The old method of using cold calling to prospect is well on its way out, and you don’t want to be left behind. While your inside sales team had to have excellent communication skills to engage with someone over the phone, they need to be even more refined online. They need to be able to connect with friends and clients and post blogs and whitepapers to get their company in front of potential clients. Managers need to become business coaches and teach their inside sales teams to harness the new social media tools for their own benefit.
Most of us know the outstanding stats when it comes to how many people are actually involved in sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but did you know that 41% of all businesses receive leads from social media? This is huge for most sales teams. However, not everyone knows how to take social media and turn it into profits. Managers need to step in and tailor sales training to the new tool. Social media is a great tool for sales people. It can help easily gather information, increase lead generation, allow for warmer introduction calls and much more. The trick to successful use of social media in selling is to remember that despite the new channels of communication, you are still selling. You still have to get the right message to the right decision maker at the right time.
There are three main social media sites that can be used to increase sales and create more leads:
Click here to read more.
Click here for a free powerpoint and whitepaper.
admin Sales Training business coaching, cold calling, communication skills, effective coaching, Facebook, inside sales team, lead generation, linkedin, management leadership training, prospecting, Sales Managers, social media, social networking, training reinforcement, Twitter
Writing thank-you notes has been an idea that has been so reinforced throughout my life that it has just become second nature. As a child, my mom made me write a thank-you card as soon as I opened a gift. There was no exception to this rule. In college, my business classes taught me that it is extremely important to write a card after a job interview. I was told that it would give me an extra edge when the company sat down to consider applicants. We have been taught these things growing up, but it seems that we forget this simple rule the longer we are in the business world.
If writing a thank-you note could possibly help you get a job, what’s to stop it from landing that potential customer or closing a sale? Writing a note is a simple and effective way to impact the amount of sales that your reps make each year. There are multiple different reasons to write thank-yous to clients:
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admin Sales Management business coaching, effective coaching, inside sales team, linkedin, prospecting, Results, revenue, sales, sales coaching techniques, Sales Representative, Sales Success, sales techniques, thank you
Throughout most of our blogs, we have discussed the importance of learning reinforcement. It important to know as much information about your product as you can, and it is equally as important to learn new techniques that are arising in the sales world. We have always stressed that you should constantly be learning, and it has become apparent that this old adage is necessary as more and more younger generations come into the workplace.
We all know by now that there are four generations working side by side in most businesses, but what does that mean from a learning standpoint?
Generational Learning Requirements
As a society, we have slowly progressed into an era where technology is starting to become the forefront of most industries, and as this transition is happening, generation X and generation Y are being taught how to successfully harness the tool. Veterans and baby boomers should be given online training because technology is second nature to the younger generations, as professional speaker Garrison Wynn puts it,
Read more and win Summerfest tickets…
admin Sales Management, Sales Training business coaching, business coaching tools, effective coaching, Employee Coaching, Enhance Performance, Facebook, generation gaps, Leadership, learning strategies, learning techniques, linkedin, online learning, Sales Manager, sales techniques, training and development, training reinforcement, training techniques
Today is an important day for most Mid-westerners because it marks the beginning of summer and the end of those cold, brutal winter months. With all the distractions of summer days, managers may begin to worry about one thing: their employee’s sustainability.
Sustainability - to keep up or keep going.
Everyone has those days, when work is the last place you want to be, and you’ve already started to think about weekend activities…but it’s only Monday. The sun is shining outside, the pools are packed and you’re stuck in an office. As a manager, how do you keep sales up and employees going during the summer months?
There are many things you can do to keep your employees motivated and train them to increase their sales sustainability :
admin Sales Management, Sales Training Add new tag, coaching, effective coaching, Employee Coaching, employee training, Enhance Performance, linkedin, management leadership training, motivation, sales, sales coaching, Sales Management, summer sales, sustainability, sustained learning, teamwork, training reinforcement
In honor of the NBA playoffs, we have decided to go with basketball themed blogs, and how could we write blogs without mentioning Kobe. Kobe is one of the greatest basketball players of all time (being a Bulls fan, I won’t say he’s as good as Jordan), but with greatness comes controversy. Over the past few years, Kobe has been great and not necessarily fair to his teammates.
