I want to go back to that fun brewery I went to last night- where lots of happy people sat around consuming large amounts of beer in oversized mugs.   It all started at 8:30 in the morning, here is Boebligan when they brought in some giant pretzels with coffee and juice for breakfast. What’s this? No bagels? Donuts? Muffins? Not in Germany, pretzels are their morning delicacy and they are proud of it. Especially when they put butter inside them 

This week I get to deliver the training program that I’ve been developing for the past 6-7 months. It’s designed for support engineers and technicians who must increase their customer soft skills. The content focuses on phone and email skills throughout the resolution process. The way it works is that I deliver it for a few days and then watch them deliver it for a few days. It is always gratifying teaching soft skills to technical engineers who haven’t had as much exposure to it. I get to watch lightbulbs go off and listen to team members articulate their new skills. 

Agilent has flown a dozen managers from all over Europe to learn how to deliver this program. This group is eager, motivated, extremely professional and human. It is so refreshing being around people who have been with their companies for a minimum of 7 years and counting. It’s like the old days of employment when you knew you were in there for the long haul and didn’t look to quit or react over every wrong turn your organization took.

Things feel orderly being here- they come together and work.  I strive for a new level of excellence and professionalism- maybe the pretzels are working!

I was born in Italy and lived there for 12 years.  I still speak my Italian but more like a 12 year old adolescent who wants attention. My first language is French, which I speak fluently. Next week I will be in Germany delivering training and certifying a team of trainers on my customized program. Somehow, I feel at home in Europe; its a home I left many years ago that I’ve returned to visit.

It is so gratifying to be in a place in my professional life where I can travel to Europe and train.  The cultural differences are manageable and there is a familiarity that is sensible and inviting. I train in English and after the teams are certified on my program, they usually translate it for their countries.

The entire week, it’s about all the countries coming together to learn the material. And yet each country holds the program in a unique and necessary way. The Germans provide the analysis and detail while the Spaniards are proud and have a sense of humor. The French are classy and great skeptics while the Italians are charming and have a easy going sense of timing, the Scandinavians don’t waste any time and when they speak, it’s important. The Brits bring their dry humor and level of excellence while the Italians bring their charm and their messaging. The Israelis are determined and pragmatic and the American choreographs this dance.

As I stir this cultural melting pot, I must maintain a keen sense of awareness and learn how to separate skill deficiencies from cultural deficiencies. So when a participant says, “we could never do that in our country” I must understand their culture or their resistance to the new skill which is hiding.

“I’m sorry I just can’t help you, that is something you will have to figure out.”

That’s what I heard yesterday when I approached someone about my creative paralysis. That response flattened me out temperarily and then the pendulum swung back to full force.

Perhaps it’s the rebel in me who hears NO and says, watch this. Perhaps it’s the hopeful part of me that believes there is always a way and NO is not the path. Perhaps it’s the ambitious side of me that believes we fail when we say, I’ll try it or I can’t do it. So when I hear NO from someone else about my work and my contribution, I feel compelled to convince them otherwise.

It is a sad sales reality when many salespeople accept NO from someone who can’t say YES. 

Last week I coached about a dozen inside sales reps and provided a live demo for the group on navigating techniques. I like to call it the ”Josiane unplugged” session because they get to see me in action and it’s a great way to model the skill.

Navigating is the 3rd skill in the TeleSmart 10 training methodology. It falls in the early part of the sale cycle as it follows the Time Management and Introducing skill. This skill is all about building org charts and leveraging contacts by calling deeper and wider and aiming for 2×2. In org chart terms, that means calling two people deep, two people wide, two people up the chain and two people down the chain. This totals 8 potential contacts you can have for an account instead of one.

Now that you have names of 8 contacts, you must try to reach them live. You do not leave voice mail messages but instead press the O and # key to get yourself back out and reconnected. You keep going down the list of contacts you have until you reach a live one. When you finally get someone live, you immediately leverage the names you have in your opening to capture credibility and earn more time. Here’s how it works:

In building the org chart, you learn the following with 5 contacts:

Bob Smith, Director of IT

Tom Jones, IT Manager

Eric Day, Systems Engineer

Donna Stuart, Project Manager

Mark Toll, Network Administrator

Let’s say you get Eric on the line, you want to say, “Hi Eric, I’m with ABC Company and I understand you work closely with Bob, Tom, Donna and Mark and the reason for my call is to introduce our product.”

Easy to do and yet very powerful.