Your contribution will help us to give our students the best education and get them to college. We are excited to be chosen as one of two schools to participate in “Beyond Perception,” an art program focused on homelessness in our community.  We will be working with Wheeler Mission to help our students get a firsthand experience while conveying their reactions and perceptions through art. This is just one of the many ways we work to expose our students to new experiences.

The faculty and staff work hard every day to do all in our power to better the lives of these students by preparing them for college and the world beyond. You are part of that effort!

If you would like to come in to take a tour of our newly renovated school, please feel free to contact me at 317.860.1000 ext. 106 or via email at vpetersen@pcrhs.org. Visit Providence Cristo Rey High School’s website

We appreciate all YOU do to help us change the lives of our students!

Sincerely,
Victoria Petersen-Elia, CFRE
Director of Institutional Advancement

Smith uses the example of earlier times, when salespeople called on prospects, dumped a bunch of information on them, and tried to make the sale before the caller hung up. Today, people embrace the “If you can say it, you can ask it” philosophy. The Forbes article quotes Wendy Weiss, who is known as “The Queen of Cold Calling,” with saying, “A good pitch is one where you ask questions, listen to the prospect, and offer them a solution to a problem.” So now we will solve all sales effectiveness issues by asking lots of questions, right? Imagine this call:

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mr. Baker. Are you happy with your current office supply vendor?”

or

“I was calling to see if you are having any issues with ABC.”

or even better, opening the call with an open-ended question:

“What are the current issues that you are having with your HVAC system?”

Then following through with:

“Since you have those issues, I would like to offer you ABC. Can I tell you about it?”

Now imagine that you are the prospect getting these calls. This total stranger has interrupted your day by asking you questions about your business. Any answer that you give, except the normal response, “We are happy,” or “We aren’t having any issues,” is going to lead you down a path of being “sold” something. Even if you really have issues, these questions seem to entrap you or put pressure on you. So, why should you be honest with your responses?

As salespeople in these situations, our role is to quickly generate interest, AND THEN ask questions, so that our prospects can discover what it is they want or need. But the “pitch” must happen in order facilitate generating any interest. However, the pitch must differ from a dump. The pitch must read like a good fiction novel—a little mystery, and some suspense, with action thrown in. Since not everything should be in the realm of cold calling (because so few people do it despite all the hype), how about having a networking conversation?

“What do you do?”

“I help businesses that are having issues with the rising costs of transportation.”

or

“I help business owners who are frustrated with employees who are not thankful for their benefits.”

or

“I help families manage the risk that is hidden in their lives.”

A statement like one of the above usually “begs the question” and naturally elicits a response like, “Tell me more.” Now they will listen to you and respond to the good questions that you ask.

Asking questions just for the sake of asking them is a quick fix to a bigger problem. It’s just like withholding information until the right time: Questions are very valuable. Save them until your prospect is ready to respond to them.

- Brian Kavicky

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Why Salespeople Fail Webinar
Manage your salespeople past the barriers that have been holding them back and onto the success they want and the success your business deserves. Learn More

1. Do the Behavior: Most sales people find themselves doing avoidant behavior. We all know as sales people what behavior’s we should be doing and that is picking up the phone or going door to door and asking strangers for money to buy our product. If we are consistently making our dials and doing revenue generating behaviors we will be successful.

2. Be a product of the product: People buy from us because they see in us (as salespeople) what they want to see in themselves. The only way we can articulate this is to believe in our product or service. If you don’t believe in what you’re selling then how can you expect people to pay you lots of money?

3. Control your personal finances: A cluttered desk is a cluttered mind so, if your personal finances are a cluttered mess how do you think you’ll show up to your appointments? Desperate? Frantic? Once you have your personal finances under control your beliefs will change. You then can start thinking that “You’re independently wealthy and you don’t need the business.”

4. Have fun: This is the most important one. If you can’t have fun doing what you’re doing then you may want to re-evaluate being in sales. If you’re not being authentic with your clients or prospects how would you expect them to buy from you? The more you let people see who you are as a human being the easier that you’ll connect with them and the longer you’ll connect with them.

