My “Biased” Thoughts On Most Sales Training…

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With the podcast that we do (www.advancedsellingpodcast), we get a lot of questions on what we think of sales training. Well, it’s kind of like asking the chef if the food’s good in the deli next door. You kind of know what his answer will be.

Most of the time, these questionners are wondering because they are in the midst of searching for sales training, sales management training, or other professional development.

There’s a ton of training out there–and rather than me comment on any by name–I would prefer to suggest a very short list of things I would look for if I were on the other side of the desk–buying it instead of selling it.

1. Complete Assessment. So much garbage is “off the shelf” training that can’t be customized for your business. It HAS TO BE CUSTOMIZED for not just your business (and the language you use), but for your people, too. If you have a senior group, you’d better be speaking to some higher philosophies like comfort zones, high self image, and large deal negotiation skills.

Make sure the trainer, upfront, asks you (or your manager) a lot of questions about where in the sales process things stall out, how you feel about that, what isn’t happening that needs to, what do you want to get your prospect to admit to, and are there any emotional roadblocks to high achievement (self image issues)?

A Terrible Sales Training Story…I had a client tell me yesterday that he just returned from a 2-day training where the facilitator (from a global training company) read her PowerPoint slides from the screen and when finished with each one, said, “What do you think about that?” EVERY SLIDE!!! Wow, now there’s some real growth happening there?!?!?!!? (And I’m sure the company paid $000,000 for that content).

2. Content Philosophy. Most sales training has, at it’s core, an intent of helping you “sell more stuff.” That is totally wrong (as far as I’m concerned). A better intent is to help the constituent (seller) “discern” between someone who can and will buy–and another who can’t.

You can call that “qualifying” if you want but I actually think that word has been overused. Most often it’s used to make ANY PROSPECT FIT. The philosophy of great sales training content should be to help you understand and articulate the value you bring–and do that ONLY to people who have pains/problems that need to be solved. (Many people are willing to live in their own garabge–they aren’t prospects. Great sales training helps you discern the economically serious from the merely curious.)

Make sure the training content speaks to the inner game/soul of the trainee. That’s where all of the action is anyway. It’s not in the words you use, or how high up you call in the prospect company, or how elaborate your 12-step sales process is. It starts with the 6″ of real estate between your ears. If the content you buy doesn’t deal with that, then it won’t catapult you much.

3. Ongoing Nature. Training for adults can’t be delivered effectively in a one-day seminar. That’s just not how we learn best. Meaningful sales training, advanced or basic, must have frequent reinforcement to it. Personally, I think it should be every 2-4 weeks. It doesn’t have to be face to face (it could be via phone/web), but there has to be a regular way to reconnect with people in the training (and the trainer.)

A Suggestion:
One thing we do is the monthy TeleTraining Call. There is no new topic discussed. It is only a) a reinforcement of some of the work we’ve done already and b) a chance for people to bring issues/problems to the trainer.

If you have hired a trainer and they can’t stop talking about new techniques or how great they are, fire him and find another. Part of the great value of effective sales training is to allow the constituents to open up and speak freely about their problems, without the fear of getting jumped on. 

I hope this helps if you’re in the mode of searching for someone who can help you grow your business by implementing a sound sales strategy in your company. Remember, a trainer today should have much more knowledge than just sales techniques to share. He must understand people, human nature, how organizations (prospect) work, and how decisions are made.

If all he can do is recite from the book (or read PowerPoints), he’s not worth much, regardless of how little you’re paying.

The World’s Greatest Salesforce

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By Bryan Neale

On the eve of March 1st, it suddenly dawned on me that the world’s greatest sales force is once again in full force in their mission to dominate their market. Oreo’s sales people-take not. Archway sales support-time to step up. Keebler-all elves on deck………THE GIRLSCOUTS ARE HERE.

