Category: Sales

In the 1960’s the selling-for-success mantra was: “Find out what they want… then… Sell it to Them!”

Today’s more contemporary methodologies recognize that finding out what they want or can afford is not as easy as once thought. Nevertheless, most current success formulas, still concentrate almost exclusively on uncovering customer needs, problems and wants such that it leads to sales/success. What clearly is lost in this outdated narrow approach is the equally important step in uncovering and solving the needs of the sellers – arguably a more important ingredient for success.

At the risk of dating myself, “Get Out! and Stay Out!” was at one time, the first two orders a salesrep could expect on any given day. Other equally outdated strategies were evidenced in things like half-baked Corporate Mission Statements hung in company foyers that read: “The Customer is always right” and “Customers are #1”. The tacit implication from these statements? The needs of the seller will always take a back seat.

There is no argument that without customers [sales] there is no company; that’s a no-brainer. On the other hand, what so many companies and management strategists fail to address is that if there are no Sellers… there are no customers or sales.

I’ve written many times before that statistics demonstrate it takes 5-10 times more time, effort and money to get a new customer than it does to keep one. The fact is, these statistics are inextricably the same for salespeople. Without a doubt, it takes 5-10 times more time, effort and money to get and train new salesperson than it does to keep one.

Why then, are we so fanatically focused on the value of customers, while at the same time, so blinded to the indisputable value of our corporate lifeblood – Sales People?

Going back a bit, if we recognize that customers have needs, goals, and challenges that are important to uncover, validate and act upon, to help to garner sales, would the same logic not make sense regarding the value-of-the-salesperson; that demands a similar approach in keeping with the seller’s integral importance to corporate success?

At times my passion and real-life experience boils to the surface compelling me to tell it like it is: “If you want the company to be more successful…and if you want your salespeople to make more sales … “STOP TREATING THEM LIKE CRAP!”

Salespeople, like customers, are people too. They have needs, wants and challenges that often get in the way of sales. Take the time to uncover some of their challenges and you may be amazed. You may hear things like: [Seller] “Getting the order is only the first sale! Selling our corporate financing department on accepting it is an even bigger sale. Selling the administration department to process the order so I can get paid is often so demoralizing! Selling the service department on the unavoidable fact that, in order to get ‘this’ sale, they would have to share – fairly and equally – in the modification-of-price”.

Note: I do not now, nor have I ever promoted discount-selling. That is for the weak. On the other hand, there are competitive times like these – where products and services are more the same than they are different – when price-ameliorations are the difference between some profit and No Profit! Good sellers know the difference.

The message not to be lost here is this, Sellers, like Customers, need help and expertise in identifying, then, overcoming challenges that make the opportunity for sales to happen. It is the elemental Yin/Yang of ‘The Art of the Sale’.

The best sales manager I ever worked for started each meeting with, 1) What are you working on? 2) What are the challenges to bringing in the order? and 3) What can I or the company do to help you get the order?

Is that any different to asking a Customer, “What are your needs and challenges?”, and “What if I can help you satisfy them at a competitive price that suits your budget?”

The better question might be, “What if we neglected to take these steps? … How would it affect our success?” DRAMATICALLY!

Having now spent the better part of 30+ successful years in the selling business, I can point out without equivocation that sales people – for the most part – do not receive the recognition or respect they deserve. Too often the drunk, plaid-panted, white-belted, loudmouth with the lampshade on his head at a party is what people conjure in their mind whenever they think about a salesman. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

It’s time the selling profession is recognized again as the honorable discipline that it most surely is; one where success walks in lockstep with honesty and integrity. One where the professional seller is a professional helper, a problem solver, a solutionist – not what the ignorant so erroneously believe.

It’s time again for senior executives and company owners to re-embrace their roots, the stuff that separated them from the others, that got them to where they are today, and reinvest in what few could argue is the most precious asset that walks out their door each day, whether it’s to go home or to a potential customer.

The Bottom Line:

In wars, we give medals to our brave men and women on the front lines, the ones with everything at stake and everything to lose. The ones, without which, we can ever be successful. In business and especially in competitive times, we have courageous men and women on the front lines doing a job that makes most all others cringe at even the thought of meeting the challenges they face on a daily basis. And the fact is, we better respect, honour and support these people because without them, there would be No customers, No service department, No marketing department, No administration, No Company, No recovery, No economy… No Damn Anything!

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Paul Shearstone MACP, CCP, is a recognized expert on Sales and Persuasion. An International Keynote Speaker, Author of several books including, “Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability”. A Certified Coaching Practitioner and Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, Paul enlightens and challenges audiences as he informs, motivates and entertains. To comment on this article or to invite him to speak at your next successful event, we invite you to contact him directly: www.paulshearstone.com paul@paulshearstone.com 416-728-5556.

