Sales Management Training - Managing Lead Generation - Sales Prospecting

For salespeople to be effective lead generators, they must have both active and passive marketing programs. Now (1) their marketing program must be their own - not the company's (although the two can be in sync with each other), and (2) they will do both, halfheartedly or not at all unless you the sales manager shows them how and holds them accountable. Accountability means setting goals, actions and measurements. Then, review progress on a regular schedule to give meaningful feedback and motivation to reach agreed-upon metrics.

So here are some sales management training tips for managing an Active Lead Generation Process.

Active marketing is networking (a) up and out within existing accounts, (b) into competitors' and lost accounts, and (c) new markets.

For existing accounts do your sales people have 100% of their existing accounts' business? Do your sales people what it will take to steal accounts from your competitors? Do your sales people have a method to introduce and integrate your products into new markets? Probably not.

Now, the easiest way to get more business is to spread like a virus through all accounts, focusing on eventually getting to the C-level and/or profit center leaders and their immediate staffs. Your goal as a manager is to keep them focused on connecting with more and more people to learn their problems and potential opportunities that relate to your solutions portfolio. Then, with their gleaned knowledge, develop suggestions and strategies that these leaders find helpful. Try not to concentrate at first on the purchase, but rather on learning and then their buy-in to your suggestions. Learning their thinking will show what it will take to get buy-in. With buy-in comes support, and with support comes networking to those with the power to mandate changes, create budgets and to authorize purchases.

If your sales people stick with their one or two main contacts, their ability to discover opportunities and make suggestions that lead to purchases is severely limited. Therefore, you must insist upon an Executive Relationship Chart. The elements of such a tool include:

1. Who are all (up and out) involved people by name and title in that organization?
a. The powerful -- C-Level, Profit Center Leaders and their immediate staffs.
b. The influential, the functional and the impacted.
c. The administrators -- purchasing agents spec writers, engineers, and controllers.
2. Where does your sales person rank on the credibility pyramid for each of these people -- 1-low to 6-a resource/consultant?
3. What actions is each taking to improve his or her position with each decision maker?
4. When will these actions be completed, and
5. How will you know it's complete and how will you measure it?

Obviously, if your salespeople are a 5 to 6 on the credibility pyramid with the powerful, they will have access to new opportunities, which they have helped create. Conversely, if they are stuck with low-level administrators and functional people, they will be just another one of the bunch of competitors.

Your job for helping your people create quality leads is to keep them networking, learning from each individual and offering-up ideas. This process will take time, but once it catches-on, it will produce an ongoing flow of leads from new divisions, for new products, and more and more. This applies to existing and lost customers, competitors' accounts, and new markets as well. My rule is 50% of sales people's prospecting time should be spent on existing accounts, 30% on lost and competitors' accounts where they have contacts, and 20% in those accounts where they have no contacts.

So start creating Executive Relationship Charts for each of your existing accounts and those accounts you would like to penetrate. These charts will yield your networking plans and the actions your people will take to improve their credibility with the powerful and influential. From these actions will emanate the leads that generate sales.

More Management training

Management Training - Revealed - 3 Powerful Methods to Explode Your Management Training

Source: Sean Mize

Even managers need some training from time to time so they can be prepared for challenges that they will face in regards to supervising people and managing projects. Most management training include workshops and courses that teach managers how to be more effective and more efficient in their jobs.

Whether you are an in-house management trainer or an independent trainer, I am pretty sure that you'll benefit from this article. In here, I'll discuss the things that you need to do to make sure that your trainees will get the most out of your programs. Here's what you need to do:

1. Schedule. Managers have duties and responsibilities. So as not to affect their day-to-day activities, pick a schedule that will compliment their work hours. For example, you can conduct trainings every Saturdays. You can give these people 1-3 hours seminars once a week. This is usually enough to teach these people skills and help them become more effective on what they do.

