Sales Training Workshops:

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 workshops well as the development of customized sales systems and sales workshops 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 Seminars and Tips:

The Sales Training Lunch

I often get asked about lunch. No, not if I want to go out to lunch. Instead, should salespeople take clients out to lunch? How can it be productive? Are my salespeople wasting time and money? What should I coach my salespeople to do? Is this or can this be an effective sales activity?

First of all, too many salespeople spend too much money on taking clients out to lunch with no purpose or return on investment of time and expense. If your salespeople engage in "client lunches", be sure you strategize with them first, before they run up an outlandish expense account and get nothing from it.

Truly, I'm a big advocate for lunch, golf games, customer outings, etc. However, I'm not for doing those things for the pure enjoyment for your salespeople. Your salespeople need a goal and the means to achieve that goal for each and every lunch. Coach your salespeople to have a plan for a customer lunch or outing and work it. To get you started, here are four things that your salespeople can do during a lunch meeting, golf game or customer outing:

Account update - Have your salespeople ask the customer what's going on inside their organization. What activities or ventures are coming up that your organization could be involved in to add value and/or more products or services?

For example, a pending change in management means your salesperson needs to ensure that they get a proper introduction and the opportunity for the new executive to get to know your organization. Also, your customer may be expanding product lines, building new offices, opening new plants, merging with other companies or purchasing subsidiaries. Bottom line: be sure your salespeople continually seek out new sales opportunities with existing customers.

Testimonial - Prospects love testimonials to help in their decision making process. Whether in a letter or simply a quote for your website or collateral materials, this is a powerful way for your salespeople to add credibility to the sales process. Get your salespeople to develop their "Top 10" list of premiere accounts and set up meetings with each one in the next 30 days (if possible) and have each of them ask for a testimonial. After acquiring them, make electronic copies and share them across your sales team. Make a contest out of it who can get the most legitimate testimonials in this month or quarter.

Reference - Ask the customer if they would be willing to be contacted by a prospect to validate your salesperson's service offerings or simply communicate their experience working with your company. Come prepared - you'll need to have something available if and when your prospect asks. However, don't hassle your existing clients with unnecessary calls or too many calls. Offer references only if the prospects is tightly qualified. Be sure to contact the reference to let them know that the prospect will be calling.
Referral - This is one of the most overlooked prospecting methods. Your best list is your own list. Ask your "satisfied" customers for the names of people they know who could use your products or services. Senior executives know other senior executives. Middle managers know other middle managers. Use good customers as a referral source and leverage those relationships.

Offer to send the referral a free sample, free consultation or information that would be of value to them. Ask if you can use your customer's name. Gather as much information about the referral as you can because you'll still need to qualify them. Sometimes a customer will give you a name because they want to help, but the referral is not qualified.

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