We are where serious sales professionals come to collaborate, learn, and connect at a higher level. From the CEO to the front-line sales representative, our freely available universal selling framework and professional selling ethical framework help the entire organization improve their selling abilities. We help individuals focus on the customer, achieve desired results, hire based on the the right competencies, and understand strengths and weaknesses.
|
|
We Take Your Success Seriously..
In today’s highly competitive market, salespeople struggle to stand out. It’s not good enough to be “accessible,” you have to be different and credible. To us, this means “differentiation through individual leadership.” By taking a leadership role in the profession, you act differently, talk differently, and more importantly, you sell differently. It’s something that buyers notice — no matter where they are across the globe. Our services help you:.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Uniting the Profession..
Self regulation and one-voice. These are the hallmarks of any true profession. When salespeople get together to discuss the UPSA standard, magical things happen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Facilitating Real Results…
The sales profession has evolved. Now, great salespeople and even their organizations customize their own unique approach based on keen insight and best practices. We support this with a highly effective framework:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How Do Customers See High Performing Salespeople?
We intuitively know there are skill and proficiency differences between salespeople who consistently achieve high results and those who don’t. The search for defining those differences has been a robust area of discussion and study for many years. The assumption is that if you can define the behaviors that correlate with success, you can hire and/or train to that profile. Competency studies, formal academic research, anecdotal stories, and insights from sales managers and executives have all been the bases of models of high performance that, in the final analysis, revolve around some level of customer focus as a salient, unifying concept as well as on face-to-face, product knowledge and relationship skills.
At C-Lens Index, after working for many years with different sales organizations, we recognize that all these studies and discussions describe a salesperson focused on delivering value through the sales process. That means the customer actually benefits from the sales experience, both before buying anything and throughout the relationship that follows. For example, the discovery process results in new insights about needs and their impact on the business, products and services can be creatively configured to the situation, the salesperson’s resource network can be brought in to help, and application ideas and examples from other sources in the customer’s industry are discussed. To put this example in plain terms, if you are a car insurance consultant then you need to use insightful questioning to ascertain the needs of a particular customer, and use your response to these needs to build rapport and present a solution to the customer’s need. You may add value to the customer’s experience if you compare bike insurance options as well as car insurance options. This is what a superior sales person does. In all, the relationship-through the sales process-becomes an added value from the vendor. Our point of view is that a salesperson who recognizes that delivering this value is the key to his or her role and whose actions reflect that philosophy will be a High Performer compared to those who are otherwise focused on product, fulfillment, or price-based selling.
We’ve been able to identify the behavioral indicators of that value-laden relationship and use them to measure what customers are actually seeing in the sales process. We call those indicators “Sales Actions,” and they mirror the behavior and attitude of a salesperson who is focused on customer value. In a recent C-Lens Index scan for a manufacturing company, we collected data from over 400 customers on their views of their salesperson. We asked them how frequently they saw the sales actions played out and how important those actions were to them. In analyzing the data, we compared the results of salespeople who were identified as High Performers with those identified as Low Performers. These were defined by our client in terms of consistent long-term results as well as reputation in the company for professionalism. In our sample of 58 salespeople, we worked with eight salespeople in each category. The results provide some insights into what customers are seeing High Performers do more frequently than Low Performers.
High Performers Seen Performing All Sales Actions More Frequently
Overall, customers see High Performers demonstrating each and every C-Lens Index sales action to a greater extent than low performers. While this helps to validate the C-Lens items and concept, it also shows that High Performers are seen differently in the eyes of the customer. The average frequency score of High Performers was 64.28 percent while the Low Performers scored 47.75 percent. The larger differences will be discussed below. However, it is important to point out that these sales actions are associated with success, and they are aligned with delivering a value-based experience to the customer. Apparently, customers see this difference.
