Sales Training America Seminars:

Sales Training America is a world class sales training and custom development training company specializing in sales training and sales skill development of our client's sales force. At Sales Training America we help our clients improve their sales profitability through the development of their sales management and sales efforts through SalesForce.com implementation. Sales Training America offers both public (open enrollment) sales training seminars well as the development of customized sales systems and sales seminars for Fortune 1000 companies across United States and Canada.

Are you one of the many corporations now focusing on core sales activities while implementing SalesForce.com while outsourcing non-core functions in response to intense competition?

If you are, Sales Training America can help there too. If you simply want to outsource some of your sales or sales management training or if you want to redefine yourself completely to survive mergers, acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, downsizing, or corporate restructuring we can help you.

For free, no obligation information on how we can help you with your sales training needs please contact us today.

Sales Training Tips:

Sales Seminars - Gain Control of the Sales Process

Every now and then a brilliant sales person comes along and makes the old hands, me included, seem like at best, ham fisted novices, and at worst, worn out 'has been's'. When a sales person performs so well that they make everyone else seem incompetent, it is tempting to put their success down to luck. "They just happened to be in the right place at the right time", we tell ourselves. Sometimes it is true, although there is a knack to being in more 'right places' at 'right times' than others manage.

Take a closer look before you jump to that comfortable conclusion that they were just lucky. Some of these brilliant sales people seem to have been in a succession of 'right places' at the right times. When you find yourself in the presence of someone with this kind of dazzling record of accomplishment, you will do well if you put aside any professional jealousy and set about discovering what this golden sales person does differently to others. Catch it and put it in a can, if you can.

For managers the trick is to help the other members of the sales team copy what the top people do.

This is exactly how the best sales methods are worked out. The difficulty in this approach lies in the brilliant sales person's complete inability to tell you their secrets. Usually it is not a ploy to keep others from stealing their glory. Such people normally have complete certainty in their ability and don't feel threatened by competition at all. They simply don't have a conscious awareness of what it is that they do that sets them apart.

It is possible to find out, through close observation over a long period. The time involved is enormous. You have to observe several sales from beginning to end. To be sure of your results you also have to observe several other sales people of different abilities, working in a similar environment. There is always more than one way to secure a deal, so untangling your conclusions and crafting them into a method that less successful sales people can take advantage of, takes more than a day or two of undisturbed den time.

One might think that sales managers are in an ideal position to make the necessary observations and work out effective sales methods. Perhaps this would be true if a sales manager had nothing else to do. Some do achieve the enviable situation where their sales people are completely empowered and consistently successful without any intervention. For most sales managers focusing on achieving the necessary sales results is all consuming.

Instead of commissioning an extensive study of superior sales people, evaluate all the methods born from other sales research projects and create a new hybrid. This allows you to take account of your unique sales environment, or even a subset of the sales situations that your people should be addressing. Alternatively, you could make a serious investment in adopting someone else's method. Put the emphasis on 'serious'. You know that just having everyone attend the course is not enough to make it work.

Playing devil’s advocate, I have found myself arguing that no particular method of selling should be enforced because every sales situation is unique, and winning requires a flexible approach. Let's consider the reasons for and against adopting a sales method.

Reasons in favor of using a consistent Sales Method

Measuring progress through the sales cycle becomes possible or much easier to achieve because each element of a campaign is defined.
The method can be incrementally improved because success with each element can be more easily compared across many campaigns.
Because comparison is easier, individual performance can be more easily observed. Poor practices and behaviors can be identified and corrected before they feed through in poor sales results.
Forecasting will become more accurate because qualification and progress through a sale is more transparent and open to examination.
Individual training and learning requirements are easier to identify because performance of steps in the methods can be more easily compared across sales people.
Management style can be more relaxed because of an increased sense of understanding and control. This helps improve confidence and moral in the sales team and the company as a whole.

Reasons against using a Consistent Method

Sales people might become bogged down in paperwork and spend less time face to face with customers.
Real situations may not conform to envisaged steps in a sales cycle.
Enforcing methods can stifle creativity.
Some sales people may be uncomfortable about closer evaluation of their activities.
Some sales people may ignore the method guidelines and undermine authority.

The overall question is, "will using a consistent sales method increase sales?" As with many questions involving people, the answer is, "It depends". The value of method based selling will depend on several variables such as customer expectations, average sales value, average length of your sales cycle, prospect to sale conversion ratio, and how the requirement for a sales team to use a particular method is communicated. People who feel involved in developing the method are much more likely to support its adoption. The person tasked with getting the sales people on side, needs to exercise leadership and sales skills. There has to be some benefit for the sales people in the proposed changes. They will need to be sold on the potential for increased earnings inherent in adopting a more structured approach.

Defining steps or elements in a sales campaign to gain more control of the sales process is a journey rather than a one-time exercise. Definitions will need tuning and measurement tools will need adapting as you learn more about the best way to increase sales. For sales people, being part of a process development project is more motivating than having to conform to someone else's idea of the perfect sales method. People in management and sales will learn from involvement. The value of method based selling is less in the plan and more in the thinking and planning that goes into it.

Source: Clive Miller link

Related: Sales Seminars

Back to Sales Training Seminars and Tips