TEAM BUILDING

By Hank Trisler

Gresham's Law (GRESH-ums law) noun: The theory that bad money drives good money out of circulation. [Coined by economist Henry Dunning Macleod in 1858 after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), financier and founder of the Royal Exchange in London. Gresham, a financial adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, wrote to her “good and bad coin cannot circulate together.”]

Gresham's Law says that when both are required to be accepted as legal tender, inferior money remains in circulation while the good money tends to be hoarded or exported.

Examples of bad money could be counterfeit notes, coins that have their edges scraped off to siphon precious metal, or two legal tenders where one is intrinsically superior (e.g. a gold coin vs. a paper note of the same face value). In general, the law applies to situations outside the financial world as well: for example, bad politicians drive out good ones.

“But the main blame for the debasement lies with the Tories, who have conclusively confirmed that there is a Gresham's Law of politics: the most squalid party drags the others down towards its level.” Roy Hattersley; Exploitation Dressed Up As Compassion; The Guardian (London, UK); May 2, 2005.

“So what does that have to do with team building?” You might well ask. “Isn’t that about climbing ropes and paddling canoes and like that?”

I reply, Nah, that’s just programs to justify having a party at company expense. Team building is something you do every single day with your every word and action.

Gresham’s Law explains why we see good, intelligent, compassionate managers build squabbling, avaricious and lazy sales forces. We managers can’t get the people we want, so we settle for those we can get and then cry about our lot in life. Your best recruiting tool is your existing sales force. You will not be able to hire sales stars if they have to run in the same harness with slugs. The very best method of increasing the production of a sales force is to increase the minimum acceptable production.

Enforce it diligently. Every month look at each person in your sales force and determine whether they are a profit center or a loss center.

If a person is below your minimum acceptable sales production, you must help them increase their sales, or find a position with another company, and do so within ninety days.

Allowing them to hang around longer does no favor to them and will be the destruction of your sales team. You spend most of your time trying to make good wine out of bad grapes, when you should be lavishing your attention on your top producers.

I recall a real estate broker once telling me that if she dehired all her low producers, she’d be alone. GOOD! I told her she’d be better off alone, as she was likely taking some of her personal production just to keep the turkeys afloat. It took guts, but she made a clean sweep of the office and said she had never felt better. She had more time for her personal business and was very selective in allowing new people to join her. When she had one really good person, that person brought a friend in for an interview.

And so it grows. If you have a really great success sales atmosphere in your store, you’ll attract the sort of salesperson you want. Conversely, you’ll never get the people you want if you ignore Gresham’s Law.

SALESPERSON'S BIGGEST MISTAKE?

by Hank Trisler

"So what's the biggest mistake salespeople make with you, Chat?" I was talking to a tennis partner during a break in the hostilities this morning. Chat Forbes is the purchasing manager for a respected manufacturer in Silicon Valley.

I had expected him to say they talk too much, as that would have reinforced my long-held belief, but it didn't go that easily.

"They call on me too often," Chat said. "Some of them call me every week and they drive me nuts. I can't get anything done when I'm always talking to salespeople."

"How often should a salesperson call on you?" I asked.

"Well, there's a fine line they need to walk," Chat said. "They need to call often enough to find out when I need something, but not so often as to become a pest."

"How often is that?"

"There's the problem. I don't know. That's the fine line."

"How can they determine how often is too often without talking to you?"

"There's the problem," Chat said.

Now you may find this very unsatisfying. I certainly did, but there you have the problem in the real world with real buyers and sellers.

Here's the question I pose to you for your consideration and discussion: How often should a salesperson call on a customer and how is that frequency arrived at?

I'll be waiting for the fruits of your thinking.

SILVERBACK SELLERS

by Hank Trisler

So you have a few miles on your chassis. So you've got a little gray in your hair, or hair in your gray. So occasionally you lose your car in the parking lot and can't accurately recall the spec sheets. Does that mean you can no longer function as a sales professional? Hell, no.

Selling is one of very few TRULY equal opportunity employers. It just doesn't matter what gender you are, or which race or how old. If you can think and listen and talk or write, you can sell.

Silverback Sellers is a group dedicated to the furtherance of senior salespeople.

Why a Silverback? Well, they're gentle creatures until you mess with them. They neither offer, nor suffer offense gladly. They got to be old because they learned to survive in their environment, just like a good senior salesperson. They help the younger members of the family learn to survive, as well.

Our group will share ideas, leads and experiences. There will be a place to pitch products, proposals and opportunities, but not in the main discussion area. We'll have a separate area for commercial ventures and the main discussion threads will remain blissfully spam free.

Please take two minutes and forty seconds to squint at the video attached. You might find it informative.

I think you'll find this a refreshing and illustrative group, but your input will be necessary to make it that way. Please click on this link http://bit.ly/44UYKa to visit our group and hopefully join. Your thoughts, questions and comments are welcome, as always.

