dta WORLDWIDE are pleased to be a partner of the Sales Effectiveness Australasia Breakfast Event Series.  Join us at the following event in Sydney on June 18th.  If you are not in Sydney, you can register for the virtual event and still receive the DVD and ‘Book of the Month’.  For more information and to register

click here

The future of effective sales leadership by Malcolm Dawes

• Understand the importance of 10 core competencies for sales managers
• Know the essential qualities to allow you move from sales management to sales leadership
• Be able to focus on your own strengths to develop the effectiveness of your personal leadership style

Overcoming fear to create great sales results by Suzanne Mercier.

 What is fear, and why is it a natural part of the human condition?

Can I really overcome fear in a competitive sales environment?

How can I build more sustained resilience in my sales prospecting and negotiations?

Selling is one of the most critical activities in the work environment.   Without the ability to sell, ideas would be nipped in the bud, products could “rot” on the shelves and services would remain unused potential.

Extensive research has proven that even the best of sales people will, at some point, miss opportunities and underachieve because of fear. It can be fear of rejection, call reluctance, fear of failure – or one of the many other ways fear can be manifested.  But fear is also natural.  Anyone who needs to sell – from a sales professional to a business development person to a non-sales employee – knows and feels fear when it comes to selling.  Picking up the telephone to make a prospecting call can feel traumatic.  Closing the sale can be equally daunting.  Yet, both those activities are critical to the sales process and to the business.

Research has identified that the interaction through selling accounts for 53% of the influence on a purchase decision. Building on that, what increase in sales and bottom line could you achieve if you could transform fear into energy that propels you forward to action and success?

By improving your sales skills, you can overcome the reluctance that many people experience around selling, but this is not the only solution.  By addressing the fear that makes it so challenging to put yourself on the line, your selling skills can be put to great use.

Over the last 10 years, Suzanne Mercier has become an expert on the limiting nature of fear.  In this session, Suzanne will lift the veil from fear and share how – by understanding our fears – we can overcome them to achieve better sales results.

During this compelling session, you will:

• Understand the nature of fear and how it inhibits our actions
• Receive tools to transform fear into more productive energy
• Recognise the triggers of fear and address them before they hit
• Feel more willing and able to increase prospecting activity
• Increase your ability to close the sale

In some interesting conversations recently, leadership and management have been hot topics.  It is fascinating that leadership and management are seen as the same thing in many peoples’ mind.  They are totally different.  There has been so much written on the difference, yet it still amazes me that management persists as the way forward.  For sure, we need management skills and good managers to implement and achieve business outcomes.

Equally, it seems that the ability of managers to use leadership skills is limited.  We need to be innovative & creative, demonstrate high levels of interpersonal flexibility, involve people and give them opportunity to excel by giving them support.  When we make mistakes, accept them and learn from them.  Leaders allow this through continuous learning both for themselves and encouraging others to do the same.

In a recent example of management gone mad - I heard that the sales of a particular company had not been so good.  They had implemented a ‘new’ selling skills process and involved the managers to implement it.  Several indicators have since shown that sales are low and customers not happy.  The solution put forward……… more management time to get the sales people doing more of what they have done so far!  Surely, that will give them more of what they got before - low sales!  What really is needed is a look at leadership (as well as the selling process) and how to learn from the mistakes that have been made.  Innovate some new ways of doing the task and improve the performance and outcomes.

Are you ready for the shift in the way Learning and Development will be delivered?  How will you deliver the knowledge and skills development of your people in 2010 and beyond?

In a new report from Bersin & Associates in December 2009 some very interesting findings have emerged about the way learning and development impacts organisations.  The report also focusses on what future training trends will bring.  These include although are not limited to a shift towards a blend of e learning, social network learning and performance assignments and feedback - known as embedded learning.   Whilst the days of formal classroom based training are certainly not gone, there is an increased demand for flexible delivery methods.

