THE PITCH (7th EDITION) – “The Obstacle is the Way”

During my 16 year sales and sales management career, I have always tried to read as many motivational, best-practice and leadership books as possible and have spoke to such books as “Good to Great” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_to_Great in previous editions of “THE PITCH”.

Recently I’ve finished reading “The Obstacle is the Way” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Obstacle_Is_the_Way by Ryan Holiday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holiday and highly recommend this read to any of my sales contemporaries.

Some of the names that appear in the book are U.S. Grant, Edison, Margaret Thatcher, Amelia Earhart, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, Steve Jobs and James Stockdale.  These historical leaders are people throughout history that faced unimaginable horrors, imprisonment, war and illness.  I am not saying as sales professionals we face these same obstacles, but on a day to day basis we face day to day frustrations!  In my opinion, the frustrations we face are driven by the unpredictability we all face in our sales markets. This market unpredictability impacts our sales results, creates pricing competitiveness, challenges our business relationships we have worked hard over our careers to build and makes delivering value and solutions to our customers as important as ever.

A successful sales professional has to expect the unpredictability and the obstacles they create for us.  A successful sales professional has to embrace these obstacles as opportunities to test ourselves and try new strategies.  Let’s all ask ourselves these questions.

1. During the last 12 months, have I tried something new to help myself or my team succeed?
2. Do you believe your competition has tried something new to help create new opportunity or drive results?

So What’s the Pitch?

We have the choice on how we respond not only to an “unpredictable” marketplace but to how we respond to competitor actions.  Are you confident you can find opportunity in your next obstacle?  Finally, can you deliver your best practices, “what makes you successful” on a day to day basis, ultimately resulting in overcoming the obstacles our competitors create?

Happy Selling-

THE PITCH (6th Edition) – Delivering Value

Throughout my 16 year sales career I have been aligned to the sales process in different capacities.  I have worked with brokers and customers in different locations with many having different cultures.  I’ve worked with employers who have varied in both size and industry.  I’ve worked on different sales teams as a sales rep, a vendor and even a customer.  From a sales leadership perspective, I have a single observation I am convinced occurs.  The best salespeople I have worked with all did a great job of delivering value. Value!

The value that these salespeople and sales organizations delivered enabled their success to continue over time.  The most successful salespeople do the very best at anticipating their market’s needs.  They provide and deliver value around these needs.  Included in that value is a product or capability that is superior to the price of the product, service or capability that they sell.

When the right value prop is delivered a sales organization will thrive.  So much so that their competitors will try to deliver the same value and strategy that is making that sales organization successful.

So what’s THE PITCH?  Ask yourself how do you deliver your value prop?

1. Does your value prop allow for innovation?
2. Does your value prop put the customer at the center of everything you do?
3. Does your value prop allow your customers to leverage your companies tools, resources and people?
4. How does your value prop go into each market you work in?
5. Does your team have a deep knowledge as well as confidence in your value prop?

Finally, ask yourself what enables your success to cotinue?

Happy Selling.

In my 16 year sales career no matter who I have worked for or what team I have worked on or lead, I have always believed setting goals is a top priority.

Take time to ask yourself the below questions.

How many of us are goal driven sales people?  How many of us actually set goals for ourselves?  How many of us not only set goals for ourselves but set a timeframe for when we want to accomplish these goals?  How many of us write down our goals?  How aggressive are these goals?  How many of us communicate our goals with our teams?

Setting goals can be used as motivation and obviously staying motivated has huge advantages for a sales person.  It not only drives your results, but it also drives the results of your team and the people around you. As effective as goal setting can be, not setting goals can be just as detrimental.  When you don’t set goals for yourself or your team you risk two things.

1. Falling back into old non-productive habits.
2. Potentially de-motivating yourself and your team.

As long a sales leader surrounds themselves with the right people they don’t have to be the best motivator, they just have to be careful not to de-motivate.

So what’s the pitch?  Set goals, start with 30 day goals, make these goals aggressive and communicate these goals with your teams.  Then sit back and watch the sales roll in.

-Happy Selling

 

In my 16 years of selling I’ve noticed one sales trait that almost always appears in very successful sales professional and unfortunately does not appear in a not so successful sales professional. All the top sales people I have been fortunate enough to work with or manage have been among the best as knowing “When to push”!

