Open Enrollment Sales Training Seminars:

Location  Date
Charlotte, North Carolina Oct. 6th
Denver, Colorado Oct. 11th
Boston, Massachusetts Oct. 24th-25th
Dallas, Texas Oct. 25th

 


Sales Training:

 

Sales Training Courses

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 courses. We provide pubic open enrollment and private courses at the location of your choice. We conduct in excess of 200 monthly sales training courses throughout the world.

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

Students of a Sales Training Center class course 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 Course: Growing Your Sales - Real Leads Lead to Sales!


The current construction environment is predicted to decline from previous years. The economic stimulus package may positively affect the construction market later in the year for publicly funded projects. Building Product Manufacturers (BPM) need to identify more projects and increase their close ratio to continue to grow their sales. In order to be successful, a strategy must be built to address all stakeholders within the construction continuum where a potential sale can be secured or lost.


Construction Market Overview


Growing your sales in a declining construction market can be easy if you understand the product selection process and your sales staff has the right information at the right time.
Every year the sales team is given a new budget with higher goals. Great sales people continue to meet their sales budget year after year. Why are they successful while others are not? How do they grow their sales when the market declines? Their secret is being at the right place at the right time prepared with the right information.


Manufacturers of products incorporated into buildings and other construction projects will need to work smarter to maintain their sales growth. Although some products will continue to be used for renovation and maintenance projects, new construction will become much more competitive. Building product manufacturers will need to fine tune their marketing programs to maximize their presence in specifications and identify bidding projects where products can be sold. All lead generating programs need to lead directly to sales that can be measured and graded based upon their return-on-investment (ROI). The best sales leads always lead to sales.


Product mix and product innovation can play a significant role in differentiating one product from those of the competition by bringing value to the installing contractor and/or the building owner. Ushering these products and existing products through the specification and construction process requires the same strategy.


Who decides which products will be selected for a building project?


The construction industry is comprised of a variety of specialists who each play a role in the selection, purchase and installation of various products. This can vary from product to product but for the most part, the process starts with the building owner, who compiles a design team to engineer, design, and specify the project. After the project (or phase in the case of Design Build) has been designed and specified, the project is passed to the construction management specialist. General Contractors, Construction Managers and
Trade Contractors collaborate to adhere to the plans and specifications. Materials for the project are supplied to the construction team directly from manufacturers, through distribution channels, or the manufacturer themselves may perform the installation.


At any point throughout this process a building product may be selected or eliminated from a project. You need to be at the right place when each of these influencers need your product information.


Owners


Ultimately, the building owner has the right to make product selections. Many times the owner defers these decisions to the architects, engineers and specifies, especially in cases where the decision is complex and the product selection is determined by the facility itself. If your product is one that can provide an owner with a significant long term vale from energy savings, to low maintenance and long life cycles, to enhanced aesthetics; it may be practical to include the owner in the decision process. Ideally, this will lead to sole source specifications and large scale multi-facility opportunities.


Specifies


Specifies are the ultimate gate keepers for which products are included in each building project. Many engineering and architectural firms focus with specialized industry sectors. Identify these firms and focus your demand creation strategy. Can you identify which firms specify your products and which firms specify your competitions' products but not yours?
Are your sales people calling on the right firms to get into the spec?


Launching new products requires the building product manufacturer to provide educational seminars to the engineers and architects to help them identify where to use products and more importantly, where not to use the new product. The drive to keep construction costs down and minimize construction delays have resulted in the common practice of specifying more than one manufacturer for any product. In many cases, the words "Or Equal" conclude the supplier list, effectively keeping the specification open to all suppliers throughout the construction phase.


Ideally, you want to talk to specifies when they are writing the spec for projects that can use your products. Being at the right place at the right time requires you to monitor data services that report new projects in design; routinely call on the architectural and engineering firms within each sales territory to learn of newly awarded projects; or simply owning a place within the specifies standard specification writing platform.


General Contractors and Trade Contractors


For the most part, General Contractors do not purchase most of the products that are installed within the building. They do however; select the trade contractor and manufacturers that install their own products. Because the specifications frequently offer multiple product choices, the installer selection process effectively dictates the products selected. Most building product manufacturers do not meet with General Contractors unless there is a problem on the job. Most General Contractors do not have the time to receive calls from all of the building product manufacturers. The GC/CM/Design Build firm is charged with managing and coordinating the construction process to be on time and within budget. Building product manufacturers can provide value to the General Contractors by making sure their trade contractors are trained, can bid projects accurately and are capable of conducting the work required by the scope of the project. If the GC is confident with the trade contractor, they will select them over an unknown entity regardless of minor bid differences.


On occasion, a privately funded project will be awarded to a single General Contractor who will then manage his bidding process through an "invitation only" process. These "Private Construction Offices" are usually invisible to most building product manufacturers unless your subcontractor receives and then shares an invitation to bid. Typically, these projects are tracked on large construction data service only through the planning and design stage. Getting access to these "private" projects through an invitation from the General
Contractor or from the invited subcontractor provides the building product manufacturer with a competitive edge. Being in the right place at the time of invitation gives the BPM sales person a competitive advantage over her competitors.


Most products installed in a new building are installed by specialty trade contractors. This audience, in most cases, is the building product manufacturers' ultimate customer, regardless of whether products are sold directly to the installing contractors or if they are sold through distribution channels. Knowing your customer and supporting their business through promotion efforts and education programs is common sense marketing.
Generally, trade contractors are small businesses that work within a limited geographic area. Staying in touch with your customers is essential to understand the competitive environment, ensure the successful installation of your products and introduction of new products. Depending upon your product grouping there are channels to maintain this contact such as associations, trade shows, industry journals, and you direct sales channel. Timing is critical to capturing the interest of the trade contractors. When they are bidding a project that contains your products is the time you need to reach out to them with the benefit statement for your products and value proposition to them.


Growing Sales through repeat business


Sales growth is a function of finding new customers and maintaining existing customers. In the construction industry, there are few building products that are considered 'consumable', and most products have extended lives. Growing sales requires the building product manufacturers to build repeat sales through their relationships throughout the design-build continuum. Owners satisfied with products will request them in their new or renovation projects. Specifies that have successfully completed a project with your products will be inclined to specify them again (frequently with the same master specification). General Contractors who are satisfied with your Trade Contractor will invite them to bid subsequent projects. Trade contractors that made money installing your product and did not get called back to the job will become loyal to your product.


Identifying More Opportunities leads to Sales Growth


As a building product manufacturer you need to manage the demand creation at the specified level but most importantly you need to manage the sales effort when projects are being bid. Project leads need to be relevant to your products, timely, and contain all of the details that will allow your sales team to close the sale.


In tough economic times the competition becomes stronger for fewer projects. Building product manufacturers need to protect the specifications they have worked to produce and those new specifications they may not have influenced. They also need to identify those "or equal" opportunities where their product is not named.


The most efficient method for a sales person to monitor their territory is through the use of a service that scans the public project specifications for your products and/or your competitor's products as they hit the street for bid. Trade contractors may also provide you with private project information if your products are specified or can be utilized on the project.


Summary


Growing sales is all about being in the right place at the right time with the right information. When the construction market is booming, building product manufacturers have no difficulty in selling more products. When the construction market contracts as we see in 2009, the building product manufacturer's sales and marketing strategy needs to aggressively address both the upstream demand creation stakeholders as well as, find and close a higher percentage of projects when they are constructed.


 

Source: Tom Murphy link

 

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