At a recent training conference I attended we watched a video showing a saw that had a special mechanism for when it hit something foreign it immediately stopped. First they demonstrated this feature using a hot dog but then they made it more interesting by having the inventor of the mechanism put his own finger in the saw. As I reluctantly watched and saw the mechanism work flawlessly one word came to mind…commitment. (more…)
Archives
Archive for the ‘Repositories’ Category
Raising Your Sales Force
Monday, July 4th, 2011
How were you raised? What parenting style did your parents use? Were they nurturing or more authoritarian? Were you told what to do and not ask questions? If you have children of your own, did you adopt your parents’ style of rearing them or did you promise yourself that you would raise them differently? Have you? Or did you conveniently fall back into what you experienced as a kid. (more…)
Unconscious Selling
Monday, June 27th, 2011
In a recent session with a client the Divisional manager stood up in the middle of the session and proceeded to tell the following story:
“Guys, what Aaron is trying to accomplish with us is the same thing I went through during ‘Jumper’ school in the Army. Redefining our sales process to grow the company is just like learning how to jump out of a plane. We will practice the process over and over and over until we can do it cold. The first two weeks of Jumper school we learned how to fall. It prepared me for something I never thought would happen. My first time jumping I had problems with my chute but we had practiced so many times I didn’t panic. I managed to get my chute out but it was a little late and when I hit the ground I gave myself a concussion. (more…)
Building a “Sales” Culture
Monday, June 20th, 2011
When I heard my prospect say, “we are not sure we want a sales culture”, I was a little surprised. After all, they had come to us looking for a way to build their business – to maximize on the foundation that they had already built. They weren’t a dying business. They weren’t fighting cash flow issues or laying off employees. They were a successful business ready for more. If all that was true, why did they not think that this was the kind of culture that they wanted for their business? (more…)
Sales Accountability
Monday, June 13th, 2011
Accountability…most sales reps hate it. Most managers don’t like to follow through with it. For some reason, I feel this has been the #1 topic of conversation over the past few weeks with prospects and or clients looking to enhance their sales culture or consistently grow sales. The challenge is the difficulty with achieving either without accountability. (more…)
Salespeople Work for Their Goals not Yours
Monday, June 6th, 2011
While in a coaching appointment I asked my client why his salespeople were working towards specific goals. He answered, money. I then asked him why he was working towards his goals. He proceeded to share some personal reasons related to his family. I then challenged him on why he did not truly know what was driving his salespeople. How did he know it was money? Was it just money? Clearly he had a greater purpose for achieving his goals so why would his salespeople be any different? (more…)
Stop Calling on Non-Decision Makers
Monday, May 30th, 2011
Salespeople in general like to call on non-decision makers. It makes them feel busy. they spend their time calling on purchasing agents and middle men–hoping and trying to get introduced to the real decision maker. So, what’s the answer? Everybody together now…..call on only decision makers, right? The problem is that even knowing that, most people won’t. The “why”, or conceptual issue, is rarely solved. (more…)
Coaching Strategies
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
Many sales managers and CEOs ask us about how best to coach their salespeople into being better performers. It is relatively simple to implement a good coaching strategy as long as your focus is on growing your people. You have to give up being the “Superhero” that rescues everyone and accept the fact that your people are going to fail once in awhile. But after that, it is easy. (more…)
Top 5 Dating/Sales Mistakes
Monday, May 16th, 2011
In our sales training sessions with clients we always seem to use a lot of analogies to help people turn theory into real life application. For some reason, the past few months have been filled with a lot of dating references and the correlation into sales. When you look at the two, they are indeed very similar. (more…)
The Coffee Shop Sales Culture
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Today I had an personal appointment in the late afternoon that was going to leave me closer to home than at our office. I decided to use the time to write and chose a Starbucks as my writing environment. In this rather large Starbucks, there are about 25 tables. Some of the tables are filled with students doing homework, some with couples visiting, and others are individuals working or reading. However, at least one-third are tables filled with people making “sales pitches.” Two tables have really have caught my attention. At one,there are two financial planners working an older lady, likely in her 80′s. At another, there are three salespeople and a prospect bent over a computer as they view a PowerPoint presentation. (more…)
Overcoming Call Reluctance
Cold calling is not fun but we have to do it. Here are a few excuses and my feedback on to rethink them.
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