The Largest Gaps Between High and Low Performers
We identified 12 Sales Actions out of 28 where High Performers scored 20 percentage points or more than Low Performers in terms of frequency as seen by customers. It doesn’t matter what products are being sold whether they are payday loans or investment properties or fancy dress or even an essay writing service, these figures tend to stay true in any market. Since the numbers in the sample were not large enough for statistical comparisons, we felt 20 percent was a sufficient arbitrary difference to note any trends or themes between the groups. The following are the Sales Actions which were the largest gaps between High and Low performers
1. Asks in-depth probing questions to better understand my business and my needs.
2. Discovers what is on my mind by focusing on what I say and how I say it
3. Reassures me that the vendor company’s team working with me has experience and expertise in addressing needs
4. Finds other valuable resources for me that also might help address my needs
5. Always remains diplomatically straightforward in describing issues
6. Tells me how the vendor company, its products and services are uniquely different from other vendors
7. Provides clear, easy-to-understand examples of how the vendor company, its products or services will help me and my own customers
8. Directly and creatively addresses real or perceived concerns that I raise
9. Takes appropriate steps within the vendor company to accomplish tasks for me in a timely manner
10. Uses internal/external experts and resources to maximize the value to me of the vendor company’s products and services
11. Ensures my company and I are receiving the promised benefits of the products and service provided
12. Stays current and informed about my business performance, its strategy, recent changes, and emerging needs
What this tells us about High Performers versus Low Performers is most interesting:
High performers more frequently practice basic face-to-face selling skills. [Asking questions (1) and Listening (3).] We presume that comfort in using these fundamental skills effectively is an indicator of High Performance. Euso The lower frequency by Low Performers may indicate a need for training, lack of experience, differences in coaching and supervision or poor execution.
High performers also are seen more frequently describing product or service uniqueness and examples of how these can be applied. [Tell how uniquely different (6), Provide clear examples (7), other basic face-to-face skills.] Fluency and confidence in product knowledge is apparently an indicator of high performance. It is one thing to describe features and benefits and quite another to tell convincing stories about how product or service uniqueness plays out and how applications actually work for customers.
High performers more frequently bring other resources and expertise that can help the customer to the sales process and, if needed, help solve problems. [Find other resources (4), Creatively address concerns (8), Use internal/external experts (10.] This suggests an openness to leverage value that salespeople have cultivated in their own personal networks as well as to widen out the scope of the customer’s situation and open it up to creative problem-solving. Seeing beyond the immediate set of facts and data is a sophisticated skill that not only requires product and service knowledge, but confidence and knowledge of other applications. Creatively solving problems-whether independently or with internal colleagues-shows a command of concepts and applications and fluency of thinking skills.
High performers show empathy as reflected in reassuring the customer that he or she is in good hands and acting diplomatically. For example a sales consultant for resveratrol would show sympathy with the problem of ageing and assure the prospect that others have had good results from using the product. [Reassures me the team has experience (3) and Always remains straightforward (5).] Is this a matter of higher emotional intelligence or experience in pre-empting difficult situations? These Sales Actions could signify the High Performer is more “tuned in” to the customer’s reactions as the relationship unfolds.
Finally, High Performers are seen as more frequently being invested in the customer’s company and the buyer. [Ensures benefits (11) and Stays current and informed (12).] These are higher-order Sales Actions, requiring an effort and a certain amount of risk by opening up the possibility that the customer is not getting what he or she bought. Hydroxatone Nevertheless, this kind of pro-active inquiry into the outcomes of product and service applications as well as customer status is a mark of being truly interested in serving the customer.
Emerging Profile of High Performers
This study is certainly far from definitive, but it suggests what customers see in high and low performing salespeople. For one thing, customers of high performing salespeople see them demonstrating all the Sales Actions more frequently than Low Performers. While a small number of these Sales Actions are seen only slightly more frequently in High Performers than in Low Performers, most Sales Actions show enough of a gap to stimulate questions about what drives customers to see these differences. It remains to be seen whether these behaviors are more “visible” because of experience, the deliberative nature with which they are applied, or other reasons.
When the more extreme gaps (20 percent +) are examined, an interesting set of suppositions emerges. We will present these as questions rather than as definitive statements that will hopefully create more dialogue about what is at the core of high performance in salespeople.
1. Are High Performers more comfortable and fluent with a broader scope of knowledge about customers, their businesses and how products and services are used than Low Performers?
2. Do High Performers have wider networks and effective working relationships with a variety of resources inside and external to the vendor company?
3. Are High Performers basically more empathetic or at least better able to identify what customers are facing both personally and professionally?
4. Is it possible that High Performers are more engaged with what it takes to make customers satisfied, ensuring the value of product and services and a long-term, profitable relationship?
While these answers are as yet not defined, the data from this study suggest that skills and knowledge go only so far in creating high performing salespeople. PMH If these data are on the right track, then perhaps the path to high performance needs to include educating salespeople about the role they can play in the customer’s business and professional success.
