Sales Team Management

Check those fingers walking

2007-12-18T12:34:00.001+09:00

I thought I covered all the bases but I received a great email from Jenny Cartwright who is, in my opinion, Australia's best Telephone Techniques coach. Jenny says because everyone else's given up... you will have it all to your self in the next few days until Christmas day.

Here is what she is advising you to do:

Talk to the customer about their company's plans for next year. Discuss how you can assist them with those and become a part of them. Call your "A" customers first (that is the 20% of customers that give you the most business). Start with "My goal next year is to help you as much as I can. In order to be able to do that, may I ask ... " (then proceed with asking them open-ended questions begining with what, why, where, when, who, which, how), to find out what they are planning for next year. This will give you clues how to comply with their needs.

Tell them what new things you have coming up next year that they might like to include in their own strategies. Tell them now so you can remind them in an email early next year.

Crow, Rabbit and Happy Fox!

2007-12-13T20:58:00.000+09:00

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A rabbit asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. A fox jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up

For more light hearted corporate advice: www.bobpritchard.com

Robert Ringers Thoughts

2007-08-25T00:30:00.000+08:00

Robert Ringer, the best selling author of A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World comments about worrying about stuff you can't change:

Exerting mental energy to worry about the inevitable is illogical. If something is truly inevitable, there’s nothing you can do about it … and if there’s nothing you can do about it, what’s the point in worrying?

Just make certain that you don’t cavalierly apply the term inevitable to a situation that doesn’t warrant it. As I pointed out, very few things in life are inevitable, and only one — death — is 100 percent certain. As Sinatra put it, death is “a pain in the ass,” so who wants to spend time thinking about it?

A better idea is to invest your mental and physical energy in thinking about how to be the best parent you can possibly be, the best son or daughter you can possibly be, the best sibling you can possibly be, the best friend you can possibly be, the best employee or employer you can possibly be, and the best overall person you can possibly be. All of which comprises a very tall order. But to the extent we fill that order on a daily basis, that other little issue we worry so much about — financial success — somehow works itself out without our having to fret and stew about it.

Getting Rid of Self Limiting Beliefs

2007-08-09T15:32:00.000+08:00

It is your self limiting beliefs that pull you down. Disapproving your actual capabilities is the main culprit of mediocre performance. One effective way to overcome this is “Just Do It” and watch the result after that.

Have you ever think that you can never succeed in telemarketing? Why not reframe your mind that the person at the other end of the line is going to say Yes. And just pick up the phone and call? You will be fascinated to find that it is not difficult after all. The law of attraction says that focusing your mind will attract the intended result.

Create Positive Expectation Mindset

Create the mindset that your clients love to talk to you. Think of what they are going to benefit from your visit instead of wasting their time on listening to you. Here’s the secret: always expect positive outcome from the clients. Expect that the client is going to benefit from what you have to offer. Send out the energy of excitement and enthusiasm. In the Law of Attraction, whatever you give out comes back to you many fold.

The law of attraction is so predictable and dependable. Knowing how to unleash its full potential will transform your life for the benefit of your family!

Quote of the Day: “Earning money has to do with rendering service. And the more service you render, the more money you're going to earn.”

Work Smarter Not Harder

2007-08-06T14:55:00.000+08:00

Outstanding sales results come to those sales professionals who correctly follow and apply sound sales principles. They won’t do the work for you but they will lighten your load and give you an edge. All it takes to be successful at selling your company's products is to want to improve the way you perform, see yourself using new selling techniques, give yourself permission to use the concepts and regularly practice them until they become second nature.

Have you made enough presentations?

2007-07-30T14:57:00.000+08:00

LEADS = PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME

The point is - you have to have leads in order to make presentations and enough presentations equal sales and that creates your income…right? So are those the four things?No – those are three things that help to generate your income. Your income is the outcome and we’ve just identified three of the four critical steps to success. So what is the fourth?Question Four: Since you’ve identified that lead deficiency is a problem, what’s the solution?Good question! Any building built on a weak foundation is subject to crumble. Likewise, any sales professional who misses the foundation of sales success will struggle and, likely fail. This foundation is prospecting.

One of my dear friends and a great professional speaker, Gary O’Sullivan (www.garyosullivan.com) states in his book “Principle Power” the following: “Every day you don’t prospect, the next day you must settle for a lesser degree of performance!” Ladies and Gentlemen…that statement is a fact. The foundation of consistent sales performance is prospecting on a consistent basis.

How many times have I heard someone say to me in a job interview, “You hand me a lead and I’ll close ‘em. I’m a closer.” Well, let me say, I didn’t hire those folks because they were applying for a sales position and closing is just a part of the process. True sales professionals do four things: (1) prospect for leads; (2) develop the leads they identify; (2) make sales presentations; and (4) close sales. Each of those represents the four critical steps to sales success.

Remember the solution is always to the left!

PROSPECTING = LEADS = PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME!

Simple is the key

2007-07-24T15:33:00.000+08:00

Keep it Simple. Many sales incentive programs are doomed to fail before they are even introduced to the employees. The reason is that they are too complicated to win and too difficult to understand. Matters get worst when the informations are not addressed properly. The result is confusion among employees and the people responsible in the program, not to mention the waste of money and the lack of internet shown by the employees toward the program.

Keep it simple. Try not to sound as if you are too genius that you were able to form the idea and nobody else can't. Inform you employees well on how incentives are won.

To level out the playing field, educate all your employees with the right methods and procedures. Guide and motivate so that they can win the sales incentives. You have invested on this big, don’t attempt to waste it.

Reward immediately. Lack of interest sets in if the span of winning and rewarding is getting too long. Once they achieved the necessary requirement for an incentive, reward immediately. Do not let the awarding sit and wait until your employees are convinced that they will not get an incentive after all the effort they have done.

Also, it is equally important not too set a lengthy program. Take this an example: If a mother tells her son that he will receive a bike if he will keep his room clean for 1 year, he will find it difficult to do it and will not bother to get the incentive at all. Don’t let your employees lose interest on your program by committing the same mistake.

RECOGNIZE... There is no such a thing as too much recognition. If someone has achieved a significant sales feat, recognize him. Give him awards for his achievements. And do it where others may see. People are motivated when they know that their contributions are being recognized. Use this as a tool to increase your profit a hundred fold.

Use This Law To Further Your Sales Career

2007-07-17T15:31:00.000+08:00

1. Have A Giving Mindset.

The law of attraction states that you get back what you give out. When you go out to meet clients, focus on giving value-added service to them. Do not think that your objective is to close sale. In this way, you will send out a powerful positive energy that your client can sense which in turn influencing them to place business with you. Heard of the quote “Givers Get.”?

2. Know your unique selling points (USP)

Know your strength and weakness and focus on projecting your strength. Use what you are good at to differentiate from your peers. This quality of yours is what makes you unique. Do you know your USP? Here’s the secret: make a list of what your clients have complimented you for. Did they tell you that you are cheerful, very reliable, friendly, easy to get along with, extremely knowledgeable, or comfortable to talk to? Ask them if they don’t tell you!

As you make the list and think about it, you will start to become aware that the reason why they do business with you is YOU.

Knowing your uniqueness bring confidence. The more you like yourself, the more you will send out a positive energy of gratitude, and appreciation. Again your client can immediately sense that reciprocate back the energy.

Repeat The Technique Until It Is Yours

2007-07-15T14:54:00.000+08:00

As you are taught new sales techniques you need to practice them on the job as well as in your mind, until you can use them in each transaction without even thinking about their use. We call this level of sales proficiency “unconscious competence.”

Many sales professionals, try a new sales approach only once or twice before rejecting it out of hand or deciding that it will not work for them. True professionals; however, diligently practice a new sales concept until they can execute it without even thinking about it. This approach (going beyond an intellectual knowledge of a sales method) sets top producers apart and can be seen in their extraordinary closing and multiple sales success. It is also quite noticeable in their pay checks as well!

Role-playing at each new sales technique with a co-worker is a powerful way to gain the ability to consistently use these concepts on the job. Remember; however, that practice does not make perfect. Only “perfect practice” makes perfect. So as you practice with other employees, try to be as accurate as you can in the execution of a given sales concept.

Set aside some time each working day to drill in the sales concepts you have been taught. Take them one at a time and master each one. It might surprise you how much more you will enjoy coming to work when you become truly proficient in building sales and long term customer relationships for your company.

Saturate Your Mind

Saturate your mind with sales and motivational materials. As you do this, you will move from an intellectual understanding of the sales techniques to a daily working knowledge of the methods you need to succeed, and you will have more than just an occasional thought about what you are trying to accomplish. What is needed to help you change your behavior is a constant positive saturation of your mind by reading over the materials you have been given or the notes you have taken on the subject.

In his tapes, The Psychology of Selling, Brian Tracy tells his listeners that one of the best methods to increase sales success is to read then reread one of the best books on sales for 30 minutes each day. He feels this type of saturation will have a tremendous impact on the sales activity of an individual. Research from Stanford University indicates that you can learn more from reading the same book six times than you can from reading 40 books on the same subject.

Are You Seeing Enough People

2007-07-14T14:56:00.000+08:00

Question Two: If you don’t have enough sales to support your income needs, then aren’t you lacking in enough people to see – enough presentations or appointments?This one seems obvious. If you are not generating enough sales volume either you lack people to see (enough appointments) or your closing skills need improvement. More times than not, the issue isn’t just closing skills, it’s people to present to and close.

Let’s look at this two ways: (1) if you are having trouble setting appointments from your leads (which, by the way is closing), then you will have more trouble closing the sale when you do make a presentation; and (2) inadequate presentations will always result in inadequate sales.

So let’s look at our matrix thus far. Remember the solution is always to the left!

PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME

O.K., so you get it? The solution is always to the left. If you don’t have enough presentations you won’t have enough sales. So what now?Question Three: If I don’t have enough presentations, then how many leads do you have in your pipeline?Well, I don’t know. Probably enough! Really? Ask yourself this question; do you suspect that highly successful business people guess at their income or assets? Better still, if you were having surgery tomorrow would you want the person administering the anesthesia to guess at the amount? Of course not! Then, why would you guess about your leads?If you don’t know how many leads you have, then you don’t have a finger on the pulse of your lifeline. For sales professionals, lead acquisition and management is critical. You can take it to the bank, if you lack presentations, you lack a sufficient number of leads to support your sales efforts.

Let’s go back…remember the solution is always to the left. Look at the matrix again.

Successful Conferences - Top 5 Tips

2007-07-09T16:15:00.000+08:00

Hot tips on how to transform your conference into an exceptional event!

Know what you want Know your event objectives. What is the key message of your conference? What information do you need to pass onto your delegates?

Know how to get it Fully brief your delegates, guest speakers & your conference organisers of your key objectives. Utilise their skills to deliver your messages in interesting and fun ways.

Maintain quality at every turn
Strongly advise your internal speakers to stay within their allotted speaking time. When it comes to presentations - less is quite often more!

The all work and no play philosophy Be aware of how much information is too much information. Don't overload your delegates. Down time is just as important. Make sure you allot free time for reflection and rest. Always book some fun corporate activities and entertainment?

These great ideas come from the people at http://www.motivationworldwide.com

Concentration

2007-07-02T08:48:00.000+08:00

Concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket... - Andrew Carnegie

Success...it is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve. - Wilferd A. Peterson

How to make the most of your sales promotion

2007-06-27T15:30:00.000+08:00

The keys to maximising your sale promotion come two areas:

1. The creation of perceived value 2. The strength of the communication

Perceived value is the value that the consumer places on what you are offering. It is key to offer something which consumers think is worth a lot, but which costs you a little. Before the great DVD avalanche of 2006, DVD’s had a perceived value of around a tenner. So if you had put a DVD on a magazine, newspaper or other product selling for a pound or less, that looks would look like a fantastic deal to the consumer.

Now the perceived value of free DVD’s is much lower, because they are so commonly given away and people may have poor experiences with them.

The strength of the communication is especially significant at how effective you are at combining the sales promotion with other parts of the marketing mix. For example, if your sales promotion is at point of purchase, certain words are most effective at triggering a response. Free is best. Bonus or extra is good. Long-winded explanations are bad, so just get straight to the point. Certain colour combinations work best, with white out of red (think New Year sales) being the punchiest and most attention grabbing. Fluorescent is also fine, but think about the image of your brand!

Costs and benefits of sales promotion

The costs of sales promotion depend on what the upside for an increased sale is to you. The cost of the discount or gift should be in proportion to the margin you earn from each incremental sale. One big cost of promoting at point of sale, is that of rewarding everyone who buys your product, not just the incremental customers you were aiming for. So you will effectively be paying the people who would have bought your product anyway – another reason why sales promotion is most profitable for launches, as no one was purchasing the product before.

This means you need to achieve a substantial incremental up-lift in sale. Make sure you measure your up-lift. As a benchmark, if your sales promotion breaks even you’re doing pretty well. If you work in a sector where high loyalty exists, with few people likely to switch, a high incremental volume is unlikely. You will lose your shirt.

When and why you should use a sales promotion?

2007-06-24T15:29:00.000+08:00

Sales promotion is incredibly controversial. Estimates of what percentage of marketing spend goes on sales promotion vary (especially by industry sector) but one thing everyone agrees on is that it has spiraled massively in the last 20 years.

The reason is that sales promotion brings instant benefits to a company is sales. Sales promotion is unashamedly about making sales go up very quickly at minimal cost. That is why CEO’s of public companies like it and can sometimes use it to prop up stock prices. For example, because of the downward pressure on sales of print media such as newspapers and magazines caused by the internet, marketers have had to resort to switching almost all marketing funds to short-term sales promotion to preserve circulation figures, and therefore future advertising revenue.

What marketers don’t like is that nearly a 100% of the time sales promotion does nothing for brand equity. It can in fact, damage it. Heavy promotion looks desperate and erodes the perceived value of a product. It is possible to create brand building sales promotions – Clinique Bonus Time is one of them – but they’re as rare as hen’s teeth.

Not only that, but sales promotions very hardly ever pay out in profit terms. We have personal experience at utalkmarketing.com of over 50 sales promotion exercises, and we can only think of two that were absolutely profitable. Sales promotion disguise an underlying problem: you’re not selling as many as you want to. They don’t actually solve it.

Some people will justify the cost by saying that they can sample products and it gains new buyers for the future. Our experience (and that of most marketers) is that this only happens once in a blue moon. The only time that sales promotion can be a legitimate long-term way of building a products sales is for a launch, or perhaps a relaunch. If trial is one of your marketing objectives, then sampling, free gifts and money off tactics are legitimate ways of influencing people give you a go. However, these are unlikely to work without other elements of the marketing mix.

Release Your Inner Brakes

2007-06-15T14:53:00.000+08:00

By releasing your “inner brakes” and seeing yourself using the sales and customer service techniques you have learned, you can become extremely successful in your efforts to sell your company's products and services. If you want to consistently produce multiple sales transactions, just let yourself go and you will start to see the success you are seeking. You have the right to be successful. The only thing that can stop your improvement and ultimate success is yourself. Tell yourself that it is all right to produce outstanding sales results; and then, begin envisioning the success you expect to achieve.

Use Affirmations To Produce Success

To help you consistently execute the sales techniques you have learned, use affirmations to change the way you think and perform. Affirmations can also help release your internal breaking system.

We gravitate to our dominant thought patterns. By using affirmations (“I can,” “I am,” etc.), you can create dominant thoughts about specific sales methods that will help you to move away from your fears (the fear of failure or of looking foolish) toward successful sales transactions. Write down a series of positive affirmations about the sales process or a specific technique. Then read them over until you create the dominant thought patterns that produce success.

As we teach in all of our Sales Success workshops and discuss in detail in our published training material, it is vital to your sales success that you regularly affirm your selling skills and visualize successful transactions using the techniques you have learned. To succeed you must see yourself as one of your company’s top sales producers by regularly performing mental dress rehearsals for the position.

Choice

2007-06-12T16:38:00.000+08:00

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor E. Frankl

We fail to see that we can control our own destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be. - Orison Swett Marden

Averages

2007-06-11T16:25:00.000+08:00

The Success always has a number of projects planned, to which he looks forward. Any one of them could change the course of his life overnight. - William M. Winans

Advantage

2007-06-06T16:35:00.000+08:00

Do the next thing.
JOHN WANAMAKER

The wise man avoids evil by anticipating it.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
WINSTON CHURCHILL

Time Management At Work

2007-05-22T08:57:00.000+08:00

A career in sales may sound fascinating and lucrative to many. However, you must analyze it from all the important aspects before deciding to pursue sales as your profession. Exploring several opportunities is necessary as you might get to know about better options available and feel interested in a particular sector of sales.

Job Profile

Sales primarily revolves around the main intention of making money, deriving huge benefits and increasing customer satisfaction as well as loyalty. It includes several activities including converting various opportunities into orders along with negotiating, propositioning, presentation and deal closing. It even envelops imparting knowledge regarding marketing like competing risks, current business trends and benefit analysis.

Research Leads To Knowledge:

Knowledge plays a very significant role in order to be successful. No matter which degree you graduated with, you can always acquire the skills to sell, provided you have the zeal and urge to do well in your career. Similar to other professions, people in sales need to be hard working, dedicated, committed and talented in order to survive in the competitive world of sales. It is like the man eats man theory. You need to be on your toes most of the time, in order to meet the targets; otherwise you’ll find someone else ready to replace you. One should always do a lot of research work and take the opinions of people who have been working in this field from a long time. You can get to know about various challenges, fears, different issues and general work culture as a whole. Second hand work experience would certainly help an aspiring candidate in understanding the job completely, along with its positive as well as negative effects.

Job Opportunities

It’s a great career to be part of, because one gets the opportunity to stay dynamic, meet several different people, travel a lot and resolve problems. A sales person should be efficient enough to understand every detail about the product and able to explain the product to customers in a proper way. It’s necessary that he/she should be able to make the customer understand features of the product and other necessary details. They must be acquainted with marketing strategies and should be able to implement it to one’s daily professional life.

Basic Skills

The profession of sales has lagged behind other professions mainly because of the inability to seriously understand the career. It is always useful to pursue a degree in sales and promotion because it is a difficult job and not the kind of thing that can be done well by every one and anyone. One needs to have an undying passion and inclination to excel, learn new skills, developing technical knowledge and bring good will to the company. Some of the other attributes of a sales person are good critical thinking skill, ability to take rejection and excellent verbal and written communication skills. You should even have some knowledge about the advertising industry and tricks of the trade regarding sales and promotion.

It’s advisable for a newbie who aspires to be in a sales career to search for a good sales team to work with and especially an efficient sales manager who can help them learn the practical fundamental elements of the sales business.

Sales is a dynamic field and one cannot apply the same traditional methods that once worked. It requires implementing the latest methodology and strategies to ensure success.

Sales Letter Website Secrets

2007-05-18T08:28:00.000+08:00

A sales letter website can be very profitable. When I first started out on the internet I was under the illusion that you have to build a content site with thousands of pages of good quality content. Now this does work if you look at websites like the About portal and other portals such as AOL. This is a lot of work and may not suit everybody. There are basically two kinds of websites. Your portal website where you make money from advertising and your sales letter website where you have a website with a sales letter that has really good advertising copy that sells a product. Now you need a good quality product with a good niche to get this model to work. If you have very good sales copy you can get three to five percent of your visitors to convert to sales. Let us look at the elements that make a good sales letter for a website.

The most important part of this website is to have an attention grabbing headline as this is the first thing that your visitor will see. If it does not catch their attention they will not even read the rest of your sales letter. A good headline can increase your conversion by three hundred to four hundred percent.

You have to have copy that emphasizes the benefits of your product. People buy because of emotion and not features. You need to make sure that you have a compelling P.S. as this is the second most important part of your sales letter and often will persuade a visitor to buy who is sitting on the fence. You need to have a professional web design and layout including ebook cover graphics as this is proven to increase your conversion rate.

If you implement this model in a good niche with a good product, recruit a lot of affiliates and drive traffic to the website you can make a fortune with your sales letter website. A typical example of a successful sales letter website can be found on Clickbank where this business model has been proven many times over.

Would you like to know more about the magical marketing techniques that have helped me to quit my day job? I have just completed my new guide.

10 Ways to Overcome Sales Objections

2007-05-17T08:05:00.000+08:00

According to the experts who conduct sales coaching and sales training courses, most of the sales objections take place when a sales rep has failed to show to the client the usefulness of the product. Overcoming these objections is a very important lesson for a sales rep. It is important to remember that the customer may not always give the actual reason for objecting to the sale. Sometimes it is actually the customer wants to know more about the product and so puts forward objections to know more about it. Even the customer may not realize this, but a good rep can make it out.

Sales coaching and sales training courses can show the different strategies of dealing with the objections. Here are some strategies to do that.

1. Establish trust. This of course has to be mutual. If you have established trust then the client is also going to have confidence in you. Make the client understand that you are the expert as far as the product is concerned. In the process if you are able to make friends with the client, even better. But, it is not absolutely necessary. It is enough if you gain their confidence and trust.

2. Be patient. Always listen carefully to any objection that is being raised. Analyze it. Is it actually an objection or is it just a ploy to delay the deal? Most often if it is an objection, the client is going to repeat it. You can clarify by asking questions starting with “Don’t you really mean…” or something like that.

3. Confirm with the client if it is the only objection. Don’t ask it outright but, instead you can ask something like “Is this the only reason you won’t buy from our company?” If they have other objections they will come out with it.

4. Confirm the same thing again. You can reword the question to ask the same thing again. For instance you can ask “In other words, if it weren't for the price, you'd buy my service. Is that true?”

5. When you are asking the question, ask it in such a way that you give the solution to the objection. They should not feel that there is no way around the objection. For example if the objection for the warrantee you can ask “So if I were able to get you a longer warrantee, would that be enough for you to make a decision?”

6. The objection should be solved in such a way as to resolve the whole issue for once and all. You can pull out all the stops here. If you have testimonial letters or competitive comparison charts or special offer then, this is the time to bring them out.

7. Remember, now is the time to demonstrate the value of your product, list comparisons and show the benefits. If you cannot clarify the doubts of the client in a way that sets you apart from the other, you will never be able to close this sale. For that matter you will not get the confidence to close any other sale.

8. Ask a closing question or communicate in a speculative way. Ask a question, the answer to which confirms the sale. “If I could do X, Y or Z , would you give me your order ?” is the classic model for a close.

9. Narrate similar incidents that took place. It might have happened to you or might be another sales person. People always find comfort in knowing that others have gone through the same fate and if these people are known to your clients, even better.

10. Once all the objections have been resolved successfully, get the order in writing as much as possible. For this you can ask questions like “When do you want it delivered?” or “When is the best day to begin”.

Product knowledge, creativity, ingenuity, sales tools, and confidence in yourself, your product, and your company must all some together if you are to overcome sales objections and close the sale. You have to combine technique with honesty and conviction to get the prospect to resolve any lingering doubt or conflict.

The Second Step in Sales

2007-05-16T09:52:00.000+08:00

This second step in sales is about the immortal on-liner: “the offer you can not refuse.”

