Sales Progress Blog

We often speak about utilizing group discussions and best practices as a part of your employee coaching program, to help improve your sales team.  Now we propose you to take it one step further, and actually document these best practices, to create the greatest sales handbook your team could ask for.

You can read hundreds of books and articles about selling, but who better to learn sales tips from than your own team of people who are selling your same products or services, experiencing the same type of marketplace, and getting the same objections.

Get your team to write down their best work both for their own good and the good of their fellow employees.  Examples of useful information:

-    Their best elevator pitch
-    Their best “break the ice” opener
-    Their best response to specific objections
-    Their best sales close
-    Etc.

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Shannon Gburzynski Sales Management, Sales Training employee coaching program, sales techniques, sales tips, Sales Training, sustainable sales training, tailored sales training

Engagement with your employees, is the most effective coaching tool we have.  What comes first and what comes last is remembered best, so engaging first thing in the morning, or right before the end of day is highly effective.  How are you beginning your morning, or leaving your team at the end of the day?

Say good morning, and ask a simple question that’s more engaging than, "how are you."  Ask a question specific to them, not a generic question that can be answered with "oh fine, thanks".  After you ask, use your communication skills and ACTUALLY LISTEN to how they respond.

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Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training business coaching tool, coaching tools, communication skills, effective coaching, effective coaching tool, employee engagement

Dealing with criticism is rarely easy or pleasant.  Some people are good at giving criticism, while others can be quite abrasive; some offer it in order to make you better (like your coach or manager), others to put you down.  With this in mind it’s important to accept criticism, matter how it comes, gracefully in order for you to use it as an effective learning strategy.

Handling criticism gracefully requires an attitude shift.  No matter what the intent of the criticizer, take it as an opportunity to get better.  The important thing to remember is that they are seeing something you don’t.  No matter how often we look we will never to able to see all flaws or needed areas of improvement within ourselves, so take this feedback as a positive.  This is not to say that everyone offering feedback should be taken seriously, but always look for the glimmer of truth in what they have to say, you may be surprised what you find. Thank them for their observation and then take a minute or two to contemplate the message.

Should this feedback leave you feeling discouraged, brainstorm and write down 3 specific actions you can take immediately to improve upon the issue at hand.  Coming up with an actionable plan will allow you to feel empowered, and make seeing criticism as an opportunity to improve more realistic.  Take this process one step further by sharing your plan with your coach, a manager, or a trusted colleague.  Sharing your plan adds an extra level of accountability to ensure that you act upon your plan.

Handling criticism isn’t always easy, but it can always be helpful if taken with the right attitude and perspective. Next time you are in the hot seat, don’t get defensive, but rather remember that criticism is one of the most effective learning strategies out there, so take advantage of this free feedback.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training communication skills, Employee Coaching, professional coaching, Sales Manager, sales skills, self directed learning skills

According to a recent survey by the Hay Group,  64% of the top 20 Best Companies for Leadership, say their people are expected to lead even when they are not in a position of authority, a mere 35% of average companies have this mentality.  By expecting that all employees demonstrate leadership skills they are developing employees internally to move up their ranks.  Strategies like this reduce turn over and down time needed to train leaders brought in from outside the company.

Another key finding from the Hay Group, employees from the top leadership companies are more comfortable that their company will come out of tough times stronger.  These people trust their company’s leaders to bring them through tough times, and they worry less about losing their jobs therefore allowing them to put their full energy into their work with out the fear that they won’t be around to finish it.

So how much time does it take to develop these top leaders? According to the same survey, 22% of the top companies report spending 25 plus days per year training leaders, while only 16.4% of all respondents of the survey reported spending 25 days per year developing their employees.  With this said, top companies spend about 2 days a month training their leaders.  These companies understand that this time is a great investment to their future.

What does all this tell us?  Top companies have great leaders, and leaders come from our people, so we need to spend the time and potentially the money on management training to develop them.  This training effort is an investment not an expense, and should always be seen as such.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training employee training solutions, leadership training, management leadership training, management training, on the job training methods, sales leadership skills, training of trainers

According to the experts the top 5 major forms of communications are:
(1) Face-to-face
(2) Telephone
(3) Texting
(4) E-mail
(5) Social media

The most EFFECTIVE forms of communication are face-to-face and telephone.  Keep this in mind when you need to speak to fellow employees especially when confronting someone. Bringing up an important issue may be more comfortable to do through email or text, but it can be totally ineffective.

