LSA Global Insights Newsletter: 2019

November 25, 2019

Sales Toolkit to Stay Above the Competition

Effective sales leaders grow revenue and profits through organizational alignment by ensuring the go-to-market sales strategy is clear, by building a high performance sales culture and by attracting, developing, engaging and retaining top sales talent.

At a strategic level, good sales leaders set the right course and create clear goals, roles, success metrics and career paths.
At a cultural level, good sales leaders ensure that the sales culture is not only healthy, but 100% aligned with the sales and business strategies.
At a talent level, good sales leaders consistently attract, develop, engage and retain top sales talent that fits.

Download Sales Toolkit Now

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

How to Build a Better Sales Playbook

What Is a Sales Playbook?
Like a playbook in sports that plans for the most frequent and most important in-game situations, a sales playbook is a unique collection of sales scenarios, strategies, plans, tactics, and tools to help a sales team consistently win when the stakes are high.

And because every sales team has a unique sales strategy, culture, solution, and definition of winning, the best sales playbooks are unique to each organization and target buyer persona.

Three Prerequisites to Creating a Better Sales Playbook
While in sales you may need to create a basic or interim playbook to keep the sales wheels spinning, a head coach would never create a game plan without knowing the sport that they were playing and their opponent; unfortunately, too many sales enablement functions create sales playbooks without getting the context right first.

Before you can define your key sales plays based upon key buyer personas, goals, problems, and needs, three foundational sales areas must be addressed.

Sales Strategy
First, your sales strategy must be clear, believable, and implementable enough to set the true north for your sales plays. Our organizational alignment research found that sales strategy accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams.

Do not make the mistake of investing heavily in sales enablement tools until you have alignment around and commitment to your target clients, value proposition, success metrics, and go-to-market sales strategies.

Sales Culture
Next, your sales culture must be healthy, high performing, and aligned enough with your sales strategy for it to accelerate - not hinder - your sales force. Sales culture, the way sales work gets done across the entire organization, accounts for 40% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams. Your sales strategy must go through your sales culture.

Do not underestimate the need for the right sales culture to meet your targets. Otherwise your desire for a better sales playbook to drive better sales results will falter.

Sales Talent
Lastly, you must assess the key sales skills required to execute your sales strategy and know how your current sales force stacks up against those sales skills and behaviors. Then, based upon your gap analysis, you can create a practical plan to fill the key sales skill gaps that matter most for your sales plays to be successful.

Make sure that any corresponding solution selling training is highly customized to your unique needs and reinforced by frequent sales coaching. It is not very practical to create sales plays if your sales force does not have the knowledge, skills, and business savvy to run the plays well.

Elements of a Great Sales Playbook
Once your sales strategy and sales culture are aligned and your plan to close key sales skill gaps is clear, you have the context required to design the right business sales training and build a better sales playbook with the right sales scenarios, sales plays, and sales support tools.

See the Top 3 Playbook Elements that Make the Difference

October 26, 2019

12 Must-Have Manager Tools in Order to Rise Above

Effective managers create alignment by ensuring strategic clarity, building high performance cultures, and differentiating top talent.

At a strategic level, good managers set the right course and create clear goals, roles, success metrics, and career paths.
At a cultural level, good managers commit to making it a great place to work and value people as their most important resource while ensuring that their direct reports are held accountable and recognized for their contributions.
At a talent level, good managers consistently attract, develop, engage and retain top talent that fits.

Download 12 Research-Backed Manager Tools Now

How to Drastically Improve Difficult Performance Conversations

Difficult Performance Conversations Are No Fun
Most managers (including me) dread difficult performance conversations with their direct reports and are willing to try almost anything to avoid them. Whether it is delivering bad news, discussing sensitive subjects, or firing an employee, the most upsetting performance conversations are the ones that evoke anger, yelling, accusations, defensiveness or tears.

As appealing as it may be to avoid a potential confrontation with a coworker, we have found that high performing team leaders face these conversations without dread. They are adept at managing conflict in a way that creates clarity, trust, and accountability. What do they do differently? .

There Are Countless Tools and Techniques Available
There are countless performance communication tools and techniques available to help make performance management discussions better. They range from better listening, to being more empathetic, to being more direct. Used correctly, they can all help make difficult conversations about performance more productive.

The Six Most Common Difficult Performance Conversation Mistakes
When we ask employees to list the most frustrating and ineffective aspects of ineffective performance conversations at work, six rise to the surface:

Oversimplifying the issue
Not showing enough respect
Getting too personal
Not gathering enough data
Making bad assumptions
Not having enough empathy or compassion

The True Root Cause - Bad Performance Expectations
Avoiding these common mistakes will certainly help. But we find that they often do not address the root cause of most difficult performance conversations - a lack of clear performance expectations.

