3 Things You Can Do Right Now to Get Sales Firing Again - Activities For Sales Managers & Leaders

There is no question that in these economically uncertain times, sales leaders will need to get a whole lot smarter and more shrewd if they are going to keep their existing customers and they are going to need to be a whole lot more crafty if they are to win the slim pickings that are still out there to be had! That being said there are some fundamental sales management strategies that when implemented are guaranteed to generate sales within the next 90 days.

Strategy #1

Your first strategy will seem so simple and so easy that you are bound to say to yourself; "Is that all there is to it?" Please do not be fooled. Whilst the strategy below may seem simple, when done exactly as I have described below, it delivers some amazing results. So don't question, just do! It has been proven that, when effectively applied, the practice of regular one-on-one Sales Performance Coaching is the fastest and most effective vehicle to drive your sales growth. One-on-one Sales Performance Coaching is a powerful, time-tested, behaviour-changing, sales acceleration strategy and is the foundation on which permanent and consistent growth in your business is built. Whilst there are many different processes and skills to be an effective Sales Performance Coach, there are 2 activities that you can apply that would have an immediate impact to your sales drive.

Sit down with each of your salespeople either in person or by phone, ABSOLUTELY NO LESS THAN ONCE A FORTNIGHT. Depending on the state of your sales pipeline, you may need to ramp that up to once a week. Here's exactly all you need to do...

1. IN DEPTH review the week/ fortnight just past. When you are done...

2. IN DEPTH plan the week/ fortnight coming up.

That's it, that's all, that's the lot!

What does IN DEPTH MEAN?

IN DEPTH means just that. As an example, when prospecting for new business opportunities either with existing customers or new prospects, your salespeople must complete some primary due diligence and be able to answer some or all of the following questions before even fronting up or making the sales call. By having answers to the questions below will afford them the best opportunity for success. Your job in coaching them IN DEPTH is to ensure that before they invest their time and your money going to see a prospect, they are extremely well prepared. Imagine if you asked your salespeople some or all of the questions below before a business development call.

"So you are going to see Bob at ABC...."

1. What have you learned about ABC?

2. Who are all the "players"?

3. What does your research tell you about the critical issues that ABC is facing right now?

4. What is the evidence that they are facing these issues?

5. What do you believe the potential impacts of those issues to be? What evidence do you have that they are dealing with this issue?

6. What are their current constraints in solving that issue (in relation to time, people money)?

7. What is our answer for solving the issue?

8. What are the current market trends in their area?

9. What do we know about other companies that operate in the same space as they do?

10. What are ABC's key strategic initiatives?

11. What would their decision constraint criterion be in relation to time, people money?

12. How may we be in a position to help them?

13. What questions do you have prepared to elicit needs?

14. How do you plan on positioning the company and what it is we do?

15. What information should you bring back from your visit, to move this opportunity to the next stage of the sales pathway?

16. What is the objective of the sales call?

That is what I mean by IN DEPTH! Can you imagine just how much better prepared your sales people would be to take advantage of the opportunities out there with this kind of IN DEPTH probing?

Strategy # 2

Look for sales closest to the "bulls-eye!"

Imagine standing front on and facing the circles of a target. Imagine the "bulls-eye!" in the middle is where the money is. The circle just out side the bulls-eye represents your existing customers, let call them A's. They are the ones closest to the money. The next circle represents those customers that have bought from you occasionally, let call them B's. The circle just beyond the B's are your C's and they represent those prospective companies you have targeted but have yet to buy from you. Then outside of your C's we have the D's. These are prospects we have yet to consider.

Once again, as simple as this practice may seem, it is often neglected. When we need more sales, where do we go looking? Out there in D, E, F, and G land. Start looking for business closest to where the money is. Your sales opportunity is to expand your influence within your A and B customer's organizations and earn a higher percentage of their business. According to the 2008 CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Report only 33.6% of C.S.O's interviewed were able to farm additional revenues from their existing customer base, and that was last year during a comparatively good market!