2. Training curriculum. Your management training curriculum must include guidance on how to motivate employees and how to communicate effectively. You must also include seminars on managing business meetings, holding team building activities, problem-solving, handling complaints, enhancing delegation skills, collaboration, and change management. Additional management training courses about emotional intelligence, diversity, and ethics are also necessary.

3. Active listening. As a trainer, it's very important that you listen to your trainees all throughout your program so you'll easily know their learning needs and demands. I recommend that you set up regular one-on-one meetings with them to figure out their areas of opportunities. The more you know about these people, the higher your chances of effectively helping them out.

Management Training Challenges

Does information get lost through too many channels?

Anyone who ever planned a conference must know how challenging it is to pick up a half-planned conference from a colleague or, on the flip side, how distressing it is to hand over an unfinished conference to someone else to complete. The fact is that any conference or business meeting requires a great deal of attention to ensure that the final product runs smoothly without any hiccups.

Now, you have to ask yourself the question: Is it conducive to the success of your conference, management training or meeting to hand information over through more than one channel?

When the client acquires the service of a booking agent to help source a management training centre, the venue representative is often left to liaise with the agent regarding the confirmation, contract and final details of the event. The agent is, therefore, the middleman and both the client and the venue representative heavily rely on the information being passed through that agent. It is a question of efficiency on behalf of the agent, the agent's understanding of the client's objectives and the ability to relate that information to the venue representative.

Purpose built management training centres benefit from the industry specific experience of their staff. The typical Events Manager or Conference Coordinator at a venue would need operational background to qualify for a position in a planning role. When you make a booking directly with the venue, therefore, the information is given to the person who will not only plan the event, but also understand the logistics around the venue and can advise you on the best use of the facilities, ultimately contributing to the success of the event.

Lane End Conference Centre is a purpose built management training centre ideal for management training and skills training courses in Buckinghamshire. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anitha_Hari

Sales Management Training - Discover 3 Creative Steps to Impact Your Training For Sales Management

By: Sean Mize

As a sales manager, you've got one of the most important jobs to do. Essentially, you're looking to partner with a lot of people in the community. Taking this approach, make sure you expose your mind to relevant management training courses. This way you can favorably improve your company profits. Continue along in this article to discover 3 creative steps to impact your sales management training.

1. After you've been doing selling for a while, you might get stale. Getting stale can happen when we think in closed minded ways. Or, we feel too comfortable in the current sales cycle routine. This might be a sales death attitude in the making. However, we can take the opposite avenue and eagerly look to keep training ourselves to stay crisp and interesting to our clients. By eagerly keeping current with training, we are better salespeople. Better salespeople make more money. So, there is a lot of benefit to you about doing regular sales training.

2. Keep track of your sales. When you track your sales, you can identify which approaches work best, who sells the most, and other details about your sales process and records. Keep a record journal of the statistics. Using your business sales journal entries, you can quickly see what approaches work most effectively and which ones are clunkers to be deleted.

3. Take time to actually improve sales processes. Monitor sales highs and lows. Write out the reasons for fluctuating sales in your business sales journal. You may see patterns to eliminate or expand depending upon their effects.

Greatest Sales Strategy Ever

By Jon Gordon

As a student of people and ideas I had to admit that what two guys are doing in a Northeast Florida Starbucks is absolutely genius.

The other day as I tried to pay for my green tea at my local Starbucks the cashier said, “Don’t worry about it sir.

Those guys over there are paying for it today.” She then handed me their business card from a stack by the register.

Turns out the guys were wealth management, financial planners who once a week, at different times, will spend a few hours at this Starbucks and buy customers their coffee.

Most people, like me, will walk over and thank the gentlemen and walk away with their business card in our pocket.

I thought about how brilliant this was. People love their Starbucks in the morning. While they are waiting in line they smell that aroma and think, “Yes, there is a God for only God could make something that smells so good.”

For many the Starbucks experience has become a ritual or right of passage that helps them take on the day. It’s become an emotional experience that makes them feel good. It’s become a bond of love.

