Are you getting enough? Leads, sales, repeat business... The consultative sales process disected and systemised - essential reading for any salesperson, professional or business owner looking to make more sales quickly and easily.
Check it out!
Are you getting enough? Leads, sales, repeat business... The consultative sales process disected and systemised - essential reading for any salesperson, professional or business owner looking to make more sales quickly and easily.
This ain't your Daddy's sales manual. It bears little resemblance to Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich or the other extreme, Donald Trumps Book, Think Big and Kick ..This is geared toward you. The sales game has changed.
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Find The Keys To Sales Success!
The worlds foremost producer of personal development and motivational audio programs offers an expanded version of Brian Tracy's sales classic.
The Unsuccessful Salesperson says, "the other guy has the best territory."
The Successful Salesperson says, "every territory is the best one."
The Unsuccessful Salesperson says, ""that company will never buy."
The Successful Salesperson says, "I can make that company buy."
Confidence and self-esteem are just two of the factors that separate the successful salesperson from the unsuccessful one. In this comprehensive program, Brian Tracy -- an expert sales tainer -- shares more than 50 practical, day-to-day techniques for increasing your confidence in your sales abilities and boosting sales profits, including:
Brian Tracy will help you master the art of closing the deal.
Price: $19.95
Here in a short, compact and concise format is the basics of how to persuade more people more effectively, more ethically, and more often. Ziglar draws from his fundamental selling experiences and shows that while the fundamentals of selling may remain constant, sales people must continue learning, living, and looking: learning from the past without living there; living in the present by seizing each vital moment of every single day; and looking to the future with hope, optimism, and education. His tips will not only keep your clients happy and add to your income, but will also teach you ideas and principles that will, most importantly, add to the quality of your life. Content drawn from Ziglar on Selling.
Price: $9.99
Distilling decades of experience, advertising executive Robert Solomon has compiled the definitive resource for advertising and marketing account executives: a fast-reading, pocket-size, actionable checklist of 58 essential ideas to help client service professionals improve their account management strategy and skills.
Now fully updated and revised, The Art of Client Service is geared to the entire account team -- copy writers, art directors, and planners, researchers, media executives, support staff -- anyone who works with clients. With brevity, levity, and clarity, Solomon recounts both successes and failures, and uses them to formulate fast-reading, actionable tips, including:
You'll also find new chapters on technology in advertising, the changing role of client service in an increasingly high-tech era, and an updated bibliography of essential reading.
Price: $19.95
Blogs, networking sites, and other examples of the social web provide businesses with a largely untapped marketing channel for products and services. But how do you take advantage of them? With The New Community Rules, you'll understand how social web technologies work, and learn the most practical and effective ways to reach people who frequent these sites.
Written by an expert in social media and viral marketing, this book cuts through the hype and jargon to give you intelligent advice and strategies for positioning your business on the social web, with case studies that show how other companies have used this approach.
The New Community Rules will help you:
Many consumers today use the Web as a voice. The New Community Rules demonstrates how you can join the conversation, contribute to the community, and bring people to your product or service.
Price: $24.99
Omnipresent Sales Forces
In the increasingly competitive business landscape, sales teams of business establishments have become indispensable features. From start ups to established big multi-national companies - every organization that sells products or services has a sales team. The size of the sales teams may vary from a one man army to battalions of sales people, but a sales department is a must for most companies and firms.
Role of Sales Managers
Usually a sales manager leads the team of sales people. This need not be true in all cases. With sales persons reporting directly to the vice-president or to the owner (in case of small firms) there are no sales managers in many organizations. However, a sales manager is expected to lead the sales team. He is supposed to be the friend, philosopher, and guide of the sales persons. Typically a sales manager monitors the progress of the individual sales persons and the team as well. Due to various reasons, ranging from personal to professional, performance of the sales team gets affected from time to time. The sales manager sorts out the professional issues and advises as a friend on personal ones. He also acts as a link between the sales staff and senior management.
Sales Training Consultants are not Mere Substitutes, They are Better
In the absence of a sales manager this vital role can be entrusted to sales training consultants. Sales training consultants are seasoned and skilled sales professionals that have sound market knowledge and profound insight in to human behavior as well. Their sales wisdom and information about the latest market trends come with diligent study and years of in field experience. Sales training consultants are adept at detecting flaws in the sales methodology of a business organization. They are equally skilled in zeroing in on causes of under- performance of the sales staff. They are part marketing experts and part psychologists that are respected for their capability to suggest remedies to increase sales. From motivating the sales staff to weeding out unproductive sales practices, these gurus of marketing are good at the entire gamut of sales related activities. These pros not only perform what sales managers can but they also do some more such as:
Sales training consultants can present the much emphasized out-of-the-box thinking.
· They can develop better rapport with the sales staff by their friendly and easy manners. It has been observed that sales personnel trust sales training consultants and open up about their problems.
· They can call a spade a spade when it comes to honest analysis as they are not on the pay roll of the hiring firm. So, hire a sales training consultant to boost your sales with the use of tested and proven methods.
Doug Dvorak is the CEO of DMG Inc., a worldwide organization that assists clients with productivity training, corporate humor and workshops, as well as other aspects of sales and marketing management. Mr. Dvorak's clients are characterized as Fortune 1000 companies, small to medium businesses, civic organizations and service businesses. Mr. Dvorak has earned an international reputation for his powerful educational methods and motivational techniques, as well as his experience in all levels of business, corporate education and success training. http://www.dougdvorak.com
Online Sales Training has been on the verge of breaking through to the mass market for many years. With some of the recent technological advancements and the changing dynamics of the business world due to the global recession, there is set to be massive increase in adoption in 2009/2010. Many people are still hesitant about trying out this style of sales training.
Why should you consider it?
Low Purchase Costs - This is especially relevant in times of a downward economic climate. In difficult trading times you should be increasing year access to training, increasing your skills, practicing new approaches and generally striving to be better than the rest of the heard. Traditionally the training marketplace has said that you need to "Increase your spend on training". I think this is wrong. You need to increase your adoption and access to training. The very best way to do this is with online training. A traditional open workshop may cost you anywhere from $200 to $2000 while a good in house program is unlikely to be found for less than $3,000 and very often more like $5,000 +. It is possible to get the same insights from professional sales trainer instantly via the online methods for a fraction of the cost. Very often a good online sales training program can be accessed instantly for $99 for the key modules that you require.
Pay Only For What You Need -As a sales trainer I have often found that people will attend my sales training program because they want an answer to one specific problem or they want to ficus in on one key area. Online sales training allows you to choose the module that fits you and access it instantly. You only pay for what you need.
For free online sales training check out my links below...
Why not sign Up for '21st Century Selling' - The Bi-weekly Sales and Marketing Newsletter. It's free and easy and it's jam packed with Information to help you make more sales. Use the Easy Sign Up box at Online Sales Training. Also - check out the Free Sales Training Videos Here- Online Sales Training.
Proper sales training is crucial for the success of any business! The efficiency of your sales depends on various interrelated factors such as the efficiency and the skills of your business members, the ability of your company to create and explore new sales opportunities, as well as the ability to close potential sales. In addition, a proper customer relationship management can maintain the clients' interest in the products or services offered by your business. Considering the fact that the profitability of a company is determined by its members' relations with clients, a successful business should focus on better understanding customers' needs, enhancing the communication with clients by providing good feed-back and also on improving interactions with clients. With the means of effective sales training programs, you will be able to strengthen the relations between clients and the members of your business.
Whether you are the owner of a large, prominent company or a small business, proper sales training of your team members is the key in achieving and maintaining a strong position on the market. In order to strengthen the relations with your loyal customers and to attract new clients to your products or services by increasing the exposure, popularity and credibility of your business, you have to make sure that your business team has a solid sales training. A proper sales training program can help you boost the profits of your business by familiarizing you and your team with a wide range of strategies for attracting new customers. In addition, sales training programs offer you effective solutions for selling more to your already existent clients, by maintaining them interested in your products or services.