Your role as sales manager is to help your salespeople identify where you have previously left money on the table. What are the opportunities with your A, B and C companies? Go work there! Let your Marketing department figure out how to bring the D, E, F, and G prospects in to where the C's, B's and A's reside. If your salespeople can't answer the questions in Strategy 1 with your A's B's and C customers, you have work to do. Have your people renew old relationships. Have them beat the bushes for new opportunities you have yet to capture with your A's, B's and C customers. They live closest to where the money lives. Go get em'!

Strategy # 3

Go to work and re-engineer your current sales process, if you have one. If you don't then get one! The latest research from the CSO Insights' 2008 Sales Performance Optimization Report shows that 'process-centric' sales teams outperform non-process-centric teams for every measurable metric.

Sales team performance and effectiveness has been shown to increase by as much as 40% when sales teams have a clear, proven sales process visible to them. The chances are extremely good that if you currently have 5 salespeople on your team, you most likely have 5 different sales processes going on all at once! What other part of your business runs on multiple different processes? Imagine running your business with half a dozen different accounting processes, or multiple IT or customer service processes? Sounds silly doesn't it? Yet sales teams do so all the time.

Whilst you can reengineer your current selling process, the exercise is not for the faint-hearted. It may be advisable that you bring in professional expertise to ensure the greatest success. You may just be too close to your own current sales methodology to see the gaps or dysfunction.

So there you have it 3 practical ideas you can implement right now to get sales firing again. At the very least run strategy #1 for 90 days. If you will do that, sales will start to flow again.

As one of Australia's leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian's work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices.

Ian is the author of "Bulletproof Your Sales Team The 5 Keys To Turbo Boosting Your Sales Team's Results" and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including "The fish stinks from the head!" and "Why Sales Training Doesn't Work."

Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question "How come some people can sell and most can't?" He can be reached via http://www.iansegail.com

Read Ian's latest free report - "The 7 Most Costly Mistakes Sales Managers Make" here http://www.bulletproofyoursalesteam.com [http://bulletproofyoursalesteam.com/free-report/7costlymistakes.html]

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12 Things Every Sales Super Star Knows

There are only three ways to sell more. Do more right. Do less wrong. Or, do both. Every sales super star knows that there are many skills and attitudes that contribute to their success, but there are twelve critical attributes that the sales super stars have integrated into their overall sales strategy. The following are in no particular order, but if you want long-term consistent success you will embrace and incorporate each of them into your routine sales attitudes and behaviors.

1. Make a sale, you'll make a living. Sell a relationship and you can make a fortune.

Poor salespeople focus on just closing the sale. Successful salespeople focus on closing the sale and the relationship. Which is your approach?

Selling is not about only closing the current prospect on a particular product or service that solves one of their pressing problems, needs or desires. It is about building a trusting relationship and partnership with them, by becoming a resource, and helping them solve their on-going problems, or satisfying their continuing and evolving needs and desires. Super stars know that the lifetime value of a client is far more than the value of one sale or transaction.

2. People buy when they are ready to buy not when you need to sell.

You don't change people's buying habits or circumstances. What you can do is accurately discover them and then attempt to create a sense of urgency. A lot of buying is done due to momentum. It is important to discover those 'real' reasons or circumstances as to why a prospect would buy now, later, not at all or never. Once you have discovered their real issues the sales super star tailors their appeal to those specific needs, desires and buying circumstances.

3. When you sell price you rent the business. When you sell value you own it.

Most poorly trained salespeople tend to lower the price when they receive price resistance. Any price, no matter how low, will always seem high to a prospect or customer if their perceived value is low. The key to effectively handling price resistance is to understand this simple, yet profound, concept.

Prospects and customers say they want low price, but what they really want is low cost. What is the difference?

Price is what customers pay for your product or service now. Cost is what the customer pays by buying late, not at all or wrong. It is their overall cost over an extended period of time.

The sales super stars sell value and don't defend price. In the long run, it is much easier to justify high price if the value is there, than poor quality and constant product/service problems.

