Posts

Wayne Moloney

A sales manager is a Performance Supervisor

A Sales Manager has many roles, with another being a ‘performance supervisor’. View Wayne’s latest appearance on Strategic Selling Group where he explains that management means measurement of processes and procedures in order to achieve outcomes.

 

I love being sold to…when selling’s done well

This is an unusual post from me as it relates specifically to a personal B2C experience, but one so good I had to share…and as you’ll see, when done well, delivering customer value is immune to B2B and B2C boundaries.

The story starts in December last year when, being the well organised guy that I am, I was shopping for a Christmas present for my wife on December 22nd (well at least it wasn’t Christmas Eve!). Knowing pretty much what I wanted I wasn’t expecting a problem, but I was in for a surprise; in fact a couple.

I was looking for a small, high-quality digital camera with zoom and a view-finder. My wife wanted something better than a phone camera but didn’t want to be dragging around her SLR digital when on holidays. I’d done the research and had a clear idea of what I wanted. However, while the internet provided me with good knowledge of what I should be buying, allowing only 2 days to complete the buy, wrap and place under the tree ruled out an online purchase (Note to self – shop earlier). So off the local retailer with my short-list of options and a good idea of what I’d have to pay.
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Sales Managers LEAD!

Last week I was asked to comment on a query from a new sales manger who wanted to know how best to establish himself as a leader when moving into his new role. I recently wrote a post of ‘leadership vs. management’, but his question prompted me to respond more specifically with respect to a sales manager’s leadership responsibility.

Leadership has many definitions, and sadly many of these suggest manipulative behaviour that is as far from ‘leadership’ as I believe you can get. The definition I find most palatable, valuable and applicable to sales management is…

Leadership is the art of getting people to willingly strive to achieve team goals

My experience in many organisations across various countries suggests, perhaps more than anything else, that great leadership is about dealing effectively with people in a particular situation. A leader is only a leader if they have followers, so leadership is not about competently holding a position of authority, but having an understanding of the principles that underpin the actual development of, and interaction with people in relationship to achieving a goal. Read more

Thinking Outside the Box to Win Sales

In both our personal and business lives, the decisions we make today are largely the result of past experiences, relationships and the values that were ingrained in us as we developed.

Good or bad, our past will have an impact on our future and all too often restrict the decisions we make and limit our growth. This is natural and many of us are aware of this and actively work to address the issue.

From a business perspective, such thinking can limit our careers and our personal and business potential. As markets change so to must the way we approach business. A lot has been said and written about disruptive innovation, and what has happened to those businesses that got stuck in the past (think Sony Walkman, Kodak, Swiss watches), but ultimately it may just be a case of changing the way we think about the obvious.

I came across this story on a friend’s Face book page today which I think demonstrates this idea perfectly. Now I think the story has been around for a while and I am unsure whether this is a true story or not, but it does highlight just how we can be constrained by not thinking outside the box.

Consider this:

You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:

1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.

2. An old friend who once saved your life.

3. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car? Read more

Lean Business – Myth or Reality?

LEAN Misconceptions – Part 1

The Lean Philosophy has been around for many years, but unfortunately it is not always understood, predominantly because Lean is thought to be:

  1. A cost reduction exercise
  2. A process to reduce the number of employees
  3. Only applicable to ‘manufacturing’ organisations
  4. An ‘operational’ issue that can be solved by the ‘operations people’
  5. Only for ‘big’ organisations.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

In this series of articles, I will discuss each of these misconceptions and demonstrate that Lean is about business; any and every business. A Lean business strives to understand what the customer really values, and then maximises customer value. Lean is not a short-term fad, but a long-term commitment towards continual improvement that involves every system, every process, every department and every employee within the organisation, irrespective of it’s size. Read more

Your Buyer’s Journey

Today, your prospective customer may be as much as 70% into the sales cycle before they with engage you, or your competitors. How you engage with them during this time is critical

Now the role of marketing is just as much about helping your prospective clients find you as it is about you finding your prospective clients. Where you have traditionally looked for business, and how you have gone about it has changed forever. But what hasn’t changed is that people still buy from people and businesses they know, like and trust.

Getting known and building trust needs to be a critical goal of any marketing plan. You need to help educate your target market, position yourself as an expert in your field and deliver the messages that builds trust in your capabilities.

Regardless of how you define your buyer’s journey having the right communications strategy for each stage of their trip is paramount. Let’s look at a simple journey your prospect might take to become a customer: Read more

Marketing Consulting

What the customer wants may not be what they need.

I have always been intrigued by this quote from Henry Ford. It challenges my approach to business every day.

images-1Isn’t Ford contradicting the basic principles of marketing that have been taught in business schools for decades?

Isn’t it the role of marketing to determine what consumers want, help businesses address these wants and position that product or service in a manner that makes the individual or business more keen to buy than we are to sell?

I still recall the morning Steve Jobs launched the iPad. I sat wondering why I would ever want (or need) something that appeared to be simply a replacement for my laptop but didn’t do everything as well and was like a big mobile phone that didn’t make calls. Wasn’t this a product looking for a market that didn’t exist? I couldn’t see a need. But now, like so many others I am a devotee of tablets. Read more