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19/04/2025

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13/09/2022

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13/12/2021

*Udoh's* *Agency* *Today* *Training* .

*Topic* : *Steps* *for* *Supercharging* *Sales* *Performance* .

Are salespeople born or made? I think they're generally made. Some are born with some natural abilities, but it's a system that makes great salespeople.

The reality is: most people, salespeople included, will take the path of least resistance to get things done. And that's not always the best path. This is due to people falling into the wrong habits. Having a system and a set of expectations helps develop a new set of habits that are essential to producing extraordinary performance.

There are 3 steps you can take to create great salespeople and supercharge sales performance:

1. Setting expectations
2. Managing activities
3. Analyzing results

*1* . *Setting* *Expectations* :

Generally speaking, sales teams are fairly motivated, but setting expectations for them can go a long way for improving their performance. You can use your previous year’s sales data to create goals for your team, based on rates of conversion. In addition to these goals, your sales teams should know what the qualification criteria is as well. In order to reach their goals, they need to make sure they are bidding on the jobs that are the ideal size. Of course, they may also bid on jobs that are larger or smaller, but there should be an average job size you want your sales team to focus on winning.
Setting expectations involves more than simply telling your sales team how much they need to sell, and it includes creating tasks to achieve those goals (essentially a set of targets they must meet through activities).

*2* . *Managing* *Activities* :

To advance a deal forward and get a decision (won/lost), there are five key steps: prospect, qualify, propose, follow up, and close. So, building up prospects and qualifying them, spending the time to build a proposal, and then following up to get a decision.
The goal of these activities is one of two things: advance the deal to the next step or get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so you can clear your calendar for other work that will enable you hit the target and the goal.
There’s a popular phrase that says, “if you can't see it, you can't manage it.” To effectively manage sales activities, it’s necessary to break them down into tasks on a calendar or in a system like Aspire Landscape business management software. This creates a weekly plan that is core to sales and sales management. It’s what you do that gets you the results. And when you look at the expectations established in the first step, there’s little time to waste. It’s important to not just have a packed calendar but rather an organized calendar that details what actually happened during the week, which becomes an important part of the system that helps with organization, management, and training.
Having a calendar full of tasks and appointments enables you to see where time is being spent.

*3* . *Analyzing* *Results* :

Analyzing results is about asking questions and determining how to improve the process. There are three questions to answer in this step:

• What have we done since the last time we had this conversation, and how has it contributed to the pipeline?

• Did we make progress in the deal, or did we get a decision (won/lost)?

• Is the forecast better or worse?

The responses to these questions affect how you continue managing opportunities. Do you need to go back and revisit our calendar for next week to address a struggling pipeline, or are you on track to meeting your goals? This tactical working process, based off activities and pipeline activity, keeps the salesperson and sales manager up to date on all activities relating to deals while keeping prospects moving down the sales funnel.

*Coaching* *Success*

Clerical duties can also help determine how well you and your sales team will perform. Salespeople move fast and with as hard as they're hustling to hit their proposals per week, setting the expectations and tasks shows the team where to focus their time.
Also, encourage your sales team to act proactively. The time it takes to make a note and create a task is so minimal but the benefit from taking these steps is key to success and doing the right things at the right time.

Lastly, it’s important to teach your teams about things they can do on their own to further their own success. Engrave positive habits into your salespeople, such as:

• Be prepared – Plan out what you’re going say and the agenda that you want to cover, no matter how simple the meeting.

• Have a pitch – Something that’s short, sweet, and answers the question: Why you?

• Work easy to hard – Start with the easy one, because even those are difficult. Work up to the hard ones so that by the time you get to them, you're in a groove, you're in a flow, and your skin is quite a bit thicker.

• Block out time – Blocking periods of time to work on specific activities keeps you focused and prevents jumping from task to task without accomplishing anything.

• Shut up – If you feel like you may be talking too much or having an out-of-body experience, stop and ask a question. Give the client a chance to speak.

• Be direct – The goal is to get a decision or advance to the next activity.

Selling is all about building the plan, executing the plan, and reviewing the results. Learn more about this topic by watching our recent webinar, Supercharging Sales Performance.
Thanks and Regards
Micheal Effiong Udoboho

13/12/2021

*Udoh's* *Agency* *Today* *Training* .

*Topic* : *Steps* *for* *Supercharging* *Sales* *Performance* .

