ask seven questions,” you say.  “There are salespeople lined up at my door waiting for me to fix things for them.” You have to make the time. Coaching builds loyalty. To ask seven questions, you have to quiet your mind and listen to people. When people feel listened to and not judged, they become more confident and committed. Because people rarely resist their own idea. And you cannot possibly ask seven questions in a row unless you really are listening. “You can’t influence someone’s thinking until you know what they’re thinking.” The late Norm Goldsmith said this to our Leadership Institute participants every session. You won’t know what someone on your sales team is thinking until you ask. “Got-a-minute?” That’s your signal that you have an opportunity to develop someone.

Those little words, “Hair is not a requirement” did wonders for my self-esteem. I worry that Donald Trump’s self-esteem is tied up in appearances rather than substance.

“Quit making calls.” Not the sort of sales advice you expect from a book that purports to tell you how to sell more. But it’s sound advice. I vividly recall the day I came to that conclusion. I had been retained as a sales consultant for a firm that needed one. I asked to see the systems and tools already in place so I could understand the process already in place. “Here are the call (that word again) reports for last week. My salespeople are making a lot of calls but they’re not closing anything,” the sales manager said with concern. “Maybe I should make them make more calls.” Although making more calls seems to be a reasonable solution to any sales problem, many misguided sales managers mistake a flurry of activity for real productivity. After reading several of the reports the sales manager had received, I came to this entry: The sales rep had entered this description of his latest meeting with a prospect. It read, “Stopped by XYZ Company. Ed (the contact) was out. He was having lunch with a vendor at Happy Joe’s Pizza. Will call again tomorrow.” I read it again in disbelief. I wondered, why document something that did nothing to advance the sales process? When I asked the salesperson why he had taken the time to document what clearly was a wasted effort, he said, “We are required to make a minimum of five calls a day and that was one of them.” By calling everything he did a call, he was fooling himself and his manager into thinking he was doing his job. Another salesperson in this same company had entered into her call report, “Dropped off coffee mug as a gift.” Chalk up another “call.” Only four more to go and she could go home feeling good about how hard she ... Read More