NEW NO BULL SELLING

by Hank Trisler

You've heard them sing about it around the campfires and now you can experience it first hand. The brand new and vastly improved NO BULL SELLING has now been printed and copies delivered to me.

You can learn how to sell at high levels and retain your sanity while doing it.

This modern day sales classic is divided into two sections:

• GETTING SOMEONE TO SELL TO

and

• SELLING SOMEBODY

You're going to learn and laugh out loud while doing it. Don't believe me, ask the thousands of top sellers who have already read it.

Enough of this chit-chat. Click on http://bit.ly/WaOzK and place your order TODAY. You'll never find a better use for twenty bucks.

HI TECH, HI TOUCH

By Hank Trisler

John Naisbitt, the author of the venerated Megatrends 2000, popularized this phrase in his first book, Megatrends. He postulates that reliance on technology isolates us and deprives us of the human contact we so desperately need. I can identify with that.

When I ran a real estate company, I was shaved, showered and in the office in suit and tie by 8:30 in the morning. Every day I met new friends and lunched at a different restaurant. I heard and told jokes and generally had a wonderful time.

Then I got into the training bidness and moved my office to my home. I now have a computer, fax machine, cell phone, voicemail, a website and e-mail. There is even a program which will link to GoldMine and extract pertinent material from fields and print out a 40-page + - proposal which one can then e-mail, post or fax to a customer completely obviating the need to talk to the pesky buggers at all.

It's been six days since I started my car. My only contact with people is when I go out for a training session, tennis, golf or a lunch with my old buddies. Other than that, I communicate with electronic devices and comparatively little of that. This existence can be narrowing for a person. One's interpersonal skills can rapidly atrophy, not to mention one's personal hygiene.

I'm not the only one it's happening to, either. Salespeople in general are making fewer personal calls and relying more on electronics to do their talking for them. We are in danger of losing the human touch.

My Barbara got a star in her windshield from a rock tossed out by a truck. She wanted me to make it all better, which I did by giving her the number of our insurance agent in San Francisco. We've been with this agent for over twenty years. He's an old family friend. He'd retired, so Barbara found herself talking to a woman she had never met. The woman said that Barbara would have to make a claim directly with CNA, the carrier. Barbara called CNA three separate times, each time going through voicemail hell prior to being disconnected.

Barbara reappeared in the office. This was not going the way I had hoped it would. "Can you tell me," she said, knowing damn well I couldn't, "why we should continue to pay premiums to an agent we no longer even know, whose office is fifty miles away from us, when all they do is refer me back to the carrier, who will not take any of my calls?"

That's how I came to be assigned the task of finding a new insurance agent. Fortunately, Jim's a really nice guy, an insurance agent and he belongs to my tennis club. I see him two or three times a week and we always have pleasant chats. I decided to ask him if he would be interested in being my new agent.

"I'd be happy to," Jim said. "Why don't you fax me the front page of your existing policy, so I'll know what we're talking about."

That seemed reasonable, so I faxed him the first six pages, as I wanted our whole shebang insured. I stressed that our decision would be based a lot more on personal service than on price. I also mentioned that I had some concern about his being a direct writer (Allstate) than an independent agent, as I wanted someone to represent me, rather than an insurance company.

A couple of days later, I saw Jim at the club, but he said nothing about insurance, so I let it slide. That afternoon I got a fax from him, asking me to fax him social security numbers, driver's license numbers and dates of birth for both Barbara and me. His fax further assured me that he had been an Allstate agent for twenty-eight years and he felt he worked for the policyholder, rather than the company. I faxed back the numbers with decreasing enthusiasm.

I saw Jim twice more and we chatted, but not about insurance. I finally got a five-page fax outlining his suggestions for our coverage and quoting prices in detail. He again assured me that he prided himself on his high level of personal service.

As much as I like Jim, I'm not going to buy any insurance from him. I wanted someone to come out and schmooze with me the way insurance guys used to do. Someone to tell me I had the best possible coverage at a reasonable price. Someone to sell me, but Jim sent me faxes full of numbers I didn't clearly understand or care much about. That's just not going to get it.

A Carnegie Mellon study links the Internet to increasing loneliness. They say the average person has but sixty-six people in his/her social circle. Sixty-six? I've seen families bigger than that.

George Quinn is one of the brightest and best people I know. He's a land developer and could easily hide behind his computer without much danger of human involvement. But every day he dresses in coat and tie and goes to his office to talk with people. He has lunch nearly every day in a restaurant with someone different. I call him "Sir Lunchalot."

I'm pleased when it comes my turn to have lunch with George. He always has something interesting to say and interesting questions to ask. He reads omnivorously and is prepared to discuss anything he's read. He's a thoroughly fascinating man and my life would be poorer were it not for him.

Did technology make George the way he is? Not bloody likely. He got where he is and the way he is by interacting with people every day. To improve your business and your life, reach out and touch someone.

SQUARE PEG, ROUND HOLE

"So, where's Velma?" I asked my talented CEO friend.