The methodology of elite salespeople is focused at a higher level. They gravitate more toward the natural laws of human interaction and psychology – the esoteric – the essence for which the Rules of Selling were written and in which they find credibility. Their delivery appears effortless albeit transparently deliberate. What they do and the success they achieve is not by accident! … Paul Shearstone, 2003

Few who have made a success in sales would argue that the discipline of selling is both an art and science and it follows many of the same verbal /conversational rules established within other respected professional disciplines such as psychology or the legal field.

For example, you can call it an “Open-ended Question” or an “Indirect Probe”; it really makes no difference. The psychological strategy and import are the same whether it is used in conversation with a person lying on a couch, sitting next to a judge or someone you would like to sell something to behind a corporate desk. It is a time-tested, strategic and proven verbal technique that is used to allow another person the latitude to say what is on their mind. Moreover, it is a technique that must be learned and that is the core catalyst contributing to the demise of today’s professional salesperson.

Psychologists, psychiatrists and lawyers need not worry about this phenomenon because none of them are allowed to practice their profession until they have spent years in university learning and honing their craft until the day they are licenced and hit the street, fully prepared.  (Or so one would hope!)

The discipline of Selling, on the other hand, is the only Profession that allows anyone with guts to pick up a bag on day one, with no selling experience and “Haveatit!”  Sink or swim, you learn on the Job.

As one might expect, the mortality rate is quite high; higher than most other professions.  That is a fact. It has always been that way. The problem, however, is that the mortality rate, especially over the last decade and a half, is now alarmingly high. The reason?  The rise of the virtual office.

Years ago, the bullpen of almost any sales force, regardless of the industry or product, comprised new sellers and experienced sellers who had tenure, but they also had one other very important ingredient – successful sales journeymen… Mentors!

Anyone could argue that good selling courses and training are the key ingredients to producing new professional salespeople.  Although this may shock you coming from a guy who trains successful salespeople, from where I stand, they’d be right, but they’d be more wrong than right.

I have written many times before that I’ll never forget the mentors in my sales career who took me under their wing and showed me the way to sell. In a couple of cases, they saved my career. It is my belief that the training and expertise that is handed down one-to-one, by working in the field in real time in front of a customer, cannot be overvalued.  In fact, I would go so far as to say, it is integral to reducing the sales mortality rate which in turn would save companies and industries millions of dollars in wasted training and turnover.

The sad reality is the virtual office paradigm is not equipped to satisfy this basic and essential requirement for a new seller. They need leadership, the kind of leadership that can only be found by spending time with the unquestionably successful. [Insert the ‘teach a man to fish’ story here].

Too often new sellers are left to their own devices to try and implement a newly-learned sales technique (without the benefit of seeing it first used successfully by a proven professional) at a time where they inevitably pay the ultimate price, by losing the sale!

More tragically, what often results is they typically abandon what they have been taught in an expensive sales course, believing its all bunk and then they psychologically flounder on a path of unproductive trial and error. The sad reality is they spend the remaining time the company is prepared to give them, in a slow, predictable and unsuccessful slide, convinced that sending out emails all day to potential customers from the comfort of their Virtual Office, will somehow garner the results they seek. But instead they experience devastating results.

So, what’s the answer? Well, it’s not that mysterious.

Business owners and sales management must embrace the fact that along with on-going focused sales training and development, there is a second part of moulding newcomers to sales which can only be achieved through mentorship.

I don’t mean to be glib but if the Mafia and drug cartels see the value in training their recruits on the street in real life situations to learn the business, can we in our profession not see the correlation in supporting our inexperienced sellers?

A “glass-half-empty” person might be quick to point out that successful sellers are too busy to take on a new recruit or there is no personal benefit for them to help someone else.

Well, from my three-plus decades experience in sales, sales management as well as training, they would be proven completely wrong! The fact is, I have lived and witnessed both sides of the fence.

As a rookie, I found the truly and consistently successful sellers almost without exception, are accommodating and willing to help the inexperienced, but with only one caveat; The inexperienced seller must be dedicated to the craft and then implement what is taught. Likewise, successful sellers don’t see other sellers as competition. They are competing with themselves. That’s why they are so successful.

And as far as what’s in it for them, they never kid themselves by thinking they did it all on their own. Like me, they know that there were times when a mentor came to their aid and said something like, “C’mere rookie …Let me show you how it’s done!”

They recognise too that with success comes responsibility. I can tell you first hand, having mentored many young (and by the way, now successful) sellers – there is no greater joy in sales than watching a young seller get a first sale and taking pride in the fact that you have successfully passed on your skill and expertise for their benefit, as well as that of the company and your profession.