Michael D. Maginn has been working with and studying selling for over 25 years. He has interviewed hundreds of sales people in many different lines of business in developing custom sales training programs, always searching for the behaviors that define high performers. As Vice President, Research and Development for The Forum Corporation, he completed one of a number of landmark sales competency studies and subsequent best-selling sales programs. Since then, as the president of Singularity Group, Hamilton, MA., he has worked with many sales organizations in defining how the sales process can add value to the customer’s experience. He is the designer of C-Lens Index, a sales assessment tool which gathers data on the customer’s view of the sales process as well as the author of 5 Skills of Master Salespeople, available from Amazon.com.
Focus on The Buying Process
In order to increase your chances of making the sale, you must understand the buying process that the average customer goes through before making a decision. This is not a formal process, of course, but a mental process. Some buyers may skip some of the steps depending upon their situation and personality, but if you can determine where your prospect is in this process, you have a much better chance of closing the sale.
The Six Steps of the Buying Process
1. Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction. The prospect has recognized that he or she is either happy with the way things currently are and doesn’t want to make a change, or the prospect is unhappy with the way things currently are and is considering a change.
2. Maybe. The prospect is in an uncertain state of mind, thinking “I might want to do something different, but I might not want to do anything different.”
3. Deciding. The prospect wants to take action but is uncertain what action to take.
4. Gathering information. The prospect is interested in finding out what options are available.
5. Analyzing and comparing. The prospect wants to weigh all of the options before making a final decision.
6. Ripe to take action. The prospect is ready to make a decision.
Every time you come into contact with a prospect whether the product is outdoor furniture or a local product such as flooring Garland or SEO Dallas , their thoughts will no doubt be somewhere on this list of steps. It’s up to you as a professional salesperson to determine which step it is through the questions you ask and the observations you make. Some people go through the steps quickly, and some will spend a good bit of time in each area.
No matter your prospect’s pace, if you rush ahead of them, you will lose the sale. Just as you must learn to understand the prospect’s personality type, you need to understand his or her place in the buying process in order to tailor your presentation accordingly.
People who are in steps one and two, for example, need to be convinced that their current situation could be greatly improved. For example if you are a seller of the e cigarette you need to present a solid argument for why E cigarettes are superior to cigarettes that are simply purchased from the local store. In addition to simply presenting the features, ensure you emphasise the direct benefit to the customer. In the example above this would mean emphasising that E cigarettes do not contain tar or other additives so they are much safer to use and do not produce undesirable odors. A person in step three needs to know how your particular product will improve their circumstances.
For step four, be ready to answer detailed questions and highlight the product’s benefits that are specific to this person’s needs. For example a potential customer needs to hear exactly how Crescent Processing electronic payment services are going to make it easier for their clients to make payments and how it will make business processes also more streamlined before they are ready to move to the next step.
Customers in steps five and six are ready to hear why your product or service – above all others – is the one they should choose.
You have a much greater chance of making a sale if you can determine where your prospect’s mind falls within the six steps. You will be able to ask the right questions and offer the information they need to know without pushing them too far too soon.
J. Garces Jr. is an Internet marketer and author of http://www.myleadgenerationsecrets.com – a guide to getting more leads than you can handle using insider marketing strategies.Do you have marketing and sales skills? If so, then join my team helping to market our big-ticket product and start earning a CEO’s salary!
How to Choose a Sales Training Program
Whether you are a corporate sales executive needing to increase company revenues, a sales manager wanting to improve your team’s results, or a sales professional looking to invest in your own self improvement, you need to evaluate any sales or sales management training course properly before buying it. All courses are not created equal and a high price tag does not necessarily guarantee results.
Do You Really Need Sales Training?
The first decision you need to make in choosing a sales training program is whether you even need sales training in the first place. Is sales training really necessary? To answer that question, you need to look at the facts.
Numerous studies show that 25 percent of sales representatives produce 90 to 95 percent of all sales. Clearly, most sales people are not selling up to their potential and therefore not making the incomes they could, nor producing the revenues they should. Why is this case? It’s not that the job can’t be done because 25 percent are doing it, and doing it well. It’s because the other 75 percent either are not in the right sales position or they truly don’t know how to sell. If all sales people knew and did what the top 25 percent do, then all sales people would be selling more!