Are salespeople born or made? I think they're generally made. Some are born with some natural abilities, but it's a system that makes great salespeople.

The reality is: most people, salespeople included, will take the path of least resistance to get things done. And that's not always the best path. This is due to people falling into the wrong habits. Having a system and a set of expectations helps develop a new set of habits that are essential to producing extraordinary performance.

There are 3 steps you can take to create great salespeople and supercharge sales performance:

1. Setting expectations
2. Managing activities
3. Analyzing results

*1* . *Setting* *Expectations* :

Generally speaking, sales teams are fairly motivated, but setting expectations for them can go a long way for improving their performance. You can use your previous year’s sales data to create goals for your team, based on rates of conversion. In addition to these goals, your sales teams should know what the qualification criteria is as well. In order to reach their goals, they need to make sure they are bidding on the jobs that are the ideal size. Of course, they may also bid on jobs that are larger or smaller, but there should be an average job size you want your sales team to focus on winning.
Setting expectations involves more than simply telling your sales team how much they need to sell, and it includes creating tasks to achieve those goals (essentially a set of targets they must meet through activities).

*2* . *Managing* *Activities* :

To advance a deal forward and get a decision (won/lost), there are five key steps: prospect, qualify, propose, follow up, and close. So, building up prospects and qualifying them, spending the time to build a proposal, and then following up to get a decision.
The goal of these activities is one of two things: advance the deal to the next step or get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so you can clear your calendar for other work that will enable you hit the target and the goal.
There’s a popular phrase that says, “if you can't see it, you can't manage it.” To effectively manage sales activities, it’s necessary to break them down into tasks on a calendar or in a system like Aspire Landscape business management software. This creates a weekly plan that is core to sales and sales management. It’s what you do that gets you the results. And when you look at the expectations established in the first step, there’s little time to waste. It’s important to not just have a packed calendar but rather an organized calendar that details what actually happened during the week, which becomes an important part of the system that helps with organization, management, and training.
Having a calendar full of tasks and appointments enables you to see where time is being spent.

*3* . *Analyzing* *Results* :

Analyzing results is about asking questions and determining how to improve the process. There are three questions to answer in this step:

• What have we done since the last time we had this conversation, and how has it contributed to the pipeline?

• Did we make progress in the deal, or did we get a decision (won/lost)?

• Is the forecast better or worse?

The responses to these questions affect how you continue managing opportunities. Do you need to go back and revisit our calendar for next week to address a struggling pipeline, or are you on track to meeting your goals? This tactical working process, based off activities and pipeline activity, keeps the salesperson and sales manager up to date on all activities relating to deals while keeping prospects moving down the sales funnel.

*Coaching* *Success*

Clerical duties can also help determine how well you and your sales team will perform. Salespeople move fast and with as hard as they're hustling to hit their proposals per week, setting the expectations and tasks shows the team where to focus their time.
Also, encourage your sales team to act proactively. The time it takes to make a note and create a task is so minimal but the benefit from taking these steps is key to success and doing the right things at the right time.

Lastly, it’s important to teach your teams about things they can do on their own to further their own success. Engrave positive habits into your salespeople, such as:

• Be prepared – Plan out what you’re going say and the agenda that you want to cover, no matter how simple the meeting.

• Have a pitch – Something that’s short, sweet, and answers the question: Why you?

• Work easy to hard – Start with the easy one, because even those are difficult. Work up to the hard ones so that by the time you get to them, you're in a groove, you're in a flow, and your skin is quite a bit thicker.

• Block out time – Blocking periods of time to work on specific activities keeps you focused and prevents jumping from task to task without accomplishing anything.

• Shut up – If you feel like you may be talking too much or having an out-of-body experience, stop and ask a question. Give the client a chance to speak.

• Be direct – The goal is to get a decision or advance to the next activity.

Selling is all about building the plan, executing the plan, and reviewing the results. Learn more about this topic by watching our recent webinar, Supercharging Sales Performance.
Thanks and Regards
Micheal Effiong Udoboho

[email protected]

24/09/2021

4 Skills That Business Leaders Can Learn From Master Gardeners.

Creating a positive company culture that involves research, replication, re-working and re-imagining will lead to success.

A turning point for learning from a master tomato grower. Within just a few hours of time with him, I understood far more about why a tomato plant grows the way it does and several strategies for using those innate strengths to maximize the growth and output of the plant.