There are various online professional services that offer a wide range of effective sales training programs for companies. By attending to the latest, cutting edge sales training programs, you and your business team will be able to quickly assimilate an extended package of knowledge, skills and abilities that are vital for achieving success. Sales training programs account for all the features of a successful business, ranging from customer service and sales skills to sales management and leadership development. By attending to a set of specialized sales training courses, your sales staff will be able to improve their overall sales skills, negotiation skills, communication skills and conflict resolution abilities.
Advanced sales training programs also include executive coaching, sales management coaching and leadership development, courses suitable for your team members that occupy higher positions inside your company. Thus, sales training programs are appropriate for all the people in your business, regardless of their role and position inside the company. By attending to a set of specialized, professional sales training programs, your team will learn new, effective solutions and strategies for promoting and selling your products.
Regardless of the success of your business, there is always room for improvement! After following a set of reliable, effective sales training programs, lots of businesses have been able to increase their profits by up to 30 percent! Sales training programs are strongly recommended for all business owners who wish to enhance the efficiency of their company.
So, if you want to find more information about Sales Training, we recommend you clicking this link.
There is a running preconceived notion that an early start in the field of sales is important, but the truth is it's never too late for professional sales training. In fact, it is never too late for anything. As a sales agent, you can still make a lot of money whether you start early or not. What matter more are your attitude and the skills needed that can be refined.
You might already have those specific skills needed that can jumpstart a career in sales. With professional sales training, you can enhance these further. If you do not have them yet, you can still learn them through a professional and extensive training program. The trainings vary in scope, but they are ultimately dedicated in pushing sales higher.
Before Training
Your thoughts and opinions on sales are essential. It is thus important that you come up with your own selling philosophy. Sales training programs vary in approach and you might find yourself displaced in the wrong program. What are the things that are important to you? Do you think hardcore selling works best? Do you find the needs of the customers as the biggest factor in selling?
Answering such questions can help you select which sales training program would suit you best. There are actually four classifications of them, each with a unique approaching in getting people to buy your products or services.
The Methods
The processes involved in sales are discussed and the methods are taught in methodology sales training. There are so many sales methodologies used and can either be categorized as hard or soft sell. Because of this diversity, one needs to check the topics that will be covered in the training program. Do not be fooled by the disclaimers, because a program may allege that it is under soft sell but under closer scrutiny, the topics are derived from hard sell concepts.
The Product and the Industry
One has to know everything about the product he is selling to answer the questions of consumers and to be successful in selling. Product and industry sales training allows you to have a fuller understanding of what' happening around the market, the trends in the industry, the product that you are offering, and other matters that are of relevance.
The Motivation
It is also important to have confidence and self-esteem when doing sales. Capitalizing on these values is also as important on augmenting your skills. Motivational sales training focus on building these instead of the techniques. The problem that undermines the effectiveness of this training is that motivation can sometimes be hard to get by. Therefore, it cannot be utilized for a long time.
The Skills
Mastery of skills can make a convincing and effective salesperson. Some of the skills necessary for perfection are negotiation, problem solving, product presentation, and proposal writing. Skills training program is not the most common professional sales training program, but it often yields the best outcome. With this training, you can also get rid of the bad sales habits that you have grown accustomed to.
This article was written by JP Wallace. For more sales tips, check out our business resources.
Before you whip out your wallet or sign on the dotted line there are seven questions you should ask to make certain you are making the best decision for you. After all, you wouldn't be investing in sales training unless you expected to get real value. So doesn't it make sense to do your homework to be certain you are getting the value you are expecting?
Here are 7 questions you must get answers for:
How will I get help with my specific challenges in this program?
What is the fastest way to get clients?
Does cold calling work for people like me?
Once the program ends how will I get help if I still have questions?
How will this program help me get new clients?
Will this program help me accelerate my sales process?
How will this program help me increase sales with less one-on-one interaction?
Once I complete your program can I expect to operate like a typical sales person?
Now for some of the responses you don't want to hear...
You can get help with your specific challenges by asking questions during the training program. Great. However, if you were just one or two questions away from the sales success you want you probably wouldn't need sales training in the first place. Most people need one-on-one interaction to get help with their specific challenges as they come up.
The fastest way to get clients is to make more contacts. If you get a response like that then you know the trainer buyers into the philosophy that all it takes to sell is just a numbers game. That means they are going to set you up for a life-time of hard work for little reward.
No, cold calling doesn't work for people like you anymore. If you hear that don't walk, run the other way. Cold calling does work when you know how to do it right. And you won't discover what you need to know to make cold calling work from a sales trainer.
If you have questions after the sales training program ends shoot me an email. That's good at least you have at least one option for help. The problem is sales trainers bombard you with a ton of information so you feel like you really got a lot while you are in the program. The challenge comes once the program ends and you discover your prospects somehow didn't get the memo telling them how they are supposed to behave. That's when you really need support.
This program will help you get more clients by teaching you how to make more connections. Excuse me, but that's not teaching you how to get real paying clients in your business. At best they are showing you how to snag a few prospects. Most people pay for sales training because they want more clients not prospects.
This program will help you increase sales with less one-on-one interaction by teaching you how do ask better qualifying questions. Again that's a good start, but you really need to completely shift from a one-to-one selling model to a one-to-many selling model. That requires far more than a few great qualifying questions.
Yes, you will have everything you need to act like a sales professional. Uh oh, big trouble with that answer. The last thing you ever want to do is act like a typical sales person. When you do you can expect to get treated like one, and that means you'll get treated like an unwanted pest.
How much could you increase your sales starting now?
Get "The Blueprint for Increased Sales" eBook and audio here (FREE)...
http://increasesalescoach.com/blueprint-increased-sales.html
Increase Sales Coach Cheryl A. Clausen helps business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO's in service industries get highly qualified prospects contacting you - giving you an unfair advantage.
http://IncreaseSalesCoach.com/blog
Selling effectively means doing the right thing at the right time. There is no one method that will work all the time; the approach needs to change and adapt to the situation. Selling is a transaction that adds value to the customer and mutual benefit to both seller and buyer. Selling has changed, the message and training has not. Good salespeople today need to know more than just how to make a cold call, they need to know how to influence behavior ethically and appropriately, they need to be able to develop creative solutions to increasingly complicated problems quickly and on their feet, they need to know how to elicit buying strategies from multiple buyers and how to craft a powerful selling response.
Salespeople often have to keep extensive details on all sales completed including the amount the sale was for, the person and contact information for the customer, as well as other statistical data. Accounting and organizational skills allow salespeople to store all this data is an easy-to-follow process. Salespeople master what it takes to sell more at higher margins and sales managers discover how to lead, motivate, compensate, discipline, coach, measure, and reward the sales team.
Each rep should have complete knowledge of your company, products, industry, market or customer and your competitors. The more they know about your company and it's policies the better they can communicate with customers. Product knowledge alone is not enough.
Selling is about smiling when you don't feel like smiling. Listening when you don't feel like listening, Caring when you don't want to care. Selling is bringing in the dollars. While marketing finds the people to sell, salespeople sell the people they find. Selling is simply communicating, and communication is, by definition, a two-way process. Real selling is mostly listening and understanding-a form of counseling or, more specifically, consultative selling.
Effective selling is not just closing the sale, better prospecting or more effective sales presentations. Although, all of these are important in their own way, effective selling today is blending each of these together in such a way that the prospect trusts, believes, respects you and your organization and wants and or needs your product or service to help them improve the quality of their life or business enterprise. Effective cross-selling is all about guided self-discovery. Through a series of thought provoking, open-ended questions, successful salespeople assist their customers to uncover potential needs.
