I have often thought about where I’ve come from, why I am like I am and why I am now doing what I am doing, how much of it is nature and how much is nurture?
 
I have written before about my maternal Grandfather HERE, who no doubt had a significant influence on my life, I was never fortunate enough to meet my paternal Grandfather, the person I am named after Charles Bernard Pidcock. He was my father’s father, at the age of 53 (over 50 years ago) he woke up with a headache and was dead by smoko from an aneurism – tragic in so many ways.
 
Stories from family and friends of his character are famous - his leadership, entrepreneurialism, sense of humour and drive are all legendary on the North Coast of NSW in the timber industry.
 
This letter he wrote a few years before his death to the local council is in response to their request for a donation to a public road– it’s worth a read if you have the time.
 
I can definitely see where I got some of my attributes though he was far more ahead of his time than I, lots of this is still a challenge for society these days.
 
Enjoy….

Working for yourself by yourself after nearly 30 years in organisations working for people with teams creates a variety of challenges and opportunities - some predictable others not.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve experienced has been finding and keeping operating rhythm or flow, I have tried a number of techniques and came across “Eight Before Eight” from Ben Hardy which has improved my effectiveness exponentially.

Eight before Eight:

1. Get +7hrs Sleep – Recently I went to a Productivity seminar, the number one thing anyone can do to improve how effective they are is get a good night's sleep.
2. Prayer and / or Meditation – Whichever you prefer. It has helped ground me, there are plenty of apps out there – free or paid & are worth every cent.
3. Journal - For between 5–15mins, the most productive days I have had is when I have done this morning & night, read more about the benefits here.
4. Hard Physical activity – Spin class, skip or power walk all wake up your body, get it ready for the day ahead by getting your blood to flow & heart pumping.
5. Courage – One of the more difficult on my list, many say that courage is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets.
6. Be creative – Paint, write, draw or build, see on TED Talk. 
7. Read or Listen to something uplifting – Spotify, TED talk, articles and other pieces – the list is endless – Neil Diamond and Cold Chisel are my favourites.
8. Invest in your key relationships – Social or commercial, meaningful relationships are well recognised and a significant contributor towards happiness.

I’ve built a very simple template that helps me keep track of how I am travelling, a bit of measurement / self-accountability which all seems to be helping me. Click here if you would like a copy.

**Charlie is an expert in developing external sales teams and people, particularly where relationships and solution selling are the key differentiators. www.charliepidcock.com.au

I wrote a few months ago about the concept of leading and lagging indicators when measuring sales performance which you can reread by clicking here.

More recently I read “Cracking the Sales Management Code” by Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana called which I highly recommend if you have the time.

The concept is fairly simple in theory but challenging in practice and based on AOR which stands for Activities, Objectives and Results, sounds easy right?

The authors analysis of over 300 companies found that only 17% of metrics are highly manageable in terms of their activities and 24% deal with business results – it really makes you wonder what we are doing to ourselves.

Good companies, who are clear about their Objectives only measure Activities that ensure these goals are met. Nothing. Else. Matters.

It is critical for organisations to be clear in their objectives or they risk running around in circles in measuring themselves to a standstill, it’s like swimming against a strong current.

As John E Jones said “What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well, what gets rewarded gets repeated”.

When your team are clear about what to measure in terms of their activities, made accountable and then managed well it they will surely achieve the results or something else is wrong….

If you would like a summary of the book please click here.

**Charlie is an expert in developing external sales teams and people, particularly where relationships and solution selling are the key differentiators. www.charliepidcock.com.au

In 1992 at the age of 22 I finished university; I am not sure which of those, or perhaps it was both that lead me to the thinking I knew everything, it took one day in sales to realise that wasn’t the case – ouch!!!

Thankfully, my managing director had the good sense to send me to a 3 day sales training course which changed my life. I remember thinking at the time that I could not believe that people could spend so much time at university learning (in lots of cases) useless information and something so important as practical interpersonal skills could be learned and applied with immediate effect.

The sales trainer became a lifelong mentor of mine and I recall him vividly saying that day, “there is a dearth of good sales people in Australia.” It was like he planted a seed in my brain and it became my life long journey to work it why.
It has taken a few years but I reckon I have got it nailed, mostly managers don’t do any of these as well as they could:

1. Recruit - They’ll look at someone and say to themselves “I’ve got a vacancy, he / she looks like a sales person, talks like a sales person, lets give them a job”. I appreciate it is not quite that simple but thorough processes including multiple face to face interviews, profiling, reference checks are available to all though are rarely used with any consistency or discipline. Additionally, I have worked in organisations where HR have got sabotaged recruitment using “process” as an excuse for their ineffectiveness – please.
2. Induct - Most induction programs go like this…. “here are your keys, here is a phone and customer list now off you go and sell.” Often this is called the sink or swim mentality but for me this is like throwing a brick to someone who is drowning. I did this many years ago and ruined some great possible careers in sales and it still sits with me poorly – at best this is incompetence and at worst it is disrespecting people’s careers whilst demonstrating a total lack of empathy.
3. Training - Richard Branson said a few years back, “Train people so they can leave, lead them so they don’t want to.” Too many companies don’t train their people and the ones that do are most often ticking a box, spending what is in their budget regardless of the relevance or sending them on some generic cost-effective workshop (read cheap).
4. Coaching  - When an apprentice electrician is on site he has a foreman looking over his shoulder saying don’t touch the red & the blue wire because you will go, “bang”. Likewise, a graduate account has a finance manager saying that a journal entry will go in that column, not that one. A sales person goes out by him or herself going from prospect to prospect hoping that some one will speak to them and be interested in what they have to offer. No cosy desk, no fridge to put your lunch in, no support from someone in the next cubicle when you have had a tough conversation; they just must get on with their next call.  
5. Relationships – 70% of people leave their job is because of their relationship with their line manager – Sales Managers have a huge role to play here.

I’d love to hear thoughts and experiences. 
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**Charlie is an expert in developing external sales teams and people, particularly where relationships and solution selling are the key differentiators. www.charliepidcock.com.au