I believe the world’s greatest, most efficient sales force doesn’t use Salesforce.com, never makes PowerPoint presentations and can’t even find the power switch on a Blackberry. No, the Girl Scout’s do it the old fashioned way. They hit the street, use pure and honest techniques, find our pain and sweetly barter thousands of calories in exchange for even more thousands of dollars.

So what can we mature, seasoned, professional sales people learn from these Punky Brewster clones. More than you probably think:

1-Be Real, Don’t Fake It: I’ve yet to have a Girl Scout ask me transparent, contrived and often hokey rapport building questions. They never come to the door and say, “Hi Mr. Neale, how are the wife and kids?” when really all they want is a sale to meet their quota. No, they get right down to business. “I’m with the Girl Scout’s and we’re holding our annual cookie drive. Would you like to look at purchasing some to help us raise money for our programs?” The answer is irresistibly, YES.

2-Know Your Mission: The Girl Scouts do a terrific job of communicating what it is they do. They sell cookies to raise money for their programs. They give me the opportunity to participate in their learning/programs and get some of the world’s best cookies to go along.

3-USE leverage: Leverage is one of the most important concepts for a professional sales person to understand. It simply means making multiple sales contacts in one sitting. The Girl Scouts do this by placing themselves strategically in front of all entrances and exits in most metropolitan grocery stores. Hence one sales call puts them on front of thousands of shoppers who are already in the mood to spend money.

4-Referral Sources can make it Easy on You: Girl Scouts inevitably rely on their mom’s and dad’s work friends to propel their annual sales efforts. How many times have you received an e-mail at work…..”Just to let everyone know, my daughter Cutie Pie, is selling Girl Scout Cookies…..no pressure, but let me know if you’re interested.” What a brilliant strategy employed by these youngsters. I wonder what would happen if we were that pro-active soliciting referrals from our network.

I could go on, but you likely get the picture. So this spring, buy some cookies and pay attention to the sales process. You just might learn something. At worst, you pick up some killer cookies.

BN

Dear John – Saying Goodbye to Prospects in the Sales Process

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I don’t know how you feel about Karma, but I believe that in order for things to come into your life you need to make room for them.  The same goes for your Sales funnel.

If you have stagnant, energy-draining deals in your funnel, you must move them forward or move them out. It’s kind of like you have a mental bank account.  Stagnant deals are like the buddy who’s always borrowing a buck and promises to repay you. But you never see the money, and trust me, you’ll never see these deals.

If you continue to let the stagnant deals take up space in your mental bank account, it makes it tough for your mind to be “right” about the real deals that are in the funnel and out in the world waiting for you.

What to do?

How to get your sales process back on track?  I like to write  “Dear John” or “Goodbye notes” to these prospects.  It’s not that they’re bad people – it’s just bad timing, or maybe they don’t know how to say “no.”  Let them off the hook.  It could sound something like this……..

Dear (insert your prospect name here): Read more

Sales Strategies For The New Breed of Seller…

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I love this business!!! Where else can you invite total strangers into your office and have an intelligent, inspiring conversation about sales problems and how to fix them? And have everyone leave with hope that one can change outcomes–by changing their thinking.

Well, we just did that in a recent series of seminars. We had more than 100 people take part in the program over four days. Although this is a marketing tool for us, we used it more as a training forum for best practices.

Consequently, I thought our blog readers would like to know what the biggest challenges were (according to the input of the group). And then a few thoughts on what we recommended.

1. How do I position our company (and it’s value) when my customer continues to see us as how we were, not how we are?

2. How do we differentiate our solution and stop being a commmodity?

3. How do we keep the sales process moving–avoid it getting stuck in corporate games?

4. How do I train my people–who sometimes don’t think about selling in the right way?

5. My buyers are more sophisticated, having access to information, prior to our sales team showing up.

Without getting into detail on each one, here is the bottom line (as I see it):

1. You can’t communicate value if you don’t know it and believe it. Most of the time sales people want to “jump to the words.” What do I say to help customers get our value? Perhaps that’s not the first question.

Instead the first question should be: “what is our value”? Or, “how does our solution solve a problem the customer has?” Or, “What are some trends that are causing my customer problems in my area of expertise?” Ask the right questions.

