tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-379892812023-06-20T06:14:35.265-07:00Sales ManagementSales Management services, sales training, sales solutions, sales people. We provide a systematic approach to providing immediate sales resultszzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comBlogger262125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-9801335263770014512009-06-10T02:59:00.002-07:002009-06-10T03:00:20.949-07:00Newsletter Marketing - An Inexpensive But Effective Way To Increase Sales<div id="body"><p>Want to increase your company's equipment and service sales through marketing and promotional programs but don't have the big ticket budget for advertising or promotion?</p><p>Try using an inexpensive but effective Newsletter E-mail Marketing program.</p><p>What is Newsletter E-Mail Marketing?</p><p>The purpose behind newsletter marketing would be to promote your company's products and services, and to enhance its image and reputation as a professional, dependable, and knowledgeable entity.</p><p>Newsletter marketing offers some of the benefits typically gained from On-Hold Promotions, in that it informs the customer about promotional specials or new items and services offered by your company. But an added advantage to you is that your promotional message is delivered to your customers or prospects on a regular basis, rather than your waiting for your customers to hear your promo message only when they call your company and are put on hold. In addition, your newsletter's content gives your prospect motivation to open your newsletter and read it when he receives it.</p><p>How is all this accomplished?</p><p>A weekly--or monthly--newsletter with your company name, logo, and promotional information is created, along with news, tips, articles, advice, and information which are all selected on the basis of their potential interest to your customers. After your newsletter is approved by you, it is then E-mailed to a list of customers or prospects of your choosing.</p><p><strong>Newsletter Format and Content </strong></p><p>Your newsletter format is designed with these factors in mind.</p><ul><li>Contents of each issue includes current and of particular interest to business people</li><li>New information, tips, news, advice, include articles and announcements about services, products, and new technology (excluding items which might promote your competitors, their services, or products), is chosen from professional articles and news releases, and replaces old copy from previous newsletter issues.</li><li>Your company name and logo are displayed in a prominent location on each newsletter intended to project the impression that the newsletter is created and published by your company, or at least that your company is an expert in this field.</li><li>Advertisements (except for your company promotions) from other vendors are not published in the newsletter.</li><li>Your Company Promotions</li></ul>Each newsletter will feature a special column or space designed to promote your company, its products, and its services, such as:<ul><li>Monthly equipment or services pricing discounts</li><li>Promotional information about your company, such as new equipment and services you are adding to your line</li><li>Special recognition, awards, or achievements of your company's executives or employees</li><li>Personnel or management changes at your company</li><li>Changes in company policies and services</li></ul><strong>Newsletter Service </strong><p> A Newsletter service is one that is in business to help create and mail newsletters. In addition to mailing your newsletter, these services typically include reports that tell you which recipients actually open E-mails containing your newsletter. </p><p>How does this newsletter process work?</p><p>A simple four-step procedure allows you to choose your newsletter content and send it to selected prospects or customers, without printing costs or postage. All you pay for is a small fee for using the newsletter service (usually $.01 to $.02 per E-mail recipient). Or, if you work with a service that designs your newsletter and writes copy for you, there will typically be a small fee for that.</p><p><strong>Step 1</strong>: You choose the template and format which you think will be of greatest interest to your prospects who receive your newsletter, along with a format which best represents your company, its services, products, and its policies.</p><p><strong>Step 2</strong>: You create (and submit to your newsletter design service, if you have one) monthly specials, promotions, or news about your company (such as new products and service, upgrades, monthly pricing specials, etc.) which you'll want inserted into your newsletter template.</p><p><strong>Step 3</strong>: Your template (if you use a design service) with your inserted company information is submitted to you for your approval.</p><p><strong>Step 4</strong>: You E-mail your final template to a list of customers and/or prospects you have added to your E-mail list. (You can also print the one-page template to be used as a stuffer, hand out, or prospecting piece)</p><p>Using your newsletter for promotion in prospecting or in presentations to prospective customers</p><p>By including prospective customers in your Newsletter E-mail list, you keep your company name information in front of prospective customers, so that when they decide to purchase systems or service you can provide, your company will be one which the prospect contacts for quotes or information. </p><p>In following these simple steps, even a manager with little or no experience in newsletter marketing will be able to easily create an effective tool in marketing his products and services.</p></div><p>Garry Steck is publisher of Telcom Today, a newsletter for managers of telephone sales and service companies across the U.S., in addition to his 30 years as an independent telecom consultant. Among his most successful marketing programs, he lists newsletters as being near the top. He says a large portion of his new clients came to him as a result of his company's newsletters.</p>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-61747146837627949992009-06-10T02:59:00.001-07:002009-06-10T02:59:46.348-07:00Sales Cultures - Is Your Sales Culture Heart Healthy?<div id="body"><p>I know you've heard someone say, "We have a high performance culture here at Amalgamated. We have high expectations of all our people!" So, if you've been a member of a larger national sales organization how often did the term "high performance culture" turn out to have any benefit for you as the person in the trenches? Did the leadership team have high expectations of themselves on creating a sales culture that was not only good for shareholders, but also good for clients and employees?</p><p>Sorry for a little culture slamming, and I won't mention any companies, but here's the facts m'am.</p><p>"We have a high performance culture" usually means we are going to expect a lot from you. Okay, fine. But what can I expect from you in return? Can I expect a vibrant lead generation program? Can I expect to have a manager in my corner who will routinely carve time out of their schedule to help me succeed? Instead of telling me that I'm not doing enough can you tell me how to do more? Can I expect to have up-to-date sales collateral so my presentations help prospects visualize the benefits of our programs? When I bust my hump to over deliver can I enjoy even better rewards next year or will I bask in the sunlight with dramatically increased goals coupled with dramatically lower commissions? In other words, will you invest as much in me as I am being asked to invest in you?</p><p>First I would like to propose a definition of what an organizational culture is; The quality that arises in a person by virtue of belonging to a group. That person's behavior begins to reflect what they have learned through training and observing others in that group. With time, the members form agreement with what the group prizes as excellence. So with my definition of culture let me disclose something else. I am a huge believer in building a culture that benefits clients, stakeholders and employees equally. I believe strongly that satisfied employees will deliver a superior service, which customers will be willing to pay for...and stakeholders like that outcome.</p><p>So where do you begin to build a sales culture that will help develop a sustainable world class sales organization? Essentially there are four drivers;</p><p>Sales Effectiveness - A bundle of skills that arm each sales person & account manager with the tools they need to effectively help prospects navigate through a buying process and end up with needs that are satisfied. This isn't just about holding people accountable to having & using these skills. It's really about hiring people with high potential and then provided them with the training they need. This is much more than simply enrolling people in training. This is field managers who are experts in all the skill areas, and providing them the training they need to be excellent coaches in the field.</p><p>Reward & Recognition - There is a lot more to reward & recognition than a compensation plan & an annual outing. The compensation plan should produce a target income at sales goal attainment. Your peak performers should earn two or three times what your average performers earn. Why? Because sales people are great understudies and peak performers are the people you want them to imitate. Management reports should be shared throughout the organization and include not just the top performers but also the strugglers. The only people that should not make the standing report should be untenured sales people. Additionally there are all kinds of recognition vehicles formed around peer recognition, Sr. Management recognition and yes, family and friend recognition. For those recognized this affirms their contributions. For those that did not make the grade it affirms what the organization values.</p><p>Execution - Do all members of the team understand the sales strategy? Good communication is the key and good communication is not solely reliant upon the message...good communication is driven by understanding. Can people recite a summary of what the strategy is? Do they understand the role they play in the execution of that strategy? Has there been a set of metrics devised that will benchmark how well the organization is performing and how well each team member is doing?</p><p>Field Leadership - The Rosetta Stone of the quality of your sales culture is the company's investment in first level field sales managers. If you're expecting for your army of revenue generators to win battles you're going to have to invest in field support. Do your field generals understand their priorities? How should they be investing their time & energy? Is it 50% making sales calls, 30% admin., 15% forecasting and 15% coaching & developing people? If this is the reality of how people are spending their time your organization may never get any better than it is today. I have one question for CEOs and top Sales Officers. How many leadership training courses have you delivered to your field generals in the last 5 years? Don't hold them accountable for moving from a peak performing sales person to an excellent management leader. That's your job.</p><p>Is a heart healthy culture worth the investment? Only if you want the best sales people in your industry to aspire to work for your company.</p><p>The sales culture that develops in your organization cannot be controlled, but you can influence it dramatically. Your culture will be known for a theme, for it's character, for it's composure, for it's courage and yes...for it's care for people. You must deliver results, but how you go about delivering those results will define your culture.</p></div><p>Sales Performance Advisors delivers field ready tools to help sales people, sales managers, directors and executive management optimize their sales results.</p>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-88204721628351428882009-05-28T22:40:00.001-07:002009-05-28T22:40:43.091-07:00How Sales Managers Can Make Meetings & Sales Teams Far More Productive With This One StrategySales managers spend a lot of time in meetings and attempting to motivate their sales teams. Much of this time is truly wasted and not invested because the focus is on existing problems such as failure to increase sales, declining customer loyalty, etc instead of focusing on solutions.