The Bottom Line:

The move to Virtual Offices, although more efficient on many levels, still pays short shrift to the overwhelming needs of new sellers to learn their craft from those who are inarguable professionals. Selling is both an art as well as a science that is best learned by watching and mirroring the truly successful. Where it takes place is in the presence of a mentor and often in front of a customer … not in a Virtual Office.

How Incentives work and,
Why sometimes they Don’t!

Employee incentive programs have proven to be one of the greatest ways to motivate individuals; sales people in particular. Introduced and managed correctly, the ‘right’ incentive programme contributes to greater sales success and an improved corporate bottom line. But only if it is the ‘right’ program and, it is managed efficiently.

Sadly, some programs are not as successful as they could be because they fail to fully understand what truly motivates salespeople and drives them to overachieve. Would you like to know why that is and how to ensure the money invested in an incentive campaign, is maximised for success?

The dangling of the proverbial carrot is an ancient art that is understood to be at the heart of human behavior, psychology, motivation, and business. Manufacturers and distributors commonly use this technique with their channel partners to add unique motivational value; often to move specific products or services. The reason this technique has stood the test of time is because, for the most part, it works! Nevertheless, elements of the incentive-technique can be improperly executed. The result? Sales incentive campaigns that under-perform or fail as a result.

The monetary values of incentives are not always the critical factor in motivating sales people to succeed. Take my own example. I was fortunate to work in an industry that provided an unending supply of incentives and awards for overachievement. For me, the money and the goodies were not my primary motivation. My philosophy was simple: “If I could win all the incentives there was to win, I couldn’t help but be at or near the top of my sales-team, every time.” Corporations use incentive programs to drive behavior and I agreed to play the game and conform to their wishes; what gets rewarded, gets done.

The problem, from the corporate investor’s point of view, is that not all salespeople are motivated the same way. Consequently, not all incentive programs work. Why is that? From my experience, I’ll make the following observations:

1) The 80-20 Rule: Twenty percent of the salespeople make eighty percent of the sales and profits. Too often, sales incentives – perhaps in an effort to be fair – are geared to the entire sales force or VAR channel. The risk in a program like this is that the glove that fits everyone, in the end, fits no one. Enlightened marketing strategists know that the top twenty percent are already motivated. Simply put, a strategy that’s geared to light a fire under the next twenty percent – the next logical group – doubles the business in a more cost-efficient manner.

2) The KISS Theory: Salespeople by nature are like electricity. They naturally take the path of least resistance. That’s not to say they are lazy or untoward. In fact, just the opposite. Good salespeople look to simplicity to make things happen.
Often, incentive programs fail miserably because of innate complexities either in their recording and reporting-systems or in how rewards are won. If you put the salesperson in a position where they are forced to assess “To get this, I first must sell this, plus these, and not these, and they must include these,” you are creating a recipe for confusion, sales frustration and failure. In the end, the incentive program becomes a disincentive!

The remedy? Companies must keep the program sweet, simple and attainable. There can be no ambiguity. Anything less will result in a lack of interest, as well as a waste of time and money that can sometimes spill over into other departments whose task it is to administer and account.

3) Education: Edison may have invented the light bulb, but it never went anywhere until a salesman understood its benefits and made the first sale… and probably sold a lamp to go with it!

Incentive programs don’t just sell themselves. Too often, expensive motivational programs are overlooked in the field because reps either don’t understand their value and/or are unsure how to sell them. Many times, good campaigns are written off as having missed the target, when in reality, they just weren’t rolled out and managed properly.

4) Competition: Everyone’s heard the expression, “Timing is Everything!” This is particularly important advice for the successful incentive program planner. Marketing execs can’t know when every competitive incentive program will rear its aggressive head, but they can take strides to ensure their program is given first look.

Any successful salesperson will tell you, “Most sales are made because of due diligence on the front end.” Simply put, the better the preparation, the more likely the sale. The same can be said for incentive initiatives. Real incentive programs, like new movie releases, are something to be anticipated. The right amount of promotion ensures greater acceptance and interest that often usurps focus on competing programs.

5) Reward: Any reward-value can become an unmotivated, anticlimactic activity if the time span between winning and getting, is too long. Successful incentive programs reward immediately! As a rule, the faster the reward is delivered, the greater the enthusiasm for the program.

Although on some levels, salespeople are a complex breed, when it comes to incentives, they are – for the most part – quite predictable. Their nature is to react to excitement or challenge faster then most, and then move on. One way to maximize their natural bent and ensure greater program success is simply to cater to their natural motivators. “Get them their stuff QUICKLY!”

