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

Cold calling. Early morning flights. Long presentations. These are things of the past. A new business model is changing the sales game. The inside sales model allows us to reach out, contact and interact with our customers, all without ever having to leave the office. With new resources, such as the Internet, sales people can save time and connect with customers from the inside.

So, how do you save time, increase revenue and obtain more customers from your office? It is simple: turn on your computer and start using social media. Make yourself and your company accessible to consumers by creating a Facebook, a LinkedIn and a Twitter account. Then post your blogs and whitepapers and connect with an audience you think would be interested in your product or service.

Social networking gives us opportunities to build out our own personal network of confidants and associates that truly care about us. Social networking tools (fastpitchnetworking.com, linkedin.com, plaxo.com, and facebook.com) allow us to build teams of followers and people who hold our best interest at heart. It is critical to not that you should not build your network with people you do not know because these are the people we are going to go back to time and time again, to not only network but to potentially ask for help to communicate information coming from your company. Social networking allows us to tap into other people’s networks, sometimes to reach thousands of people in a matter of minutes.

Go ahead try it, and let us know what you think of this new way of selling.

admin Sales Training Facebook, linkedin, networking, prospecting, Sales Managers, social media, social networking, Twitter

Last week we talked about a post from Selling Power discussing the top issues on the minds of sales leaders in 2010.  Shortly after posting I came across these interesting new stats published in the December/January edition of E-Learning Magazine from the Spring Board Project.  I would say these statistics create a strong case for why we need to continue to train our employees.

50% of employers say they currently have such a serious gap between their needs and employees’ skills that if affects their productivity.  In today’s business world, there is no room for drags on productivity.  According to this statistic 50% of businesses could improve their productivity by providing additional training for their employees.

48% of employers do not provide ongoing education or skills training primarily because of cost.  Budgets are tight so this is certainly a valid point, HOWEVER if you are one of those company’s whose productivity is struggling due to lack of training you may be costing yourself more money to your bottom line because you won’t spend the money to invest in your employees.

80% of workers show keen interest in pursuing further education and training.
Give the people what they want, it just may be what your company NEEDS.

62% of workers say a convincing reason to pursue training is that the future economy will be extremely demanding, and if their skills are not to up to date, someone will pass them by.  This is very true; you could also take this stat to a broader view.  Given that the economy will be demanding, if you do not update the skills of your employee who is to say that your customers won’t pass you by for a competitor with better-trained employees?

Certainly training your employees can be expensive, and in tough times there may not be the financial resources available to run a true training program or to hire an outside resource.  With that in mind it’s time to get creative.  Take advantage of free resources available via the web.  Article sites, blogs by sales trainers, websites like Selling Power which offer thousands of free resources, coaching your employees, role playing, all of these things are free and can be beneficial to the needs of your employees.

If you know someone is struggling with handling price objections you could first send them an article on handling price objections, and then schedule time to role-play and practice handling those objections.  These two simple things can really spring board the employee ahead, and will cost you nothing but a little bit of time.

This year stop using budget as an excuse to not train your employees, and get creative with free resources.  Your bottom line will thank you.

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Management, Sales Training coaching, Leadership, sales, sales coaching, Sales Management, Sales Managers, Sales Progress, Sales Representative, sales skills, Sales Success, Sales Training, sustained learning

Defining a sales coaching culture at any organization can be nebulous as well as ambiguous. A coaching culture can take on the appearance of many different faces. There are however, specific attributes that will illustrate if an organization has truly created a coaching culture.

• Coaching cannot be a departmental activity. The management team must cooperatively and consistently drive performance using the same methods and techniques through out the organization.
• A coaching culture has managers openly discussing performance issues and techniques to drive performance across departmental lines.
• Management discusses and cooperatively engages with one another to drive performance and communication across departmental lines for the betterment of the organization
• Culture of employees who feel challenged and inspired for personal development, career growth, and continuous pursuit of helping the organization’s bottom line.
• The organization has embraced a specific theme for performance development.
• Coaching should not be viewed as a task to be completed but rather as a unique opportunity. The true relationship should be centered around the opportunity coaching not only provides the employee but also the manager.
• Managers value coaching, but also admit their need to be better coaches.
• All coaching and training leverages “real world” issues and solutions.

Tim Hagen Sales Training free sales and marketing tools, sales coaching, Sales Managers, Sales Progress, Sales Training

Many people are using social media sites to help market/promote themselves or their businesses. They will set up accounts on every site they hear about and spread themselves thin. They will not utilize all the sites to their fullest potential. The following article will give you some tips to make sure you are using your social media sites to their full potential to benefit you or your company.

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/122390

vfarnia Sales Training B2B, Facebook, linkedin, Marketing, Ning, Sales Managers, social media, Twitter

If anyone out there is feeling overwhlemed with all of the social media outlets that have been created recently, then you are probably feeling the same as everyone esle. The following article will touch on that subject and show you the three best outlets that you can use to market yourself or your company.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Social-Media-That-Matters&id=2981021

vfarnia Sales Training Facebook, linkedin, Marketing, Sales Managers, social media, Twitter