Sales Progress Blog

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

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

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.

Read more…

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

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

• 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

1. An inability to teach.

Being able to sell ice to an Eskimo is great, but once your in that management role those skills can render useless unless you are able to pass them on to your team.  Managers are often promoted because of their superior skill, but are rarely trained how to effectively train their staff and pass on their skills.

How can I combat this? If your company doesn’t offer training for mangers, you should take it upon yourself to find some. Read books on coaching or managing effectively, take a vacation day and attend a workshop (even if it’s at your own expense),  or take online courses over your lunch break.  Your investment will be worth it when your team excels, as this will reflect positively on you and your ability to lead and develop your team.

2. They lose touch with reality

Becoming a manager doesn’t mean your done spending time in the field.  It’s true that with management status comes more responsibilities that have less to do with everyday selling, but you can’t lose touch of your selling reality.  As a manager your biggest asset to your team is to know what’s going on in the field, on a day to day basis.

How can I combat this? Ride along with your staff as often as is possible, continue to call on customers even if it is just to check in, and spend time with your staff discussing obstacles or difficult customers and coaching reps to overcome them.

3. They want to be everyone’s friend.

We all want to be liked, it’s human nature. HOWEVER along with your increase in pay and responsibility came the expectation that you are no longer just one of the group.  It is often difficult to step into that leadership role, especially when a manager is promoted from with-in.

How can I combat this? It is still important to build rapport with your team, but relationships should shift into one of coach and team member.  Set clear expectations and roles for your team, and stick to them.  When responsibilities and roles are clearly defined there is no room for confusion; this will make portraying your role as leader easy. By sticking to these expectations,there will be no blurring the lines of your authority.

Did we miss anything?  Tell us what you think the top reasons sales managers fail are.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Training business coaching, coaching, effective coaching, employee training, Enhance Performance, goals, management leadership training, Manager, Results, sales, Sales Coaching Methodology, Sales Manager, Sales Staff, Skills, training and development, training reinforcement

We constantly talk about the importance of coaching, and tips or strategies to do it better, but why should we incorporate coaching into our organization anyways?

Here are the top 7 reasons why your organization needs to coach it’s employees.

1. Employee Retention, research proves coaching increases employee retention, which therefore decreases hiring costs.
2. Managers who get close to employees work can solve real world challenges.  A manager’s knowledge is one of the best resources an organization can have, coaching allows managers to have insight into their employees work allowing them to apply their knowledge specifically to real world issues.
3. Coaching creates better succession planning due to internal talent growth.
4. Coaching creates an organizational energy of growth and learning.
5. Programs build coaches within all leadership circles.  The more coaches an organization has, the more “performance-improving” employees it will have.
6. Business requires employees to constantly grow and develop new skill sets.  Organizations with managers who are coaching create a competitive edge because they become more adaptable to needed change and growth.
7. Employees who experience a continuous increase in skills and work performance actually become more open to change and challenges.  This, in itself, is enough to start an organization wide coaching initiative.

If you would like more information on coaching your employees, attend our Free Breakfast Presentation: Why Coaching Builds Business Success , or email Tim Hagen at Tim@salesprogress .com for more information.

Tim Hagen Sales Training business coaching, coaching, effective coaching, Leadership, management leadership training, Manager, sales coaching, Sales Coaching Methodology, Sales Manager, workplace training