4. Your prospect will tell you what you need to tell them to sell them.

Accurate and timely information is the key to success in selling. One of the biggest mistakes poor salespeople make is that they give information before they get information. In other words they talk too much. If you practice this approach, you are going to make one or all of the following mistakes. 1) You will give too much information (more than is necessary to make the sale). 2) You will give the wrong information (based on the prospect's needs, wants, desires or problems). 3. You will give information that could sabotage your success either in the short or long term.

5. If two people want to do business together they won't let the details get in the way. If two people don't want to do business together they will let any detail will get in the way.

If two people want to do business together they won't let any details get in the way. If a prospect doesn't want to do business with you they will let even the slightest detail get in the way. We are talking here about intent. Sales super stars know how to identify the prospect's real intent or their purpose. They are not easily misled and tend to probe deeper when they feel they are not getting the real truth from the prospect or customer.

6. They need to work as hard to keep the business as they did to get it in the first place.

Many salespeople make lots of promises or benefit statements while trying to sell a new prospect. A key concept to keep in mind while selling is that the close of the sale is not the end of the sales process, but the beginning of the sales relationship.

Sales super stars know that to ensure repeat business, customer loyalty, positive references and qualified referrals that their after sales service must be one of their strengths.

7. To sell more every year, they get better every year.

Life is an interesting relationship between paying the price and winning the prize. Between self-investment and rewards. Between investing time in personal development and your ultimate success. It is never too late to begin an aggressive on-going self development program. There are hundreds of books to read, audio CD's to listen to and seminars to attend. Sales stars don't wait for their organization to invest in them and their future value. They take full responsibility for the quality of their life and learning. They are pro-active in seeking out learning opportunities.

8. They manage their time and territory effectively.

Each of us gets 24 hours to do with what we will. Some salespeople wish they had more while others wish time would pass a lot quicker. Some salespeople act like they have an unlimited time bank available to them and that their prospects or clients will see them whenever the salesperson would like. The sales super stars understand the importance of using every available selling minute to its full advantage.

9. The close of the sale begins when the prospect agrees to see them.

People don't like to make decisions. The main reason is they don't want to make a poor or wrong decision. Traditional sales closing methods asks people to make a decision. For example. Do you want it in green or red? (Alternative choice) Do you want to use your pen or mine? (Action close) Can we write up an order now? (Direct close) Each of these closing techniques, even though they do work, have two fundamental problems.

1) They ask the prospect to make a decision. 2) The sales super stars don't use them.

Few salespeople have a 'closing strategy' a process that they follow with each and every real sales opportunity. They don't try an force a fit. They discover the prospects sense of urgency or they create it.

10. They never give up control of the sales process.

A common mistake poor salespeople make is that they lose control of the sales process at some point. There are many ways they accomplish this and here are just a few for your consideration:

They quote price before they have had a chance to build value.

They don't ask enough questions early in the sales process. They just ramble on.

They send out literature when asked, without first qualifying the prospect's agenda or reasons for requesting it.

They send people to their website without first getting some basic qualifying information and having a follow-up strategy after the prospect has perused their site.

Control of the sales process is one of the key strategies of the sales super star. They understand that control is not manipulation, but is in the ultimate best interests of the prospect or client. When the salesperson controls the sales process they are never broad-sided with a lost sale they thought was in the bag.

11. They never project their buying prejudices into the sales process.

The objection that you will tend to have the most difficulty answering successfully is that objection that is the most consistent with your own value system.

If you are a price buyer and your prospect objects to price you will tend to accept their objection. If you are the type of buyer who tends to think decisions over before making a purchase and your prospect says to you, "We need to think this over." Again, you will tend to go along with their objection as rational or making perfect sense (because that is the way you buy.)

This simple act of accepting sales objections that resonate with you because you can relate to them is nothing more than projecting your personal attitudes, opinions, judgments or biases into the sales process. When you project your personal beliefs into the sales process you are assuming that everyone who buys, buys the way you like to buy and often for the same reasons. The sales super star leaves their personal biases, prejudices and opinions at home.