<br /><br />Problems in any organization are far easier to identify and in many cases re-identify. However, determining solutions and then executing those solutions is far more difficult. Possibly that is why there are endless meetings and far fewer results happening in many businesses. Sales Coaching Tip: Problem re-identification is another word for insanity - doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results.<br /><br />If you are facing the endless meeting behaviors as a sales manager, have you considered this one simple strategy to reverse those non-productive problem identification meetings - a proven goal achievement process reinforced with a proven goal setting tool.<br /><br />For example, the weekly sales meeting discusses the ongoing problem of inability to increase revenue. Instead of beating this dead horse, write a goal statement that the sales team will increase sales by 2% during the next week. Sales Coaching Tip: Break large goals into smaller ones. Remember to eat the elephant one bite at a time instead of attempting to eat the entire elephant at one setting.<br /><br />Before you jump into the action steps, invest the time to build the emotional buy in from each team member. List all the gains for achieving this objective as well as all the pains associated with failure.<br /><br />Next work through all the known and unknown (potential) obstacles preventing that goal from being achieved. This is the time for active brainstorming. If your selling team is large, break them up into smaller groups.<br /><br />Now bring the sales team back together and list all the possible obstacles on a white board or flip chart. Either collectively or again in teams start thinking about possible solutions for each obstacle. Then as a group determine the best solution for each obstacle.<br /><br />Finally, identify time frames (dates) and delegation if necessary. At your next meeting, track your progress and make any course corrections. If the sales goal is achieved, set another. Use this goal achievement process to provide solutions and make those sales meetings truly valuable to everyone.<br /><br />Chicago Sales Coach Leanne Hoagland Smith helps with sales skills to management development.<br /><br />Read about Leanne's new book on sales coaching book. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, the Keys to Unlocking Sales Success.<br /><br />Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leanne_Hoagland-Smithzzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-30591723499179431592009-05-28T22:38:00.000-07:002009-05-28T22:39:57.862-07:003 Tips Regarding the Right Dollar Store Merchandise For Your StoreIf you are about to start a dollar store one of the challenges you will face is determining exactly what dollar store merchandise to initially order for your store. Then there will be the challenges of decided which items to always carry, and which can be allowed to run very low if required by your ordering process or cash flow. To make this management task a little easier to handle, consider developing a set of rules for the ordering in your store. In fact consider incorporating the 3 tips that follow to make it even easier.<br /><br />Tip #1) If you start a dollar store be sure to make consumables a top priority. In fact, always without exception make consumables a top ordering priority for your store. Items in this dollar store merchandise category include dish soap, auto dishwasher soap and other household cleaners, paper products including paper towels, bathroom tissue, and facial tissue, and health & beauty items such as toothpaste, hand soap, deodorant, and shampoo. These are the products shoppers need and will come back time and again to buy. However these items must be in-stock at all times to retain your shoppers and to keep them coming back.<br /><br />Tip #2) Consider developing a plan to purchase replenishment merchandise for departments based on their sales. For example toys are always a big seller so don't ever allow them to run low. Make sure seasonal toys are in-stock as the season approaches. Party & gift is another department that always ends up as one of the top producing departments. This area generates a lot of store traffic, and the overall profit margins will often be among the highest in your store. Never allow core items to run low in these departments.<br /><br />Tip #3) A valuable tool to use in the buying process is open to buy. That means you have an overall store budget that is based on a percentage of sales. Next track by-department sales and allocate money back to purchase replenishment merchandise based on the sales-by-department results. If one department ever needs extra money, reduce allocated spending for another department to cover. That way replenishment was always managed to your sales level.<br /><br />If you start a dollar store be sure to incorporate these tips into your initial and follow-up ordering processes. They will make the challenges of carrying the right dollar store merchandise much less challenging for you to handle.<br /><br />To your success when you start a dollar store!<br /><br />Learn how you can Start your own Dollar Store Business.<br /><br />Bob Hamilton is an entrepreneur, author, writer, business consultant and trainer.<br /><br />Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_Hamiltonzzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-64428878390048998262008-09-02T04:11:00.000-07:002008-09-02T04:12:16.807-07:00Sales Lead ManagementSales lead management is a business activity that tends to be cast aside when the going gets good. When the current revenue stream is flowing great, sales lead management is the farthest thing from people's mind. Unfortunately, when marketing activities are put on hold the likelihood that they need to be used increases.<br /><br />One of the most dangerous things that happens to professional service businesses when they start generating lots of revenue, is that sales lead management suffers. Typically what happens is the owner starts to work more and more hours. This results in lots of billable hours. But, an increase in billable hours often comes with a decrease in marketing hours.<br /><br />Poor Sales Lead Management Is Poor Business Practice<br /><br />Sales lead management is neglected when there is less time available. Attending networking events and doing follow-ups and sales calls almost disappear. Phone calls from leads remain unreturned for days, even weeks at a time. Slowly, concern for the business diminishes and is replaced with concern about writing invoices.<br /><br />This lack of sales lead management is a sure sign of future death. You need to be constantly adding new opportunities to your funnel. Going to more networking events, getting new people in your database, and getting more proposals out there.<br /><br />Not all sales lead management activities, though, need to be this time intensive. Direct mail is an excellent sales lead management technique that can run on autopilot. It is also financially affordable.<br /><br />Regardless of what type of sales lead management you use, you need to be spending much of your time on getting people into your funnel. Qualifying leads as prospects. Getting the prospects and getting them signed up for work. You never know when you will need to turn those leads into paying customers. It is much easier to do so when they are already part of your marketing efforts.<br /><br />The Bottom Line on Sales Lead Management<br /><br />The type of sales lead management technique you use is not the most important issue. The important factor is that you use sales lead management consistently, regardless of where your business is at in terms of sales and revenue volume. When you have hardly any customers, to when you have more customers than you think you can handle, your sales lead management will make a difference in your long term success.<br /><br />Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}<br /><br />Joshua Feinberg, co-founder of Computer Consulting 101, helps computer consulting business owners get more steady, high-paying clients. Learn how you can too. Sign-up now for your free access to field-tested, proven computer consulting secrets at Computer Consulting 101.<br /><br />Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_Feinbergzzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-55310625652418362092008-08-25T22:25:00.003-07:002008-08-25T22:25:54.701-07:00Dialer Evaluation - A Guide to Purchasing a Dialer<div id="body"><p>Looking into buying a dialer and finding a vendor can be challenging, not to mention finding the right one for you. You want everything to be perfect. You should have everything that your company needs in that dialer system and vendor. But how do you do such a thing? You need to research and research well. Even the best of vendors and dialers can't make up for a lack of preparation on your side of the deal. You need to be well prepared for whatever is coming. The researching is your key to success.</p><p>Some of my other articles have gone over several of these areas, but I want to stress the point again and again: Research. Its like judging a book by its cover. A vendor might look fancy up front, but within the system, there could be quite a few loop holes and such, and you wouldn't want that running your dialing system. Know what the departments in your company need, and know what you need. Right it down on paper. Don't pay for what you will never use. Keep several vendors in sight throughout the entire process. If you only have one that you are eying and its not what it seemed to be at first, you are out of a dialer and provider.</p><p>When investigating, find out everything that you can about the provider. If they are the one that you will use, you will want to know how well they will run your software. Search on line, ask around your company, call the actual provider, question them. Everything wi</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-88805552038097902002008-08-25T22:25:00.001-07:002008-08-25T22:25:34.198-07:00Customers Don't Buy From People They Like, They Buy From Those They TrustIt is often said that customers buy from people they like. While we don't usually buy from people we dislike, there is one more dimension to this old saying.<br /><br />Customers buy from people they trust<br /><br />To illustrate this point further, let's look at how typical prospective customers react to new sales people making the first contact with them (otherwise known as cold-calling):<br /><br />1. They find an excuse to hang up the phone as soon as possible<br />2. They make themselves very busy during appointments with sales people<br />3. They keep their mouths shut as much as possible when sales people ask questions<br />4. They will not refer the sales people to a higher authority even when such a need is clear<br />5. They often use delay tactics such as "If there is a need, we will call you" to appease sales people, etc.<br /><br />These are, just a few examples, of customer's behaviours when they distrust the sales person. As such, to get customers interested and excited about what you have to offer, you first have to win their trust.<br /><br />A Question of Lust<br /><br />The reasons that customers don't trust sales people is very simple: they feel that the only thing that sales people care about is getting their money. Sadly, this "lust for the customers' money" is quite true with many sales people out there, AND customers can smell them from miles away.<br /><br />When customers make purchases, what they really want in exchange for the money they spend, is substantiated value. That is, can the products or services they buy bring better productivity, reduce wastages or simply improve their quality of life.<br /><br />Hence, the first step to build trust is this: you have to be perceived as being on the customers' side and pro-actively help solve customers' problems.<br /><br />Here's a simple example. When most sales approach their prospective customers, they will say something like, "Hello, my name is xyz, and I'm from abc company. How are you today? I would like to show you a demo of our latest productivity-enhancing gadget. As I will be around your vicinity on Tuesday afternoon, can I come and see you around 2 p.m. or 4 p.m.?"<br /><br />The problem with this way of approach lie in how these intended customers respond. They will either just say "not interested", or say yes and then get their secretaries to tell you "the boss has an urgent meeting, please leave your materials on the front desk, and we will call you when we have a need".<br /><br />The reason for such responses from customers is that they don't trust what you said. They probably have seen just too many "productivity-enhancing gadgets", and hear too many "I happen to be just in your neighbourhood" stories and certainly will be too busy to meet just another peddler of gadgets. Furthermore, they don't trust you enough to tell you their "productivity" challenges, if that is what your product will solve.