You want your mechanic well trained, you want your financial advisor well trained, you want your doctor well trained and yes, you should want your sales team well trained and you would want them to have the best online CRM tool to use for leads and customer management. It is amazing that some companies today spend more on photocopier maintenance than they invest in those employees in charge of driving revenue for the company, the very lifeblood of the business!
Both managers and sales representatives alike need to buy into the fact that, regardless of the years of experience in the trade, the learning should never stop. If most of the sales are produced by so few of the sales representatives, obviously there is room for improvement for the rest. Great sales people and sales managers are not born, they are made! They are the result of hard work, passion, motivation to excellence and most importantly, training.
Why Most Sales Training Programs Fail
Many sales representatives and companies who have invested in sales and sales management training have been disappointed with the results. Icon Res In many cases, after spending tens of thousands of dollars on a training program, there was no positive change in behavior or no measurable improvement in sales results.
The reason for these failures is not because of the size of the investment or the skill level of the participants, it’s because of the methods of the training program itself. As quantified in a study by Dale, the average person forgets 90% of what they hear in a lecture based training program. Yet most sales training courses still consist of only seminars given around a board room table.
When you think about it, lecture based training is like trying to train a professional sports team by inviting a “facilitator” to talk to your athletes about how to play the game and then sending them into competition and expecting them to be successful. Sounds ludicrous, doesn’t it? So why then do so many companies believe they can train their sales people by sending them to training programs where they only listen to a lecture for a few hours and expect them to be able to sell when they hit the streets the next day?
How You Should Evaluate Sales Training Programs
To achieve the desired results from sales or sales management training, you must look for programs that take into account how people learn. As summarized from Sullivan et al, there are eight principals required for effective adult learning:
1. The student should be ready to learn.
2. The program should build on what the student already knows or has experienced.
3. Students should be aware of what they need to learn.
4. A variety of training methods and techniques works best.
5. Opportunities to practice skills are essential for skill acquisition and competency.
6. Repetition is necessary to become competent or proficient in a skill.
7. The more realistic the learning situation, the more effective the learning.
8. Feedback should be immediate, positive and nonjudgmental.
The keys to success are ensuring that each participant has the opportunity to actually practice their newly learned skills (as opposed to just being lectured to), and that each new skill introduced builds on a previous one learned. It is also critical that the participants have access to their trainer/coach after the training course is complete for ongoing feedback and support. Unfortunately, most lecture based sales training programs do not provide any of this, and therefore ultimately fail to provide the desired results.
In addition to the need for practical exercises and ongoing coaching support discussed above, other questions to consider when evaluating sales and sales management training programs include:
• Do the techniques and materials being taught actually produce measurable results? Are the training programs guaranteed? Its one thing for a training company to say they have great programs, but it quite another for them to stand behind them with a guarantee.
• Are you learning from a qualified trainer? Anyone can attempt to provide sales training by reading a book and delivering a seminar. To be successful, your trainer should be experienced, knowledgeable, and have a proven track record of success.
• Are the programs customizable for you and your products? You don’t just want to talk about theories about how to sell any product, you want to be able to put those theories into practice so that you start to sell your product.
• Is there a mechanism like testing or accreditation exams in place to ensure that the participants are learning the materials? If you don’t keep score, how do you know you are winning?
• Are the training programs broken into sessions over a period of time or are they a one shot deal? Sales is a process that can be repeated, but no one is going to learn that process in one afternoon.
• Are the programs available in different formats, like self study programs, online interactive webinars, as well as just the traditional onsite programs? You must consider travel time and expenses when evaluating your training options, and today’s e-learning alternatives may be a better fit to your budget.
There is no question that investing in yourself or your team is the right way to go to point you down the road to achieving your sales potential. However, if you want to improve your sales or sales management training results, then you have to change the way you deliver your sales training!
For a free copy of the B2B Sales Connections Training Program Decision Matrix to help you choose a training program that is right for you, send me an email and I will send you a copy immediately. Whatever program you choose, we wish you nothing but success in your future.
Aim Higher!
Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Connections
Susan A. Enns is managing partner of B2B Sales Connections, the online sales training website with free sales resources, a specialized sales job board and free resume listing services dedicated only to business to business sales professionals. She has a proven track record of success, with over 22 years of direct sales, management and executive level business to business experience. Her accomplishments include being the top sales rep in Canada, managing the top sales branch, and achieving outstanding sales growth in a national channel sales organization. She has written the downloadable e-courses “Action Plan For Sales Success” and “Action Plan For Sales Management Success”, as well as many automated sales tools, and as the B2B Sales Coach, she writes and edits the company’s newsletter, AIM HIGHER. Currently Susan serves on the Leadership Executive of the Sales Professionals of Ottawa as Vice President. For more information, visit http://www.b2bsalesconnections.com.
Is ‘Sales Profession’ an Oxymoron?
When you hear somebody say, “that Joe is quite a sales guy,” it is usually not intended as a compliment. Sales professionals have even been depicted as shady in children’s cartoons. They are typically saying that Joe is a fast-talking, glad-handing, person who can make you want something that you have heretofore had no need for, and will find no need for once you own one of each of the items he’s selling.
If you are in Sales, you have probably heard these before:
Q: “How can you tell a sales person is lying?”
A: “His lips are moving.”
Q: “Why do lawyers like sales people?”
A: “They give them someone to look down on.”
Sadly, the term sales professional is often seen as an oxymoron, in much the same manner as plastic silverware, accurate forecast, or affordable housing in the metro DC area.
In the interest of complete candor, many of our predecessors, and some of our contemporaries, have earned this less than stellar reputation for our profession. You know who you are, especially if you just felt the urge to stop reading. In the interest of fairness though, every profession has its bad apples. Would you want to face the IRS backed with Enron’s accountants? Or how about looking up at your surgeon to see that he is one of those weight loss infomercial doctors? An entire profession should not be judged by the behavior of a small minority.
The next time you meet a sales person, ask them about their thoughts on the “Ethics Triad.” The Ethics Triad is something that all professionals should have, and the salesperson is no exception. True sales professionals subscribe either consciously or unconsciously to the Ethics Triad – rooted in the trio of questions of “is it legal?” “is it moral?” “is it ethical?”
Is it legal? Are the actions you are considering, or the recommendation you are making conform to the laws of your community, your country, and the policies of your firm? If there is some question in your mind, then you owe it to yourself, your firm, and your customers to review what you are doing with senior management or legal council.
Is it moral? Is what you are doing fair to all parties involved? It is said that a person’s character is measured by what they do when nobody is looking. In the harsh light of day, are you pursuing a course of action that you would be proud to have broadcast on the evening news in your hometown?
Is it ethical? The ethics of the medical profession are rooted in three simple, yet powerful words: do no harm. The ethics of the sales profession can be rooted in three equally simple, and powerful words: serve your customer. The true sales professionals seek to achieve his goals, through helping his customers achieve their goals. By subordinating his wants to the needs of the customer, the sales professional demonstrates his commitment to service, and inoculates himself against the twin demons of temptation and greed.
The most precious asset of the sales professional is his or her reputation in the marketplace. By focusing on your customer, keeping the ethics triad in mind, and building a relationship with your client, you will earn a reputation for being trustworthy, honesty, integrity, and a commitment to service. These are the pillars upon which your professional reputation rests-think about it.
Brian Lambert is the Director of Sales Development and Performance at the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). In this role, he is responsible for meeting the unique challenges of performance professionals focused on the sales profession. He is responsible for conducting primary research and creating resources, articles, and other custom content that helps individuals design and deliver sales training, manage and develop high performing sales talent, and improve salesperson performance. Brian has fifteen years of experience in sales, sales management, sales training, and sales consulting and is an internationally recognized expert on the state of the sales profession as well as current trends in transforming sales team systems, processes, and people.
Brian is a highly sought after world-wide speaker, author, and trainer on sales competency, sales performance, sales process, sales professionalism, sales ethics, and sales process.
Find out about Brian at http://www.salestrainingdrivers.com Visit ASTD’s Sales Training Initiative at: http://www.astd.org/communities/salestraining
Selling War – Only The Strong Survive?
Everywhere we turn these days – whether its the media, our co-workers, financial specialists – there is a continual stream of bad news. Horrible economic forecasts, rising costs, unemployment, sales slumps.
EXCUSES! EXCUSES! EXCUSES!
Some people just love to make excuse after excuse when times are tough. Some days are just harder than others – just as the difficulties of raising kids is more difficult at different stages in their lives. We just need to continue to adapt and grow and find new ways to forge through each “stage”.
