sales training for accountants Archives

Are You An Accidental Salesperson?

January 3, 2013/in General Tips/by Bill Caskey

We recently released an online course called The Accidental Salesperson which presumes that many people who are drafted into sales today really didn’t set out with sales at their goal. This can include engineers, subject matter experts, accountants, lawyers and even a lot of sales people.

And yet, most of the training that teaches those people how to sell is old and antiquated and actually takes away the very power that a technical subject matter expert has.

For example, one of the keys to a successful sales person − which the accidental sales person has an enormous amount of − is expertise.

Accidental salespeople who grew up in the technical world know how to solve problems and they probably know how to find problems, too. That’s not necessarily the case with a sales person who might not have worked on a widget − built it, designed it or engineered it. Read more

Who Are Non-Salespeople And Why Do They Matter?

November 30, 2012/in General Tips/by Bill Caskey

In the last few weeks, we’ve been working on the launch of an online program called The Accidental Salesperson. The reason we’re launching this is that we find more and more non-sales people are being asked to sell, negotiate, communicate and manage relationships that already exist.

In many ways, these people below can be THE most powerful people in the company because they are the talent that does the work…rather than merely sell the work.

You’ve heard the axiom, “It costs a lot less to sell to a current customer than it does to bring in a new customer?” Yet, when we looked around, we saw very little attention (skill training) for that group.

Who Is The Accidental Sales Person?

Here is a list of the types of occupations and functions that might qualify for ‘accidental’ status. Obviously, every company is different, however when you read the list, you’ll see some titles that will fall into that category nicely.

1. Entreprenuers.

They sell to bankers, and other vendors, as well as they are put into sales scenarios, infrequently. They need to have a method of communicating value, which they do all of the time.

2. Professional Services (Accountants, Engineers, Lawyers).

They didn’t use to need training in this realm, but they now do. They are all graded not just on the technical skills but also on their Business Development Skills. “You don’t bring in business, you might not make partner.”

3. Field Service People.

In many ways, these are the most important, customer-facing people in the company. They are the problem finders and solvers.

4. Account Managers.

These are the people that take care of the accounts once they’ve been sold. They are the ones that can sniff out new opportunities and are positioned perfectly to communicate value to customers. Also applies to Customer Service or Inside Sales People. Read more

How To Handle Cost / Price Objections as a Non Salesperson

November 21, 2012/1 Comment/in General Tips/by Bill Caskey

This is from a Question & Answer call our team recently did in our program called The Accidental Salesperson. As we were transcribing this, we thought we’d give you a peak inside our thinking when we answer client questions. (This is a transcription of spoken audio so forgive some of the clunkiness).

Q: “We are in a service industry and our biggest sales problem is overcoming cost objections.”

A: All objections are not created equal. The essence of an objection is that the prospect doesn’t believe that there’s any pain to not changing, or, there’s any pain to not choosing you.

So if I hear cost / price objections, you must conclude you’ve done a lousy job in two places in the sales cycle.

Sales Problem 1. Identifying The Problem

I’ve done a lousy job identifying the problem and attaching a cost to the problem they have. Or number two, I’ve done a lousy job of distinguishing myself against the other possible solutions that they have.

For example, we get asked to work with a company where we’re not the only option. They could go outside and work with other trainers and coaches like us, or, they can try to do it themselves.

There’s nothing that says they have to go out and hire trainers. The fact is that some companies can do it themselves. At least they could be marginally effective at it.

One Competitor Is Them Doing It Themselves

So my competitor is not necessarily the guy down the street who does similar things to what we do. My competitor also is them doing it themselves. Well, there is a perspective that people have that if I do it myself, it’s cheaper. Some of you are in business. I know a little bit about some of your business. You have that in your business, too.

I can either hire a realtor to go out looking for more commercial space or I can do it myself. But for certain solutions, doing it yourself is not a good idea.

First, it takes a lot of time. And often, people don’t put high enough value on their time like they should. If they only added up the time they spent doing things they weren’t good at, where it takes them five times longer to do it, they would realize quickly that hiring a professional is a much cheaper alternative.

So when I hear you say you can’t overcome cost objections, I would suggest that it’s probably because you haven’t done a good job upfront of nailing down the cost of the problem.

What’s The Cost of the Problem?

Once you have that, then the question is, “What kind of dollars are you willing to throw at the problem?” and if you can’t have a good, lively, honest discussion about that, then you’re probably going to get the objection that your prices are too high.

This goes for technical people who are doing add-on sales at a project. We work with a lot of CPAs, few of whom are natural salespeople. They’ve been trained to be a CPA and they’re very good at it. They were not trained to learn how to sell and market and manage the relationship. Read more

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