The 5 stages of leadership development

CBS MoneyWatch By Steve Tobak May 24, 2012 COMMENTARY Everyone goes through the same stages of human development on the road to adulthood and maturity. Unfortunately, some of us get stuck in one stage or another, stunting our growth and rendering us dysfunctional. We look just like ordinary adults, but we actually behave a lot more like children, acting out, throwing tantrums, and generally making life miserable for everyone around us. It's pretty much the same thing with executives and business leaders. The only difference is that, instead of just messing up their own lives like ordinary people, dysfunctional leaders influence the lives, livelihoods, and investment portfolios of hordes of employees, customers, and investors. 7 signs of a dysfunctional boss How to deal with a bad boss 7 signs of a dysfunctional company If I took a virtual snapshot of all the boardrooms I've been in over the years, I'd estimate that maybe a quarter of the executives and directors I've worked with have gotten themselves prematurely stuck in one of the following stages of leadership development: Stage 1: Sponge. You listen and learn from everyone and every situation as you try to figure out how things work in the real business world. Just like a baby learning to walk, you look really cute stumbling around like the clueless neophyte you are. The good news is you have no real responsibility, so you're not in a position to cause any real damage. You just fall, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again until you get it right. Stage 2: Proof-of-concept. Believing you're actually capable of accomplishing something besides making a complete fool of yourself by promising the world and delivering next to nothing, you set out to prove yourself worthy of the management title that, in all likelihood, you've already been granted. Stage 3: Delivery. Congratulations, you've somehow managed to deliver the goods and succeed in doing something that can credibly be viewed as a business success. In other words, you made money for somebody and got rewarded with a nice fat bonus. You think you've finally arrived. Won't your spouse be thrilled? Stage 4: Reset. A little full of yourself, you try a repeat performance using the same tricks that worked the first time and realize--too late--that you're going to need a bigger playbook to consistently make it in the big leagues. Failure doesn't sit well with you. In fact, it's downright depressing. So you set out to make sure that never happens again. Stage 5: Maturity. After a few iterations of the third and fourth stages, you finally begin to get how the real world works. You realize you're just like everybody else, meaning you succeed at some things, fail at others, and learn from everything. It slowly dawns on you that being a mature leader isn't that much different from the first stage, except experience has given you confidence and, with any luck, a sense of humor and humility. Win or lose, you look good doing it -- and deserve that bonus, right?

Millennial Management 101

Smartblog on Leadership Events, General Management By Brooke Howell on May 30th, 2012 Generation Y is here, and it’s integral to business’ continuing success, Jennifer Kushell, president of Young & Successful Media and founder of YSN.com, told business owners attending America’s Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C. Also known as Gen Y, the millennial generation and the millennials, this group is between 12 and 31 years old and represents the youngest segment of the workforce. Many of its members are business owners. And — as the business owners in the room for Kushell’s session on “The Next Generation: Changing Business as We Know It” demonstrated through questions and comments — its members are often a source of frustration for employers and older colleagues in the workplace. “The young generation may drive you crazy, but understanding them will help you be less frustrated,” said Kushell, who outlined some of the challenging traits that many members of Gen Y tend to demonstrate. •Many are struggling to figure out what to do with their lives and with the potential they know they have. •They haven’t been taught how to operate in the world of work, and it takes them time and guidance to learn. •Assuming individual ownership and individual responsibility in projects can be hard because they have been educated to work in teams and operate as a group. •They haven’t learned that it’s not what they do to follow the pack that makes them succeed, it’s what they do to stand out and to go above and beyond. •Instead of moving straight from college to career, they make this transition over the course of a decade or so; a period that has been dubbed “emerging adulthood.” •In their mid-20s, they often experience an identity crisis, called a “quarter-life crisis,” because life isn’t turning out the way they had hoped. While they might present challenges, millennial workers also bring a lot of advantages and benefits to the workplace that can help make a business more successful, Kushell said. •Young workers are constantly connected to technology, and it’s part of their culture because they’ve grown up with it. Businesses can leverage this technology prowess and save time and money. •They are great people to hire to start and manage a social media presence, something many business owners are too scared or busy to do themselves. •They’re not only members of the workforce, but also members of your customer base. Some are buying from you now, and others are influencing their parents’ purchasing decisions. •They can help businesses innovate and remain relevant. •They want to do well on the job. The key to conquering millennials’ shortcomings and capitalizing on their strengths is talking to them as individuals and getting to know each one who works with you, Kushell said. Other strategies: •Focus on development because young people need a lot of coaching and mentoring in the early stages of their careers. •Give them interesting work and show they’re a valued member of the team so they don’t get distracted by boredom. •Demonstrate integrity because Gen Y values integrity and wants to work for companies and organizations that show it. •Focus on what they accomplish not how they get the job done because young workers don’t want to be micromanaged. •Demonstrate a clear career path because young workers want examples and explanations of how you move up in business. This is something they haven’t been taught in school. •Offer opportunities for growth because millennials want to keep learning, developing and being interested in their work.