<br /><br />To overcome such trust issues at initial contact, both sales people and their managers will have to work together to build trust and allay customers' fears that they will be rip off, or that they will be wasting their time.<br /><br />From the sales person perspective, she will have to provide the customer what Miller Heiman calls a Valid Business Reason into her opening call, e.g. "Hi, my name is xyz. I understand that many companies in your industry are facing serious challenges due to the sharp increases in raw material costs. I'd like to explore with you if we can help improve your productivity, and thereby reducing your costs."<br /><br />From the sales managers' perspectives, trust will have to be built beyond the initial cold-call. Customers are likely to increase their trust if they had seen testimonies and case studies of past successes, PRIOR to the initial phone calls from sales people.<br /><br />Build Credibility, NOT Benefits<br /><br />Traditionally, many companies focus merely on the "Features, Advantages and Benefits", none of which will work IF the customer does not trust you enough. Hence, sales people would have to build credibility during the course of the sales process, namely:<br /><br />* Listen<br />* Do your homework and ask intelligent questions<br />* Provide Assurance to your customers<br /><br />Many sales people tend to put too much emphasis on their company, and the products they offer, that they forgot to listen to their customers needs, wants and concerns.<br /><br />To ensure that customers spend more time talking, sales people would have to ask intelligent questions. Typically, customers expect sales people to have done some basic research on the customers' web sites. Sales people can improve on this by going through customers annual reports (if they are listed companies) or source for news reports about these customers. If a prospective customer is a competitor of a current customer, you can find out more information from the latter. Web 2.0 social networking sites are also a great source of information.<br /><br />While some sales managers may argue that spending too much time on the Internet will eat into selling time and hence, is detrimental to sales. However, going to a customer and not knowing what are the right questions to ask will make the customer feel you are unprofessional and incompetent, which is worse. Sales managers will have to get the balance right by allocating sufficient time for research as well as for selling.<br /><br />Ultimately, customers will often have niggling concerns about buying from you. Rather than avoiding those concerns for the fear that addressing them will hurt your sale, the opposite is likely to be true. If customers have got any unanswered questions or concerns about your products and services, they will be:<br /><br />* Less likely to buy<br />* Buy less<br />* Drive a hard bargain on your price<br /><br />Hence, when you are approaching the closing stages of your sale, look out for symptoms that show the customer is nervous or uneasy. Then seek to address such concerns and provide the relevant assurances.<br /><br />The Policy of Truth<br /><br />Perhaps the biggest destroyer of trust is to "over-promise and under-deliver". The causes of this destruction are two-fold:<br /><br />* Sales people make promises to customers on things that they cannot (or unsure if they can) deliver<br />* Companies who deliver less-than-expected levels of product qualities to their customers<br /><br />For the former, sales managers would have to ensure sales people do not over-promise their customers just to get the sale or to reach their sales target. Doing so will severely damage the trust between buyer and seller, and will make it really difficult for future sales efforts to succeed.<br /><br />For the latter, nothing de-motivates sales people more than having to answer customers' questions that they don't have answers to. No amount of sales effort will succeed if the company does not invest enough in quality to make sure customers get the value they pay for. When companies deliver shoddy quality, not only will there be decreases in sales, there will also be an immediate increase in sales staff turnover. It's not a question of "if", it's just a question of time. After all, who wants to to sell for a company that they can't even trust?<br /><br />by c.j. Ng<br /><br />c.j. is an Affiliate with HR Chally Group in China. Founded in 1973 through a grant from the U.S. Justice Department, the HR Chally Group provides predictive and compliant assessment system for management, sales, technical, customer care, and administrative talents. Unlike other assessments that just conducts personality profiles, Chally profiles what is exactly required by specific job descriptions and responsibilities and predict if these talents can succeed in future. As such, you'll get:<br /><br />* Up to 40% reduction in staff turnover<br /><br />* Up to 30% increase in employee productivity<br /><br />* 85%+ accuracy in identifying effective performers<br /><br />Prior to this, c.j. was Asia Marketing Manager for a Fortune 500 logistics company, as well as Corporate Training Manager for Ringier AG, Switzerland's largest media group, in China, where he was responsible for sales team development, and helped increase the % of new hires to close their 1st sales within 2 months by 30%, as well as increase overall sales targets by more than 50%. Visit http://www.psycheselling.com/ for more info.<br /><br />Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=CJ_Ngzzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-64688150206407911792008-08-04T22:22:00.002-07:002008-08-04T22:29:41.397-07:00Succeeding As a New Sales Manager - A Workable Success Plan For Individuals and Companies<div id="body"><p>What I am about to say can be executed by a new sales manager on their own, or via the direction of senior level sales manager.</p><p>The challenge of a new sales manager getting up to speed and succeeding would be a common problem for most companies because most have not done their homework.</p><p>Everyone would agree that in order to succeed you need a "plan." Well this is true of the position of sales manager; it too should have a plan.</p><p>If you are a sales manager, or have this position reporting to you, you should have a very complete document telling how to execute that job. Each task of the sales manager's job should be listed and described in enough detail so that anyone needing to fill in for the sales manager can run the show as it currently runs.</p><p>To make a new sales manager successful I would suggest that their first job be that documenting the tasks and execution of the position. The manager should discover the key things that need to be done, learn how to do them, and then document how and when they are to be done.</p><p>This exercise will get the new manager evaluating the duties of the position and learning how to do them at the same time. This task will also quickly reveal those things the new sales manager doesn't know how so that he can go to his manager to learn them.</p><p>As a new manager you should not worry about changing anything, unless there are major problems left by your predecessor that simply can't wait. The new manager should maintain a steady focus on doing and documenting the principle tasks of his job while developing this new relationship with the team.</p><p>The focus with team members should only be on "How can I help?" or "What can I do that will make you better?" Corrective actions should only be taken on at this point for the most serious of problems, those things that simply cannot wait. In the beginning, just helping is the best strategy.</p><p>It may take a week or two for the new manager to accomplish this task. The result will be a complete documentation of the sales manager's job and a manager who now knows all the critical things he needs to be doing and how to do them.</p><p>The "just help focus" with the team will have revealed a potential list of projects that may improve team performance. And, by focusing only on "helping" the team during early part of the relationship, there will now, hopefully, be in place a good working relationship between the new manager and the team.</p><p>The new sales manager will now be in a position to evaluate what is going on (maybe with the help of his manager) so that the critical and most important issues can begin to be solved. He will know his job and responsibilities and will have a working document that can be added to or improved as he works into the future.</p><p>The next step in the process would be to evaluate team skills and the sales process so that these areas can be optimized.</p><p>This concept is certainly not limited to sales management - companies should do this for every position (including salespeople). You will find this an invaluable exercise in creating success with any new manager (or employee). And if you are one of the few companies that has already done this, the manager now can execute this exercise with the benefit of that document achieving the same objective and possibly even enhancing what currently exists.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-25313099409505942002008-08-04T22:22:00.001-07:002008-08-04T22:29:09.150-07:00Fraudulent Payment Processing in a Card-Present Environment<div id="body"><p>In a face-to-face card payment environment a well trained staff at the checkout can identify certain suspicious indications in a cardholder's behavior that can help prevent a potential fraudulent transaction from being processed. It is advisable that you do provide your personnel with proper training so that they know what signs to look for, in addition to following all other procedures for identifying fraudulent activity, such as identifying cards that have been tampered with, signatures on the sales receipts that do not much those on the back of the cards, etc. Keep in mind that identifying fraud before it actually takes place helps to avoid chargebacks against which you have no remedy. Here is a list of suspicious signs at the point of sale that you should look out for:</p><ul><li><b>Purchasing large quantities without much attention to details.</b> If a customer is purchasing a sizable amount of merchandise, without much care for its size, color, or even price, that might be an indication for fraud.</li><li><b>Ignoring free delivery.</b> If your customer asks no questions or completely ignores a free delivery option, in favor of a quicker but paid one, this could be a warning sign.</li><li><b>Attempting to rush the cashier into a quicker processing of the payment.</b> Although your customer may really be in a hurry, such behavior can be intended to force the point-of-sale person to circumvent fraud prevention measures.</li><li><b>Making multiple purchases within a short amount of time.</b> If a customer completes a purchase, leaves the store and then comes right back in, he or she might be doing it because they believe that making multiple fraudulent transactions, each for a lesser amount, would not attract much scrutiny.</li><li><b>Shopping either right after the store opens or before it closes.</b> A fraudster might be shopping early in the morning or late in the evening, in the hope that the point-of-sale personnel will not be as attentive as during other stretches of the day.</li></ul><p>You should keep in mind that, although suspicious, a certain behavior might be perfectly justified and explained in another, completely legitimate way. By themselves, none of the above examples constitutes a proof of a fraudulent activity. You should always use your observations of customer behavior in the context of the particular setting. Different establishments attract different types of customers and what is considered a normal customer behavior at one place might be interpreted as completely irregular at another.</p><p>Once you have accumulated enough observations to suggest that a fraudulent activity is probably taking place, you should contact your merchant bank's authorization center and make a "Code 10" request. You should keep the card in your possession, but only if it is safe to do so. If you feel threatened or uncomfortable, complete the transaction and make the call to your merchant account bank's center right after the customer leaves. Then follow the instructions your merchant bank gives you.