Salespeople, marketers and companies are listening too! We are all paying attention. Salespeople receive hourly wages, a salary, commissions, or a combination of wages or salary and commissions. Commissions are usually based on the amount of sales, whereas bonuses may depend on individual performance, on the performance of all salespeople in the group or district, or on the company's performance. Salespeople may learn about competitors' products, for example, or about emerging customer needs that may lead to the development of a new product. If the sales force is well trained? acting as problem solvers and advisor's for customers rather than using hard-sell tactics? personal selling may help a small business build loyal, long-term relationships with customers.
Sales strategies are becoming more conversational as social media marketing unfolds. Perhaps the marketing mainstream is finally grasping what he direct marketers have known for some time; that selling is most effective when it is made to be personal and conversational. Salespeople have promised things, and not only not delivered what was promised, but also just disappeared! It's hard to think of a profession that is trusted less than salespeople - maybe politicians or lawyers - but probably salespeople are the least trusted of all.
Sales Training is common knowledge that Business Professionals need to know as a foundation for the uncommon knowledge used to compete in the top 1% of the marketplace. The knowledge is important and useful. Sales Training is the most effective way for us to share that knowledge. The courses are designed to speed up sales forces in a rapidly growing market that shows an increased demand for securing data at rest, data in motion and data in use.
Sales training is a great investment for a business if done prudently. Consider these five points and you are well on your way to a successful engagement. Sales training is one of the ways many firms are responding to these changes in the competitive environment, and in the very definition of a successful lawyer. Mind you, there is still a great deal of resistance. Sales training is continuing education, constant and ongoing and there?s no reason for anyone to think they can?t learn something new. Those who have years of experience in the field may find a new slant on an old method through attending seminars and workshops.
To find out more about being a better sales person, whether professionally or personally, see my website for more details
The Salesman Manifesto [http://info1st.com/salesman]
Practical and Professional Sales Training For Humans
Realize that selling is a numbers game. Get more no's and you'll get more yes's.
Sidney Friedman
When you miss the sale, it is even more important to make a cheerful, friendly, optimistic, and courteous exit than it is when you make the sale.
Zig Ziglar
o Don't pity yourself
o Start each day with a target
o Be friendly always
o Always set an additional step then necessary
o Be alert for each opportunity
o Each problem has a positive side
o Laugh in moment of hatred and anger
o Concentrate on one thing
o Be proud and satisfied
o Examine the acts of the day at night
Og Mandino
The Value of Training
A kung Fu master trains his disciples about the rigors involved in learning the intricacies of movements of the martial art form. Every Samurai warrior has a master. A tiger cub learns the skill of hunting from his mother. A mamma bear teaches her cubs where to stand in the stream to catch fish without being swept off by the strong currents. Music students are trained by virtuosos in perfecting notes, professional athletes train under expert coaches constantly pushing the limits of endurance and strength, experienced mechanics guide trainee mechanics, and parents acquaint their children about the ways of the world and train them in social skills. Every skill that has to be learned requires training. Ever imagined a pilot or a ballet dancer without training?
Sales - a formidable part of daily life and that is practiced by everybody is no exception to this rule. Though the debate is still on - whether a good sales man is a natural seller or a trained one, there is no denying the fact that training can improve sales skills and effectiveness. Of course, there are natural super sales men, artists, actors, wealth makers, and other geniuses that are not formally trained by anybody. But their numbers are very limited and even they have received some form of guidance at the initial stages of their career by unsung coaches, trainers, or parents. Tiger Woods may not have been trained as Andre Agassi was coached by the celebrity coach Nick Bolletierri, but he learnt the nuances of golf from his father in his initial years before ascending the rungs.
Sales skill is a part science and part art form that can be honed to perfection with practice under the guidance of a guru. Sales involves product knowledge, good communication and presentation skills, understanding buyer psychology, terrific people skills, and a positive attitude. On the surface it may sound simple but sales involves complex techniques and requires a mastery over them. Neither everyone is endowed with these qualities since birth, nor do they join sales fully loaded with the requisite qualities. Sales skills training target these aspects of sales and empower sales personnel with the necessary skills to win over customers.
Business sales training prepares rookies in sales to learn the tricks of the trade. Those with experience in sales also may sometimes get disheartened and will be at a loss to explain their low performance. They benefit from the expertise of a sales guru's motivational sales training. Every organization that has a sales department invests in sales and marketing training to enhance the skill levels of its sales force. Some do it frequently and others periodically. Sales management training imparted by sales management consultants may target the sales process adopted by a business or its entire sales force for performance enhancement.
About the Author
Doug Dvorak helps companies and professionals achieve results through customized, creative and non-traditional sales training systems that are "one size fits one" and developed to the unique business needs and "sales pain points" of each client. He is available to speak on these topics.
For more information visit http://www.salescoach.us or call 847-359-6969
Permission is granted to reprint this article in print or on your web site as long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided
Copyright 2008 The Sales Coaching Institute, Inc.
Sales Skills Training l Strategic Sales Coaching
Chicago, IL l 847-359-6969 l doug@dougdvorak.com
http://www.salescoach.us
Doug Dvorak is the CEO of DMG Inc., a worldwide organization that assists clients with productivity training, corporate humor and workshops, as well as other aspects of sales and marketing management. Mr. Dvorak's clients are characterized as Fortune 1000 companies, small to medium businesses, civic organizations and service businesses. Mr. Dvorak has earned an international reputation for his powerful educational methods and motivational techniques, as well as his experience in all levels of business, corporate education and success training. http://www.dougdvorak.com
In 1998 I wrote my first book, Sales Skills for An Unfair Advantage: 104 Sales Tips for People in a Hurry. Sales professionals still seem to be in a hurry! With speed in mind and a focus being to help in particular, here are 35 tips to help introverts and shy to sell more easily. Sales professionals can start and use these either in the final days of the year, or anytime. In particular, these are for introverts with a few for shy and even the reluctant extrovert salespeople.
1. Take time and use your listening skills to build rapport and trust.
2. Make your interest in research your strength and take time to work in silence at planned times in the day.
3. Go with a friend to networking events so they can make introductions for you.
4. Rather than try to engage in small talk, ask open-ended questions when you are networking and then listen and learn.
5. To overcome shyness and avoid networking opportunities altogether, join a social group with friends to accustom yourself to the environment.
6. To manage your introversion when networking, take planned breaks to grab a drink or go to the restroom.
7. Boost your confidence and belief in yourself by reflecting on past successes in any endeavors before you engage in sales and marketing actions.
8. Take time to write a thoughtful thank you note after first meeting someone.
9. Stay focused on people who you meet by maintaining eye contact through 80% of your conversation and you will eliminate external distractions.
10. Take advantage of email to get your message just right.
11. To get known and become memorable, write articles for the internet as well as trade publications.
12. Take advantage of social online networking and set a goal for a comfortable number of networks and number of contacts you want to make.
13. Be more curious about how you can help others and become known as a connector.
14. Focus on and use your strengths of listening, planning and preparedness for all your sales and marketing.
15. Develop a sales and marketing plan that fits you instead of trying to follow some extrovert model.
16. Perfect your ability to shine in discussing bigger and deeper issues by scheduling follow-up meetings from networking events.
17. Learn to value yourself and what power you bring to a much wanted selling environment.
18. Pump up your composure and self-control to communicate self-confidence.
19. Get a massage to dissolve that tension carried in your muscles from any extended times of extroverting.
20. Stay true to your nature in networking and always leave a little early.
21. After any networking take time to get organized by making notes of people you met that you want to follow-up with.
22. Perfect for our planning nature: practice both a 30 second and 60 second version of the introductory elevator pitch.
23. Create a blog for marketing so you can build credibility while nurturing that introverting desire.
24. Bring to mind something that makes you smile often throughout the day to lighten up your thoughtful expression.
25. Make asking for referrals one of your top marketing activities since you value personal and deep relationships.
26. Work from the inside out and convince yourself first that you have a valuable product or service.
27. As your business grows, outsource some of the more extroverted activities and do what you do best.
28. Approach sales meetings with an agenda; written or spoken.
29. Keep a journal of successes along the way and refer to it often.
30. Schedule exercise or meditation into days that are going to be more extroverting than introverting.
31. Just take a step at a time and only build the social skills you believe you would most enjoy.
32. Find role models to help you get out of your head and instead know that if one person can do it, you can too.
33. Find the right sales organization which might be one that balances selling with a product or service that requires analyzing and problem solving.