GM Abandons Super Bowl Advertising to Push New Vehicles for 2013

DETROIT -- General Motors' top marketing executive said today the automaker will plow savings from a recent decision to drop Super Bowl advertising into other ads and marketing efforts to support a slate of vehicle launches planned in 2013. In his first public comments since GM confirmed two weeks ago that it plans to pass on advertising during the 2013 Super Bowl, GM global marketing chief Joel Ewanick said he has "started reapplying those dollars to other very efficient ways of doing the same thing." Among the vehicle introductions planned for 2013 -- GM's busiest launch schedule in many years -- are the Chevrolet Impala sedan and the next generations of its Chevrolet Silverado, Cadillac XTS and GMC Sierra full-sized pickups. The pickups are expected to go on sale sometime in the spring; followed by all-new full-sized SUVs based on the pickups later in the year. Time to get friendlier with your GM client....Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

Dish’s Networks' Hopper Digital Video Recorder has an Ad Eraser.

New York Times By BRIAN STELTER Published: May 16, 2012 Broadcast television executives came to New York this week, as they do every year, to talk up their new TV shows in front of advertisers. This year, they are having to talk about yet another technology trying to tear them down. The disruptive technology at hand is an ad eraser, embedded in new digital video recorders sold by Charles W. Ergen’s Dish Network, one of the nation’s top distributors of TV programming. Turn it on, and all the ads recorded on most prime-time network shows are automatically skipped, no channel-flipping or fast-forwarding necessary. Some reviewers have already called the feature, named Auto Hop, a dream come true for consumers. But for broadcasters and advertisers, it is an attack on an entrenched television business model, and it must be strangled, lest it spread. “How does Charlie Ergen expect me to produce ‘CSI’ ” without commercials? asked Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of the CBS Corporation, in response to questions from reporters on Wednesday morning before his annual upfront presentation. Ted Harbert, the chairman of NBC Broadcasting, struck a similar note at his network’s presentation on Monday, calling the Dish feature an insult to the television industry. “Just because technology gives you the ability to do something, does that mean you should? Not always,” he said. Unlike the music and news businesses, television has been mostly successful at fending off technological challenges. Several network owners worked together to start Hulu, an online streaming Web site intended to curb piracy. This year, when a start-up called Aereo introduced a service to stream New York TV stations via the Internet, the stations banded together in filing two lawsuits to stall it. The lawsuits are pending. The Auto Hop is noteworthy because it originated not from a start-up but from a satellite distributor with longstanding ties to the rest of the TV industry. Dish Network regularly negotiates with the networks for the rights to rebroadcast programming. Without that programming, subscribers would switch distributors. Yet Dish has still decided to promote its ad eraser, which comes with the Hopper, a new DVR that can record all the prime-time programming on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC simultaneously. As network executives tell it, Dish Network is a friend turned foe, once preserving the advertising model but now threatening to turn on a doomsday device. (It didn’t help Dish’s cause that it gave the networks less than a day’s notice before announcing the feature last Thursday.) So they are closing ranks to try to stop it. At least one of the network owners, News Corporation, is no longer accepting Dish’s new DVR ads on any of its television properties. It and several other owners are examining whether they can sue Dish, the same way they sued a maker of DVRs a decade ago, according to several people with knowledge of the deliberations, who insisted on anonymity to speak freely about the internal discussions. James L. McQuivey, a vice president and analyst for Forrester Research, said that “with Dish’s aggressive move to please the end customer rather than advertisers, it’s clear that in the fight for TV revenue the gloves have finally come off.” He continued: “The fact that Dish would be willing to anger some of its most important content partners just goes to show how desperate these times we live in really are.” The desperation stems from the persistent fear that subscribers will forgo paying for television service and turn to Internet alternatives instead. A feature like Auto Hop is a drastic step “to keep consumers interested,” Mr. McQuivey asserted. The technology to automatically skip TV ads isn’t new. TiVo, one of the original DVR makers, flirted with such a feature about a decade ago. Another maker, ReplayTV, actually put such a feature in place, spurring lawsuits from the major TV networks. In 2003, after the owner of ReplayTV filed for bankruptcy, the new owners dropped the feature. A company executive was quoted as saying at the time that “we will take features out because we want to be a positive force in the industry.” TiVo has taken the same approach, promoting ways to deliver ads to viewers even as they’re fast-forwarding through them. “We’ve gone from being a black hat to being more of a white hat,” said Tom Rogers, the chief executive of TiVo. He was an executive at NBC a decade ago when the network was considering making an investment in TiVo. One of the conditions of the investment, he said, was that “they not have an automatic commercial skip.” TiVo’s Web site specifies that its devices “do not offer a commercial skip feature,” though there is a way to turn on a 30-second skip-ahead button. Mr. Rogers said Dish’s all-ads-skipped button takes the notion “to an extreme.” But Dish asserts that the technology actually promotes broadcasting and encourages people to sample new shows.