Read the Five Attributes of Effective Performance Expectations

September 28, 2019

The Impact of Raising Performance Expectations

Raising Performance Expectations Can Dramatically Increase Performance
Done right, leaders know that raising performance expectations can dramatically increase performance. When people know that more is possible, they can lift their performance to higher, and often previously impossible, levels.

Hot Dogs and Performance Expectations
Joey Chestnut has been the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest winner for twelve out of the last thirteen years. There's no doubt he's the performance king in this arena. The question is what can we learn from this food eating competition master about raising performance expectations at work?

Here's how Joey drastically changed expectations about what was possible and the effect that it had on other contestants.

For 26 years (1974 to 2000), the hot dog eating record was between 10-20 hot dogs.
Then in 2001 Takeru Kobayashi smashed the record and ate 50 in one sitting.
From 2002 to 2016, after people saw that eating 50 hot dogs, once considered impossible, was possible, every new contestant was able to eat 50 or more hot dogs.
Then in 2016, Joey Chestnut consumed 70 hot dogs.

For decades, the performance target of 20 and then 50 hot dogs appeared impossible to beat. It was as if there was an invisible performance barrier which could not be surpassed. What happened?

The Performance Barrier Phenomenon
When performance barriers are overcome, people are often able to perform at heretofore unimaginable levels. They simply need to see someone else doing it to realize what was possible.

It is amazing what can be accomplished once one person crashes through the performance bar. Think about when Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile barrier in 1954. Runners had been trying to break the record since 1886. But just 46 days after Bannister's "impossible" performance, John Landy set a new record with a time of 3 minutes 58 seconds.

Then, only twelve months later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race.

Since then, over one thousand runners have broken the 4-minute mile barrier - something that had once been considered impossible by the best athletes in the world.

We see this performance barrier phenomenon everywhere - in speed records, in computer chip sizes, in acrobatics, and the list goes on.

Something is only impossible until it is shown to be possible.

Read How to Apply These Lessons to Your Business Now

12 Must-Have Leadership Tools to Rise Above

Effective leaders create organizational alignment by developing compelling strategies, building high performance cultures, and differentiating top talent.

At a strategic level, top leaders create understandable, believable, and implementable strategies, goals, roles, and success metrics that their teams are committed to making work.
At a cultural level, top leaders create a healthy, high performing, and aligned culture that accelerates both the people and business strategies.
At a talent level, top leaders consistently attract, develop, engage, and retain the people needed to execute the strategy in a way that makes sense.

Download 12 Research-Backed Leadership Tools Now

August 27, 2019

12 Must-Have Sales Tools to Rise Above

Effective sales leaders create organizational alignment by developing compelling go-to-market strategies, building high performance sales cultures, and differentiating top sales talent.

At a strategic level, top sales leaders focus on target clients with a differentiated value proposition, aligned success metrics, and the right bets.
At a cultural level, top sales leaders create a healthy and high performing sales culture that 100% aligns with the go-to-market strategy for success.
At a talent level, top sales leaders consistently attract, develop, engage, and retain top sales talent that fits the brand promise.

Download 12 Research-Backed Sales Tools Now

July 27, 2019

22 Questions Every New Manager Should Ask on Day One

New Managers Need to Hit the Ground Running on Day One

Based upon feedback from thousands of new managers, we have identified the most important questions new managers should ask on day one if they want to be set up for success.

Too Many New Managers Are Not Prepared

The shift from being an individual contributor to taking on the role of manager is huge. Unfortunately, very few new managers are well prepared to succeed without a lot of management training and support.

A recent McKinsey study found that nearly 70% of senior executives are only "somewhat" or "not at all satisfied" with the performance of their companies' front-line managers and that 81% of front-line managers are not satisfied with their own performance.

Even Experienced Leaders Stumble

Leadership can be daunting. But there are steps you can take that will minimize leadership mistakes and maximize both your performance and the performance of your team. Those steps are the same for new managers who are in over their head and for leaders who have been leading ineffectively.

Questions New Managers Should Ask On Day One

Smart leaders invest the time and energy to understand the current situation, complications, and implications of their role and their team from day one.

Here are twenty two questions new managers should ask, and answer, from the start. The questions are divided into categories of Alignment and Focus, Decision-Making, Resources, Information, and Interpersonal.

10 Alignment and Focus Questions New Managers Should Ask

How is my boss' success measured?
Has the team been achieving its objectives?
How do the team objectives map to overall company priorities?
Are individual and team goals clear?
Does everyone know how success and failure are measured?
Are rewards at the individual and team levels clearly understood?
Is everyone clear on their roles and responsibilities?
Have inter-dependencies between team members and key stakeholders been identified?
Is work organized in a way that clearly leads to accomplishing individual and team's goals?
Do we agree upon who our key stakeholders are?