Selling is selling. Granted, nowadays it harder. We all get that. NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO JUST SIT BACK AND WAIT FOR A SALE TO HAPPEN. Sales should never be about that. Rather, being a salesman should only be for those who enjoy the process and know that it takes old-fashioned hard work.
In times of economic hardship, a “filtering out” of the so-so salesmen will occur, making room for the others who really strive to put the time in day after day – not making excuses – and do the job they were hired to do.
As sales leaders, we are NOT BUILT TO WAIT FOR THINGS TO COME TO US. Rather, we hunt – and hunt with a vengeance. We need to gather as much business intelligence as we can and use this to guide our sales efforts. We need to be proactive in speaking to our customers and in ”being out there” and present in the market through advertising our services. This doesn’t have to be through highly expensive giant billboards. It can be something much more subtle like custom lanyards with your company logo on them that can be handed out to prospective customers. They will appreciate the freebie and also appreciate the fact that you didn’t ram your sales message down their throats! Not in a negative way, but rather, we hunt with passion, and determination, and the desire to prove to our clients that we deserve their business.
I, personally, am someone who thrives in the current environment. THE WEAK DO NOT BELONG IN SALES.
When salesmen say that “customers just aren’t easy to find” and “it’s impossible to get a sale in this economy”, I fight back and say to myself that it is these times, and this applies to any business, that we begin to separate the strong from the weak.
I just recently did a major renovation to my property. After interviewing various contractors, I would eventually hire the ones who did not come to me all “gangbusters” – who’s ego’s I could feel before they even began talking to me. Rather, I respected the ones who asked many questions, and allowed me to let them know my needs. In other words, I felt as if “I” mattered. Look – in sales, of course it’s all about making money. We all need to make a living. However, this is never something that you want your customer to see or feel during the project. As I stress over and over in my book, relationship selling is the key. Never “over-sell” them. LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN. And then you tell them how you can get them to their goal.
Bad economy or not, we all still need to buy things and services. And we always will. People are just being more cautious about how and where they spend it. Which is why only the strong and competent and deserving salesmen will prosper. People and customers are looking at things with a keener eye. So as sales leaders, we need to sharpen our pencils daily, keep a line of effective communication with our customers, and continue to nurture the business relationship.
Only the strong will survive – as it should be. It sounds harsh, but if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
And those who do survive? STAND PROUD!
Continue to sharpen your skills, ALWAYS LISTEN TO THE NEEDS OF YOUR CUSTOMERS, continue to focus on your strengths and work on areas that you need to improve.
THE SALES ARE STILL OUT THERE….
As a 30-year industry veteran, Marco Giunta has always had a futurist look at IT, and worked with many of the leading companies in the Outsourcing industry, in the likes of Tata, Accenture, Collective Technologies, Storage Networks, Cordiant Communications, Decision One and IBM.
Marco has held various positions of increasing responsibility in management, sales, technology, and business development covering Information Technology, E-commerce, Data Center infrastructure, Startup Companies and enterprise software and communications.
The Sign of a True Sales Pro – Admitting We’re Never Too Good For Coaching
Ringggg. Ringggg. Not my favorite sound in the evening when I am in the midst of all kinds of fun mothering activities – homework, cleaning, and moderating disagreements between teenagers. And yet I picked up the phone…
“Hi Nancy, it’s Virginia.”
Oh, okay, I know who this is…and after some pleasantries…
“I’m calling to tell you about my work because you asked me about my new job the other night.”
Hmmm. Okay.
She continued…”I’m so excited and want you to meet the guys I work with.”
And so the discussion went. Me justifying why I didn’t need to meet these “guys” as I don’t need their services and Virginia giving me more and more options on times and locations because I should meet them. She was determined that I needed to do this because they are so great! And I was determined that I wasn’t taking a half day of my life to meet with anyone I didn’t need to meet with.
I hung up feeling like I had dodged the bullet for now…and went on with my evening.
Forty-five minutes later…Ringggg. Ringggg. Now who?
“Hi, it’s Virginia again. I’m calling to get some advice. Do you have a few minutes?”
Of course…
“I don’t think the conversation went the best before and I want your advice on what I can do to have different outcomes in making my calls.”
