Tag Archives: sales training

Sales Management – Blogwatch August 23, 2008

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It was pretty potent week for the Sales Management bloggers. This week the editors of AskTheManager.com found some good Sales Management and Sales Training advice in the following posts and articles, with the best stuff coming from Paul McCord and Brad Trnavsky:

Attitude and the law of attraction.
By Brad Trnavsky
A few days ago I wrote a post about the importance of attitude in selling. I ended the post by saying opportunity is everywhere you look, the real problem is learning to recognize it when you see it. Today I am going to share with you …
Featured Blog Posts – Sales Managemen… – http://www.salesmanagement20.com/

Line Dancing and Sales Failure
By Paul McCord
Musically, I live in the distant past. If an archeologist found my iPod they’d be sure I died sometime in the early to mid 70’s. My taste in music hasn’t evolved past The Beatles, the Stones, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, …
Sales and Sales Management Blog – http://salesandmanagementblog.com





Social Media–It Ain’t All Good
By Paul McCord
At times the praise of social media would make one think it equivalent to the Second Coming. Although there are certainly many good things about the uses and potential uses of the various technology now available to businesspeople and …
Sales and Sales Management Blog – http://salesandmanagementblog.com

Did Yesterday’s Post Go Far Enough?
By Paul McCord
I received an interesting email last evening from a reader of yesterday’s blog post wondering if the impressions people have of who they would purchase from would change if they took into consideration the candidate’s communications …
Sales and Sales Management Blog – http://salesandmanagementblog.com

Sales & Marketing Communications Strategies
By noreply@blogger.com (David Stanaland)
When I was in advertising, there was no virtually no contact with the sales teams except through the brand management team when sales management would attend the P&L meetings. I later worked in technology consulting and software sales …
Are You Serious? – http://dstanaland.blogspot.com/

It’s as Much How You Say It as What You Say
By Paul McCord
Over the past couple of days I’ve conducted a mini survey of about 60 business owners and senior managers of corporations on their impressions of Barack Obama and John McCain from their appearances at the Saddleback event last Saturday …
Sales and Sales Management Blog – http://salesandmanagementblog.com

Pharma Sales – Storytelling for Success
By Michael Byrne
The story of how your product can make a significant difference to patient wellness, told by your representatives, has a huge impact on the success of your company. As every representative on your team has their own unique style of …

Why Not Use An Interim Sales Manager?
By Tom Schaber
I thought back to a talk I gave several weeks ago about sales management and the traits needed to be successful in that role. About five miles after that thought and the topic for the post materialized. …
Total Sales Manager – http://totalsalesmanager.wordpress.com

In Sales Attitude is Everything!
By Brad Trnavsky
Today’s post is based off a message I received from Janine Aguero a fellow member at Sta.rtUp.Biz and it got me thinking about opportunity and attitude. Its not a new story by any means, but it had been a very long time since I had …
Featured Blog Posts – Sales Managemen… – http://www.salesmanagement20.com/

Turning Worthless ‘Referrals’ into Real Clients
By Paul McCord
Sales through referrals from clients make up less than 7% of the business for over 75% of all salespeople. Yet referrals are the basis of business for most of the top 5% mega-producers. Why do so few get so much from referrals when the …
Sales and Sales Management Blog – http://salesandmanagementblog.com

 

Sales 101 – The Value of Competitive Product Knowledge

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Does Competitive Product Knowledge Have A Value?

 

How important is it for a salesperson to know about and talk about a competitor’s products and offerings? I’ve heard strong arguments on both sides for whether or not to talk about the competition in a corporate appointment.  How important is it for a salesperson to know about and talk about a competitor’s products and offerings? From a LinkedIn.com subscriber

 

This question was posted on LinkedIn.com and TheManager felt compelled to include the answer on this site. (You’re Not Linked In? Shame On You.)

 

This question and the answers provided by other LinkedIn subscribers can be found by following this link.

 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you obviously know about LinkedIn.com – the Facebook for business people. Everyone and anyone is LinkedIn today. A great business resource, LinkedIn offers social networking and career development advice unmatched by any source on the Web. (Of course, if AskTheMananger.com offered social networking, we’d surely smoke ‘em J.)

 

To The Question At Hand…

 

Don’t be silly. It is CRITICAL that every sales representative in your organization know as much about their competitors’ products as the competitors themselves know.

 


Primarily, you’re doing a disservice to your customers if you know only half the story (yours). By gaining a true understanding of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, you can decide the best approach to securing a customer as your own.