6) Recognition: At the risk of making salespeople appear shallow or monolithic (they are not), recognition amongst their peers is still the quintessential motivator, whether there’s an incentive program or not.
The rule again, is, there is no such thing as too much recognition! Salespeople by nature gravitate to the limelight much like other performers, and so there should be no shortage of achievement and overachievement recognitions that find their way – in a timely manner – to the public’s eye.

Psychological studies have shown that the pursuit-of-recognition, in itself, can make the difference in targeting that critical second twenty percent on the sales achievement ladder. Experts agree that successful sales teams find motivation in their own champions. Publicly beatifying the sales leaders instills excitement and a definable hierarchy that beckons all players to become a member.

Another fact that is frequently overlooked is that recognition, whether part of an campaign or not, is the least expensive means of motivation. In many cases, it is free! Simply shaking the hand of the president in front of the company, is often all it takes to galvanize the need to overachieve.

The Bottom Line: Corporations, manufacturers and distributors must take greater care when designing motivational incentive programs. Take a page out of the ‘Sales 101’ book that says, “Find out what they want, then, give it to them!” But make sure to keep it simple, keep it clear, promote it properly, reward immediately, don’t try to target everybody, and, recognize, recognize… RECOGNIZE!

Paul Shearstone MACP, NLP/CCP, is a recognized expert on Sales and Persuasion. He is an International Speaker, Certified Coaching Practitioner, Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and Amazon #1 Best Selling Author of several books including, “3X Sales Success! How to move your team to the top 1%” and “Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability”. www.success150.com paul@success150.com

Start with the premise: Sales Solve all Problems! Not enough sales means many problems. Sales make problems go away.

So, you might ask: Can anything be done about that? The answer is YES!

Here are three problems facing the sales landscape today.

The first, is technology.  Gone are the days when traditional sales people could rely on their innate people skills, and their high energy – two integral components to sales success. As a psychotherapist I can tell you, the social skills of a traditional seller, walk in lockstep with the necessary components of professional selling. In short, they are born with natural selling skills. Their weakness? Technology.

However, regardless of the product or industry, there is a higher demand today for frontline sellers to be skilled in the ever-changing world of technology.  And therein lies the problem. It can’t be understated; technology is not in the traditional sellers comfort zone.

Nevertheless, the competitive frontlines demand that salespeople today must come equipped with unquestioned technological skill and expertise. How is this currently being addressed? Traditional IT specialists are being moved from their comfort zone behind a computer screen back at the office to the front lines – Not Their Comfort Zone!

Metaphorically speaking, it would be like sending your army engineers from behind the line, to the front line to engage in combat. That’s not their comfort zone or what they were trained for. To be fair to them, it would be the same to take frontline special ops from the frontline and make them engineers. In both cases, they could learn the skills necessary to be successful, but not without strategic and timely training. In the business world we have moved our engineers to the frontline where necessary and adequate ‘strategic’ sales training is not being given to them.

The second problem facing the sales landscape today is tenure.  In the past, up-and-coming sales reps were often taken under the wing of successful sales journeyman who mentored and coached the inexperienced. Technology has dismantled the traditional sales bullpen. In some companies there is no more sales bullpen – and many of these corporations are suffering. Satellite or home offices as a result, has eliminated the important mentoring process… leaving the inexperienced to flounder unsuccessfully on their own.

What does this lead to?  Rampant turnover, which is our third problem.

Data today states that the average tenure, especially in the selling industry is only 2 to 3 years – that’s it! In struggling companies it’s even worse than that. Companies bring on new hires, provide them with some training, and set them free on their own to succeed or more often than not Fail! We are failing them.

So, what’s the solution? Companies must buy-in to the reality that frontline sellers today need specialised coaching, mentoring and proven sales success-training.

And that’s what I do! All my professional life I have been a student of professional sales. I have taken and taught many of the best sales courses offered. My success in tandem with my psychological training can change the sales strategies of your frontline sellers to embolden their technological expertise with proven sales success-stratagems that ultimately improves corporate tenure by reducing turnover.

Sales Solve All Problems.

If your current strategy is working for you, keep doing it. If not, ask yourself what it would be like – throughout the company – if you brought in a proven sales coach/mentor, sales dramatically increased, employees were happier, problems and turnover diminish.

I have done that for individuals and other companies. And I’d like to do it for you!

If you have any of these problems, send me an email, and we can set up a meeting.

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Paul Shearstone MACP, NLP/CCP, is a recognized expert on Sales and Persuasion. He is an International Speaker, Certified Coaching & NLP Practitioner, Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and Author of several books including, “Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability”. www.success150.com paul@success150.com

Mention the word sales or salesman and two out of three people get a little clammy under the skin. “I hate sales people and I could never do what they do!” is what many say at the mere thought of having to sell something. How wrong they are.