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-20212329409433490802008-08-04T22:22:00.000-07:002008-08-04T22:28:36.776-07:00Sales Management - Selling and Business Development in the 21st Century<div id="body"><p>The marketing components that used to generate leads -- product, performance, promotion and price --are no longer effective. The tools for selling -- lots of sales calls, lunches, golf and give-always -- are expensive and inefficient. In the 21st century, selling and business development require the following:</p><p>* Prospecting Using the Internet <br />* Relationship Selling <br />* Network Selling and <br />* Investigative Selling.</p><p>Prospecting Using the Internet</p><p>Cold calling is dead. It's not productive. It's demoralizing. It's expensive. Prospecting in the 21st century involves setting the stage for people and companies to find you so that you can solve their problems. Flaunting advertisements and brochures is also a waste. Everyone goes to the Internet these days to find solutions to their problems. Therefore, the successful sales person will have to know how to use the Internet to generate qualified leads. Corporations should have an Internet program, but territory and product-line sales people should have their own Internet marketing program as well. And it's not about having a website, it's much more. This is the passive side of prospecting. This means that sales and business development professionals must set up an aggressive Internet Marketing process for their territory or product so that the people they want to do business with will come to them.</p><p>Relationship Selling</p><p>The other 21st Century prospecting element is the active side of prospecting. This is where you use professional relationships to find out about problems or opportunities where you can assist. There are so many opportunities for a sales person or account manager to discover within their existing and old/lost accounts. Using professional relationships make this prospecting method effective and easy.</p><p>Sales and Business Development people with professional relationships are seen as a resource to protect or enhance buyers' careers. These people will be open to give information and coach you for cross-sells into their business unit, associate divisions and/or other product lines. If you develop professional relationships, these people will give you qualified leads, buy more and more from you, and refer you to others.</p><p>Network Selling</p><p>However, one has to learn how to use these relationships to get networked to others. There are two focuses for successful selling in the 21 Century:</p><p>1. You must spread like a virus in your customers' organizations. I use the phrase - move up and out.</p><p>2. You must get to the profit-center leaders, C-level executives, and senior staff of the business units you sell into and develop professional relationships with these people to effectively close sales, cross-sell and be seen as the preferred supplier. Hanging out with the subordinates will never secure your position with your customers.</p><p>The only way you'll move up and out and connect with the leaders is by using your professional relationships to network you to others. People with whom you've developed credibility -- your Golden Network as I call it -- will help you if asked. But if they are not asked for a referral and introduction to others, they will rarely offer to connect you with the leaders and others you should be meeting. So you must ask for their help.</p><p>To make the networking process productive, what you ask for, how you ask for it, and where you look for help will make all the difference between getting to the right people and getting to useless people for your initiative. This process is Network Selling.</p><p>Investigative Selling</p><p>Once a sales or business development person connects with a person of value, using his or her network connection, the goal is to convert that individual into his or her Golden Network. In other words the sales or BD person will have to develop a professional relationship with this new contact.</p><p>People will consider another individual a professional relationship only if there is something in it for them. So a sales or BD person needs to investigate the critical drivers of their target contact in order to learn what this person values that s/he can deliver. Everyone is different and without knowing each individual's triggers, a sales person will flounder or worst yet, become annoying. But if the sales person can make the connections between the desires and the deliverables, a relationship can be established, and then this new contact will continue networking you up and out until you are connected to the leaders and their staffs.</p><p>The process for determining one's triggers is Investigative Selling. It requires knowing the questions to ask and how to ask them. Although this sounds simple, it requires finesse, skill and confidence. Investigative Selling also requires effective listening, and the ability to expose and entice. Both of these are advanced skills never taught in schools and rarely taught in product or sales training. So the successful sales or business development person will have to learn these Investigative Selling skills and be able to take them seamlessly to the street.</p><p>The sooner the sales or business development person masters these Internet Marketing, Relationships, Network and Investigative Selling Skills, the sooner sales will close and closing ratios rise.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-60080015743918231212008-03-11T23:16:00.000-07:002008-03-11T23:17:06.155-07:00Hiring & Retaining Great Sales People<div id="body"><p>When companies are looking to hire new sales people for their organization, most concentrate on hiring the person with the most experience or with a solid history of sales success. As a sales recruiter, our job is to find the best business development, account manager or sales rep for companies. However, many companies are not prepared to make even the best sales person successful once they begin their new sales job.</p><p>Many company specific factors go into making sales people successful. Companies who have had a hard time retaining top sales talent usually have a few things in common:</p><p>1) A well designed Sales Compensation Plan</p><p>2) Ongoing Product and Sales Training</p><p>3) Coaching, Mentoring and ongoing support from their Sales Manager</p><p><b>Sales Compensation Plan</b></p><p>From our experience, most small and medium sized businesses do not have a well designed sales compensation plan. We find the plan either too generous for the sales person or too generous for the employer. Either way, if the compensation plan is not set up properly, either your business will suffer or you will not be able to retain good sales people. As a rule of thumb, you should not pay your salespeople more than 20% of gross profit. Any more than that and your business is paying too much.</p><p><b>Ongoing Product & Sales Training</b></p><p>Having worked for and with many large companies and it never ceases to amaze me how during training 90% of the time is allocated to the product. Sales training and the process of how to sell a particular product is usually a small component in corporate training sessions. While product knowledge is important, it is irrelevant if your people do not know how to sell its features and benefits. Invest in ongoing product and sales training to ensure your sales people have up to date knowledge on new products and services and so they have the sales skills to sell it!</p><p>Coaching & Mentoring</p><p>Hiring a salesperson is a big commitment of time, energy and money. Making a hiring mistake with a sales rep can be costly on all fronts, not to mention opportunity cost, damage to key accounts and missed opportunities. We talk to dozens of sales people on a daily basis and one of the main reasons sales people leave their job is lack of support, coaching and mentoring from their sales manager.</p><p>Ensure your sales managers are equipped with the skills to effectively coach and mentor your sales people. Most sales managers are promoted because they were the top sales rep and do not necessarily possess the skills needed to be a coach and mentor. Invest in sales management training for your sales managers to ensure their skills are up to the challenge.</p><p>The important thing to remember is that finding a great sales person is only half the battle. You need to invest in their selling skills, product knowledge and their sales managers to ensure you have sales people that are successful and stay with your organization for years to come.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-60824399105610093202008-03-11T23:15:00.000-07:002008-03-11T23:16:36.873-07:00Time Management - Sales Productivity's Black Hole<div id="body"><p>I spent a number of years as a consulting nuclear chemist and radiation protection specialist at commercial nuclear power plants. Which means I love physics!</p><p>I've always been baffled by the concept of managing time, because from a physics perspective time can't be managed. The proof is obvious when we consider... it's impossible to manage our <i>time</i> so effectively that we get 25 hours in a day, nor is it possible to manage our <i>time</i> so poorly that we only get 23 hours in a day.</p><p>We can't find time or make time.</p><p>The only thing we have control over is what we do in the slices of time each day.</p><p>A great deal of people manage their day by using a to-do-list. Stop and think for a moment, traditionally, how do we create a to-do-list?</p><p>The phone rings, emails arrive, clients or prospects call, boss assigns a task, a coworker needs a favor, sales calls to make, follow-ups to perform, demos to give, proposals and contracts to write, not to mention; market research to conduct and articles and white papers to read. If new tasks pop up while we are engaged in any of these activities, just add them to the list.</p><p>Yes, we can rewrite our task list. Yes, we can assign numbers or letters to denote importance, but what does that have to do with being effective?</p><p><i>So many people confuse their to-do-list(s) with their priorities.</i> They run around with their hair on fire, adding tasks to and checking tasks off the to-do-list.</p><p>The gravitational attraction of the mountain of information and activities competing for our attention is like a giant black hole gobbling up space in our head and time in our day. Finally, our busy day ends without completing the key sales activities that add prospects to the funnel, move deals closer to close and increase our capabilities as sales professionals.</p><p>So what should we do?</p><p>Instead of trying to better manage our time, we should focus on <b>managing our effectiveness</b>.<i> Sales effectiveness is a function of our ability to identify and prioritize high impact sales activities that are in alignment with achieving of our objectives.</i></p><p>Stop focusing all your efforts on planning your day and start planning your week, month and quarter.</p><ol><li>Develop objectives for your territory, sales and personal development</li><li>Set objectives for each of the key phases of your sales process</li><li>Define the success metrics and targets for each objective</li><li>Create a rolling 90-day action plan and organize tasks by objectives</li><li>Create a model work week - your weekly schedule</li><li>Move your tasks off the action plan and onto your calendar</li><li>Measure progress towards achievement of the objectives weekly</li><li>Say no to everything else</li></ol><p>I highly recommend Sally McGhee's book Take Back Your Life using Microsoft Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized (she even covers work life balance).</p><p>So how do we identify the high impact sales activities?</p><p>Start by answering three questions:</p><ol><li>What does a great day of selling look like?</li><li>What do you have to do to prepare to have that great day of selling?</li><li>What do you have to do to string more great days of selling back to back to back?</li></ol><p>I'm very interested in what you think so drop by my blog and leave a comment.</p></div><p>Martice E Nicks Jr</p><p>Partner - Applied Concepts Institute, LLC</p><p>Professional Speaker, Master Sales Productivity Consultant, Coach and Trainer</p><p>Martice has 27 years as a successful consultant in government and private sectors. He focuses on optimizing and integrating systems that drive revenue and facilitate organizational performance. Martice has held multiple executive and management positions in companies including founding and self-directed teams. His approach brings a sense of urgency to drive positive behavioral change and most importantly-measurable business results. Clients realize between 15-30% increase in revenue in 90 days.