2. Bryan Neale brought up this–if you are constantly talking in sales meetings about “how we get the prospect to say yes,” then your intent is out of whack. Stop doing that. Exchange that worn out intent, with the intent of helping your customer solve a problem. Then, and only then, will you take control of the process.

One of our attendees said it best when he said, “It sounds like the only way to control the sales process is to give up control.” There’s a good student. Simple to talk about. Tough to do. But if you want to accomplish obscenely wonderful things in your business life, you have to change your perspective around intent.

3.  Our capacity to innovate has exceeded our ability to communicate. This kind of goes back to #1. How do we communicate the REAL value of what we do? We do it quite simply–by stating it in a way that allows the prospect to say (or feel), “that’s me.” If you communicate your value by pleading and convincing and persuading, is it surprising that no one’s saying “that’s me”?

A Brief Audio of The Program (20 minutes)
Here is a brief audio of the upfront portion of one of the workshops. It’s only 15 minutes (out of 2 hours) but wanted to at least give you a taste.

Download ExecSemBNBCAbridged.mp3

Renee Martin Call

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Here are the two audio files. The first one is the first 30 mins of call. The second part is probably the one of highest value since that is more of the coaching portion. Also below is the PDF of the mindmap.

Lost Your Sales Mojo? Here’s How To Get It Back.

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By Brooke Green

There have been plenty of conversations in our sales training programs lately about something that hits all of us, the loss of “mojo.”  We’ve all been there – one day you’ve got a bunch of deals on the brink of landing, you’re counting your money, and within 24 hours those deals collapse and it becomes obvious to you that you don’t know what you’re doing!!  Now, that’s not the truth, it just feels like that.

Things fall apart because you don’t pay attention to your gut.  What happens when you don’t listen to the voice within?  You……

  1. Don’t ask the right / tough questions
  2. You know you don’t have all of the decision makers in the room, but don’t do  anything about it
  3. Skip steps of your sales process

I could go on and on, but basically you wimp out – you go to your prospect’s process because, at the time, it feels less painful.  How much pain are you feeling now????  So, how do you get your “mojo” back?

Being from Indianapolis, our minister couldn’t help but integrate the recent Colts comeback win into his message on Sunday.  As he said during our sermon, “hope saves.” Hoping isn’t enough, but it has to be alive to get you back up and out there.  Hope is a synonym for faith and trust in my book.  Go back to what you trust – YOUR PROCESS!

Remind yourself what your process is, how it has worked for you in the past, and how temporary pain saves you serious pain later.  Our minister also reminded us of the hope that the Colts hung onto when they were down 21-3 at halftime.  Coach Dungy didn’t remind them of their mistakes during halftime.

Instead, he reminded them of what got them to this point – their PROCESS, their game plan – sticking to what they know works, even when it’s painful.

So, don’t continue to beat yourself up.  Take the lesson and move on.  Trust what you know, stick with it.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, but you always know you did your best on your terms.

The New Sales Model -Free Seminar

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We’re hosting an event on February 15th or 16th at our Training Center in Indianapolis called, The New Selling Model, A Unique Philosophy for 2007 Business Growth (a long title I know, but it was as creative as I could get).

The idea of this is to expose attendees to the content that has been helping hundreds of companies grow their business. I’ll talk about such things as  *the new role of the sales person,   *the power curve and how to control the sales process,  *mastering the inner game of selling,  *modern communication skills, and  *the total assessment–how to assess where you (or your team) need work.

To register, go to http://caskeytraining.com/exse.html and choose which date you want to attend. Plus, that page will tell you more about what you’ll learn–for those who need more detail.

We will be audio taping this, so if you can’t be there in person, and you want a copy of the program, I’ll announce how you can get that later on this site. We’ll have this available as an MP3 download or a physical CD.

A Sales Tactic for the Complex Sale

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Just a short post to tell you something I heard yesterday that was actually quite profound.