34. Take advantage of follow-up meetings for breakfast or coffee since the structure is usually shorter than lunch.
35. Value yourself; you learned that in tip #17, because you bring power in ways much wanted by the buyers of today.
All professional salespeople do introverting and extroverting all day long. It's the nature of the selling process as you work toward the benefit of a prospect to go from research, to planning, to sales conversations and follow-up.
Patricia Weber, 20 years sales training and business coach helps introverts, shy and even reluctant to sell extroverts who want to accelerate their sales results! Follow blog, FREE radio shows, podcasts, FREE teleclasses at http://www.patricia-weber.com from America's Sales Accelerator Coach, http://www.prostrategies.com
I am a firm believer that proper marketing is a sales professionals best friend. This holds true for both telesales training and any standard sales training course. The effect of proper marketing is it brings in quality leads. Quality leads are so much easier to sell. Marketing for a sales training program needs to focus on the sales professional him or herself not the product. When done properly the marketing is actually extremely inexpensive. Do yourself a favor and read the entire article before making up your mind.
The fact is, especially in the context of consultative selling, proper marketing helps a sales professional to conserve his or her most precious asset. That precious asset is time. Time management should be taught in every sales training program simply because a professional salesperson can avoid so much wasted time dealing with prospects that are not a good match. Be honest here, you know how it is, when sales are down we sales professionals always attempt to force the square peg into the round hole. In other words, instead of working with clients that are a good fit for us we chase after prospects that are major time wasters who are never going to buy.
Especially when working at telesales, all this accomplishes is frustration and excess work for us. To top it off, we end up with upset customers who complain and take up way too much of your time. Believe me, I have been there and I know all about it.
Then what is the solution? The solution which should be taught in all sales training programs is quite simple. When marketing as a sales professional you need to follow a certain framework. The problem is, most sales courses teach mistakenly that a sales professional should advertise his or her product or service. The correct way of marketing is to strategically position or market yourself as an expert.
Let me explain. First of all, quality prospects always seek out the expert in the field. Secondly, when you are perceived as an expert, you will find it so much easier to persuade people. The prospects will come to you to take your advice. The prospects are often already pre sold on whatever your suggestions entail. Simply due to the fact that you are considered an expert in the field.
The question arises: How do you become an expert? The fastest and simplest way to be recognized as an expert is to advertise your credentials. By credentials I mean, the years you have been in your industry, the awards you have won, organizations you belong to, certifications you hold. All of these are social proof that other people believe you are an expert and have denoted you as such. This proof is nearly as important as testimonials. Especially in today's world where testimonials can be spoofed so easily.
I would recommend taking it a step further... I recommend doing all of the above and becoming an expert author. No I am not saying to write a book, although that definitely helps. I am going to give you the easiest and least painful way to become an expert. Nothing says expert to your prospects more than having expert author listed in your bio. Becoming an expert author is much easier than you would think.
The easiest way to become an expert author is to write an article about your industry and submit it to EzineArticles. Then when you send information out to a prospect you can give them a link to your article or even print it out and include the title expert author on all of your promotional material.
Ryan Camana is the lead trainer of NLP and Hypnosis for Dynamic Breakthroughs. He specializes in helping sales people and entrepreneurs learn the most effective forms of persuasive communication. Dynamic Breakthroughs mission is to empower people to take control of the unlimited potential of their minds. We improve the world by training people to be leaders in their field with the most advanced self development techniques available.
Go now to http://www.nlpsalescourse.com for your free video on how to use conversational hypnosis in sales.
Sales Training is one of the most effective ways of maintaining a motivated and results oriented team of sales professionals. However, salespeople training is also known to have an impact for only up to 90 days, or for one quarter of the year.
For sales training to be effective, measurable against results, in today's economy, it has to be ongoing and consistently re-enforced. The more ongoing and consistent it is, the better the results and the better the return on training investment (R.O.T.I.).
Salespeople training is not product, service or company information training. That is product knowledge, which is necessary but needs to be properly positioned in the entire training process.
Sales training will prevent sales executive from talking too much about what they know, when they should be demonstrating empathetic listening.
It will allow salespeople to do their job more effectively by first building trust, setting parameters, qualifying opportunities and summarizing.
Only after qualifying and summarizing would they know if there is an opportunity for their products and services and if so, they can then reveal what they know in the form of a prescription.
Sales professional training is available in many different formats depending on size of sales-force, sales targets, management objectives, participant needs, time allocations, budget, R.O.T.I., etc.
For a small sales-force with a limited budget, it can be from simply providing each sales professional with a book, audio, video or online program on sales.
The main messages should be presented, discussed and re-enforced at each weekly sales meeting. This is basic, but still important training to keep the team motivated and learning new techniques in today's uncertain economy.
It can also be in the form a keynote address or workshop at a sales conference or public sales event. These are also great training opportunities to network and to learn different or new sales techniques.
However, these sorts of training need to be followed up on with a debrief and sharing of lessons learned. Those lessons learned then need to be implemented, monitored and discussed on an ongoing basis to be effective.
However, attendance at these sort of events needs to be ongoing, at least quarterly, to be effective, all management also needs to get involved in them.
Then there is the ultimate of sales training based on partnering program with a reputable salespeople training organization. This is where an in house, customized on going sales management training program is developed and adopted by the organization as their complete salespeople training program.
In other words, the end results is that the organization takes ownership of the sales training program and carries on without the entire training organization after an established period of time.
The development of this sort of training takes more time, but will have a greater R.O.T.I. than other formats because of it's partnering approach to customization, bottom line contribution and in house ownership.
When developing an in house customized sales professional program it takes all factors into consideration - Organization mission and vision, management objectives, participant needs, industry, language, the market, competition, seasonality trends, sales targets, methods of monitoring and measuring, etc.
Once the salespeople training program is developed, a train the trainer program could follow for in house delivery. Then there is Sales Management training which should also be developed supporting the sales training program.
There is no sense just training the sales executive as they will only do what they see - monkey see, monkey do. The same customization approach would need to take place with more focus on coaching, mentoring, managing and motivating while demonstrating the appropriate skills that they would like to witness in their salespeople.
Sales training in today's uncertain economy is needed more than ever. Whatever format you choose to conduct sales training, just make sure it is not the flavor of the month, that it is ongoing, it is consistently re-enforced with methods to monitor and measure it's R.O.T.I.
Bob Urichuck is an International Speaker, Trainer and Best-Selling Author. Learn personally from Bob in the areas of Sales, Motivation, Leadership and Team Skills. Bob presents a series of great ideas and strategies with combination of facts, humor, and practical concept in a high-energy and self-discovery process that you can apply right away to achieve results. Subscribe to Bob's Free Newsletter, worth $297, visit http://www.BobU.com Now!
Business Strategy/Sales Training with Emphasis on Robert Kiyosaki, Jay Abraham, Brian Tracy and Ted Nicholas
Getting people to part with their money is one of the basic tenets of sales. A person's ability to do this is what determines their success as a salesperson. While there is one basic goal of sales, however, there are many strategies available for people who want to get ahead in their profession. To this end, sales training professionals have created a different training course or training video for almost every different motivational need.
One of the most common themes of sales and marketing training is to give professionals the ability to make more with what they have. In this genre, Robert Kiyosaki, Brian Tracy, Jay Abraham and Ted Nicholas have been reputable forces within the scene of professional sales training.
