Dec Jan 2010
The Best Advice I Ever Received Advice. We all need it, but we are often so bad at following it. And yet, a great piece of advice can change the path you are on and lead you to take a better one. It happens all the time as the stories that follow illustrate. We asked some of South Africa’s sales leaders about the best piece of advice they have ever received. These are their responses. Michael Allschwang, Managing Executive, Vodacom Business The best career advice I ever received came from a marketing lecturer and it related to understanding your market and being able to segment your market. Because when you understand it very well and segment it correctly, you are then in a very powerful position. Earlier in my career, I was responsible for the introduction of brands such as Energade and Jack Daniels into South Africa. At the time of the Energade introduction, there were no sports drinks in South Africa. I mean Lucozade and Game and Isotar all existed, but they didn’t call them sports drinks, and so being able to segment the market and call them sports drinks made us the leader overnight. Similarly, there was no Tennessee Whiskey in South Africa. There was bourbon, but we segmented it differently and became number one in our market there. So being able to segment your market is the best advice I could ever give any salesman. Also, ask who are the people that need what you sell? It is about having a profound understanding of the market in which you operate. There is always going to be somebody that wants your product. You just need to understand who and where they are. Mark Lu, CEO, Rectron What I learned from my first boss was that the best salesmen don’t sell; people don’t like to be sold! Don’t go after money (meaning don’t think of the short term); let money come to you (by building long-term trust and relationships with clients). An old Chinese saying is that: humans have two legs; money has four legs; so don’t run after money as money runs faster than you; let money come to you! Another important piece of advice is that honesty is the best policy: don’t over promise and under deliver; and never ever bad mouth your competition! Finally, and this is key to success: focus is everything! Paul Naidoo, SALESGURU’s resident Sales Expert I grew up in the sugar cane plantations in KZN. My late dad was a farm labourer who planted and cut sugar cane. While in school I qualified to go to medical school. My father promptly informed me that he could not even afford to pay the registration fees, not to speak of the tuition fees. This was my very first exposure to poverty. It was the first time that my dad showed me his “payslip”. His annual salary was less than the registration fees.I ended up with serious depression and acne. My dad noticed. Dad: “Son , can you please tell me why you want to become a doctor?” Me: “I will make lots of money?” Dad: “Son that’s the wrong reason for becoming a doctor. Would you like to know the secret of making lots of money?” Me: (thinking: Yeah right sugar cane cutter, go right ahead, let’s see what you got) “Yes dad.” Dad: Integrity above all is priceless. You can lose all the money you make. Keep your integrity. It is priceless and you will always make more money because the pricelessness of integrity far exceeds any amount of money you make. Me: I don’t understand. Dad: OK, you will learn that. In the meantime, There are three simple things that I want you to do to make money. Me: Yes dad. Dad: One: go out and do what other sales people are lazy to do. Two: solve problems for Customers. The more complex the problems, the bigger the rewards. Three: consistently increase the number of people who know what you can do for them. Son, do you understand? Me: No dad. Dad: You will learn when you have to. Don’t be too late. Caroline da Silva, EGM, Business Development & Sales, Mutual & Federal There are so many things that come to mind when I think of the special lessons life or people have taught me. For example my Dad always asking ‘did you do your best, Lass?’ and only being disappointed in me if I had failed through lack of trying but being proud even when I had failed but done my best. My Mother’s favourite saying was ‘A shroud has no pockets’ driving me to base my happiness or success on the real things, because money is only money, and you can’t take it with you. Advice once given to me that I think has helped me the most in business though, is the value of the frank conversation. All people are intuitive at some level and will always sense if you are telling the whole truth or not. If you skirt the issues people will be left with a sense of unease which will inevitably impact on any deal. If there is an unspoken issue, no matter how difficult, deal with it frankly and with respect, even if it is sensitive or negative since it clears the way for honest win/win relationship building. Chase Hawkins, General Manager - Vehicle Sales, GM South Africa I guess a few things stick with me. Our current President and CEO, Fritz Henderson once told a group of us two things (on separate occasions). The one relates to dealing with complexity and the analogy he uses is ‘fixing the bicycle while you are riding it’. It really supports the philosophy that there will always be challenges you deal with on a daily basis, but your ability to ‘fix’ those issues, while you continue to operate the business, is what makes you a good leader/ manager. The other advice he gave us was that you cannot physically deal with the daily workload you have as a senior leader. Delegation is important, but more critically, if you can only deal with 70% of what`s thrown at you, make sure you have the insights to choose the right 70% to work on and accept the fact that you may make some mistakes. Speed is often more important than having all the facts to make a decision you know will be 100% correct. A final bit of advice I received from a recently retired Managing Director I worked with at GM for many years, is about honesty and integrity. His perspective was, if you don`t have these two critical behavioural traits, then you have nothing. You will never be credible with colleagues, leadership or subordinates. It`s important to work on these things everyday and ensure that the decisions you make are calculated