My most difficult decision was to leave my previous employer’s sales team that was highly performing.  I was torned between two situations, leaving my team and the need to coach to help people achieve their sales goals.  It was an exciting thing to start my own coaching business but at the same time, it was very sad to say goodbye  to my  great business friends with who we have built a great business together.

Early in the game my clients encouraged me by giving me new mandates and supporting my initiative to start my new business.  They say that I inspire them by understanding fast their challenges and identifying opportunities that suit their personality and build confidence to call for action to achieve their goals.  Creativity and listening are great skills of mine.

I look at the forest with my clients, we take away the branches ahead of us.  I often have homeworks for my clients.  The small steps we take make great jump down the road.  The curve of personal development is moving upward after my coaching sessions to the point that when the sessions are over, my client keeps on growing.

My experience is all across North America.  Whether you are in Baie-Comeau, Toronto or Los Angeles, I will understand your challenges.

Motivation
Activities that will drive sales results
Building trust in yourself and with your customers
Enrich your conversation with customers to win them better
Manage activities versus managing the end of the month (sales numbers)
Set achievable goals that will motivate you
Understand your success to make it contagious daily!

Building trust is a long journey sometimes, but it takes just a little to lose people’s trust.  I compare trust to a “Trust” Fund, it takes daily activities to build it, however a big mistake may result as a withdraw of many dollars of your “Trust” Funds.  Therefore, it is critical to manage it properly with your customers and colleagues.

I want my client to meet and exceed their goals.  I may start to do conferences on key topics and even write a book one day about the Wonderful World of Sales !!!

My goal is simple, I want to be happy and make people around me happy in life and in Sales.  Sales could be an Art or a Science however, REAL SUCCESS cannot be reached if you are not Happy!

During my client meetings, I often encounter a challenge of alignment between the sales team and the owner of the company. The owner has a clear dream, or a vision, about his business and where he wants to be in 3-5 years.

On the other side, I meet the sales team who work to achieve their sales targets and to maximize their bonus/compensation plan, which actually have no connection with the purposes and dream of the owner.

Why does this occur? There may be several reasons, but the most common are:
-The profitable and non-profitable customers are not known to the owner or representatives;
-the target markets and bearers of the future, in connection with the dream of the owner, are not known to the sales team;
-the sales team does not have concrete objectives, with real rewards, for strategic business development;
-the sales managers (owners) manage sales performance and not the sales process that lead to the conclusion of sales;
-The products and services that could distinguish the company are not promoted by the salespeople, nor are they at the heart of the compensation plan.

We could name several other reasons that may explain the gap between the dream of the entrepreneur and his sales team.

The lack of cohesion between the owner and his sales team digs a slump in the business that, in the long term, can weigh heavily on the business owner. Often, we do not want to shock the sales team because they can have high emotions, and thereby we avoid having real conversations. Yet, these conversations can help the entrepreneur to achieve his/her goals, if only they were well understood by the sales team.

Strategic alignment of a company must go through all departments and all must contribute to entrepreneur’s dream, including the sales force and their compensation plan.

It’s amazing to see the force of alignment when the direction is clear for all. Actions are taken in the same direction and eventually, it is hoped that the effect 2 + 2 = 5 is achieved in the context of maximum synergy with the entrepreneur’s dream.

-When did you last communicate your dream to your sales team?
-Do you know your company’s sales results or the entire process of your business development plan?
-Do you understand the profitability of your customers (Profit and Loss per customer – Brent Grover)?
-What is your sales progression for the most profitable products and departments in your organization?

These are some important questions that can help you to start thinking about a closer alignment between your sales force and your entrepreneurial dream!

I hope that your summer was great and that you generated some quality vacation time around you. What I mean by this is that I hope you enjoyed great connections with your friends and family. It’s so valuable to stamp these connections and moments into your memory, and have stories that you and your family will talk about forever. I hope you had the chance to reconnect with friends that you had not heard from for a while, share a few laughs, and took the time to pursue your hobbies.

Most importantly, I hope that your three batteries – your Head, Body, and Soul – are well charged up, as vacation is the best time to “recharge” them! It’s during this time that most people re-align themselves, and that’s why it feels so good to be on vacation! You are balanced!

I personally had a great time with my family and friends. I took the time to jam with some great musician friends, and my wife and daughter. For me, the most amazing moments are always when I get to play music with my family and some great friends.

But with the end of summer comes a whole new challenge: getting back to work after being away for extended periods of time. What can we do to keep the balance between Head, Body and Soul when returning to work?

The first step is that we have to set being balanced as a personal goal for ourselves. After enjoying time off, too many people go back to their old habits and the alignment that was created during vacation will disappear as the workdays pile up. I believe that the contrast between our past experience at work and the great times we enjoyed on vacation creates a kind of trauma that we all experience when going back to work!