Imagine yourself at the register, which is very easy for many of us, as you anticipate holding that coffee in your hand, thinking “YES”. Then the cashier tells you it’s FREE. Wow, an unexpected gift. Now instead of feeling good you are feeling great.

You feel so good you don’t mind placing a stranger’s card in your pocket. When you walk over and say thank you to these financial planners they cease to be strangers and become more like acquaintances and neighbors. Then about an hour later when the caffeine really kicks in you’re feeling so great, you think, “Wow, those financial planners are great guys.”

Now instead of acquaintances they have become more like long lost friends. These financial planners brilliantly connected something you love with a service they offer.

Not surprisingly I found out that these men do receive a good number of calls from the Starbucks customers interested in planning for their financial future.

It is said we remember one third of what we read, half of what people tell us and 100 % how feel. Whether we are watching a commercial, listening to a teacher, or talking to a sales person it is how we feel that impacts us the most.

We can’t remember what we ate for lunch a week ago but we can remember where we were on 9-11 when we saw the World Trade towers collapse. We remember how we feel and when it comes time to investing our money, buying a product, purchasing insurance, or choosing a restaurant and we will make choices based on these feelings.

This leads us to the greatest sales strategy ever—but it doesn’t involve coffee. While the Starbucks idea is brilliant it isn’t the best way to build a business.

There is a far more powerful strategy to create an emotional connection and foster and emotional memory. It’s so simple and it doesn’t even cost a dime. It’s to love your customers. Caffeine is temporary but love lasts forever.

Love and business are two words you usually don’t here in the same sentence but when it comes to sales, customers do business with people they like and who love and care about them.

When customers feel like they matter and feel cared for they love back with more loyalty, more business and more referrals.

So if you are in sales, and we all are, I encourage you to make loving and caring about your customers your top priority. You don’t have to buy them coffee to connect your product or service with something they love. You can be the connection. Your love can be the bridge that connects your customer with your product or service.

After all no matter what we are selling, people are always buying our energy and making decisions based on how our energy makes them feel. And while coffee is an energy source that makes people feel good it doesn’t compare to the energy of love.

Look out for your customers interests. Show them you care. Share the love and you’ll be so successful you’ll be able to buy your own Starbucks and give away all the coffee you want.
______________
Jon Gordon is a speaker, consultant and author of the international best seller The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy and The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work, & Training Camp: What the Best do Better than Everyone Else. Visit him at www.JonGordon.com

*brought to you by SalesTrainingAdvice.com

The Benefits of Sales Training

A vigorous sales force is the basis upon which any successful business is based.  Without sales, there are no accounts to service, no products to deliver and no services to offer.  The company that is able to best get the word out about what the company has to offer is the one that captures the lion’s share of a given business.

Sales training can be difficult to implement in-house for a small company with few resources.  Therefore hiring a sales training consultant is a means by which any organization, large or small, can achieve similar results.  Sales training can rely upon anything from printed materials and books to live sales presentations to meetings and sales presentations live on the Internet.   Carefully consider the training needs of the company before deciding on the right sales training course.

Another important consideration is deciding which employees need to be trained.  Include members of company management and administrative support staff in addition to account executives. For example, learning a new sales training technique can enable a customer service representative to deal with a difficult customer in a positive and mutually beneficial way.

In the end, choosing the right sales training regimen for your particular organization will ensure greater levels of client retention and satisfaction, in addition to increasing the number and value of accounts that are secured.  In a given industry, excellent sales training separates the most successful companies from all the rest.

 

 

Common Misconceptions with Cold Calls

By: Cade Lee

I posted Dr. Daoust's article that can be found here from Ezine Articles which is an excellent source for information. In this case I could not disagree more with Dr. Daoust, her article is what I commonly see from those that don't seem to have real experience or perhaps just enough experience to write an article. Please don't get me wrong, I am not tearing apart Dr. Daost's article. What I am saying is that her idea of cold calling is incorrect. In her article she states, "That you cannot yield very high results from cold calling and that you are only likely to gain ten percent of your business (at the most) from cold calling." If that were sincerely the case I would never encourage anyone to cold call, why bother? If that were the case I would focus my time on the other 90% and never pick up a phone ever again!

