The Leader As Coach


I’m not trying to do myself out of business with this statement, but salespeople need far more coaching than typical salespeople receive. While there are many good seminars and presenters in the marketplace, there are simply not enough regular seminars in your town or city for that method of training to be sufficient to develop a winning team.

In addition to external seminars, the leader has to step up and coach.

If you do not have this already, your office must have a comprehensive training library of books, recordings, manuals, and DVDs. Ideally there should not be any problem your sales team faces that cannot be solved by a program that is in your training library. This is what the Pittard Training Group strives to provide its members and it is essential.

How does the leader coach?

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The Power of Programming

During a speech he made back in the late thirties, Dr Murray Banks, a New York psychologist, said that some people turn to insanity as an adjustment to a perceived tough life. Some people get knocked down and they get back up again. Others in the same situation whinge; a few turn to insanity as an escape, according to Banks.He believes that humans turn their fears into physical complaints. Fear of death, fear of old age, fear of losing money, fear of being found out, fear of failure, is turned by our mind into a nervous stomach, a weak heart, headaches, constant tiredness. A person complains, “I don’t know why it is but I’m always tired. No matter how much I sleep I’m tired.“

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Aim High

Last year I recorded an interview with Adam McMahon, from Dignam Real Estate in Thirroul, NSW.

Adam is a keen goal setter, which explains why he is so focused. In the twelve months prior to that recording, Adam produced around $730,000 in fees for his office, without the aid of a personal assistant.

Inevitably the conversation turned to ways of avoiding erratic performance. This is what Adam had to say about goals and how to reach them:

“You have ups and downs, like everyone has. To start with, you sometimes set easy goals that you think you’re going to reach quite comfortably. Then over a period of time you push yourself and take your goals higher”.

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What’s Cooking?

Your weekly sales meeting should be the most important part of your business week. If you’re interested in making more sales, pay attention when your leader asks you, “What have you got cooking?”

The definition of a cooking sale is a sale you believe you have a reasonable chance of closing.

Some sales are obviously cooking, for example, the buyers are coming back for a second inspection. These sales are usually the only ones that are given in answer to the “What have you got cooking?” question.

To get the obvious cookings is not why your leader asks the ‘cooking’ question. The purpose of examining the cookings is to help you to uncover the hidden sales.

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It’s Time To Hire

I read this a long time ago but cannot remember where I read it or exactly who was involved.

My recollection is that John D Rockefeller (I don’t know if it was senior or junior) was having his shoes polished, when the busboy gave him a ‘hot’ stock tip. The magnate sold all of his shares the next day, saying something like, “When the busboy buys, sell!”. Shortly afterwards the share market crashed, followed by the Great Depression.

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Focus

In the Leader Bulletin Every Business Needs Clarity we discussed the importance of Clarity to your business.

If clarity is the mental strength for success, Focus is the physical strength. Focus is the force that enables the leader to sweep aside all the obstacles, problems, excuses and distractions. Focus demands the great leadership characteristics of discipline and courage. Focus requires the application of pressure. When pressure comes two different results can happen. People either focus or fold.

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CONTACT CREATES CONTRACTS

 

Following the November 2011 sales bulletin, ‘So You Think You’ve Got Plenty of Listings’, Phil McGrath from Impact Property requested ideas on how to develop relationships with sellers. It’s a good question, one whose answer would fill a chapter of a book.

Building relationships requires contact. Lots of it.

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Every Business Needs Clarity

Businesses get into trouble when they reach the stage when even the simplest of procedures become complicated. Your systems, instructions, training, and procedures should be simple and clear. Every business needs Clarity.The more simple you make a task the easier it is to understand and the less chance there is of somebody giving you an excuse.  One of the essential elements of a winning team is that it be totally excuse-free. Communicate a task in a complicated fashion and you provide the person to whom you allocated the task with a gold-plated excuse not to carry out the task.

Get Close Part 3

Great questions give great answers. All salespeople need to fully understand their seller’s needs before making recommendations that those sellers put their properties up for sale. Even though the sellers might be ready to LIST, this does not necessarily mean that they are emotionally ready to SELL. Questions help you to uncover their readiness to sell.

Get Close Part 2

In Part 1 of this three-part feature we talked about the importance of understanding your sellers’ needs, and how important this understanding was to making sales. In Part 1, I gave you seven questions to ask your sellers during the listing presentation. Here are fifteen more.
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Get Close Part 1

If you want dozens of happy clients, the secret lies in understanding their needs and then helping them satisfy those needs. You must know what the need is. And, you should understand that your clients possibly have not sat down and qualified themselves. That is your job. To do your job properly, you have to get close to your clients.Whether your clients are buyers or sellers, the object is the same: get close and understand their needs.In this feature, we will concentrate on sellers. At the listing presentation, and long before you get into your presentation, you should talk to your sellers. Style is important when doing this -maintain a conversational style, never sound like an interrogator.

Build a ‘Wonder Team’

Do you have people on your team who shouldn’t be there? Could you be holding onto chronic poor performers simply because you don’t have anybody else? If so, perhaps it’s time to take charge. Instead of envying those leaders who have a ‘Wonder Team’, join them! Struggling leaders often believe that profitable offices are made up of high performing ‘freaks’. Is this really true? Or could it be that leaders who succeed have done so because they concentrated on building a winning team?
Dig beneath the surface and you will find that successful leaders consistently do TWO things that struggling leaders don’t.

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