No matter what industry you sell in, there are always challenges facing our customers.  For those of us that work in the employee benefits industry, there is a laundry list of challenges employer’s face when purchasing health care benefits for their employees.  These challenges usually show inside an even longer list.

1. Rising Cost
2. Predictability
3. Access
4. Employee health and wellness
5. Federal regulations and state mandates
6. Ease of administration

The “When to push and when not to push” strategy came front of mind while watching an episode of Shark Tank last week.  Robert Herjavec advised a small business owner looking to sell a share of their company to always “solve the problem first, then the business will come second”.  I believe he provided some great advice, but unfortunately no matter what line of sales or business we are in this advice tends to get ignored.

Based on the above list of health care benefit challenges there seems to always be something to solve for!  I’ve seen great sales reps push their buyer when they know they are selling a solutions and I’ve seen not so great sales reps push their buyer when they didn’t have a solution. Who do you think produced better sales results?  You rarely win without a solution and you most likely damage your business relationships in the process.

So what’s the pitch?  Find a solution, lead with that solution, win with that solution and sometimes we willing to fail with that solution.

-Happy Selling

Just recently and for the second time this year, I listened to a speaker reference “The Stockdale Paradox” as part of their presentation.  I first learned of “The Stockdale Paradox” when reading the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.  “Good to Great” is a management book that aims to describe how companies transition from being average companies to great companies and how companies can fail to make the transition.  I am convinced it is a must read for all sales professionals.

Jim Collins writes about “The Stockdale Paradox” in chapter 4 titled “Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith).  “The Stockdale Paradox” refers to Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest ranking US military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War.  During his eight years as a prisoner Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner rights and with no certainty he would survive to see his family again.

In an interview with Collins, Stockdale taught Collins, is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.  “The Stockdale Paradox” is this, (you must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of difficulties AND at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be).

“The Stockdale Paradox” is always front of mind during my busiest sales seasons! During our most challenging sales moments we must have faith that we are going to succeed but at the same time confront the most brutal facts of our current reality. During our busiest sales seasons obstacles and challenges we have too overcome to make a sale or win a piece of business become intensified!  They be one or even all of the below.

1.  Irrational pricing by our competitors.

2.  Distribution channel changes.

3.  Product Innovation.

4.  Turnover at the decision making level.

5.  Changes to industry rules, laws or regulations.

How do we overcome these potential obstacles?  The book “Good to Great”  explains the good-to-great leaders are able to strip away so much noise and clutter and just focus on a few actions that would have the greatest impact!

So during our upcoming busy seasons I know I’ll be challenging myself to stick to 2-3 actions/strategies that I believe will lead to breakthrough results and at the same time do my best to strip away any noise or clutter.

 

Happy Selling

 

 

 

 

The Cigna Level Funding product turned eight years old this April.  As the industries leading ASO product it continues to bring value down market to employers as small as 20 employees!

During my 16 years as a sales professional I’ve always tried to provide one solution to both my broker partners and their customers.  That solution is helping employers regardless of size maximize their health care spend.  Eight years into the launch of the Cigna Level Funding product I grow more confident in the value Level Funding brings to its customers. 

So why Level Funding?

1.  Level Funding is designed to compete in a Fully Insured environment.  A competitive max costs mitigates the traditional higher cost associated with an employer buying a self funded alternative.

2.  Level Funding creates a claims pool and allows the employer to participate in the surplus.  It’s easy, if the customer has a favorable claims year, they receive 2/3rd’s of the claims surplus.

3.  Level Funding is historically quoted using a lower individual stop loss (pooling point) to protect the plan and the claims pool against large claims.

If the above three reasons aren’t reason enough and your client is still in a coin flip situation then I’d remind my audience the Cigna Level Funding product also includes full reporting detail regardless of size.  In an industry where transparency is desired but hard to come by, the Level Funding reporting capabilities help brokers and customers to execute an educated plan design strategy!

I am looking forward to the continued development of the Cigna Level Funding product as well as helping all of your customers maximize their health care spend.

Level Funding Data Sheet Know What You Owe

Happy Selling.