Thursday, July 12, 2007

Follow these three rules to raise your sales game

Use this short sales training excerpt to increase sales performance.

First, make no assumptions. This is easy to say and very hard to do. Everyone makes assumptions, all the time. Short cuts aid decision-making. Without assumptions, nothing would get done. In sales, assumptions lead to mistakes.

Second, declare your intent to make no assumptions. It is easy to do and everyone agrees if you make a polite request at the beginning of a sales exchange. It is also an easy step to overlook.

Third, don't talk about your product, service, or solution. This is very difficult to do. You know a lot about what you are selling and it is the default topic for any prospective customer.

Why should you follow these rules? Read this article to find out.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Regular sales training increases revenue by 10%

Little and often is better for results than multiple day courses. From a practical standpoint, this is hard to achieve unless in-house staff make it happen.

Having a local trainer who commands respect and who is willing to deliver short, punchy sessions more regularly, with out making the cost prohibitive, is an ideal solution.

Instead, for practical reasons, sales training is most often delivered over consecutive days. While the course may be fantastic, people cannot act on all of the ideas and much of it’s value is soon forgotten, drowned by ever pressing day to day issues.

Another solution is to have a trainer prepare and coach in-house managers to facilitate the completion and debriefing of exercises in short training sessions.

By measuring sales productivity, customers have found that regular sales training improves results by an average of 9.4%.

Get in touch if you would like to know more. We will be pleased to share the principles and help you get similar results.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Sales Training for Partner, VAR, and Alliance Managers

Having others sell for you is the ultimate sales purpose. This becomes literally true for partner, reseller, and distributor account managers. It is an easy job if all you do is go along once an month and ask if they have any orders. If an account manager is to affect results, he or she must do far more than an ordinary sales job. Learn what you may be missing on Selling through Partners in Reading on September 10th and 11th.

Selling through Partners - Learning points:
Deal with common partner issues
Engage with a partner principle or board level director
Have partners think of your Company as a strategic supplier
Have partner managers think of you as a trusted advisor
Have partner staff eager to attend your presentations
Get more than your fair share of mind
Coach and develop partner sales skills
Have partners help develop a realistic sales plan
Develop Partner loyalty