What??? Calling a sales expert who trains people to be more successful in sales to ask for advice? Now THAT got me interested! We then had over an hour discussion on the objective of making calls, how to put the focus on the caller instead of our own excitement about what we do, asking good questions and being a great listener. Fortunately, all of these actions are critical skills she had already developed in her years in the medical profession. Now she needed to apply them to her new career in sales.
Virginia showed great professionalism. She did what so many sales professionals will not do. She:
• Evaluated her call objectively
• Acknowledged that it could have gone much better
• Asked for coaching to do better next time
Can you imagine how hard it was for Virginia to pick up the phone and call me back? She realized that these first calls in her new role – to the people she had existing relationships with – could make or break her future. She didn’t get defensive. She listened to the advice, asked for clarification and drilled down to specific actions she could take. And finally Virginia then committed to those actions.
What a great demonstration of strong emotional intelligence!
Rookie or not, Virginia’s willingness to call me back sets her apart from a lot of seasoned sales professionals. I think she has a great career ahead of her with that type of mindset.
What about you? What are you currently doing that isn’t producing the results you want/need? Who can you call for advice or coaching so you can do better? I challenge you to pick up the phone and call them and let us know what you learned.
Sharpenz is dedicated to providing sales managers the resources and tools they need to energize, engage and equip their sales team to sell each week. Our 30-minute power sales booster meetings help companies increase sales by providing the right tools and training – fast. Designed with the busy manager in mind, Sharpenz ready-to-go sales training kits will give your sales team the opportunity to grow and earn more – all in a half hour of power. To learn more, visit http://www.sharpenz.com and sign up for your free ready-to-go sales training kit today!
Three Core Competencies Sales People Must Have Or Develop
Sales training helps you keep it moving! What does it take to be a superstar-sales rep? It’s not easy. There are at least 51 competencies for which a sales rep must excel in order to produce stardom and maximize payouts. A competency is an aspect or the qualities people posses will cause that person to excel in sales. Awareness of competencies is the first step to improving your career. Three related top competencies include “Driving for Results”, being “Action Orientated”, and “Acting with Courage”. There is a fine line between too little of a good thing and too much. Let’s define how much is too much.
Drive for Result… What picture comes in mind when you think about driving for results? You may think about driving a huge truck down the road with the petal to the metal. This competency is about staying focused on pursuing a goal. A person who drives for results is able to appropriately set priorities than dismissing items that might distract him or her from achieving the goal. In achieving goals, the person who drives for results can be counted on for hitting goals consistently. This person is highly prized by her company and by the competition.
Be careful because it is possible to overuse the skill of driving for results. Movies are made up of people that overuse the skill of “Driving for Results”. You can picture the person who pursues goals, getting things done, so much so that they run over people in the process. There are plenty of dead bodies in the wake of this person’s pursuit of the goal. In addition, this person shows no regard for processes, thus, constantly shortcuts processes, causing problems for others to clean up along the way. I’ve managed these types of sales reps in my career. At first I was happy because we were getting sales in the door. The results were great, however, the dead bodies were piled up to the point where I couldn’t ignore that we had an issue. Soon after discovering the dead bodies, I found there were tons of broken promises made to customers. The sales rep that overused the “Drive for Results” had promised services we could not deliver; the customers were unhappy and became disenchanted with our company as a result. Not good.
What does it mean to be action orientated? Being action orientated means having boundless energy to get things done quickly, even difficult challenging items. It means having the ability to seize upon opportunities, even in the spur of the moment. Excellent sales reps know that they need to be prepared to take advantage of opportunities when the opportunities are presented.
As a sales leader, I could easily identify the direct reports were not action orientated enough. There were three signs that these folks were slacking. First, the list of accounts in the pipeline didn’t change and the sales process wasn’t moving forward. This meant that my direct reports were comfortable working with the same people while in the field and were not pushing the envelope to increase the pipeline or expanding the people they were meeting. Second, these sales reps were uncomfortable with trying new strategies. For example, if my direct reports required that a new strategy be planned out to in very concrete terms, then I knew that they were not pushing to expand their skills. Last clue was the inability to ask the client to help move the sales process forward. These sales reps were more comfortable making social calls rather than sales calls.
Is it possible to be too action orientated? You bet. From a personal standpoint, I have been guilty of overdoing it on occasion. How do I know when I am overusing this aptitude? I know I am overdoing it when I forget to follow up on the promises that I made to clients or when I can’t follow up on the promises because there is not enough time in the day to do so. Another sign is that I generated errors in my communications to others. When I review emails and find that the email are riddled with mistakes and make no sense, I know I need to slow down. I also find that when I am moving too fast, I lose my ability to listen to others and that emotionally I lose my temper easily. Be aware that are too much action is harmful.
