When you get out of survival mode, you have a chance to think about how to be successful as you wade through a sea of obstacles.  You will never be remembered unless you can crack the elite.  You have heard about this (Pareto’s Principle) before but now internalize it and …be in the 20%.

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If you are in sales you have most likely heard about the following phrase:

“80% of your production comes from 20% of your sales force”

You may also have heard this phrase:

“20% of your sales activities will generate 80% of your sales results”

I am quite sure that you have heard both of these.  More importantly you should figure out a way to make both of statements work for you.

Before we start examining that, we would like to recognize Vilfredo Pareto (1848 – 1923) of Italy who started this all in 1906.  He used it initially to explain the fact that 80% of the wealth of his country was in the hands of 20% of the population, also known as the rich.  This is called Pareto’s Principle and you may also hear of it as the ’80-20 Rule’.  It is used in everything from sales, to sports, to personal relationships, and of course wealth.

I have found this principal to be correct for the most part and that is why I’d like to take some time to examine it. Stated simply, a small number of are responsible for a large percentage of the effect.  Most examples use a figure of 20 to 80 or 20:80.

It is exact?  Of course not, but it simple and easy to understand that the relationship between what we put in, and what we get out, is not balanced.

Be the Best!

Successful Black sales professionals stand out.  If you are able to perform at a level that makes you a valuable asset to your employer, you are to be commended, as the ‘environmental’ resistance (general economics, racial preference, and racial prejudice) that you encounter is omnipresent.

Being successful is not enough as your objective is to be the best, and that designation does not recognize race.  To be the best, you need to be in the top 20%.  If you are making money that is fine as well, but overall you still need to be in the top 20%.

Strategies to make it there are important.  Remember, whether you are struggling, or currently successful, if you want to change the result, you must change your behavior!

Here are a few activities that will help vault you to the top:

• Become an expert (BSJ 6-27 More on Being an Expert – An Edge for the Black Sales Professional)
• Find prospects through a seminar (BSJ 3-24 – Finding Prospects through a Seminar and BSJ 12-19 – Increase Your Prospect Base)
• Improve and increase your networking (BSJ 2/21- Networking for the Black Sales Professional and BSJ 12-19 Increase Your Prospect Base)
• Ask your best customers for referrals (BSJ 12-10 Increase Your Prospect Base)
• Increase your customer retention (BSJ 5 Random Acts to Lock Down Your Customers)
• Try some new prospecting angles (BSJ 11/28- Tune-Up Your Cold Calling and Phone Etiquette and BSJ 2-10 – 9 Prospecting Tips for the Black Sales Professional.
• Network effectively (BSJ 2-21- Networking for the Black Sales Professional)

Read them and select one or two (or several) and give them a try.

Increase your Effectiveness

The second phrase at the beginning of this document illustrates the 80:20 rule of the Pareto Principle by indicating as stated earlier that what we put into something might not be what we eventually get out.  Put primary priority on the items that increase your effectiveness. Recognize that your efforts need to favor those activities that “make a significant difference”.

Author and self-effectiveness guru Steven Covey urges us to “Put first things first”.  Indicating that you should undertake your activities on the basis of importance rather than urgency.

This would mean that you would spend working hours doing some of your important prospecting, and move your expense account (something I was terrible at) preparation to the evening.  It would mean that you would spend valuable time doing customer problem solving first, relationship building next, then the various and sundry activities that are urgent, but not important.

Below I’ve listed some good suggestions with links to past BSJ posts that will make a difference in moving into or staying in the 20%.

• Be Responsive! (BSJ 1-16 – Responsiveness – The Objective of the Sales Professional)
• Know your compensation system (BSJ  11-16 Know How You Get Paid – Its About That Paper)
• Plan Effectively- Construct a Good Sales Plan (BSJ 11-10 – Solidify Your Sales Plan)
• Communicate and listen effectively (BSJ 11/7 – Make Communications a Strength and BSJ 4-14- Are You Listening to Your Customers?)
• Deepening Customer Relationships (BSJ 1/11 – Deepening Customer Relationships Revisited
• Be your customer’s consultant (BSJ 6/6 – Consultative Selling- An Asset for the Black Sales Professional)
• Be your customer’s expert (BSJ 6/27, More on Being an Expert)

There is a lot of information here, yet the most important part of the process is to recognize the importance of changing something.  If you want to change the results, you must change your behavior.  Remember, ‘you can lie about the numbers, but the numbers don’t lie.’