Whether or not their reputation has helped or hurt them, however, is another story. Some leadership training review boards or consumer networks have lain criticism upon these men for behavior which looks or feels like a scam, while others have simply been mocked for their own lack of success or sub-par products. Does the development of sales training program require that the author himself be able to call sales on his own?
o In the case of Robert Kiyosaki, he started out with meager success first making surf wallets and then licensing band shirts. When he wrote a book titled, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, was when he really made his money, though it may have simply been the product of a really good sale. Training or no, some have criticized Kiyosaki's book as being rife with ambiguous or even incorrect information, and a barren resource for picking up sales or any other skills training. Still, others site is a guide for business training in general due to its ability to give general direction and motivation to those seeking focus and direction.
o Jay Abraham has been hit with negative comments not on his sales techniques, but rather his sales management. Training seems to have been on the backburner for some of the representatives of his Professional Marketing Group company, also known as PMG Mentors. Web sites such as RipOffReport.com have noted that the mentors available for hire through this program have lacked motivation, subject-matter expertise and/or enthusiasm, despite their relatively high price tag. While Jay Abraham has otherwise received glowing reviews from direct fans, it is still interesting to observe the disconnect between his personal mottos and his ability to enforce them as a business owner.
o Brian Tracy has a rather inspiring story as a high school drop out who rose to the top of his sales team at the age of 25. In order to reap the benefits of his experience and insights, some customers may have to pay as much as $7,000 per program. Furthermore, some programs require individuals to already be making $100,000 or more per year. With such high price points and extreme audience targeting, it's worth questioning why a high school dropout won't bother to help those with meager beginnings.
o Ted Nicholas is the least scathed of them all, except for an oft-reported penchant or antiquated technology. From typewriters to paper-driven marketing techniques, he may not be the most expensive of the group, but focusing solely on his lessons may cost sales people more than it helps them in driving their message.
When approaching motivational, educational or training programs of any type, it's worthwhile to consider the source. While millionaires and doctorates are not the only people worth learning from, if your goal is to achieve their status it makes sense to seek them out. People with sales experience are in a similar category, in that you can't really give advice on how to make a sale until you've actually sold something. While the men above have all had their share of sales and successes, what they did with those achievements may be equally as important in the end.
Olu Jatto
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I'm not a big fan of the term "sales techniques" because "techniques" could imply some kind of manipulation. The top sales professionals never use tricks or manipulation to close more sales. They use sales skills and sales strategies that best communicate the benefits of their products or services. There is no room for manipulation in professional sales training. The top sales professionals don't try to out smart their sales prospects. Instead, they are straightforward with their prospects and use their selling skills to follow a well-defined sales process. You'll find those selling skills in professional sales training.
If you want your prospects to be straightforward with you, you must be straightforward with them. Let me give you an example on how being straightforward with your prospects will help you close more sales. The selling skill outlined below is ideal when working in a highly competitive sales scenario.
Selling Skills
Today's markets are extremely competitive. Every day, products from all around the world compete for every single sale. This competitive sales environment keeps commissions high and the demand for the selling skills of top sales professionals strong. However, competition also keeps us on our toes and puts pressure on the sales process. The top professionals know they must separate themselves from the competition and show that their product or service best addresses their prospect's wants and needs. This can be accomplished with straightforward communications, between buyer and seller, during the sales process. This professional communications process is a selling skill and not a sales technique because it involves open and straightforward communications. I'd like you to take a closer look at these selling skills put to work when you find yourself surrounded by the competition.
Professional Sales Training
Here is some professional sales training advice for salespeople in highly competitive markets. These selling skills work well even when you know that you represent the higher priced solution. Yes, you can win with the higher price even when the competition has you surrounded once you master this selling skill. Let's put this sales strategy to work.
During the Probing step of the sales process, ask your prospect what separates them from their competition. I never heard a prospect say their product was the cheapest. Instead, they talk about their product's value. They may say their product is manufactured better or they have the best customer service or mention some other aspect of the value represented by their product. Why is this important? Because, you just made value, and not price, the dominant element of the prospect's evaluation criteria. In a competitive situation, someone is always ready to lower his or her price to close the sale. You don't have to play that game once you've firmly established, in your prospects mind, that value is what separates one product from another product. Anything can be made cheaper. True value is generated when something is made better and that's where you want your prospect focused. This is a very useful professional sales training strategy but we are not finished just yet.
Close More Sales
Next, explain to your prospect that there are many companies that would like to have their business and you would like to know what criteria would be used to evaluate different products. Yes, this is very straightforward and often it's the first time the prospect every thought about developing a purchasing criteria to evaluate products from different suppliers. However, once you are armed with this information, you'll know exactly which aspects of your offering must be highlighted to separate you from the competition. So, if your prospect says they looking for the most durable product, you'll want to spend extra time talking about the quality of your manufacturing process and how that results in a very durable product. There is no need for "sales techniques". Straightforward communications will get you all the information you'll need to close the sales. Take notes and list the entire evaluation criteria. Repeat it back to your prospect and get their agreement that they will base their decision on these points. But, we are not finished just yet.
Now you want to add to your prospects evaluation criteria to insure that your product's strengths are firmly listed on that list of product evaluation criteria. So, if your prospect fails to mention customer service as part of the criteria and you know you have superior customer service, you'll want customer service on the list of criteria your prospect will use to evaluate competing products. Ask your prospect why customer service is not on the list. Explain why quality customer service is important. Your mission is to get quality customer service on the evaluation criteria list.
It is interesting to note that "cheapest" never made it to the evaluation criteria. You now have a green light to present your product, point by point, as it relates to the buying criteria jointly established by you and your prospect.
This is the type of sales training I enjoy presenting because it represents straightforward communications during the sales process. I hope this professional sales training advice will help you close more sales.
About the Author
Nick Moreno, founder of the National Sales Center, is a well-established sales trainer and sales coach with more than 30 years of experience providing knowledge, empowerment and benefit to those he trains. Offering a competitive sales training advantage through education and cutting edge professional sales training DVD programs, his system, The Progressive Sales Process, is known for generating "Sales Superstars" who consistently reach much higher sales commissions. Mr. Moreno can be reached by contacting him at Nick@Nationalsalescenter.com or by visiting his web site at http://www.nationalsalescenter.com
Several years ago I was sitting in the office of a very successful businessman. He was the CEO of the company. He had finished interviewing me for a sales managers position.
As we approached the end of the interview he turned to me and told me that he was very impressed with me ...so far. He then paused dramatically and said,
"Show me that you know how to sell....SELL ME THIS PENCIL."
The next ten seconds seemed like an eternity to me. I had been selling for many years. However, this really put me on the spot.
"SELL YOU A PENCIL?" I thought. "I don't know a thing about PENCILS!"
It became evident that the entire interview was a mere formality to this exercise.
If I passed this test I would get the job. If I flubbed this, I wouldn't.
However in my panic there was a still small voice which relaxed me entirely and told me that I could easily do this.
Do you want to take a guess as to what I did?
Before I tell you what I did, let me tell you what I did not do.
The majority of salespeople are talkers. The public wrongfully believes that to be a great salesperson you need to talk, talk, talk. We have all been in situations where a sales person would go on and on ad naseum about something.
I can very quickly tell how experienced a sales person is by how much they talk.
Many sales trainers even emphasize this method of selling The number one complaint among customers is that salespeople "talk way too much!" The flip side of talking too much is that the salesperson is not listening to the customer.
On the other hand, great salespeople are great listeners.
What makes a great salesperson great is that they have learned to ask the questions that allow you to find out more about the customers wants and needs and then get the sale.
This is the CENTER of salesmanship.
If you look at the greatest salespeople of all time they are the ones who ASK the best questions.
I have learned in my many years of selling that I can sell anything, with very limited product knowledge, if I learn to ask the right questions.
A great example of this is Socrates, the Greek Philosopher.
If you study Philosophy you will notice that all of Socrates work is called "the Dialogues."
Socrates asked his pupils questions about life. He was not only seeking truth he was engaging the listener.
Isn't it true that your favorite teachers in school were the ones that engaged you in the educational process.
Chances are the reason they were so good and stand out in your mind is that they understood the power of questions.