Here is a cold hard fact: From the time you are born to the time you die, you – regardless of your profession or what you do – are in sales! That reality is hard for many to believe.

Appreciate that when a baby cries for its mother’s milk for the first time, he/she is attempting to sell [close] the new mom on the importance and benefits for ‘her’ in doing what it wants. In short, the baby is making its very first sale. The sale will be made. There will be plenty more.

A child, who makes its bed to get a cookie, is selling ‘services’ for ‘profit’. In this case, the profit is a cookie. To explain to a teacher, “The dog ate my homework”, is to engage in the daunting task of persuasion. Is it selling? You bet it is.

To invite someone to the prom, to ask someone to marry you – to stay married to you – is to sell the features and benefits you possess, in tandem with the expectation, those you hope to attract [sell] buy-off on how those benefits, benefit them; at times, a daunting task [sale].

To get up the nerve to ask the boss for a raise or a promotion is quite like making that dreaded cold call even well-trained salespeople find challenging. Convincing the boss why you deserve a raise or promotion, is the fundamental act of trying to make a sale. By promoting you, or paying you more, the boss benefits – or at least that’s your pitch. What a salesman you are!

In business, it really doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. The fact remains, without any sales, the business ceases to exist. Lawyers, doctors and dentists have many competitors but nevertheless still have to put on their sales hat to convince potential customers, that they are the right solution for client needs. If they can’t make the sales, they go out of business. Many people are surprised to hear that the mortality rate for doctors, lawyers, accountants, is staggering. Just because someone is smart enough to be called to the bar or receives a degree, in no way guarantees success in any profession. Many accountants, doctors and lawyers pick up their proverbial hammer and return to the farm – because they didn’t have the sales. So too, do those in the graphics business who fail to garner enough sales.

Manufacturing, distribution or service-oriented companies have dedicated frontline selling professionals whose job it is, is to engage potential customers, face-to-face, and make the sale. People understand that. What many don’t understand is that everyone in the company – everyone – from the CEO down to the mail clerk, is in Sales.

You may push a broom, but your real job is to keep the place clean so that the act-of doing business for the purposes of making ‘Sales’ can be achieved. Whether you are in accounting, administration, IT or marketing, everything you do – EVERYTHING – is expressly focused on the success of the company which, of course, can only be achieved and measured, by making sales.

The Bottom Line:

Sales or the act of selling is at the very fabric of human interaction from the time we are born, throughout our working lives and into our retirement years. Some people are quite naturally better at it, better trained or simply more aware of it than others, but no one is exempt from it and/or does not engage in it their entire life. Happy selling!

Paul Shearstone MACP, CCP, is a recognized expert on Sales and Persuasion. An International Keynote Speaker, Author of several books including, “Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability”. A Certified Coaching Practitioner and Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, Paul enlightens and challenges audiences as he informs, motivates and entertains. To comment on this article or to invite him to speak at your next successful event, we invite you to contact him directly: www.paulshearstone.com  paul@paulshearstone.com  416-7

In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, much emphasis was focused on a seller’s ability to demonstrate, what was known at the time as, a ‘Unique Value-Add’ (UVA). As products, services and increasing competition became more the same than different, the ability to demonstrate your company’s product or service ‘uniqueness’ was absolutely integral to sales success back then.

In my book, Up Your Income, I wrote, “The Degree to which you cannot provide a Unique Value-Proposition, is in direct proportion to the degree you hurt yourself, your company and your industry.” and, “A true and unquestioned Unique Value-Add Proposition is the ‘raison d’etre’ that in the absence of influence, relationship or salesmanship – champions your cause.”  It should be noted that today, a UVA is still a vital part of any professional selling stratagem.

It should be noted also, that elite selling professionals and successful organizations, focus more broadly on the UVA using a ‘systems’ approach that includes the lack-of-success within the product or service presentation. In short, why the UVA failed to work, resulting in no sale.

Professional sellers know that they’ll never get every sale, in many cases, for reasons beyond their control, but they are diligent in their dedication to fully understanding when, where and why, their ability to demonstrate a UVA, failed in its attempt to get customer buy-in. ‘Why it didn’t work’ is often more important to sales success, than why it did.

A UVA systems approach to sales, success seeks to extrapolate out the strengths and weaknesses of all the ‘systems-of-influence’ at play in every selling opportunity to include, but not to be limited to things like, product, price, competition, timing, market conditions, et al. Each of these exist on a spectrum from strong to weak, likely to unlikely, good-fit to not-so-good-fit, and so on. Professional sellers and good sales mangers focus on both the strengths of their UVA approach but also the weaknesses. They question why it worked in one situation but failed in another. What was it?