For 2012 change something! Be the best, and always be effective!

Whether your manager is getting promoted or fired you one day you will have new leadership.  This new leader will need to get to know you.  You need to show this individual the ‘y0u’  that you want them to get acquainted with.  Here’s how!

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When you started your day in the office yesterday, one of your fellow sales professionals steps to your desk and says “We are supposed to meet in the conference room in 10 minutes.  Something is up!”

While sitting in the conference room, you are informed that your current manager is taking a different position, and a new individual will manage your unit.  The new manager will be meeting with each of you individually within the next two weeks to get to know you, and to stimulate sales in the unit.

There certainly is nothing unusual here.  If you are fortunate enough to be in a sales position for any length of time, you are likely to get a new sales manager.  A new manager might come as a result of a promotion on the part of your current manager, or possibly a termination.  Regardless of how it happens, it moves you into a special mode that will force you to prove up!

The new manager who might be from the outside, or might be a peer, yet they would be “new to you” in terms of managing you and your team’s performance.

What does this mean?  For many of you, this is the chance you need in order to start over.  For some of the others, it is time to prove yourself all over again.  Getting the opportunity to show your worth, and your ability to “make rain” is important when you remember that it is your career and your near-term future at risk.

Politics or Good Business?

Job moves come as a result of a number of factors, including office politics, lack of results, promotions, transfers out, or even death.  When they happen, the ripple effect that they cause can be either a shock, or a benefit to sales professionals as it signals not only change, but a new order as well.

This type of change can have a positive effect on the careers of some, or a negative jolt to those who thrived under a particular manager, or type of management.  If the management change is a good one you may even have an equal amount of positives and negatives to the new order.

Overall, it is good to have change, and you as a sales professional can benefit from the “new order” if you take a few measures of preparation.

Always be Prepared

You know that this is going to happen, so let’s plan how we benefit from this inevitability.  Your new manager could come from your own sales unit, a neighboring sales unit, or from the outside of the organization.  The tenets of what I am proposing will work regardless of the origin of the new manager.

• Treat the discussion like an interview. Be prepared to discuss your sales process (Black Sales Journal 9/12/11, An Interviewing Essential – Communicate Why You are Successful).
• Discuss your short and long term plan.
• Admit your shortcomings, if any. Be prepared to admit your shortcomings and how you are remedying them.
• Discuss key prospects and customers in depth. Remember, that is the job of a sales manager, and they will have to answer questions from their superiors on these important issues
• Set-up your follow-up meetings. As you know open communications with your manager are important.

Make the New Management Work for You

Arrange as early as possible to do the following items:

1.) Tap the knowledge

Here is your opportunity to get something you might of value.  Seize upon the knowledge and skill base of the new manager for any benefit you can get.  Learn anything and everything that you can from the new manager – this includes product specialties, sales skills, and prospecting tips.

2.) Involve the new manager

As early as possible invite the new manager to go on some good sales calls with you.  You choose the calls and clients, and thus the situation.  Show them that you are the sales professional in front of the client.

3.) Ask for advice

As difficult as it may be to do it, ask for advice.  A new manager that formerly was a peer might be the last person you want to ask this question, yet it serves to show what they are going to suggest in the future.  Swallow some pride and ask questions.

There is something to learn from any sales professional, and it is your job to pull from those areas that can give you benefit.

Keep In Mind

You are powerless to do anything about a change in management, but you’re not without the ability to make the change a positive.

Spend some time and effort in establishing the communications, and realize that anything that you can take from the new manager that will increase your effectiveness is a dividend.

This gives even more credence to the fact that you must always be the professional, as you have no idea who your next manager will be.  He or she could be sitting next to you.

We welcome your comments.