</p>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-8792350901492459692008-03-02T21:37:00.000-08:002008-03-02T21:38:01.176-08:00Create Events to Gain Customers<div id="body"><p>If you have ever put on an event, you know that registration can be very tiring and cumbersome. If it is a large event, you will have a computer system that takes care of the registrations. The Web can also be used for registration just as it can be used to have people register for your newsletter. Event registration on the Web enables you to drive people to your site and then navigate to the registration page. This way they get a taste of who you are and what you do at the same time that they are registering. Unfortunately, not everyone will register from the Web site and you will still need to enter some names by hand. This is not a big task if your anticipated audience is fairly small, but for a larger event you will need to deal with the process differently. Services such as Aceteva.com make the process very simple.</p><p>When I was setting up the executive breakfast for my Power Marketing seminar, I had people go to the Power Marketing Web site to register. It was the only option they had. I found that a number of people wanted to register but were not computer savvy enough to navigate the process. I contacted them by e-mail and asked for their information and entered it into the registration form on their behalf. Only a handful of people did not want to do this for themselves.</p><p>In the long run, you can also have people pay for events on the Web at the same time. If you do not have the ability to take credit cards over the Web, you can use a payment service such as PayPal. It will take the orders and process the credit cards and even deposit the monies into your bank account.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-29680099620990161462008-03-02T21:36:00.000-08:002008-03-02T21:37:18.861-08:00Effective Teritory Management Is Not Rocket Science<div id="body"><p>Many salespeople today will waste a great deal of time calling on poor prospects – trying to turn poor prospects into customers, or trying to close prospects that do not want or need what they are selling.</p><p>One of the key characteristics in more effective territory management is doing a better job of qualifying prospects prior to giving them your time, energy or corporate resources.</p><p>Let’s look at a few ways to better manage your resource of time and territory management.</p><p>1. Ask more effective questions earlier in the sales process.<br /> 2. Pay attention to answers to determine whether this is a good time to try and sell this prospect.<br /> 3. Develop a customer profile to use as a template for your prospecting.<br />4. Audit your sales call activity by dividing the number of calls you make in a week by the number of miles you drive in that week. This number will give you your call route effectiveness.<br /> 5. Spend more prospecting time getting referrals.<br /> 6. Develop strategic alliances to help you improve your prospecting activity.<br /> 7. Plan your call activities early in the week, month or day.<br /> 8. Don’t give poor prospects more time than they deserve.<br /> 9. Get up earlier.<br /> 10. Go to bed later.<br /> 11. Use this extra time for planning, thinking or evaluating your routines.<br /> 12. Develop a daily checklist of what you will need to be effective.<br /> 13. Keep accurate sales records. The more information you keep, the better able you will be to spot potential trouble areas.<br /> 14. Try to get more of your prospects to visit your location, plant or office.<br /> 15. Don’t spend time giving presentations to non-decision makers.</p><p>Even if you only do half of these, you will find your time will be better spent and you will experience better overall sales results.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-19921167429952312672008-03-01T03:24:00.000-08:002008-03-01T03:45:58.917-08:00Product Conversions Will Lead You To Acquisition Candidates!<div id="body"><p>As a proactive business buyer, whether a one-time buyer or someone who acquires companies on an ongoing basis, you must define and pursue various creative means to locate unique companies that potentially offer you extraordinary acquisition potential, whether they’re “officially” for sale or not.</p><p>There is a proven adage in the sales profession that directly relates to business buyers pursuing quality companies to buy, “All the good salespeople are employed! The fact of the matter is, the best acquisition candidates are officially NOT for sale. It is not that they cannot be bought; it is just that the business owners have not made a conscious decision or reached a compelling level of justification to sell, nor have they applied any company resources to put their business on the market. Again, as in selling, sometimes all you have to do is ask!</p><p>Should I Look for a “Deal” or an “Opportunity”?</p><p>Most seasoned business buyers will tell you that they are not always looking for “a deal” in a business acquisition, but to purchase a company for reasonable purchase terms that offers a consistent, high return on investment, with little or no buyer competition (Notice that the term, “purchase terms” was used here, not “purchase price”.) To a professional business buyer, purchase price is important, but more often than not, the terms and conditions of a business purchase are most significant.</p><p>Astute business buyers focus on leveraging their investment dollars first and foremost, seeking to acquire controlling interest in a viable company for the least amount of their own money. Business purchase terms typically make or break the deal.</p><p>Understanding that the best acquisition opportunities are among companies not officially for sale, knowing that finding a business to buy that has solid return on investment potential and can potentially be bought with favorable purchase terms makes the most sense to a business buyer, it is now prudent to focus on developing a unique means to find like companies to buy.</p><p>“Product Conversions” = Great Acquisition Candidates</p><p>Business buyers should take a magnified look at how manufactured product improvements can and will equate to definition of extraordinary acquisition candidates. Products and services advance and improve as new technology is applied to them. Companies applying new technologies represent outstanding acquisition opportunities.</p><p>The focus here will be on the systematic definition of applications of new technologies for only manufactured products. However, understand that services, be they consumer or commercial oriented, are directly, positively, affected by advancement and improvement of manufactured products used in the service provided.</p><p>Manufactured products can be improved in two fundamental ways, with product content and/or with manufacturing processes. To clearly understand how this can lead to finding acquisition candidates, a business buyer needs to take a closer look at these product improvement fundamentals:</p><p>Fundamental Manufactured Product CONTENT Advancements:</p><p>Product Application Improvements:</p><p>Function, speed, durability, taste, smell, simplicity, strength, noise level</p><p>Product Sensual Improvements:</p><p>Finish, color, clarity, texture, seamlessness, design, packaging Product Ease of Use Improvements: Multi-uses, storage, temperature range, safety, ease of transportation</p><p>Companies that are on the cutting edge of converting their products with advances in product content and related design improvements, such as: metals to polymers, polymers to composites, and organics to synthetics represent outstanding acquisition candidates.</p><p>Fundamental Manufactured Product PROCESS Advancements:</p><p>Product manufacturing throughput improvements<br /> Product manufacturing cost reductions<br /> Product quality control improvements<br /> Product assembly simplicity<br /> Product packaging improvements and advantages<br /> Product material waste reduction</p><p>Companies that apply the latest advancements in manufacturing processes, making new products that exemplify state-of-the-art “product conversions ”by adding product value for the same cost or significantly reducing manufacturing costs represent extraordinary acquisition candidates.</p><p>A business buyer should clearly understand the evolution and status of a product conversion in a macro market trend perspective and where or how a potential acquisition candidate obtained the technology before pursuing the company. If and how the company protects the technology is also paramount to their future growth potential and perceived enterprise value.</p><p>Additional Opportunities May Not Be Obvious, But They’re There!</p><p>Once a new product conversion is discovered or introduced to the targeted market there can be extraordinary, synergistic business opportunities for an existing business owner or potential business buyer if they immediately apply and protect these same product material or manufacturing process advancements to their existing or planned product offerings. This is especially true for products in different industries and in other geographic markets.</p><p>What you have just read is potentially a major “enlightenment” if you are a strategic business buyer. Looking at companies to purchase from a product conversion prospective can differentiate you or your firm from most other business buyers.</p><p>Being the “first” business buyer to see the potential of a product conversion at a specific acquisition candidate can potentially mean you are the ONLY pursuer of that company, effectively, uniquely, positioning you or your firm to acquire an outstanding company with excellent growth and ROI potential with little or no purchase competition.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-38856452526065557592008-03-01T03:20:00.000-08:002008-03-01T03:23:40.460-08:00Why We Buy - to Avoid PAIN!<div id="body"><p>Our innate drive to maintain our “comfort zone” directly affects how and what we purchase. Pain versus pleasure, similarity versus unfamiliarity and comfort versus stress; self inflected or not, are all feelings and emotions that affect most facets of our lives. How we deal with such emotion volatility directly affects our motivations to buy things that make us feel better.</p><p>Humans prefer pleasure, avoid pain, seek familiarity and would rather be comfortable than stressed out. Jack LaLane’s famous exercise philosophy of the 1960’s, “No Pain, No Gain” does not apply to most of us.</p><p>We all like things to be “just so”, always in line with our expectations. Anything that rattles our comfort zone generally leads to an action response, a reaction, immediate pursuit of problem resolution. Herein lies a fundamental basis for sales professionals to leverage our natural tendency to seek and purchase things that help us avoid pain.</p><p>Selling is truly a Painful Process</p><p>Most selling situations involve collaborative problem or pain definition between a salesperson and a buying prospect. The sales representative ultimately attempts to educate the potential buyer about how costly it is to them of NOT having his product or service to eliminate their pains.</p><p>Many times in a buy/ sell situation the buyer does not know what his pains are, just the symptoms of the pain. Typically he knows he wants to rid himself of the pain but needs more information from the sales person to determine what it will cost him to do that. Cost manifests itself in many forms, time commitment, effort to be made or monetary investment to solve the problem.</p><p>Get Answers to These 5 Key Pain Questions</p><p>A skilled sales person must systematically qualify, or better, DIS-qualify the buyer early in the discussion to find answers to five basic questions:</p><p>1) What are the prospect pains? (They may not know!)</p><p>2) Can I, my product or service effectively eliminate the pains defined?</p><p>3) Is the buyer truly motivated to eliminate his pains?</p><p>4) Does the buyer have the financial resources to proceed?</p><p>5) Who ultimately decides to apply the available financial resources to these pains?</p><p>It is most logical that a sales representative must secure answers to these five disqualification questions BEFORE they decide to present their pain solutions, products, information or services to the buying prospect.</p><p>This decision to delay presentation, to postpone the “sales pitch”, contingent on systematic disqualification of the prospect takes extraordinary discipline on the part of the sales representative. Most average sales people immediately jump into their presentation having no idea what really are the prospect’s pains, if he’s motivated to fix them, can afford the relief or whether he has the authority to make the purchase decision.