Make sure you discuss important issues through face-to-face methods or at least  over the telephone if needed. In this overly connected world of social media, email, and text messaging meaning can sometimes be lost.  Written messages such as text or email leave your message open to interpretation.  People could take your message harder than you meant and become offended, or may fail to see the importance and blow it off all together. A real conversation is the only way to avoid the confusion.

Confrontation is never easy, but by facing the situation head on, you can ensure the problem will be addressed properly right away, and getting it taken care of right away means you can get back to work quicker. Using the right communication medium is the first step in developing strong communication skills.

If confronting someone face-to-face makes you nervous there are a few things you can do to put yourself at ease.  First, confront the other person when you are in a calm mood.  Attacking someone at the height of your frustration will only escalate the situation.  Second, practice what you want to say.  Having a script to go into the conversation with will help put you at ease and ensure you share everything you need to say. Third, if your really uncomfortable or the situation is a pretty big issue, ask a superior for help or even have them sit in on the conversation to help mediate.  A coaching session with your manager can help come up with the best plan of how and when to confront the issue. Being able to confront issues with strong communication skills is imperative to having a strong team, don’t let your comfort level or lack of skills create an on-going problem.

We would love to hear stories of communication gone wrong.  Share your stories or opinions below.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training Behavior, coaching, communication skills, employee training, Enhance Performance, sales coaching techniques, Sales Staff, socialmedia, team building, workplace training

You have worked your butt off all week and you made it to Friday, now it’s time to enjoy the weekend… Isn’t It?  For many professionals the weekend doesn’t equate to 48 hours of pure personal time, it’s actually quite clouded with work.  If you are a working weekend warrior there are a few things to think about, before spending your Saturday afternoon working instead of relaxing.time management, business opportunities, sales skills

1. Are you using weekend time to make up for slacking off at work, or poor time management?  You may think you are the hardest worker in the office because you are one of the only ones doing work on weekends, but if you are one of the only ones this could be a good sign you aren’t using your time during the 9-5 work day effectively.  Try to become conscious of how much time you spend socializing, or checking non-urgent email.  Maybe your spending a little too much time checking your Facebook or LinkedIn accounts.  Schedule your days out the night before, giving yourself the right amount of time it SHOULD take you to finish a task, then stick to the schedule.  You may find you get everything done when you don’t allow yourself the distraction of tasks not on your schedule.  Who knows maybe you could start enjoying your weekends again?
2. Does what your working on REALLY have to get done.  Weekends are meant to refresh you to make it through another hard working workweek, but if your spending your weekends also working you aren’t getting the break you need.  Before you fire up your computer or drag yourself into an empty office, ask yourself, “Could this wait till Monday?”  If it can wait and get done first thing Monday morning, then wait.

By taking a look at WHY your working weekends, it may lead to a great opportunity to develop your skills to further increase your productivity, business opportunities,and getting your weekend back.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training business opportunities, Enhance Performance, sales skills, sales techniques, time management, workplace training

recently read a great and very short post from the blog of Seth Godin, titled
The relentless search for "tell me what to do". The post read:

If you’ve ever hired or managed or taught, you know the feeling.
People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: "If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I’m safe."
When asked, resist.

We typically think of people NOT liking being told what to do, but think about your staff and fellow employees, and even yourself, how many times a week do we indirectly ask, “What should I be doing.”  We may say, “what tasks should I be completing today,” or “I have the following problem, how should I fix it?” but all in all we are saying, “tell me what to do.”

This frame of thinking not only becomes a way to push off responsibility as Seth suggested above, but it can also breed laziness and a lack of accountability.

Managers can use coaching techniques to get employees to come up with their own solutions to problems.  Use questions like, “What do you THINK you should do,” or “If you were me, what would you tell yourself to do.”  These questions allow for a dialog to open, and you can now lead your employee to a suitable solution they essentially came up with on their own.  When your employee owns the solutions they will work harder to make it work because it is their own butt on the line.  If you simply give them a solution, they can half-heartedly attempt it, and if it fails they can blame you.  Don’t play the blame game; make your staff responsible for their actions.