There are two or more views on sales. The individual view in which the professional sales representative is able to persuade the next deal. The other view is one in which corporations manage the sales process. Both sales activities have in common that the way in which this process is managed defines the success of the sales.

Large corporations that depend heavily on sales will try to select the best sales representatives. Yet this is (apparently) not enough. To be successful in sales requires a sophisticated method. And the offer you can not refuse is an important second step.

There are many reasons why you cannot refuse the offer. One is that you are not really aware that the offer is part of the deal. For example when you buy your internet package at home the offer includes a “FREE” virus scan. The only thing the buying customer needs to do is cancel this part of the deal after three month after which he will be charged. The virus scan is no longer free. If you let go you are stuck with something you didn’t ask for.

Other offers you cannot refuse include all those little presents that will pull you over (the barrier). By accepting such a small and handy gift -- you would never have bought yourself, but comes in very neat -- you have emotionally unveiled yourself for the next step. This is for the real bonus you have to pay for. And you will.

Many additional examples fit in this step, including all those where you offer a discount if the prospect … acts soon, preferably right now.

But the essence of this step and of the other two steps of the general sales process is that organizing is all. It is the method that does it. Therefore you have to be prepared so that you can show the potential customer the way.

Turning Sales Techniques Into Sales Success!

2007-05-15T08:29:00.000+08:00

The goal of all sales training is not just to teach solid selling principles and techniques, but to actually help participants increase the number of new accounts (products and/or services) they sell and improve their multiple sales ratios. Unfortunately, many sales and service industry professionals gain an intellectual awareness of the methods of selling from the sales training they receive, yet fail to improve their bottom line sales results by systematically using the concepts in their daily transactions. See my article, The Processionary Caterpillar Syndrome Costs You Sales?

There are a number of methods you can use to move beyond an intellectual awareness of sound sales techniques. By applying some of these ideas, you can begin to see a steady improvement in the number and scope of your sales transactions. These concepts can help any sales professional drill-for-skill the vital selling principles needed to become a sales leader. Really all it takes to be successful in sales is just a little practice and perseverance.

Give Yourself Permission To Succeed

To become a sales leader in any kind of business only requires that you give yourself permission to succeed. In sales, as in every endeavor in life, it is your attitude not your attributes that count. There is no reason you can not be extremely successful at selling your company’s products and services, if you make up your mind to do the job.

William James, a Harvard Professor and the man many view as the father of American Psychology, wrote in 1895:

“The greatest discovery of my generation is, that a human being can alter his circumstances in life by altering his attitude of mind.”

James also gave people a formula for achieving an altered attitude of mind. He simply told them to “act as if” they were already successful and this act alone could make them successful. If you act as if you have changed or act like a different person, according to James, you must change or become a different person. If a sales professional acts as if she can sell, her sales ratios and product account closings can do nothing but improve.

Sales Success: Critical Steps

2007-05-14T08:34:00.000+08:00

All You Need To Know About Sales Promotion

2007-05-11T09:18:00.000+08:00

Explanation

The methods for creating public acceptance of, or interest in a product. This is usually in addition to standard merchandising techniques, such as advertising or personal selling, and normally consisting of an offer of free samples, gifts made to a purchaser, and so on.

Meaning?

Got a living room full of free DVD’s in cheap cardboard sleeves? Ever go crazy at Clinique Bonus Time? Own 17 pairs of cheap flip flops from Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan? Then as a consumer, you’ve already bought into the fast-moving world of sales promotion.

Sales promotion can be broken down into the general areas of:

• Gift With Purchase (GWP) e.g. free Amelie DVD with the Guardian

• Percent Extra Free e.g. 20% more L’Oreal shampoo

• Sampling e.g. that fragrance sample that made your fashion magazine smell like a tart’s boudoir

• Money-off offers on-pack e.g. normally £5, now £3

• Coupons against future redemptions e.g. 15% off your first purchase of Olay’s new wonder wrinkle cream

Sales promotion comes into contact with many other areas of marketing. For example, samples are often sent out by direct mail and gifts with purchases are frequently heavily promoted at point of sale. Sales promotions are rarely successful on their own without assistance from other elements of the marketing mix.

Law of Attraction For Sales People

2007-05-10T08:20:00.000+08:00

Many people have experienced improvement in their life after they have watched the great DVD entitled “The Secret”. This DVD revealed what is believed to be the most powerful law in the universe – the Law of Attraction. The law of attraction has become one of the most popular topics today in the world of Personal Development.

The Law of Attraction simply says that you attract into your life whatever you focus your attention on. Your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest them into reality. This implies that anything is within your field of possibility if you desire it strongly, believe in it, and take action towards it

It is critical for anyone who is applying this universal law to know how to use it to its full advantage. The law of attraction does not merely rely on the “Ask, Believe, and Receive” formula.

Effective Sales Incentives

2007-05-09T09:24:00.000+08:00

One marketing strategy that does not seem to fail is sales incentive. And that's the reason why it is also one of the most common types of marketing strategy that is used to increase the profit of the business and even motivate employees to perform in the top of their game.

You too can increase the profit of your business by following these few tips:

Know what your employees want, then give it to them. It is useless to have a very good sales incentive program if your employees really don’t want what they will receive. What you aim as a motivating factor will not be as motivating after all. So, ask for your employees' opinion on what would be the perfect sales incentive for them. Take note that 20 percent of your salesforce is already motivated. Do not try too hard to target everyone and expect that the bottom part of your salesforce would provide the same output. Still, though it may not work for all, sales incentives will definitely boost the motivation of at least the next 20 percent of your salesforce making your business more cost-effective.

If you want to play it safe, it would be better if you give cash bonuses or salary increase. This will fit everyone and will definitely be very much appreciated by all.

Effective Sales Presentations

2007-05-08T09:08:00.000+08:00

Are you a salesperson who is not happy or has doubts about your sales presentations? Presenting an effective sales presentation requires skill, practice planning and preparation. There are guidelines that that may be used to produce effective sales presentations which will be examined.

It is important to keep your sales presentation simple and to the point. It should not be too simple in a way that will lack substance. Through substance you can show features of your products and create an impression. Your presentation should be memorable both to you the salesperson and also to your prospects .Strive to clarify responsibilities and explain any agreements. Avid lengthiness in your sales presentations and reduce your chances of elaboration especially of product knowledge.

Effective sales presentations create an impression and have emotional appeal. Of note, is that people tend to buy on emotion, not logic. By appealing to the prospects emotion you have a better chance of closing the sale. Strive to get rid of fear if you are scared of public speaking because you will not be able to make effective presentations.

Having the appropriate presentation is crucial. Just the thought of giving a sales presentation that is inappropriate is enough to make you cringe not to mention how embarrassing it can be. It is important that you prepare thoroughly for your presentations and have everything in order. Let confidence come across in your presentations since its absence will be noticed by prospects.

Finally, consider the bigger picture that your presentation is reflective of. This will cause you to see both sides of the presentation and mention both features and benefits associated with your products. Try to avoid one sided presentations and your prospects will kindly show their appreciation for having been involved and listened to. By utilizing these guidelines you will make more effective sales presentations.

Effective Sales Presentations

2007-05-07T09:43:00.000+08:00

D-List Part 4

2007-05-03T15:13:00.000+08:00

Patrick Says v2.0
Paula Mooney
PBriscoe.com
Pegs AZ Life
Pencil Thin
PimpMyPageRank
Pink Poison Store
Pond, The
Ramblings Of An Undisturbed Mind
Randa Clay Design
Raw Vegan Momma
Reasoner, The
Rotten Bananas
Sassy Southerner, The
Scribble On The Wall
Scuttlebutt Pipeline
Selena’s Travel and Culture
SelfHynosisProgram
Shopping Flavor
ShowMeHealthBiz
ShowMeMoneyBiz.com
Simple Kind Of Life
Simplify Every Obstacle
Skeets Stuff
Solo Technology
Sophistishe.Org Personal Blog
SQKIKs Simple Tech
Super Blogging
Sun-Flower Family, The
Table for Five
TDZ Travel
TeaScoop
TechieZone
Teenage Angst Regression
Texas RV
Travel blog
Thermal
TimeForBlogging
Tricia\’s Musings
Two Dog Zoo
Utterly Geek
Wanders World
Web Files, The
WebStyle
Whatever I Feel Like
Wild & Crazy Ride
Winding Threads
Wired Kayaker, The
Women Mumbles
Work At Home Mom Revolution
Yoga Blog

To be continued

The Second Step in Sales

2007-05-03T08:25:00.000+08:00

4 Trends in Catalog Copy Increases Sales

2007-05-02T09:23:00.000+08:00

As a result of Internet influence on the buying markets, today's catalog copy is changing to include 4 aspects that increases sales. Understanding these trends is the key to catalog success...online or off.

The first trend involves increasing the level of informality. Today's effective product descriptions are written in an informal, conversational tone rather than the traditional more formal, "list-the-features" style. Making sales in today's highly competitive marketplace revolves around BENEFITS. The most effective catalogs today gives the potential customer the "feel" of the product. Makes sure your catalog copy hits the prospects "emotional" BUY NOW button by placing the focus on the benefits of the product.

The second trend also related to benefits/features. Using plain features as a product description without the impact of the benefits will only result in a response rate that is at best accidental or casual. All too often catalog owners lose sales by simply listing the features of the product without helping the copy come alive with benefits. For example, "9mil plastic liner" translates to "durable, 9 mil plastic liner ensures leak free coverage". Your potential customer must "feel" how the benefits of your product will enhance their life.

The third trend focus is on validation. Give the potential customer proof. If your products have won an award or have been tested and proven superior use it. While testimonials and proof have long been used in long sales copy, it hasn't always been used in the catalog markets. This very persuasive tool can sway many buyers.

The fourth trend is the promise of fast action. Today's world is one of instant gratification. Time-saving benefits make the sale, regardless of the product. You must also let your potential customers know about speedy deliveries, refund polices, and rapid exchange polices. No longer are people willing to wait weeks to receive their order.

A well trained copywriter includes these trends and more "catalog secrets" to increase sales. Short , direct, to-the-point catalog copy can't waste words or space...yet it must evoke the "gotta have it now" buyer's attitude. Don't waste your precious time and money writing catalog copy yourself, or having an untrained employee do it. For the best return on your investment hire a professional catalog copywriter. The proof will be in the form of killer sales and repeat customers.

Build Your Sales Force With Words

2007-05-01T07:59:00.000+08:00

Have you ever been browsing through a magazine or catalog when one advertisement just catches your eye and makes you keep reading simply because of how enticing it's written? Have you ever bought something you may have thought to be silly or unnecessary beforehand just because this same enticing ad changed your mind about the product?

This is the result of good copy. In other words - the words written to promote an idea, business, person or opinion. The main purpose of copywriting is to persuade the reader to take action. This could be anything from buying a product, subscribing to a newsletter, casting a vote, or simply just seeing things from the copywriter's viewpoint in general. Copywriters are hired to write copy for many things including television and radio commercials, magazine and newspaper ads, billboards, and even brochures and postcards. However, in the online world, there are a lot more things that copywriters have to keep in mind if their message is to be successful.

Writing that will in turn make prospects buy is known as successful ad copy. However, in order to obtain successful ad copy on the internet, the customers must get a chance to see the ad. Because of this, copywriting online, also known as content writing, must include a bit of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In order to utilize SEO on your copy, and have your copy make customers want to buy, you must have an idea of what your customers are looking for (surprise, surprise!). The most popular technique of doing this is putting yourself in the customer's shoes and trying to think of what phrases they would think of first if they wanted to view what your product, idea, newsletter, etc. is focused on. It is these phrases that you will want to make sure you use when writing your copy.

Alongside with what the customers want, you have to know that your product will help them adequately solve it as well. The greatest copy comes from copywriters who are sure about what they are selling. If you believe in the product that you're selling, then you're writing will show the same (because a customer will only like the product if you like it, correct?).

Once the reader feels that you believe in your product, you will establish trust with him/her. Establishing trust is a big thing on the internet, because your interaction with the client is pretty limited. However, if you use the correct tactics, prospects will start to warm up to your image. The best way to do this is to talk to the customer. Try to stay away from ranting off paragraph after paragraph on technical jargon that the customer won't understand. Imagine that you are sitting down with one of your closest friends and explaining your product to them face-to-face. This is the type of copy people like to read.

Sales Training Techniques

2007-04-30T08:55:00.000+08:00

I have compiled the following sales training techniques to substantially boost your income. You may be in the selling industry and experiencing a slump. Often people are not trained in the proper sales techniques. I know of some Fortune 500 companies who still use cold calling to generate the majority of their sales. This is completely ineffective and you need to use a system to generate your sales.

The first step in the sales process is that you need to qualify your lead before you present your sales presentation to them. There is no point in trying to sell something to a lead that is not qualified. For example if you are selling weight loss programs you can ask them questions like "On a scale of one to ten how serious are you about losing weight?" and "Why do you want to lose weight now?" Obviously if they answer ten and they are experiencing health problems you know they are very serious. One important thing to remember is that when people volunteer information they may say that they are a ten, but in fact they could possibly only be a six or seven serious. You can find this out by asking them a question that is a contradiction like "Hypothetically speaking how much would you pay a weight fairy to instantly lose all the weight with the wave of a magic wand?". This question catches most people off guard and determines how serious they actually are. Now someone who answers fifty dollars is only slightly serious. However someone who answers three thousand dollars is very serious and there is a good chance that they will purchase your product. The reason for this is that if they were deadly serious they would get the result immediately if it was possible.

One of the most significant factors in succeeding in selling is that you need to listen more. Most sales people come across very aggressive and this is a big turn off for most people. Ask a question like "What is most important to you about losing weight?". Your qualified prospect will explain to you the reasons why they want to lose weight and persuade themselves to buy.

Often sales people are too scared to close the prospect and end up losing lots of sales. If you have done all the previous steps correctly the closing part should be easy and natural. I have found the best way to close is to offer your prospect two choices. You do not want to ask them a question where they will answer "yes" or "no" as many people will answer "no" out of habit. You can close by asking a question like "Would you like the advanced weight loss program or the standard weight loss program?" Take their credit card details and get off the phone before they hesitate and change their mind.

After you close you are going to have to learn to deal with objections otherwise you will lose a lot of sales. These objections rise mainly because the product could be expensive or because of skepticism.

The three most common objections you will hear are:

1) "I need to think about it" This happens because your prospect does not believe you. You can overcome this objection by saying that you understand that they are skeptical and if you could show them a way of losing weight without risking anything would they proceed. If they say "Yes" you can mention that the product has a money back guarantee for thirty days and close the deal.

2) "The product is too expensive" This happens because your prospect may actually not be in a position to afford it. Workout a package that they can afford and close the deal.

3) "I need to talk to my husband/wife" Often this happens because the couple makes their decisions together. You can ask how the person feels about the program. If they are enthusiastic it will be likely that they will try to convince their partner to start the program. However, in most cases their partner will be skeptical and try to convince them otherwise. You can volunteer to make the same presentation to their partner as well.

Use these sales training techniques and you will find that your sales will substantially improve. Practice them on a daily basis until you become very good and watch your profits soar.

Overcome Sales Objections

2007-04-24T08:19:00.000+08:00

Direct Sales Tips

2007-04-23T09:11:00.000+08:00

As a direct salesperson, you serve a vital function in our society. You create a market for products. To be a good salesperson you must take pride in your profession, be it part-time or full-time. Below are eight sales tips to help you along in selling your products.

1. You must honestly believe and feel that what you are selling is a worthwhile and honest value in order to be a success in selling. When you have the conviction that you are selling a worthwhile product, you will sell with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is contagious. When the prospect becomes enthusiastic, he buys.

2. Don't be impatient. Too many inexperienced salespeople call on one or two prospects and quit if they don't get immediate results. It takes time for people to gain confidence in you and your products. Many people will buy at once, but a big proportion will wait to think things over.

Most of your business will eventually be repeat orders from customers. Almost all business depends on repeats. A retail establishment will lose money for quite a period until they build up a flow of repeat customers. Any worthwhile endeavor requires effort. The amount of money you will make will be directly proportional to the effort you put forth.

Some people believe there is an innate trait that makes some people good at sales and others failures. Several marketing authors have dispelled this fallacy. You can and will make money selling your products if you put forth an effort.

3. Be yourself. Many people visualize a successful salesperson as a hail and hearty person with an outgoing personality. If they are not the image of what they expect is a success, they try to imitate. I recently read..., "One of our most successful salespeople is a man who 'never sold a thing in his life' before he joined us. He turned to selling in desperation, when he lost his job and needed an income to support his family. He didn't like to dress in a jacket or tie so he called on his prospects in his everyday "house" clothes. He was terrified at selling and the first two calls took more courage than he thought he had. He sold both prospects! When you are not yourself, you'll appear phony." Just act your natural self, and you will do well.

4. Don't try to sell by force. If you do pressure a person into buying something they don't want, you haven't developed a customer.

5. Don't plead. "Please try my product because I need the money badly." Maybe you'll get a sympathy sale, but again, you haven't developed a customer.

6. Emphasize value, need and satisfaction, and your prospect will buy if you can explain to him that your product is a good value, it serves a need, and that he or she will derive pleasure or satisfaction from the sale. Of course, you must know your product before you can convince others that it is worthwhile buying.

7. Ask for the sale. Closing the sale is the critical part of any sales approach. You must not be afraid to ask for the order. The close naturally depends upon the proper overall presentation. If you have shown the prospect that your product has value, need, or potential enjoyment, you're ready to ask for an order.

Test closes are made by asking, "Which do you prefer the peach or the aqua color? I can deliver your order overnight, or would Saturday be preferable?"

8. Set goals for yourself. When you're in sales you must be self motivated. You won't have any boss or foreman telling you what to do and when. It becomes too easy to find excuses for not making calls unless you establish goals for yourself. Keep accurate records of all sales by the week and by the month.

3 Key Benefits of Automated Sales

2007-04-19T09:01:00.000+08:00

When someone asks me, "what are the benefits for automating the selling process?" The answer is easy. A business owner will have more profits, enjoy more free time and gain peace of mind. Let me explain the simple concepts we use to deliver outstanding results. We call it, creating T.O.M.A. - Top Of Mind Awareness. The idea is to reach TOMA with your existing customers so they always think of you whenever they need a service you provide. This is accomplished through the automated and frequent contacts of our selling system. We take luck out of the equation and build in our guaranteed method of increasing client awareness for your products and services.

Increase Sales and Profits When Clients Call You First!

FACT: Most companies do not take the time to educate existing customers on the variety services they offer and they do not capture the additional profits from additional business. It is unfortunate that most businesses do not have anything like our TOMA to remind clients about all their services. The traditional business model expects salespeople or counter salespeople to perform this important role. Salespeople and counter people forget to remind clients and you lose profitable sales opportunities.

The Selling Magic sales automation system increases client share when it reaches TOMA with your clients and prospects. The power of this formula should not be underestimated. Our customers enjoy this powerful benefit and it explains why many of them do not want their competition to discover this business advantage. When you are able to push a button and execute the power of the best selling practices for your business, you will understand. Client will actually call you, before you call them for business.

Increase Your Free Time with a Selling System!

What could you do with 18 hours of extra free time a week? If you are like most of my clients, you can do what you want to do with the extra time. You have the extra time because the Selling Magic Automated selling system does most of the routine sales communications for you. The system follows the best practices of seven key sales areas.

What might normally take a salesperson about 6 hours of sales time, can be accomplished in about 30 minutes. Does this sound too good to be true? Selling Magic does happen and you will do it by pushing a few buttons. This is why we call it our push button selling system. The selling system also keeps track of things so you do not even have to worry about anything. If you don't have a hobby, start one because you will have time for one.

NO WORRIES - Our Selling System Does That!

Why worry about what you have to do tomorrow when your selling system has the memory of a computer that never forgets anything. You will reduce your heart rate with knowing the system keeps track of everything including excellent sales management reports. Because our system is tied to ACT, it reports your sales activities automatically. The salesperson is only responsible for 11% of the activities. The 11% is what keeps a salesperson in front of more clients and keeps prospects and customers moving through the selling process. Ease your business life and start using a system that is designed to give you back profits, time and no worries. Contact us today for a free demonstration.

The First Step In Sales

2007-04-18T08:54:00.001+08:00

Most if not all sales processes consists of three steps. The first one is a very simple one. It is such a basic step that many tend to forget to use it. Even in a normal communication process this activity is also required, but often source of confusion when the complete step has been skipped or ignored. But whether it is the internal sales process, communicating the goals and activities to pursue or the external sales process, it starts with information.

How often do you come across a situation that you have not been informed your self by your manager? Or, as a manager have you ever forgotten to inform your team members about an important issue that will have consequences later on?

The first step in sales is about informing the other party, the other side or person on the line. Sales is not only about selling a product, but many times about gaining commitment. And the first step in doing so is informing someone.

The straightforward sales process also starts with this activity. And much of this sales process is executed by none-specialized sales agents. Instead, marketing departments take most of this responsibility. And the reason is simple, if you are able to inform more people (about a new feature) the conversion to a next step will increase automatically.

Think about the tv-campaigns, the billboards down the roads or the banners on the net. It is all about showing that you (your business) is there, waiting for the unknown prospect to approach. Telemarketing too, is often initiated after prospects have been previously informed. A normal approach is that they receive some kind of information, a leaflet or whatever so that the telesales person can elaborate on existing information – have you received our brochure yet? What did you think of it?

There are three main steps in the sales process. This first step can have a massive approach, where your organization can contact many potential clients. The distance between your (sales) organization and the potential client is still very large. In the next two steps this distance will have to be narrowed down.

Sales Letters - Effective Marketing Jargon

2007-04-17T08:04:00.000+08:00

What sucks up cash like a twister on steroids? Sales Letters with Amazing Breakthrough Copywriting Techniques, of course.

How can you write Sales Letters that don’t sound like punched-up jargon from an over-used thesaurus?

Anybody can write a Sales Letter, with just a few simple thoughts, and a thesaurus full of superlatives, but why?

What Amazing Secret can you possibly Discover that would Crank Out a Steroid Loaded Sales Letter resulting in Massive Sales and Cash Flows for your business?

Any copywriter will tell you that wham-bam marketing ploys that build up magnificent expectations for a product will sell the product, because people buy SUPERLATIVE sales pitches. Why? Because we’re all looking for something better than the best, bigger than the rest, and more effective than the last.

Making your Sales Letter stand out among the witty and wordy copywriter’s idealistic survivalist strategies may be difficult but not impossible.

Most importantly, say what is true. If your product isn’t Splendid and Magnificent, don’t say it. Your buyer will appreciate an honest description of the product they purchase, and will be less likely to return the product.

Providing a high-quality description of your product, with details, information, and enough description to make the product stand out will help ease the decision making for the buyer. Fortunes have been created with Sales Letters, and you could be creating the next multi-million dollar seller.

Write with intent to impact your audience, convince them to purchase your product, and convey information. These basic standards should apply to all copywriting for your business, but specifically for Sales Letters that will be read prior to any other written product.

