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 Classes: How To Hire, Motivate And Lead A Sales Team


Its common sense that the best sales person may not necessarily be the most effective sales manager, but common sense isn't really that common, isn't it?


We all know that getting customers to buy and managing a sales team require rather distinctive skill-sets, yet we still promote our best sales people to their level of incompetence, that is being a Sales Manager.


For whatever reasons that we have to deploy our best sales people to do certain things that they are not really accustomed to do so (and thereby sacrificing lots of top quality selling time too), there are still ways that we can explore on how to make our Sales Managers just as good in managing their sales teams as they are in selling.


First of all, let us look at the main reasons why so many Sales Managers fail to deliver results:


1. Poor hiring
2. Failure to establish expectations
3. Failure to provide feedback
4. Did not develop salespeople's accountability


The biggest reason of them all is that many Sales Managers don't hire the most suitable sales person. Most Sales Managers assume (usually wrongly unfortunately) that an experienced high performer from the same industry is a sure-fire way of hiring the right talent.


However, the average life-spans of such supposed "Superstars" are usually short-lived. The main reason for their failure is that they did not fit in to the new companies they work for.


So as a Sales Manager, what can you do to prevent such hiring mistakes from happening? What you see below is a graphical representation of what kinds of sales approaches there are out there, and how each approach can be used for different buying situations


Selling Approaches

In essence, if the customer is not familiar with the product, but has a very straightforward buying decision making process, a Closing Approach is usually used to impress the customer and close the sale on the spot. We often see such (sometimes strong-armed) approaches for products such as:


Multi-Level Marketing;
Automobiles;
Real Estate; etc.


Usually in such cases, when a prospects leave without buying, they may not return or the sales person may not have a 2nd-chance to sell to the prospect. Moreover, at the end of each sale, there's little need for the sales person to service the customer as chances of a short-term re-purchase are rare.


If the customer is not familiar with the product, but the buying process is very complex, then a Consultative Approach is usually used.


Examples include:


Mergers and Acquisitions;
Enterprise-Resource Planning (ERP) Systems;
Power Generators; etc.


Such cases will usually have more than 1 person affecting the final buying decision (and often with different or conflicting buying criteria and even personal agenda). Although such cases tend to veer towards multi-million-dollar deals, the Consultative Approach might also be used as long as the customer needs to be educated about the products and services you offer. Such products can range from financial planning for the family to interior design to supply chain management solutions.


If the customer is familiar with the product and has a complex buying process, a Relationship Approach is often used. Cases include:

Media Space/ Air Time (if selling thru media buyers);
Logistics and Shipping Services;
Fast Moving Consumer Products (if selling to large retailers)


In cases like these, there is very little differentiation between different products, and hence the customer tend to make decisions based on the Relationships they have with the seller. Here's a point of clarification: Relationship-building is NOT confined to just wining, dining and schmoozing, nor is it just about presenting gifts to customers. These customers seek responsive services, convenience and a "total peace of mind" when they deal with the sellers.


Finally, if the customer is familiar with the product, and the buying process is very straightforward, then a Display Approach is often used.


Examples are:

Office Supplies;
Retail;
Anything that can be bought off a catalogue


The word "Display" here generally means display the product and display the price. Not much selling is required. Price vs. Quality is all that matters.


One important note Selling Approaches for the same product can be drastically different. Selling advertising spaces in magazines directly to bosses of companies is likely to require a totally different approach compared to selling the same space via a 3rd-party media buyer. Similarly, selling a desktop computer to a household can also be quite different to selling multiple desktop computers to a company.

In reality, it is likely that you find your company having characteristics of a few approaches, with perhaps a dominant one.


Understanding the Types of Sales People


The trick to ensuring that you hire the right people for the right Selling Approach is to understand the traits of the types of sales people who fit into each Approach:


Closing
Extroverted
Energetic
Hardworking
Competitive
Strongly motivated by $$$
Positive mental attitude
Highly self-confident
Able to handle rejections
Relationship
Strong work ethic
Self-sufficient
Independent (don't like to be bossed)
Cooperative
Patient and persevered
Conservative
Consultative
Career-oriented (especially into management)
More technical and business driven
Self-confident
Independent and self-developmental
Team-oriented
Not impulsive
Display
Low career ambition
Able to handle boredom
Enjoy dealing with people


As a rule of thumb, if you can hire a salesperson with the right behavior, values and attitude, they can learn the skills and competencies to sell!

The remaining questions will then be:


How can you analyze if you spot the right sales person in a relatively short amount of time;

How can you ensure you hire people with integrity; and

How can you establish expectations, provide feedback and develop salespeople's accountability for the different types of sales people?

The short (and totally useless) answer will be: "It depends".


 

Source: C.J. link

 

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