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Actual for You - Sales And Leadership: The Differences That Matter
Why is it that in some situations, our personal performance is so good while in others we struggle and cannot seem to get into the groove where we do our best work? Is it because we forget, from one day to the next, the important details of our profession or what it takes to excel? Of course we all know that this is not the reason we sometimes follow up a great personal performance with one that leaves something to be desired. The answer to these questions lies more in the inconsistent application of basic mental skills that underlie our ability to perform – whether the performance is in the boardroom, on the sales floor, or on the golf course!In order to provide a s
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with t
Meeting planning and an effective meeting are key to great communications in teams and yet the below simple and powerful strategies are often overlooked.If you are here pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix to move your meetings from slow, boring and conflict struck happenings to efficient, powerful and meaningful gatherings, you can jump straight to end list at the end of this article where you have the quick version. To get more of the meat, more of the essence and lost of help to boost you there, take a chunk of your time and keeping reading below, it will be worth it.Have you been there? Have you felt it? How the meeting is over and you are not
Being a sales person can provide a poor foundation for leadership. Because leading and selling, though they share certain qualities, are different activities. Most people go along in their jobs and careers without thinking through those differences and thus mix up the two in self-defeating ways.
I've seen good sales people fail when moved into leadership positions; and conversely, good leaders fail when they become sales people or use certain sales techniques to lead.
In both cases, they misunderstood the differences or missed them altogether and so couldn't align their words and actions to take advantage of those differences. You can manifestly improve your leadership and sales skills by understanding what such differences are.
Clearly, on the surface, both sales and leadership focus on ways to influence people to take action. Both sales people and leaders must be knowledgeable, skillful, enthusiastic, and convincing.
However, when we drill down into the functions of the relationships involved in selling and leading -- getting customers to purchase products or services as opposed to getting people to achieve organizational results -- the differences emerge.
Here are three defining differences between sales and leadership that can help you both as a sales person and a leader. Note the differences are variations on a single, decisive theme.
(1) Sales people must satisfy customers. Leaders often have to dissatisfy the people. People in most organizations are in thrall to a powerful force, the status quo. The status quo is simply the existing state of an organization. You might ask, "What's wrong with the existing state of an organization?" My response is, "A great deal." In fact, the status quo of any organization is almost always wrong.
The trouble with the status quo isn't that it gets poor results. After all, if you know you're getting poor results, you can do something about it. You can start taking steps to turn them into good results. The trouble with the status quo is that it gets mediocre results but represents them as good results. And poor results are less harmful to an organization than mediocre results misrepresented as good results.
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with th
The other day my radio show cohost, Paul Finley, mentioned that he had received an email from his dentist. The point of the email was to let Paul know that his office would be closed for a week and included instructions on what to do in case of a dental emergency.Obviously Paul’s dentist reads my column because I’ve been preaching about using email to keep in touch with customers for years. OK, maybe he doesn’t read my column and is just a brilliant guy in his own right. Either way, the point is clear: using email - no matter what type of business you’re in - is an excellent way to keep the lines of communication buzzing between you and those folks who keep you in
In both cases, they misunderstood the differences or missed them altogether and so couldn't align their words and actions to take advantage of those differences. You can manifestly improve your leadership and sales skills by understanding what such differences are.
Clearly, on the surface, both sales and leadership focus on ways to influence people to take action. Both sales people and leaders must be knowledgeable, skillful, enthusiastic, and convincing.
However, when we drill down into the functions of the relationships involved in selling and leading -- getting customers to purchase products or services as opposed to getting people to achieve organizational results -- the differences emerge.
Here are three defining differences between sales and leadership that can help you both as a sales person and a leader. Note the differences are variations on a single, decisive theme.
(1) Sales people must satisfy customers. Leaders often have to dissatisfy the people. People in most organizations are in thrall to a powerful force, the status quo. The status quo is simply the existing state of an organization. You might ask, "What's wrong with the existing state of an organization?" My response is, "A great deal." In fact, the status quo of any organization is almost always wrong.
The trouble with the status quo isn't that it gets poor results. After all, if you know you're getting poor results, you can do something about it. You can start taking steps to turn them into good results. The trouble with the status quo is that it gets mediocre results but represents them as good results. And poor results are less harmful to an organization than mediocre results misrepresented as good results.