Persuasion that Prospects Love

CBS Money Watch: Sales Machine May 15, 2012 11:57 AM by Tom Searcy Topics Marketing . (MoneyWatch) I don't know about you, but I am only working halftime: 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I'm busy, you're busy, and our prospects are busy. Now as a sales person, you want them to make a decision. But the prospects moan, "Who has the time to make a choice?" To help prospects choose you, give them a persuasive mental shortcut. Trust me, they will love you for it. You can gain trust with prospects through a proven persuasive secret called "social proof." The principle of social proof is one shortcut we use to determine what is correct. Humans naturally want to find out what other people think is correct. As a rule, we reason we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. Marketers know this to be true. This is why television sitcoms have canned laugh tracks and commercials use man-in-the street testimonial interviews. Or why we want restaurant reviews from websites like Yelp or hotel reviews from websites like Trip Advisor. Another case in point: You know those cards in the hotel bathrooms that ask you to recycle your towels to help conserve water and energy? Almost all have an environmental message. But one hotel tried a social proof message instead. The card stated: "The majority of our guests reuse their towel to conserve energy and water." That little change dramatically increased the level of towel recycling. The reason social proof is so persuasive is because we are all running on information overload. The ever-accelerating pace and informational crush of modern life will make automated decision making more and more prevalent. How should you persuade prospects with social proof? The answer is testimonials with measurable results, and here are five ways to do it: Interview past clients to obtain testimonial quotes you can use. Sometimes it is best to get an outside expert like a public relations professional or freelance writer to help you with this. You want to drill down to get measurable results. These include raw numbers (increased sales by $100,000), percentages (improved retention rates to 70 percent, which is triple the industry average) or time (accomplished more in six months than in previous three years). May I please? Get permission to use the person's whole name, title and company name. Just saying, "Sally from Kalamazoo" or Bob from "Cucamonga" just doesn't build trust. If you don't ask, you don't receive. Ask for testimonial letters on client letterhead that you can reprint and use in proposal packages being given to clients. The more you have to choose from, the better. Tell me a story. Ask clients who are willing to be your advocate to record their testimonial stories. One way to do this easily is to hop on a free telephone bridge line and record the call (with their written permission, of course). This can then be used as an audio file on your website or turned into a low-cost audio CD that you can give potential prospects. Be a namedropper. Pepper your selling tools, news releases, website blogs, speeches, seminars and presentations with accounts of individuals who have benefited from your service. Always make the person seem likable, describe the problem in brief and give a measurable result you helped achieve. One of our clients said he helped grow businesses. This became so much stronger when he was able to say he helped grow business by as much as 500 percent. So give your prospects social proof shortcuts. If they are as busy as you are, they will love you for it. PS Dr. Philip Jay LeNoble of Littleton, co knows testimonials om happy, well serviced clients always bode well for renewals and new local-direct revenue development.

The Number One Skill

CBS Money Watch May 4, 2012 11:52 AM By Mary Goodman and Rich Russakoff If there was just one thing you could improve upon that is guaranteed to make you more successful, would you do it? Well then listen up. We mean it, really - listen up and listen better. The better we listen, the more others appreciate us and, in return, the more they listen to us. By listening better, we learn more and misinterpret others less. It seems that some people are just naturally good listeners but the truth is listening is an acquired skill. One that, with any improvement, will yield great benefits. Let's take a look at few of the barriers or bad habits that get in the way of effective listening. See which ones you might be guilty of. (We know which ones we're guilty of.) Multi-tasking - Do you ever look at your phone or check emails during a conversation? If you think you can multi-task while listening, then you don't know what you're missing. It's also painfully obvious to the other person when we are distracted. Me, Me, Me - If your major concern is how others perceive you, or what you'll say next, then you can't focus on what is being said. Brain Speed - If our thoughts outpace the speaking style of the person we are talking with, we tend to let our mind wander. Or we interrupt the other person because we believe we know what the person is trying to say but taking too long to say it. What did you Say? - Hearing loss can adversely affect every conversation, from missing out on a pleasant exchange to serious safety issues. It is estimated that there are more than 35 million Americans that are hearing impaired. Less than 30% use hearing aids. If you suspect you have a hearing problem, get tested. If you know you have a hearing problem, get hearing aids. If you own hearing aids, wear them. Line Butting - You're bored with the subject so you interrupt and introduce a new topic. Or worse, you start talking about yourself. So how did you do? If not as well as you liked, here are a few things that you can do that will dramatically improve your listening skills. Paying attention pays off - The first and most important thing you can do to improve your skill as a listener is to give the other person your undivided attention. In the words of Gandhi, "Wherever you are - Be there." Listen with your voice - Say "no kidding", "um hmm", "go on", or by paraphrasing, which, by definition, is the act of restating or rewording what others say. Psychologists call this "Active Listening". Say, "So what your saying is..." Or simply repeat the last thought the other person said. There is no better skill for effective listening then paraphrasing. If you've heard correctly, the other person will generally respond with an enthusiastic yes or nod. If you've heard it wrong, they'll know they need to clarify. Paraphrasing gives them the opportunity to restate what they said so accurate and meaningful communications take place. Listen with your body - Lean forward, put your hands on your chin, or listen with open arms. When your body conveys a listening posture, others become more comfortable and open. If appropriate, take notes. In a business meeting, it shows your interest and helps you stay focused. Nodding is also a key component of your listening posture. And smiling. Smiles are contagious and make others feel comfortable, and the more comfortable we are, the better we communicate. Establish and maintain eye contact. Not only is this reassuring to the other person, but it enables you to read their body language which can convey more than their words. As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by just watching." Button up!! - Don't interrupt. You hate it. So do others. It's rude. Unless you're seeing a fire erupt behind the person speaking, let them finish. Encourage them to fill out their thoughts by saying, "tell me more." When we interrupt, the other person loses their focus and we lose the opportunity to fully understand what they're trying to convey. Make a conscious effort to see how often you interrupt others over the course of a day. Hopefully, it won't be a rude awakening. Ask questions - In the words of Stephen Covey, "Seek first to understand, then be understood. This involves a very deep paradigm shift. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak." Talk less - A good philosophy is that conversations should not just be about you, but about we. As the Greek sage, Epictetus, observed: "Most of us were born with two ears and one mouth." That's a pretty good ratio between listening and talking. Now - are you ready to listen?