 

Imagining or wishing that a competitor’s product does not offer this or that is foolish. Acknowledging the advantages of a competitor’s product helps you design sales strategies that highlight the unique advantages of your own. Believing your customer has not already heard your competitor’s sales pitch is naïve. They have, and they are going to compare what you say against what the competition claimed.

 

All of this is not to say that you need to disparage your competitor’s product. Actually, the opposite is more effective in a sales presentation. You should praise the unique advantages of your competitor’s products while highlighting the truly unique advantages of what you offer.

 

Knowledge Is Power

 

I’m sure this question was posted on LinkedIn to excite the readers and drive conversation, and it worked.

 

But by following a solid, consultative approach to selling, your knowledge of a competitor’s product should almost never come up in the conversation. However, if your prospect asks you direct questions about your competitor’s offering, you should be prepared to showcase your knowledge.

 

Remember, people by from people. If your knowledge of a competitor’s product is sub-par, it’s likely your prospect will question the validity of your claims. In a true consultative selling environment, you move from vendor to partner in the eyes of your prospect. A true partner would know their market.

Sales Training Blogs – Running a Private Training Blog for Your Sales Team

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Q. I’m a sales manager who manages three separate sales offices that are 40 miles apart. What are your thoughts about using a blog to communicate company news and events, and deliver sales training to my teams? Andy in Ohio

Great question, Andy, and great idea. There are literally thousands of companies who use blogging software, like WordPress, to maintain private company blogs. Many of them use these blogs just as you described. (A private blog is like this blog, only search engines are blocked from crawling the pages, and you need a login and password to access the articles and posts.)

The great thing about using a blog to deliver your training and communicate events – instead of using email – is that blogs can become a virtual library of information. Email, of course, is deleted or becomes stale after just a few days. With a blog, your team can go back and reference product information, HR memos or sales training anytime they wish. As a central repository of information, blogs are better than the sales manager’s memory or his desk files – and your company’s blog will still be around if you move up (or out).

Because blogs generally show the most recent entries first, your team can login at anytime and read the most timely company information. RSS feeds (included in nearly every blog theme available) can notify your team whenever something new is posted. This allows them to view the post through a free reader – without having to visit the blog.

Adding Outside Resources To Your Blog

Blogs are great because you can file the various training and information topics under categories that make sense, like Product Training, HR Memos, and Proper Sales Paperwork, to name a few. Additionally, you can easily link to any web resources you need – just like in email.

For example, let’s say your company sells replacement laptop batteries and you want your sales team to be able to describe the different types to customers. You could research this and type a blog post, or you could find the resource online and link to it like this: laptop battery information.

While a free or low cost blog will allow you to monitor who logs in and when, you may struggle with the accountability of who actually grasps the material. Of course, I always tested my sales team by managing through results. Those who performed below expectations often found me riding in their car quizzing them about the latest product release or role playing the next appointment.

I’m aware of some companies who monitor their blog activity by requiring their teams to post comments after each blog entry. At the very least, they’re sure their teams logged in and took the time to read an article or post. Blog comments are also a great way to encourage best practices sharing.

How Do You Start A Company Training Blog?

Although nothing beats face-to-face training, blogs are superior to most Learning Management Systems (LMS) primarily because of their cost. In fact, you can start a private blog tonight for no cost (called a hosted blog), or very low cost (called a self-hosted blog).

For all companies, I recommend starting with a hosted blog (free) and then moving to a self-hosted blog if you’re still using the blog as an LMS in a year. The cost for a self-hosted blog will generally run about $30/month.

Note: you may want to purchase the domain name right away, even though you don’t need it for the hosted blog. At less than $10/year, it makes sense to secure something that is easy for your team to remember, like ExxonTrainingBlog.com. There are numerous domain name registrars who make it very easy to acquire a web address. I’ve used both Network Solutions and GoDaddy, and I seem to prefer GoDaddy, though both are reputable sites with similar cost structures.




Buy A Book On Blogging

I own three blogging books, and all three are on my desk next to my computer. I read all three cover-to-cover before I started the serious blogging, and I refer to at least one of them every week. The three books recommend by TheManager are:

WordPress For Dummies – AskTheManager.com is powered by WordPress, a very intuitive blog software that is easy to learn for anyone who’s mastered basic Internet skills like email and web surfing. You’ll need this book whether you plan to use the hosted WordPress blog or a self-hosted WordPress blog. (And don’t worry, this book explains both hosting options better than I can.)