To summarize as salespeople we tend to overcomplicate things and get too creative. Maybe it’s time for us to take baby steps and start doing the behaviors that we’ve been avoiding, believing in and committing to our products unconditionally, focus on ourselves first and get our personal things in order and have a blast calling strangers and asking them for money. What’s the worst thing they can do? Say no? Some will, some won’t, oh well, who’s next.

- Whitney Lushin

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Why Salespeople Fail Webinar
Manage your salespeople past the barriers that have been holding them back and onto the success they want and the success your business deserves. Learn More

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Why Salespeople Fail Webinar
Manage your salespeople past the barriers that have been holding them back and onto the success they want and the success your business deserves. Learn More

Salespeople struggle because they…

• Chase poor prospects too long instead of looking for new business
• Keep discounting to win business and its affecting the bottom line
• Have low close ratios and long sales cycles that impact your cash flow
• Do too much unpaid consulting wasting your valuable resources
• Tend to be more of a professional visitor than a salesperson

What to do About it
? Join us for this one hour interactive webinar. You will discover strategies to effectively manage your salespeople past the barriers that have been holding them back and onto the success they want and the success your business deserves.

Register Here

February 15th from 2-3pm presented by Brian Kavicky of Lushin & Associates, Inc.

2.    Can’t speak Tribal Language-Strong salespeople have strong clients.  Weak salespeople have weak clients.  Unfortunately there are weak salespeople out there who are unable to speak the same language as Mr/Mrs C level.  In today’s business climate time is of the essence.  Being able to speak the same language is crucial to help them discover they NEED to invest time with you to find out if you can help.  If they struggle to quickly find a compelling reason on why they might hire you but there is a shred of interest it is easy to send salespeople down a few levels and let someone else do the homework.

3.    Asking the wrong questions- This is very similar to #2.  Too often salespeople are asking what I call “In the trench” questions.  These are questions about  whether or not widget or Service A is working effectively, speeds and feeds type questions or questions about how much money they can save them (FYI-this causes you to get commoditized).  The strong salespeople are asking Business problem questions that are important to this level.  If you ask “in the trench” questions you get sent down to the trench so they can answer them.

If you feel like the sales cycle for you or your company is longer than it should be this could be why.  Your new prospects will be thankful as well because you can start helping them sooner.

- Aaron Prickel

Setting goals in the first few months of a year can be the difference between a good year and a bad one. Aligning your goals with your spouses is an important step to developing a synergy in the household and setting a rudder for the year.

Setting goals as a couple will…

• Put everyone on the same page regardless of the individual roles
• Place you in the position to accomplish more as a team rather than individuals
• Focus on the pursuit of each others goals rather than the accomplishment of them

Join Lushin associates for an entertaining evening including dinner, wine and conversation.

Register Here

When: January 18th from 6:30-9pm
Where: Lushin Training Headquarters
Who: Lushin Clients and Spouses

*Dinner and drinks will be provided

Do any of these sound familiar?

• Do you hire salespeople with high expectations, but don’t get what you paid for?
• Did the new sales star promise to bring his/her previous customers to you, get you set up with new contracts, and then fail to deliver?
• Did you hire a sales star from within your industry, but they didn’t live up to expectations?
• Could it be that you hired strong salespeople but your on-boarding process limited their production?

How many salespeople would you hire if you knew they would all succeed?

Hiring Sales Superstars
Prevent hiring mistakes, use a process and a set of tools that allows you to “look under the hood” of the sales candidate before you shell out big dollars to bring them on. Learn why salespeople fail, how to screen candidates, interview and properly on-board to ensure success.

Register Here

When: January 18th 8-10am
Where: Lushin Training Headquarters Indianapolis
Who Should Attend: CEO’s and Presidents
How Much: Free

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Questioning Strategies Webinar
Walk away with the right questions to ask during sales calls, how to handle prospects qualifying questions and gain a better understanding of the questions you ask and why you are asking them. Learn More