Grant Stanley Consulting

Sales leaders are obsessed with closing. Even movies elevate closing to a mythical status. We’ve all heard the line, and maybe even implored our salespeople to, “Always be closing” (Alec Baldwin in “Glengarry Glen Ross”). The “State of Inbound 2018” report, which compiled the responses of more than 6,200 leaders from around the world, identified “closing more deals” as the No. 1 priority of sales leaders. Nothing else was even close! It’s no wonder that everyone would like a quick fix. Google the term “sales closing” and you will find: “How To Close A Sale: 7 Closing Techniques And Why They Work”, “20 Modern Sales Closing Techniques That Will Help You Win More Sales” and a host of other closing miracles. However, despite all the fanfare, focusing on closing alone does not work. Here is why. The data from nearly 2 million evaluations and assessments of salespeople conducted by Objective Management Group, shows that fewer than 6 percent of all salespeople are stron...

It can be seen from my transition curve that it is important for all of us to understand the impact that change will have on our own personal construct systems; and for us to be able to work through the implications for our self-perception. Any change, no matter how small, has the potential to impact on an individual and may generate conflict between existing values and beliefs and anticipated altered ones. One danger for the individual, team and organisation occurs when an individual persists in operating a set of practices that have been consistently shown to fail (or result in an undesirable consequence) in the past and that do not help extend and elaborate their world-view.  Another danger area is that of denial where people maintain operating as they always have denying that there is any change at all.   Both of these can have detrimental impact on an organisation trying to change the culture and focus of its people . Anxiety The awareness that events l...

I will probably incur the wrath of many a Project Manager with this post but hey I have had that happen to me many times when working with them on various change initiatives. Anyway here we go … It never ceases to amaze me how the words Project Management and Change Management can be used in the same breath. In my experience (and this is not a criticism of PMs) Project Managers cannot execute Change Management because the two disciplines require a whole different set of skills and competencies. Unfortunately this seems to be something that is on the rise and it makes me wonder whether this contributes to so many change failures. Both disciplines aim for totally different outcomes: •Project Management is about installation. It focuses on a plan built around events and timelines with the aim of getting from a current state (no installation) to a future state (installation achieved). •Change Management is about adoption. It focuses on the people aspects of the change with...