Read the Remaining 12 Questions New Managers Should Ask

12 New Manager Tools to Rise Above

Effective managers create organizational alignment by ensuring strategic clarity, building high performance cultures and differentiating top talent.

At a strategic level, good managers set the right course, create clear goals, roles, success metrics, and career paths.
At a cultural level, good managers commit to making it a great place to work and value people as their most important resource while ensuring that their direct reports are held accountable and recognized for their contributions.
At a talent level, good managers consistently attract, develop, engage, and retain top talent that fits.

Download 12 Research-Backed New Manager Tools Now

June 29, 2019

3 Signs of Good and Bad Strategies

3 Signs of Good and Bad Strategies

Ineffective Strategies Hinder Growth.

Too many leaders settle for strategic growth plans that won't work. Why? If leaders do not understand the difference between good and bad strategies, their strategic plans are flawed from the beginning.

Strategies that lack an understanding of the key challenges that need to be overcome, or that have an insufficient focus, or that take an unrealistic approach are just wishful thinking.

The best leaders know not to settle or be fooled by a bad strategy - one that does not represent the hard work it takes to design and implement a good strategy.

3 Signs of a Bad Corporate Strategy
A bad strategy is likely to be loaded with slogans and wishful thinking. A bad strategy:

Fails to Address the Organization's Real Problems
A bad strategy fails to address the true root causes of stalled growth, ineffectiveness, and sub-par performance. They also tend to underestimate unintended consequences and the inevitable time delay between action and results.
Tries to Do Too Much
Strategic planning should not reflect a laundry list of "to do's" or strive for an unachievable summit. A company's strategy should focus on the critical few attainable strategic actions that will make the most difference. While every business can benefit from improvements on multiple fronts, plans that are diluted, confusing, or impractical do not work.
Is Misaligned
Strategies that are misaligned with the company culture, or with the people who must execute it, or with the market forces at play are just swimming upstream. Bad strategies tend to fight the natural flow of how work gets done and the capabilities required to be successful.

A Good Corporate Strategy

A strategy that can be effectively followed and that can guide an organization toward a successful future has three fundamental elements.

Voice of the Customer

"Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, solidify our new direction, and push our agency forward. As we look to rapidly scale, the clear and actionable critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves has really set us on a great path to success. This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level."

Matt Britton | CEO | MRY, a Publicis Groupe Company

About LSA Global

Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

12 Leadership Tools to Rise Above

Effective leaders grow their people and the business through organizational alignment by ensuring the strategic direction is clear, by building a high performance culture and by attracting, developing, engaging and retaining top talent.

At a strategic level, good leaders set the right course and create clear goals, roles, success metrics and career paths.
At a cultural level, good leaders ensure that the way work gets done is not only healthy, but 100% aligned with the business strategies.
At a talent level, good leaders consistently attract, develop, engage and retain top talent that fits.

Download 12 Research-Backed Leadership Tools Now

May 29, 2019

How to Sell Value versus Price to Land Big Deals

The real winners in complex and high stakes sales situations focus on customer value, not price - even when price is a critical factor.

How?

Top sellers know that buyers ultimately care more about the value that they receive than the price. A less expensive product or service that doesn't fit their needs or that adds more risk or complications is usually not worth it - you get what you pay for.

Defining Value During the Sales Process

Value is truly in the eye of the customer or buyer. In order to make an important and material purchase, a buyer has to fully understand how the tangible and intangible benefits outweigh the fully loaded costs.

If your sales team is feeling pricing pressure, remember that while price is an important piece of your value proposition, it is only one component of the overall buying decision.

What really counts is your ability to fully deliver what matters most.

The Role Your Value Proposition Plays

Your unique value proposition should be an essential part of your brand positioning, messaging and go to market sales strategy. Every sales rep should be able to clearly articulate what sets you apart from the competition to your target clients.

An effective value proposition answers three key buyer questions:

1. Relevance

How your offering will tangibly improve their situation in an area of high importance.

2. Differentiation
Why your offering is uniquely better than any other available alternative - is it better, faster, or cheaper?

3. Proof
What specific evidence do you have that your claims of superiority are accurate?

Defining Customer Value is Dynamic

The best sellers understand that their value proposition may need to be customized according to the needs of each customer. Not every buyer is the same; they have different needs, come from different backgrounds, occupy different situations, have different working styles, fulfill different roles, etc. High performing sellers intimately know their target customers and know how to craft a unique value recipe that is nuanced for each individual customer.

And because high performing sellers intimately know their target customers, they know that the unique recipe for customer value has important nuances across customers.

Read the Rest of the Article Now