</p><p>Prospect “Pains” are not Unique</p><p>With a “pain definition” perspective incorporated in your selling approach you will quickly realize that many of your sales prospects have similar pains. You can categorize these pains, define their most common causes and solutions, then prepare in advance of your sales calls written or visual selling tools specific to each common pain. Each selling tool would be used only for a specific pain.</p><p>It is also natural for your prospects to have appreciation for others who had similar problems as they have. Anything you can do to document how you as a sales representative addressed another person’s like pains with your products or services will go a long way to justify their pending purchase. Written case histories of successful application of your product or service with previous customers are excellent selling tools.</p><p>Not “Features and Benefits” – It’s about PAINS!</p><p>So many sales technique training programs emphasize product or service feature and benefit “selling”. As a potential buyer it is nice to know all this, but prospects want the sales person to first listen to and understand their problems; how long they’ve had them, what its cost them and what they’ve done already to try to fix them. A potential buyer needs to do this first before they can fully appreciate any form of potential pain relief. (Again, save your sales pitch and get answers to the five fundamental pain questions defined here.)</p><p>Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, once said, “We will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure”. This is particularly true if we are fully involved in pain at the time. With this prospect pain definition selling approach increases in your sales results are certain, resulting in significant pain relief for both the buyer AND the seller.</p></div>zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-17425916581276435462008-02-26T02:10:00.000-08:002008-02-26T02:11:07.277-08:00Motivate the Salesman By Helping HimThe bigger tire firms restrict the dealers not only to a narrow profit margin but sell through countless distributive outlets, including their own stores. This further depresses both prices and profits. We, however, gave the independent tire dealer territorial exclusivity. We made sure the salesmen understood this.<br /><br />But that still wasn't enough. The retail salesmen had been selling the well known tires so long, they had forgotten how to sell. Our client was an unknown name and the technical advantages of its tires were hard to teach to the salesmen.<br /><br />We recognized that we had to conduct more than the usual product training and indoctrination program, and we had to do it fast. First, we wrote up some specific tire case studies that incorporated professional selling skills. Then, instead of having cumbersome meetings, we did the unusual. We rented a large van and outfitted it with video training equipment.<br /><br />We drove from store to store in our van to do our motivational training. We found that the salesmen had been reluctant to commit their reputations to our product because they were weak on its technical advantages. We wanted them to have solid selling techniques backed up by sound product knowledge when they faced prospective customers. We wanted them to have the reeling of successful experience even if it was in a role-playing situation.<br /><br />We spent more than an hour with each salesman going over the technical details, going over the sales cases we had written, and role-playing selling tires to each other and putting it all on videotape right in the van.<br /><br />Then the salesman would review his performance and analyze it. After that, we erased the tape. We did that because we wanted the salesman to feel secure. Letting his boss see the tape would have only made the salesman anxious. And that is something you don't do to your best customer.<br /><br />All this was long, hard work. We put thousands of miles on our van, traveling from one end of the country to the other. Why? Because those salesmen were our best customers. If we could motivate them, build their confidence in our tires sell them then they would sell the product. Essentially, this is what you do with your best customers. Removing the impediments to the sale is the first job of a company. And that first impediment is your salesman's reluctance to sell or his salesmanship deficiencies.<br /><br />Further proof<br /><br />Here's another recent experience of ours that points out the value in treating your salesmen in the same way as you would your best customers. Our client was a large distributor of steel, industrial hardware, electrical appliances, and plumbing supplies. Each salesman had a geographic territory and sold all lines. Our research showed that the salesmen were skimming only the surface of potential sales. Their sales line was too broad for any one salesman to be fully versed in all the products. So, instead of dividing the line by category and then having different salesmen call on each firm, we did the opposite. We divided the salesmen according to a specific kind of account steel mills, coal mines, contractors, and so on.<br /><br />Soon we found we were getting deeper penetration in each of the lines because we were "market targeting." The more a salesman knows about a specific user/customer, the more he sells and the happier he is in his job. This approach enables salesmen to suggest new lines and pare the customer's inventory of lines he has less use for. Company profits and salesmen commissions increased markedly. Moreover, each customer felt that our salesmen were now experts in his industry. He was confident that our salesmen had the solutions, not just the catalogs.<br /><br />What we did was to implement the attitude that our best customer is our own salesman. By targeting our sales strategy according to specific markets, and making each salesman an "expert" in his own area, we gave the salesman benefits and advantages just as we try to give to customers. Everybody comes out ahead.<br /><br />Industry's best customer<br /><br />There are many reasons why industry isn't terribly happy about salesmen. They cost money to maintain, they complain a lot, they sometimes inflate their expense accounts. But salesmen are the ones who move the products to the buyer, who make the sales that keep industry solvent. Yet, if industry wants high profits, then it must motivate its salesmen to an above-average degree.<br /><br />One of the best ways of doing that is to treat the salesman the way he treats a customer. The salesman does not treat a customer as if he were an employee, and neither within reasonable limits should industry treat a salesman that way. He is the vital link between production and profit. If you do an excellent job of selling the salesman on your products and on ways to sell them better, he will almost inevitably do an excellent job of selling to customers. That's why I say that industry's best "customer" is the salesman, and he should be treated accordingly. Get him sold and you can sell the world.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-27288011698597591512008-02-26T02:00:00.000-08:002008-02-26T02:10:31.544-08:00Body Language - 14 Distracting Mannerisms That Can Cost You SalesCan you picture this body language? At a client meeting, Tom, the sales rep, is unconsciously clicking his pen. Sonia, his associate, is playing with her hair. Mark, the sale manager, is picking at his cuticles as he concentrates on what the client is saying.<br /><br />We may not be aware of our mannerisms, but other people are. Distracting mannerisms can pull attention away from the speaker, and cause them to lose their train of thought. What's worse, we seldom realize our own mannerisms and the effect they have on others.<br /><br />Here are 14 distracting behaviors. Are you guilty of any of them?<br /><br />1. Scratching ourselves<br /><br />2. Bite or licking our lips<br /><br />3. Play with or stroking hair, mustache or beard<br /><br />4. Picking teeth, fingernails or cuticles<br /><br />5. Adjusting glasses, hair or clothing<br /><br />6. Clicking pens<br /><br />7. Bending paper clips or playing with rubber bands<br /><br />8. Drum our fingers or tapping our feet<br /><br />9. Whole body movements such as rocking, swaying or pacing<br /><br />10. Jiggling pocket change<br /><br />11. Clearing our throats<br /><br />12. Frowning in concentration<br /><br />13. Yawning with the mouth wide open<br /><br />14. Twisting a ring, or removing and replacing it<br /><br />These unconscious mannerisms send the message that we are tired, bored or distracted. We can catch ourselves and eliminate distracting habits so we look poised and professional. Ask a trusted friend to help you identify your tics and twitches.<br /><br />You can undercut your words with your body language. If you tap your pen when you speak, the person listening to you will remember your pen. Sit still so you won't create distractions.<br /><br />Whatever you do, from adjusting your eyeglasses to handing out a business card, avoid abrupt, jerky movements that make you look nervous or awkward. To exude self-confidence, keep all your movements controlled and purposeful.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-85283898471767833132008-02-25T02:43:00.000-08:002008-02-25T02:44:12.046-08:00Motivate the SalesmanThe bigger tire firms restrict the dealers not only to a narrow profit margin but sell through countless distributive outlets, including their own stores. This further depresses both prices and profits. We, however, gave the independent tire dealer territorial exclusivity. We made sure the salesmen understood this.<br /><br />But that still wasn't enough. The retail salesmen had been selling the well known tires so long, they had forgotten how to sell. Our client was an unknown name and the technical advantages of its tires were hard to teach to the salesmen.<br /><br />We recognized that we had to conduct more than the usual product training and indoctrination program, and we had to do it fast. First, we wrote up some specific tire case studies that incorporated professional selling skills. Then, instead of having cumbersome meetings, we did the unusual. We rented a large van and outfitted it with video training equipment.<br /><br />We drove from store to store in our van to do our motivational training. We found that the salesmen had been reluctant to commit their reputations to our product because they were weak on its technical advantages. We wanted them to have solid selling techniques backed up by sound product knowledge when they faced prospective customers. We wanted them to have the reeling of successful experience even if it was in a role-playing situation.<br /><br />We spent more than an hour with each salesman going over the technical details, going over the sales cases we had written, and role-playing selling tires to each other and putting it all on videotape right in the van.<br /><br />Then the salesman would review his performance and analyze it. After that, we erased the tape. We did that because we wanted the salesman to feel secure. Letting his boss see the tape would have only made the salesman anxious. And that is something you don't do to your best customer.<br /><br />All this was long, hard work. We put thousands of miles on our van, traveling from one end of the country to the other. Why? Because those salesmen were our best customers. If we could motivate them, build their confidence in our tires sell them then they would sell the product. Essentially, this is what you do with your best customers. Removing the impediments to the sale is the first job of a company. And that first impediment is your salesman's reluctance to sell or his salesmanship deficiencies.<br /><br />Further proof<br /><br />Here's another recent experience of ours that points out the value in treating your salesmen in the same way as you would your best customers. Our client was a large distributor of steel, industrial hardware, electrical appliances, and plumbing supplies. Each salesman had a geographic territory and sold all lines. Our research showed that the salesmen were skimming only the surface of potential sales. Their sales line was too broad for any one salesman to be fully versed in all the products. So, instead of dividing the line by category and then having different salesmen call on each firm, we did the opposite. We divided the salesmen according to a specific kind of account steel mills, coal mines, contractors, and so on.