The only way you can really engage the customer is if you ask questions.
Good selling is all about exercising good control on the customer and prove to them that you are genuinely interested in them. The only way you can accomplish these objectives is to ask the customer question that demonstrate that you really care about them.
You might imagine that with this type of insight, you too could sell anything to anybody.
I smiled brightly.
Looked the CEO square in the eye.
Paused.
Held the pencil up in the air and asked,
"So tell me about the type of pencils that you normally use here in your company?"
The CEO smiled back.
He knew that that by asking the question that I demonstrated that I was a professional salesperson.
Lesson Learned. God built you with two ears and only one mouth.
Ask.
Then listen.
Demonstrate to the customer that you genuinely care.
What does this have to do with marketing on the web?
Everything!
People want solutions, genuine relationships and feelings of goodwill.
Genuinely create that and you will have a business.
Ignore it and you will be chasing income.
Harald Anderson is the co-founder of artinspires.com one of the internets leading sports motivational posters. His goal in life is to become the kind of person his dog already thinks he is. http://www.artinspires.com
In a information based and online dealings you may miss the special touch of a regular sales job that was once either making you money or wasting your time.
If it was wasting your time, you may not have had the marketing and sales skills at the time of working the job, so you may have ultimately failed at the business. Your professional selling skills could have needed much improvement.
One reason I have always loved sales and marketing is that you can write your own paycheck, have no one employing you, and allow you to take time and days off whenever you need or want and get up from bed whenever it is reasonable.
The thing missing from my entrepreneur career was training from professionals in the industry. When you have to feed a family and make a solid living, you don't have time to go over training that you cannot duplicate, which leads to less effective results.
The training is the crucial ingredient as experienced by many who are left wondering what they did wrong in sales.
If you were to take the basic marketing and sales skills you may know now and take those back with you in time to succeed at those jobs you will have improved or at least made it in the forgotten profession of sales.
I think that most persons jolt into sales not knowing the quantity of training and skill advancement that it takes to be victorious. It is not an overnight process. Education, being, and doing are very important factors in the success, which means failure is vital to experiencing the sport of professional sales. Your professional sales skills degree will determine your income.
I know when I was working with companies that offered opportunities for much better income possibility and development these companies did not bestow leadership, teaching, or even on occasion decent leads to work with.
With the information out there to work with now, you could take any sales and marketing opportunity and turn it into a safe return on time investment when you have good professional sales coaching.
I like to keep things simple in my articles so I'll give some down to earth examples of this.
If you are in wireless carrier communication sales, could you not easily write highly converting capture pages and turn those into sales for your company? Absolutely.
If you require some form of written contract agreement to provide a service or product through your company, could you not share that with your local facebook or other social network to people in your local area. Absolutely.
If you are self employed could you not realize specifically targeted customers in the home rehab and recuperation trade in your local area through ad campaigns that are deliberate to capture the attention of people looking at the home depot web site online and advertise in the penny saver. Certainly.
And lastly, if you are required for your job to be highly friendly, personal, and customer service oriented, could you not improve your offline marketing and closing skills to be one who is trusted and build relationships with potential customers and clients at these local locations. Absolutely.
The skills of attraction marketing, direct sales, and connecting, along with networking, outstanding buyer service, and being an expert in your niche field would give any ambitious human being more than an adequate amount of information to be highly successful in their existing occupation.
Not everyone has the constancy and discipline to be able to make these things work for them, but originality and alpha leadership mentality are the key points that will help you to accomplish particular goals for your revenue streams that can set you up a be rich in the current economic condition. Your own professional sales training force can be you. You can be self trained with a little suggested help and good resources.
There is a goldmine of prosperity in professional marketing and sales that can make any motivated individual with solid whys or reasons for their goals, eager to make more time and money, and a lifestyle for their efforts to become what they truly want to be as a marketing professional. See my article entitled 7 steps to becoming financially free for a larger picture when it comes to true wealth prosperity.
Get on the fast track with professional sales training where the top leaders and closers in industries come together to make a mastermind dream team and learn to master the skills needed set up a system, obtain quality leads, and profit for freedom from a current job.
Sales training is perhaps the most important training in which a real estate professional can participate. Of course, in every state and the District of Columbia a real estate agent or broker must be licensed but without the ability to sell, the real estate license serves no purpose.
According to estimates from the National Association of Realtors, there are about two million licensed real estate agents in the United States. It's a relatively easy field to join. The licensing requirements, although different for each state are not that stringent. Although you can get a bachelors degree, it is not required to procure a real estate license.
Maybe because it is so easy to jump into a real estate sale explains the large number of licensed real estate agents and brokers across the country. Of course, the turnover rate is high too. By some estimates, as high as 80 percent. Some estimates are equally as high for the percentage of real estate agents who quit in the first year.
There are seminars and classes and books that offer sales training. Some large realtors provide much of the sales training for their real estate agents. Others leave the agents to fend for themselves.
Real Estate sales training is not unlike any other kind of sales training. The same rules apply. You must know your product in order to sell it. For a real estate agent this translates into knowing the community, the housing market, market trends, economic facts and figures, what is currently selling and what isn't. It also means knowing more than a little about loans and mortgages. There are far more options today for buying and selling property than there used to be and not keeping up with the industry is the fastest way to sales suicide.
Sales is always about communication. That usually entails listening more than talking. You have to know what your client's need is before you can fill it and the only way you will know this is effective listening. That's why the Dale Carnegie sales training has always been so effective. It teaches interpersonal skills and communication skills. You can know everything there is to know about the real estate profession but if you can't interact effectively with people, you will likely not be successful at real estate sales or any other kind of sales.
It's not enough to just be a nice guy though. That's one reason it's imperative to have sales training. Having a real estate license is not enough that just means you have a grasp of the basics and you're legal. Knowing your product isn't enough either and you can be the nicest person in the world and not be able to sell a dime for a nickel. Remember Gomer Pyle? Can you imagine buying anything, let alone a house or other real property from him? Sure, he's a nice guy but how confident would you be in his ability to sell you the best house for the best money and make sure everything went smoothly?
Learning by example is often the best way to learn. If you're lucky enough to have a mentor or at least an experienced and successful real estate sales professional that will take you under their wing, let them. If they've been in the business very long, then it's likely they've dealt with a wide variety of sales experiences and you could benefit greatly from that experience. You're going to need some time anyway, in the form of several months living expenses to be able to survive in this game. If at all possible. link up with someone you can actually watch at work and discuss the experience before and afterwards. There's no more valuable training. In fact, the better your sales training is, the more successful you'll be as a real estate professional.
Whether you have a mentor or not, classes and seminars can definitely help. There's nothing like the gung-ho feeling you get from a revved up motivational speaker who is also a salesperson. Any motivational speaker, therefore, is a salesperson or you wouldn't be listening to him.
If a live class or seminar appeals to you, there are a great number of motivational speakers as well as sales coaches to learn from. The important thing is to learn the techniques you'll need to be successful in real estate sales. Not everyone learns the same way or at the same pace. Sales training comes in different forms and the same format may not be right for everyone.
Knowing what not to do in sales can be just as important as knowing what to do. Sales training is one learning experience where you can greatly benefit from others' mistakes as well as their successes. There are many online resources as well as live seminars and classes for every real estate sales professional.
Jeff Blackwell is the founder of SalesPractice.com, an online sales community that assists sales practitioners in mastering the art of sales by providing professional sales training resources including a collection of leading articles, sales script book, industry source book, and sales forum.
When earnings fall, most companies do the one thing that is easy to implement, and will make the earnings look better. That is to cut costs and budgets. And one of the first, if not the first, to be cut is the training budget.
However, rather than deciding to cut or postpone all kinds of trainings, some companies are trying to retain the "must-have" trainings, i.e. the ones that are critical to the company's performance, such as sales, supply chain management, quality management etc. Still, the budgets available for such training are still very tight, and these companies are looking into ways of dong more with less.