In the process, I observed some parallel skills with stablishing and maintaining incredible cultures within organizations, and I've designated these skills as the four Rs: research, replicate, re-work and re-imagine.

1. Research
Those who become true masters at their craft start out as students, researching, reading and learning, especially from those who have already established themselves in the field. As I work towards becoming a master gardener, research has allowed me to know which plants, flowers and vegetables will thrive well in the conditions inherent in my garden. I’ve learned how much water, sun and space specific kinds of vegetables need if they are going to thrive and the key to increasing the variety and biodiversity of the soil for optimal growth.

Similarly, those sincerely interested in establishing a healthy culture within an organization would be wise to start as students, seeking wisdom from those who have a proven track record of success through their own research and practice. Research will help you to better understand the ecosystem you’re working in, including what your customers, employees and shareholders actually need. You need to know what your unique advantage is in meeting their needs.
Another key to fostering a healthy culture is understanding that change is inevitable. That’s why a key part to mastery is always keeping your mind open to new information as the environment shifts

2. Replicate
Learnings are theoretical until you put them into practice. In gardening, the garden has become my lab for putting my knowledge into action. This has been both an incredible continuation of learning and a way to speed up the time in putting an ideal solution in place instead of having to create it from scratch.

Similarly, in business, your company becomes the lab where you can put all the knowledge you’ve learned into practice to establish a thriving and healthy culture. This application has both short and long-term benefits and can pay huge dividends. It also serves as a strong continued source of learning as you keep amassing and applying your learnings and knowledge to making improvements.

A great example of this is John Doerr’s OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) that he introduced at Google and explained in his 2017 bestseller Measure What Matters. In the book, Doerr discusses how he got the ear of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with Marissa Mayer and others, to hear his new management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization.
A goal-oriented process like OKRs can help you replicate success and ensure you’re actively putting learnings into practice and staying focused on the right things as your organization evolves.

3. Re-work
The job of replicating masterful approaches within a garden is dirty work. You have to roll up your sleeves and get up to your elbows in the dirt. It’s also true that things learned in theory may not always turn out how you imagined. This makes for the dirty work of learning through failure and expecting some re-tooling along the way.

In the pursuit of establishing solid practices that enrich your culture and increase the productivity of your team, you will inevitably run into roadblocks and experience outcomes that underperform against your expectations. There is no reason to fret in these situations. The work of tweaking, iterating and re-working those things which you’ve put into practice will aid in the learnings and optimization of the practices that will help your company thrive and produce healthy harvests.

Start by embedding a design-thinking ethos into your organization at large, but particularly within your people experience teams. This will augment the way and the quality of the design and the development and implementation of programs, processes and tools. Teams will move more efficiently and autonomously in deploying new ideas, learn quickly and get greater buy-in as they invalidate some hypotheses and validate others, effectively iterating while expanding the scope and value.

4. Re-imagine
After many seasons of gardening, a master at the craft will always recognize that there are better ways to achieve more fruitful outcomes. With this realization comes a drive to re-imagine better methods.

As mentioned earlier, I’ve had the great fortune of observing and learning from a real master. In pursuit of extending his yield of tomatoes, he had innovated way beyond the simple use of tomato cages by making use of a trellis and strings that allowed him to wind the tomato plant around the trellis as the plant grew, getting a much longer plant and far more fruit.

Likewise, true masters of leadership will constantly re-imagine how to foster a more meaningful culture that elevates the performance and ex*****on of those within the company. Everything about a business is ever evolving — the competition, the customer and the people. Keeping the status quo is a recipe for obsolescence, especially during times of rapid disruption. Alternatively, periods of disruption are ideal for evaluating current practices and coming at the problem from a clean slate. This will open up divergent thought to form solutions that have the potential to unlock untold success.

Masters only become such from years of dedicated work, applying the principles and best practices that they’ve learned along the way. From my own experience, turning the corner on establishing a healthy and productive garden meant getting deliberate and intentional about doing so. I needed to make it a priority. I needed to dedicate and designate some space and, most importantly, commit time and resources to foster a thriving ecosystem that could eventually bear a productive harvest. In response, I built sturdy and beautiful garden boxes that demonstrated the level of my dedication to the endeavor and turned them into a flourishing garden.

It’s the same when building a thriving company — it starts by fostering the right culture. As Peter Drucker puts it, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In other words, the culture that has been fostered within a company will ultimately govern the strategy a company takes, as well as how and if the company can precisely execute the determined strategy.

