Should Spiral Dynamics Be Used For Selling?

Afternoon All…

One of my absolute favourite topics is the theories around Spiral Dynamics and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  I was sitting with two colleagues having lunch yesterday and we got onto the topic of the difference between the two theories and how society can fit into to either one of them.  We then started to question the sales technique of using (in particular) spiral dynamics to convince people to part with their money and give it to the seller.  This got me thinking…. should something as important as understanding human dynamics and behaviour be used to manipulate people into buying – or is it simply “smart selling”?

For those of you who don’t know what Spiral Dynamics is – here is a brief overview…. Spiral dynamics argues that human nature is not fixed… and that humans are able, when forced by life conditions, to adapt to their environment by constructing new, more complex, conceptual models  of the world that allow them to handle the new problems.  Then each of these models transcends the previous model allowing them to “move up” through the levels within spiral dynamics – and these levels are based on a core value system that is sometimes referred to has vMemes – don’t get thrown by that – just see it as a value system.

So Spiral Dynamics is used to explain where culture, societies, people and even mindsets are situated –  and the only way to move up through the  7 levels – or 9 (depending who you listen to, or read about) is to learn new skills and develop your mindset.  The levels look like this:

Level 1 – Instinctive – Needs are: food , water, shelter, safety etc – i.e survival

Level 2 – Animistic – Needs are: Social, family, tribe, honour, respect elders, ancestors, spirits i.e lives for past

Level 3 – Egocentric – Needs are: Pschological, power driven, exploitative, priviledge i.e lives for now.

Level 4 – Absolutistic – Needs are: Abstract, purposeful, authoritarian, dualistic, dogmatic i.e lives for future

Level 5 – Materialistic – Needs are: Entreprenuerial, strategic, growth and success. i.e Lives for gain

Level 6 – Humanistic – Needs are: Community, harmony, liverty, equality i.e lives for cause

Level 7 – Systemic – Felxibility, spontaneity, competence, balance i.e lives for Synergy.

Levels 8 and 9 are about targeting the “greater good” and those in these levels are living entirely for others… i.e the Dalai Lama.

So how are people using this as a sales tool?  There are people in todays market place that use this theory as a way of selling products and programs… and they do it like this….

They start of by explaining Spiral Dynamics, and they talk about examples – this is a direct quote from something that was said in a room I was in once… “The average australian employee mindset is at level 3 – but if you want to be successful in business you need to be level 5, I can only see and recognise 3 level 5s in the room (this was a room of about 100 people)” this then went on futher when this person was selling from the stage and used “I don’t want to spend my time with the employee mindset or level 3s – I want to spend my time with level 5s” and this where those in the room who are desperate to have successful businesses convince themselves that the only way to get to level 5 is to buy the product or program… almost the “blue pill to level 5 thinking”!

Now I am all for using NLP, human behavioural understanding to ensure that you are able to talk about services or products in a way that you can align with your customers or potential customers… however, I am not sure how ethical it is to utilise something that is a conceptual theory to manipulate a crowd to believe that if they don’t buy something they will never progress or develop… I personally believe that anyone can work their way through the levels as every human can adapt to situations and evolve their own thinking…

I know this is a heavy blog… but would love to know your thoughts…

Should Spiral Dynamics be simplified and reduced to a common sales tool?

What business owners really want….

Afternoon folks…

My two last blogs around mastermind groups have certainly got people talking, people calling, people reblogging and most importanting people THINKING about what it is that they actually want as business owners.  There seems to be common themes running throughout, and that’s why it has baffled me somehwhat that there are still business coaches, mastermind groups and the likes there of… that still don’t get it!

I recently had a client come to me from a business coach, who was advised to change their whole branding to become a character that simply isn’t them…. they were advised to have the word “chick or gal” in their business name, even though this person is a mature woman who wants to approach corporates…. ummm mismatch much?  It seems that these coaches and mentors are forgetting the fundementals here… your clients wants you to understand them, work your magic around their businesses and not create a business or brand that fits your needs and agendas….

So lets take this a step further… what is it that business owners want from a business coach, a mastermind mentor or “an expert”?

Here is what I have found that they want….

1. Someone who is willing to understand them and their business – not create a business for them that they don’t actually feel connected to. For example…. instead of being dismissive and saying “NO…that’s not a niche”… work out how their passion could be a niche!  Sounds simple right?
2. Don’t give them a whole load of rehashed american concepts that have NOT been tried and tested in this market
3. Understand when online marketing works… and more importantly when it DOESNT!
4. They want the tools of HOW to do things… not just theory…
5. They want you!  That is why they signed to be with you, to learn from you, to find out the strategies that worked for you and most importantly they want the systems that you have… so give it to them…. That’s what you are being paid for!
6. They want you to deliver what you promise… if you promise small classroom sizes and access to you… then don’t put them in a room of 35 and give them a “bees dick” amount of time with you… they want someone who “means what they say, and says what they mean!”
7. Their business isn’t just about marketing…. they want your professional opinion on all areas of the business… this means they want you to get a little more in-depth than just “What is your ideal day”

I think these 7 items have been the most requested and complained about in regards to mastermind groups and business coaches… so what I thought I would do, is over the next week – is write a little bit of information on the importance of all these areas…

If you think I have left anything out, please let me know… dead keen to give as much info to you business owners out there… and who knows, maybe even some coaches and mentors!