Wake Up! 4 Ways to Become a Morning Person

CBS MoneyWatch By Amy Levin-Epstein Are you a morning person? Up and running by the time it takes you to open your eyes and turn off your alarm? Wait...you don't need an alarm, ever? Then you probably don't need to read the following -- but feel free to forward it to any friends who aren't so bright-eyed in the wee hours. If you're relying on a combination of Starbucks, brain-blasting alarm clocks or a sympathetic partner to pry you out of bed in the morning, read on for some eye-opening tips from sleep experts: Give yourself something to look forward to. Sure, if you love your morning activities - whether it be a pleasant commute, lively morning meeting or friendly school run, you might hop out of bed. But for those of us who have tasks we dread scheduled first thing, getting up and at 'em can seem like a terrible idea. Making a nice breakfast for yourself the night before can motivate you. "A person can train themselves to dread the mornings if they see it as the beginning of pain and suffering. Similarly, you can condition yourself to pop out of bed if the morning is associated with something pleasurable," says psychiatrist and sleep specialist Tracey Marks, M.D., the author of Master Your Sleep. One recipe to try: overnight oats. Basically, they're oats prepared ahead of time and served cold, making them perfect for the hot summer months. Open your blinds ASAP Your instinct may be to pull the pillow over your head to get a few more seconds of snooze time, but that's only going to hurt your effort to become a morning person, says Kevin Gregory, vice president of Alertness Solutions, a scientific research firm. "Light exposure is the key to the timing of your body clock; getting sunlight early in the day can help push your clock and timing of your typical sleep period a little earlier," says Gregory. If you have time, go for a short morning walk or jog. The combination of light exposure, fresh air and increased blood flow will send an indisputable signal to your brain that this is the time to be up--and eventually, it will remember that message. Read: You'll be a morning person. Make yourself very, very tired Sounds crazy, right? But driving yourself to semi-exhaustion (we're not advocating aiming for narcolepsy here) can help reset your clock. "For a period of several days, restrict your sleep by forcing yourself to wake up an hour [even] earlier than usual; sleep pressure will build up and make it easier to get to sleep earlier," says Gregory. Now that you're falling asleep earlier, waking up early will come more naturally, and less painfully. Try lights and/or drugs If these simple steps aren't helping, there are more sophisticated solutions. Chris Winter, M.D., medical director of the sleep medicine center at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Va., recommends light therapy devices, melatonin and alertness medications to his patients. The lights turn on timed to your body's circadian rhythm (e.g. our internal clock) and gradually changes it by replicating daylight. Melatonin, a homeopathic remedy, can induce sleepiness, helping you get on a healthy sleep cycle. And other drugs, like Provigial and Nuvigil, promote wakefulness, which may also help reset your body's natural patterns. Talk to your own doctor about which of these, if any, may help you.

Have You Heard About Social Media’s Latest Killer App? It’s Called Television.