If you are an employee, and you have finished your work for the day, proactively seek additional projects you can work on.  Go above and beyond, but keep your manager in the loop to ensure you are not wasting time.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training business coaching, coaching, effective coaching, Leadership, Manager, sales coaching, Sales Coaching Methodology, Sales Manager

Download this FREE whitepaper now for a 4-Step process to creating your own social media strategy for selling, including a look at specific ways to use popular social media sites to increase leads and sale.  Use these sales techniques to increase sales now.

Download:

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training lead generation, prospecting, sales, Sales Staff, sales techniques, social media

• Be Predictable:
  • Your team member will certainly have some reoccurring issues through out your coaching process, but if you run every meeting the same way, it will get stale, and the interest of you and the team member will take a dive.  Try to mix up where you meet, what time of day you meet, the order of things you discuss etc.

• Talk too much.
  • Effective coaching sessions are not training sessions.  You’re a manager, not a trainer or consultant so don’t run your meetings as such. (Typically workshop style training doesn’t work well anyways).  Sessions should be about getting the team member to open up about their top issues, and you guiding them to a suitable solution.  If you are talking the whole time how will you know what their issues are?  To get to the root of issues requires LISTENING not TALKING!
• Not have a plan
  • While we do recommend mixing things up to keep interest and participation up, you must have a plan about what needs to be accomplished during that meeting.  If you aren’t sure what you’re trying to accomplish, how will your team member?  Do you want to discuss issues covered last week?  Is there a particular skill you see them struggling with that you would like to bring to their attention?  Is there something they did you want to congratulate them on?  What’s covered is really up to you, but whatever it is make sure you have a plan written down so you make sure you hit all your topics.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training coaching, effective coaching, Enhance Performance, management leadership training, Manager, Sales Coaching Methodology, Sales Manager, Sales Staff

Nurturing leads has become more important and more difficult than ever for creating business opportunities:

• Research firm Sirius Decisions says that during the last five years, the average sales cycle has become 22% longer, typically with three more decision makers participating in the buying process.
• According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead.
• According to CSO Insights, companies that excel at lead nurturing have 9% more sales reps make quota, and enjoy a 10% shorter ramp up time for new reps.

Follow up opportunities are a great way to nurture your leads, and they don’t always have to include a closing sales pitch.  Keep reading to check out some innovative follow up ideas to nurture your leads and keep you in front of your prospects with out looking desperate.

1. Send a referral:  This is a GREAT one.  Call up your prospect and tell them you have the name of a potential new prospect FOR THEM!  You establish yourself as a trusted resource, and should that prospect turn into a client for them, you can bet they will remember you when it comes time to make a purchase decision.
2. Send an article:  We pass this tip on to all of our clients, but still many won’t take the time so it’s a great way to set you apart.  Set up a Google news alert for articles, news, or how-tos written about your prospects industry.  Check the news alert once a week, and if there is information that may be relevant to your prospect forward it on.  Again, you position yourself as a resource, and are keeping your name top of mind with out becoming obnoxious.
3. Send them a relevant success story or testimonial.  Keep an up to date list of references, success stories, and testimonials on file. Then when a similar prospect pops up send them a quick email with the attached reference piece along with contact information of the source.  Encourage your prospects to contact your reference.  The easiest way to convince a lead to buy is to give them a trusted testimonial from one of their peers.
4. Communicate new products or features.  Every time your company comes out with something new, or updates something old use it as a way to get back in front of prospects.  A personal phone call is best, but if you have a large list, target the most promising prospects to call while sending an email to the rest.  This new product development may just be the the feature that resolves their hesitation to buy.
5. Give a response to questions.  Of course the best sales people try to be prepared for everything, but sometimes this is just unrealistic.  When a prospect asks a question you can’t answer use it as an opportunity to follow up with them later with a clear and specific response. You will get through again easier if you can say, "I have an answer to your question," as opposed to "I’m just following up."

Have your own creative way to follow up?  Share it with us in the comment section below!

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training Enhance Performance, lead nurturing, prospecting, sales, sales effectiveness, Sales Manager, sales skills, Sales Staff, sales techniques, self directed learning skills