A company that has not prioritized a healthy culture as the driving ethos of its strategy will ultimately find that the failure to do so can create a culture of noxious weeds that are hindering growth and depriving your organization from flourishing to its full potential.

23/09/2021

9 Best Practices to Improve Your Communication Skills and Become a More Effective Leader.

Poor communication is becoming more common, and it can have a detrimental effect on your business's bottom line.
Ineffective communication can affect productivity, company culture, individual and collective leadership and be the cause of working harder and not smarter.

David Grossman reported in “The Cost of Poor Communication” that a survey of 400 companies with 100,000 employees each cited an average loss per company of $62.4 million per year because of inadequate communication to and between employees.
When working with clients and companies over the years. Organizations has lost millions of dollars and opportunities, promotions not given and relationships tarnished because of inadequate and non-effective communication. In workforce professional life, poor communication skills have led to the loss of thousands of dollars and missed promotions, opportunities and deals; because workforce personal life, it's resulted in the loss of romantic relationships, friendships, love and passion.

Here are nine ways you can improve your communication skills to become more effective as a leader in business and in life.

1. Be an active listener
According to the late American author and businessman Stephen R. Covey, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

How often do you slow down and truly take the time to actively listen without an agenda? Seek to understand instead of being understood. You may have to get a point across or deliver information to the other person, but before you do, can you take some additional time to really listen to the other person and hear what that person is saying and communicating with his or her words and nonverbal actions? Practice becoming an active listener with the next person you meet.

2. Ask effective questions
How many times do you shy away from asking questions? Perhaps you fear asking the wrong questions, looking stupid or think too much about how the other person or team will experience or interpret you. These are all totally normal thoughts and feelings that come up, but when questions aren’t asked, there is no way to get to the core of the situation, and many people will ascribe their own meaning to a situation, remaining stuck in the unknown. Next time, ask the question if you want to see real results.

3. Understand and know your audience
It is important to research and get to know whom you will be addressing; each audience is different. Engage with your audience, asking questions and tuning into what could be of value to the people in it. What would be best for them to know and learn? Ask yourself how you can best be of service to them in the moment.

4. Listen to nonverbal communication
Much of our communication is nonverbal, and there are many studies out there to prove this; you may listen to the words that are being spoken, but are you listening and aware of the nonverbal cues that are being given? Researchers found that tone of voice, facial and body gestures provide critical information: the crossing of the arms, looking away or positioning the body and feet away from the other person are telling signs of not being engaged, open or receptive.

What nonverbal communication traits are you picking up from others, and maybe even perpetuating yourself? Research done by the Face Research Laboratory found that both women and men were more attracted to images of people who made eye contact and smiled than those who didn’t, so try to smile and make eye contact more frequently.

5. Overcommunicate effectively
In the face of society's fast pace or instances of high anxiety, overcommunication must be effectively utilized. Keep it simple, sync early and often, and leave room for others to ask questions for better understanding.

6. Begin and end powerfully
People remember how you start off within the communication and how you end it. Whether it is a one-on-one conversation or a presentation to a huge audience, you will be remembered for how you begin and end, so give them something to remember. You might begin or end with a question, powerful statistic or quote, or a relevant story.

7. Timing is everything
All great and effective communicators are able to utilize their intuition, feelings and emotional intelligence to feel out their audience. Asking a different question, using an example or story to make a point, reiterating a point and knowing when it’s time to move on are all critical contributing factors to the timing of communication.

8. Get comfortable being uncomfortable
Not every situation or conversation will be easy or comfortable. Being uncomfortable keeps you on your toes and allows you to lean on your leadership skills and navigate through difficult conversations. Practice putting yourself in uncomfortable situations in order to stretch yourself and your capacity.

9. Have fun
Don’t be boring. Research and studies that were done with different groups of students show that laughter and humor can improve a learning experience, lighten the mood, lower anxieties and make experiences more pleasant. Be aware of what your audience may need at the moment; sometimes a little laughter and humor can go a long way.

Effective communication is one of the most valuable skills you can cultivate and improve on as a leader in life and business. Knowing how to communicate effectively will change your business, life and whole world — it did for me. It only takes one small shift to create lasting positive impact.

12/09/2021

Topic: You want to be an entrepreneur, but do you have what it takes? 5 basic skills you must have.

It is important that you reflect on what skills you have and which ones you need to continue developing in order to start your business.