TVNewsCheck SALES OFFICE by Abby Auerbach Social Media + Broadcast TV = Killer App A TVGuide.com study found that more viewers chatted and tweeted while watching live TV during the past season and the top 10 most popular "social shows" are all aired on broadcast networks. Such social viewing is giving rise to a new metric, social impressions, that bolsters the gross ratings points. Stations are also discovering the value of tying local programming in with the Facebook and Twitter. Have you heard about social media’s latest killer app? It’s called television. According to a TVGuide.com study, social media discussions about television shows drove more live viewing and second-screen engagement during the 2010-11 television season and, interestingly, the top 10 "social shows" all aired on broadcast networks. They are: 1.NCIS 2.American Idol 3.Criminal Minds 4.Glee 5.House 6.Fringe 7.Bones 8.Castle 9.Smallville 10.Law & Order: Special Victims Unit What’s interesting is that Idol is the only non-scripted program to appear on the list. The rest are broadcast network dramas, ranging from the general appeal (Criminal Minds) to the niche audience (Fringe). These programs all share a similar trait: they all represent “appointment viewing” for their fans. And more and more, those fans prefer to watch their favorite shows live rather than time-shifted. That way, they are able to participate in the social world of the program instantly — where they can go online and passionately discuss the program they’ve just watched without fear of “spoilers.” Not only do these highly-rated shows deliver committed audiences, but overwhelmingly, these viewers go online and act as social ambassadors for a program. Seventy-seven percent report that they use social media to share their love of a show; 65% use it as a platform to help save their favorite shows; and 35% use it to try to introduce new shows to their friends. But don’t look for them to be Tweeting or chatting on Facebook during a program. Only 24% of the respondents who use Facebook to talk about these shows do so during a broadcast — while 68% of them go to Facebook to discuss it afterwards. (Twitter has a slightly more active in-program commentary, with 47% tweeting during a broadcast.) The phenomenon of social media/television interaction has not gone unnoticed by advertisers. Along with the usual statistics, a new metric — social impression — is beginning to play a role in deciding where ad dollars go. Social impressions are more than just the number of posts on Facebook and Twitter, according to Networked Insights. The company has developed a formula that includes conversation volume, page views, frequent visitors and the traits of the posters and forums where the discussions are happening. Media buyers can use such formulas to expand schedules by purchasing multiple shows with lower gross ratings points (GRPs), but with higher social impressions. The more dedicated the fans of a show are, the more impact their social media presence has. Maureen Bosetti, EVP of broadcast and buying for Optimedia US, recently told Media Daily News that social media considerations allow “us to tap into sponsorship opportunities across multiple platforms and amplify our client’s message where consumers are most engaged.” The social media effect is also showing up in the strategies of television stations. Gannett Broadcasting has done a number of marketing promotions on its NBC affiliates built around late-season entry, The Voice. The result? Most of those six Gannett stations in the top 25 markets are ranked either first or second in the time period during which the show airs. And latenight local programming, for virtually all of Gannett’s 11 NBC affiliates, has seen noticeable bumps in the ratings. Can local television broadcasters take advantage of the social media/television interaction to directly benefit one of our greatest assets: local news? Last year, Hearst Television commissioned a local TV news study from Frank N. Magid Associates. The study revealed that local television ranked highest among all news programming in driving purchases of products and services; furthermore, the study showed that viewers were far more engaged with advertisements on local television news than with ads in newspapers or on radio. Imagine the possibilities of marrying those already high levels of engagement for local television news with the power of social media tools. Jen Lee Reeves, new media director, KOMU Columbia-Jefferson, Mo, did just that when the devastating tornado hit nearby Joplin. As she reported on PBS.org’s Mediashift: “When the tornado hit, our Facebook fans knew they could trust us to coordinate and share important information.... Some of the conversations I had with our Facebook audience led to our morning show coverage.... It's an example of how a commitment to social media can help encourage ongoing conversations between a newsroom and its community.” Broadcast TV + local news + hyper-local social media — now there’s a killer app.

The 8 Most Crucial Sales Skills

bNet By Geoffrey James | Publishes for this Edition May 4, 2012 A while back, I posted a list of five critical sales skills based on a conversation Duane Sparks, author of the bestseller Sales Strategy From The Inside Out: How Complex Selling Really Works. I then asked Sales Machine readers if they felt that there were some additional skills that ought to have been on the list. They identified three, and I identified one. Here’s the complete list (with Duane’s original skills marked with an asterisk *): • SKILL #1: Building the Buyer-Seller Relationship*. Salespeople need to develop a better understanding of the buying process that customers actually follow-the real decisions they make, and when they are made. Then salespeople need to match their sales process with the customer’s buying process. When this is done, salespeople begin to walk arm-in-arm with the customer as they arrive at the best possible solution. • SKILL #2: Planning the Sales Call*. Most companies today lack a well-defined sales process. Very few have documented the sales practices that lead to strong commitments from customers. As a consequence, salespeople don’t plan sales calls properly. For instance, every call should end in some kind of commitment from the customer-an agreement to do something that will move the process forward. • SKILL #3: Asking the Right Questions*. Most salespeople do not ask the right types of questions, even if they prepare questions prior to the sales call, which most don’t. The impact of poor questioning skills is enormous. It leads to resistance in the form of stalls and objections, bad presentations that offer improper solutions, failure to differentiate from the competition-and missed sales opportunities. • SKILL #4: Business Acumen. If you’re going to help your customer become more successful you need to know how businesses work in general, how your customer’s industry works, how your customer addresses their target market and how your firms offerings can help them better serve their own customers. Without business skills, you’ll never have the credibility needed to sell • SKILL #5: Actively Listening. Sales pros miss important cues and information by talking too much themselves and their products. It’s much more important to shut up and let the customer talk. Yes, you should guide the conversation, but then listen and digest properly we learn so much about what the customer really wants, so that you can position your offering appropriately. • SKILL #6: Presenting Meaningful Solutions*. Most salespeople claim that this is the skill they are best at. In fact, we as managers tend to hire people who have “the gift of gab.” In reality, quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to making presentations. When salespeople zero in on presenting only specific solutions to previously agreed-upon needs, they rarely fail. • SKILL #7: Gaining Commitments*. If you really think about it, the only reason to employ salespeople is to gain customer commitment. Yet, when asked, most salespeople admit that this is their weakest skill. Research suggests that almost two thirds of salespeople fail to ask for commitment on sales calls. Any effective sales training program must have a solid solution for this problem. • SKILL #8: Managing Your Emotions. The way sales pro explain to themselves the causes of their successes and failures is vitally important. Developing a style that sees adversity as temporary and isolated builds the mental toughness, emotional resilience and patience to bounce back from setbacks and be proactive when the time is right.