Sales Letters can be short, one or two line advertizements, or thirty page websites. Either way, the objective is sales. If it can be done well in two lines, why waste a good day writing thirty pages?

Sales Force Incentives

2007-04-16T08:24:00.000+08:00

Sales force incentives are a vital part of business and one of the best reasons is that they work. This is one of the few motivators that can rev up a sales force for pennies on the dollar. However it has to be well designed and executed to reap the full benefits and get the most out of your sales force.

The reasons sales force incentives are so effective, is that they appeal to the basic instinct of a true sales person. The need to compete, to be recognized for doing well and essentially having their ego stroked and last but not least the ability to acquire more stuff for doing what they love to do. A good sales force incentive program can almost always assure a business owner that they will get results, but there are several rules of engagement that they have to keep in mind. The sales force incentive requires a concise goal. This may be as basic as increasing sales, but there are other objectives that can be added to a sales force incentive. These range from generating new accounts to launching new products or even expanding your sales territory. The sales force incentives goals will greatly depend on where that particular business sees they are lagging behind the competition, or that there is an untapped market they need to explore.

The next thing a sales force incentive needs to accomplish is a clearly defined list or statement of accomplishments. In other words your sales force needs to know precisely what the amount of increase in numbers that are expected. Is it X number of dollars, or X number of new accounts? The comparisons can be from previous years or from the competition, however the current business climate and the potential of your sales team need to be taken into account. The sales force incentive can be trick in that, make it too unattainable and you end up demotivating the team , make it too easy and you will not make the returns needed to justify the money spent on sales force incentive.

The next important part of an effective sales force incentive is the budget. The budget should not exceed 10% of the projected sales increase, and should not be less that about 1.5-2%. This budget includes not just the sales force incentive but the promotion such as awards luncheon and also the administration of this program in the form of over time and the like. Also be prepared to be flexible in case it is very successful you might want to continue it or if it is not working, revamp it.

Picking the right sales force incentive is also crucial to its success. Cash usually works because most people like cash, and there is no cost to storing it. The down side is people tend to forget after it is put into an account or mutual fund, and it always a clear show of how much the company spent on the sales force incentive. Take a team on a vacation and you can also gain the benefit of building the team spirit while rewarding them. Not everyone will agree though that travel is a good sales force incentive since some people prefer to take vacations to get away from the people they work with. Merchandise is also good as long as the quality of the products match the sales force. Also the merchandise will be around for a long while to remind the team or individual of their accomplishments.

The main thing is to keep the sales force incentive duration short. People are better motivated in the short term. Quicker rewards will help reinforce the behavior desired by the company initiating the sales force incentive.

D-List Part 3

2007-04-03T15:12:00.000+08:00

These blogs have the ‘no follow’ link disabled from the comments, which means that if you comment on these sites, you will get an actual link. If you would like to be included here, please let me know.

If you find this list useful, please consider linking to it.

This DoFollow Blog list is courtesy of Courtney Tuttle and was created originally by Coleen as the D-List.

Jonlee
Jones PC
JOIN - Do Follow Bloggers **
Julies
Journal
Just Not Martha
Kansha Shite
Knitting Fiend, The
Last Blogger
LeaveAmerica
Life in the Fast Lane
Life Is Risky
Life Learning Today
Life Of A School Bus Driver, The
Life Passion Travel & More
Life through eyes of Krissy
Lifecruiser
LittleAmerica.us
Live Life Organics & Your Health
Magical Rose Garden
Marketing Blagger
Master Cleanse
Midlife Musings
Mom is Nutz
MomReviews.net
Mothering Many
My Credit Group
My Dandelion Patch
My Home Recipe
My Muddled Mind
My Opinion Counts
My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings
Nanashi-Inc.net
New Century Politics
No Average Mom
Odd Planet
On the Horizon
Open Road Biker

To be continued

Boost The Reward to Your Team by Creating an Experience

2007-03-21T13:13:00.000+09:00

article by Kirsty Dunphey

When employers and managers typically think of rewarding their team (or employees) the first few ideas that typically come to mind are: Money in the form of pay rises or bonuses Incentives such as gifts Praise, recognition and compliments.

When next discussing your staff rewards I challenge you not to stop at just those three ideas. As an example, a few years back my team and I at our real estate agency were able to work a little magic that had so many different benefits – one of them being a form of staff reward. We had three main departments: sales, property management and administration. Real estate is a tough industry and each of those three departments had their own challenges to face daily, however sales not only had the lows in the forms of challenges to overcome, but it also had the amazing highs. These highs were so obvious any time a happy client who had just bought or sold met their agent in our office after the sale had gone through.

Funnily enough, it was while looking for a new way to reward our clients that I accidentally stumbled across an innovative staff reward. I explained to my sales team that I had an idea to change the way we gave gifts to our clients after their sale or purchase had gone through. Rather than telling the sales team about the idea, I set up a demonstration and lead them downstairs as an elderly female client who had just sold her home was waiting in reception. I gathered not only the sales team, but also anyone from administration and property management who was in the office at that time and we all gathered behind our reception wall. I placed a gift basket and flowers with balloons in the hands of two sales people and we rang a gong. From there I asked everyone to head into reception clapping and cheering, as we did so our front office staff also stood up and cheered. Our client was greeted by a barrage of happy people celebrating her sale with joy (and a gift.) It was an experience she wouldn’t soon forget.

Our clients loved this sort of attention even if quite a few were very overwhelmed at first (yes, there were some tears of joy!) The prolific marketer in me also loved this idea as it meant that we got to take a photo of our happy client with their gift and real estate agent which we could use later on.

What I didn’t expect was that after that first experience I would have two of my administration staff come to me later that day to tell me how the experience had almost brought them to tears. They expressed that they loved being part of the “high” of selling a home that until they only the sales team had really experienced.

It wasn’t a reward that could be quantified as an increase in money or anything tangible for the people that participated in it. It was however able to increase their motivation and their understanding of why their job was such a vital one to these people. Most of our team got to participate in this experience 2 or 3 times a week and taking up about 5 minutes of their day at a time. In my opinion a dollar value can’t be placed on a reward like that to both the company and those who work there.

B2B Sales leads success checklist

2007-03-20T00:38:00.000+09:00

You’ve spent a great deal of time, effort and money putting together your business-to-business sales lead generation programs. How you handle B2B sales leads once you get them makes the difference between a happy sales team and new customers or an unhappy sales team and lost sales. Here’s a checklist of questions to ask yourself to determine if you have the best chance of being successful with your sales lead programs:

Are you prepared to send requested information immediately? Prospects have their own agenda and timeline, not yours or your firm’s. So, you need to be efficient and strike while you have the opportunity. Timing of your inquiry handling processes are of paramount importance. Your firm needs to respond to all inquiries quickly—the faster, the better.

Here are some questions to keep in mind:

* Do you know what to send in response to different types of inquiries?
* Do you have electronic versions for those who want the information by e-mail or via downloads from your Web site?
* Do you have adequate supplies of printed materials ready for those who prefer them?
* Do you have the people, systems and processes in place to get the requested information out the door quickly?

Are you prepared to capture all inquiries in a database for ongoing nurturing and qualification efforts? To avoid having any of the golden sales opportunities represented by your inquiries fall through the cracks, you need to capture all of your inquiries in a database so you can properly manage their fulfillment, nurturing, qualification and distribution. With this in mind:

* Do you have the database ready to go?
* Do you have the data entry people or outside services lined up to get the inquirers into the database?
* Do you have a program in place to “qualify” sales leads before sending them to your salespeople, reps, dealers or distributors?

If your business-to-business marketing-for-leads program is to succeed, marketing, sales and corporate management need to share a unified definition of qualified sales leads. If you all agree from the start on what a qualified lead is, then deliver leads that meet that definition, your sales team will be able to effectively and efficiently follow up and close more sales.

* Have you agreed with sales management on which questions to ask in order to determine which leads are qualified?
* Have you agreed what information is required to know which sales contacts to route the qualified leads to?
* Do you have proactive programs in place to contact and qualify your leads?
* Do you have a process in place for distributing qualified leads to sales contacts as they are identified?

Sales leads are worthless unless they are quickly handed off to the right sales contact for follow up.

Your lead distribution process has to be well defined and ready to go—in advance—so as to prevent delays or misdirection when leads are qualified and ready for sales attention.

It also has to be easy for your salespeople, reps, resellers and distributors to access the qualified sales leads and manage their lead follow up.

* Is your sales leads program designed to get the leads into salespeople’s hands without delay?
* Have you made it easy for your salespeople, reps, dealers or distributors to use?
* Can they access leads over the Internet?
* Does it integrate with their existing contact management or email systems?
* Do you have a program in place to nurture or cultivate your not-yet-qualified leads?

Salespeople generally focus on those one-in-four sales leads who are ready to buy soon. However, research shows that three of four sales come from longer-term prospects who are frequently ignored by sales.

As these longer-term leads represent the lion’s share of the potentional sales, your sales lead management program must be designed to help nurture the longer-term leads until they are qualified as being sales-ready opportunities.

* Does your company have a prospect relationship marketing program in place to keep in touch with these longer-term prospects, using email, fax, mail and phone contacts, until they are identified as being qualified and ready for sales attention?
* Do you know what messages to send as part of your prospect relationship management program?
* Do you know how often to contact prospects with these messages?
* Do you know what offers to use to get them to further identify their needs and situation so you can determine if they are ready for sales?
* Do you have a program in place to measure and track the results of your various sales-lead generation, cultivation and sales follow-up programs?

A marketer I know recently reported to her management on the results of the company’s lead generation programs: Awareness of their company and its products among targeted prospects more than doubled; the cost per qualified lead delivered to sales by marketing dropped by nearly 40 percent; 58 percent of the opportunities in the sales pipeline were found first by marketing; and 48 percent of the sales closed; and 62 percent of the revenue during the past 12 months came from marketing-generated leads.

The result? She got a bigger B2B marketing budget and senior management no longer doubts marketing's contribution to the company's success. Can you answer these questions and show your management how your lead generation programs are contributing to your company’s success?

* Can you determine your cost per leadFeature Articles, cost per qualified lead and cost per sale?
* Do you know which lead programs generate the highest return on investment?
* Do you know which nurturing techniques worked and which didn’t?
* Can you prove to management that your lead generation programs are paying off in increased sales and market share?

Refer to this checklist of questions to guide the development or improvement of your company’s sales lead management programs and processes and you’ll have the best chance of being successful.

D-List Part 2

2007-03-03T15:12:00.000+09:00

These blogs have the ‘no follow’ link disabled from the comments, which means that if you comment on these sites, you will get an actual link. If you would like to be included here, please let me know.

If you find this list useful, please consider linking to it.

This DoFollow Blog list is courtesy of Courtney Tuttle and was created originally by Coleen as the D-List.

Andy Beard
Ang’s Chicken Coop
Are we there yet
Army Mom:New Jersey
Art Kauffman
Article Writer, The
Ask Jason
Ask Jason Business
Axplay
BenSpark,
The BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo
BiggerPockets
BizMark Tech
BlogAboutMoneyOnline
BloggingForBills
BloggingTips
Blogging WV
Blogocola
Blogozine
BMonaco
BodyFitnessInfo
Body, Mind & Solar
Boston Brat
BrownSista
Buy better - Have a Better Life
BuyMeBlog
Buzz Queen, The
By the Sea
Cade’s WriteToRight
CampingCoop.org
Candid Quips
Charmed and Dangerous
Cheffin\’ It!!
Clapping Trees
Colloquium
Comedy Plus
Community Building Blog
Curious Cat Science
Confessions of a Housewife
Confessions of an Everyday housewife
CoolAdzine for Marketers
Craftblog
Crafts 4 Dummies
David Dairey
Dont Fear the Truth
DorisGoShopping.com
Down Memory Lanes
Ecomm Tips
EMomsAtHome
EMoneyMarketing
Endangered Spaces
Fibromyalgia Experiment, The
Finding Life\’s Enchantments
FitForFreedom
Flatwater Tech
Fools Wisdom
FootPrints On the Moon
Fuzzy Future

To be continued

Sales Prospecting Tips

2007-02-23T09:28:00.000+09:00

Be Interested

When meeting new contacts instead of trying to be interesting and entertaining be “interested” in them and be totally present and aware. People enjoy to be listened to and will often share more information and feel more connected to us if we have truly listened to them. This information can often tell us about their needs, values and long term business goals. This information is critical to landing them as a client in the future.

Relax, we’re just sorting

I once set a goal to add 50 new prospects to my sales pipeline and turn five of those prospects into customers. I would set out at each day with a high level of anxiety and self induced pressure. Often my approach would seem unnatural or forced and my prospects quickly found a way to avoid me or put me off. Talking later on to my mentor he suggested that I focus on building trust and credibility with everyone that I met. I could sort through my new relationships later on. By focusing on “beginning” a relationship instead of the $ sign on the forehead I was able to relax, be genuine and build my network. Relax, build the relationship and sort later.

Be on all the time

Some of our best clients can come out of chance encounters where opportunity has met preparedness. Be naturally inquisitive at all times. I’ve met two clients on airplanes over the past couple of years just by being curious and asking a few questions. Another client of mine scans local headlines everyday for new potential clients and industry trends, he often discovers clients and new market niches before his competitors know they event exist. After talking to a consultant for twenty minutes at a function we found we had similar target markets and were able to refer more business to each other.

Persistently add value

Be persistent. Remember 81% of conversion business is done from the 5th call and onward. Also, remember people trust you 70% more on the 3rd contact with you than the first time. Follow-up and follow-through is critical. Persistence isn’t enough though. We need to ask ourselves the question: How am I going to add value with this call, meeting e-mail etc? Persistent contact + Added Value = receptive prospect. Only 12% of sales people make 3 or more calls and keep going and they earn 80% of commissions that are paid out. [statistical source: American Dry Goods Association and John C. Maxwell]

The New Economy

"The big don’t eat the small, the fast eat the slow.” When we prospect and make new contacts the velocity of our follow-up is often one of the biggest credibility makers or breakers. We all want results and resources now. Act fast, deliver more than they expect, deliver on our initial commitments faster than promised to get the prospects’ attention.

Put a top of mind program in place

We all roll out the red carpet for big profitable clients. Why not put a loyalty and “top of mind program” in place for those people who refer great clients to us. Some of these people are capable of referring us dozens of clients. Too often we are too informal and inconsistent with those people who refer business to us. Get them on a mailing list, call them frequently, take them to lunch, and refer business to them too.

Sales Blog Entry - Real Training For Business Results

2007-02-22T10:27:00.000+09:00

You Are Always Training

Musashi, was said to be the greatest Samurai General in history. Musashi once said that in times of crisis, stress and turmoil that you never raise to your positive expectations, you raise or fall to your level of training.

The same thing holds true in business. Our ability to perform successfully and consistently has a lot to do with our training, and in the case of the entrepreneur or business person it is often though our own self-directed learning that we acquire the majority of our critical success traits.

Real Training

Before we go any further lets define what real training is. Real training, the kind that drives results in our lives and our organization is a participative process. When we think of training we think of the learning that is done while sitting listening to a lecture, watching a video, reading a book, or viewing a web site.

Effective training is really about taking those things we learn, and putting them into a daily routine and process where we constantly apply, fine tune, and develop what we learn. The real training starts when you leave the classroom.

There is a Chinese proverb that says: “To know and not to do is not to know.” It is in applying our training everyday that we truly begin to really learn, grow, and achieve. As an entrepreneur, executive, or sales person being focused on applying what we know is critical for our success consistently.

Constant focus of what is important also means constant sacrifice, often it is the sacrifice of doing things we really don’t want to do. That initial distaste for what is difficult to do often disappears as we develop the habit of applying these steps and seeing the outcomes from our new found discipline.

Know Your Vital Signs

The method I like to use to focus my daily activities to make sure that I am constantly focused on what counts is called the “Vital Signs” approach. These Vital Signs let us know when we are moving toward our goals in a healthy manner or if we’re lacking the Vital signs to sustain long-term growth.

Read the stroy here

Writing Sales Pages That Sell

2007-02-21T10:43:00.000+09:00

Whether you have a tiny list or thousands of people on it, you can still give all your sales communications - whether it's a long sales letter, sales copy for an ad, or short sales copy for the products page of your website - the feeling of being personal if you write it as if you were talking to a friend. THis article will show you how.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten about writing sales pages is to think about them in terms of having a conversation with someone.
Whether you have a tiny list or thousands of people on it, you can still give all your sales communications - whether it's a long sales letter, sales copy for an ad, or short sales copy for the products page of your website - the feeling of being personal if you write it as if you were talking to a friend.

Here's what I mean:

1. Tell A StoryOne of the most effective ways for you to write sales pages that convert (meaning people take the action you want them to take) is by relating in some way to your reader.

If you've been where they are at now, telling your story can go a long way in engaging your reader, building your credibility, and providing a feeling of comfort to your reader that you know what you're talking about.

2. Ask QuestionsTo introduce your story, you might ask a series of questions that your reader would answer "yes" to. When your reader says "yes, that's me" you've hooked them right away and enticed them to read further.

For example, on the back of my business card (which is a sales tool in that I use it to entice people to sign up for my ezine), I ask, "Are you sick of struggling to attract enough clients for your business?" and "Are you really good at what you do, but marketing yourself effectively eludes you?"You could do the same on your sales pages. For example, at the beginning of my sales letter for my How to Write Sales Pages that Sell teleseminar, I ask, "Do you currently have sales pages online, but they aren't converting, meaning you're not making many (or any!) sales from them?" and "Are you planning on launching a product or service in the next 90 days and know you need to write the sales page for it, but have no idea how to go about it?"

3. Touch On The PainA very effective way of bringing your reader along in your sales page is to touch on the pain of the problem about which you are offering the solution.

For example, our neighbor's two dogs bark incessantly, often waking my daughter from her nap, and making it difficult for me to focus when I'm working. We've tried everything, including talking to the neighbors a number of times, calling the dog warden even more often (unfortunately the neighbor is friendly with the dog warden), chasing the outdoor cats away when it's them that they are barking at, and even trying to just tolerate it.

But when it became apparent that the dog warden was not going to be effective and since we live in a very small village where the mayor is also our neighbor and it didn't seem like we were going to be able to have this issued resolved via the proper channels, I started searching for other solutions.

What I found was a humane dog training device, and the reason I was willing to plunk down almost $100 for it was this one sentence on its sales page:

"Have you tried EVERYTHING to silence the nuisance barking of your neighbor's dog?"

Sold!

4. Focus On The Top and the BottomThe two most-read parts of your sales pages are the headline and the PS. There are certain very effective ways that you can utilize these two components, and one of them is to use them to relate to your reader in some way.

I've seen sales pages without a headline - just the title of the product they are selling, and I've seen many sales pages without a PS at the end.

Not have compelling copy in your headline or a gentle nudge in a PS can really hurt your sales. Make sure you focus on these two areas of your sales page with the utmost of care.

5. Offer A Strong GuaranteeMost of us are skeptical to some degree and often ask the question, "yes, but will it work for me?" Remove that doubt by offering a strong guarantee.

Research proves that the longer the guarantee, the better. And even better is making it clear that your buyer can get a refund without having to give a reason for requesting it. Offer a minimum of a 90 day guarantee and a no-questions-asked refund policy, and you'll make more sales and get less returns, even if it seems counter-intuitive.

A final note: writing sales copy is a skill that anyone can master, given a little practice and guidance. There are loads of good sales pages online that you can model. To get you started, just think of the ones that really spoke to you and from which you made a purchase. Think about what it was that made you enter your credit card number and reflect that in your own sales copy.

Increasing sales: Solve problems

2007-02-19T08:53:00.000+09:00

Sales representatives are always told, and often in not so subtle terms, to create a sense of urgency in their prospects. After all, you want the potential customer or client to purchase your products and services now rather than at some undetermined time in the future. The problem is with creating that need, on the part of the prospect, to make the purchasing decision right away.

The disappointed sales person is usually faced with the classic responses, "I have to think it over", or "I'll get back to you on it." Should the sales rep agree to the delay, the opportunity for creating that sense of urgency is lost. After all, the prospect believes that purchasing today, next month, or next year are all the same thing based on the sales discussion. The problem often starts with a failure on the part of the seller to listen for the real needs and problems of the potential buyer.

To develop a sense of urgency on the part of the prospect, the sales rep should do less talking and more listening. A canned, rapid fire statement of all the great things your product and services can do for the potential customer, is of little use if their specific requirements are not being met. Let the prospect tell you their problems, and your sales team will soon discover where your goods or services can help.

Have your sales team think as problem solvers, and not salespeople. The many prospective buyers have many different and wide ranging problems facing their businesses or personal lives. Every person and business is unique, but with careful listening, your sales staff can often craft the right solution, for the individual prospect's difficulties. By listening carefully to the buyer's unique circumstances, that sense of urgency will follow.

When the buyer states the problem, which could range from direct cash losses from lower revenues to higher than necessary expenses cutting their cash flow, your sales rep should listen for the important points. Have the sales representative repeat back the problem in a paraphrased form. By repeating the exact problems back, in the sales person's own wording, it tells the buyer that your person is listening to their problems. Since listening is not always practiced in sales, the prospect will start to form a relationship with you or with your representatives. Teach your sales staff to listen more to what the client has to say about their needs or those of their company. Stress problem solving and building relationships, when conducting sales training, rather than the older idea of simply making a sale.

Once the problem has been restated, the buyer will usually continue with even more details. More careful listening, and questions for clarification, will help the prospect understand the importance of acting now. They can see the money they could save or earn in real dollar terms, with a sales rep they feel understands their unique business. After all, the sales rep listened to and was able to fully comprehend the problem.

Generating Sales Leads

2007-02-16T14:41:00.000+09:00

Any company that relies on selling a product or service needs strong sales lead generation. A sales lead is a prospective customer. Businesses try to get as much information about their sales leads as possible.

They need to find out what makes this person a potential buyer of their product. Many sales-based businesses develop lists of potential customers. They use different tactics to come up with these lists. Some of the most common methods of customer lead generation are referrals, telemarketing, and advertising.

Referrals come from many sources. They can come from other businesses, referral services, or from current customers. Companies in a particular field may refer clients to one another. For example, an auto mechanic that specializes in transmissions may refer customers to another mechanic who mainly deals with electrical problems. It is very uncommon for competing businesses to do this, but companies that offer different products in the same field do it quite often. Some businesses exist solely to provide other companies with lists of prospective clients. These businesses are called list services, and they can be a great help in customer lead generation. These services compile lists for other businesses to be used for direct mailing, telemarketing, or business-to-business sales. On a more personal level, satisfied customers may tell their friends and family to buy from a particular business. Good word of mouth can be the best sales lead generator.

Telemarketing is another widespread sales lead generation technique. This often involves someone cold calling people to tell them about their products. Telemarketing has a high rate of failure, as many people do not like receiving unsolicited phone calls. If some people do respond positively, then the telemarketing is a success. Telemarketers benefit greatly if they have a list of referrals to call. This way they are not making purely cold calls, greatly increasing their chances of success.