12. They never lose their passion.

Passion is the great equalizer. It can make up for a lack of experience and knowledge. I am not suggesting that you not develop your knowledge or experience - only that until you do, your passion will be interpreted by others as a strong belief in yourself, your mission and your purpose.

Passion is different from enthusiasm. The old outworn cliché says "Act enthusiastic and you will become enthusiastic." I have never subscribed to this philosophy. The reason is that if enthusiasm is an act which you use when things are going well, how do you behave when your life is falling apart? Are you just as enthusiastic about failure, more problems than you deserve and any number of disappointments, frustrations and adversities?

Tim Connor, CSP is an internationally renowned sales, relationship, management and leadership speaker, trainer and best selling author. Since 1981 he has given over 3500 presentations in 21 countries on a variety of sales, management and relationship topics. He is the best selling author of over 60 books including; Soft Sell, Your First Year in Sales, Peace of Mind and The Male Gift Giving Survival Guide. His latest books just released are; 81 Management Challenges and Above Ground, A Story of Life?s Gifts To You. He can be reached at tim@timconnor.com, 704-895-1230 or visit his website at http://www.timconnor.com.

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Things To Do in Edinburgh for All Literature and Art Enthusiasts

UNESCO had declared Edinburgh - the city of Literature. It was also declared the favourite UK city for six years running by two leading dailies - The Observer and The Guardian. From the travel records, it is found that Edinburgh is one of the hottest tourist destinations and is counted as one of the top five tourist attraction both for people in UK and Scotland as well as people from different corners of the world. There are so many things to do in Edinburgh, right from the sight seeing to cultural activities, that it is considered a must visit for travel enthusiasts and for those who love digging English literature.

For those who are dilettantes in French and English literature or just dabble with the works of great authors and philosophers, Edinburgh is a sheer delight and a glorious opportunity for lots of introspection. The great Georgian and Victorian architecture itself is an interesting and immense input to the knowledge of English and French literature and some of the propounding philosophies. And not just for the connoisseur of literature, there are lots of things to do in Edinburgh for the art aficionados.

Besides, arts and literature, if you have an inclination towards historic things and activities, then you will also gain a good experience in Edinburgh. Edinburgh provides you a good opportunity to get back to the medieval times and era. You can look at the Victorian and Georgian architecture and handicrafts that are still preserved and maintained in Edinburgh.

For more details on places to see and Things to do in Edinburgh, you would find ready guides and travel books that will provide you all the details. Attractions during different parts of the year, festivals and celebrations, hospitality and culture, places to see and must visits - you would find everything in pamphlets and journals dedicated to Edinburgh.

Author: Mike Joe is a connoisseur of traveling and entertainment. He loves journeying far and wide in the quest of experiencing different lifestyles and gathering information about the best places to eat, drink and stay in different countries and lands. Over here, Mike talks about Things to do in Edinburgh.

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Marking 50 Years of Achebe's Things Fall Apart - Maintaining a Proud Presence in World Literature

50 years ago in 1958 a young Nigerian, Chinua Achebe, at the young age of 28, made major breakthrough for African Literature with the publication of his novel Things Fall Apart. This novel became widely read and recommended in schools and colleges all over the world. I could remember reading it for two years in succession 30 years ago when I was in secondary school in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and all of us in the class were as thrilled not only by the events but by the infectiously fresh idioms and imageries used to describe characters and scenes.