This approach exists beyond the old adage of ‘We learn more by our mistakes’ and/or, ‘We fail our way to the top’. That is not to say that we don’t learn from our mistakes but the express focus of a UVA-systems-approach is to circumvent deficiencies in our methodology such that any failure-journey is minimized. Another fundamental difference is the stratagem’s emphasis on proactiveness and less on reactiveness. Put more simply, most people believe that the ‘close’ in a selling process takes place at the end of the presentation – when a customer is asked for a signature. Elite sellers know that the ‘close’ often begins before the potential customer is even contacted.

The point not to be lost here is that a UVA is not static but rather dynamic; a value-add to one customer may be completely different to another and/or no value at all. Ameliorations to our UVA must be clearly tailored to each and every customer, and that can only happen with necessary and sufficient preparation, or all we present is our sameness when compared to our competition. I have written before, “When all products and services are the same in the customer’s eyes, the only differentiator is price… and when price is the differentiator, everybody loses…even the customer”.

Bottom Line:

Professional selling is both an art and a science requiring practiced skills and preparation that ultimately seeks to demonstrate desirable and exclusive benefits for customers that cannot be replicated by our competition. A Unique Value-Add need not be huge, it needs only to be different; thereby desirable in its appeal. A professional lawyer is trained to never ask a question in which, they don’t already know the answer. A professional seller, never presents a UVA that they are not already certain, differentiates them, their product or service, from that of their competition.

Paul Shearstone MACP, NLP/CCP, is a recognized expert on Sales and Persuasion. An International Keynote Speaker, Author of several books including, “Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability”. A Certified Coaching Practitioner and Psychotherapeutic Counsellor, Paul enlightens and challenges audiences as he informs, motivates and entertains. To comment on this article or to invite him to speak at your next successful event, we invite you to contact him directly: www.paulshearstone.com  paul@paulshearstone.com  416-728-5556.

At first blush, it would appear there is no shortage of Succession Planning Advocates convinced in theory, the importance and benefits of corporate succession planning. In practice, however, real succession planning – or the overt lack thereof – runs juxtaposed to principle. The important question then is, “Why?”

Years ago, I wrote an article *The Art of Succession Planning in which the argument in favor of a detailed Succession Plan, was put to rest. Clearly, the advantage of proper planning is no argument at all. But try telling that to some company owners or today’s high caliber CEOs. Those who rise to power, especially in large organizations, do so because they possess what’s known as, the Royal Jelly. Most are born leaders with unlimited high energy, charisma and an innate psychological need to win, control and dominate. Although it would be easy for some to cast aspersions on such a profile, the fact is, these attributes are the stuff, integral to power and for most of us, what we admire in our leaders.

Would it surprise anyone then, if those, predisposed to leadership and control, may find discomfort in succession planning? Simply said, any plan for succession, is a blueprint for the [call it anything you want] inevitable loss of power, control and prestige they worked so long and hard to achieve. After all, in the mind of a new CEO: They’re going to be there forever…and/or … If they leave, it will be by their choosing.

No leader is perfect. They make mistakes. For them, the last thing they need is the added pressure of a motivated Heir Apparent waiting in the wings with a blueprint for a much anticipated and inevitable transition to power. Reining CEOs are not sacrosanct from the ambitions of the Would-be-Kings. The net result? No Succession plans.

Where there’s a Will… There’s a Relative!

Wish if we could that each successive generation spawn greater leaders than the last. Successful family-owned and operated companies face succession challenges on two fronts. Not every child of a great leader is blessed with the Royal Jelly. [Teddy Kennedy spring to mind?] More often the next generation, either because of, or despite having lived a life of privilege, find themselves bereft of the right stuff and unequipped to lead. A good model for this is the British Monarchy. [Hang in there Lizzy!]

Succession planning for family-owned businesses can further be compromised when there are heir apparent from competing families. The right family heir to run the company may not [politically] be next in line and therefore, succession planning is often avoided at all costs to circumvent a potentially divisive situation. Who will forget the bitter battle of two brothers for the McCain family frozen food empire.

Beware the Motivations of the Succession Planning Architect!

In ancient Rome, the Emperor Tiberius appointed Caligula to be his successor. A magnanimous gesture to say the least but not the real reason for his choice. Tiberius was more concerned about his legacy – fueled mostly by an unusually large ego.
By appointing Caligula, it was his hope the people of Rome would grow to hate the new ruler, to see him as the miscreant he was. They did. In so doing and at the expense of the Roman people, Tiberius believed he had done himself a great service by inculcating an unquestioned personal legacy of benevolence and superior leadership.

