Sales Training:

 

Sales Training

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 seminars. We provide pubic open enrollment and private workshops 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 and Recruiting - Get More Top Sales Performers


Another key reason why companies suffer from 80/20 performance is their processes for hiring, training and managing salespeople rely almost entirely upon subjective information.
Think about it:


What are resumes? They are an individual's subjective portrayal of their capabilities and experiences.


What occurs during an interview? Interviewees attempt to package their responses to questions in a manner that will make the best impression. Meanwhile, interviewers are forming personal opinions about candidates' qualifications for the position.


I'm not suggesting that subjective information is useless. Subjective information is a valid and valuable component of any "people decision". However, if decisions based solely upon subjective information produce an undesirable result 80 percent of the time, doesn't it make sense to consider making a change?


One way to introduce objective information into the sales recruiting process is through specialized sales assessment tests. I'm not referring to personality or behavioral tests like Myers-Briggs or DISC. Those types of tools can be useful for learning how to communicate more effectively with someone. However, I have not found them to be useful for predicting whether someone will succeed in sales.


The specialized sales assessment tests that I'm referring to identify an individual's strength or weakness in the following areas:


How rapidly does the individual learn new information? This talent is of particular importance if your company has a broad portfolio of products and services and you want your salespeople to sell the entire portfolio.


How precisely and effectively does the individual communicate, both verbally and in writing? If your salespeople author a lot of proposals and/or e-mails, the quality of their writing will definitely impact their sales performance!


How strong is the individual's talent for asking insightful questions, picking out important pieces of information from the answers, and using this information to construct additional questions? This talent is critical for effective sales opportunity qualification.


How strong is the individual's talent for learning how to manage effective return on investment (ROI) conversations with prospects and customers? This talent is critical for increasing close rates by creating a context for price discussions.


How energetic is the individual? How easy will it be for them to consistently maintain the level of productive activity required to achieve their sales targets?


How effective is the individual at convincing prospects and customers to "get off the dime" and take action?


How sociable is the individual? Do they enjoy interacting with others? Do they build rapport with strangers quickly?


Can the individual successfully direct his or her own activities, or does the individual require frequent input and direction from a sales manager to stay on track?

How will the individual respond when things don't go their way? Will they start to whine and complain, or will they be able to "shake it off" and maintain a consistent level of productivity?


How strong is the individual's desire to be liked? Will they be able to maintain a "win-win" focus, or will they give away the store?


How competitive is the individual? How confident are they in their ability to compete successfully?


How emotionally tough is the individual? How do they respond to rejection?


How dogged and determined is the individual in pursuing opportunities and overcoming roadblocks that arise during the sales process?


Will the individual follow through on their commitments?


How success oriented and outcome focused is the individual? Are they able to stay focused on the desired end result, or do they let themselves get bogged down in details along the way?


Does the individual actually ENJOY the activities involved in selling? If they don't, chances are they won't perform very well for very long.


Specialized sales assessment tests can also help existing salespeople that are struggling. How? First, they can be used to determine whether these individuals should be in sales. If an individual doesn't have the talents required for sales success, there may be other roles in your organization where their talents and interests can be applied to mutual benefit. If no such positions are available, the kindest thing you can do is let them go.
Why? Because it is no fun to continue to struggle in a job that is a poor fit!


Second, specialized sales assessment tests can help identify each salesperson's unique training needs. Here is an example:


Two salespeople, Beth and Bill, work for the same company. Beth is weak in Sales Drive, which makes her reluctant to ask for orders. Bill is weak in Emotional Toughness, which makes him sensitive to rejection and limits his prospecting effectiveness. If Beth and Bill go through the same sales skills training course, how much improvement in performance should their employer expect to see?


The answer is little or none. Why? Because Beth and Bill have completely different training needs that will not be addressed by basic sales skills training.


Beth would benefit the most from attending an assertiveness training class. She also needs coaching to help her recognize that failing to ask for orders denies her customers valuable solutions to costly business problems.


Bill needs to learn to not take rejection personally. He could also benefit from training that teaches positive thinking and other motivational techniques.


Unfortunately, unless Beth's and Bill's unique training needs are identified, and targeted training is supplied to address those specific needs, there isn't much reason to expect their performance to improve.


Conclusion

Many "80/20" sales performance differences result from relying too heavily on subjective information when hiring and managing salespeople. Adding objective information (gathered by specialized sales assessment tests) to these "people decision" processes can dramatically increase the proportion of top performers on your sales team and improve the performance of existing sales team members.


 

Source: Alan Rigg link

 

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