Blogging For Dummies – While there is a little overlap between this Dummies guide and WordPress For Dummies, you really need both to properly manage a great blog.

ProBlogger – Not really necessary for a private company blog, but it has some great insight into the world of blogging that isn’t covered by the Dummies books.

While most blog software, like WordPress, is intuitive, it’s not Microsoft Word – you can’t just start blogging without reading something about how to use it. Save yourself the headaches later, and learn how to blog before you start blogging.

Share The Blogging Duties

The best way to teach an adult learner is to assign them to teach the material themselves. We learn much better when we know we have to regurgitate it in front of an audience later. Don’t try to tackle all the sales training yourself and assign articles and best practices sharing to your sales team. Of course, don’t stop with your sales team, feel free to bring everyone on board to contribute to the company blog:

  • Ask the HR team to put links to their important forms on the site
  • Speak with the CEO and ask him/her to post something about the company vision or the outlook for the industry
  • Ask the operations team to post information about order processing, shipping or any other issue that the sales team can alleviate by following a few guidelines
  • Ask the admin manager to post articles about how to properly complete paperwork or what to expect from the admin team during a holiday week
  • Post customer testimonials and complaints (remember – it’s private so you can air out some dirty laundry)
  • Find relevant articles and training online, and either copy and paste them in your blog, or link to them

The bottom line on private business blogs is this: they’re simple; they’re cheap and they make a great LMS. Once you start a company training blog you’ll wonder how you ever got along without one.

 


So You’re the New Sales Manager – How Are You Going To Get Up To Speed Quickly?

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Taking Over an Existing Team – Part 3 of 3

 

This is the third of three posts detailing a few quick tips I used when I was hired to take over an underperforming sales team ranked last in their region. Within six months, this team became the number one sales team in both volume and volume growth, and they held that position for the next fifty consecutive months…

 

To read the first post in this series, follow this link.

To read the second post in this series, follow this link.

 

The New Manager Questionnaire

 

At the end of the expectations-setting first meeting, I handed out the salesman questionnaire below (it’s really for the manager’s benefit, so we’ll call it the New Manager Questionnaire) and arranged a time to meet with each rep for one-on-one sessions to discuss their answers. Although I had twenty salespeople at the time, I really wanted to get these all done quickly, so I scheduled meetings from 6:30 AM to 9:00 PM the next day. (The salespeople chose their meeting times.)

 

The questionnaire was designed to give me a sense of who they were, provide them an avenue to vent about whatever it was that needed changing, and to deliver a measure of self awareness to this underperforming group.

 

Here are the 20 best questions you can ever ask a new sales team:

 

  1. Where do you see yourself in 1 year? 3 years? 10 years?
  2. What three things do you like most about your job?
  3. What three things do you like least about your job?
  4. If you could change anything about our company, what would it be and how would you change it?
  5. What should we absolutely start doing today that we’re currently not doing?
  6. What should we absolutely stop doing today that we’re currently doing?
  7. What should we absolutely continue doing that we’re currently doing?
  8. How would you describe our company to a close friend?
  9. Describe the quality and quantity of training you feel you’ve received since coming to work here. What gaps exist in the training we’ve provided?
  10. Describe your abilities as they relate to your current position.
  11. Is there a different position within our company that you feel you are better suited for than salesperson? If so, what is that position and why do you feel that way?
  12. What is your total compensation? (Include your base, bonus and any perks like car allowances.)
  13. What should be your total compensation and how can I help you achieve this?
  14. Were there ever any promises made to you by anyone at our company that have not been kept? If so, please detail these.
  15. How many hours per week do you estimate you dedicate to achieving your goals at this company?
  16. In order to become the number one salesperson in the region, how many hours a week do you think you would need to commit to the company?
  17. What must be done to grow revenue and profit in your territory?
  18. What must be done to grow revenue and profit for the whole company?
  19. On a scale of 1-10, rate the selling ability of each of the other salespeople and yourself.
  20. How would you prefer to be managed?




 

Why These 20 Questions?