Last, the word courage comes from the Old French word, “cuer” which means “heart and spirit”. Courage perfectly links with “Drive for Results” and being “Action Orientated” because in order to excel in sales; you must have the courage to act when your inner critic tells you differently and “Drive for Results” when most people would give up. The fact is you will need courage most when you are working with both your external and internal clients to surpass even the toughest goals.
Your inner critic can work against you as you work with your external clients. Each person’s inner critic has different messages of fear. My inner critic, for example, works against me whenever I have to deal with a specific customer type. Explicitly, customers that were highly analytical, skeptical, and short tempered. I usual hear my inner critic indicate that it would take too much time to understand this customer types explicit need and I that there is no way I can bring this person around. In turn, I am tempted to not approach these types of customers or to act timid. The result from listening to my inner critic is disastrous. I have heard the inner critic of others toil against them as well. For example, I hear things like, “This product will never sell” or “There is nothing we can do to stop that customer from leaving us and going to the competition” and “I can’t ask for a higher price, I will lose business.” Unfortunately, the inner critic’s mantras continue even in the face of evidence that says otherwise. It takes courage to question the inner critic and begin to act differently. Questions such as “How can I keep the customer and ask for a better price?”, “How can I keep the customer from going to the competition?”, and “How would I characterizes a customer that would love this product?” help to overcome the inner critic.
It also takes courage to work effectively with internal clients. Your internal clients are the people that are relied upon to get things done for your clients even when you are not there. These may be the people that put together bids, gather pricing, write up custom proposals, approve processes for clients, and act as customer or technical support for your clients. In general, these people, in all likelihood, do not report to you, however, you must be a leader among them. It takes courage to act as a leader. As a leader you must ask that these folks deliver information and deliverables on time and in a professional manner. You are essentially asking these folks to keep promises so that you can, in turn, meet the promises you made with your clients. If your internal clients break their promises, it will take courage to work through the broken promises in a professional, courteous, and effective manner. Becoming a leader among your company is where the average fail and the best sales reps excel. The average sales rep feels it’s the bosses’ job to hold people accountable whereas the best sales reps feel it is their job to hold people accountable.
The best sales reps have the courage to push through even in the most difficult of times and in the face of obstacles. It is because the best have the courage, the will, the heart, and the passion to take action. The best sales reps step up to the plate when working with difficult customers and when dealing with broken promises. The sales leaders step up in effective ways that spurs teams of people to success. In the face of hardship, when others pepper in resistant cynicism and doubt, or their inner critic puts them down, the sales super stars find a way to persevere. In the face of such challenges, the best sales reps are able to utilize their competency of courage, action orientation, and drive for results to produce sales growth.
How do you use this information to improve your career? First, stay balanced. Time management tools and priority lists helps to achieve balance. Stay steady, have a plan, don’t overpromise yet insure that you are moving your sales processes forward. Your goal should be to make sure you are getting right things done and completed correctly. Second, keep track of your stories. Collect stories illustrating the goal you were after, what you did to stay motivated to hit the goal, what you did to stay focused, how did you use others to help you hit your goals, your results, and how you celebrated. It’s important that you collect these stories in real time so that you are able to recant the most important elements of the story. Next, remind your manager of the stories when it comes to employee review time as these stories will help your boss obtain the best raise for you. Last, record these stories in your brag book so that should an awesome job opportunity come your way, you can present the stories during your interview.
Devynn King is dedicated to helping sales professionals meet their sales career potential. Helping people meet their full potential not only requires sales excellence, it also requires the ability to dream for more and ask for more. Devynn King has done just that. She is an excellent sales professional, delivering double digit growth for her company’s year after year and has advanced her career through many different positions, up to and including multiple leadership positions. Devynn wants empower you to achieve personal, professional, and sales career transformations. Claim the Sales Tips to take your sales results to another level today.
Incoming search terms:
Pretend it is 1,000 years ago and you are brought into a cave and handed a sharp object to use as a scalpel. You are told to operate on someone laying on a table, and take out their “pain.” Of course, you have had no formal training in this–and you tell your mentor of your concern.