We were learning how many calls they made, how many of their people they spoke with, and how many appointments they booked. I said, “Steve, what’s the category?” He replied, “You need to add closed business.” “Wow. Tell us about it.”

“I deal with dentists, so I picked a whole bunch of dentists that I just hadn’t spoken with in a long time, or that I only have a little bit of their business. I called one of them, reached him on the phone and said, ‘I’d like to meet with you.’ He said, ‘Terrific.’ We set up the meeting, and then he asked me what our GIC rates were. I told him our rate. He said, ‘Fantastic. I have $100,000 GIC that’s rolling over today. I’d be happy to take that rate.’ I called my office, they faxed him the paperwork, and I just heard back that the paperwork is in.

Not only did I make the call, reach the dentist and book the appointment, but I closed the deal.”

That’s “ultimate prospecting”!

Watch Kevin Higgins, President, Fusion Learning share a great story on “ultimate prospecting”.

1. Engage the prospect and get them talking. If you’re talking, you’re not getting the meeting. Engage them and get them talking so you can get that meeting.

2. Once they start talking, it’s time to book the meeting. Don’t have them keep talking, because if they talk too much, they’re going to talk themselves out of an appointment. How do you do that? Transition. For example, “Wow, sounds like we’ve got some great things we could talk about. How about next Tuesday at 10:00am, we sit down for coffee?” Once you’ve transitioned and you’ve secured the meeting, move on to the next step.

3. Lock the meeting. How do you do this? Once you’ve secured an appointment date and time, ask, “What is it that would be most beneficial for us to cover in that 30 minutes?” Get their reason for agreeing to the meeting directly at the end of the call. Now you’ve got the meeting. It is locked.

Watch Kevin Higgins, President, Fusion Learning share our point of view on the three keys to prospecting calls.

First, it needs to be strategic and tactical, not just tactical.

Second, it’s very important that it’s both person and results focused, not just the latter. We need to pay attention to the person. How happy, challenged, stressed or engaged are they? All organizations want great engagement scores from their people, yet they’re not even asking people how engaged they actually are on a regular basis.

Third, it’s very important that it’s a series of conversations, not the same conversation repeated month after month. We want it to be a continuous ongoing dialogue. We show managers how to get ready in five minutes or less and how to take notes on one page, which when consistently kept this way, will help them have an ongoing dialogue.

How can you tell if you’re really having World-Class One-on-Ones? Well, I missed a one-on-one with someone a couple of weeks ago; the person returned from vacation today and sent me an email that said, “Hey, we missed our one-on-one. Can we reschedule for this week?” And that’s how you know.

Watch Kevin Higgins, President, Fusion Learning discuss what is required to lead World-Class One-on-Ones.

During the sales call, it’s critical to execute that game plan. It’s also imperative that the sales leader tries not to get involved, or becomes involved as little as possible. The goal here is not to intercept the call, take it over or do as much as you can; rather, the goal is to support the salesperson, allow them to struggle a little bit and let them work hard to be successful.

After the sales call, provide feedback. The feedback needs to be a dialogue, not a monologue. Rather than telling them what they should have done, focus on getting them engaged. What do they feel they did well? What do they feel they might be able to do differently? Give them some of your perspective. Help them to understand some of the wisdom you have gained from your years of experience.

Overall, we want to make sure, before the sales call, that we have a great conversation to set the salesperson up for success; during, let them run the call; and after, offer terrific feedback and dialogue. That’s effective field coaching.

Watch Kevin Higgins, President, Fusion Learning discuss our tips for effective field coaching.

1. Assess. As a performance coach, the first thing we need to do is assess. Just like a running coach will first assess the runner, in terms of their running stride and similar key ingredients. When assessing our people, we need to think about the following: What is their personality like? Who are they? What’s their current skill knowledge box? What are their goals? These are the key ingredients to really understand motivation.

2. Approach. We need to be thinking about rolling up our sleeves and working side-by-side, rather than simply talking. Too many coaches are talking rather than walking with their people.

3. Accountability. Way too many coaches are soft — too soft in fact. We need to be instilling accountability and holding feet to the fire. Just like a fitness trainer is really pushing you on the amount of chin-ups you can do — “I think I can do seven.” “No, you can do ten. Let’s see it” — a performance coach is instilling accountability.