Tiberius, however, didn’t corner the market on self-serving succession planning. Remember the Prime Minister of Canada, The Right [Honorable?] Jean Chrétien and his agonizing Long Good-Bye. [Poor Paul Martin]

Regardless of whether one voted for him or not, in a democratic society, the rein of any leader must eventually come to an end either by popular vote or for the good of the people. For dominant leaders, it is understood that stepping down is never an easy decision to make or to do. That is the core tenet of succession planning.

Bottom Line:

Succession Planning is an integral part of what binds and brings balance to business, politics and even our personal lives. Like most disciplines, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Nevertheless, like death and taxes, it is unavoidable and will come one day on our watch. What remains our choice, is how we handle it when it’s our time… That too, will reflect in our legacy.
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Paul Shearstone MACP, CCP/NLP is a speaker/author and psychotherapist/life-coach from Toronto Ontario, Canada. His newest book: The Resilience Formula… Strategic Tools for Peak Performance, will be published 1st quarter of 2018.

The competitive genre of salesmanship is based on a brotherhood that honors its members with respect, who, in turn, owe each other, uncompromising loyalty.”  …Paul Shearstone 1997

Over the last few decades, I have watched as simple things like common courtesy and respect – the rules that govern basic human interaction – have deteriorated to levels the last generation would not have believed. Unfortunately, today we live in a world that makes icons of the Howard Sterns and Beavis and Butt-Heads, who in turn, lead the unfulfilled and misinformed, further astray.

Henry David Thoreau said that most people, “live lives of quiet desperation.” He said that, when they look in the mirror, they don’t like what they see. And sadly, that is how too many individuals subsist.

There is no clearer evidence, than in the way more and more salespeople are treated in business today. Professional sellers must be ever on guard for the fall-out from those who have lost respect for themselves and lack the moral grounding required to treat others with respect – especially the vulnerable.

The fact is, salespeople put their livelihoods, their dignity and their self-respect on the line, every time they meet a new customer. Salespeople are targets for those, bereft of civility, living unfulfilled existences. For these people the salesperson is someone to be taken advantage of, if only to justify inner feelings of inadequacy. Nothing illustrates this better than my experience with Beatle-cards.   

Many years ago, a very inexperienced young salesman in my twenties, I finally got an appointment with a customer with whom I’d been trying to meet for some time. The meeting was to take place the following Tuesday morning at 10:00am.

I arrived 10 minutes early, gave the receptionist my card, confirmed that I had an appointment with the owner and took my seat in a little waiting area outside his office.

Five minutes later, in walked another young salesman who went through the same routine. He handed the secretary his card and my ears perked up when I overheard him say that he also had a ten o’clock appointment with my customer. I listened carefully for the name of his company. Oh Great! I said to myself. He represented my biggest competitor. I got an uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right.

As I sat there, wondering if the customer had just made an error in scheduling, the other salesman sat down in the chair next to me. He too, appeared a little uncomfortable. I assumed he must have seen my card on the secretary’s desk. For the next five minutes, I calmed myself with the belief there had been a simple scheduling error and my customer would be embarrassed to find he had double booked two competitors. …Was I ever wrong about that!

At precisely ten o’clock, the owner’s door opened and out emerged a large man who greeted both of us with a smile and said, “Gentlemen, you are here and on time. Please, [he gestured toward his private office] won’t you both come in?”

I was in shock. I glanced at the other salesman to see he was looking at me with the same surprised stare. “Please!” the customer beckoned again, motioning to his office door and smiling even more. Something here was definitely not right, I thought, trying not to show my discomfort as I sat down in a chair in front of the owner’s desk.

The customer, still smiling, took his seat, handed both of us his business card, and said, “Gentlemen, I’ll cut right to the chase. You both want my business, don’t you?” We hesitated a little, looked at each other and then said somewhat simultaneously, Yes, yes, we want your business.

“Good!” said the customer. “Then, he said, continuing, [as he opened his hands wide over his desk like some benevolent deity] COMPETE FOR IT!” ………We sat there stunned for a moment until he said, “Go ahead and say what ever you want! COMPETE FOR MY BUSINESS!”

There were few times in my life when I suffered from a lack of confidence. To date, I had never experienced a situation that confused me so badly that it left me unable to speak. That was, of course, until then. When again he said, with his disturbing smile, “COMPETE FOR MY BUSINESS!” I turned speechlessly toward my competitor for some kind of clarification about the surreal situation in which we found ourselves.

