Open Enrollment Sales Training Seminars:

Location  Date
Phoenix, Arizona Sept. 16th
Houston, Texas Sept. 16th-17th
Chicago, Illinois Sept. 20th

 


Sales Training:

 

Sales Training Classes

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 classes. We provide pubic open enrollment and private classes at the location of your choice. We conduct in excess of 200 monthly sales training classes 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 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 Training for Increasing Sales Through Resellers

 

Does your company sell through resellers/channel partners (wholesalers, distributors, dealers, value-added resellers, etc.)? Do your resellers sell as much as you would like them to sell?

Far too often the answer to the second question is "no." What are the reasons behind poor/insufficient reseller performance? What can your company do to help your resellers increase sales of your company's products and services?

Let's begin by examining three key reasons behind poor/insufficient reseller performance.

1. Many reseller organizations are led by technical experts, not sales experts

Many (if not most) reseller organizations are founded by people who are experts at delivering specific products or services, not people who are experts at selling. In fact, they do such a good job of delivering their products or services that customers voluntarily provide referrals. This enables the reseller's business to grow for a period of time based solely upon word of mouth. Unfortunately, at some point the number of voluntary referrals from customers reaches its peak and the reseller's business growth stalls.

At this point most resellers recognize a need to build a sales organization that proactively pursues new business. However, given that the reseller's expertise tends to be technically focused, it is common for these resellers to struggle in the areas of hiring, training and managing salespeople.

2. Many reseller organizations sell products and services from a variety of suppliers

Many reseller organizations are opportunistic. If a prospect or customer asks them to provide a product or service, the reseller will be eager find a way to provide it. They may source it from a supplier or they may develop it themselves. The end result is most resellers do not limit themselves to selling products or services from a single supplier. They sell products and services provided by multiple suppliers.

This makes perfect sense from the resellers' perspective. After all, why shouldn't they maximize their revenue opportunity? Unfortunately, the challenge this creates for you as a supplier is trying to figure out how to win "mind share" from each of your resellers. In other words, how do you get each reseller to focus time and attention on finding, qualifying and closing opportunities for your company's products and services?

3. Many suppliers do a poor/ineffective job of training reseller salespeople

There are a number of reasons why supplier training programs can be ineffective. A free special report that talks about four key reasons why training programs fail can be downloaded here.

Reason #3 from the special report is what I see most frequently when I inspect supplier product and service training curriculums: Excessive Focus on Technical Details.

What does "Excessive Focus on Technical Details" mean? It means that many (if not most) suppliers train salespeople as if they are trying to turn the salespeople into product or service experts. This is a fool's errand for numerous reasons that include:

  • Many salespeople do not have the interest or attention span required to absorb the volume of technical details required to become true product/service experts.
  • When salespeople sell broad portfolios of products and services, they often are not willing to invest the time and effort required to become an expert in every single product and service.
  • Even if salespeople are willing to invest the time and effort required to become experts, if they sell a broad portfolio of products and services, it can take years to develop the necessary expertise across the entire portfolio.
  • Most companies have (or have access to) ample product and service experts. What they lack is people that know how to find and qualify opportunities for the products and services!
  • The easier it is for a salesperson to learn how to find and qualify opportunities for a product or service, the more opportunities they are likely to find.
  • Once a salesperson identifies a qualified opportunity, they can then leverage the assistance of product/service experts to help them turn the opportunity into a sale.

So, what can your company do to help your resellers sell more?

Two areas your company and salespeople should focus on are:


1. Teaching Reseller Management How to Hire, Train and Manage Salespeople. This could include:

  • Helping them develop effective sales recruiting processes
  • Helping them develop effective sales compensation plans
  • Providing them with tools and training to help their salespeople learn how to find and qualify opportunities for specific products and services…quickly!
  • Teaching them how to inspect the quantity and quality of their salespeople's activities

If you don't feel your company is qualified to help resellers perform these tasks, no worries - my company specializes in helping suppliers provide this kind of assistance to resellers. For more information, see the "About the Author" section at the end of this article.

If you can help your resellers build stronger sales teams, it will accomplish several goals at once:

  • You will win increased mind share.
  • Better reseller salespeople who are managed more effectively will sell more.
  • If you provide training tools that are specifically designed to teach the reseller salespeople how to find and qualify opportunities for your company's products and services, and if these tools are provided a consistent format, it will speed the reseller salespeople's learning process. The easier it is for reseller salespeople to learn how to find and qualify opportunities for your company's products and services, the more likely they will be to do it!

2. Make Sure Reseller Salespeople Know Who to Call for Help. Along with providing tools and training to reseller salespeople, two things your company's salespeople can do to increase reseller sales are:

  • Develop excellent relationships with reseller salespeople. If reseller salespeople like and trust your salespeople, they will be more receptive to your salespeople's training efforts and more likely to engage your salespeople's assistance when they are prospecting and pursuing identified opportunities.
  • Help reseller salespeople take advantage of every type of assistance your company can provide. If your salespeople are experts at getting things done within your company and they share this expertise with the resellers they support, they will very quickly become recognized as very valuable resources.
If your company and salespeople put a consistent focus on the two areas noted above, in just six months to one year you should be rewarded with a significant increase in reseller/channel partner sales!


Source: Alan Rigg link

 

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