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with t
Can you earn more money working on a contract than working in a fulltime job?Having spent several years specifically working as an IT recruiter filling Information Technology positions, I certainly saw my fair share of highly paid contractors.In most instances, contractors earned more money on an hourly basis than they would have earned had they been doing the same job in a fulltime capacity being paid a salary.The reason contractors tend to be paid more?With a contract job, you are typically signed to do the job for a specific length of time so accepting the contract means you're taking yourself off the market for a fulltime
However, when we drill down into the functions of the relationships involved in selling and leading -- getting customers to purchase products or services as opposed to getting people to achieve organizational results -- the differences emerge.
Here are three defining differences between sales and leadership that can help you both as a sales person and a leader. Note the differences are variations on a single, decisive theme.
(1) Sales people must satisfy customers. Leaders often have to dissatisfy the people. People in most organizations are in thrall to a powerful force, the status quo. The status quo is simply the existing state of an organization. You might ask, "What's wrong with the existing state of an organization?" My response is, "A great deal." In fact, the status quo of any organization is almost always wrong.
The trouble with the status quo isn't that it gets poor results. After all, if you know you're getting poor results, you can do something about it. You can start taking steps to turn them into good results. The trouble with the status quo is that it gets mediocre results but represents them as good results. And poor results are less harmful to an organization than mediocre results misrepresented as good results.
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with t
“Brand Reputation Optimization” (BRO for the acronym lovers!) is a concept I have been thinking a lot about and terminology I decided to coin. Brand Reputation Optimization refers to how an organization best positions its brand for long-term sustainability and success. Success in this case refers both to the bottom line and to applying socially responsible business practices sometime referred to as corporate social responsibility. Since the web is now the preferred method by which people receive and digest information, BRO focuses primarily on online practices though it often complements, or is a catalyst for offline engagement.Search Engine Optimization (SEO) taught
The trouble with the status quo isn't that it gets poor results. After all, if you know you're getting poor results, you can do something about it. You can start taking steps to turn them into good results. The trouble with the status quo is that it gets mediocre results but represents them as good results. And poor results are less harmful to an organization than mediocre results misrepresented as good results.
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with t
One of the most interesting approaches to corporate relocation incentives is the Quality of Working Life (QWL) program, which is a systems approach to job design and a promising development in the broad area of job enrichment. QWL has received tremendous support from a number of sources. Managers have regarded it as a promising means of dealing with stagnating productivity, especially in the United States.Workers and union representatives have also seen it as a means of improving working conditions and productivity and as a means of justifying higher pay. Research and analysis of motivation point to the importance of making jobs challenging and meaningful. Job enrich
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with the way things are. Sales people want customers to like them; but leaders may have to get some people angry with them and what they are challenging them to do. (If they don't have some of the people angry with them, those leaders might not be challenging all the people enough. Though watch out when you have ALL of the people angry with you.)
(2) Sales people get people to do what they want to do. Leaders aim to get people to do what they may not want to do and be ardently committed to doing it. Having people get out of the status quo to achieve great results means challenging them to be uncomfortable, do things in new ways, learn new skills, and take on perplexing tasks. Good leaders live by the rule that it is better to do the new, right things in the temporarily wrong ways than to do the old wrong things in the right ways.
(3) Sales people must counteract bad feelings on the part of customers. Leaders may have to live with and even accept bad feelings on the part of the people while getting them to move toward their organization's greater goal. When you lead people to go to the metaphorical mountain, for instance, many of them will want to go to the nearby hill or to stay where they are. Standing pat is more comfortable and less risky than going to the mountain. But the organization badly needs them to move to the mountain. That's where leadership comes in. In sales, you hop on people's disapproval right away and try to mitigate or eliminate it. However, in leadership getting people to change from standing pat to being the cause leaders of going-forth can involve having to temporarily put up with their initial misgivings or even their outright defiance. A CEO told me, "The hardest thing I've had to learn as a leader is grace under pressure. How to keep focused on our company's objectives while weathering the criticisms from the inevitable naysayers."
Keep in mind that despite their differences, sales and leadership share useful similarities. Many sales techniques, especially with the art of persuasion, can be effectively used in leadership. Conversely, many leadersh
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