Sales Training:

 

Sales Training Workshops

Welcome to the Sales Training Center's comprehensive resource site for effective, performance-based sales training and sales development programs. Over the past thirty years, sales professionals and sales managers across the world have benefited from our highly interactive sales training workshops. We provide pubic open enrollment and private workshops at the location of your choice. We conduct in excess of 200 monthly sales training workshops throughout the world.

For free, no obligation information on how we can help you please contact us today.

Students of a Sales Training Center workshop will learn to:

  • Communicate more effectively with customers
  • Develop the ability to build positive chemistry and rapport

  • Deal with multi-levels sales structures—users, authorizers, and purchasing agents

  • Use post-sales call measurement to assess their own performance and identify key customer issues by thinking and responding like a business consultant

  • Recognize basic styles of buyer behavior and determine how to adapt to each style to create positive "chemistry"

  • Analyze what sales people say, reducing the potential for misunderstanding

  • Effectively manage and control anger, conflict and difficult situations

  • Develop active listening skills to focus on what customers are saying

  • Be able to facilitate, guide, and close discussions in one-on-one and group settings

  • Build and give appropriate credit for other peoples ideas and avoid putting others on the defensive

  • Make a positive impact on the quality of teamwork and productivity within the work unit by effectively giving and receiving feedback

  • Sell long-term relationships rather than price

  • Incorporate interviewing skills into the sales process in lieu of pitching products

  • Apply the appropriate sales techniques based on the buyer and behavior type

For free, no obligation information on how we can help you please contact us today.

 

Sales Training:

Sales Workshop: Avoiding the Sales and Marketing Trap to Increase Revenue


Suzie was a new hire business-to-business sales representative. She had just completed the company's two-week basic training course. After the training, her sales manager met with her.


"Suzie, congratulations on completing the training," he said. "Remember, you have three months to make your quota. We have provided base salary, cell phone, laptop, desk and car allowance. Now go sell something!”


What does Suzie do next? She probably will run around like crazy, trying to find anyone who might have the slightest interest in buying her product, while the quota clock relentlessly ticks.


What did the company that employed Suzie miss? It failed to understand the fundamental difference between marketing and sales. This misunderstanding may cause Suzie to waste a lot of time, the company to incur unnecessary expense, and adversely impact operations. Here is what every business should know:


Marketing is about finding prospective buyers with a need, want or desire to which you can sell. Marketing is finding.

Sales is about helping an identified prospective buyer fill a need, want or desire from which they benefit. Sales is filling.


If this distinction didn't hit, go back and read it again. It's that important.

By having Suzie find her own prospects (someone that may have interest in buying), the company has placed the marketing responsibility on her shoulders. You may think, well that's what salespeople are supposed to do.


That's the common misconception. About 50 percent to 70 percent of a salesperson's time is spent trying to find a prospect. That's mostly wasted time. If Suzie's "finding time" could be re-allocated to "filling time" - being in front of more prospects, selling, she probably would close more business.

Without any certainty that Suzie will make a sale, the company will invest at least $3,000 in hiring, time, salary, equipment and car allowance before Suzie begins seeking sales prospects. If she's fired after three months, the company will have to go through the entire process again, resulting in additional expenses.


Here is a quick example on how expenses can add up. By placing the "finding" burden on the sales rep, a company will wind up replacing 30 percent of its sales force every three months.


Suppose there are 10 sales people on staff. That means spending $36,000 to hire new sales people in a 12-month period. Perhaps that company may be better off taking that $36,000 and investing it into marketing to find new customers.


Without business owners or executives realizing it, the sales / marketing misconception can cause flaws in a business plan as well as operational issues.


Here's an example. In the 1990's, telecommunications was exploding. Many new companies hired armies of sales reps, who had to find perspective customers and sell them.

They were given three months to make quota or be fired. Each day, they had to bring back 50 business cards - walking into businesses where they didn't know anyone - to prove they had satisfied their cold-calling requirement.


Sure enough, every three months, 30 percent of the sales force was fired.

What happened to these companies? Some went bankrupt while others eventually were rescued in buyouts. These were all well-funded companies. But the top executives failed to understand the distinction between marketing and sales.


What was the Marketing Department doing if the sales reps were doing marketing? Well, it thought it was doing marketing. In one case, it spent a lot of money hiring a well-known sports figure and holding fancy parties for big customers to attend, where they could hobnob and get an autograph.


Also, the Marketing Department was busy analyzing the kinds of customers that sales was selling.

Marketing is a vast area. But at its core, it needs to find people to turn into customers.
Otherwise, marketing has probably drifted off into analysis dreamland.


Here's an example in which marketing hit a home run for a startup company.


To kick off sales efforts, the marketing manager found a shopping mall that was hosting a local business day. Space was purchased at the mall show for $500. A mailer was sent just before the show, inviting residents and business owners to stop by the table to enter a drawing for a free gift. The mailer cost $400. Sales reps greeted people who stopped by the table. The result was 30 new customers. The event was a big success.


Go through all the business cards that sales representatives have given you and look at their titles. If it says "sales representative," call the rep and ask them if they have to find their own prospects.


But if it says "marketing representative," you can bet the company is confused about the distinction between sales and marketing. Make sure that the mixed-up company isn't yours, whether you're a one-person operation, small business or large organization.


 

Source: John Sabel link

 

For free, no obligation information on how we can help you please contact us today.