“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” ~Sue Patton Thoele

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

1. Be Present & Stay Focused. Stop thinking about what you are going to say next and focus on what the speaker is telling you. Be curious and ask follow up questions to learn more about what they are telling you.

2. Pause Before You Respond. Take 2 full breaths before responding. It will ensure the speaker is finished and give them space to share more. It will also help you control the amount of talking you are doing.

3. Refocus If Your Mind Wanders. If you start thinking about your next meeting, travel plans, or what you have planned for the evening, bring yourself back to the moment.

4. Summarize & Bottom Line The Key Points. Play back to the speaker the key items you are hearing to ensure you are capturing the essence of what is being relayed to you. Make sure to take notes of these key items so you can revisit them as needed later in the meeting.

5. Focus On Listening & Understanding Versus Judging & Opinion. It is natural to want to share your 2 cents right away, or to be making judgments in your mind about what you are hearing. However, that is not focused listening. Stop yourself from doing this by placing your attention on learning, listening, and understanding. Ask open ended questions that begin with “What” to stay focused on listening and understanding.

6. Use Your Intuition. Whether you are on the phone or in person, you should be listening not only with your ears, but with your intuition as well. Notice the speaker’s breathing, tone, pace, and energy. There is a lot of information to be gathered and the more you pay attention to your intuition, the more effective your listening will be.

7. Never Talk Over Anyone. If the speaker is talking, simply wait your turn. Do not try to interject, and if you do, catch yourself, and say, “Sorry, please carry on…”

8. Ignore Internal & External Distractions. Image you are in a bubble with the person you are speaking to and they are the center of your universe. Try it out and watch what kind of impact it will have.

9. Resist Telling The Speaker How You Handled A Similar Situation. Pause yourself from sharing your own input and experiences until you have fully listened to what the speaker has to say.

10. Relax. The more calm you are, the more information you will gather from the person you are listening to since they will be at ease with you.

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“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Dr Wayne Dyer

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Join the discussion and get free sales help in our New LinkedIn Group!

It is easy to get down on yourself in the world of sales if you have had a bad month, quarter, or even a down year. But if you hold onto those negative thoughts about your sales performance, it will not help you to achieve your sales goals.

As simplistic as this may sound, if you are a negative person, sales will always feel like a struggle. As a positive person, sales becomes much more enjoyable and can be very fulfilling. You will also produce far greater results with a positive mind-set in sales.

Being a positive person has been a significant part of my own success and below are some of the key practices I have followed to be a positive person in the world of sales:

• Believe that anything is possible and that you can form a partnership with any company in the world.
• Be aware of your inner critic. That voice that says, “You can’t call that CEO.” Notice the limiting thought, and then decide on the right action to take.
• Be thankful for the strengths and gifts you already possess.
• Smile more and laugh more.
• Exercise and eat healthy.
• Clarify your values and honor them.
• Don’t be afraid to fail. Look at mistakes as learning lessons.
• Surround yourself with positive and uplifting people.
• Be grateful for the opportunities you have, not what you don’t have.
• Ignore all people who say, “You can’t do that.”

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“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” ~Oscar Wilde

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The majority of us have at some time in our career worked for a manager who we did not connect with, or who should really not be managing or leading sales people. However, we can’t always control who our bosses are, so here are 4 tips to survive working for a difficult sales manager.

Tip 1: Appreciate What They Do Well
Even if you detest your boss, you’re going to have to find a way to deal with the situation if you want to remain on the sales team. One of the best ways to do this is to tolerate his or her weaknesses and focus on the good qualities they possess, even if there are very few. Focus on how they can help you.

Tip 2: Make Sure Your Boss Knows You Are Fully Engaged In Selling And Want To Succeed
You need to find out where you stand with your manager and also to let him or her know about your commitment to success. Request a 15 minute meeting with your sales manager to talk about how things are going. There are four main things you want to accomplish in this meeting.

1. Ask your manager to evaluate how you are doing in your sales position.
2. Discuss any concerns they have for your performance and put together a specific action plan that addresses all concerns they have.
3. Make it very clear that you want to succeed in your role and do the best you possible can.
4. Schedule a follow up 15 minute meeting 2 weeks out to check-in again and review progress.

By taking the initiative to do this, you will not be guessing anymore. You will know exactly what your sales manager wants and expects from you. You will also know where he or she thinks you have weaknesses so you can address them.

“A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” ~John C.Maxwell

Tip 3: Schedule On-Going Follow-Up Meetings
The first meeting brought you and your sales manager onto the same page. Now the key is to continually schedule follow up meetings ever 2 weeks or so, even if they are just 5 minutes. This will ensure your manager sees your progress and also will help ensure you are not blind-sided by anything either.

Tip 4: Find A Sales Mentor or Sales Coach
Whether you have been selling for 20+ years, or are brand new to sales, you can always benefit from having an outside sounding board to help you take your results to the next level. Maybe there is someone on your team or within your organization whom you truly admire. Offer to take them out to lunch one time per month in exchange for being able to learn from them. And if you want to partner with someone specifically trained to help you achieve outstanding sales results, consider hiring a sales coach. But make sure you ask these questions before hiring and when interviewing a sales coach.