If before, entrepreneurship required emotional strength and the firm decision to do so, during the pandemic , for many it became a priority, awakening the entrepreneurial spirit that some carry inside and pushing that dream of having a profitable business of their own. To this we must add the digital reality in which we live, where the strengths that entrepreneurs require are not limited only to having an attractive product or service, or to knowing perfectly the market and what you sell; It has to do more with the skills to carry out digital businesses, lead teams, projects, processes, among others.

Faced with this new panorama, which is increasingly digital, entrepreneurs have sought to adapt and innovate to keep their businesses afloat, and although this crisis brings unprecedented challenges, it also provides an opportunity to meet new needs. In this case, it is It is important that you reflect on what skills you have and which ones you need to continue developing in order to start your business. Many do not take this part seriously, however, it is essential to know and develop the necessary skills to undertake, so through this space I want to talk to you about the most important ones.

1. Resilience, a basic

One of the most important characteristics that entrepreneurs must have is resilience . This ability to face challenges and adapt to everything is vital, especially in these challenging times, where uncertainty is sometimes the only sure thing we have. Resilience helps entrepreneurs to take the risks that come and to overcome crises. One of the most common mistakes is to surrender to the first mistake or failure, as this is part of the learning curve and no one could say that they started without making a mistake; In addition, looking for new solutions to a problem is key to learning and developing creativity and only in this way can persist in the face of adversity, being essential for those who want to undertake. In other words, celebrate mistakes and create a culture of work with your team to make it a practice that strengthens innovation in all members of your venture.

2. Intrapreneurship above all

Although it is obvious, another basic skill for entrepreneurs is Intrapreneurship , which means having initiative, being proactive, assuming responsibilities, analyzing risks, identifying new growth opportunities and making decisions, are some of the qualities that are manifested by having this ability. Generally, these types of competencies are identified even when a person works in an organization, as they are the first signs that someone has entrepreneurial DNA. If in your previous or current jobs, you are the first to suggest, you have a high sense of urgency, you have plenty of ideas , you commit to new projects, you like to take risks, then it is time to leave that chair and start your business.

3. Entrepreneurship being digital

Digital culture must be a fundamental skill, since a crucial characteristic of an entrepreneur is to understand that man and technology must complement each other, and without a doubt it is the basis of the growth of any business. In addition, people who have the affinity and ease for the use of technological tools, such as the Internet, mobile applications or social networks, are definitely more likely to better assume changes and innovations in the context we live in. Currently, 85% of startups in Mexico have a digital presence and 36% started less than a year ago, according to the Association of Entrepreneurs of Mexico (ASEM).

4. A transformational leadership

The leadership style is also extremely important, surely they remember their more traditional and authoritarian bosses, so do not replicate it. That style of leadership does not work in entrepreneurship and if for some reason you thought that assuming a leadership role under that format would work, on the contrary, it will take you on the negative side as an entrepreneur. Today we need leaders who adopt new technologies, agile, who reject operational tasks, are very creative, analytical, who promote consensus and are more oriented to the fulfillment of the objectives as a team, not individually. All these characteristics are encompassed by a transformational leader, who, as his name implies, is open to change and constantly innovates. When entrepreneurs continue to be traditional leaders, they close down, they do not generate commitment from their team, they have little capacity to find different paths and overcome difficulties, these being the main causes that lead them to failure.

5. Always empathetic

Last but not least, an entrepreneur must be empathetic; not only to understand the needs of its clients, but also to direct its work team. An entrepreneur who does not listen to others will hardly be able to communicate the vision of the business and infect others to achieve the objectives of the venture. According to the World Economic Forum, empathy represents a really effective antidote to stress and allows a better connection with employees, as it provides a way to create relationships based on trust.

Empathy, the golden characteristic of the social entrepreneur. Many of the challenges that entrepreneurs experience are related to the ability to do everything they propose with few resources, but with the correct skills and attitudes, of course they will allow them to overcome the financial challenges of their ventures, and if this is They add to their teams people motivated by their leadership and the level of seriousness with which they carry out their endeavors, they are sure that they will be successful.

You could come to wonder surely in case these abilities are not so present in you, then I can not undertake? The reality is that it can be done, you just need to create habits and a change-oriented mindset, as skills are developed and put into practice day by day.

Reflect on these skills, work on them and begin this great journey; This is your time to make your dreams of entrepreneurship come true.