If you believe in balance and alignment, it has to be reflected in your agenda. That’s the second thing you should focus on when you return. Make sure to include your daily exercise routine in your schedule. Remember: the Body is the first to be aligned before the Head and Soul. Then, try to set a limit on your business hours during the week (for example, 45 hours) and don’t take on more work if you’ve reached that limit. It’s proven that productivity dramatically drops after working over 50 hours in a week.

Last, but certainly not least, you need to include your time with family and friends. To maintain the emotional balance you enjoyed during vacation, this time has to be become part of your agenda. Even though I can get very busy, I always plan some good music times with my friends and family during the weekends. This definitely keeps me balanced with my loved ones and has a positive impact on my work…

Balance is like everything else in business, if you have it as a goal, you will achieve it. The challenge is that we forget about it when the rubber hits the busy road! That’s why we constantly dream of going on vacation and enjoy them so much…

Stay balanced and have a great Fall everyone!

-Pierre

President PG Coaching Inc.

Emotional Intelligence is a very popular subject these days on the Internet. Although we hear so much about it, the stories and tips shared rarely pertain to the reality of the sales world. I think it’s time for salespeople to engage more with this concept in their daily activities in order to improve their sales results. Emotional Intelligence is actually a very important skill to have and develop as it allows us to truly connect with our clients.

Personally, I like to think of Emotional Intelligence in sales as a twofold process.

First, it’s the ability to read your clients’ emotions by paying attention to the words they use, their body language, and the energy they showed during a sales call. Attentiveness to these subtle, yet telling, clues must be nurtured to have a good Emotional Intelligence. It’s important to understand that your customer’s choice of words is a reflection of their emotions, which in turn should also be demonstrated in their body language and energy.

By paying more attention to these details, you can adapt your dialogue, create a better connection with your client, and translate this into a more positive closing. The “vibes” you get at the end of a meeting is the Emotional Intelligence you gathered.

But wait –that’s just the start! Emotional Intelligence is more than knowing how to read other people. In fact, I think that the second and most important part of having a good Emotional Intelligence in the sales industry is about understanding yourself and your emotions.

By tuning into your emotions, you will be able to better control yourself– and know, for example, when to take a deep breath – and be truly in the moment. It will also create a more positive connection with your client and foster a distinctive relationship that the customer is looking for.

To be more in tune with your emotions and your Emotional Intelligence, take a second to answer these 5 questions after a sales call:

1. Was I 100% present during my sales call today? If not, what else was I preoccupied with?
2. Was I energetic enough with this client?
3. Did I worry about explaining all my PowerPoint slides during my pitch?
4. Did I pay attention to my client’s body language? What did I learn by simply looking at them?
5. Did the words, body language and energy of my client “jive together” during the sales call?

If you don’t have clear answers to those questions, then it’s time for you to reflect on how well you manage your Emotional Intelligence. The good news is that Emotional Intelligence is an acquired skill and that you can work to improve yours. The better you manage your Emotional Intelligence, the better you will become as a Sales Professional!

-Pierre Guay

President, PG Coaching Inc

In my practice as a Sales Coach, I’ve come to recognize that most salespeople undervalue their time and don’t realize that it is in fact their most important asset. But the reality of this job is that we often lose track of time because of the constant demands from our environment – clients’ demands and internal demands from our employers. Especially at this time of the year, it becomes even harder to focus on what’s really important.

I’ve watched too many salespeople get on the ‘horse’ very early in the morning and then be taken for a heck of a ride, going along wherever the horse feels like going, answering to everyone else’s demands and focused on so-called ‘emergencies’. While they might feel like they are being productive, being carried along is not going to help them deliver on their bottom line. A friend in the consulting business once told me: “Pierre, you can’t invoice your lost day to a client!” and this still resonates with me every day.

To avoid being dragged along by this bucking horse, it’s important to prioritize your time and build an agenda that reflects the goals of your sales plan. Your Sales Goals should always remain your Top Priority! Make sure to allocate enough time in your schedule for all your sales calls, but don’t forget to also schedule time for follow up conversations and prospecting.

Inevitably, at some point during the week, you will have to deal with other issues, but at least your Sales Plan will be at the forefront of your mind when planning your agenda. When you do encounter these ‘emergencies’, make sure first that they are real emergencies and not distractions. Schedule a time to work on these emergencies, and deal with them then. For example, plan a couple hours per week at the end of the day or before lunch to work on them.

If you value your time as your most important asset, you will start to act accordingly. Otherwise, I can guarantee that your Bucking Horse will take over and your day will be gone with the wind, the same way the wild horse runs without knowing where he’s going. One’s thing for sure, the horse is headed somewhere: it might be a bumpy ride and you might end up nowhere near your goals. As a result of many days like this, you’ll also have to explain to your boss why you took so many wild rides!

Here are some tips to improve your time management:

1. Build your agenda according to your Sales Goals/Plan
2. Include all goal-related activities in your agenda: prospecting, meetings, follow-up conversations…
3. Learn to differentiate between real emergencies and distractions
4. Schedule time to deal with emergencies, and work on them during these times only.

I hope you all have a great end of the year, and I look forward to sharing more tips with you in the New Year!

Pierre the Coach!