Some companies have tried to use internal trainers instead of external ones to conduct sales training. Others have switched to less "expensive" trainers instead. Well, the question here isn't so much about whom to engage as your sales trainer, but rather how you can plan and execute sales trainings that deliver your desired results.
To achieve this, you will have to first overcome some of the common weaknesses of most sales training initiatives:
* Sales training content is outdated OR does not match the current buying practices of customers
* Ineffective reinforcement or post-training coaching
* No measurement of improvements after the training
* Getting the wrong person to do the training, etc
Getting Your House in Order
While the purpose of sales training is to improve the selling skills so that they generate better sales results for you, to achieve such an objective may require the orchestration of a few other components as well. These are:
* Hiring: Do you have the right sales person for the right sales job that will fit into your corporate culture
* Promotion: Have you promoted the right sales person to be your sales manager whom will lead and motivate your sales team effectively
* Incentives: Is your sales team incentivised to go the extra mile and get better deals for you.
If you need someone to get new customers and get quick deals, it will be very painful to train someone who is more comfortable cultivating long-term relationships with customers and grow their business. Similarly, if you need someone to spend more time partnering with customers and create strategic sales, it will also be quite masochistic to train a sales person who is highly skilled in high-pressure selling. Here are some statistics from HR Chally:
* Only 19% of effective new business developers are effective at maintaining long-term customers
* Less than 15% of key account managers are comfortable developing new businesses
* Nearly 65% of salespeople who fail could have succeeded in the right type of sales position for their skills
According to HR Chally, less than 15% of superstar sales people succeed in management. The job of selling is very different from managing a team of sales people. Some superstar sales people are so good in what they do, they don't even know why they are good, much less impart their skills to others.
Here are some of the criteria of what a good sales manager should be:
1. Directs and controls others in your team
2. Optimise the company's profits through the actions of your sales team
3. Analyse customer behaviours, sales people's actions and market trends effectively
4. Train your team members
5. Makes joint calls and then coach the sales person on how to deal with customers better
You may ask why is hiring the right sales person so critical to getting good sales training results. Well, according to research conducted by Huthwaite, 87% of what is learnt in a sales training session will be lost after 1 month upon completion of the training programme. And the key reason behind this is due to ineffective post-training reinforcement, coaching and monitoring by the sales managers. In fact some sales managers hardly, if ever, train or coach or nurture their teams!
Ultimately, it is said that the sales person's mind works faster and more accurate than a super-computer when it comes to calculating their incentive payments. They know how to reach their targets and optimise their pay by taking the most efficient of all actions. What this means is what gets paid, gets done, and if you don't provide the incentives for sales people to change their ways (or dis-incentives if they don't), then your sales training effectiveness will be compromised.
Setting Your Training Objectives
If you were to ask any sales manager, what will be the objective of any sales training, the reply is likely to be "Get more sales (at higher prices)!"
While this is very much the ultimate objective of most, if not all, sales trainings, the question here is what areas need to be improved before you can increase sales?
Since sales revenue generated is an end-result, in order to improve this result, you will have to look into the processes that drive this results in the first place. Hence, instead on focusing on the final objective, look at which are the processes that need to be improved and work on those areas.
E.g. if you find that your sales people have a hard time dealing with customers' pressure to cut prices, perhaps you can first:
* Identify the sales processes involved in a typical sale;
* Identify which process(es) actually caused our customers to focus so much on price discussions (e.g. did we quote the price too early, or we didn't understand the customer's business needs well enough, or we didn't get the customer to buy-in to the value we provide, etc.)
* Set the training objective to be rectifying these causes of giving too much discounts
* Monitor and measure the improvements on these processes
* Then monitor and measure the improvements of selling at higher prices
Perhaps the biggest headaches faced by many sales trainers (internal or external) is that some companies decide to have sales training only when sales are really doing badly, and then they expect immediate improvements to the bottom line. Ironically, part of the reason that these companies are doing badly in sales is because they hadn't paid enough attention to the sales processes that drive the eventual results. So it degenerates into a vicious cycle of the company wanting some "magic bullet" to improve sales, while the sales trainer tries in vain to explain it is the process improvements that will improve sales.
Engaging the Right Trainers
Typically, companies can choose between internal and external trainers for their sales training. Whether you are getting internal or external trainers, your selection criteria will have to be based on "what kind of trainer(s) will be a best fit to deliver our sales training objectives now?", more so than any other criteria.
While it seems like common sense to select the right trainer for most training managers, there some selections that are sometimes bizarre. We know of companies who require trainers to have years of experience in their industry, when what they said they are looking is someone who can train them new ideas to meet future challenges as their industry is changing real fast.
There's also a Fortune 500 IT hardware company in China that actually raised issues about the trainer's accent, and then promptly fired the trainer, even though that trainer is a subject-matter expert who is real good in designing new training programmes from scratch. While it is true that the trainer has difficulty pronouncing broadcaster-standard putonghua, participants can understand him well, and have graded him highly in evaluation sheets for previous trainings.
Depending on your current situation, your sales training requirements can be:
* Designing a sales programme from the ground up (i.e. observing sales people in action, break down the sales processes, devise ways to improve each process through training)
* Implement existing training programmes (no changes, just do it)
* Emphasize role-plays and case study discussions in workshops, an then give de-briefings and pointers (sort of like a group-based coaching)
* Conduct train-the-trainer programmes for sales managers, so that they can train their own teams
* Audit current sales training programmes, and identify ways to improve on them , etc.
In fact, one of our key customers are engaging us to help them develop their their senior sales managers to double as internal sales trainers. Their challenges are
* Their sales managers don't know how to train (and haven't got any training experiences);
* They need external help to customise a sales training programme to their needs, and incorporating their CRM system into their sales processes;
* They need ongoing identification of new training needs based on their weaker links in their sales processes;
* They need advice on how to schedule their internal trainings so that their internal trainers are not over-burden with work;
* They need to audit their internal training, to make sure the time is well spent.
So we worked out a plan (that goes beyond the typical train-the-trainer programme) that will help them
* Reduce operational training costs (by getting internal senior managers to do the training);
* The trainees get more attention (it will be just 1 sales manager to 5 trainees);
* Their trainers are well-trained to do the job well;
* They get professionally designed training materials;
* They get updates and further coaching from the master-trainer
To choose the right trainer, you can create a score sheet of the list of proritised criteria for the trainer(s), that is based on your sales training objectives. Most companies, even those that have very structured learning methodologies, are still using gut feel when choosing trainers, and sometimes that may end up as bad, if not ridiculous, choices.
CJ is the trusted sales advisor who have helped international companies achieve quantum improvements in sales profits in China and beyond. So far, CJ has helped:
* A leading international hotel to produce the equivalent of an additional 5,000 room nights in China in the lull summer months of 2007
* A global leading architectural hardware company to increase the sales revenue of a key account in Shanghai by 10 times within 3 weeks
* The world leader in PC sales to transform their sales force to be more collaborative and solution-focused, and helping them to regain worldwide pole position from their nearest competitor.
Prior to this, CJ was Asia Marketing Manager for a Fortune 500 logistics company, as well as Corporate Training Manager for Ringier AG, Switzerland's largest media group, in China, where he was responsible for sales team development, and helped increase the percentage of new hires to close their first sales within 2 months by 30%, as well as increase overall sales targets by more than 50%. Visit http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html for more details.
The Natural Salesmen
Selling is an art and there are people naturally gifted with this art. Right from birth these natural salesmen get busy marketing the only product they have - themselves. They clutch a tuft of their mother's hair or dad's ears and pull their faces towards themselves. They wave their hands, paddle their legs, clap, laugh, giggle, and cry to get attention as well as care. These smart babies grow up to be successful salesmen in school too. They make neat profits by selling lemonade, old comics, used video games, and other knick knacks thus laying the foundation for a remarkable sales career ahead. But that doesn't mean that those that haven't sold old video games for a profit in school cannot become successful sales professionals when they grow up. They can - through training.