Up to now the imageries that lard the texture of the narrative still have place in the lexicon of my students. The most common included that comparing the speedy growth of Okonkwo's reputation and power: to "a bushfire in the harmattan" and that if a man should say yes his chi, his personal god, should also say yes, in accord with him. Unoka, Okonkwo's father, the "agbala" soon had his counterparts identified amongst us as much as were the fools and weaklings dubbed 'efulefus'. But Unoka was not seen as such a hateful character as his son was trying to make him, for he seemed like a lively fun-lover who had no problem with anyone, except of course his son who was ever burning with the hatred of a failed parentage and heritage as his father spent most of his time playing flute and drinking palmwine unmindful about tomorrow. I have had to read, teach, lecture, discuss, read and reread with new layers of meaning and interpretations unveiling themselves to me at each stage in that joyful cycle of engagement with it, with the text taking a permanent place in the imagination.

I am still trying to retrieve an essay I wrote whilst doing my masters on Achebe's unique style across his novels, then restricted to Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People and Arrow of God. For Anthills of the Savannah had not yet been written. So when I read the preamble to Joyce Ashuntantang"s interview of the literary sage in "50 Years After "Things Fall Apart": A Chat with Chinua Achebe" it was as if she was a spokeperson for our experience which I expect might be one all across Africa, especially. She recalled many secondary school children who were not macho enough ending up with the nickname "agbala" which meant womanly, a derogatory reference to a man in Umuofia who had not taken any titles as was the case with Unoka. Another name she identified was "efulefu" meaning worthless person,

Many of the proverbs from the text have flown beyond Umuofia to Anglo-literate communities across Africa like ours in Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Ghana and Gambia. For example, "The lizard that jumped from the high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no one else did"; "Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing I have learned to fly without perching"; "A child who washes his hands can dine with elders"; "An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb".

Chinua Achebe's fate was being sealed from 1948, when in preparation for independence, Nigeria's first university, now the University of Ibadan, opened, as an associate college of the University of London.

Achebe obtained such high marks in the college entrance examination that he was admitted in its first intake with a bursary to study medicine.

After a year of gruelling work, however, deciding that science was not made for him, he changed to English, history, and theology. But this switch cost him his scholarship. He now had to pay his tuition fees. Luckily, he received a government bursary, which helped him halfway together with money contributed by his family. His older brother, Augustine, gave up money for a trip home from his job as a civil servant to enable Chinua continue his studies. From its inception, the university had a strong English faculty which attracted the brightest intakes including those who like Achebe were to become famous writers like Wole Soyinka, Elechi Amadi, John Pepper Clark, Christopher Okigbo and, Kole Omotoso.

In 1950 Achebe made a further advance towards his literary goal when he wrote his first piece entitled,"Polar Undergraduate" for the University Herald even serving as its editor during the 1951-2 school year.Through irony and humour it celebrates the intellectual vigour of his classmates. He followed this with other essays and letters about philosophy and freedom in academia, some of which were published in another campus magazine, The Bug.

Achebe then wrote his first short story, "In a Village Church", which combines details of life in rural Nigeria with Christian institutions and icons, a style which was to be of much use in many of his later works. Other short stories he wrote during his time at Ibadan include "The Old Order in Conflict with the New" and "Dead Men's Path" which examine conflicts between tradition and modernity, with an eye toward promoting dialogue and understanding on both sides. Professor Geoffrey Parrinder's arrival at the university to teach comparative religion, set Achebe on exploring the fields of Christian history and African traditional religions.

He was now becoming critical of European literature about Africa.like Irish novelist Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson, about a cheerful Nigerian man who was working for an abusive British store owner for which Achebe and some of his classmates could not conceal their dislike . One of his classmates even went as far as announcing to the professor that the only enjoyable moment in the book is when Johnson is shot . In amother move to cultural nationalism, Achebe renounced his British name, Albert, replacing it with his indigenous name "Chinua."

At the end of his undergraduate studies in 1953 Achebe was so disappointrf at being awarded a second-class degree and not the first class that he had been expecting that he became uncertain as to how to proceed after that. So he returned to his hometown, Ogidi, to sort through his options. There, a friend from the university who visited him convinced him to apply for an English teaching position at the Merchants of Light school at Oba, a ramshackle institution with a crumbling infrastructure and a meagre library built on what the residents called "bad bush" or evil forest as a similar area in Things Fall Apart is called - a section of land thought to be tainted by unfriendly or evil spirits which was what was allocated to the Christian missionaries to build their church with the hope that they would not survive the evil spirits..