The study also found organisations with Superior Talent Management have significant advantages:

26% higher revenue per employee

28% less likely to have downsized during 2008 -2009

40% lower turnover among high performers

17% lower overall voluntary turnover

87% greater ability to “hire the best people”

156% greater ability to “develop great leaders”

92% greater ability to “respond to changing economic conditions”

144% greater ability to “plan for future workforce needs”

In order to acheive these figures you need to have some decent Learning and Development in place across the business.  As a Learning and Development provider, dta WORLDWIDE has been working with  organisations for a number of years and is shifting its thinking toward blended learning. 

One of the most concerning aspects in the report relates to managers.  We come across this issue frequently and this research states:  "One of the disturbing trends we continue to see is the struggle by organisations to build leadership, coaching and management skills among first-line managers.  In fact, our research continues to show that HR leaders rate their first-line managers as their “least ready” workgroup in the company, even less capable than their entry-level employees"

  How many high performers do you have - and how many might you lose - or have already left?  Do you want higher revenue per employee?  What are you doing about developing the talent in your business?

Coaching is currently a hot topic in business right now.  A lot of people are involved in providing ‘Life’ or ‘Executive’ coaching and some are very good at it.  Recently, at dta we have been on the receiving end of some excellent business coaching from Mags Bell at CPR - Creating Powerful Results.  Business coaching in its true sense may well involve aspects outside of business itself and which impact performance.  Whilst dta WORLDWIDE has it’s own coaching workshop; perfomance COACH, we often underestimate the need to be coached.  dta’s programme provides skills to first and second line managers to coach the people in their teams.  CPR takes a different approach in that they provide one to one business coaching in a way that gets to the centre of business issues.

Mags Bell excels by using a robust ‘real world’ approach to coaching that focuses on the cause of business challenges rather than the effect.  In that way the real issues are tackled and a more positive and effective outcome is achieved.  Many coaches who purport to coach at executive level coach the effect - leaving the cause to exist and continue to aggravate the effect.  Whilst we provide training to become a better coach, we strongly recommend CPR and their method in getting the best coaching at a business executive level.  Take a look at the CPR website here.

In a recent blog we discussed workplace bullies following an article about research on the subject.  It seems the challenge of managing workplace conflict continues.  In an article published in the October 2009 edition of ‘Training & Development in Australia’ - the journal of the Australian Institute of Training & Development - some further evidence emerged.

In the survey discussed in the article, ‘86% of respondents felt that their company’s manager had a low or variable skill level to deal with internal complaints’ and went on to say ‘organisations’ priority for improving and building these skills should be directed to line managers.’

It is common in our experience at dta to encounter similar feelings about the issue of developing the skills of managers to deal with conflict in the workplace.  Indeed it is probably one of the most frequent areas in which we are asked to help.  The article continues "…many line managers don’t have the confidence or skill to resolve inter - personal conflict and are reluctant or slow to respond when issues arise."

The greatest asset in any business are its people.  Doesn’t it make sense to invest in managing the relationships that are the cause of many disputes.  These ultimately lead to expensive loss of good staff and increased recruitment and training costs.  We would be interested in hearing your views on this topic.

Emotional Intelligence is often looked upon as being one of those topics which is a bit abstract - a bit "Out There!"  However, if we look past the aspects of the subject which are academic and perhaps put us off, we may have a different view.  Emotional Intelligence is a phrase which was popularised in the 1995 book of the same title.  However, it has been researched over many years and is still in most cases on the fringe of people development.

Many studies exist which prove that having high levels of Emotional Intelligence enhances productivity and can actually reduce stress in the workplace.

Lisa Gardner of Swinburne University’s Centre for Neuropsychology surveyed 133 employees from a range of industries including marketing, information technology and engineering.  She said those with higher levels of Emotional Intelligence tended to be healthier mentally and physically. They were less likely to suffer sleeplessness, headaches, muscle pains and other physical symptoms associated with stress.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise and express emotions in yourself and the ability to understand the emotions of colleagues. In a recent presentation from ihatemypc who maintain dta WORLDWIDE computer systems, this humorous video reminded us how much emotion does effect us at work.