Advertising is another way to generate leads. Any type of advertising, be it radio, print, or billboard is great for letting potential customers know what products a business offers. Advertising itself has become a huge business. Some of the most successful companies in the world are advertising firms.

Customer lead generation is one of the most important parts of sales. Salespeople are much more successful if they have an idea of who may be interested in buying their product.

The Ultimate Sales Training Tip

2007-02-15T16:17:00.000+09:00

Well - I just got back from delivering two sales training programs.

Both groups were loaded with talented salespeople.

Each group had specific objectives they wanted to accomplish with their sales training program.

We had some fun, I spilled my guts, and shared lots of money making ideas with them.

Both groups shared their challenges with me and I of course shared my ideas on how to deal with them.

I told them the 12 dumbest things salespeople do.

I shared some ideas on how to avoid sounding pathetic during a sales call. Judging from their reaction to this part of the presentation, they learned a thing or two on how to deliver a more polished presentation.

I gave them the two best words to use whenever they hear, "How much is this going to cost."

I also gave them a perfect segue from asking questions to beginning their sales presentation.

They learned rock-solid ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. I stressed to both sales teams you can win bigger sales by being just a little better than the competition. You don't have to be twice as good.

We talked about how to be a high touch person in the high-tech world we live in. A simple handwritten note thanking someone for their help, is like winning an Oscar to a person who is seldom recognized for his/her work.

Throughout the day I tried to give examples of how they could drive the competition bananas - they seemed to enjoy hearing these ideas.

I gave them the four secrets to dealing with the ever increasing load of paperwork.

I told them you become what you read - not every body bought into that idea.

I told them you become what you expect and why it's important to always expect the best when you're selling.

I showed both groups how to gussy-up their quotes and convert them to dynamic sales proposals that scream value.

We reviewed my list of the 12 best questions to ask prospects/customers.

I read the evaluations on the flight home and they were positive. But you know, I got to thinking, maybe I could have done a better job.

You see, if I could ask everyone who participated in the day long sales training program - what was the ultimate sales training tip they took away from the program. I'm not sure they would know the answer.

And that's because I didn't put the ultimate sales training tip up in neon lights for everyone to see and hear.

Well I can fix that right now - because all the participants get this newsletter.

So here we go!

The centerpiece for all sales presentations, especially when you're meeting someone for the first time, and the ultimate sales training tip is:

***** employ your ears before you engage your mouth *****

I'm convinced the easiest way to increase your sales is to ask better and more thought-provoking open ended questions.

While you're listening to your prospects and customers respond to your questions don't forget to take good notes.

The road to your sales success is paved with good questions.

The less you say, the smarter you'll sound!

Sales Letter Writing

2007-02-14T08:55:00.000+09:00

When writing a sales letter, it is important to have a good attitude in order to sell your product or service, because the reader will want to know why they should spend their valuable time reading the letter. Therefore, you need to provide clear, specific information that will explain to the reader why they should be interested in buying your product or service. Sales letters usually have a four-part strategy:
• Catch the reader's eye: it is very crucial in a sales letter to attract the reader's attention or else you will probably fail to sell your product or service
• Describe the product or service you are trying to sell
• Convince your reader that your claims are accurate: back up your comments with research and facts
• Give the reader opportunities to learn more about your product or service: provide the reader with a phone number, a Web site address, or some way for them to seek out information on their own.

Keep these basic components in mind: The image, if used, is near the headline. It helps to catch the reader's eye. The headline is usually 3 - 30 words long. It grabs the reader's attention, and tells him what the ad (sales letter) is about. It makes a promise regarding what the item you are selling will do for him. The sub-headline or lead paragraph is optional. Sometimes it's used to expand the headline. (More on the sub-heading later.) The body: it expands the theme, fills in details, offers proof, and shows how you plan to fulfill the promise you made in the headline. The closing, or call to action, urges the reader to take the next step you want him to take.

True Sales Leader

2007-02-13T09:28:00.000+09:00

In the average sales organization, successful sales reps get promoted to managers. These "new" sales managers are suddenly tasked with leadership and training. In these situations, there is one common liability. The salesperson's biggest strength now becomes the sales manager's biggest weakness in leading a team. Here are some steps to take to avoid sales leadership transitional mis-steps.

In the average sales organization, successful sales reps get promoted to managers. These "new" sales managers are suddenly tasked with leadership and training. In these situations, there is one common liability. The salesperson's biggest strength now becomes the sales manager's biggest weakness in leading a team. Typically, top sales reps don't diagnose and document their sales routines and processes; rather, they “just do it”, as the sneaker commercial so aptly says. So, when they are asked to advance the same superior results in a large group, they can not do it. Why? Because these individuals are exceptional "drivers." Most of their past success was due to their personalities and individual abilities, which are not transferable to the masses.

Sadly, most superior sales performers, when promoted to leadership positions, are unable to truly lead. They have trouble analyzing and teaching their personal sales processes in such a way that their sales teams can properly digest. Solo reps who move into the management sphere tend to manage people versus coaching critical competencies and behaviors, which hurts the bottom line. To be effective, sales leaders must understand and know how to integrate knowledge of sales systems and processes to their staff. They need the majority of their salespeople to accept it, own it and benefit from it.

Going one step further, it is crucial for sales leaders to have experience in identifying and measuring critical core competencies and essential performance metrics. Sales leaders should understand that there are a finite number of scenarios in any selling process. If you identify, train to and measure each one of them, you are on your way to excellence. True sales leaders shine a light on the most critical competencies, enabling the highest percentage of their sales force to routinely win. Sales leaders train to each one of these competencies, but they do so by priority. They understand that training to multiple missions at once will achieve minimal results.

The importance of sales training comes into play for sales leaders, who must consider results-oriented training as a process versus an isolated event. They don't just talk about it at sales meetings, or attend seminars that superficially touch on it; instead, they extract the most important critical competency, such as creating new opportunities, and peel back every element that comprises it. They break apart the elements into single scenarios and attach powerful routines to each scenario. Sales leaders, like great business leaders, spend time developing systematic approaches to essential competencies. And they do it so that their people can outperform the standard.

Sales training campaigns should be setup to improve the ratios of success in each core competency. Operational effectiveness equals better competency routines. Better than whose, you ask? Your competitors', of course. With the right systems in place, good sales leaders understand their essential competency ratios and performance numbers, and are able to relate them to revenue objectives. It is important to set realistic goals that are in line with performance ratios, then set "benchmarks" for each competency and train specifically to those benchmarks.

Jim Tressel, head football coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes, gave a preseason interview the year after winning the 2002 National Football Championship. He said, "We decided to identify a number of important performance benchmarks, and effect training to meet them each week. For instance, we found that over the last 15 years, when we gained at least 200 rushing yards in a game, we won the game 98% of the time. So we are training to routines that will help us get better at the competency of running the football on the ground in order to reach that particular benchmark more often."

Sales leaders believe that sales reps will be accountable to results, provided that leadership:
(1) Identifies the important competencies required for success; (2) Supplies targeted training with appropriate structures for learning and application; and,
(3) Measures the degree of improvement.

Sales leaders are dedicated to transforming "C" players into "B" players, and "B" players into "A" players. They hold themselves accountable to develop or invest in relevant training systems, learning structures and support tools. They want most of their people to routinely meet or exceed company revenue goals, as well as personal career objectives. They know that they must provide the setting and the tools that foster this kind of achievement.

While their seat-of-the-pants skill sets are excellent, the natural sales rep, when thrust into the role of sales manager, must learn how to convert these skills into transferable processes and routines that focus on essential competencies. Thereafter, it comes down to how effectively they can train, motivate and support their staff towards maximizing core competencies, which ultimately increases the odds of exceeding revenue targets.

What's Your Client's Style?

2007-02-09T08:41:00.000+09:00

When it comes to effective selling, one simple fact never changes: Selling is a relationship business. You already know all about your company’s products and services – and you’ve learned the fundamental aspects of the sales cycle.

But have you ever asked yourself … What helps one salesperson develop immediate rapport with prospects, and not others? What is he or she doing that is leading to long-term client relationships? How can I learn to do the same thing?

Research shows that prospects are more likely to buy when they unconsciously trust, and feel at ease with, the salesperson. They are more willing to open up and provide information critical to closing the sale. It appears that they are almost “helping” you make the sale, as opposed to fighting you in the process.

So how do you build this rapport?

AND YOU ARE …

The first key is to recognize that different behavioral styles do exist among prospects. You’ve probably seen from your own experience how one sales approach worked great with one person, yet you got a very different reaction from someone else.

Behavioral styles impact:

· How a prospect wants you to sell to them.
· How a prospect wants you to present information.
· How much information you present.
· How a prospect makes buying decisions.

The same approach won’t work with everyone. As you learn to adapt your approach to make the customer feel more at ease, the relationship will improve and more sales will eventually result.

You can identify an individual’s behavioral style preference by using the Personal Profile System® developed by Carlson Learning Company. It classifies behavior into four styles: “D”, “I”, “S”, and “C”.

HOW DO YOU LIKE MY STYLE????

“D” STYLE

Your ID, please? “Dominant,” or “D” behavioral-style individuals, are usually results-oriented. They thrive on the challenge of solving problems and making quick buying decisions. These individuals are fast-paced and like to be in charge. They can become impatient with people or situations that hinder them from accomplishing their goals. This is one of the reasons why they’re more task-oriented than people-oriented.

You can recognize these individuals as being fast-paced and direct when speaking – they’re more interested in telling you information than in asking your opinion. They tend to think in terms of the bottom line. These individuals may6 have more formal, “can’t read” facial expressions than other styles.

Sign here, please. When selling to the “D” style, don’t bog them down with excessive socializing or details – get to the point quickly. Directly focus on how your product or service can help them achieve their goals. Emphasize the results you can help them obtain, while always letting them feel they’re in charge. In other words, don’t waste their time. Make your sales presentation direct and meaningful toward helping them achieve their objectives.

Read more here

A Diagnostic Approach to Sales Performance

2007-02-08T10:04:00.000+09:00

I walked into a VP of Sales mission with a sales organization consisting of 120 reps spread out over 12 sales regions. They were running at 38% of revenue goal for over 2 years. I threw Quota out the window for 90 days. 8 months later sales units sold increased by 520%.

Find out how.

We discussed the most overlooked Key Performance Indicator is the "magic number," which refers to how many new appointments a sales rep must generate each week in order to achieve their revenue goal. In early 2000 I walked into a VP of Sales mission with a sales organization consisting of 120 reps spread out over 12 sales regions. They were running at 38% of revenue goal for over 2 years. I ran a KPI study and determined they were running 2 new appointments per week/rep, but their KPI’s dictated they needed to achieve 7. So I announced a training objective to enable them to do it effectively, (now branded the X2 Sales System®) and threw quota out the window for 90 days. But I replaced the monthly quota with the weekly ‘magic number’.

8 months later sales units sold increased by 520%.
Calculate your sales team’s ‘Magic Number’ here:
http://convertmoresales.com/marketing_blitz.php

A rep's magic number is determined by looking at several of her other KPIs. Say, for example, that your company sells copiers (for which an average sales cycle is 45 days) and that a rep's monthly sales revenue goal is $15,000. Her average revenue per sale, meanwhile, is $2,500; her current first-appointment-to-proposal ratio is 60 percent; and her closing ratio is 40 percent. What's her magic number? In other words, how many new appointments does she need to set each week in order to achieve her sales revenue goal of $15,000 per month?

The Magic Number Formula

Monthly sales revenue objective: $15,000
Divided by (/)
Average revenue per sale: $2,500
/
First-appointment-to-proposal ratio: 60%
(What percentage of the time do reps gain commitment from prospective clients to "take the next step" in the sales process after the first appointment?)
/
Closing ratio: 40%
(Proposal to close--measures proposals submitted vs. new business achieved.)
/
Weeks in the month: 4
=
Magic number: (approximately) 6 new appointments each week

Once you have identified the magic number, the next step is to determine how many new appointments a rep is currently generating each week. If she is falling short of her six-appointments-per-week goal, your job as a sales trainer is to find ways--through targeted KPI training--to help her bridge that gap and achieve her "magic number."

Here are some tips for doing just that:

1. As an organization, announce that the ability to convert conversations into appointments will become a KPI of the sales process.

2. Define an appointment-setting objective and train to that objective. For example, if the average weekly amount of time that sales reps devote to prospecting new clients is 22.5 hours (out of a 45-hour workweek), your organization's objective might be to cut that prospecting time in half (to 11.25 hours per week) while simultaneously exceeding current appointment-setting levels. With your objective in place, it's now time to break down and document the steps in the prospecting process and train reps on how to make better use of their prospecting time during each step.

3. Map out all possible scenarios that might occur during the prospecting process. Once you have done so--and documented best-practice strategies for handling each scenario--create mini training modules and/or job aids that show reps how to handle each scenario effectively.

4. In addition to enhancing reps' prospecting skills, another way to ensure that they achieve their "magic number" is to help them improve other KPIs in the "magic number" formula, such as their closing and first-appointment-to-proposal ratios.

> To increase their first-appointment-to-proposal ratio, for example, your training might encourage reps to start at the "top" with those who have fiscal authority and can "call the shots." Training might also pinpoint ways for reps to avoid "selling" products during the first appointment by providing them with an outline of the diagnostic steps they should follow in order to evaluate the fit between their solution and a prospective client's business objectives.

>To increase reps' closing ratio, meanwhile, the training you develop might show reps how to ask pertinent questions to determine what a prospective client's decision-making process entails, what the client's internal criteria for change include and which players need to be involved in the sales process in order for proper evaluation of a product to occur. In addition, your training might show reps how to catalog risk factors (e.g., possible objections or reservations a client might have regarding purchasing a product or service from your organization) for each player involved in the decision-making process and then provide reps with strategies, tactics, and tools for direct communication with clients based on those risk factors.

In the end, targeted, effective sales training can make a critical difference to your bottom line, and so can effective goal-setting. In today's high-performance sales culture, it's up to trainers and sales management to work together to focus more on daily and weekly goals and less on monthly or quarterly quotas. Success in doing so rests on the ability to switch paradigms from looking merely at required end results to also determining the necessary KPIs it takes to get there--and then building supporting tools and training to help sales reps along the way.

And, above all, don't forget your magic number!

Myths about Online Marketing

2007-02-07T12:54:00.000+09:00

1.Hit = Sales
You got hits; is Not the same as you got sales!
Generating traffic or hits to your websites is the priority for any online business. Conversion of hits into sales would be on top of that.

2.Great “Content” Creates Great Sales.
Creating a website with marvelous “content” has and still overwhelmed many online business. Great “Content” here refered to fantastic graphics, award winning designs and employing the latest state of the art technology. Very impressive. Impression is important on a website, no doubt, but an online business have to emphasize on the conversion rate into real sales. “Content” have and should be on the “Emotional” State of Selling.

3.Over Spending on Technology.
A successful Online marketing business is not all about technology. It is all on Selling. Concentrating on the marketing results in creation of sales.

4.6 Billion people on the planet, 900 Million have access to the Internet.The potential of the internet is ever growing. That is definite. Counting chickens does not equates to actual online activities; relevant activities. Relevant activities means conversion. And conversion to sales comes from qualifications, not quantity.

5.Banners are Great Sellers.
Banners were invented because they provide a convenient way for contents to make money, not because they worked.
Ask this: When is the last time you personally clicked on a banner?

6.Content is King!
Especially big companies who spend huge funds to create everything possible with money can buy; believing that they are doing marketing. Remember the Dot.com days? Why they failed?

7.Mass Marketing Creates Conversion.
This spelling Spamming. Spamming is the end result of most mass marketing campaigns. Junk mails is the King of Spam, and it cost near to nothing. Email marketing would cease to function.

8.Top Ranking in SEO is the Key to Marketing Success.
Large number of people are flocking to use the search engines. One website is just a tiny needle in a haystack.
Random visits to the search engines do not create volume traffic as one would suggest.

Sales Mindset vs. Sales Training

2007-02-06T08:37:00.000+09:00

Sales training and sales mindset can combine to be powerful allies in sales success.

Picture the announcer in the middle of the ring broadcasting - "In this corner, wearing the red shorts we have the challenger, weighing 217 pounds, winner of this year's collegiate championship, introducing Sales Mindset. Defending the long-standing domination of this event, winner of 35 title bouts, defending heavyweight champion, weighing 224 pounds, in the black shorts, please welcome Sales Training."

Can you imagine two heavy weights like Sales Training and Sales Mindset squaring off in the ring? It might be one exciting sparing match. Both are critical to ensuring sales professionals get to, and remain at the top of their game. Which is most important?

Sales training is a very broad category that includes everything from sales process, product knowledge, dealing with objections, open and closing skills, prospecting, territory management, listening skills, networking, presentation skills, and funnel administration, to name some of the assorted topics. This is not a short list. The sales rep would ignore any of these items at his or her peril. Many would be correct to think sales training would rank right up there, perhaps being the hands-on bet if you were to wager who would win the match.

Sales training provides knowledge around specific topic areas a sales rep needs to be proficient at their job. There is no point going out to sell, not knowing your product, the process to book the sale, how to deal with client concerns, or where you should be going to find a prospect. Most companies invest heavily in sales training, especially with new sales representatives. They can't afford to despatch the company's ambassadors poorly equipped. It is in their best interest to train them well.

Sales mindset is perhaps lesser known, less discussed, and a less visible contender. In fact, many sales forces don't pay much attention to the psychology of selling. Some sales leadership survived their selling careers being told, "Activity is everything", and when the activity wasn't there, the sales manager reached for a bigger stick. Times have changed. Today we have a much better understand of the sales psyche. Focus, confidence and motivation are what I refer to as "below the line" subjects, collectively referred to as mindset. Sales mindset development is a specialized area critical for success.

Sales mindset has evolved from cognitive behavioral psychology. It suggests what we are thinking about today will determine our reality tomorrow. Research has found that successful sales people are more likely to engage in constructive thinking while unsuccessful sales people are prone to think in counter-productive ways. The best sales people are effective thinkers. They think in a way that helps them perform at an optimal level.

So will the red shorts or the black shorts win? In the perfect world, our match would end a draw. Let us assume the recruitment and selection process has filtered for sales competencies. The learning and development teams today are right to begin with sales training. The reps need to understand the company's sales process, the products, and acquire the requisite selling skills.

Once the sales training is covered, the rep has had an opportunity to practice and become proficient. At this point, it is appropriate to turn development efforts to understanding and leveraging sales mindset. Leaning how to become an effective thinker and align ones thinking with the thinking of top performing sales professionals can lead to new levels of sales success.

Professional athletes and sports teams have long understood and valued the concept of leveraging mindset. In any competitive environment, it can be a challenge to stay optimistic, focused, motivated and productive day in and day out. Once they have mastered the skills of their sport, they continue to practice and practice. They complement their physical activity with their mental activity to reach new heights. The same holds true for sales professionals.

In summary, there really isn't a winner or a loser here. It is more a question of sequencing. It is safe to suggest the new sales representative begin with sales training, and once the basic activities and competencies are mastered, they move onto developing their sales mindset.

Sales training and sales mindset can combine to be powerful allies in sales success.

Characteristics of a True Sales Leader

2007-02-05T09:24:00.000+09:00

D-List Part 1

2007-02-03T15:12:00.000+09:00

These blogs have the ‘no follow’ link disabled from the comments, which means that if you comment on these sites, you will get an actual link. If you would like to be included here, please let me know.

If you find this list useful, please consider linking to it.

This DoFollow Blog list is courtesy of Courtney Tuttle and was created originally by Coleen as the D-List.

RealityWired.com
BrilliantCheers
Achille
OnTheWebEd
JonLee
ChrisHoyt
JulieAnnBonner
LinkItForMe
RamblingThoughtsBlog
BlogThatOutside
Tobsy
NOWG
CatchAFallingStar
SweetAgring
LayerCake
ErikSvend
PajamaProfessional
Hem
MyOpinionsAreImportant
HeckOfIt
RoadLessTravelled
The Fit Shack
Foximus
BetShopBoy
5xMom
Derek
Semmler
Linguistics Zone
Zr5
SmartWealthyRich
How To Split An Atom
The Alternative
Self-Employment Blog
A Politically Incorrect Entrepreneur
CrayonWriter
BlogRaters
TagsKitchen
TradeMacro
Bracing Your Brand
Mother’s Home
Brian Pratt
Best Real Income
1000MileJourney
3DayMom
A Writers Words, An Editors Eye
Aaron Roselo
Advertising for Success
And to Think

To be continued

Sales Mindset vs. Sales Training

2007-02-02T08:38:00.000+09:00

B2B Sales leads success checklist

2007-02-01T08:44:00.000+09:00

You’ve spent a great deal of time, effort and money putting together your business-to-business sales lead generation programs. How you handle B2B sales leads once you get them makes the difference between a happy sales team and new customers or an unhappy sales team and lost sales.

You’ve spent a great deal of time, effort and money putting together your business-to-business sales lead generation programs. How you handle B2B sales leads once you get them makes the difference between a happy sales team and new customers or an unhappy sales team and lost sales. Here’s a checklist of questions to ask yourself to determine if you have the best chance of being successful with your sales lead programs:
Are you prepared to send requested information immediately? Prospects have their own agenda and timeline, not yours or your firm’s. So, you need to be efficient and strike while you have the opportunity. Timing of your inquiry handling processes are of paramount importance. Your firm needs to respond to all inquiries quickly—the faster, the better.

Here are some questions to keep in mind:

Do you know what to send in response to different types of inquiries?
Do you have electronic versions for those who want the information by e-mail or via downloads from your Web site?
Do you have adequate supplies of printed materials ready for those who prefer them?
Do you have the people, systems and processes in place to get the requested information out the door quickly?
Are you prepared to capture all inquiries in a database for ongoing nurturing and qualification efforts? To avoid having any of the golden sales opportunities represented by your inquiries fall through the cracks, you need to capture all of your inquiries in a database so you can properly manage their fulfillment, nurturing, qualification and distribution. With this in mind:

Do you have the database ready to go?
Do you have the data entry people or outside services lined up to get the inquirers into the database?
Do you have a program in place to “qualify” sales leads before sending them to your salespeople, reps, dealers or distributors?
If your business-to-business marketing-for-leads program is to succeed, marketing, sales and corporate management need to share a unified definition of qualified sales leads. If you all agree from the start on what a qualified lead is, then deliver leads that meet that definition, your sales team will be able to effectively and efficiently follow up and close more sales.

Have you agreed with sales management on which questions to ask in order to determine which leads are qualified?
Have you agreed what information is required to know which sales contacts to route the qualified leads to?
Do you have proactive programs in place to contact and qualify your leads?
Do you have a process in place for distributing qualified leads to sales contacts as they are identified?
Sales leads are worthless unless they are quickly handed off to the right sales contact for follow up.

Your lead distribution process has to be well defined and ready to go—in advance—so as to prevent delays or misdirection when leads are qualified and ready for sales attention.

It also has to be easy for your salespeople, reps, resellers and distributors to access the qualified sales leads and manage their lead follow up.