to the point where your integrity and honesty can never be challenged. Dave Woolnough, Managing Director, Mint Management Technologies I have been chasing the success carrot for many years now and have been successful in many of the areas in which I chose to work. And yet life only ever seems to get harder and more challenging. I got this advice from a very close friend of mine who is at piece within himself: ”Life is not about what you do, or how you do it, rather, it’s about who you do it with!” The lesson in this is about finding the people you want to be with in life; home, work, socially, spiritually. Once you find this, the rest will naturally fall into place. Sheldon Frank, Head of Sales, Blue Label Telecoms South African Distribution If I look back at my early days in sales three things come to my mind which I think were and are important in achieving success in sales. The three rules of selling which were told to me by my first boss: see the people, see the people and see the people. Another thing I was told early on in my career and which I am always conscious of is: good enough is never good enough, in other words nothing less than your best is acceptable. A third piece of advice? This, from a partner of mine: break the month into weeks, the weeks into days, and have a set target for every day. Neville De Lucia, Director of Sales, Dale Carnegie Training The best advice I ever got was in Standard 8 (Grade 10). My science teacher taught me: don’t regret what you’ve done, regret what you haven’t tried. As a result of this, while growing up, I always made a point of doing things a little differently and the attention I got (mostly positive, although some negative ) made me stand out. Since this creates more success than failure, I use this approach to selling. Early in my career as a sales professional, I realised that being unique and memorable makes a profound impact on my clients. Because I don’t regret what I have done I am prepared to do things that other sales people are not prepared to do. You see more often than not, it’s not what we do that costs us the business, it’s what we chose not to do that cost us the business. For example, I am pretty creative when trying to get meeting s with clients. I might send a jar of Jelly Tots, but take out all the green ones and on a hand-written note ask: “what’s missing?”. Later on that afternoon or the next day, I’ll call the prospect and ask them if they figured it out. I always make the statement that very often people use the same training providers year in and year out and as a result they don’t know what’s missing. May I come and see you and give an indication of how we can complement what they do? Salespeople often say “I can’t do that; what if they think I’m being silly or rude or what if I offend them?” I don’t regret what I have done; I regret what I have not tried. This attitude wins me more appointments. Spiro Georgopolis, Director: Sales, Standard Bank I am by nature a bit of a blabbermouth and when I started working for Mike Perry of Strategy Consulting Group, Perry and Associates, I learned a really valuable lesson. Mike was an extremely good listener and extremely intuitive to the vibe in a room. One day, early on in my career, we were sitting in a meeting with one of the senior executives of a listed company we were consulting to, the executive was ranting and raving. I was a junior consultant and I sat there with my eyes wide open thinking, the end of the world had arrived, but Mike said nothing and just sat there. He didn’t try to defend or make excuses or anything like that and eventually, this guy just ran out of things to say. Then Mike literally let the pregnant pause last for 30 seconds or so, looking like he was deep in thought, and then started a process of very slowly responding to each of the points that had been raised. After the meeting I said to Mike, Wow, that was absolutely amazing, because he had taken total control of that meeting. He said the secret was very simple: it is more important to listen. And don’t be afraid even in tough meetings, to allow for that pregnant pause to happen because it lets things settle a little and allows you to gather your thoughts before you proceed. Another lesson comes from my parents. They taught me that it doesn’t matter who you are or who you are dealing with; whether it is a cleaner or a CEO. The thing that matters more than anything is that you respect other people and you are pleasant and considerate. You may not reap the benefits of these things immediately but over time you start building relationships and developing networks where people think of you in a positive manner and you can call on those people in difficult times because you have been respectful and considerate along the way. Derick Ferreira, Old Mutual National Marketing Manager, Broker Distribution Creating wealth for ourselves is not determined by our income earning ability, but rather by our attitudes and habits around money. It is never too late to start saving or investing – be it for retirement funding, short-term purchases or emergency reserves. Having spent 25 years of my career in the financial services industry, the best advice that I’ve been given is to start early. Also, TIME IN the market is much more important than TIMING the market. When it comes to finances, TIME is more important than MONEY. Investor behaviour during the last year has emphasised this point again. Many investors got out of the market at the beginning of the year when the market was at its lowest and are now buying again as prices are rising. Those who invested through the dip are certainly much better off than those who tried to predict what the market was going to do. Time can be a powerful tool in the hands of the wise. The younger a person realises this, the more opportunities he or she could find to build wealth. It is not how MUCH you invest, but how LONG you invest that counts. People often pinch from tomorrow to pay for today. But remember, today’s spender is tomorrow’s poor pensioner. A lack of vision is exactly why people do unplanned spending. Create a vision for yourself of where you want to be financially – in the short term and in the long term – and use your vision to help you remain focused on making your dreams come true.