I had a client tell me that he has come to realize that when you’re selling something that is a significant shift in thought for the prospect, you have to do much more work upfront in the pain finding and economic justification step. Why?

Because the customer knows there will be a  ‘high cost to changing’ methods. Therefore part of the proposal needs to address this shift and how the selling company can help the customer implement the solution.

Your Solution
Does your solution require a shift in how your customer thinks about things? Does the solution affect many people in your customer’s organization? If so, then think through your sales process upfront so that you aren’t getting ‘objections’ late in the sales process.

Comments?

High Income Selling Strategies-5 Rules To Govern Your Behavior And Actions In The Sales Cycle–For High Performers

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(A reprint from an article appearing in The Agora Business Center in 2006)

Everyone wants to earn more, but few are willing to change their behavior to do so. In fact, my experience tells me that most aren’t.

Yet, in my 19 years of work with the high sales achiever, I find that those people are different and worth examining. Most of them operate with a different set of rules about selling and the pursuit of new business. These new rules help govern their behavior and actions in the sales cycle. I have over 25 rules that I’ve documented, but here are the top five for you to consider:

1. Define what you want to attract.
High sales achievers are very specific about what they want to attract, both in terms of financial outcomes and business relationships. The Universe has an interesting way of delivering to you exactly what you order, so be specific on your order when you place it. The Universe doesn’t respond well to, “I just want to make more money.”

2. Bring up what scares you.
Most sales executive fears are an illusion. The worst thing we can do with fear is to ignore it. That feeling of fear is trying to tell you something and what it’s telling you is, act on it. If you’re in a sales process and you feel some fear about bringing up a difficult subject, then that’s exactly what you should discuss. Reveal what you feel.

3. Never coerce.
It’s been my privilege to work with some extremely high achievers in the profession of business-to-business sales. One thing I find about them is that they are ‘detached from outcomes.’ They spend no time “convincing, persuading, and defending.” And they spend little time trying to coerce prospects into their way of thinking. When you, a marketing and sales professional, begin to encroach on your prospect’s freedom, you become the pain and they’ll get rid of you. Tell people upfront “it’s alright if you decide this is not a fit at this time, let me know and I’ll be gone.” But do that upfront. That way you’re not 18 months into the process when you hear ‘no.’

4. Think “Process.”
The greatest businesses in the world have the greatest processes in the world. So why should a sales professional be any different? Of all the processes that the high sales achiever has, the most important one is the sales process. A great sales process is one where you can, in a step-by-step fashion, lead people from beginning to end with the constant understanding that some people will qualify “out of the process” and you can move on. Not only should you have a process, but you should also be indignant about the prospect’s adherence to it. (Here’s one of my favorite secrets: Great sales processes are better for the prospect because it helps them identify their problem quicker and create a better solution.) If you feel your sales process is only in your best interest, then you’ve got the wrong process.

5. Think ‘Leverage.’
One way to leverage your strengths is to hire other people and train them to do the things you don’t want to do. But as sales professionals–even as high achieving sellers — you might not have the latitude to go hire staff. But what you can leverage is “current relationships.” High achievers never make cold calls. Why would they? They have learned the power of referral marketing. They find a way to use their current client/network relationships to bring them new, ideal clients.

This is not as simple as “give me ten people you know, so that I can go make a sales call to them.” It is a thoughtful, strategic way to generate enough goodwill with your clients that they beg you to get them introduce you to their friends and associates. A great referral program doesn’t work if you’re not thinking “leverage.”

A Last Word
I know from the feedback from our sales professionals readers that you all strive for high competency in selling. I also hear that you are searching for a new way to sell, to communicate your value, to earn money. It is still our quest to help you be that person who earns enormous rewards in selling–without resorting to the same old, worn-out tactics that your worst nightmare sales person resorts to. You need something modern–modern thinking, modern strategy, modern language–to help you to that next level. Thanks to all for your continuous support of this blog and our sales podcast, The Advanced Selling Podcast.