Is your sales leads program designed to get the leads into salespeople’s hands without delay?
Have you made it easy for your salespeople, reps, dealers or distributors to use?
Can they access leads over the Internet?
Does it integrate with their existing contact management or email systems?
Do you have a program in place to nurture or cultivate your not-yet-qualified leads?
Salespeople generally focus on those one-in-four sales leads who are ready to buy soon. However, research shows that three of four sales come from longer-term prospects who are frequently ignored by sales.

As these longer-term leads represent the lion’s share of the potentional sales, your sales lead management program must be designed to help nurture the longer-term leads until they are qualified as being sales-ready opportunities.

Does your company have a prospect relationship marketing program in place to keep in touch with these longer-term prospects, using email, fax, mail and phone contacts, until they are identified as being qualified and ready for sales attention?
Do you know what messages to send as part of your prospect relationship management program?
Do you know how often to contact prospects with these messages?
Do you know what offers to use to get them to further identify their needs and situation so you can determine if they are ready for sales?
Do you have a program in place to measure and track the results of your various sales-lead generation, cultivation and sales follow-up programs?
A marketer I know recently reported to her management on the results of the company’s lead generation programs: Awareness of their company and its products among targeted prospects more than doubled; the cost per qualified lead delivered to sales by marketing dropped by nearly 40 percent; 58 percent of the opportunities in the sales pipeline were found first by marketing; and 48 percent of the sales closed; and 62 percent of the revenue during the past 12 months came from marketing-generated leads.

The result? She got a bigger B2B marketing budget and senior management no longer doubts marketing's contribution to the company's success. Can you answer these questions and show your management how your lead generation programs are contributing to your company’s success?

Can you determine your cost per lead, cost per qualified lead and cost per sale?
Do you know which lead programs generate the highest return on investment?
Do you know which nurturing techniques worked and which didn’t?
Can you prove to management that your lead generation programs are paying off in increased sales and market share?
Refer to this checklist of questions to guide the development or improvement of your company’s sales lead management programs and processes and you’ll have the best chance of being successful.

Sales Success: Four Critical Steps

2007-01-31T08:26:00.000+09:00

It’s been said often, “Some folks can’t seem to see the forest for the trees.” Perhaps that’s true in any arena, but it seems that it’s rampant in sales, especially when sales are down. This article explores the fundamental law of sales - "The Solution is Always to the Left." Stick to the basics and watch your sales soar!

It’s been said often, “Some folks can’t seem to see the forest for the trees.” Perhaps that’s true in any arena, but it seems that it’s rampant in sales, especially when sales are down. Time after time, when sales start to fall we find sales people becoming so caught up in the “slump” that they fail to focus on the four critical steps to consistent sales success. Motivational speaking is a multi-million dollar a year business and, in large part, it is attended by those who need that inspirational reminder of what they already know. Not that speaking for a living is bad. I do that. The audience, however, through years of experience already knows the answer. They just need to be reminded. Sales people tend to be motivated by immediate gratification. Those who have been in sales successfully for years understand that seeds planted today come to fruition later. Although there are moments of immediate gratification, frequently the fruition will take time. Motivational speeches are, perhaps, that little nudge to focus them not on the slump, but on the outcome. Let’s define the four critical steps to sales success, in order to re-establish successful habits. Mind you now, once you read this you’ll know just how simple sales success can be, if only you’ll focus on these four items and ignore all other distractions.
Question One: If your income comes from sales, are you making as much as you want or need?If you answered, yes - Stop reading! You obviously are practicing the fundamental principles that create success and reading further is a distraction. Go back to doing what you do best.

If, on the other hand, you answered No – then you don’t have enough sales. Sales create income and not enough income equals not enough sales. Solution – go get more sales. Now, I know from making hundreds of presentations to countless sales professionals, some of you are a bit perplexed at my simplistic approach. How, you say, do we just go get more sales? We’ll get to that, but for now stick with me. The first step is increasing your sales volume. Simple. There is nothing hard about this concept. It is critical to grasp, however, because the solution is always to the left. That statement will make sense a bit later.

Question Two: If you don’t have enough sales to support your income needs, then aren’t you lacking in enough people to see – enough presentations or appointments?This one seems obvious. If you are not generating enough sales volume either you lack people to see (enough appointments) or your closing skills need improvement. More times than not, the issue isn’t just closing skills, it’s people to present to and close.

Let’s look at this two ways: (1) if you are having trouble setting appointments from your leads (which, by the way is closing), then you will have more trouble closing the sale when you do make a presentation; and (2) inadequate presentations will always result in inadequate sales.

So let’s look at our matrix thus far. Remember the solution is always to the left!

PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME

O.K., so you get it? The solution is always to the left. If you don’t have enough presentations you won’t have enough sales. So what now?Question Three: If I don’t have enough presentations, then how many leads do you have in your pipeline?Well, I don’t know. Probably enough! Really? Ask yourself this question; do you suspect that highly successful business people guess at their income or assets? Better still, if you were having surgery tomorrow would you want the person administering the anesthesia to guess at the amount? Of course not! Then, why would you guess about your leads?If you don’t know how many leads you have, then you don’t have a finger on the pulse of your lifeline. For sales professionals, lead acquisition and management is critical. You can take it to the bank, if you lack presentations, you lack a sufficient number of leads to support your sales efforts.

Let’s go back…remember the solution is always to the left. Look at the matrix again.

LEADS = PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME

The point is - you have to have leads in order to make presentations and enough presentations equal sales and that creates your income…right? So are those the four things?No – those are three things that help to generate your income. Your income is the outcome and we’ve just identified three of the four critical steps to success. So what is the fourth?Question Four: Since you’ve identified that lead deficiency is a problem, what’s the solution?Good question! Any building built on a weak foundation is subject to crumble. Likewise, any sales professional who misses the foundation of sales success will struggle and, likely fail. This foundation is prospecting.

One of my dear friends and a great professional speaker, Gary O’Sullivan (www.garyosullivan.com) states in his book “Principle Power” the following: “Every day you don’t prospect, the next day you must settle for a lesser degree of performance!” Ladies and Gentlemen…that statement is a fact. The foundation of consistent sales performance is prospecting on a consistent basis.

How many times have I heard someone say to me in a job interview, “You hand me a lead and I’ll close ‘em. I’m a closer.” Well, let me say, I didn’t hire those folks because they were applying for a sales position and closing is just a part of the process. True sales professionals do four things: (1) prospect for leads; (2) develop the leads they identify; (2) make sales presentations; and (4) close sales. Each of those represents the four critical steps to sales success.

Remember the solution is always to the left!

PROSPECTING = LEADS = PRESENTATIONS = SALES = YOUR INCOME!

Sales - Great Career Choice -8

2007-01-30T10:02:00.000+09:00

Virtual Selling for Multiple Income Streams
Selling takes place everywhere, not just in stores or on the telephone. By far, the area of fastest growth in selling is 'virtual' selling or internet selling. Make no mistake about it, if you want to sell anything on the internet you will need to possess virtually all the same skills that are needed to sell successfully in a regular brick and mortar outlet.

In fact, I suggest that in some cases, selling online successfully requires master salespeople. Consumers shop online for two main reasons. They are searching for a product or service that is not readily available in their local marketplace or they are so fed up with dealing with 'average' or 'poor' salespeople that they choose to bypass them altogether.

Complete well rounded sales training will give the online marketer the edge and tools to avoid many of the mistakes that plague undertrained salespeople in the physical marketplace.

If you master selling in a regular business, you can develop multiple streams of income easily and inexpensively by selling online in addition to your regular job. What you offer may be completely different from how you earn your living day to day.

It might be information or a product that you create or have access to. It might relate to something that is of special interest to you or something that you are passionate about. You might even simply sell as an affiliate without your own product at all. The possibilities are endless, but one thing is certain virtual selling can be set up to pay you 24/7 because the internet never sleeps.

Selling as a career can unlock so many doors and so much potential for you if you simply choose to explore it, get yourself properly trained, prepared and take necessary action to make things happen. Yes, you can succeed!

This is the final article in an 8 part series. I invite you to check out the others to discover if a career in selling might serve you or someone you know.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales - Great Career Choice -7

2007-01-29T11:55:00.000+09:00

A successful selling career can definitely be one of the best ways for an individual to power up one's self esteem. Not everyone will agree with my assessment on this point. There are those that would say that selling can destroy self esteem. For the master salesperson it is definitely not true. Here's why.

Nothing breeds self esteem and confidence more than continued success in any endeavor. Masters experience plenty of that through higher paychecks, sales awards, peer recognition and customer appreciation. Masters are very well respected in their organizations and their communities.

Although those things are all wonderful, masters experience a great deal of personal satisfaction due to the fact that they provide a real service to others by assisting their customers in acquiring the products and services that they truly want or need.

They have discovered, through well rounded sales training, the psychological tools that they need in order to constantly feel good about their profession and themselves. They reach this level of increased self esteem by always keeping an open mind in the pursuit of the little advantages that can continue to propel their careers forward. They never stop learning.

They embrace personal responsibility because they will have learned in their comprehensive training the enormous power they can attain by being a responsible person.

Salespeople who have experienced damage to their self esteem, usually have not set off on their selling career path properly trained and prepared. They may have good sales cycle skills, even excellent product knowledge, but if they haven't gained the 'mind' skills that protect and enhance self esteem they do risk feeling emotionally beaten up from time to time. This need not happen when the essential skills are acquired.

There are 8 articles in this series. Please take the time to check them all so that you can discover if selling could be just the career you need to secure your future or the future of someone close to you.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales - Great Career Choice -6

2007-01-25T08:40:00.000+09:00

Discover Skills that Will Serve All Areas of Your Life
To be successful in selling, individuals develop and practice various skills. These are not physical skills. Selling is a brain game, not a brawn one. A large part of selling deals with people's emotions. This doesn't only mean the customer's emotions but the salesperson's as well.

A well rounded sales training program will provide you with the tools you will need to interact with new people without the fears that many people have when they meet someone new. These skills easily transfer to the social areas of your life as well.

Perhaps you have doubts about carrying on well balanced conversations. Selling skills will give you an advantage there too. There are tools to help you speak effectively as well as listen and retain what you have heard.

When you learn to sell in an effective program, you will discover some time management and organizational skills that will help you get the most out of your day on both a personal and professional level. Who couldn't afford to get a better handle on the use of their time? Could you?

In addition, there are methods and techniques that will help individuals get off the emotional rollercoasters that life can throw at them day after day. There are effective strategies to keep lives in proper balance as they teach the individual to become centered.

Goal setting strategies for the selling profession work equally well in a person's private life and the list goes on. After all isn't life all about people constantly selling to each other? If you have a mate, you were sold on each other. If you have ever had a job, you sold your abilities to someone.

There are 8 articles in this series. I invite you to explore them all so that you can decide if learning selling skills would work for you in your life or perhaps in the life of someone close to you. Don't sell yourself short.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales - Great Career Choice -5

2007-01-24T10:01:00.000+09:00

Discover Freedom and Creativity in Your Life
In addition to having virtually unlimited income potential, one of the greatest benefits of selling as a career is the freedom it can give to you. Right along side is the incredible creative experience that you can enjoy, day in and day out. This is what I mean.

When you master selling as a career you will discover that you are truly free.

You will be free to earn as much money as you would like
You will be free to work in whatever part of the country that works for you
You will be free from worry about downturns in the economy that could lead to long-term unemployment
Often you will be free to choose your own hours of work which will allow you the freedom to spend more time with family or friends or, perhaps, engage in the leisure activities that give you the most satisfaction and personal benefits
You will be free to choose who you work for, (no more obnoxious bosses)
If you choose, you will be free to be your own boss
Selling as a career provides an abundance of creativity for your spirit as well. Because master salespeople choose to represent products or services that they tend to be very passionate about, they will often find themselves in situations when they must find creative solutions to obstacles that stand in the way of the customer benefiting from what her or she would like to have. There is nothing boring about the selling business, There are new experiences and exciting new challenges everyday. Creativity is a vital part of the process. One of the parts that keeps things fresh and exciting.

There are 8 articles in this series. I hope you will take the time to review them all. Then you will have a good selection of facts to help you determine if selling as a career is right for you or someone close to you.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales - Great Career Choice -4

2007-01-23T08:32:00.000+09:00

Yes You Can Succeed!
When someone looks at 'selling' as a career choice for the first time, it's natural to have some doubts as to whether they can succeed in the field or not. I'm confident when I tell you, 'Yes you can succeed!' Here's why.

No doubt you have heard the cliche 'natural born salesman', right? To that I say, rubbish! There is no such thing. Selling is not a profession governed by physical characteristics like some sports or even some jobs or trades are. You aren't going to be an NFL lineman if you are 120 pounds or a Kentucky Derby jockey if you are 350 pounds, are you? Poor horse!

There are large numbers of professions and jobs where success and failure is determined, or at least partly influenced by certain physical characteristics that an individual either possesses or doesn't. The selling profession is not one of them.

Selling is a skillset developed in the salesperson's mind. This means that, provided a person has a reasonable I.Q. level which allows the retention of information, a desire to succeed along with a willingness to learn and to take the appropriate action, he or she can be successful. It's a matter of personal choice.

I've seen very successful salespeople come from all walks of life, all types of backgrounds both socially and economically and in all age groups. There is no 'natural'. There is no perfect stereotypical salesperson. Mastering selling is simply a matter of personal choice and taking personal responsibility.

I invite you to review all 8 articles in this series. When you do, I'm quite sure that you will see the possibilities that are available to you if you choose selling as a career.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales - Great Career Choice -3

2007-01-22T08:26:00.000+09:00

You can Literally Write Your Own Paycheck
If you belong to a union that negotiates your rate of pay or if you have ever toiled in a minimum wage job, I'm sure that you have dreamed about writing your own paycheck. There is a special group of men and women that do just that every day. You can, too.

Master salespeople are among the top 20% in the industry. I suggest that they will earn 80% of the money earned by salespeople. They are generally compensated, either by a combination of salary and commission or solely by commission.

That word 'commission' scares the daylights out of a lot of people. They equate 'commission' with 'insecurity'. There is only one reason for salespeople to feel that way. They don't yet have all the skills to perform at mastery.

On the other hand, master salespeople equate 'commission' with 'unlimited income potential'. They do have the skills they need and are adding more tools all the time because they never allow their brain to become full.

Commission, or a blend of salary plus commission, allows the master to write his or her own paycheck everytime a new sale is completed. Masters realize that when they put out the effort, they will be rewarded financially in direct proportion to the effort expended.

I've spoken to countless people over the years, in all lines of work, who tell me that they work twice as hard as their coworkers for exactly the same money. Then they see their coworker get that nice promotion based on seniority. How fair is that?

Does it doesn't make sense to you to put your earning potenial into someone elses hands?

Please check out all 8 articles in this series. A career in selling might be perfect for you or someone close to you.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales - Great Career Choice -2

2007-01-19T08:17:00.000+09:00

Easy and Inexpensive to Enter
There is no doubt about it. It's a fact of modern life. Formal education can be very expensive and literally bury individuals and whole families under a mountain of debt. The bad news is, that even with the pricy education, your future may not be secure.

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting that post secondary formal education isn't the way to go. It's extremely valuable for many. What I am suggesting is that it isn't the exclusive path to financial security and it's not something that everyone can obtain for a variety of reasons ranging from financial pressures to grades that don't quite measure up.

Becoming successful in a selling career need not be expensive or even all that time consuming. You don't need the post secondary education. In fact you don't even require a high school diploma, although it helps. You definitely don't need the burden of the of massive student loans and you need not spend years learning before you begin earning. It can easily be a 'learn while you earn' process.

By now you maybe asking a few questions such as,

What will it cost to learn how to sell?
How long will it take to learn?
Who should consider selling as a career?
Let me try to answer those questions for you. If you want to be successful, you will want solid, well rounded training before you begin on your career path. Please don't set yourself up for failure by having less than sufficient skills when you begin. By well rounded, I mean training that not only provides you with techniques, tips and strategies on the actual selling process but most importantly, the emotional tools you will need. Tools to understand and handle what is taking place in the mind of your customers and your own mind throughout the selling experience. Many training programs completely ignore this critical mental aspect of selling. Excellent training can range from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand. Live seminars vary in price as well. You can get started quite modestly and keep layering on your knowledge as you go.

If you can devote a couple of hours every two or three day, you can have the skills needed in a couple of months. If you can go at it bootcamp style, in a week or two you can get be prepared to get started. Then it's a case of ongoing practice and upgrading. A word of caution for you, you can never allow your brain to be so full that you can't learn something new.

Selling is a great career option for a vast cross section of individuals. Let me suggest just a few.

someone who is looking for a career change
someone looking to return to the workforce after a number of years
someone leaving the military
someone looking to boost his or her income potential
someone seeking a first job
someone seeking a career with a future
someone who is being downsized
someone taking an early retirement package but still wishing to work
someone involved in a homebased business
someone considering selling 'anything' online
someone forced into a career change because of illness or injury
someone desiring to be in business for themselves
someone who is a student seeking lucrative parttime income
Perhaps you see yourself on that list. Please check out all 8 articles in this series. A career in the selling profession just might be right for you or someone close to you.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Sales Meetings

2007-01-18T09:02:00.000+09:00

Your sales meeting could be a free consultation, in person or by telephone, a demonstration, or it could be in your store. It could be long or short. The big question is: Who controls the meeting?

Customer service is hugely important, and it starts with the sales meeting. You are the expert in your industry and the expert regarding your specific product/service. If you allow the prospect to do all the talking and ask all the questions, you lose the opportunity to show the prospect how well your product will fulfill their needs and solve their problems.

You are not doing your potential customer any favors by allowing them to take control. Also, when you come to the meeting with an agenda you look very professional and organized.

You can have several intentions with your agenda, but the main one should be to get the sale! For me, since I so enjoy my fr'ee consultations, I have to additionally use my agenda to keep me on track so I keep the length of the meeting reasonable.

On your agenda, you should have open-ended questions. These questions do not have a "yes" or "no" or other such specific answer. Examples of open ended questions include:

- What is it you most want?
- Would you please tell me about _______?
- What problem are you currently experiencing with your ______
- How are you currently handling this problem?
- If you could change something about your ________, what would it be?
- How do you think I could help you?

Then, if you want more information or if you sense there is something more to what they have already told you, you can ask:

- Could you please tell me more about that?
- Anything else?

The most important skill you will need to be a great salesperson is LISTENING. The prospect will list for you all their selling points – all the reasons they need your product. Many people need to be heard. If you really listen, you may get the sale based solely on this ability. Also, you may have heard that you should only talk 20 percent of the time, but I think this depends on your product or service. For coaches and consultants, the prospect often wants to hear us talk – they are getting fr'ee advice they would otherwise have to pay for! Just do not over-do it.

Here is an example of a basic sales meeting agenda:

1. Ask open-ended questions that will give you the information you need to sell them your product, and will demonstrate to the prospect that you care about their needs.

2. Tell them just enough about your product or service so they will begin understanding how your product could benefit them – resist the urge to vomit information on them, and don't talk about yourself! Unless they ask, they usually don't really care about you.

3. Close the sale by putting their needs together with your product. (What I do is demonstrate my coaching by coaching the prospect around the issues they mentioned to me, demonstrating value. I then summarize what we could work on together and how they would benefit, drawing on the needs they already outlined earlier.)

One more question you can ask, if it fits into your agenda, is:

Do you know anyone else who could benefit from my services?

Then you need to ask for the sale!

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2007-01-17T10:16:00.000+09:00

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Sales - Great Career Choice -1

2007-01-17T10:13:00.000+09:00

If you are looking for a way to protect your 'income potential' in virtually any economy, you have to know that there is one career, if mastered, that truly is economy proof. That is the selling profession. The reason is quite simple. Economies are driven by the sale of goods, services and even the sale of information or ideas. In fact, economically speaking, 'nothing happens until something is sold'.

When there is a slowdown in the economy, however created, people who produce goods or provide services are among the first to lose their jobs. While it is true that some salespeople also may be laid off because there are fewer customers, salespeople, especially master salespeople, have a decided advantage over producers of goods and services. Consider this.

If you have framed houses for 10 years and a downturn in the economy slows home building significantly, you will need to find a completely new line of work. If you have worked on an automobile assembly line and sales drop 15% forcing mass layoffs, where do you go? In production type jobs, layoffs are often linked to seniority, rather than ability. If you are downsized or if you are in manual work and your body wears out, what do you do? If you don't have an expensive college education, yet you still want an exceptional income, what do you do?

In the selling profession, layoffs are more often tied to results. Any organization that sells a product or service to survive and prosper, will not generally, layoff their top producers first. I can virtually assure you of that. It wouldn't make business sense, would it? Even in the event that the business completely closes down, it will be the sales masters that will be in demand by other companies before anyone else is. Professional sports teams pay big money for superstars. So do sales organizations. Sales masters literally write their own paychecks in any economy.

Selling is the locomotive of the economy and master salespeople are the engineers of that locomotive. Now, you maybe thinking that you have never sold, never have thought of selling or perhaps you have a belief system that tells you that you can't or never could sell successfully. Perhaps you have never thought about the incredible benefits that you can enjoy by choosing selling as a career. Perhaps you have believed that it would take years to become a successful salesperson.

If you are experiencing any of those thoughts, I invite you to check out all 8 articles in this series and keep an open mind. Once you see the whole picture, you can decide. In the meantime, please don't sell yourself short. Master salespeople are created, not born. That means that you can choose to become a master yourself.

Throughout my career as a sales manager and sales trainer / coach I specialized in guiding individuals with absolutely no selling experience whatsoever to become top producers. I can help you too, whether you have selling experience or not.

Performance Management

2007-01-16T09:30:00.000+09:00

An Introductory Guide

Performance Management is a cyclical process aimed at improving performance (eg: achievement of business objectives). Performance Management involves the following principles (illustrated by a call centre example):

Measurement

You establish performance measures
(eg: sales turnover)
You establish measurable behavioural goals that will improve performance
(eg: making 30 prospective phone calls a day)
You measure current behaviours
(eg: logging actual phone calls)

2. Appraisal

You compare the current behaviours with the behavioural goals and identify the main differences
(eg: on average, 20 phone calls are actually being made, giving a shortfall of 10 phone calls).

3. Action

For each difference, you plan how to bring actual behaviours in line with the goals, in order to improve the performance
(eg: introduce a revised telephone script that qualifies the prospect more quickly, shortening each phone call and enabling more calls to be made in the time available)
You implement the plan
(eg: issue the revised script to all telesales people, perhaps with some training to support its use)

4. Monitoring

Check that the new plans are being followed (eg: review a sample of phone call recordings to determine whether the new script is being used and check that it is 'workable').
At an appropriate time, you return to the appraisal stage to assess the impact of the changes on the behavioural and performance measures
(eg: review the average number of calls made per day and sales achieved).

The term "Performance Management" is often used in two contexts:

A way of maximising performance of an individual, team or organisation
A process for dealing with underperforming individuals (or teams).
Whilst the underlying principles are always the same, the way in which they are implemented varies between the two contexts.