Local TV Broadcasting Advertising Revenue Dipped 7.8% in 2011

BIA/Kelsey report In 2011 stations took in $17.9 billion in broadcast ad revenues, compared with $19.4 billion in 2010 -- the fall off due to the weak economy and dearth of political advertising. With the return of heavy political spending this year, revenue will rebound 10% this year to $19.7 billion, the research and investment firm says. By Staff TVNewsCheck, May 1, 2012 7:51 AM EDT Local TV broadcasting advertising revenue dipped 7.8% in 2011 from the previous year, due to the sluggish economy and the dearth of political advertising typical of odd-numbered years, according to BIA/Kelsey's quarterly Investing in Television Market Report. In 2011, stations took in $17.9 billion, compared with $19.4 billion in 2010. "Local advertising industry revenues typically rise and fall depending on the political year," said Mark Fratrik, VP-chief economist, BIA/Kelsey. "Advertising income for local television is trending upward [in 2012] and showing signs of rebound, with a good first quarter for many public television companies. Still, the 2012 over-the-air television advertising market is not what it was 11 years ago." With the return of the heavy political spending this year, BIA/Kelsey sees broadcast ad revenue rebounding to $19.7 billion this year, up 10% from 2011 and up 2% from 2010, the last "political" year. Stations' broadcast ad revenue is still way down from 2006 ($22.8 billion) and, in its five-year forecast, BIA/Kelsey doesn't expect stations to attain that level again. It pegs 2016 broadcast ad revenue at $21.8 billion. The good news for broadcasters is that their digital media are beginning to make significant contributions to total revenue. In 2011, BIA/Kelsey says, television stations earned $535 million from digital, an 18.7% jump compared with $450 million in 2010. It forecasts digital revenue will grow at a compound annual rate of nearly 45% over the next five years and hit $1 billion in 2016. So, broadcast and digital revenue combined in 2016 will match 2006 broadcast revenue. "Local television stations are establishing increased expertise in packaging, pricing and selling cross-platform and multi-device ad-supported content services for their viewers," said Rick Ducey, BIA/Kelsey's managing director and program director of video local media. "We anticipate greater utilization of smartphones and tablets for engaged audience experiences with local streaming video content including news, weather and sports monetized both by advertising and sponsorships." According to BIA/Kelsey's U.S. Local Media Forecast (2011-2016) and local market ad spending analysis, Media Ad View Reports, the local advertising ecosystem continues to be dominated by traditional media, with stations' share at 13.9% of $132.8 billion in 2011 and 14.3% of $151.3 billion in 2016. In order to grow revenues, stations should concentrate on local-direct revenues instead of relying on transactional share says Dr. Philip Jay LeNoble, CEO of Executive Decision Systems, Inc. Littleton, CO.

Auto Spending will Grow 14% in 2012

Advertising Age -- May 1, 2012 - 9:58 am ET Stephen Williams NEW YORK -- As the U.S. auto industry motors toward a broad recovery, Borrell Associates forecasts that national and local advertising spending will rise nearly 14 percent in 2012, to $30.8 billion, and that about 40 cents of every media dollar will be channeled toward digital. According to a report prepared by the Virginia-based consulting firm that tracks local ad spending, the trend toward digital media -- at the expense of print, radio and direct mail -- will continue "largely unabated." CEO Gordon Borrell said the firm foresees the industry, including dealers and dealer associations, spending $11.9 billion on search buys and online banner ads, and trending toward repurposing manufacturers' agency spots for local video usage "tailored to their own purposes." The $11.9 billion figure marks an overall increase of 39 percent from 2011. "Gone are the days when broadcast advertising dominated the top of the buying funnel," stated a summary of the report. Among the factors contributing to Borrell's findings are greater availability of co-op advertising budgets, and the movement of targeting marketing to reach potential buyers via their mobile devices. According to Borrell's prognostications, nearly 90 percent of the additional dollars -- or an estimated $3.7 billion -- will be earmarked for digital. The spending data examined trends for 11 marketing channels: newspapers, radio, TV, cable, magazines, outdoor, cinema, online, direct mail, directories and telemarketing, and examined spending patterns by five types of auto advertisers: manufacturers, franchised dealers, independent dealers, dealer associations and private-party sellers. The report conservatively forecasts total sales of light trucks and cars of 13.5 million units (the U.S. sales rate was 14.5 million during the first quarter). But the report says higher gas prices and restricted credit could cause some "speed bumps." Most of the automobile ad spending will occur in the May-to-August frenzy as dealers push Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day sales. This differs significantly from other businesses, which tend to advertise in late spring and into the fall as the holidays approach. Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120501/RETAIL03/120509992#ixzz1tejvc8PV