Cheers

N

100 Brands in 100 Weeks – so it begins!

Afternoon!

Hope you all have had a great weekend and looking forward to the cup just as much as I am…. I have a feeling “So you think” will come through with the goods and so that’s where my money is going.  He has been consistent, elegant, successful and has never let Bart Cummings down – wouldn’t it be great if all brands in Australia were that reliable!

We have had so much feedback about the new campaign that ist’s almost taken us all week just to get through and answer all the emails, posts, phone calls and questions coming our way – what a great sign.  It means we are all wanting the same thing…better customer service in Australia!  I have also been approached by some media outlets for interviews so this could get “interesting”.

I wanted to give you a brief outline of how this is all going to work as we are starting with our first brand NEXT WEEK!

We have decided that in order to be as fair and unbiased as possible, that we need to look at ALL areas of each brand including; telephone sales, commercial sales, corporate sales, consumer sales and even support to get a really good overall view on what is happening from an organisational culture – because we don’t want to base it all on something that one person has said once to a client…. get my drift?

We are also going to do this from a National level – we know from experience that customer service and sales differs state to state in our “land of plenty”, so it’s only fair to ensure we are capturing the full picture.

As the head of this campaign I have also made an executive decision to protect my team, no one from the Nexus team will be named whilst completing this exercise – so if there is any fall back, it will lie solely on my shoulders.  Hope you, as my readers, can understand why.

On Monday of every week I will be announcing to the Nexus team the brand in which we will be investigating, I will also divide the task up and give each member a role to play.  They will be given a “character, questions, objectives and objections to present to the brand” – and they will report on their findings.  On the Thursday of every week I will collate the details and write a blog stating who, where, how and what went down.

To be completely fair, I will also send a copy of my report to the brand themselves and give them an opportunity for “right of reply”.

If you think I have missed anything, please post or send us a comment – we are always happy to receive feedback.  Of course, we are also still accepting nominations to add to the list as well!

I am off to have lunch outside before heading to the gym….

Have a good one everyone!

Cheers

N

The GOOD the BAD and the UGLY of Sales in Australia

HI All

We are nearing the end of the year, and the dreaded Christmas shopping is rapidly creeping up at a very nagging pace.  There are so many great aspects of Christmas but the crowded shops, the irate sales assistants and the endless cues at the toilets are not them!

I think Christmas “Cheer” has dissappeared over the recent years alongside friendly and helpful customer service, whether it is a telecommunications company, a clothing store, a cafe or a bank reality is the friendly, helpful sales assistants are very few and far between.  And quite frankly, I have had a gut full.  As a sales trainer I am constantly dissappointed by the service I have received – and I am really easy to sell to if you simply show me some care and consideration… but that doesn’t seem to be part of the sales training these people are receiving.

To really understand what is going on here – I have decided to run a new campaign… “100 brands in 100 weeks” this will see me and some very eager and enthusiastic members of the Nexus team go undercover to one top name brand every week and assess their sales capabilities, the friendliness and their overall customer service.  oooh  and we are going to write all about it right here in this blog!  Yes we are going to name and shame a few, but we are also going to give praise where deserved.

The names on the list will be kept top secret until after they have been assessed – and then the information is there for you to read and do with what you please.

We are currently in the process of drawing up the list of names – and there are some on there that make me more than a little nervous, but excited all at the same time – BUT WE NEED MORE!

We want to hear from you as to who you would like us to investigate – it could be a large retail business, it could be a large car dealership or it could be your energy company – whoever it is we want to know about it.  Post your requests here and we will decide whether or not to add them to the “list”.

This campaign probably won’t earn us any friends, but it will get the truth out there about customer service and sales in the Australian market place…. oh and this will be written about in a large business magazine as well! – So keep following us to get all the juicy info here FIRST!

Have a great day, and I look forward to seeing all of your “100 brands in 100 weeks” requests!

Cheers

NA

Why have a different terminology for sales and marketing… surely it should all just be called SALES!

Hi All

It’s been 81 days since my last blog and I was feeling strong until I recently opened a discussion on Facebook with:

“should we just get rid of the term marketing all together and just call it sales? thoughts?”

Who knew that this topic would get such a big response…. I received 21 comments within half an hour and my inbox was flooded with opinions from both sides of the argument.

So I thought I would share my thoughts and opinions with you, and maybe you can either add to the controversial statement or simply add your own views!