 

Why are these the 20 best questions to ask your new sales team? With these 20 questions, you’ll learn more about your marketplace and your reps’ ability to execute than you will with months of observations. Each question was designed to elicit a specific response or trigger a specific paradigm shift in the salesperson:

 

  • Questions 1 and 11 tell you if they have ambitions beyond being a salesperson, and how to plan a career path for each sales rep.
  • Questions 2, 3 and 20 tell you how to manage the respective rep. (I put Question 20 last because this one usually provides some great dialogue and an easy transition for a handshake and an “I’ll do my best, please keep me in line” from me.)
  • Question 4 tells you if this person is just a complainer or someone who’s given real thought to the issues at hand and believes they know how to fix them.
  • Questions 5 through 8 tell you how to manage up and across. (That is, what you need to gain for your team from the other department heads and from your supervisor.)
  • Questions 9 and 10 set the stage for the amount and type of sales training and product training that needs to occur quickly.
  • Questions 12 and 13 help you understand how much motivation money provides to a particular salesperson.
  • Question 14 helps you remove all the animosity of previously broken promises (and every sales team is full of broken promises from the company). Of course, that’s only if you honor the broken promises of your predecessor.
  • Questions 15, 16 and 17 are really kind of cool, because they reveal to the salesperson, out loud, that they’re not giving all they can.
  • The aggregated answers to Question 18 will help you create plans to reach the company’s goals. (The salespeople really do have all the answers, you just have to ask them.)
  • Question 19 gives you a sense of how everyone views their teammates, and which ones are the leaders and which ones may need development, retraining or a pink slip.

 

I asked the sales team to come prepared to answer all of these questions during their one-on-one meeting, but that they didn’t need to bring anything written – I would take copious notes (which I did).

 

Hearing a sales rep tell you, out loud, that he’s a 5 on a 1-10 scale is extremely powerful. This is someone eager to learn, and the self-realization that occurs gives them a voracious appetite for direction, development and sales training.

 

Do You Really Mean It?

 

Good salespeople are good because they can read people, and they’ll always know when you’re lying. The key to this questionnaire is sincerity. You have to be sincere about wanting to know the answers to these questions, and you have to be sincere about wanting to change the things that need changing. If all you do is ask the questions and take no action, your team will never trust you and they will never perform.

 

It would take dozen of additional posts to share with you how I used all of these answers to shape this group into the best sales team in the region, though suffice it to say that sharing a vision and then living that vision can do wonders for a rag-tag group like I had inherited.

 

I encourage any leader who is taking over as a new sales manager, or any manager who is simply tired of lackluster sales, to try these questions on their own sales team. As always, I welcome your comments… Good Selling!

 

Management by Questioning: Training Sales Managers to Lead in Tough Economic Times

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Management by Questioning…

 

Not the most electrifying title for a post, I know, but an important topic nonetheless.

 

A friend who owns a successful business recently lamented that his sales teams were ineffective selling into the “terrible economy” we’re faced with today. I was surprised, because this man has always done a great job driving revenue and profit growth through the actions of the great teams he assembled. When I asked why he thought this was, he said he really didn’t know, “it seems I spend hours everyday telling my sales managers how to do their job and nothing seems to click,” he shared.

 

Wow! So much has changed for this man and his company since their sales went from slam dunks to half-court prayers. He used to listen and now he tells.

 

How can anyone expect to lead simply by telling?

 

I’m hopeful most of the readers of this leadership development blog already understand that we learn more by listening than we do by speaking. This is really lesson one for management training and should go without saying… so, I’ll go without saying it.

 

My advice to my friend? I gave him the following five simple questions to review individually with his sales managers on a daily basis. Now when he sits down with them he “asks” instead of “tells.”

 

  1. Tell me about your team’s biggest success today?
  2. Who on your team really stood out and what did they do?
  3. Where do we have the greatest opportunity in your market?
  4. What are your goals for tomorrow?
  5. How can I help?

I encouraged him to keep these interactions positive and to refrain from injecting his opinion. If his sales managers ask him questions, I’ve instructed him to turn these around with his own question: “what do you think?”

 

He’s now three months into this routine and after a short period of confusion by the sales managers, they now look forward to these interactions. They’ve turned around their sales and they are growing market share in a very difficult market.

 

This is sales training 101 – salespeople sell with their hearts and their heads, not their backs. You can stand in front of an assembly line worker and “tell” them how to do their jobs all day long, but when you interact with salespeople and sales managers they have to buy in to your vision. By asking them questions in a positive manner, my friend was able to make the sales managers think about their own markets, and work hard to have both a success for today and goals for tomorrow to share with him.

 

He accomplished all this without demanding that they have daily successes and goals, and he also no longer has to tell them anything… he just asks.