What Sales Training Specialists Do
Sales involve techniques that require constant honing. Personal appearance, body language, timing of making calls, words chosen while making a presentation, knowledge about the market and competition, the requirement of the client etc. - there are a host of things a sales person should be well versed in. Even the handshake has to be right for a potential sale. Sales training specialists can teach the sales team of an organization about the basics of sales to complicated things like improving sales metrics. Sales training specialists know how the latest effective sales models function. Combining the latest sales methods with the traditional sales wisdom, they educate your sales team about the successful ways of selling. In a conference room, class room type set up, or even in the field they coach the sales team about the rudiments of progressive sales training tips, tricks and techniques. Just hand over to the sales training professional a group of people who are eager to learn and change. He will do the rest. Sales trainers will also identify any existing problem with your sales people. Is someone in your sales team having problems in closing? Or is somebody finding it difficult in converting cold calls into appointments? Sales trainers will help correct the flaws and improve the bottom line - profits.
Hard Facts
The USA places increased emphasis on training of the workforce. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) estimates that US corporations spent $109.25 billion on employee learning and training in 2006. A study of 11 global high tech companies carried out in April 2007 by ASTD and sponsored by Hewlett Packard, points out that organizations spend nearly 75-80% of their training budget on sales training. The study also confirms that sales training does help in developing robust competency models to help accelerating sales and push profits up. It makes a lot of business sense to hire a sales training specialist.
Doug Dvorak is the CEO of DMG Inc., a worldwide organization that assists clients with productivity training, corporate humor and workshops, as well as other aspects of sales and marketing management. Mr. Dvorak's clients are characterized as Fortune 1000 companies, small to medium businesses, civic organizations and service businesses. Mr. Dvorak has earned an international reputation for his powerful educational methods and motivational techniques, as well as his experience in all levels of business, corporate education and success training. http://www.dougdvorak.com
Sales has always been the poor relation of marketing and hidden away in one of the famous 4P's. The marketing profession has traditionally looked down on their sales counterparts with nothing short of disdain, and as a consequence, the sales function has constantly struggled for adequate management education, training & status.
The Rise & Fall of Marketing
Marketing was always going to put the customer at the centre of things. It was going to be the most important coordinating function in the business. It would specify what all other functions had to do in order to deliver a consistent customer experience whatever the customer touch-point.
In this key strategic role, marketing failed to deliver and never reached the heights it had promised. Why did it fail? Partly it failed because it found more exciting and sexy things to play around with such as advertising and promotions.
Key Failures
More importantly, marketing failed because it did not get its hands dirty working with actual customers. Instead, it hid behind the clinical elegance of marketing research reports and the academic satisfaction of analysing reams and reams of customer data masquerading as customer insight and intelligence.
As a result, marketing has been largely marginalised to the design and maintenance of web sites, with the occasional foray into exhibitions and leaflets. Quite a sad end.
The New Sales Future
So if marketing failed to deliver, who is now responsible for coordinating organisational activity around the requirements and expectations of customers? There is only one place from which this can be done and that is from Sales.
Customer Targeting
In an era where the majority of customers can serve themselves via websites and the telephone, organisations can now be more focused on identifying and managing their most important customers. They can now target resources on those 20% of customers that provide them with 80% of their business and nurture those customers who promise to be equally important in the near future.
Implications for Organisational Development & Training
In order to take advantage of this new sales future, organisations will have to radically change their attitude towards sales and selling function.
Salespeople of the new sales future will have to be better educated and better trained in order to relate to customers in a more strategic way. They will need to be empowered to develop specific value propositions for individual customers and they will need the necessary internal status to boss their own organisations to deliver on customer requirements and expectations.
Implications for Sales Management
These new strategic sales assets will need to be managed in a more enlightened way, as the old command and control system of management will fail miserably in such a new sales environment.
There will need to be more emphasis on recruitment, motivation, coaching, training and team development in order to foster the necessary supporting environment for strategic sales professionals to flourish and to deliver what customers really want.
Perhaps Sales will finally win where Marketing has failed.
Rennie Gould is the founder of Customize, a specialist training & consultancy organisation working in sales, sales management & b2b marketing. The strategic sales training provided by customize, provides senior sales executives with all the insights, skills & techniques they need to manage their organisation's most important customers.
We live in highly competitive environments, where there is an abundance of companies that are vying for the customer's attention. The customer is also quite enlightened in this day and age, which means that he/she has enough and more options to choose from. This is one of the prime reasons why it is imperative for sales people to be competent, confident and also very assertive in the manner in which they conduct themselves for which professional sales training may be required. Specialized training for sales personnel is quite the need of the hour in order to equip sales persons to meet the challenges that the current market environment present.
One of the key aspects of professional sales training is the product training that is central to any sales training. One has to ensure that product knowledge is not only good, but indeed excellent so that one may have a great deal of leeway with customers. Customers, who can discern that the sales person is skimming the surface in terms of product knowledge, would not be positively pre-disposed towards him/her. This is one of the prime reasons why professional training in sales is quite important and one would do well to avail it when there is still time.
Professional sales training also means that one benefits from the experience as well as insights of experienced sales professionals. There are a lot of aspects about sales which cannot be read up in books. You can sometimes learn so much from these industry experts which classroom training may not be able to impart. There are a large number of professional training for sales professionals organizations that you can avail to improve your company's sales cycles, increase the revenue numbers and bring about greater profitability in your company operations.
To look at professional sales training options, you better look online--the variety of choice will amaze you!
Though, if you are serious about increasing the effectiveness of sales presentations and closing more clients, or selling more products, then you should download the report "The Presentation Formula" which can be located on this site about online sales training.
A word that can have most new MLM distributors instantly panicking is "sales". But without any sales in your MLM business you will fail. Take an vested interest in your MLM sales training and you will quickly learn it is really not that hard and definitely not worth getting all worked up over.
MLM Sales Training Tip #1
One of the first things you need to be successful in MLM sales is to provide one or possibly two products that are in demand and are consumable. Consumable products allow you to get repeat orders every month. Select a niche that is popular and then learn to fall in live with that market. This is one of the main differences between direct marketing and a MLM opportunity, direct marketing is typically a one time sale, and a MLM sale is usually a recurring monthly service or product.
MLM Sales Training Tip #2
The people who are really successful in MLM have learned that this industry is all about teaching and mentoring. Become a servant sponsor by returning emails, answering phone calls and sharing all your valuable information, even if they do not join you. Armed with your new servant sponsor attitude people will see you as a caring sponsor and not a pushy salesman. Practice this famous quote daily and watch your MLM sales explode. "You can have anything you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want out of life".
MLM Sales Training Tip #3
Build the people and the people will build the business. Make sure you have a proven system in place that other new distributors can plug into and duplicate what you do. Your training system needs to include:
* Proven landing pages
* Professional Autoresponders
* Training
If you do not have the ability to develop this system, look within the MLM organization for other successful marketers who have designed their own, then join that team.
Network marketing or MLM marketing is a business that requires you to build relationships and trust with people. Learn about people and what triggers their emotions, so you can connect with them on an emotional level. If you only become an expert with your product, then you will be forced to be a salesperson. You will be spending way too much precious time convincing someone your product is better than others. But if you learn to master building trust with people, they will join you because they trust you.
That is the beauty in MLM, residual income. As you start to build your business your income will become cumulative, now you have true passive.. residual income. It's important that you truly understand this...let me give you an example. You take a nice vacation, or perhaps visit a loved one for 2 months, when you return you have 2 checks waiting for you, and the second one is bigger than the first one. This kind of residual income is life-changing.
To your Success,
Gerald Stidham
Dream Coach
Do you want to really make more money online? I will give you my entire MLM business system: my WebPages, software tools, ad copy, leads lists, support and most importantly, my secret 'set and forget' system. Every tool you will ever need to succeed online - Click to learn more http://www.geraldsbiz.com