As a teacher, Achebe encouraged his students to be original in their work and read extensively. As the students did not have access to the newspapers he had read as a student, he made his own available in the classroom. But after four months here he grabbed an opportunity which arose in 1954 to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS), in Lagos, and left.

Achebe was assigned to the Talks Department, where he was responsible for preparing scripts for oral delivery, a task which helped him master the subtle nuances between written and spoken language, thus enabling him later to write realistic dialogue with ease.The city of Lagos, a huge conurbation teeming with recent migrants from the rural villages also made a significant impression on him, as it did on Ekwensi. Achebe revelled in the social and political activities around him later drawing upon such experiences when describing the city in No Longer At Ease.

While in Lagos, Achebe started work on a novel though quite a challenging task, since very little African fiction apart from Amos Tutuola's Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and Cyprian Ekwensi's People of the City (1954) had been written in English. While appreciating Ekwensi's work, Achebe worked hard to develop his own style, even as he pioneered the creation of the Nigerian novel itself. Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Nigeria in 1956 which brought issues of colonialism and politics further to the surface, was a significant moment for Achebe.

His first trip outside Nigeria also in 1956, when he was to undergo training in London at the Staff School run by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).was an opportunity for Achebe to advance his technical production skills, and to solicit feedback on his novel. In London he met a novelist, Gilbert Phelps, to whom he showed the manuscript. Phelps with great enthusiasm, asked Achebe if he could show it to his editor and publishers. Achebe declined, insisting that it needed more work.

On his return to Nigeria, Achebe started revising and editing it, now titled Things Fall Apart drawn from a line in the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats' poem "The Second Coming". He concentrated only on the story of a yam farmer, Okonkwo, adding sections, improving various chapters, and restructuring and tightening the prose.

By 1957 having sculpted it to his liking, he took advantage of an advertisement offering a typing service to send the only copy of his handwritten manuscript (along with the #22 fee) to the London company. He waited several months without receiving any communication from them, and began to worry.

So when his boss, Angela Beattie, was going to London on her annual leave he requested her to visit the company and act on his behalf which she did rather decisively, angrily demanding why it was lying ignored in the corner of the office. The company quickly sent a typed copy to Achebe. Beattie's intervention thus rescued and revived Achebe's spirit thus enabling him to continue as a writer. Had the novel been lost, he would have been so discouraged that he would probably have given up altogether.

In 1958 Achebe sent his novel to the agent earlier recommended by Gilbert Phelps in London. The agent upon receiving it sent it to several publishing houses. Some rejected it immediately, claiming that fiction from African writers had no market potential. Finally it reached the office of Heinemann. Executives there hesitated until an educational adviser, Donald MacRae, - just back from a trip through west Africa - read it and forced the company's hand with his succinct report: "This is the best novel I have read since the war"

In the book Okonkwo haunted by the failure of his father - a shiftless debtor fond of playing the flute and drinking palmwine - tortures himself not to resemble him in any way by working hard and not showing any feelings or compassion. It also evplores the complications and contradictions that arise within him and in the wider community when white missionaries arrive in his village of Umuofia. Exploring the cultural conflict, particularly after the first encounter between Igbo tradition and Christian doctrine and European administration that ensues, the novel shows the crumbling of the infexible and inhumane structures of Umuofia along with the equally infexible Okonkwo. Achebe thus retold the history of colonization from the point of view of the colonized, in reversal of previous images presented. For Achebe's emergence as "the founding father of African literature ... in the English language," is traceable to his reaction to Joyce Cary's novel Mister Johnson, set in Achebe's native Nigeria which he studied at the University College in Ibadan. In a curriculum full of Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, Mister Johnson stood out as one of the few books about Africa which Time magazine recently declared the "best book ever written about Africa," but Achebe and his classmates had quite a decidedly hostile reaction to. For they saw the Nigerian hero as an "embarrassing nitwit," as Achebe writes in , Home and Exile, and detected in the Irish author's descriptions of Nigerians "an undertow of uncharitableness ... a contagion of distaste, hatred, and mockery." Mister Johnson, Achebe writes, "open[ed] my eyes to the fact that my home was under attack and that my home was not merely a house or a town but, more importantly, an awakening story."

