A welcome message from Scott Wintrip



Your Radical Accountability Minute: Would You Like to be a Little Successful or a Lot?

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

Being successful is not working harder, it’s about becoming who you want to be as a person.

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Spontaneous Buying – Scott’s Sales Yoga Thought for the Week

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

It’s a hot summer day with no perceptible breeze. Lying across the way is a haphazard pile of debris, having been blown into what almost looks like a small pyramid. A spotlight of sun, the size of a small flashlight beam, suddenly appears on the pile, having been channeled by a pane of window glass. Suddenly, a burst of flame erupts as the wood, grasses, and other assorted detritus catch fire.

Without the right elements in place, spontaneous combustion cannot happen, and the same applies to spontaneous buying. People don’t just wake up one day and suddenly select a random vendor for a purchase. A confluence of factors makes buying possible, with one of the most important being Brand Consciousness.

Unless your company really stinks at what you do, there are only three reasons why people aren’t buying:

  1. They don’t know you exist (Brand Unconsciousness).
  2. They’ve forgotten you exist (Brand Amnesia).
  3. They don’t yet understand your true value, especially as compared to your competitors (Brand Dubiety).

The job of a competent sales team is to overcome these factors. In Sales Yoga, we do this in a number of ways, including the three-part Attractive Persistence Plan:

  • Brief: Messages no longer than 30 seconds total. This includes a brief introduction, a compelling question or statement (such as a result you’ve recently achieved), and your contact information (repeated twice to ensure accuracy).
  • Polite: Do not bash the competition, chastise the prospect for not calling you back, or have an arrogant attitude or tone. Do call persistently, which for many people means about once each week.
  • Interesting: Make a different statement or ask a different question in each of your messages. Your questions and statements should be provocative; the kind of question or statement that would stick in someone’s mind. Your goal is to begin to deliver value from the very start, and that begins with leaving valuable, interesting messages.

While spontaneous combustion is undesirable, spontaneous buying is desirable and necessary to maintain a Sales Edge. Like pushing your body to the edge in physical yoga, Sales Edge creates a brand awareness that creates nonstop growth and perpetual profits.

Learn how to become a Sales Yogi.

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Your Radical Accountability Minute: Avoid Driving Off the Road – How to Engage Rumble Strips for Individual and Team Improvement

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

Rumble strips alert you that an adjustment needs to be made. Use this concept in your day to day activities, and you can assure that you will never be too far behind where you need to be.

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Take No Prisoners – Issue 1

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC
Wintrip Consulting Group : Take No PrisonersTake No Prisoners is a free weekly memo from Scott Wintrip that explores how Radical Accountability prospers companies and changes lives. Instead of taking people hostage with outdated, heavy-handed, and ineffective methods of management, measurement, and motivation, Radical Accountability focuses on creating an unwavering responsibility for getting what matters most done.

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Every day I provide pithy pieces of advice and wisdom. Join the growing crowd who read these gems every day.

Avoid Artwork Affliction

When’s the last time you really paid attention to the art or decorations at your home or office? Not just a quick glance, but really taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of a piece or remembering what attracted you to it in the first place. Most people admit that the only time they take notice is when someone asks them where they acquired a particular object OR its significance. Simply put, after a while everything blends in, even things that are especially meaningful to us. This is Artwork Affliction.

Smart product manufacturers understand this concept, which is why they change their packaging from time to time. Last year, I remember seeing a Pepsi can that had the colors of a Coca Cola product. Just above the Pepsi label were the words “Great new look. Same great taste.” Did they new packaging work? Well, it got my attention enough to mention it here.

Artwork Affliction happens every day in corporations across the globe, and it’s not only the art that’s being overlooked. Those signs espousing your customer service best practices haven’t been noticed in months. The sales process document that you ask people to keep on their desks is collecting dust. Even the main page of your intranet barely gets a notice even though the content may change from time to time.

Radical Accountability, an unwavering responsibility for getting done what matters most, includes a number of methods that eliminate the need for heavy-handed leadership. Leaders all too often have to remind people to do the very things noted on the wall, sales process document, or computer screen because of Artwork Affliction. When leaders do this in the most positive way, it still can feel like micromanagement even though people haven’t been paying attention.

The cure for Artwork Affliction is relatively simple: change the look, location, or liability. You can alter the design, color, or formatting — the look. Moving the location, just like moving furniture, often recaptures attention. To shift the liability, delegate responsibility to team members for regularly modifying the look or location of key totems of workplace significance.

You’ve worked hard to build a company with processes and systems that drive your business. By avoiding Artwork Affliction, you’ll have your best practices doing what they are supposed to do.

This Week’s Radical Accountability Activating Action: Elect one or two important processes or reminders and change the look, location or liability.