Here three things to do with your cold calling that will differentiate you from your competition or other cold calling salespeople.

#1. Do Not Ask the Receptionist or "Gatekeeper" for the "decision maker": Your first call to a company should never be to locate the decision maker. You will find this over time if you haven't already located them through the research you should have completed before making the call. You should always take the time to research the company and its key players before making the call. I understand that takes much time, but I would rather invest the time in the beginning and obtain the business versus making 1000 calls and wind up with 10 solid prospects.

Make certain to establish a relationship with the company, any relationship will work. If you can establish a relationship with receptionist and get a conversation going with her first, do it! He/she (doesn't have to be a she) is receiving calls all day from pompous sales people that are trying to trick her into letting them through to the "boss", so differentiate yourself by telling her what you are trying to achieve and be transparent. The sale might end right there, but at the end of the day you were honest not tricky and should you call back in the future she just might remember who you are.

At the end of the day, your job is the best job in the world! You get paid to make friends, just remember that not everyone wants to be your friend. By befriending the receptionist it will be much easier to talk with them in the future. Often times I was never able to reach the actual decision maker as the receptionist made the decision that they (the company) did not need or want my services, yet she referred me to a colleague she thought would!

#2. Ask Who They Currently Do Business With For Your Product or Service: Of course over time you want to learn this, but in the beginning, asking who their current provider is would be an easy way to kill the call. If they bring up your competition then of course discuss what they like about their current provider, what do they dislike? If they do not bring up your competition, then talk with them about setting an appointment. In the beginning your goal should be to set an appointment. These folks were not expecting your call, and so why should you expect that they would just be sitting around waiting for the call to begin with? Trying to "one call close" with cold calls is not efficient. Cold calling is the start of your relationship, it is simply a handshake. Sometimes it can work out to be immediate business, but that will happen organically without you ever asking usually.

By asking them who they currently do business with, they (the prospective customer) is usually put into a difficult or defensive position if they like their current provider. You do not want to do this in the cold call.

#3 make as Many Cold Calls as Humanly Possible: Probably the biggest problem with cold calling for any sales person is the fact that they usually feel uncomfortable with the process. They (the sales person) feel agitated or upset when they get called at home or at work from a sales person, so they almost feel guilty doing this to someone else. To get over this hesitation and anxiety, the best thing is to force your habit. Learning to cold call is just like learning to work out, you must make it a habit.

I have heard that it takes 30 days to make a habit, so if this is the case you will have to make as many calls as you can inside the first thirty days. This will differentiate you from the competition as they are not making cold calls, and if they do it is on the level of amateurs. Always, make the most calls. Every failure will bring you closer to a success, and the more failures you can obtain the more mistakes you can avoid in the future. By making the most calls in your sales organization you will develop a "phone personality" that cannot be duplicated and will easily differentiate you from your inexperienced competition.

With as much attrition as there is in sales, if you can stick through the first 30 days and make the most calls out of anyone in your organization, than you have already started a successful approach to successful cold calling.

Cold calling is a big topic, and there is much to know. I will continue a series of articles about cold calling, but as a starting point I think if you can master these first three key points you will be on the road to making cold calling much easier. Contrary to Dr. Daost's article about cold calling, I have developed 90% of my business through cold calling. Today I obtain most of my business through referrals, but that is not how I started out. I wished I had more time to cold call today. The accounts I have obtained through cold calling have always been much more rewarding (financially and emotionally) versus referrals.

Cade Lee is a guest writer on Denver Sales Training. He has over 15 years of experience in the sales field and has been a sales representative in Denver for several Fortune 500 Companies. Cade is an award winning Account Executive, and believes strongly in the mentorship strategy. Learn more about sales training in Denver, and Denver sales leadership.