Why Do I Need an Accountability Partner? Part 3
Now for the interactive part of my presentation:
What do these two scenarios have in common?
- I saw value in them both. I was at a point in my career in the first situation that I needed to work smarter not harder. My older boy was graduating from high school and had been accepted to the college that we both wanted him to attend. It was one of the most (if not the most) expensive school in the state. His brother was getting old enough to drive and needed a vehicle. I wanted my boys to have what they wanted and I also wanted to increase my savings.
- In the second situation I also saw value in that not only would it help my environment but it would also aid my recruiting and my all around versatility when dealing with people. I doubled my recruiting after I learned the process, and I still teach it today.
- I had someone to hold me accountable. I knew that I had to show both of these people what I had accomplished for the week, and I valued their input.
- I learned processes and the value of processes. People may fail but processes don’t
When you attend a training session with a room full of people, the presenter assumes that everyone is in the same place in their career and they do not have the time to understand the differences in the attendees. This is where value comes from an accountability partner. As an accountability partner, I have you take a survey on four to five different areas of sales – personal performance, sales performance, recruiting (if applicable), networking, and ongoing business performance and design your program from the results. This is called your ITP or individual training program. Each program has at least one process secure performance. Remember people may fail but processes don’t/
- In Personal performance training you learn to understand and maximize the impact of behavior as it relates to business. This goes back to “Seek to Understand before you seek to be Understood”, The first person you need to understand is yourself. How does fear impact sales? What are my fears and how do I change them?
- I know that we hear a lot about goal setting, but I would rather measure productivity. You can’t control how much someone is going to purchase from you, but you can control how many people you ask. A $ goal is the result of productivity.
Sales elements include more than just the actual product sale but regretfully that’s where most training programs focus. The purpose of my training is to ensure you can function successfully in all elements of the sales process. Topics include:
- Sales fueled by networking
- Sales strategies ( I use the counselor soft sell approach). People want to buy, they don’t want to be sold, they want to buy from people like them. (remember when I told you about learning personality styles. This is where
- How to obtain client commitment , follow up , understanding new relationships and not underestimating older relationships
Networking elements include more than handing out cards. It includes the correct business purpose, the difference between business and social venues and evaluation of networking venues. Are you spending your time in the right area. It is very helpful to have an accountability partner to train and observe you in a networking situation.
Depending on your survey results, you may need ongoing accountability consisting of activity management, time management, and business focus
The number one quality for success in any business is coachability. When I first started, the guys in the office said that if Dennis told me to come to work barefoot, I would do it. And guess what? They were right. There are four different ways we can look at a situation. You can be a conscious competent , in other words you know what you know. You can be an unconscious competent ,, you don’t know what you know. You can be an unconscious incompetent (you don’t know what you don’t know) or a conscious incompetent – in other words you know what you don’t know. If you are not willing to be a conscious incompetent, you will not succeed in any business. When I started in sales, my manager was very successful. I decided that all I had to do was to watch what he did and do it. Guess what, it worked!! During my career I had several different managers who had different skill sets. One was a good closer, one with amazing people skills and the ability to understand others, one was good at watching numbers and told me that if you watch the numbers, the numbers get better. Why do you think this is true?
An accountability partner is not for someone who does not take their business seriously, or is not willing to do what it takes to make their business grow. I love it when I hear people say that sales is hard. Is working at McDonalds hard? There is no situation that you will encounter that I haven’t dealt with at least once and I have had to learn the hard way. That’s the hard part. The learning curve is the hard part, but if you are willing to learn from someone else, you will lower your learning curve exponentially. What questions do you have?