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“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” -Benjamin Franklin

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” – Abraham Lincoln

“One mustn’t criticize other people on grounds where he can’t stand perpendicular himself” -Mark Twain

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Criticism from your sales manager (or from anyone) is not easy to handle, however, learning to deal with it can be a valuable skill. Here are some ideas to practice and keep in mind next time you receive criticism.

Take A Deep Breath & Pause Before You React

If your first reaction is to lash back at your sales manager or to become defensive, take a moment before speaking. It is natural to feel a little angry or to be on-guard. However, if you can teach yourself to take a moment before simply reacting, it will give a chance for logic to sink in and not just raw emotions. There is certainly nothing wrong with emotions, but when people are upset, they are more likely to say things they will regret later on.

Turn Lemons Into Lemonade

Sure, it may sting to hear negative feedback, but in most criticism, you can find a suggestion for improvement. For example, this criticism: “You are talking too much on your sales calls with prospective clients and just overloading them with too much information.” Can be interpreted as: “I need to listen much more, ask more questions, and talk less.” That’s just one example of course — you can do that with just about any criticism. View criticism as challenge to improve your sales skills.

Say, “Thank You For The Feedback.”

Even if your boss is tough on you, just say “Thank you.” Your gratitude will probably catch them off-guard and they may even respect you more for taking it so well. Not everyone is as positive as you may be, and your manager might just be having a bad day, (not an excuse, but be aware of this) or have a much more negative personality than you.

Learn And Integrate

After seeing criticism in a positive light, and thanking the critic, don’t just go back to selling as usual. Decide what the key take-away is to improve upon, and determine how to integrate the new learning into your work.

Don’t Stoop Down To His or Her Level

It is so easy to take criticism as a personal attack. View the criticisms as an attack on your sales skills, not on you as a human being. You will be tempted to attack the attacker, but if you do this, you are just stooping to his or her level. When you do this, you are no better than the attacker and it will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. Be the bigger and better person. Rise above the critical comments and respond in a calm and positive manner…You will feel better about yourself at the end of the day.

Give The Critic Some Background When Needed

Sometimes the situation might be much more complex than it appears on the surface. After you have followed the above steps, know that is ok to give more background that might be important for the critic to understand. For instance, You could say, “I understand what you’re saying, thank you for the feedback, and I want to make this work. But last time I tried what you are recommending, it didn’t work because of ________. What do you suggest I do to make it work this time?”

Bonus Tip: Keep All Of This In Mind When YOU Are The Critic

Remember what it feels like to be on the receiving end of criticism when you are the one dishing it out. Not everyone will handle it as well as you, so make sure you are clear that you simply want to help.

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The Emotional Intelligence model introduced by Daniel Goleman focuses on EI/EQ from a wide range of competencies and skills.  Below is an outline of the 4 key areas:

1. Self-awareness — the ability to read one’s emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
2. Self-management — involves controlling one’s emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
3. Social awareness — the ability to sense, understand, and react to others’ emotions while comprehending social networks.
4. Relationship Management — the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict.

I use various methods within my coaching to dramatically enhance emotional intelligence for my clients.  The interesting/great thing about EI/EQ is that it can be increased significantly, unlike IQ.

The article below talks mostly about how being trained as a professional coach increases emotional intelligence, however, it is important to note that through the process of being coached, many skills are shared and passed on to my clients.  In fact, increasing EI is very important to achieving breakthrough results, whether that be in life, business, sales or career.  I have a great deal of awareness on this subject, and I am able to help my clients look within to determine what areas will be most important to enhance.

As a graduate from The Coaches Training Institute, I came across a great article from their website that I wanted to share.  Source: The Coaches Training Institute website (articles)

Role of Emotional Competencies  Daniel Goleman, the pioneering author of Emotional Intelligence, researched competency models from 181 different positions drawn from 121 companies and discovered that 67 percent of the competencies deemed essential for effective performance were “emotional” competencies. In a later study by Hay Group, emotional competencies were once again found to be twice as important in contributing to excellence as pure intellect and expertise.  As a result of these and other pioneering research Goleman extracted 25 key emotional intelligence competencies that are proven in research to be most important to job performance.

Emotional competencies are best impacted and honed through experiential training. They are by definition not “analytical” and therefore can not be taught through traditional didactic instruction methods. Rigorous experiential training to develop emotional intelligence competencies in the context of coach training was pioneered by CTI 10 years ago. Its Co-Active Coaching model is particularly suited for use by managers and leaders in organizations interested in empowering employee initiative and creativity. Of the 25 Emotional Intelligence Competencies identified by Daniel Goleman, fully 19 are either highly or moderately impacted by CTI’s in-depth experiential coach training.

The table illustrates the impact of CTI’s coach training on the key emotional intelligence competencies proven to be fundamental to management and leadership effectiveness. A 360 degree feedback instrument on these competencies developed by Goleman is available through Hay Group to be administered before and after employee participation in CTI’s workshops.

“Across corporate America, coaching sessions at many companies have become as routine for executives as budget forecasts and quota meetings.”
- Investor’s Business Daily

Jeremy J. Ulmer, Professional Coach, Sales Coach, Sales Mentor, Business Coach, Life Coach