Conclusion

Performance Management is a term used to improve team performance, based on the principles of measurement, appraisal, action and monitoring. However, it can be manifest in very different forms depending on whether the aim is to further improve good performers, or deal with underperformance. Performance Management can also apply to individuals, teams, groups or organisations.

Power of Sales Letter

2007-01-16T08:59:00.000+09:00

Writing a good sales letter can be frustrating. Looking around at some examples you find that most sales letters are very long. They use this long copy to hypnotize the reader. The goal of the sales letter is to reinforce the readers confidence in your product to the point where they have no fear of purchasing a dud. With the right sales letter, your sales can finally reach the level you want them to be at.

The key is to keep the reader interested from the time he reads the first two words until he reaches the end. Your headline must be eye catching and make the reader keep reading. Try to not put up a headline that your reader has seen 1000 times before. Come up with something original and creative. Remember that you want to stand out from the competition and make the reader choose your products over theirs.

When you are writing your sales letter, write from your readers perspective. Be sure to cover every possible thought, question, or concern that they could have about buying. The reason they are at your sales page in the first place is because they have a problem that needs to be solved. Show them all of the ways that buying your product will help solve their problems. Ask yourself what the reader wants to hear in the sales letter in order to make him buy the product. Your sales letter should go above and beyond when convincing your prospects. Make sure that every possible reason they have to not purchase is presented and proven to not be something that should keep from buying. Once you feel comfortable about your sales letter you should have some peers review it and make suggestions.

Once you have a killer sales letter you will need to flood it with traffic.

Want to learn how I draw large amounts of traffic to my websites?

Sales Techniques

2007-01-15T10:52:00.000+09:00

You have your sales team screened, hired, and trained on the features and benefits of your product and now it's time to put their "feet on the street!" But what about their sales approach? Did you think through the possible sales techniques and make an informed choice about what would work most effectively for your product and market? If not, your team may not be off to the fast break you hope for. Take the time to think about what approach would work best for the sales environment your reps will be facing.

If you're in a consulting or service-oriented business you know that it's going to require a relationship building process, but a product sales environment may require the same thing. The art of selling is not as straight forward as you may think. If you haven't been out there and sold before (as many new business owners haven't) then you may benefit from going through this workshop and identifying what you think might work for your business. If you're a seasoned sales professional now in a sales management position there may also be a thing or two for you. In this article, we'll look at some of the more effective selling techniques out there.

Have you ever had someone convince you to buy something you knew you'd never use? How do they do that? Did you want to buy anything else from them? Did you have a good relationship with them? These are some of the questions that come up when you think about what types of techniques your sales team should use.

Early books about sales techniques (we're talking about the early 1900's) included key words like ethics, service, relationships, hard work, doing the best job possible, and loyalty to your company. These all led to the idea of building a friendship and relationship with your customers so they would keep coming back. (Sound familiar?) After about 10 years other ideas began to surface. Door-to-door salesmen discovered that they could increase their sales by using specific words and specific persuasion methods. This lead to the perfecting and proliferation of sales techniques that focused not on the customer's needs or building a relationship, but on closing techniques and methods that rated a one-time sale, which was all they were interested in.

The foundations of most modern sales techniques lie in five stages of action. These began in the 1950's and include:

Attention: You have to get the attention of your prospect through some advertising or prospecting method.
Interest: Build their interest by using an emotional appeal such as how good they will look to their boss when they make this deal that will save the company thousands of dollars!
Desire: Build their desire for your product by showing them its features and letting them sample or test-drive it.
Conviction: Increase their desire for your product by statistically proving the worth of your product. Compare it to its competitors. Use testimonials from happy customers.
Action: Encourage the prospect to act. This is your closing. Ask for the order. If they object, address their objections. There are then many variations of closing techniques that can help get the business.
There is a plethora of closing techniques that range from hard sell to soft sell and everything in-between. Some of these include:

A Direct Close: Simply asking for the order when you are sure your prospect is ready.
A Deal/Concession Close: Using this closing technique gives the prospect the feeling that they are making a smart choice and saving money (or getting more value). Use it with phrases like "Order today and I can add this other module for only 10% more."
A Time-Driven Close: This one works well with statements like, "prices are going up next week, so you should go ahead a let me place your order today."
Trial Offer: You can let the prospect use the product at no risk for a trial period. This works well if you're selling products that make people's lives easier. They aren't likely to want to give it back if it has saved them a lot of time and effort during the trial period. On the other hand, if they haven't had the experience with the product you told them they would then you probably won't get another chance.

Keeping Your Sales Team Motivated

2007-01-15T08:17:00.000+09:00

Sales managers frequently approach me for advice on how to keep salespeople motivated, especially when sales reps get into a rut - and seem to keep slipping deeper into it. Telling managers what not to do usually solves the problem. Most managers do things to de-motivate salespeople without even knowing it.

Let's take the idea of funnels and forecasts, for instance. Funnels and forecasts are important aspects of running any sales operation. Both salespeople and managers need to know where they stand in terms of potential opportunities, and funnels serve to track those opportunities. No successful business can operate and properly plan for the future without accurate forecasting. In theory, these are absolutely essential to the success of any operation. In reality, however, few words strike terror in the hearts of salespeople like "funnel" and "forecast."

For most salespeople, the term "funnel review" equates to micromanagement, probation and performance improvement plans. Just hearing the term is enough to shift a sales rep's frame of mind from positive to negative. He or she suddenly loses enthusiasm and doesn't know why. Many managers increase funnel reviews as performance slips, which causes performance to slip further, and in the end nobody wins. Endless funnel reviews, especially if they're not positive, only serve to reinforce salespeople's self-doubts and limiting beliefs.

Forecasts are a similar problem, but in different ways. Few salespeople forecast accurately. Nobody wants to fall short on their forecast, so they embellish, exaggerate and make sure the numbers add up to where they should be rather than where they really are. This results in managers who expect those numbers, and salespeople who dodge managers because they know they aren't going to perform as forecasted. Then there are salespeople like myself who do the exact opposite - since I hated nothing more than having a manager constantly ask me, "When is this one going to close? When is that one going to close?," I intentionally left good deals off my forecast. While it eliminated the problem of constantly being asked when all those deals would sign, it created another form of stress in having to deal with the consequences of a funnel that fell short of expectations.

Another word that instantly de-motivates salespeople is "activity." Unfortunately, in the absence of any other viable advice, most managers simply blurt out, "You need to increase your activity" to anyone who isn't at quota. This accomplishes nothing other than setting up the rep to believe that a series of funnel reviews and performance improvement plans are soon to follow.

Finally, I see entirely too many managers pushing too hard to spend extra time with salespeople who are falling short. While it's necessary to spend time with these people, it's not a good idea to keep asking them what they need help with and to insist on riding along with them. This only turns up the heat another notch on an already stressed-out rep. Nobody who is having trouble likes to be singled out, especially when the extra attention easily can be mistaken for micromanagement.

To keep a struggling salesperson motivated:

1. Keep the talk of funnels, forecasts and activity to a minimum.

2. Offer help without being overbearing.

3. Put your trust and confidence in that salesperson.

Stick with these guidelines and you'll not only do a better job of helping those who are having difficulties, but you'll see an overall increase in your sales team's motivation and enthusiasm

Sales Forcasting

2007-01-12T08:40:00.000+09:00

One of the activities management expects salespeople to provide bottom-up help with is in the area of sales forecasting. Unfortunately, many sales managers shove their sales forecasts down the throats of their sales staff due to the demands /expectations for sales increases of senior management.

Now I am not inferring that senior management should not play an active role in determining the sales expectations of their salespeople. I am only suggesting that a bottom-up approach is far more accurate of what a sales territory can or will produce if the salespeople have the ability to accurately access their territory potential. Salespeople, if they are in touch with their customer and/or prospect needs, problems, budgets, changes and competitive initiatives, are far better equipped to forecast future sales results. In order to come up with numbers that are reflective of ‘the real world’ and satisfy the demands of management, salespeople must understand the factors that impact their future sales results. Some of these are:

- present sales levels per customer/prospect
- future needs, concerns, desires of customers/prospects
- competitive activities in the sales territory
- general market conditions
- the quality of the relationship between the salespeople/organization and the prospects/customers
- new or future product/service opportunities
- whether the territory has real potential or is a maintenance territory
- the sales competence of the salesperson
- the self-image of the salesperson (the ability to be honest with management with territory limitations and issues)
- the relationship of the salesperson with his/her manager

There are many others, but these tend to determine the accuracy of any sales forecast whether weekly, monthly or yearly. The key premises to remember when forecasting are:

- people buy when they are ready to buy – not when you need to sell
- ignoring competitive initiatives will ensure a lack of integrity in your numbers
- you can’t make up for poor sales skills or attitudes with extra effort or time
- giving management the numbers they want when they are not possible or realistic is to only postpone the ultimate frustration of everyone
- just pulling numbers out of the air will haunt you later in the sales cycle

The Most Of Customer Service

2007-01-11T08:51:00.000+09:00

Customer care has become one of the most important issues facing businesses in every market. Customer care programmes come under a number of titles - customer services, customer satisfaction, customer focus, customer orientated etc.

Their common theme is meeting the customer’s requirements and ensuring that all aspects of the business contribute to customer satisfaction. The intention is to build repeat business if customers are satisfied with the product and the standards of service they receive, they will return again and again.

Inconsistent Customer Care

Inconsistent customer care performance can have a negative effect on customer perceptions. Petrol companies for example, know that every time a customer walks into one of their outlets, wherever they are in the country, they should expect to receive the same standards of service. Nation-wide consistency is essential when customers are likely to visit multiple outlets – one poor performance can threaten the customer’s perception of the entire operation.

What Is Customer Care?

Customer care is about addressing three sets of requirements:

• Customer

• Staff

• Organisation

These requirements are interrelated, i.e. it is more difficult to deliver consistently high standards in customer care if the needs of both the organisation and the staff are not taken into account

Customer Requirements

• Excellent personal service - feels valued, listened to, treated as an individual

• Products that meet expectations

• Encouragement to express views and give feedback

• Effective relationship with the organisation

• Problems and complaints are handled effectively

Staff Requirements

• Effective management style

• Suitable working environment - pay and conditions / tools for the job

• Relevant training to develop skills

• Career potential

• Clarity of role / job description

• Performance standards and appraisal systems

• Sense of involvement / value

• Open communication

• Teamwork

• Rewards / Recognition

Organisational Requirements

• Mission statement

• Corporate structure

• Feedback and communication systems

• Profit

• Human and technical resources

• Demonstrated commitment

Who Are Your Customers?

If you are not serving the customer, you should be serving someone who is. Harmonious relationships with customers and colleagues are essential to service success, because providing outstanding customer service is primarily a team effort. For excellent customer service to exist it has to be practised on an internal basis

The What And The How

The “What” is the material and the “How” is the personal element. To be outstanding, organisations must deliver excellence in both material and personal service. Customer service is no longer just a question of interpersonal skills

The difference between you and your competitors is achieved when expectations are exceeded. Doing the unexpected, going the extra mile, moves us from meeting expectations to exceeding expectations

How To Delight Customers:

• Be enthusiastic enthusiasm is the driving force of quality service.Customers do not just want products they want products plus enthusiasm

• Be professional the word professional does not go with the job it goes with the person

Be The Best

• Someone, somewhere has to be the best at this job - why not me?

• Decide to be outstanding

How To Be The Best

• Use positive self talk - e.g. tell yourself ‘Everyday in every way, i get better and better’

• Don't be ordinary

• Develop a ‘How can I do it better?’ mind set

Today Everyone Sells

In a successful company the number of sales people equals the number of employees

• Everyone sells something - either products, services or the image of the company

And Finally: How To Help Yourself Sell

• Pay attention - give people the benefit of your attention

• Customers like to give their business to those who show they want it

Build a Stellar Sales Team

2007-01-10T11:18:00.000+09:00

If you want to build a strong business, you're eventually going to have to hand over the sales reins to a sales team. Here's how to do it right.

When you're starting out, you may be sales manager, marketing director and lone salesperson all in one--plus filling whatever other spots exist on the organizational chart. As you grow, however, you'll find you need additional people to handle specialized jobs. These will someday include a chief financial officer and vice president of operations, among others. But one of the first specializations in which you're likely to need to hire is sales. This makes sense because sales are what drive your company's growth. All other things being equal, the more salespeople you have, the more sales you will generate. So adding sales personnel and improving your existing sales staff are essential parts of growing your company.

Evaluating Your Sales Force

Maybe your sales force is fine the way it is. Maybe not. How can you tell? Evaluating your sales force is an important step in the process of deciding whether and how to grow your sales team. If your existing sales force is fine and will be more than adequate to fuel future growth, you still might need some additional training or perhaps a revamped compensation package. On the other hand, your sales force may need to grow by a few heads, or you may choose to stay the same size but have different people filling the sales positions.

Step one in evaluating your sales force is to decide what you want it to do for you. For some companies that do most of their selling through mail order or the Internet, a sales force is strictly an option. In this case, you may expect your sales force to handle only the larger accounts, leaving the smaller orders to customer service personnel and order-takers. For other companies, however, the salesperson is the most visible--and perhaps the only--outward manifestation of the company seen by customers. This type of salesperson carries a heavy load. He or she has to uphold the company's image, hold the customers' hands, interface with delivery and repair departments at headquarters, and, of course, get the sale.

It won't require a lot of thought for you to come up with a good description of what you want your sales force to do. Make sure you're not evaluating your sales force based on some other company's needs. For instance, if your salespeople are primarily charged with following up on leads generated by your advertising, don't penalize them if they aren't making a lot of cold calls. Once you decide what jobs your sales force is intended for, simply check their performance against the requirements. The key measure when it comes to evaluating a sales force is sales productivity.

Measuring Sales Productivity

The simplest measure of sales productivity is the dollar amount of sales per salesperson. That's easy enough to figure out: Just divide the volume of sales by the number of salespeople on staff. That will give you an average sales productivity figure and let you know how the average salesperson in your organization is doing. More useful, though, is to know how each individual salesperson is doing compared to the average. You may have a handful of relatively productive people who are carrying the load for a raft of underperformers. This is the kind of information you'll need to know to decide whether to make a change.

Be warned, though: Sales productivity may involve more than simply generating dollars of sales. Your sales force may be moving a lot of product now but costing you sales later by alienating customers with poor service. They may be making promises you cannot deliver on, overburdening your production and shipping departments. They may be selling a lot of the wrong products (items with low margins or high support costs) while ignoring your more profitable lines. Check to see if certain salespeople have large numbers of returns or tend to sell to customers who don't pass credit checks.

These salespeople could be costing you more than they're worth.

Sales Contests for Maximum Results

2007-01-10T09:12:00.000+09:00

Do you ever run sales contests to reward and motivate your sales team? Contests have been around in sales organizations for years, haven't they?

The standard contest runs something like this. They work and they don't work, at least the way most organizations run them.

Management will choose a contest period, usually a month, a week or a weekend.
Management will set targets based on the objectives of the organization.
Management will choose the rewards.
Management will post sales results where all the sales staff can see them.
Management will run contest when sales are weakening.
Management is promoting 'healthy competition' within the sales team.

Let's examine these elements and the possible consequences of them, shall we? Remember, it's not about whether these elements are right or wrong but rather whether they work or they don't work to get you and your organization paid in the long run and contribute to operating a sales floor at mastery.

Management will choose a contest period.

When the date and the duration of the contest is announced in advance, there may actually be a drop in business prior to the contest starting as some salespeople actively hold back sales in hopes of having that business qualify for the contest. Therefore, it would be beneficial to hold off on the announcement until the last minute if you run traditional contests. This is not possible, of course, if the contest is tied to an advertised sales event.

The end of the contest will also almost always guarantee a drop in sales as well, often to a level that is below average production because salespeople have been aggressive in beating the bushes to bring in that extra business.

Management will set targets based on the objectives of the organization.

I do not see any problems here unless salespeople are encouraged to push particular products or services without regard to the prospect's needs and objectives. The customers come first. When the customers' need are met, the organization's need to get paid will certainly be met by happy, loyal and referring customers.

Management will choose the rewards.

Merchandize prizes and experiences, (dinners, trips, etc.) prizes do work with many but can actually de-motivate some people who do not want or need the prize. Cash works for others.

Management will post sales results where all the sales staff can see them.

This may be convenient for management perhaps and may be considered a motivator by many managers, but it is potential poison on the sales floor. For everyone who is in any position except first place in the contest, this can have the same psychological effect as management criticizing a salesperson in front of another employee.

Management will run contests when sales are weakening.

This happens seasonally in many businesses. Since management often puts on contests in response to seasonal downturns, many salespeople will withhold business in anticipation, much like when a contest is announce with too much lead time.

Management is promoting 'healthy competition' within the sales team. Every sales team has its range of performers. As a result, the outcome of many contests is known before it even begins. I have witnessed an actual fist fight take place on a sales floor based on contest competition. I have also seen salespeople actively work to sabotage another salesperson's business during contests. Somehow this does not seem healthy to me.

Now let's consider an alternate strategy, the 'Sales Contest at Mastery' strategy.

Management will choose a contest period.

Unveil the start date at a special meeting or with a memo as close to the contest as possible. Keep the end date secret. Decide on it. Write it down and seal it up so it can be revealed to all at the end of the contest. This keeps the sales staff in a constant state of performing rather than running on cruise control at various times during a long contest. Try to keep major contests away from advertised sales events.

Management will set targets based on the objectives of the organization.

Contests can certainly be used to stimulate sales but they can also be used to stimulate the actual performance of members of the team on a sustained basis. This concept will become clearer in a moment.

Management will choose the 'rewards'.

Where merchandize prizes or 'experience' prizes are offered, consider awarding the option for the salesperson to choose a cash equivalent, if possible, since the cash option might be more attractive to some team members.

Do not post results where all the sales staff can see them.

In addition to the reason stated above, the reason will be clear in a moment.

Run contests when sales opportunities are the greatest.

Get your team fired up when there are lots of ducks flying by. Everyone will eat better and have more fun in the process.

Here is the 'Real Key' to the contest. Avoid the 'heathy competition' among members of the sales team. Rather than challenging your sales staff to compete against one another, creating winners and losers among your people, build a contest where individuals are challenged to compete against their own benchmark and measured historical performance.

For example, reward staff members who increase their performance by 10, 20 or 25 percent above their norms. Spread the prizes around rather than declaring one or two winners and a number of losers. This will eliminate any attempts at sabotage on the sales floor.

Perhaps you could create a 'win as a team or lose as a team' event where the entire sales team works to a common goal. I have seen awesome results with this strategy.

Have negative consequences for salespeople who generate negative customer feedback. This will keep poor sales tactics off your sales floor.

Keep individual results private, at least during the contest, in order to avoid ego and self esteem issues.

These types of contests encourage individuals to develop sustainable selling techniques and continuous career growth. That has to be a good thing which will be around long after the sales contest is a distant memory. Try a contest based on these principles. I think you will find the results very rewarding.

Understanding People's Developmental Needs

2007-01-09T09:50:00.000+09:00

We offer four different ways of assessing team members’ development needs. These are Observation, Information Gathering, Talking Things Through, and Use of Skills Assessment Assignments.

Observation:

“My dear Watson, you see a lot but you observe very little.”

Sherlock Holmes may not be remembered a great coach, but he sure has a knack of putting the solutions in perspective. For, as Holmes obviously knew, observation helps a lot in understanding a person’s strengths and areas of improvement, both at a personal and professional level.

Successful leaders never let go of an opportunity to observe the way that their team members work or behave during the normal course of their work. This observation itself is not an end in itself, but is an objective means of gathering information for evaluation.

Do remember the following while you are observing your team members:

See your role as that of a faithful recorder of facts;
Avoid “breathing down people’s necks”;
Do not allow yourself to be judgmental until you feel you have a good picture of the way things work; and
Do not let stereotypes or hearsay affect your observations.

Why Is My Sales Page Not Good Enough?

2007-01-09T08:34:00.000+09:00

A good sales page, sales copy, or sales letter is supposed to make sales even though it may not make sense. The idea or secret behind a good sales page is not to make the best of sense but to make if possible the biggest of money via the pulling or the generation of huge traffic of the targeted customers.

It means that an online businessman, for instance, who wants to make money or profit on the internet but does not think of having a good sales page or copy is either day-dreaming or making a disastrous mistake which is capable of rocking his online fortune.

One good thing about the internet is that anybody can try to make sales and consequently, money by putting up a good sales page or copy. Funny enough, one bad thing about the internet is that anybody, saints and sinners, can make or try to make money by using a good sales page. It follows that a good sales page is the tonic of any online business – it can turn a business from zero income level to an amazingly great income level. A good sales page can turn a pauper into a wealthy man because if you have a great product but you are not selling it you are as good as one that has no product to sell. You are as good as a poor man. You don’t have credit cards and you don’t smile to the bank.

Then, what are the properties of a good sales page? What are the ingredients that make up a good sales letter? Let me advise you before I go very far. You have to be an expert in your niche before you can personally write your sales copy that can compel people to but even if they don’t want or feel like buying the product. You have to know the language of your niche which means that you should know much about your product. Also, you should be able to define the mind of your targeted customers. That is, you should know what they actually want and why they want it.

A good sales page must be able to define the problems that are being faced by the prospective customers. You have to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. You should make them to feel the pain of the problem. You should be able to create an emotion in them by painting the picture of what may be the grave consequence of not solving the problem.

You have to tell them why you are the right person to offer solution to the problem. That is, you should show them, in writing, your credentials so that they will believe that you are a solution provider of great or good quality. Back up your product with some bonuses and money-back guarantee in order to show how confident you are that the product is of high quality.

What you have to do again is to create urgency in them so that they will be compelled to buy now! For example, you could tell them that the product is so limited that only 10 people can buy it at the current price after which the price will go up!

Top 2 Sales Management Blunders

2007-01-08T12:47:00.000+09:00

Avoiding Sales Management Blunders

Hiring a sales staff for your small business comes with the responsibility to provide effective sales management. Learn the biggest sales management blunders and how you can avoid them.

1. Mixing Recognition with Coaching: One common sales management blunder is to congratulate your sales force for a job well done and quickly move to areas of improvement. This tactic can often be interpreted by sales staff as a lack of appreciation. A best practice is to separate the recognition from the coaching. Save the performance improvement areas for coaching sessions. Set up separate recognition of your sales rep success even if it's a small celebration. It's the little gestures of respect and celebrations of achievement that gain the hearts and minds of the sales force.

2.No Sales Plan: Another common sales management blunder is not developing a sales plan to help manage the sales team.

All sales plans have at least 3 requirements:

Sales Rep Development: Where most plans fail is they are developed by the sales manager not the sales rep. To ensure a high level of plan acceptance, have the rep develop the plan and guide them toward the right objectives.

Regular Reporting: Sales plans should be established on a weekly basis to provide flexibility in the planning cycle. Reviewing can take place on a monthly basis. Sales management excellence involves reviewing the results against the plan to determine missed opportunities and areas for improvement.