To do this blog justice, I wanted to have as many facts as possible – so I went to Google !  I typed in “what is marketing”, and low and behold the first link to pop up was the definitions page, so I clicked on it and the first sentence reads: “selling:  the exchange of goods for an agreed sum of money”… interesting – that the first definition is all about selling!  However, I can’t simply use that as my proof – so hear is the real definition:  ”marketing is the process by which companies decide on the right products and services to promote to their clientele, and therefore the strategy for the sales teams to use”.

Seems like a fair definition.

I wonder why it is that large organisations both here in Australia and overseas insist on having separate sales and marketing divisions, when they have clearly the same objectives – get the right message to the right client so they buy the right product or service… seems simple.

In my company we teach marketing as part of our sales training, we believe that you can’t and shouldn’t separate the two… in order to be able to market properly you need to start with the objective, the sales objective – then you work backwards until you are able to delineate exactly what it is that you need to be marketing and the message that you need to get across.  The type of marketing and sales activities may vary – but the process is always the same.

I am aware that there are many types of marketing degrees and that they even teach marketing subjects in MBAs, but is there no wonder that many people struggle with selling when there is no formal education – so the Australian market is forced to seek out privatised sales training, some of which are very good, but most… very poor.

This causes a form of an “elitist” attitude between marketing and sales, where in all honesty I believe there should be a degree called “sales and marketing” – because as previously discussed, you can’t have one without the other.   Marketeers are currently getting the best form of education and sellers are left to use their innate ability to be flexible to the environment and learn what they can on the fly.  The best sellers are high achievers, can you imagine what would happen if they received formalised training in both sales and marketing???  Would be fantastic.

It is said that if you were to place a seller into a marketing role that they will do very well, because a seller knows that the key strategy is to always understand the clients needs, where as if you put a marketeer into a sales role then they will simply hand out a brochure .  Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, what is blindingly clear is that sales skills help marketing ability and maybe all marketeers should start with sales training and experience?!?!

This leads me to believe that all marketing is is a pre sales activity… so why the need for another term.  I wonder what kind of questions you would ask a sales trainer if marketing was simply part of the process of sales – and therefore they needed to include it in everything they taught?  I think the number of sales trainers would diminish rapidly – and maybe that’s not a bad thing!

I would love your opinions on sales and marketing and where you see it all fitting in.  Are you with me in saying that marketing is simple a pre sales activity or do you believe that marketing is bigger than that.. and if that’s the case how do you go about designing your marketing strategy?

That’s it for me today… I am off to the gym, I have 300 cardio minutes to complete this week…. wish me luck!

N

To cold call or not to cold call, that is the question!

As a sales expert I constantly hear how people HATE cold calling, and most small business owners are in that category.  If you are like me and went into business so you could do the things you enjoy, make oodles of money (well enough for you to be able to buy that Louis Vuitton Handbag or the cherry red Ferrari), and go on the holidays you have always wanted, then you will understand what I mean when I say that cold calling is HARD work, and frankly has very little return.

Having said that, I am aware how successful cold calling can be.  In fact, I started my sales career as an “inside sales rep (aka teletubby)” at a large multinational, and I loved my cold calling duties.  At the time I was living by myself in an apartment in Sydney and I would enjoy getting out of bed in the morning to get to work at 8.30am – I would start my calls at 9am and continue through the day.  I had a pretty good hit rate, achieved my quotas and started to make quite good money.  However, I often question why I enjoyed this role so much, was it simply the thrill of the chase….I loved it when I had a challenging client who never wanted to speak to me as it became my mission to get them to “show me some love”, or was it simply me having the opportunity to talk to people all day??  Whatever it was, I quickly burned out and needed to find better ways to sell and therefore moved to a “face to face” role.

Today in my own business I make the total of ZERO cold calls, and I still have clients coming through my doors.  The reason I do this is because I don’t have the staffing numbers that the multinational had when I worked there and therefore I need to be as efficient in sales as possible.  Reality is, I don’t have the name of that very well known organisation behind me anymore and therefore people on the phone that I have never met will have a tendency to be slightly more sceptical and mistrusting in comparison, so I needed to find a better way to sell, after all, I am a mere mortal that needs to be able to do multiple tasks and still have money coming through my doors – you know what I mean right?

The one thing I wonder is that are people asking about cold calling as a knee jerk reaction to not having the amount of clients and money that they are after….and if this is the case will cold calling actually help?

There are so many schools of thought out in the market place currently around cold calling, and in our new economy I believe it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention some of them, there is Ron LaVine who is a cold calling specialist – and after reading his tips and techniques I quickly realised that it very much centres around being part of a call centre and part of a large organisation….not me……the other one I took a lot of notice from was the “never cold call again” expert Frank Rumbauskas and he outlined a whole strategy of increasing income without the hard work of cold calling – definitely my thing!

I could be wrong about small business owners not wanting to cold call – and I would love to hear your feedback on whether or not you do it, hate it, avoid it or is it your “knee jerk reaction”?

Look forward to your comments

Off to catch up with friends over a wine

Cheers

Naomi