Becoming A Business Leader with Mike Schultz

President of RAIN Group, Mike Schultz is world-renowned as a consultant and expert in sales performance improvement and co-author of three books.

Why do most companies operate on limited sales performance?

Companies have to get a lot right to be firing on all sales thrusters. When we look at sales performance overall, we typically examine over 150 separate factors. Here’s a bit of detail on each.

Just kidding. Here’s the top 4:

1. Readiness: Sales people (or professionals or entrepreneurs) won’t sell. Even if they have the skills and knowledge, they’re just not wired for sales success.
2. Action: Sales people don’t do the right things…or enough things…to win. Companies don’t help when they don’t set the right expectations, don’t help sellers understand the sales process and buying processes, and don’t put the enablers in place that will allow them not only to take the right actions, but to take them efficiently.
3. Capability: Sales people don’t have the skills or the knowledge to succeed. Often the focus is on getting people the skills, but in a complex sale, the knowledge is just as important. That is, only if you want to be credible and have people trust you. Perhaps the most critical skill is the ability to lead a masterful sales conversation. Those that can do that shoot right to the top of the chart, and those that can’t – no matter what else they do – always seem to struggle.
4. Evaluation: There’s no process (or it’s bad…anemic…etc.) to measure performance, keep people accountable, and take what they learn and improve continuously.

In a struggling economy, what should businesses focus on in order to drive sales?

Sell value to people with money! There’s plenty of money around even in a bad economy. Problem is, in a good economy, it’s easy to get. In a bad economy, you have to prove the value. To prove the value in the minds of buyers, you need to:

• Resonate: Get them to see how they want and need what you sell.
• Differentiate: Get them to see how you stand out from the crowd.
• Substantiate: Get them to believe that what you say will happen will happen.

Do those three things to people who can buy, and you’ll be in great shape.

What are some of your passions?

I’d like to say working out, but the flab would give me away.

Sales is one. Sounds like a line-o-cheese but it’s true. Studying top sales performance for me is pretty addicting. Besides that, spending time with my family is very important to me, my wife and I do a lot together.

I live on a lake so fishing and boating grab a lot of my time, as well as martial arts (17 years in), and watching nerdy TV shows like Battlestar Galactica.

First kid on the way, too. Might as well erase everything else right now…

Tell us a little about the creation of the RAIN Group.

It all started when I was 5 and I read my first Wall Street Journal…OK, maybe not.

I had been either consulting about selling or leading entrepreneurial businesses my whole career, and then I had the opportunity to start RAIN Group with John Doerr who had spent his career in consulting and executive education firms. We started with two cell phones, two laptops, and the dog. (Phones and laptops are gone. Old dog still comes to the office every day.)

Since then, we’ve been in all the national major business outlets (e.g. Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur., etc.), published a few books, most recently Rainmaking Conversations, were noted in Inc. Magazine’s list of the fastest growing companies in the country, and have had an all-around good time helping people and companies sell more.

What has RAIN Group been working on recently?

Lots! Let’s see, we are launching Entrepreneurial Selling on October 13^th, we just launched a white paper Why Sales Training Fails, have been flying around consulting, training, and speaking, and generally having a good time growing RAIN Group.

Entrepreneurial Selling is an online sales training program developed for entrepreneurs and sellers at growing businesses. We’ve brought in the best and brightest to be a part of the program faculty, including Brian Halligan, David Goldsmith, Jill Konrath, Michael Stelzner, Marshall Goldsmith, Carol Roth, Michael Port, John Jantsch, Andrew Sobel, and many more. You can check out the details at www.entselling.com.

As a business leader, what do you do to stay productive each day?

I don’t know, I just wake up and work.

I watch TV and read fiction at night to take my mind off of things. Otherwise I’d think about work all night. Must…rest…brain…but then back to it in the morning.

What makes a great leader?

I’ve always remembered that Peter Drucker said great leaders all shared the same 8 practices.

1. They ask, “What needs to be done?”
2. They ask, “What is right for the enterprise?”
3. They develop action plans.
4. They take responsibility for decisions
5. They take responsibility for communicating
6. They focus on opportunities rather than problems
7. They ran productive meetings
8. They think and say “we” rather than “I”

If I’d add one, I’d say they lead through change well.

About Mike Schultz

President of RAIN Group, Mike Schultz is world-renowned as a consultant and expert in sales performance improvement and co-author of the books Professional Services Marketing (Wiley, 2009) and  Rainmaking Conversations: How to Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation (Wiley, 2011).

Mike has worked with organizations such as Monitor Group, American Management Association, Instron, Ameresco, Pegasystems, Fidelity Investments, Ryder, Quintiles, Roche, Navigant Consulting, Bank of America, Mellon Bank, IDC Research, and dozens of others to improve sales performance and develop rainmakers.

Mike is Publisher of RainToday.com, the world’s largest publication (100,000 subscribers) and membership site focused on marketing, sales and business growth for professional services businesses, and he is on the faculty in the marketing division at Babson College.

News outlets such as Business Week, Inc. Magazine, MSNBC, and others have featured Mike’s original articles and white papers, and frequently quote him as an expert.

Mike has written hundreds articles, case studies, research reports, books, and other publications in the areas of selling and marketing, writes for the RAIN Selling Blog. He delivers dozens of keynotes each year at leading industry conferences around the world

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