Sales Metrics: A successful sales plan focuses on results and activities. Establish the proper sales metrics to drive your business results. Metrics can include: number of client phone calls, number of contacts, appointments set, appointments conducted and sales closed. Do not overwhelm your sales staff with excessive tracking numbers. Focus on the few measures that matter the most to your business.

Sell More Using Sales Psychology

2007-01-08T08:15:00.000+09:00

True sales pros use psychology to sell more, the psychology of urgency, time, choice and stories. Let’s look at each.

The psychology of urgency

Another typical sales scenario involves the salesperson doing everything right – until after the first appointment. Then, suddenly, the emails stop, messages don’t get returned, and the lead runs cold, leaving you scratching your head wondering how that nice, friendly, responsive, involved prospect dropped off the face of the earth.

Does that ever happen to you?

What you’ve just experienced is a good sales process gone bad for the lack of a key ingredient: urgency.

As Stephen Covey says, there is a big difference between the “urgent” and the “important.”

In everyday business, the urgent category includes soothing angry clients, “putting out fires,” production stoppages, surprise inspections or audits by regulators, labor problems, media blowups, and things of that nature.

The important category includes things like making employees feel appreciated, upgrading to new office technology, listening to someone’s ideas, increasing your industry knowledge, developing good corporate citizenship (charitable, environmental, etc) and so on.

Guess which category is at the top of every executive’s agenda each morning when they walk in the door?

If you’ve positioned the product or service you’re selling as a “nice to have” instead of a “have to have,” – or even better a “have to have now” – your leads will run cold. Simply put, buying from you (even if it’s important) takes a backseat to the urgent matters of the day.

If you as a salesperson haven’t identified the pain, then you will get a less than urgent response. If you walk up to someone on the street and they have a nail sticking out of their knee- they would have a high sense of urgency to have the nail removed. This is the same with the prospect. When you can identify their “nail” they will want to move on it quickly.

In my seminars, I ask people to think about these questions:

•Why is it urgent for the prospect to ACT NOW?
•What is the incentive?
•How can you create meaningful deadlines?
•How is buying both an important *and* an urgent issue?

Again, I’m not going to supply you with gimmicky stock phrases or clever comebacks, but rather suggest that you spend some time and energy thinking about how to intelligently and professionally address legitimate buying obstacles such as “We have no budget,” “We have no need for this product/service,” “We’re happy with who we’re using,” and “This is bad timing for us.”

I don’t believe in the process of “overcoming objections” – sounds too much like fighting. And if salesis a battle, you’re going to lose.

One method I like to use is simply turning objections into objectives. In other words, if you can intelligently address the objection in terms of reaching a goal, agreement, or solution that addresses the problem, you will be well on your way to collaborating with your future customer on buying your solution.

For example, if the objection is “it’s too expensive,” you can show, in clear dollars and cents terms (and using numbers supplied by your future customer!) how your solution will save money, generate sales, increase profits, reduce costs, etc.

You’re turning the price objection into a value objective.

The psychology of time

A lot of sales trainers suggest using the personal touch: handwritten notes, personalized gifts, etc.

We think these are powerful tools, but for different reasons. Whether a note is typed or handwritten makes little difference in and of itself. Whether the note comes with a small gift (personalized or not) also doesn’t really matter.

It’s really about giving time and attention. That is what makes you distinctive.

Let me give you an example. As you may have guessed by now, I’m a speaker, author, and seminar leader. As such, I’m a prospect for a wide variety of businesses – presentation equipment, publicity, advertising, direct mail, courseware, and e-learning suppliers all want a piece of me.

Recently, I put my name in at the website of a reputable radio PR professional who has been getting great results for people just like me. I filled out her online form, attended part of a tele-seminar that she sponsored, and then a few days later received a handwritten note together with 2 name-brand lollipops.

Some background you need to know:
1.I’m a sucker for handwritten notes. They never fail to amaze and impress me.
2.I have a small ego. I love to be told my books are filled with valuable and practical insights or that my ideas incited someone to take action.

Now, here are some problems with this story:
1.Her handwritten note said “Your book sounds perfect for radio.” I never gave her details of “my book.” And I have 5 books.
2.The tele-seminar was one step above terrible. Her guest was a pompous twit and the information in the first 10 minutes was so negligible, I hung up. How tough would it have been to send everyone a post-seminar email or form asking for feedback? Then she could have targeted people who loved the tele-seminar, or at least addressed the shortcomings with people, like me, who didn’t.

So, how does all this apply to you and your business? Simple. The lesson is: put in the TIME to make the sale, add personal meaning to your relationships, and make yourself stand out from the crowd.

For example, when you follow up with a well thought-out handwritten note, it shows the investment of your TIME.

I recently facilitated a six month Leadership Development program for 37 people. Afterwards, I sat down and wrote 37 thank you notes by hand. In each note, I tried to personalize a comment. I sealed the envelopes with red wax and my stamped monogram.

It wasn’t that I am crazy about wax and monograms; it’s the fact that I wanted to send a note that was different than any they had ever gotten. The response was tremendous.

Investing time is another way you will separate yourself from the crowd. What’s the best way to invest your time? Choose as many as you like from the following list:

•Spend time listening
•Spend time customizing solutions
•Spend time following up
•Spend time supplying valuable information addressing your client’s needs and agendas (personal and professional)
•Spend time making your buyer look good to his or her boss
•Spend time referring business to your future client’s company
•Spend time dropping by for no reason and drop off lunch or donuts

A lot of salespeople are leery of doing this work for several reasons. Excuses and objections include:

•I can’t get enough information to do this
•This is free consulting – I need to make sales!
•Why would I waste all that time on a single prospect?
•This sounds like a lot of work

My responses:

•You can get this information
•It’s easier than you think
•Yes, it does take some work
•Welcome to your J-O-B!

The way to make sure you're investing your time wisely vs. doing “free consulting” is simply to make each of these points of contact an opportunity to move your sales process forward.

A final aspect of the psychology of time is timely response to emails and phone calls. This is truly a habit worth developing for several reasons:

•It shows respect and courtesy
•It proves your responsiveness even before the sale is made
•Sometimes, it’s just a practical matter of the first response gets the sale

If you show your willingness to invest your time and attention, prospects are more likely to respond with a willingness to invest their time – – and money – with you.

The psychology of choice

When it comes down to the wire, salespeople who have made a habit of studying sales techniques never offer a ‘take it or leave it’ deal.

It’s simply too easy to say no, and if you didn’t handle the rest of your sales process flawlessly, almost any reason to say no will look pretty appealing to your prospect.

If you always offer options, you shift your prospect’s mindset to considering WHICH, not WHETHER!

And it reinforces your status as a professional who customizes choices, simplifies options, and filters a lot of the ‘noise’ that the prospect has heard in the past. You’re customizing options based on the prospect’s situation. One size fits one.

The psychology of stories

One of the most powerful sales tools you have at your disposal is storytelling. Or more appropriately, storyselling! So how can you use stories when working with future customers? All this requires on your part is the initiative to begin gathering stories by talking with your existing customers. Very simply, talk to your customers about their experiences with your products and services. You’re sure to gather some powerful and persuasive stories. Focus on things like:
•A previous customer’s purchase and how the product helped them.
•A previous customer’s problem and how the product/service fixed the problem.
•A previous customer that had the same concerns/hesitation as your current customer, and how the outcome ended up positive.
•A previous customer’s experience with a certain product/service that didn’t work out and what happened as a result. (This can help lead to the product that would be more appropriate for your customer.)
•A previous customer’s “success story” with the product/service.
•Your own (or someone you know) experience with the product/service.

If you think about it…you are storyselling all the time with friends and family, “selling” them on why they should or shouldn’t go to this or that restaurant, use this or that product, etc. Think about the commercial you see on TV, where they guy says “I was so impressed, I bought the company.” That is a story! Using stories when selling is a powerful opportunity to communicate with your customer in a meaningful way. The human brain is hardwired to quickly understand, interpret, and get the most information from stories. Not sure if storyselling is worth learning? What if we told you that one of the greatest “storysellers” of all time is investment billionaire Warren Buffet and that one of his most valuable skills lies in tapping into the "gut reaction" of different types of clients through stories? The psychology of risk

What can you do to minimize the risk to the prospect of buying your product or service? Look at all the products out on the market that offer risk-free, money back guarantees.

In today’s “do more with less” business environment, many economic decision-makers have a new top priority – and it’s not “making the very best choice.” It’s “not making a mistake that will cost me my job.”

How can you reassure someone with this mindset that buying from you is smart and safe and risk-free?

Do you offer guarantees, warrantees, refunds, make-ups?

In my seminars, we spend some time exploring how you might do one better than minimizing risk – and eliminate it altogether.

Some of the ideas that seminar participants generate for their specific businesses are outrageous, some are plain impossible – but a good number are brilliant and immediately implementation-ready!

Ask yourself the following questions:
•How can I provide a free version of my product or service?
•What can I learn from the auto industry’s new trend of “the 24-hour test drive”?
•What does the buyer have to lose if they buy from me?
•What do they have to gain?
•How can I ensure the buyer’s success – not just their satisfaction?
•How can I employ the concept of risk-reversal – meaning that the risk is all on my side if they don’t achieve success?

When most sales training programs talk about overcoming objections, they usually don’t discuss the real objections that are in most buyers’ minds. These are things like:

•I don’t trust you
•I don’t believe this will get the results you say it will
•This sounds too good to be true
•If this works, I would have heard of this solution already
•Who says so besides you?

You should understand (and expect) that people probably will not trust you in the beginning of the sales process. They have been sold stuff all their lives “against their will.” They bought the steak knives, the insurance, the Girl Scout cookies, the raffle ticket, or the car and regretted it later. (OK maybe not the cookies.) Trust has to be earned over time.

To address these aspects of buyer resistance, you can use a battery of smart sales tools. You may be using some of these already, but the more you pile on, the more effective they will be.

Start to collect, use, and document:
•Customer testimonials (letters are good; audio and video are even better)
•Awards and industry recognition of your product/service
•Press clippings and articles mentioning you or your clients using your product/service
•Objective, fact-based side-by-side comparisons with competing products/services
•Cost analyses and comparisons between using your product/service, using the competition, doing it themselves, and doing nothing

All of these items will help reduce risk, build credibility, and pave the way for an easier, more collaborative solution-based sale.

Your job as a sales professional is not changing people’s minds (that’s extremely hard to do); your job is to help them make a good decision.

Create a Sizzling Home Sales Flyer

2006-12-22T11:04:00.000+09:00

Did you know that the sales flyer is the most important tool in selling a house?

Even if your home is listed with an agent, check the flyer that your agent has created, to see if you can jazz it up. Examine it closely, to make sure that all your amenities are listed. For instance, a real estate agent made up a flyer for our home and forgot to list "waterfront property!"

Most real estate agents use a standard format for making their flyers. They list features, amenities, price, and contact information (usually with a big photo of themselves). But buyers don't care how beautiful your agent is! They want to know why your home is better than every other house in the neighborhood.

The one sales technique that most real estate agents fail to use effectively when they make flyers is listing BENEFITS. Like the sales letters you see on websites, a powerful selling flyer will concentrate on a home’s benefits to the buyer.

Here’s a sampling of possible benefits:

1. Enjoy your private park-like garden
2. Get the space you need to spread out
3. Live in a romantic hideaway
4. Sleep without traffic noise
5. Walk to schools, parks, and shopping
6. Seller will help pay your closing costs
7. Buy with no money down
8. Move in without having to paint or fix a thing
9. Swim in your own private lagoon
10. Enjoy your own personal luxury spa

Do you see the pattern? Each of the above examples features an action verb, followed by a benefit.

Don't underestimate the power of a strong sales flyer. Creating sizzling sales flyers that concentrate on benefits to the buyer will go a long way toward selling your home quickly, and for more money.

Build the Perfect Sales Pitch

2006-12-21T09:08:00.000+09:00

The Pain! Do you remember the first time you were scammed on the web? I do! Was I bitter!? The amount of money wasn't large, under $50 if I remember rightly, but the humiliation of being taken for a ride was really galling – I can feel myself getting steamed up all over again…

But, there was a second lesson in that experience. I'd been sucked in by a pro. A pro who could REALLY write! I remember the feeling. Reading the sales pitch was like sliding at ever-increasing speed down a greasy chute. My hand became a blur as it reached for my wallet and whammy…I was hooked! Now that's real skill and almost worth the cost of the lesson.

We've all read letters like that. Nearly all of us have fallen for them. Snake-oil salesmen sometimes sold genuine products, but their place in folklore is based on their ability to charm your hard-earned money out of your pocket.

So how do they do it? Well, there are four ingredients:

One: A sequence to the pitch

A sequence that herds you to the endpoint – the sale. The classic sequence goes:

** Identify a PROBLEM or a YEARNING or delivers on a DREAM (to open tight lids on cans that arthritic hands cannot open, a desire to get rich, to get to Heaven, to be loved or desired, not to be lonely….)

** Explore the problem preferably identifying yourself (or some other ‘sympathetic' hero), with the experience of the problem so that you build trust, or by generalizing it to the ‘human condition…

** Show how it can be made to go away and the new world that will open up (by buying a large grip can opener, by finding the best opportunity on the web, by dating local horny housewives, by following a pattern of worship…)

** Recommend your product (quack-medicine, religion, dating service…) emphasizing its BENEFITS and how it solves the PROBLEM

** Lock the solution in place with testimonials and deal with objections (objections are GREAT and you should bring them up yourself so you can knock them down)

** Ask for the sale (lock the door behind the buyer with a cast-iron guarantee.).

There are many variants on this pattern, but they all herd the listener into the corral with their wallet open!! And it works, over and over again…!

Two: Pick a voice.

A ‘voice' is the way you present yourself when you speak to someone. Do you talk about "I" and give witness to personal (almost mystical) experience? Do you "report", telling how others did or their ‘experiences"?

Of the two, the personal experience is dramatically more powerful! But, if you can't project personal witness, then bury them in other people's experiences. You can at some level do both. You lead with your experience, then back it up with that of others (the experience is transferable!), but generally you have to chose one or the other as the lead – hence all those ‘rags-to-riches' stories on the web and those stories of ‘personal revelation (if I could do it!!).

Three: Ramp up the ‘passion meter"

Unless you become hysterical and grating, sincerely expressed passion ALWAYS invokes a magnetic attraction in others. Go too far and they are revolted. Get it right and they are entranced. If you can't get passionate then you won't sell much! Whatever you get passionate about, it has to have one ingredient – it has to benefit THEM. If your passion is all about YOU and your salvation then who cares? If it's about your driving need to help them to THEIR salvation then that's something else. They may not want your version of heaven but they will listen.

Four: Always try to tell a story.

People relate to stories. They don't relate to lists and cold logic except under certain conditions – like a text book. But if you're trying to sell and it has to ‘touch' them, then the name of the game is a story, a parable, a neat little vignette, a case study.

This works because people KNOW the structures of the classic tales in advance and you are tapping into deep folk memory. Lever that human reality to sell! Here's an example of the structure of a classic tale - fill in the blanks.

"Jack was sick (insert details and tragic consequences if his illness got worse. Ramp up the passion with weeping relatives and pictures of the poorhouse).

Jack's weeping wife – or family friend, or pastor or whoever – hears about a miracle cure.

But Jack is resistant ("I've heard about these before", or no one wants to get his hopes up, or the evil uncle wants the 40 acre field…well you get the idea).

Somehow Jack is given a dose (slipped into his milk by his brave young daughter?).

Jack gets well and praises his good fortune. The daughter reveals…etc, etc."

We all know the story with its well-known variants, (Jack doesn't get the cure and dies…etc)

Even though they know the story they love it. And its very familiarity makes it easy to absorb and memorable. Also these parables touch deep emotions in us; they are part of the very fabric of our lives.

How do you build the skills? Start by surfing the web and looking at the sales pitches on the better sites. See if you can dissect their sales letters. What is the sequence, the voice, how do they drive up the passion, do they tell stories? The more you read, with your eyes opened, the more the patterns of selling will sink in and the easier you will find it to write your own.

The Value of Ideas

2006-12-19T12:08:00.000+09:00

Generate Sales and Enthusiasm by Rewarding your Salespeople's Bright Ideas

By Michael Michalko

When it comes to suggestions, quantity breeds quality. The more ideas your salespeople submit, the better the odds that one of them will have a positive and lasting impact on sales. Great ideas help generate productivity and excitement, so if your salespeople's creativity is at a standstill, shake them up with rewards and recognition that will get their creative juices flowing. The following hints will reassure your salespeople that their input is valuable, and help fire their imaginations to keep your suggestion box overflowing.

To persuade your salespeople to make more suggestions, make sure they know that you consider all of their ideas. Less than 50 percent of salespeople believe management listens to their suggestions, so make sure your team knows you're listening. Drive your message home by presenting each salesperson with a notebook embossed with the company logo, plus a calculator and a pen and pencil set. Title the notebook the "Bright Ideas Notebook" and inscribe it with this message: "We need and want your ideas! When you get an idea write it down and submit it."

When the ideas start rolling in, thank them with these creative rewards:

1. Design your own "Thank You For Your Suggestion" cards. Have them printed and distributed to your more frequent contributors. Ask the CEO to sign each card with a personal message. Stock up on instant lottery cards and include one or two in each card to show your appreciation.

2. Offer salespeople access to upper management. Once every three months, invite the salespeople who contributed the most or most original and useful ideas to dine with the corporate executives at a first-class restaurant. Rent a limousine and have the salespeople chauffeured to the restaurant. A casual, conversational atmosphere will help open the lines of communication between upper management and salespeople.

3. Award cash on the spot to salespeople who submit ideas to improve productivity.

Allow employees to spend the money on any innovative job-related idea or tool without management's approval.

4. Buy season sports or theater tickets and award them weekly to the salespeople who submit the most good ideas.

5. Pay the number one idea contributor's mortgage and electricity bills for one month.

6. Reward top suggestion makers with a house cleaning or babysitting service for one month.

7. Award a gift certificate from a fashionable clothing store for a new dress or suit.

8. Lease a luxury car and award it to the top suggestion maker for one month. Offer the car to a new winner every month. If an idea is exceptional and substantially increases sales, award the car to the salesperson outright.

9. Offer "a penny for your thoughts." Buy a gumball machine and place it in your office filled with colored gumballs. For every suggestion (or every five or ten suggestions) award the contributor a penny to use in the gumball machine. Award a cash prize according to the color of the gumball that comes out ($2 for green, $5 for yellow, $25 for red, etc.).

10. Send the top suggestion maker to your industry's largest trade show as your company's guest. Ask the employee to attend presentations, meet customers and learn about the industry. Arrange for the salesperson to share the experience with the CEO afterward.

Sell Vintage Comics on eBay

2006-12-19T10:19:00.000+09:00

You’ll find people buying comics for more than just collecting value. Collecting value is strong and represents some of the highest finishing prices on eBay, but interest and consequently bidding wars are hotting up between bidders wanting comics for their stunning art work or as alternative investments to resell when prices peak or to keep for the proverbial ‘rainy day’.

One thing is certain: Vintage Comics often fetch four figure sums on eBay and are worth searching out at boot sales, flea markets, local auctions and collectors’ fairs. You may not find anything unique and worth many thousands of dollars at these local events, but they are great places to find really early comics which are still worth $10, $20, $100 or more on eBay.

* Generally the older the comic the more valuable it is mainly due to low production figures in the late 1800s and early 1900s when only the wealthiest families could afford them in the UK and USA and virtually all other civilized countries. Older generally means more valuable also due to the ephemeral quality of comics which, like newspapers and most other paper items, were made to be used and once used were usually discarded. Very few delicate paper ephemera items, including comics, survived the decades unscathed, if they survived at all. So a low production high quality item from the early days of the Platinum period are usually extremely rare and highly collectable. And highly priced!

* Most comics grow more popular and are printed in larger quantities the longer production continues, so you’ll find many more original buyers for comics in double or triple number issues (#131, #1001, for example) than for Issue Number 1, or 2, 21, 70. This is due to word of mouth recommendation and brand name repetition on the newsagents’ shelves and generally more widespread advertising potential than existed in pre-television, pre-Internet days way back in the late 1800s to late 1930s, the so called Platinum Age. So it follows that early issues of hugely popular action hero comics from those early days are worth a premium over much later issues of these comic rarities.

* Comic artists are often in as much, perhaps greater demand, than the comics they originally helped to create. Original art fetches very high prices on eBay and elsewhere, especially from well-known names like Rowland Turner (Super Detective Library and Thriller Picture Library); George Studdy (creator of Bonzo Dog whose work appeared in hundreds of UK comics and as cartoons in serious newspapers and magazines from the 1920s to 1940s); Frank Hampson (creator of Dan Dare for the Eagle).

* Condition is vital to potential value of most comics although early rare comics can fetch hundreds of dollars even in generally poor condition. Comics have always been produced to be read, pages turned quickly, mutilated to capture coupons and free gifts used as incentives to increase readership. An early comic, in unread, pages unturned, uncut condition, is a rarity indeed, hence the high values often reached on eBay.

* Early comics were made from inferior paper which tore easily and quickly discoloured and darkened with age. Originally white or creamy coloured most early comics emerge years later as anything from off-white to dirty brown. The closer to white the more valuable a vintage comic is likely to be. Restoration is possible and is often worthwhile on very early and low number issue comics and will increase collector value way beyond the price paid to have them restored.

* Scribbles, writing, holes and other damage can reduce prices considerably and you must watch out for these problems on comics picked up at auction and other offline resources. On modern comics and virtually anything from the past twenty years or so, generally low value when perfect, even a tiny imperfection can render a comic worthless. I recall buying more than 100 Beano comics for £80 (about $160) at an auction in Barnard Castle and thinking I’d make a quick fiver on each, maybe much, much more on rarer specimens. In the end I sold them all in bulk way below the price I paid even though to my mind the comics were in really good condition for their age, about twenty or thirty years. It transpired the buyer’s address, almost always hand written on publications to help paper delivery boys find their correct owners, was a major problem for serious collectors.

* Many comics had giveaways either printed as part of the comic or somehow bound into the pages or else added loose inside the issue. Comics with free gifts intact are worth a big premium over comics with pieces missing. Items cut away from the publication depreciates value much more than items like booklets which were often held intact by staples used to contain the main pages of the document and could be removed without damaging the comic itself. Even more desirable are loose inserts which like those we find on supermarket shelves were either lost in transit between seller and buyer or just parted company with the passage of time. If you buy a comic with FREE GIFT emblazoned across the front look inside to check the giveaway remains intact. At boot sales and auction where comics are often available in huge boxes or bundles check out the other contents in case the freebies have switched between publications or are placed separately somewhere else.

* Comic collectors are amongst the most finicky you’ll find anywhere on eBay so you will need to create really quality pictures and point out even the tiniest flaw in your listings. Use a scanner rather than a camera, the first creates close up images (couldn’t really be closer!) and highlights even the tiniest flaw. Camera images are usually too grainy and distant and rarely give all but a cursory view of the item you’re listing.