What to Look for in a Star Salesperson

Inc. Online by John Warrillow As a business owner you may be a great salesperson but a lousy sales manager. So remove yourself from the equation by hiring a self-directed salesperson. "You need someone with a built-in polish that matches that of your target customer." The other day I spoke to a business owner who had given his new salesperson a sales target of $1.2 million. When I asked the owner how his new sales rep was tracking to his goal, the owner admitted the salesperson had not closed a single piece of business in his first six months on the job. In other words, the seven-figure target was a joke, and the salesperson would be lucky to hit 10 percent of his plan by year's end. So whose at fault? Surprisingly, it's probably the business owner. Most business owners make great salespeople but terrible sales managers. As the owner of your company, you're probably your business's best sales rep because you have miles of credibility, you know your industry and your product, and you can sell based on the depth of your experience. Almost by definition, your salespeople are going to have less industry knowledge than you, so they need a different set of skills and experiences to draw from. What's more, you're probably not going to give them the support they would get from a traditional sales manager. A sales manager's job is to make his or her salespeople successful. Good managers meet regularly (at least weekly, if not daily) with their reps to discuss their progress. They have their salespeople prepare a sales funnel and manage their numbers. Great sales managers think of sales as a simple game of managing their reps' numbers. For example, they might know that 100 leads typically yield 10 meetings, which will convert to three proposals, which will result in one sale. Instead of hounding their reps for a sale, the best sales managers focus on the status of the funnel, making sure their sales reps have the right number of leads and meetings, which they know—if they just work the system—will result in the right number of sales. As business owners, we usually make crappy sales managers. First of all, we're rarely so process-oriented to have the patience to work a system like the best sales managers follow. Second, we're too busy putting out fires to meet regularly with our sales reps; something else always comes up. Third, we're too optimistic. Our glass is always three-quarters full, which leads us to develop unrealistic budgets and set salespeople up for failure before they even start. Given our inherent weakness for managing salespeople, what should we business owners do if we can't afford a sales manager but need someone to replace us as the company's salesperson? My suggestion is that you work under the assumption that your employee won't get the traditional management and support most salespeople need, so when hiring your first salesperson, consider only prospects who could work manager-free. One of the things I notice when I look back on the winning salespeople I have hired is that they were all self-directed. In other words, they didn't need a lot of hand-holding from me. When it comes to expectations of sales staff, there is a big distinction between large and small businesses. In a big business, salespeople work under many layers of sales management. Sales managers design the territories, targets, sales process, support material, and offers. All salespeople really have to do is follow the system, and they will usually achieve a decent level of success. In fact, some of the best-performing salespeople in a large company are primarily just good at following a system. In a small business, none of the infrastructure exists. Budgets are largely a guess, territories are blurry, and what could laughingly be described as a sales process is really just a series of habits the business owner follows unconsciously. And that is why finding a salesperson who is self-directed is so important. Self-direction is the ability to wake up in the morning and know what to do without being told. The self-directed salesperson gets up and puts together a call sheet with a mix of hot prospects and cool leads that need cultivating. When advancing a prospect to the point of making a decision, he or she blocks out the world's noise and puts everything else on hold until the sale gets over the finish line. The self-directed salesperson doesn't need to be told to complete a weekly funnel; it's always rolling over in his or her head. And a sixth sense tells this type of sales rep just where and what to work on. Here are three things to look for to increase your odds of finding a self-directed salesperson: 1. Experience Working Remotely Salespeople who have succeeded while working remotely have demonstrated an ability to be productive without constant coaching or supervision. It takes a special breed to work from home without the camaraderie of an office environment. Look for people who have met a quota while working independently. 2. A "Polish" That Mirrors That of the Audience It's important for salespeople to mirror the sophistication of the audience they're selling to. Without a sales manager to coach your new recruits on the "soft stuff," you need someone with a built-in polish that matches that of your target customer. If your target prospect is a senior banker, then you want a salesperson who looks comfortable wearing a suit and speaks and writes at a university level. By contrast, if you're calling on residential plumbing companies, you want your sales rep to be a little more Tim Horton's than Starbucks. Don't bother hiring a greenhorn who you think you can coach—you will have neither the time nor the patience. 3. Competitive Streak Unlike in a big company, where daily sales huddles, contests, leader boards, and promotions provide a constant set of external motivators, the manager-free salesperson has to source motivation from inside. Therefore, look for salespeople who are naturally competitive. On a CV or in a job interview, the competitive salesperson will tell you how they ranked among other sales reps in their organization, and you'll see their desire to compete show up in the list of sports they play or hobbies they participate in. If you've tried and failed to hire your first successful salesperson, don't lose hope. Replacing yourself as your company's best salesperson is hard work and requires you to find a special breed of individual who can sell without the traditional infrastructure available in most sales organizations.