During these playoffs though, there has been a change. He constantly congratulates his teammates and only has good things to say (even when a reporter asked him what he thought of Artest’s shot in a game versus the Suns). What caused this change?
Well, from a business perspective, it has to be related to the fact that teams perform better when they work together; it’s part of the definition. It takes time to change and constant positive reinforcement, and as a sales manager, you should be helping your employees along. Provide them with constant feedback and encouragement, and you’ll start to see your sales revenues rise, just like Kobe’s fan base.
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admin Sales Training coaching, effective coaching, employee training, Enhance Performance, linkedin
From infamous to famous, as most sports writers put it, Ron Artest has certainly made quite the comeback. It has been a long road for Artest ever since that brawl in Detroit, but it was one that he traveled well. There were many steps that the new NBA champion had to take to restore his superstar status, and many of these steps can be applied in the sales industry.
When it comes to coaching, there are many methods that you can take, but one of the most effective, is the peer-to-peer coaching. Before he went to the Lakers, Artest was a fantastic defensive player, but he tried to play every role and that was not always possible. When he paired up with Kobe Bryant, Artest immediately settled back into his defensive game, since he now had a partner that would create balance. By having employees sit down with one another, they can open the lines of communication and target areas of development. It will also foster team development and build performance levels.
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admin Sales Training business coaching, effective coaching, Employee Coaching, Enhance Performance, linkedin, management leadership training, management training, sales skills, sustained learning, training and development, training reinforcement, training techniques
How to be the Doc Rivers of the Sales World
So, you want to have a high performing sales team, but you don’t know where to start. You could try reading hundreds of books and learning different methods, you could send your employees to a seminar or you could have turned on the TV and watched the NBA playoffs.
The Boston Celtics managed to transform from an average regular season team that was thought to be too old to compete into a stellar playoff team that was a force to be reckoned with. How did they do it though? Simple. Practice, determination and the non-stop coaching of Doc Rivers.
Every team has the same the same type of players: find out more…
admin Sales Training basketball, business coaching, Celtics, effective coaching, Enhance Performance, free sales training, Leadership, learning strategies, linkedin, management leadership training, sales, training reinforcement, training techniques
Below are a few coaching tips to increase the learning opportunities when riding along with sales reps for observation:
- Always debrief at the end of the day or in the car on the way to the next appointment, and most importantly be absolutely sure the client is out of earshot. It can be very discouraging and detrimental to a potential deal for a client to hear you critiquing and coaching the rep.
- There will certainly be things you will uncover that your rep must work on. However, don’t lay them all out on the table at once as this could be overwhelming. Present only 2-3 ideas or potential areas of improvement, and make notes of others to be brought up at a later date. Bringing up 16 issues is a good way to get your rep to go on the defensive and shut down. Plus, realistically even the quickest learners can only effectively work on a few issues at a time while producing real results.
Finish Reading….
Tim Hagen Sales Management, Sales Training effective coaching, Employee Coaching, employee coaching tips, learning opportunities
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
How many times have you heard that you should eat 4-6 small meals a day in order to get better results in weight loss and energy? Yes many times, but what does this have to do with training employees?
Think of typical training (a workshop or seminar) as a huge dinner. When it’s over you feel uncomfortable, groggy, and maybe a little overwhelmed. A typical training session can take any where from a half today to even a full week, and at the end you feel uncomfortable, groggy, and don’t remember half the information taught.
Now think about how great and energized you feel after eating smaller meals or snacks through out the day, (Ok for most of us we will just imagine). This is also how training is best digested, in small portions.
Research shows adults remember and learn more in the long run when information is fed to them a little at a time over an extended period. When considering your next taste of training, pick a program that will have great results and make you feel great not groggy when you’re done.
Tim Hagen Sales Training business coaching, coaching, effective coaching, Enhance Performance, Manager, training reinforcement
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