In conversation with:
Dean Mannix, CEO, SalesITV
More about Dean.
Follow Dean on Twitter @deanmannix
Dean Mannix is one of Australia’s leading sales coaches. As the co-founder and CEO of SalesITV, Dean’s on a mission to empower sales professionals.
He has more than 25 years experience in sales-performance consulting in over 25 countries. His client list includes Westpac, Macquarie Bank, News Corp, Meridian Energy, Medibank and Boston Consulting Group.
Dean has authored the world’s largest single-source sales and service training library. It includes 125+ skill-building video sessions, models, strategies, scripts and more, and is used by thousands of salespeople every day.
1. Who, or what, taught you the most about communication? Tell us more.
Poor communicators. Every time I cringe, I’ve learnt something new.
2. Nature or nurture? Can people learn to be great communicators, or must you be born that way?
Nurture. It’s just another skill if you’re committed to finding your personal version of great communication.
3. What makes someone an extraordinary communicator? What characteristics, personality traits, experiences or otherwise ‘add up’ to make them so?
I think the most important skill is empathy and respect for your audience. I’ve seen many leaders with great presentation skills deliver very poor communications. They failed to take the audience’s perspective and treated intelligent adults like naughty or stupid children.
4. What’s your secret sauce? When you sit down to write an important message to your team or clients, what process or method do you use?
Achieving your desired outcome for any communication is not about the content. It’s about the conversation you need to have to achieve it.
Here’s my process. I write:
1. The outcome I want to achieve.
2. The action I need others to take.
3. The thoughts and emotions I need to create.
4. The headline I’ll use to capture attention.
5. Detail, as an option.
I’ll then:
6. Finish by repeating my headline.
7. Go back to the start of the communication and remember to connect and build rapport first!
5. Does that process change when you’re under pressure with a short deadline? How?
Only if I’m failing to be deliberate about my communication. Pressure and short deadlines should be a trigger for being even more committed to great communication.
6. What principles do you swear by when presenting to a live group?
Put pressure on the audience as early as possible. Make them think and share early. Get the focus away from you as the presenter and on what the audience cares about.
7. Some people say emotions are irrelevant at work: ‘Focus on the facts!’ What’s your take on that?
Those people are lazy. Great communication and great relationships take effort but the commercial (and personal) payoff is massive.
8. How do you approach influencing someone more senior than you?
Act and think like a peer rather than a subordinate. Take their perspective and speak to their issues before speaking to your desired outcomes. Come armed with next steps and actions that require little effort on their part. Always ask them what they think the next steps are before offering your suggestions.
9. What are your favourite strategies for motivating people to action?
I love praise as a motivator. But I’m guilty at times of failing to balance this with helping people understand the gap between where they are and where I need them and expect them to be. I do my best to be an example and inspire others to be more committed to being better, valuable and accountable.
10. What’s the toughest message you’ve ever had to write or deliver? How did you handle it? Would you do things differently now?
I’ll stick with business on this one.
My toughest message was having to fire a 33-year-old mother when I was a 25-year-old manager. This was back in the mid-1990s when there weren’t HR blogs to read about how to do this effectively.
It was a complete surprise to her. I was very factual and I did it in her office. If I had my time again, she would have been far more aware that she was approaching this situation (poor management on my part). I also would have had the conversation out of her work environment to enable her to be emotional without her team outside her office.
11. What’s your favourite quote or saying about communication (serious or funny)?
“Shut up and listen.” (Anon)
“I would have written you a short letter but I didn’t have time so I wrote you a long one instead.” (Blaise Pascal)
12. What advice would you give people who aren’t confident communicators or want to improve?
Developing any skill to a level of excellence requires practice, awareness and hard work outside your comfort zone.
Excellence requires physical practice that’s often best done in private.
Awareness requires honest feedback and video is a cruel but very useful tool. Practise presenting your content as if you were someone else or feeling an extreme emotion. For example, pretend you’re Robin Williams or pretend you’re incredibly angry. Role playing how others would present, and presenting with extreme emotion, often unlock skills and confidence we didn’t know we had.
13. Who do you personally know that you admire as an extraordinary communicator? What makes them so good?
Tony Robbins has truly mastered every aspect of communication except brevity. I was also incredibly impressed when I saw Peter Costello (former treasurer) speak at an event. It blew me away how poor he was on television and how amazing he was in person.
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Know an extraordinary communicator? This series taps the hard-won insights of exceptional communicators. Who do you admire? Please connect us: hello@credosity.com