To my surprise, he had already summed up the ‘task-at-hand’, which included the fact that I hadn’t, and, off he went! For the next five minutes, I sat there amazed, listening to the young salesman run-down my company, vilify my products. He likened me to a rip-off-artist. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing or the fact that the more caustic the allegations directed my way, the more the customer stared at me and smiled. He was getting a real kick out of this, I thought. This for him was entertainment!

Eventually, the salesman stopped talking and it was my turn to speak.

The customer looked at me and in a patronizing tone, said, “Paul, don’t you have anything to say?” And that’s when I suddenly became very calm and in control for the first time.

“Yes, I do have something to say Mr. Customer. But, since I didn’t interrupt my friend here, I’d like to say what I have to say, without interruptions also. “Not a problem!” said the customer with a look that suggested he was thinking, “Oh Boy!…Now the fur is really going to fly!”

And so, I began. When I was a boy, Mr. Customer, I grew up in a relatively poor family. I’m not saying we went without food, but my four sisters and I rarely had money for anything other than what was absolutely needed by the family for basic survival.

In the 1960’s, I was quite young and if you recall back then, the Beatles were very big. They had just come from England to North America and kids everywhere wanted anything and everything to do with the Beatles. There were Beatle-hats, Beatle-wigs, Beatle-boots, Beatle-sunglasses and, for the younger kids like me, there were Beatle-cards. All my friends had Beatle-card collections, but I didn’t. My parents were more concerned about putting food on the table, than Beatle-cards. But that didn’t stop my sisters and me from wanting Beatle-cards – badly!

[At this point, the customer was quite confused, but he allowed me to continue].

Down the street from us lived three kids. By our standards, their parents had lots of money. So, the kids had almost every Beatle item there was to have – Beatle-hats, wigs, boots, sunglasses and they had Beatle-Cards. In fact, they had so many Beatle-cards, the cards had lost their value.

Knowing that my family couldn’t afford Beatle-cards, those kids used to stand on our veranda – throw Beatle-cards on our lawn – and watch and laugh as my sisters and I fought each other for them. They would throw cards and laugh to see us scurry like rats to get something they knew we couldn’t afford. We knew what we were doing was wrong, but we were young, and we really wanted those cards badly, because they also represented a degree of ‘coolness’ my sisters and I didn’t have.

In an effort to grab yet another precious Beatle-card that landed on the lawn near the street, I remember pushing my five-year-old sister to the ground, so hard, that she rolled off our grass – nearly into the traffic! As she lay there crying, I suddenly thought, What am I doing? I turned to look at those kids – who at this point, were on the porch laughing – Laughing at my family and me. This, for them was entertainment.

Mr. Customer, [I said through clenched teeth and slowly raising my voice] although I was only nine years old at the time, I made a pact with myself, right then and there – “I WILL NEVER LET ANYBODY – DO THIS TO ME AGAIN!”

At which point, I stood and said, I do want your business, Mr. Customer. I then threw his business card, disdainfully, on his desk and said, BUT I DON’T STOOP FOR BEATLE-CARDS ANYMORE!

I turned, glared at the other salesman and made my way to the door. I know I took everyone by surprise, including myself, and I also knew the other salesman thought that by my leaving, he was sure to get the sale. I saw him grinning. I didn’t care, he could have the deal – I had my self-respect!

When I got to the door, I heard the customer shout, “Paul wait!” I stood motionless for a couple of seconds, my hand still grasping the handle. I wanted so badly to leave. “Paul please come back!” he beckoned, with a definite note of desperation in his voice. My heart still said, Go but my training began to kick in. I asked myself, What am I? – I am a salesman. What’s my job? – To sell. Did I have quota, yet? – No… not yet.

As I turned around, the customer barked at the other salesman. “YOU!” he said. “GET OUT!” The young man was flabbergasted [he thought he had won!] When he protested, the customer shouted even louder, “I said, GET THE HELL OUT!” He then, in a soft tone, spoke sympathetically “Paul, please!” as he hand-gestured me back to my seat.

Over the next few minutes, I lectured him for his unprofessional behavior – and he let me. I likened what took place to someone who would go to a 25-cent carnival to see a poor, down-on-his-luck geek chew the head off a chicken for money, to feed his starving children! – and he sat there and took it because he knew he had earned it.

So, what was the upside? Well, I maintained my self respect and I believe we, the customer, the other salesman and I, learned a valuable lesson about respecting others that day. Oh, and another thing. I did sign a deal before I left his office … there was no argument over price.

* The Beatle-card story is from Paul’s book: ‘Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability’

Paul Shearstone MACP, NLP/CCP, is a recognized expert on Sales and Persuasion. He is an International Speaker, Certified Coaching Practitioner, Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and Author of several books including, “Up Your Income! Solution Selling for Profitability”. www.success150.com paul@success150.com