<br /><br />Soon we found we were getting deeper penetration in each of the lines because we were "market targeting." The more a salesman knows about a specific user/customer, the more he sells and the happier he is in his job. This approach enables salesmen to suggest new lines and pare the customer's inventory of lines he has less use for. Company profits and salesmen commissions increased markedly. Moreover, each customer felt that our salesmen were now experts in his industry. He was confident that our salesmen had the solutions, not just the catalogs.<br /><br />What we did was to implement the attitude that our best customer is our own salesman. By targeting our sales strategy according to specific markets, and making each salesman an "expert" in his own area, we gave the salesman benefits and advantages just as we try to give to customers. Everybody comes out ahead.<br /><br />Industry's best customer<br /><br />There are many reasons why industry isn't terribly happy about salesmen. They cost money to maintain, they complain a lot, they sometimes inflate their expense accounts. But salesmen are the ones who move the products to the buyer, who make the sales that keep industry solvent. Yet, if industry wants high profits, then it must motivate its salesmen to an above-average degree.<br /><br />One of the best ways of doing that is to treat the salesman the way he treats a customer. The salesman does not treat a customer as if he were an employee, and neither within reasonable limits should industry treat a salesman that way. He is the vital link between production and profit. If you do an excellent job of selling the salesman on your products and on ways to sell them better, he will almost inevitably do an excellent job of selling to customers. That's why I say that industry's best "customer" is the salesman, and he should be treated accordingly. Get him sold and you can sell the world.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-78672014796122944262008-02-25T02:38:00.000-08:002008-02-25T02:43:37.956-08:00Body Language - 14 Distracting Mannerisms That Can Cost You SalesCan you picture this body language? At a client meeting, Tom, the sales rep, is unconsciously clicking his pen. Sonia, his associate, is playing with her hair. Mark, the sale manager, is picking at his cuticles as he concentrates on what the client is saying.<br /><br />We may not be aware of our mannerisms, but other people are. Distracting mannerisms can pull attention away from the speaker, and cause them to lose their train of thought. What's worse, we seldom realize our own mannerisms and the effect they have on others.<br /><br />Here are 14 distracting behaviors. Are you guilty of any of them?<br /><br />1. Scratching ourselves<br /><br />2. Bite or licking our lips<br /><br />3. Play with or stroking hair, mustache or beard<br /><br />4. Picking teeth, fingernails or cuticles<br /><br />5. Adjusting glasses, hair or clothing<br /><br />6. Clicking pens<br /><br />7. Bending paper clips or playing with rubber bands<br /><br />8. Drum our fingers or tapping our feet<br /><br />9. Whole body movements such as rocking, swaying or pacing<br /><br />10. Jiggling pocket change<br /><br />11. Clearing our throats<br /><br />12. Frowning in concentration<br /><br />13. Yawning with the mouth wide open<br /><br />14. Twisting a ring, or removing and replacing it<br /><br />These unconscious mannerisms send the message that we are tired, bored or distracted. We can catch ourselves and eliminate distracting habits so we look poised and professional. Ask a trusted friend to help you identify your tics and twitches.<br /><br />You can undercut your words with your body language. If you tap your pen when you speak, the person listening to you will remember your pen. Sit still so you won't create distractions.<br /><br />Whatever you do, from adjusting your eyeglasses to handing out a business card, avoid abrupt, jerky movements that make you look nervous or awkward. To exude self-confidence, keep all your movements controlled and purposeful.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-13605666469420088722008-02-19T01:49:00.000-08:002008-02-19T01:50:07.516-08:00Transportation Agent - Sales GrowthAsset based transportation sales forces are grossly inefficient. Totaling up salaries, health benefits, cars, training, and expenses then divided into the calls per day, $500 cost per call is the norm. Long call cycles to sale of 9-12 months are considered the norm in freight sales, putting the cost at +$5,000 for a transactional shipment rarely paying over $500. The slim margins of asset based transportation providers simply can not tolerate this practice. The independent transportation sales agent brings experience, superior skills and results to an otherwise ineffective/inefficient transportation sales marketplace.<br /><br />The new trend is clear with transportation providers using cost effective independent sales agents that focus singularly on closing new business deals. Agents leverage their experience by avoiding asset based behaviors that kill sales such as ongoing reports, meetings for management, training without results, joint calls to satisfy organizational dotted lines, serving internal needs vs. client needs, sales contests, et al etc. Transportation agents understand the need to focus on market referral opportunities, vertical markets and shortened sales cycles as compensation is based on performance results. Sales agents know how to present offerings as measurably important to client needs, explaining within customer processes how a deal will work for them, with constant awareness of building justification to close the sale timely. Sales agents understand they are the catalyst to make a difference in creating new business. They must be convincing throughout the sales process to close deals...with the right targeted opportunity, the right decision makers, at the right time.<br /><br />Professional sales agents focus their resources on activities that lead to closing more deals faster. Representing a portfolio of solutions of measurable value is a critical difference with sales agents in value creation for senior level contacts and their supply chain needs. Asset reps with limited value are relegated lower level influencers who are prone to decisions of convenience, and are simply unable to make business deals. Performance based compensation drives the right behaviors and therefore the right results with independent transportation agents.<br /><br />The critical success factors that sales agents make happen every day are:<br /><br /> • Professionalism. No casual days, no branded shirts on calls, no cheapening of the product-services with goofy advertising specialties, no questionable entertainments. All business dress, always prepared to call objective, appointment efficiency, constantly dollarizing values for the client throughout process of making a deal.<br /> • Prequalified targets. No cold calls, no spray and pray. Every target is researched through various industry information sources for prospects with multiple shipments and the appropriate decision maker contacts for higher call productivity and close ratios.<br /> • Development of senior level contacts who understand measurable bottom line results. Referrals are leveraged for additional growth. Vertical marketing is implemented with every deal. The deal must be engineered to appeal to all influencers impacted by their supply chain of in and out goods.<br /> • Engaging clients. Senior level decision makers have no time for the unprepared or limited value door knockers of asset transportation providers...these are pushed to low level contacts who lack the authority or influence for change but who asset reps love to hang with as non threatening and makes an appearance of doing their job. Access to senior level leadership requires an experienced agent leveraging excellent presentation skills, an understanding of matching right product-services to prequalified needs, leveraging client processes to make the offering a big deal, explaining financial implications, operational impact of savings/growth opportunities with a bold call to action that appeals to decisiveness, and deliverable/measurable values.<br /> • Commitment. Every impression or action of a sales agent reflects their commitment to a deal, successful implementation and service support throughout the process/duration of the contract. Deals structured with visible win-win outcomes, accountability for both parties, ongoing reporting of performance value are required. Agents do not tolerate delay or indecision with influencers as these cause deals to unravel. Agents know how to keep senior players informed and part of the entire process. Lower level influencers often feel need to unravel deals to justify their positions and or maintain asset rep's pizza deliveries, specialty hand outs and unfortunately, sometimes much more.<br /> • Sales Focus. The sea of books on selling, CDs/tapes, seminars or online training are long on fluff, humor and procedurals but very short on performance results or personal accountability. Freight companies often feel training is relatively inexpensive way to educate and/or motivate...essentially to justify sales management existence without facing the reality of addressing true sales performance. Sales agents already have the skills and knowledge it takes to be successful as new deals drive their compensation. While salaried reps are languishing in meetings, training, making reports or calling on unqualified contacts, sales agents are out closing new business.<br /><br />Transportation providers that believe their front line salaried sales personnel are effective are mistaken. Buyers of transportation services have no time to sift through all the various provider presentations of products, services, or technologies. Senior leaders are now more receptive to the integrity and value of an independent sales agent who can consistently look out for the collective best interests of supply chain efficiencies. Transportation sales agency is the future for asset providers who want to grow cost effectively so they can focus on servicing client operational needs.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-63974748266501609862008-02-19T01:47:00.000-08:002008-02-19T01:49:34.453-08:00Motivate the Salesman By Helping HimThe bigger tire firms restrict the dealers not only to a narrow profit margin but sell through countless distributive outlets, including their own stores. This further depresses both prices and profits. We, however, gave the independent tire dealer territorial exclusivity. We made sure the salesmen understood this.<br /><br />But that still wasn't enough. The retail salesmen had been selling the well known tires so long, they had forgotten how to sell. Our client was an unknown name and the technical advantages of its tires were hard to teach to the salesmen.<br /><br />We recognized that we had to conduct more than the usual product training and indoctrination program, and we had to do it fast. First, we wrote up some specific tire case studies that incorporated professional selling skills. Then, instead of having cumbersome meetings, we did the unusual. We rented a large van and outfitted it with video training equipment.<br /><br />We drove from store to store in our van to do our motivational training. We found that the salesmen had been reluctant to commit their reputations to our product because they were weak on its technical advantages. We wanted them to have solid selling techniques backed up by sound product knowledge when they faced prospective customers. We wanted them to have the reeling of successful experience even if it was in a role-playing situation.<br /><br />We spent more than an hour with each salesman going over the technical details, going over the sales cases we had written, and role-playing selling tires to each other and putting it all on videotape right in the van.<br /><br />Then the salesman would review his performance and analyze it. After that, we erased the tape. We did that because we wanted the salesman to feel secure. Letting his boss see the tape would have only made the salesman anxious. And that is something you don't do to your best customer.<br /><br />All this was long, hard work. We put thousands of miles on our van, traveling from one end of the country to the other. Why? Because those salesmen were our best customers. If we could motivate them, build their confidence in our tires sell them then they would sell the product. Essentially, this is what you do with your best customers. Removing the impediments to the sale is the first job of a company. And that first impediment is your salesman's reluctance to sell or his salesmanship deficiencies.