Sales-training

Many years ago, I was the one starting a small business. I ran a part-time resume service out of my New York apartment. One client showed up on time for her first appointment, nervously clutching her notes. "Can we just talk for awhile?" she asked. "No," I said firmly, amazing myself. "If you want me to work on your resume, there will be a charge. You can decide not to hire me. But we can't just sit and talk." I remembered this incident several years later, when I greeted a neighbor in our local coffee shop....

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Imagine...you inquire about a product. The salesperson does everything right. Says the rights words, emphasis the benefits of the product -- everything right. And you hesitate but you do not know why. You just aren't "sure." And you respond, "I'll think about it." Then you talk with another salesperson that says the same things, uses the same languaging, and does everything else right, until towards the end. Then they get honest with you and tell you the weaknesses of the product. Then you buy. Works every time....

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Have you ever found a lead on a scrap of paper after the prospect purchased from your competition? Are you spending time recreating proposals because you can't find a similar one you wrote a few months ago? Do you run out of the door for an appointment at the last minute because you couldn't find the brochures you really wanted to take? Are you feeling overwhelmed? If so, here are six simple steps to help you increase sales and decrease stress: 1. Make a date with yourself for getting your act together....

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Prospect - "So now that I've told you what we are looking for, do you think that you can help us with this?" You - "Absolutely!" (or) You - "Definitely!" (or) You - "You have come to the right place Mr. Prospect" Answering questions about your capabilities with enthusiastic affirmative responses makes you sound just like a salesperson. And in so doing, you impact your ability to close the sale, and your reputation. Why? Because normal people don't talk like this in normal conversations. People are more likely to trust you, when you come across as a regular person....

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Mention the word sales or salesman and two out of three people get a little clammy under the skin. "I hate sales people and I could never do what they do!" is what many say at the mere thought of having to sell something. How wrong they are. Here is the cold hard fact: From the time you are born to the time you die, you - regardless of your profession or what you do - are in sales. Appreciate that when a baby cries for the first time for its mother's milk, he/she is attempting to close the new mom on the importance and benefits of doing what the child wants....

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After working for a little over a year in the sales manager's position, Mark more than doubled the number of sales over the previous year, even though he had let one of his sales representatives go for poor perform-ance. After two years, he tripled yearly sales levels and had to ad several more routes to cover the increased business. His route sales were up significantly over the previous reporting period and customer retention levels were at an all time high as well. With literally no selling back-ground or customer contact and little opportunity to manage a large group of people in the plant, how did Mark achieve the success levels that eluded the previous sales manager, who had nearly twenty years of sales and sales management experience?...

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Today's manager lives in a world where change has attained Mach speeds. What holds good when you go home may not apply when you return in the morning to work place. Such a tremendous pace of change takes a heavy toll in terms of a dispirited and de energized workforce. World class products and services can only be produced by workforce which is highly energized. And a high level of energy is derived by a skilled and knowledgeable workforce with the right attitude. In this scenario keeping pace with the knowledge and skills for himself and of his people is the key to managerial success....

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One of the questions I often get asked as a sales coach by sales people and business owners alike is, "How do I close sales better? What closing techniques would you recommend?" In my experience, closing is one of the three most feared areas of the sales process. The other two are fear of canvassing and fear of objections. But the real question is, what is it about these three that creates such a fear? Especially, when even some of the most successful sales professionals face challenges in one or more of these three areas....

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In my youth I landed a job selling encyclopedias door to door. I worked for commissions. If I didn't sell anything, I didn't get paid. Trying to sell a high ticket item such as encyclopedias door to door was no small task as you might imagine. I was desperate to make a sale and I'm sure my desperation showed in my rehearsed sales presentation. I told my potential prospects all about the features of the item, but I didn't tell them how the product could benefit them specifically. Needless to say, by using these sales tactics, I didn't sell one set of encyclopedias....

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Before I am told that they probably were sold something that they didn't want, lets examine the motivation for buying. If you were looking at purchasing software to run on a Windows based platform maybe it would be important to ensure that it worked with every release or version of the software. Some companies still have Windows 98 and have not (for whatever reason) upgraded to XP. If this particular prospect came through and presented the company with an order and found out later that the software was incompatible with Windows XP it is my belief that they would have expected the seller to let them know prior to purchase....

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If you've driven yourself crazy trying to figure out why so many customers get away, relax. You can't figure it out because... It's not logical. The impulse that makes people buy from one business instead of another is no more logical than the baying of an elk's mating call. In fact, it works exactly the same way, through the limbic system. The limbic system is instinctive--older than language, faster than thinking. It controls trust. It controls attention and desire. And logic must stand aside until the limbic part of the brain decides something is trustworthy....

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To be totally in tune with the needs of your customers or prospective customers you have to listen to them. Listen to them - it sounds easy enough to do but not everybody gets it right. What you must always bear in mind when you are selling something is that you are not selling an item or object - you are selling a feeling. I was taught this particular lesson whilst working for a friend who was very much into NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) which studies the structure of how humans think and experience the world....

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