Common Sales Do's And Don'ts

2006-12-18T08:38:00.000+09:00

The following concise list represents 40 critical sales ideas for your consideration that can contribute to your consistent and long-term success. There are obviously many more than 40 - sales do’s and don’ts - that could have been included. This list contains what I believe are those actions, that when practiced or eliminated will help you rise above the rest of the field and beat the competition, while successfully serving the needs of your clients and yourself.

DO

1. Compartmentalize the issues in your life and career.
2. Spend regular time in self-improvement and reflection.
3. Ask for the business.
4. Close a relationship, not just the sale.
5. Study the competition.
6. Know your product/service better than anyone.
7. Set goals and monitor your progress.
8. See rejection as a tool to learn about yourself.
9. Sell value not low price.
10. Keep accurate and consistent sales records.
11. Cultivate your support staff.
12. Work hard as hard to keep the business as you did to get it.
13. Listen more than you talk.
14. Tailor your sales message.
15. Listen between the lines.
16. Carefully observe early prospect/client signals.
17. Let poor prospects go earlier rather than later.
18. Get information before you give it.
19. Focus on what you want not what you don’t.
20. Keep your ego out of the sales process.

DON’T

1. Talk too much.
2. Give information before you get it.
3. Give redundant presentations.
4. Assume everyone buys for similar reasons.
5. Be afraid of rejection and failure.
6. Waste time on unimportant non-sales issues.
7. Promise a little and deliver less.
8. Sell low price.
9. Assume all sales resistance is negative.
10. Try and do it all yourself.
11. Give product focused presentations.
12. Deal in negatives; what you can’t do.
13. Spend time with poor prospects.
14. Advertise your willingness to make concessions.
15. Assume selling and negotiating are the same.
16. Lose control of the sales process.
17. Just cultivate your client organization contact.
18. Cold call before you have done some research.
19. Assume a verbal yes, means yes.
20. Assume you will have the business forever.

Why not check your typical sales behavior against the above lists.

Managing Teams

2006-12-15T12:27:00.000+09:00

Top Four Ideas to help you be a better Team Manager.

1. Focus on building a strong team that can solve hard problems and add genuine value for the customer.

2. Leaders inspire; managers enable. To be both a good leader and a good manager, you need to communicate the vision and understand the details.

3. Anticipate obstacles, and eliminate them while they're small.

4. Take the time to listen to others carefully, but don't worry TOO much about what other people think.

The Sales Sandwich

2006-12-15T08:36:00.000+09:00

Legend has it that the 4th Earl of Sandwich placed his meat between two pieces of bread because it allowed him to continue playing cards while eating without getting his cards sticky from his greasy hands -- hence the name “sandwich.”

If you will pardon the pun, if your advertising sales are not a sandwich you are missing the bread and butter of the sales process.

Each of the most popular sandwich making salads (tuna, chicken salad, egg and ham, etc.) can be served on a bed of lettuce, a salad, or between slices of bread, a sandwich.

The salad is the heart of the sales meal. Within the salad, you have mixed all the facts and benefits that make the meal. You are pitching the best ingredient you can muster. You have seasoned to the prospects taste. You have added the mayo of your personality to bind it all together. You’ve added bits of pickled testimonials, diced onion stories, and the salt and pepper of evidence. You have tossed together the best of all possible sales salads.

At the risk of pushing the analogy too far, the Earl of Sandwich’s motive for bread was to keep his hands clean. He knew he needed to eat, but he didn’t want to interrupt what he was doing. If you consider the fact that your prospective client is also more interested in what she or he is doing, than eating what you are serving. It makes sense to present your “sales salad” in bread as a sandwich. This way they can partake without getting their hands greasy.

Now, let’s look at the bread. The two slices of bread needed to create a sandwich, represent the before and end of the sales process. The bottom slice is the foundation, the preparation you have made. The marvelous thing about selling today is that most of your prospects have been kind enough to post everything we need to know about them on the internet. It used to be that doing a detailed, “customer needs analysis,” was the vital portion of the sale cycle. Today, investigating all the available information on the web is the first step.

This first slice of bread is the critical piece of the sales sandwich. Here’s why:

•Preparation Prepares You – remember as a kid the days you really did your homework. You were ready for class. You couldn’t wait for the teacher to call on you. Oh, those might have been rare days, but you remember them. Your confidence was high. You were proud. You were ready. Selling is no different. When you are well prepared for a sales call, you exude confidence, a certainty of demeanor that breaks down resistance.

•Confirming answers is better than asking questions – How much more powerful is it to say, “My research tells me you have been in business for 15 years. Is that right?” or, “How long have you been in business?” Obviously, the answer is the first. It tells the prospect you have researched her business. You’ve taken the time to prepare. You are serious. You are a pro.

•The little time it takes makes a big difference – The world is full of advertising sales people. Why? Because, there is a lot of advertising to be sold. You’re second most important task is to differentiate yourself from you own competition. (You decide what the first most important task is.***) The first slice of bread is what few, if any, of your competitors do. It takes a few minutes, may be ten, to make you ten times better than the others.

•People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Show them you care, by showing what you know. Among Dale Carnegie’s Human Relations principles is, “Talk in terms of the other person’s interest.” Your first slice of bread will put you on the road of a professionally caring relationship with your client. It is what make business worth doing. It is what builds lasting business and life long friends.

Now, if I have convinced you to put a slice of bread down, then go ahead and spread out the presentation salad. Put it on thick. Give ‘em their monies worth.

Now let’s top it off with the other slice of bread --closing. Yes, I said “closing.” You simply ask for the order. As in, “Can we go ahead and start?” Asking for the order is critical. Everybody talks about it, but few do it. Failing to do so makes it an opened faced sandwich and hard to eat. If your purpose is to close a sale, then go ahead and close the sale. Asking is not being pushy. Asking is being professional. Selling is what you do, so do it! Ask for the order. Top off the sandwich with another slice of bread.

Thinking of the sales process as a sandwich provides a solid diet of quality sale calls. The fact is that having great sandwich filler is important, but serving it between two slices of fresh bread is what makes for the most rewarding sandwich.

Gift Appreciation

2006-12-14T09:56:00.000+09:00

Team Building

2006-12-14T09:14:00.001+09:00

Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress.

Working together is success.

- Henry Ford

B2B Sales leads success checklist

2006-12-14T08:54:00.000+09:00

You’ve spent a great deal of time, effort and money putting together your business-to-business sales lead generation programs. How you handle B2B sales leads once you get them makes the difference between a happy sales team and new customers or an unhappy sales team and lost sales. Here’s a checklist of questions to ask yourself to determine if you have the best chance of being successful with your sales lead programs:
Are you prepared to send requested information immediately? Prospects have their own agenda and timeline, not yours or your firm’s. So, you need to be efficient and strike while you have the opportunity. Timing of your inquiry handling processes are of paramount importance. Your firm needs to respond to all inquiries quickly—the faster, the better.

Here are some questions to keep in mind:

Do you know what to send in response to different types of inquiries?
Do you have electronic versions for those who want the information by e-mail or via downloads from your Web site?
Do you have adequate supplies of printed materials ready for those who prefer them?
Do you have the people, systems and processes in place to get the requested information out the door quickly?
Are you prepared to capture all inquiries in a database for ongoing nurturing and qualification efforts? To avoid having any of the golden sales opportunities represented by your inquiries fall through the cracks, you need to capture all of your inquiries in a database so you can properly manage their fulfillment, nurturing, qualification and distribution. With this in mind:

Do you have the database ready to go?
Do you have the data entry people or outside services lined up to get the inquirers into the database?
Do you have a program in place to “qualify” sales leads before sending them to your salespeople, reps, dealers or distributors?
If your business-to-business marketing-for-leads program is to succeed, marketing, sales and corporate management need to share a unified definition of qualified sales leads. If you all agree from the start on what a qualified lead is, then deliver leads that meet that definition, your sales team will be able to effectively and efficiently follow up and close more sales.

Have you agreed with sales management on which questions to ask in order to determine which leads are qualified?
Have you agreed what information is required to know which sales contacts to route the qualified leads to?
Do you have proactive programs in place to contact and qualify your leads?
Do you have a process in place for distributing qualified leads to sales contacts as they are identified?
Sales leads are worthless unless they are quickly handed off to the right sales contact for follow up.

Your lead distribution process has to be well defined and ready to go—in advance—so as to prevent delays or misdirection when leads are qualified and ready for sales attention.

It also has to be easy for your salespeople, reps, resellers and distributors to access the qualified sales leads and manage their lead follow up.

Is your sales leads program designed to get the leads into salespeople’s hands without delay?
Have you made it easy for your salespeople, reps, dealers or distributors to use?
Can they access leads over the Internet?
Does it integrate with their existing contact management or email systems?
Do you have a program in place to nurture or cultivate your not-yet-qualified leads?
Salespeople generally focus on those one-in-four sales leads who are ready to buy soon. However, research shows that three of four sales come from longer-term prospects who are frequently ignored by sales.

As these longer-term leads represent the lion’s share of the potentional sales, your sales lead management program must be designed to help nurture the longer-term leads until they are qualified as being sales-ready opportunities.

Does your company have a prospect relationship marketing program in place to keep in touch with these longer-term prospects, using email, fax, mail and phone contacts, until they are identified as being qualified and ready for sales attention?
Do you know what messages to send as part of your prospect relationship management program?
Do you know how often to contact prospects with these messages?
Do you know what offers to use to get them to further identify their needs and situation so you can determine if they are ready for sales?
Do you have a program in place to measure and track the results of your various sales-lead generation, cultivation and sales follow-up programs?
A marketer I know recently reported to her management on the results of the company’s lead generation programs: Awareness of their company and its products among targeted prospects more than doubled; the cost per qualified lead delivered to sales by marketing dropped by nearly 40 percent; 58 percent of the opportunities in the sales pipeline were found first by marketing; and 48 percent of the sales closed; and 62 percent of the revenue during the past 12 months came from marketing-generated leads.

The result? She got a bigger B2B marketing budget and senior management no longer doubts marketing's contribution to the company's success. Can you answer these questions and show your management how your lead generation programs are contributing to your company’s success?

Can you determine your cost per lead, cost per qualified lead and cost per sale?
Do you know which lead programs generate the highest return on investment?
Do you know which nurturing techniques worked and which didn’t?
Can you prove to management that your lead generation programs are paying off in increased sales and market share?
Refer to this checklist of questions to guide the development or improvement of your company’s sales lead management programs and processes and you’ll have the best chance of being successful.

Disorganization Is Costing You Sales

2006-12-13T08:37:00.000+09:00

Clutter. Technology. Stuff. A full plate. Reports. Personal interests. Home life. Career. Relatives. Friends. Too little time. Too much to do. Meetings. The list goes on and on and on.

One of the things I have discovered about successful salespeople is their ability to handle a variety of tasks, problems, issues, responsibilities and challenges at the same time. This would not be possible if you lacked personal organization. I am not talking here about time management, but personal management. You can’t manage time. It passes. What you can do in a framework of passing time is manage all the stuff; decisions, problems, resources, people, successes, failures, risks, paperwork, activities etc.

I have to be organized. Each year I speak over 100 times, log over 100,000 miles in the air, publish six issues of my newsletter Life Balance, write over 400 articles, write 2-3 new books, read over 100 books and manage my business and all its administrative challenges - with no staff. And that’s just in my career. I also have a personal life and personal interests. I would like to give you a few ides for your consideration when it comes to better personal organization.

1. Start with a plan of what you want to do.

2. Prioritize your goals, objectives, tasks, projects, whatever.

3. Stay focused.

4. Get rid of the clutter in your life.

5. Concentrate on one thing at a time.

6. Don’t stick with anything that you are no longer passionate

about.

7. Have routines for the regular tasks in your life like reading

or study.

8. Get up earlier. Go to be later.

9. Organize your personal or business workspace so that you

can be more productive.

10. Learn to say no more.

11. If you are procrastinating in some thing ask why.

12. Use mentors or get involved in a mastermind group.

13. When you say yes, mean it.

14. Don’t make commitments you can’t keep.

15. Respect and value your own time.

16. Play when it is time to play and work when it is time to

work, don’t mix them up.

17. Have fun. Enjoy life as it passes knowing you can’t do it all,

see it all or have it all.

18. Use technology as a tool not a crutch.

19. Throw stuff away you don’t need, use or want.

20. Surround yourself with things that help you be more

productive’ flowers, music, photos etc.

Creating A Great Team Environment

2006-12-12T15:23:00.000+09:00

When your business encounters bumps in the road, it seems like everyone knows — especially your staff. During these challenging times, it's important to let your workers know how valuable they are, so you don't lose business opportunities and staff.

It's just as important to praise your crew when business is running smoothly. It's all too easy to view employees' efforts and contributions as simply what's expected of them. But, when you recognize employee contributions and reward performance on a regular basis, you can motivate your staff to greater efforts and increase your success.

Making your employees feel valued helps to foster a positive team environment. When companies recognize employees with tangible rewards, employees feel more invested in the company. Doing the small things that make employees want to stick around is cost-effective and good for business.

Sales Interviews Are Worthless When Hiring a Sales Person

2006-12-12T10:30:00.000+09:00

article by Tino Buntic on Ezine Articles

Do you know what most people that apply for sales jobs do before they go in for a sales interview? They research the most common sales interview questions and have their answers scripted ahead of time. This is a smart thing to do. Salespeople should prepare as well as they can for any given situation, including sales interviews.

But do you want to hire a scripted salesperson? Do you want someone selling your companies products and services that is good at memorizing and reciting scripts or would you rather hire someone that can think fast and come up with solutions to problems on the spot?

If your selection process involves making hiring decisions based solely on job interviews then you may be hiring the wrong people. Salespeople should be personable, intelligent, and persuasive. You can never see these personality traits in an interview setting.

So, what should you do? Try the following 2-step process:

Instead of a sales interview at your office, take the candidate out to meet clients or on a sales call. Brief her on the background of the prospect that you visit ahead of time. Then meet the prospect or client and watch her sell. What better way is there to view a job candidate’s sales skills than to observe her in action?

Follow the sales call with a relaxed lunch or dinner to observe the job candidate's social skills. You want to hire someone that is personable for a sales job because people buy from people that they like. Going to a restaurant allows you to experience your job candidate's social skills first hand in her dealings with you, the restaurant staff, and the other guests. Don’t hire someone that is not pleasant and polite to waiters or strangers at nearby tables.

Sales interviews are worthless. Following this 2-step process when hiring salespeople will give you a better indication as to their sales skills than a scripted interview will.

Keeping Your Sales Team Motivated

2006-12-12T09:22:00.000+09:00

Sales managers frequently approach me for advice on how to keep salespeople motivated, especially when sales reps get into a rut - and seem to keep slipping deeper into it. Telling managers what not to do usually solves the problem. Most managers do things to de-motivate salespeople without even knowing it.

Let's take the idea of funnels and forecasts, for instance. Funnels and forecasts are important aspects of running any sales operation. Both salespeople and managers need to know where they stand in terms of potential opportunities, and funnels serve to track those opportunities. No successful business can operate and properly plan for the future without accurate forecasting. In theory, these are absolutely essential to the success of any operation. In reality, however, few words strike terror in the hearts of salespeople like "funnel" and "forecast."

For most salespeople, the term "funnel review" equates to micromanagement, probation and performance improvement plans. Just hearing the term is enough to shift a sales rep's frame of mind from positive to negative. He or she suddenly loses enthusiasm and doesn't know why. Many managers increase funnel reviews as performance slips, which causes performance to slip further, and in the end nobody wins. Endless funnel reviews, especially if they're not positive, only serve to reinforce salespeople's self-doubts and limiting beliefs.

Forecasts are a similar problem, but in different ways. Few salespeople forecast accurately. Nobody wants to fall short on their forecast, so they embellish, exaggerate and make sure the numbers add up to where they should be rather than where they really are. This results in managers who expect those numbers, and salespeople who dodge managers because they know they aren't going to perform as forecasted. Then there are salespeople like myself who do the exact opposite - since I hated nothing more than having a manager constantly ask me, "When is this one going to close? When is that one going to close?," I intentionally left good deals off my forecast. While it eliminated the problem of constantly being asked when all those deals would sign, it created another form of stress in having to deal with the consequences of a funnel that fell short of expectations.

Another word that instantly de-motivates salespeople is "activity." Unfortunately, in the absence of any other viable advice, most managers simply blurt out, "You need to increase your activity" to anyone who isn't at quota. This accomplishes nothing other than setting up the rep to believe that a series of funnel reviews and performance improvement plans are soon to follow.

Finally, I see entirely too many managers pushing too hard to spend extra time with salespeople who are falling short. While it's necessary to spend time with these people, it's not a good idea to keep asking them what they need help with and to insist on riding along with them. This only turns up the heat another notch on an already stressed-out rep. Nobody who is having trouble likes to be singled out, especially when the extra attention easily can be mistaken for micromanagement.

To keep a struggling salesperson motivated:

1. Keep the talk of funnels, forecasts and activity to a minimum.

2. Offer help without being overbearing.

3. Put your trust and confidence in that salesperson.

Stick with these guidelines and you'll not only do a better job of helping those who are having difficulties, but you'll see an overall increase in your sales team's motivation and enthusiasm.

Sales Teams Wasting Time on Research

2006-12-08T10:13:00.000+09:00

By Jill Konrath on Lead Generation

When I read Ardath Albee's blog post I was blown away. In today's market, it's imperative to know a lot about your prospects prior to meeting them. It's also necessary to spend time trying to determine which companies make the best prospects.

But I had no idea that sellers were spending 11 hours per week on researching opportunities - which is what analyst firm Outsell discovered in their most recent study on today's sales force. For ideas on what companies can do to address this critical issue, check out these articles:

Sales Rep Research Time Out of Hand
Ardath Albee's Marketing Interaction blog

Pulling the Trigger for More Sales
Joe Petro, VP of Development & Operations, True Advantage

Sales Reps Spending 11 hours/wk researching who to call?
Tim Young's B2B Lead Generation & Management

Sales Team Psychology

2006-12-08T08:56:00.000+09:00

Goal setting is powerful way of keeping sales psychology on the up-and-up. We all know that goals dictate future performance by giving team members a sense of purpose and direction. I can think of nothing less motivating than not knowing why I’ve been asked to do something. Instill in your team members what the end objective is and explain to them the necessary steps to get there. It is much easier to put forth the effort when we can answer who, what, where, when, why and how. Make sure your goals are realistic and attainable, but lofty enough that they are inspiring.

It is a general rule of thumb that greater or more difficult goals actually increase performance. The reason for this tendency is that loftier goals or objectives set higher expectations, and expectations in turn strongly influence behavior. The power of effective goal setting or setting a target can be seen in the following example: In a particular production plant, workers with little experience were divided into two groups. One group was told to simply observe the experienced workers and try to be able to perform at a skilled level themselves within twelve weeks.

The second group received specific weekly goals that were progressively more and more demanding. Needless to say, the second group fared much better. Similarly, Yale University once conducted a striking twenty-year study that found that the 3 percent of students who put their goals in writing had significantly higher incomes than those who did not—in fact, higher incomes than the other 97 percent of students combined. From these examples, it is obvious that proper goal setting goes a long way toward promoting sound sales psychology amongst your team members.

Years of observation and study have produced personality profiles of what are considered to be outstanding salespeople. Perhaps the most recognized of these profiles is the model that was developed by Gallup Management Consulting Group. Gallup has spent more than two decades interviewing hundreds of thousands of top salespeople to help corporate clients form and develop their own sales teams. Its findings suggest that the top four qualities of top-tier producers are: 1) solid persuasion and closing skills; 2) self-motivation; 3) strong work ethic and 4) excellent people and relationship skills.

Why do I highlight these findings? It is likely that as a sales manager, you already look for these skills when you hire someone anyway. But how do you enhance these essential sales characteristics after your recruits are on board so that your team can become even better? My hope is that by giving you four key concentration areas, you can streamline your efforts into getting the greatest results with the most focused effort. When you are trying to draw out any one of these characteristics, or any characteristic for that matter, it is helpful to assess the kind of personalities you’re dealing with. For some, a strong drive to close a sale exists just because they possess a need to “win.” Whether that “win” translates into financial rewards, recognition, the glory of being at the top or whatever, some individuals just have an almost instinctive need to win. This need is compelling enough that they are not deterred by long hours, rejection or time away from their family.

For others, it is not just about winning in and of itself. Beyond that, some individuals have a competitive edge that relishes the defeat of others—even their own colleagues. Half of the victory for these types of people is seeing others left in the dust. I believe that some competition can be a good thing, but you’ve got to be on your toes to buffer this type of personality. If you think pitting your team members against each other might actually create unhealthy rivalries and negative feelings, then you’ve got to have a way to counteract those negative effects.

Next, there are those personalities who are very ego-driven. They aren’t motivated by a need to conquer others. Rather, they want success solely for their own personal satisfaction. This is the type of person who is constantly out to beat her/his own previous records. In other words, these types of individuals compete with themselves. Moreover, they are very focused on being experts. While this competitive orientation has significant strong points, its main downside is that it is too self-focused—even in a well-intended way—and not conscious enough of the team element. The self-motivated person is the one you want to be sure you can draw into the team so you have the best that both approaches have to offer.

Then you have those individuals who seem to get the most satisfaction out of seeing their customers happy. They don’t really have the burning desire to win or compete, but they are very much into relationship building. These people are naturally gifted at being empathetic, caring and good listeners. They are the ones who are much more inclined to stay in touch with clients after the sale has come and gone.

As you step back and evaluate what kind of team member mix you have, realize that no one is purely one temperament or another. We tend to be a combination of at least two of these different types of producers. However, we are usually dominated much more by one area than the others. Your job is to get a grip on what you have to work with and figure out how to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit together so your team solidly represents all of the best qualities of top sales producers.

In closing this section, I wanted to touch on the topic of working with a rep who has hit a plateau. Why? Because it’s a very real obstacle that sometimes happens even to the very best. The most typical cause for a plateau is simply feeling burned out. In this case, a very obvious solution would be to lighten the stalled rep’s responsibilities or even give her/him some time off. On the other hand, it may be that the rep is burned out with doing the “same old thing.” If that’s the case, simply changing her/his responsibilities would provide the necessary stimulation to get her/him moving again. New responsibilities could be things like training, forecasting or recruiting. Even performing the same tasks with new prospects or in a different community may alleviate boredom and present exciting, new challenges.

Sometimes it works to have reps come up with their own solutions. They may be more apt to pursue something they feel they’ve come up with on their own than something that is imposed. Furthermore, this way they really know what’s at the heart of the issue and would, therefore, likely know the best remedy better than anyone else. Lastly, review the possibility of how bonuses and other forms of recognition might spur renewed motivation. This approach is especially effective when your team members’ financial needs are already being met and they’re looking for reward and acknowledgment in other forms. In the next section, we’ll discuss what kinds of rewards and incentives work the best.

Working Out Your Network Quotient

2006-12-07T11:36:00.000+09:00

Networking expert Thom Singer, author of Some Assembly Required, has created a fun online quiz that enables you to assess your social networking skills as well as compare them to your peers. My score was 33. What's yours?

Check out your Networking Quotient now.