If you want to earn an A grade as a performance coach, remember these three A’s.

Watch Tim Magwood, Founder of Fusion Learning share our point of view on the 3 A’s to Performance Coaching:

Part of the problem likely comes from being too academic about it. Models that are too complicated can’t be easily used in the moment when you need to provide feedback to someone.

Fusion’s model is simple and straightforward, with only four steps to follow:

Step One: Ask the person, “What do you feel you did well?” They’ve just executed something – a sales call, or put together a proposal. They know some things they’ve done well. It’s important to hear about them.

Step Two: Now we make certain to add, “Here are some things that I saw you do well.” The first two steps build confidence – which is critical with salespeople.

Step Three: Now we can ask “What’s one thing you might do differently next time?” They can’t change what they’ve just done, but they can think of how to do things differently next time. It is important to get their opinion. You will be able to judge if they recognize what their issues are, and if they take notice of them.

Step Four: Your final step is to say “Here are some things I’d suggest you do differently next time.” Steps three and four build skill, or capability.

If we follow these four steps, we’ve got very confident people, because they’ve talked about what they did well, and very skilled people, because they’ve talked about what they’ll do differently next time. That’s effective feedback.

Watch Kevin Higgins, President, Fusion Learning share our point of view on how to give effective feedback.

1. One-on-Ones: It is critical that managers have valuable, highly-effective one-on-ones with their direct report at least once a month – if not more. The employee must feel that each one-on-one is helpful. This will improve employee engagement.
2. Feedback: All employees – high performers, medium performers, poor performers – need feedback: every day, every week, every month. They need constant feedback. By feedback we mean both what they’re doing well and what they can do differently next time. Both things are critical to all performers. This will improve employee engagement.
3. Performance issues. They must be dealt with. People need the feedback. If the feedback isn’t working, help them to get somewhere they can be successful. It could be somewhere else in your organization or in a different organization. Dealing with performance issues will help your employees – and that will improve your employee engagement.

The first is attitude. Many sales leaders focus solely on results and attaining quota. That’s absolutely important but it’s not nearly enough. We help sales leaders focus more on developing sales capabilities – looking at what the key leading indicators or activities sales people need to focus on in order to generate those results.

The second is skills. High-performing salespeople demonstrate great skills like questioning, listening, and handling objections. Sales leaders must demonstrate those same skills with their salespeople. Engaging their salespeople through great dialogue, listening, questioning, being able to handle difficult situations, and being able to facilitate effective feedback. Skills are really important for sales leaders, and we spend quite a bit of time practicing these skills with them.

The third is process. Sales leaders must demonstrate excellence in a few key areas around process. Key examples include:

• Engaging team meetings. We really believe that weekly meetings offer the right cadence for sales teams
• World-class, monthly, sit down, one-on-one conversations with salespeople
• Weekly pipeline review conversations focusing on those key tactics and opportunities
• Finally, work in the field through observational coaching

If sales leaders are demonstrating the right attitude, exhibiting the right kind of skills, and are engaging and focusing on the right activities, they’ll be high-performing.

For a  deeper dive into this book, read the recent Globe & Mail review “We all have to be good at sales. We just don’t know it” by Harvey Schachter. It’s quite provocative, and you’ll want to lay your hands on this future best seller that will likely be required reading this year.

The Story Matrix is very simple. It’s a pallet of your most powerful stories that your sales teams and sales leaders can use to communicate with your clients and prospects to create meaning. The Story Matrix ensures your best stories are easy to find and share.

We practice what we teach. Our Story Matrix has four categories down the side: Success, Failure, Fun and Legend. Across the top are six categories: Prospecting, Sales Call Effectiveness, Strategy, Sales Leadership, Sales Culture and Personal. Your Story Matrix will be unique to your sales organization and will include categories most important to your business.

The Story Matrix has other key uses. It can cascade the best practices in your organization. It can communicate your brand. It can help onboard new employees. When we put the Story Matrix in place at the end of a client’s StorySelling program, we create a powerful asset for the organization, complete with your best, most powerful stories. It’s something you should consider creating to capture and share your best stories.