Learn how to engage Radical Accountability while saving 20% through Friday, May 24th (use code TNP1).

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking here.

Check out my podcast series called Simply Scott on iTunes.

If you’d like to reach me, email: scott@ScottWintrip.com or call my direct line: (727) 502-9182

Visit my web site: http://www.WintripConsultingGroup.com

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Best Time to Hire

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

Transform how you sell with Sales Yoga-The Audio Workshop. Download a free sample.

Scott’s new video book, The Avoidant Economy, is now available. The introduction and first chapter are free.

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Is Your Company Taking People Prisoner?

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

If people aren’t always doing what they are supposed to do, what’s a leader to do?

To help you and your organization, I’m launching a new newsletter this Tuesday, May 21st. Called Take No Prisoners, this free weekly memo explores how Radical Accountability prospers companies and changes lives. Instead of taking people hostage with outdated, heavy-handed, and ineffective methods of management, measurement, and motivation, Radical Accountability focuses on creating an unwavering responsibility for getting what matters most done.

To sign up, click here.

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To Sell or Not to Sell…That is NOT the Question

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

“Yoga is almost like music in a way; there’s no end to it.” — Sting

Selling, like yoga, is almost like music as there is never an end to it, if it’s being done right. Yet, so many salespeople engage in a stop-start mentality in their sales practice. They start selling, land a few good prospects or customers, try to leverage them for all they are worth, then find themselves back at the beginning of having to start selling again. It’s little wonder that so many salespeople are not hearing the sweet music of consistent cash flow.

In Sales Yoga we practice Sales Flow in how we sell, how we converse, and how we serve. For now, I’m going to focus on the first piece since, without it, there aren’t enough prospects with which to converse and serve.

One of the best examples of Sales Flow was demonstrated by Kerri, a senior sales manager at a multinational firm based on the East Coast. In advising her and her team on the principles of Sales Yoga, it was the need for Sales Flow that had the biggest impact. Kerri, in particular, was in the detrimental habit of stop-start selling. As she made the shift to Sales Flow, she found that her book of business grew faster than ever, doubling in less than a year’s time.

Three of the keys to Kerri’s Sales Flow were as follows:

1. Instead of latching on to a few prospects at a time, she always had several dozen prospects at different stages of the process. “I never thought I could handle that much activity,” said Kerri, “but building my stamina for an increasing number of possibilities, using Sales Flow, was easier than I thought.”

2. Rather than assuming she had the best customers, she was always looking for better ones. “Now I pick and choose who to work with versus begging for business.”

3. When she thought she had made enough calls, had enough meetings, sent enough proposals, or closed enough business she always pushed for a little bit more. “Before engaging in Sales Flow, I used to sell myself short. I am now managing four times the amount of business in the same amount of hours. All because I got in the flow.”

To sell or not to sell is not the question.

How you sell is.

Sales Flow is the way to grow and stop-start selling has got to go.

Learn more about Sales Yoga

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Bully Your Prospective Customers

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

By domineering a conversation with questions, you will be in a position of control and show that you are interested in knowing more about your client.

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Are You Fishing With the Wrong Net? – Scott’s Sales Yoga Thought for the Week

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

During an advising call with a client this week, she reported lackluster performance by one of her company’s locations. As we dug into the issue, it became clear that the members of the sales team were fishing with the wrong net.

Salespeople have the equivalent of nets in their sales efforts. Some use wide nets, like those on a shrimp boat, that bring in many possibilities, allowing them to pick and choose the best customers. Others employ the equivalent of a small aquarium net, bringing in just a handful of “fish.” Even though these prospects are scrawny, offering limited profitable opportunities, they still pursue them because that’s all they have in front of them.

This is why in the practice of Sales Yoga we engage the Law of Expansive Contacts (LEC).

The net cast by the LEC has three parts:

  1. Identifying where buyers hang out (physically and virtually).
  2. Delivering value to hundreds of these prospects on regular basis. Value is defined as insights, opportunities, and perspectives that are important to them while distinguishing you and your firm.
  3. When prospective buyers believe they don’t need you or your services, engaging in conversations that create what, in Sales Yoga, we call a “yet.” These are dialogues that uncover hidden or unrecognized opportunities they have yet to see where you can provide value to them.

Like a strong net on a powerful shrimp boat, salespeople must cast a wide net in all corners of their market. Aquarium nets are great for fish tanks, but not for a successful company that wants to grow.

Learn how to become a Sales Yogi.

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Be the Bully When Resolving Conflicts

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Scott Wintrip, PCC

A whole new take on bullying! The next time you have a conflict with someone, start asking questions. By domineering the conversation with short provocative questions, people will understand them better and provide you with answers and ideally feel cared about and better understood.

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