<br /><br />Further proof<br /><br />Here's another recent experience of ours that points out the value in treating your salesmen in the same way as you would your best customers. Our client was a large distributor of steel, industrial hardware, electrical appliances, and plumbing supplies. Each salesman had a geographic territory and sold all lines. Our research showed that the salesmen were skimming only the surface of potential sales. Their sales line was too broad for any one salesman to be fully versed in all the products. So, instead of dividing the line by category and then having different salesmen call on each firm, we did the opposite. We divided the salesmen according to a specific kind of account steel mills, coal mines, contractors, and so on.<br /><br />Soon we found we were getting deeper penetration in each of the lines because we were "market targeting." The more a salesman knows about a specific user/customer, the more he sells and the happier he is in his job. This approach enables salesmen to suggest new lines and pare the customer's inventory of lines he has less use for. Company profits and salesmen commissions increased markedly. Moreover, each customer felt that our salesmen were now experts in his industry. He was confident that our salesmen had the solutions, not just the catalogs.<br /><br />What we did was to implement the attitude that our best customer is our own salesman. By targeting our sales strategy according to specific markets, and making each salesman an "expert" in his own area, we gave the salesman benefits and advantages just as we try to give to customers. Everybody comes out ahead.<br /><br />Industry's best customer<br /><br />There are many reasons why industry isn't terribly happy about salesmen. They cost money to maintain, they complain a lot, they sometimes inflate their expense accounts. But salesmen are the ones who move the products to the buyer, who make the sales that keep industry solvent. Yet, if industry wants high profits, then it must motivate its salesmen to an above-average degree.<br /><br />One of the best ways of doing that is to treat the salesman the way he treats a customer. The salesman does not treat a customer as if he were an employee, and neither within reasonable limits should industry treat a salesman that way. He is the vital link between production and profit. If you do an excellent job of selling the salesman on your products and on ways to sell them better, he will almost inevitably do an excellent job of selling to customers. That's why I say that industry's best "customer" is the salesman, and he should be treated accordingly. Get him sold and you can sell the world.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-37371000033144862402008-02-18T03:11:00.001-08:002008-02-18T03:11:40.687-08:00Those "Ah-Ha" Moments As A Sales LeaderOne time someone asked me what were those "ah-ha" moments I experienced as a new region sales leader. I thought about it for a while and shared these three examples.<br /><br />1) Understanding that "performance is progressive" was an "ah-ha moment" for me. In other words, recognizing what was good enough last week, last month and last year won't be good enough going forward if you sales team is going to increase their performance and contributions to the company's success.<br /><br />Companies expect their people to grow and develop year after year. As they gain knowledge and experience the company expects more and better results. Simply put, a Sales Leader must instill the desire in each of his/her direct reports to focus on year over year performance improvement and then drive that sales person to those new levels.<br /><br />Think about your role and responsibility in the area of "teaching" in everything that you do...use emails, voicemails, region meetings and spend time when you make calls with your ASMs to share best practices and coach your people on sales tactics and behavior that will make them more professional, more productive and more successful. Reality; when your sales people grow and develop so does our company's revenue and profits.<br /><br />2) "Activity does not equal accomplishment", was another "ah-ha" moment for me. In other words, you need to make sure your team "is all about results not the amount of their activity".<br /><br />Let me give you an example...sometimes a Sales Leader might direct his/her ASMs to make five calls a week on a certain type of customer. That is describing "activity" expectations but it is not establishing or defining expected results.<br /><br />Bottom line, as the Sales Leader, you need to be crystal clear on your requests and the direction you provide...when you do, you will ensure your team understands the results you expect. If you are not clear, there is a chance they will focus on activity and not accomplishments and we all know that probably won't result in the revenue and profit growth the company needs.<br /><br />3) "2 + 2 does not always equal 4" was one more "ah-ha" moment. The thing that you have to realize as a Sales Leader is this...your company can have the most wonderful, comprehensive and "can't miss" price, product, service and quality package in the industry and still not get the order!<br /><br />The reason why? It is because there is a "history" at every account and that history is an important factor in the customer's sourcing decision.<br /><br />For example, maybe your competitor took better care of your customer than your company did in periods of tight supply. Maybe they loaned the customer money at some point in time, or gave them extended terms, or allowed them to expand to different parts of the country when your company wouldn't.<br /><br />The message is this...if you and your team don't understand the history at each account you can't shape your value proposition to address what is really important to the customer. Insisting that your people know the history (defined as: the behavior of your competitors and your company over time) of the customers they serve is fundamental to your sales person and your company's sales success.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-71814171303182622662008-02-18T03:10:00.000-08:002008-02-18T03:11:08.790-08:00What Is A Sales Pipeline And Why Is It Important?A Sales Pipeline is a useful concept used by Sales Managers, individual sales staff and the owners of small businesses to quantify the demand for their products and services. Regardless of what you're selling, by effectively managing your sales pipeline, you can smooth out customer demand and create a more stable sales cycle with more reliable results.<br /><br />A sales pipeline works by placing cohorts of leads or prospects at the different stages of the sales process/sales cycle, and then measuring their progress through the pipeline, from unqualified lead to satisfied repeat customer.<br /><br />Unfortunately for you and me, the pipeline has a tendency to leak. Leads and prospects fall out of the pipeline on the way, failing to become the happy customers we know they could be.<br /><br />At a gross level, sales pipeline management is nothing more than estimating incoming cash flow. We look at our leads and prospects, make some estimates of the likelihood that they'll eventually buy our products and services, and feed that information along with their expected spend into our projections to find out how much revenue we're expecting to make.<br /><br />But the real power of sales pipeline management becomes clear when we establish proper metrics and put processes in place to respond to changes in those metrics. To illustrate, consider the following story.<br /><br />A retail sales client of ours once called us to ask if we could help him improve his company's sales. He explained that sales revenue was not high enough, and that his staff needed training in closing sales, so that they could close more sales and therefore improve sales revenue.<br /><br />When we spent some time with his staff, it became clear that there was nothing wrong with their ability to close sales. Instead, we found that staff were finding it difficult to start or carry on a conversation with a customer. Most potential customers were walking into the stores, then walking out again without really having an opportunity to talk about the products they wanted to buy.<br /><br />By analysing the sales pipeline and the particular points within the sales process where more customers were "leaking" from the pipeline, we were able to determine that the biggest problem staff had was not in closing sales, but in opening a dialogue with customers.<br /><br />Once we established that, we ran some training courses and created training aids designed to assist staff in opening a sale and keeping a conversation going.<br /><br />Year on year sales at each store increased by up to 20%.<br /><br />There are several benefits to managing your sales pipeline effectively:<br /><br /> * By focusing on the entire pipeline instead of taking a short-term focus on closing sales, or getting a single high-value contract over the line, demand for your services will be smoother and your cash flow more reliable.<br /><br /> * Making incremental improvements of as little as 1-2% in your conversion rates can increase your sales by much more.<br /><br /> * An in-depth analysis of when and why your leads and prospects leak from the pipeline will pinpoint specific areas for improvement and help you get far more value for your training dollar.<br /><br /> * If you keep track of which prospects leak from your sales pipeline and which prospects don't, you can construct a profile of prospects who are more likely to buy and prospects who are less likely to buy. This knowledge will help you to focus your marketing material and allow you to more accurately qualify your leads, leading to a more streamlined, more efficient and less costly sales process.<br /><br /> * Once you have established an accurate sales pipeline, you can use it to plan for new product launches. If you were to plug all the information about your new product into an existing sales pipeline, you would quickly get a pretty good idea of how many leads you're going to have to generate to reach your new product's sales target. This will in turn assist you in deciding how to launch the product, and give you an idea of how much it's going to cost. If you're going to need 500,000 leads to reach your sales target, you're probably going to have to look at a mass market advertising campaign.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37989281.post-34673358710229425712008-02-13T02:26:00.000-08:002008-02-13T02:27:05.786-08:00Sales Coaching - 3 Skills to Focus OnA sales professional's success is determined by your willingness to invest in yourself. There are two areas for personal development that most will invest in, and one area only Top Producers invest in. Those who aren't Top Producers never even think to invest in themselves in this way.<br /><br />That's not to say you shouldn't invest in all three areas because you should. The two areas you're familiar with are self-improvement and sales process training. The area you may not be so familiar with is customer focus.<br /><br />Self-improvement development is designed to help you to increase your personal productivity, enthusiasm, and energy level. Yes, you need to be focused on doing the things that directly lead to business with enthusiasm for what you have to offer and with an energy level that reflects your commitment. Salespeople who are lacking in these areas tend to be very busy doing lots of "things", but have little production to show for their efforts.<br /><br />Sales training development is essential. There's no question you need the skills to prospect, present, overcome stalls and objections, and close the sale. Without proficiency in these key sales skills you struggle only landing the occasional easy sale.<br /><br />Client focus development is the critical difference between the average salesperson and the Top Producer. When you've developed your client focus skills you're able to: clearly understand the clients goals and get the client to openly share those goals with you, you're able to work with the client to develop a plan for the accomplishment of those goals in a mutually engaging on-going conversation, and you're able to develop a relationship with the client based on integrity and accountability leading to repeat business and referrals.zzzzzzzzzzzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10914284557186689996noreply@blogger.com