"We had a career adjustment meeting with her," he answered.

"Why ever did you do that?" I asked. "She was one of your most valued, loyal and flexible employees."

"Yes, but she was in charge of purchasing and we felt we couldn't afford a purchasing manager of her caliber. The market stinks, you know."

"Yeah, I've heard those rumors. Couldn't she have performed other tasks, like being an admin?"

"The management team felt she would view it as a demotion and her attitude would suffer. Marjorie, my secretary, can do her job. It won't be done as well, but it doesn't need to be. The overall cost will be lower."

What's wrong with this picture?

Due to the present annoying market conditions, businesses all over the world are letting people go because of job descriptions, titles or long-established habits. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

If you have a good person, save them at all costs. Good people can always be re-tasked (to use a noun as a verb), retrained and repositioned. Good people are the only management asset you have that is capable of appreciation. Your desks won't be worth more next year, nor will your file cabinets. Only your people will be worth more then than now. Don't let them go without a fight.

Conversely, trying times are excellent for getting rid of dead wood. Rather than lose two good people, lose three bad ones and distribute the work over those you have left.

REAL ESTATE: THE TEFLON OF FINANCIAL PLANNING

by Guest Blogger, Joe Klock, Sr., CRB, CRS www.joeklock.com

By no stretch of the imagination do I qualify as an economist, but with respect to the current recession, I have a case to make (and I'll try to make it brief).

No longer gainfully employed in real estate, my also-retired spouse and I now happily rely on it for an income stream sufficient to finance the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed and endeared for the past several years.

During our productive period, both of earned income and dependents, we stashed away what we could, diversifying our investments in accordance with conventional wisdom.

This diversification included some dabblings on what some are now calling Woe Street, and we watched them rise impressively, then fizzle out like financial pyrotechnics.

Fortunately, we never relied on them for a cash flow which is not likely to come from that source in the foreseeable future.

The bulk of our nest egg comprised real estate-related investments, which were and still are a kind of Teflon on the cookware of our retirement portfolio.

They continue to produce a steady income, while effectively protecting us from the damaging effects of the current recession. (The icky stuff is still there, but it doesn't stick on us!)

Had enough of these lame metaphors? Here are some facts:
The bulk of our present "spendable" flows from income-producing commercial real estate, mostly net-net-leased at rental levels which we deliberately set just a smidgeon below the market.

As a result of that moderation, whatever "loss" has occurred in market value is significant only on our personal balance sheet. In other words, the rent rolls remain constant and the money rolls in unabated.

Along a related route, we have granted short-term mortgages at attractive interest rates to responsible people with good credit records and significant equities. Neither have these been diminished by gloomy headlines nor the general malaise of the residential brokerage market.

Undeniably, there has been great suffering endured by well-intentioned but underqualified home buyers and overly-leveraged investors.

This is both regrettable and irreversible, except for such relief as may be provided by government intervention. (Too late to apply Teflon when the damage has been done.)

More to be censured than pitied are the reckless gamblers who flipped contracts, falsified documents and/or knowingly assumed risks that simply didn't make sense.

It's worth noting, though, that prudent real estate investors are riding out the storm with little or no damage to their financial objectives.

In a wider perspective, homeowners who bought (or already owned) homes within their means may understandably wring their hands over the attractive selling prices of years past.

However, they are mourning bonanzas which are relatively meaningless, given the creature comforts they still enjoy - benefits undiminished by the ravages of recession.

To make a long story longer, all of this is prologue to the case (no longer brief) that I wish to make here.

Real estate - the product and benefit package service offered by readers of these words - is an attractive antidote to the venom of economic downturns.
Your potential customers - representing more than 90% of the population, according to published estimates - should be encouraged to believe that if they are managing their present housing needs, but wish to make a move, they should not hesitate to do so.

Even if sellers are unable to realize the wonderful proceeds of yesteryear sales, there are compensating bargains in the market. (No gain, maybe, but no pain either - and no real loss!)

Likewise, those contemplating the purchase of a home should be helped to understand that the present plethora of listings, and the attractiveness of financing, may not be available again in the near - or even remote - future.
Victims of the financial bloodbath on Woe Street should explore the possibility of switching their allegiance to prudently purchased real estate investments, such as the ones which are enabling this humble scribe, et ux, to ride out the current storm.

Admittedly, some folks may be beyond any substantial help you can offer them.

But, among the majority of your prospects who are still afloat, there are many who may simply need to borrow the courage of your conviction that real estate is, in the long run, the safest and surest path toward financial security.

Even those whose planning cookware was damaged in the past could be - make that should be - introduced to the Teflon-like protection of real estate.
For countless millions of Americans over recent decades, the product and service that you offer has been the foundation of their growth during productive years and their security in a good life thereafter.

If you believe that, sell the Teflon effect of real estate to those who will otherwise be unprotected from the "icky stuff" on the Woe Street Of Broken Dreams!