Home and Exile, which describes this transition to a new era in literature is then both a kind of autobiography and a rumination on the power stories have to create a sense of dispossession or to confer strength, depending on who is wielding the pen. Achebe depicts his gradual realization that Mister Johnson was just one in a long line of books written by Westerners that presented Africans to the world in a way that Africans didn't agree with or recognize, and he examines the "process of 're-storying' peoples who had been knocked silent by all kinds of dispossession." He hopes -- that this "re-storying" will continue and will eventually result in a "balance of stories among the world's peoples."

Things Fall Apart marked a turning point for African authors, who began to take back the narrative of the so-called "dark continent."

The style of Achebe's fiction draws heavily on the oral tradition of the Igbo. He weaves folk tales into the fabric of his stories, thus illuminating community values in both the content and the form of the storytelling. The tale about the Earth and Sky , for example, emphasises the interdependence of the masculine and the feminine. Although Nwoye enjoys hearing his mother tell the tale, Okonkwo's dislike for it is evidence of his imbalance. Later, Nwoye avoids beatings from his father by pretending to dislike such "women's stories".

Achebe' s free but deft use of proverbs, which often illustrate the values of the rural Igbo tradition. sprinkled throughout the narratives, repeating points made in conversation is deft. For Achebe, however, proverbs and folk stories are not the sum total of the oral Igbo tradition. In combining philosophical thought and public performance into the use of oratory - "speech artistry" -, his characters exhibit what he called "a matter of individual excellence ... part of Igbo culture." as Okonkwo's friend Obierika voices the most impassioned oratory, crystallising the events and their significance for the village.

Ceremonial dancing and the singing of folk songs also reflect the realities of Igbo tradition. The elderly Uchendu, attempting to shake Okonkwo out of his self-pity, refers to a song sung after the death of a woman: "For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well." This song contrasts with the "gay and rollicking tunes of evangelism" sung later by the white missionaries.

Okonkwo's tragedy perhaps could be seen as emanating from his furious manhood overpowering everything feminine in his life, including his own conscience. For example, when he feels awful after killing his adopted son, he asks himself: "When did you become a shivering old woman?" All things feminine are distasteful to him, in part because they remind him of his father's laziness and cowardice. The women in the novel, meanwhile, are obedient, quiet, and absent from positions of authority - despite the fact that Igbo women were traditionally involved in village leadership. Nevertheless, the need for feminine balance is highlighted by Ani, the earth goddess, and the extended discussion of "Nneka" ("Mother is supreme") in chapter fourteen. Okonkwo's defeat is seen by some as a consequence of his suppression of a balancing feminine ethos.

Heinemann published 2,000 hardcover copies of Things Fall Apart on 17 June 1958. According to Alan Hill, employed by the publisher at the time, the company did not "touch a word of it" in preparation for release. The book received such a rousing reception that merits a whole book or at least an article to detail.Mean while as we celebrate 50 years of Things Fall Apart the book keeps moving into new corners of the globe while holding and tickling the imagination of those of us who have grown and fed on it for decades.

Born and schooled in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Arthur Smith has taught English for over thirty years at various Educational Institutions. He is now a Senior Lecturer of English at Fourah Bay College where he has been lecturing for the past eight years.

Mr Smith's writings have been in various media. He participated in a seminar on contemporary American Literature in the U.S. in 2006. His growing thoughts and reflections on this trip which took him to various US sights and sounds could be read at http://www.lisnews.org

His other publications include: Folktales from Freetown, Langston Hughes: Life and Works Celebrating Black Dignity, and 'The Struggle of the Book'

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