How to Improve Your Struggling Sales Team

Inc.com Tim Donnelly Trying to get your sales team back on track? Forget the pep-talk. Experts suggest sales management and training techniques that can improve your company's sales. "At the end of the day, people don't leave bad companies. They leave bad managers." - Brent Adamson What do you do with struggling salespeople? It's a problem that's vexxed multi-national corporations and start-ups; assistant managers and presidents of boards. It's simply hard to know when to pull the trigger on removing underperforming team members when it could be that the staff just needs a little guidance, encouragement, or training to get back on track. A little professional nudge in the right direction is a more economical choice over the time-consuming and expensive process of hiring a replacement sales representative. Many sales professionals would rather give their struggling sales people a chance to improve and bring their results up to company standards. When you're trying to figure out whether your sales team can get back on track, first try these expert strategies on how to lift sales team out of the profit gutter. Step One: Install a Great Sales Manager You can't have someone overseeing your sales team who is nothing more than a glorified cheerleader, says Liz Wendling, owner of Insight Business Consultants and Sales Coach For Women. You need to employ a manager who is not only willing to engage the team, but to also identify weaknesses and work directly with sales staff to overcome their challenges. "It's not somebody who can just pat somebody on the back," she says. "They do pep talks, and pep talks aren't enough for some salespeople." Many companies make the mistake of promoting their top salespeople to manager positions, but often the most skilled salespeople don’t have the coaching dexterity needed to effectively guide a whole team. In fact, research by the Corporate Executive Board says sales representatives strongly prefer coaching to come from their direct supervisor. "By far unless the direct supervisor is perceived as owning that coaching, the coaching is likely to have relatively minimal impact," says Brent Adamson, senior director. "At the end of the day, people don't leave bad companies. They leave bad managers." Additional Resources: How to Hire a Sales Manager Step Two: Implement One-on-One Coaching Sales coach Jeremy J. Ulmer, who lists among his credentials twice being ranked the No. 1 sales performer at two global Fortune 500 companies, says the first step to improving sales is talking directly to the team to find out what struggles they are facing. What makes their jobs difficult? What could they do better? What could they be provided with to do better? "Sometimes they're very open and they tell you a lot of things," he says. Other times you will have to pry a little by asking how they're managing time, what an average day looks like and to describe how they run sales call. Then he picks one problem at a time to work on to get better results. That sometimes means removing technological distractions and giving additional management support. Several experts recommend pairing low-performing sales representatives with successful ones. Ulmer says that strategy was a better learning experience at his first sales job with Xerox than the company's 10 weeks of official training. Sometimes Ulmer will put a sales team on a strict schedule so they are making sales calls during dedicated blocks during the day, instead of sporadically throughout all work hours. Limiting the coaching to specific groups of employees is often more effective than spreading it around the company as a whole, says Matt Dixon, managing director of the Corporate Executive Board. "Coaching is not meant to be democratic," he says. Too many managers fall back on what he calls "spreadsheet coaching," where the focus is on whether the sales staff is hitting its numbers. Instead, you should be working closely with the individual sales representatives to understand the context of the problems. "When it comes to coaching, they're so focused on that number and hitting that quota, they lose sight," he says. "The way that you do that is not focus on those outcomes but focus on behaviors." Michael J. Galante, who runs TheSalesCoach.com, creates what he calls a Performance Improvement Plan for each ailing salesperson he meets. It's essentially a battle plan to help the employee assault obstacles to productivity. Often times, the problem is a lack of follow through, which leads to fizzling sales momentum. Having an action plan helps keep track of things like that that might otherwise be overlooked, he says. "That's why I try to document," he says. "I can show the sales person or manager that there's some growth or some success." Step Three: Put Your Team on a Sales Diet Like anyone leading an unhealthy lifestyle, a sales staff sometimes needs a "sales diet" of sorts to get some perspective on challenges. Wendling recommends giving struggling employee a smaller stack of calls to work through. They'll can gain confidence and avoid the burnout of intense extended sales pitch efforts. Then, work with them to dissect the sales calls to note areas for improvement: Do they have good rapport and conversation skills? Are they moving through the pitch at a natural pace or steamrolling right to the point? Setting individual benchmarks can help put people on the right track to success, especially if you are forced to put sales staff on probation until performance improves. But it's important to keep a balance between realistic goals and creating too much performance anxiety. "They could see (the office) as this daunting place they have to go. That could scare a lot of people off," she says. "With that internal pressure, sales people wind up making desperate calls, stretching the truth, lying to customers just to get sales." Suggested Reading: What to Do When A Sales Representative Misses Quota Step Four: Looking to the Future, Hire Smart It's an obvious piece of advice, but one worth repeating, Galante says: the best way to handle lackluster sales represtnatives is to not have them in the first place, or to at least identify them early. "It's really important for the management team to avoid this situation," he says. "Stay on top of the rep's performance, intervene before they become the worst sales person or significantly underperforming." Adamson says companies need to sit down and figure out a map of the behaviors that drive success before doing any hiring. "If you've got a profile of the behaviors to drive success, you'll make sure people more likely to be aligned to great behaviors," he says. Wendling says your company's expectations should be communicated during the job interview so candidates know what's in store. You can test their skills by including in the interview exercises that force them to think on their feet; or by sending them off with a homework assignment to see how they can prepare for a big task. But when all else fails, you may have to come to grips with trimming the sales team of dead weight. Data collected by the Corporate Executive Board show that companies tend to spend too much time coaching the top 20 percent of performers and trying to improve the bottom 20 percent. But focusing on the core middle 60 percent of the sales force is the best way to improve your profits. "For true under performers, no amount of good coaching is going to make them better at their job," Dixon says.