Sales Progress Blog

Picture this scene: an inside sales team is gathered in an office, taking notes and actively listening as a speaker gives a presentation about sales training…but the speaker cannot be seen. That’s because this group is listening to a webinar, the newest tool for speakers and businesses. Webinars let large amounts of people attend a single presentation from anywhere in the world. You just simply have to register and log in to gain access.

Companies can utilize webinars for just about anything. They can use it to teach their employees about a product or service’s features, advantages and benefits. They can also help sales reps improve their skills and behavior. Webinars allow for customization, and sales reps can attend events that target a certain problem that they may be experiencing. So, if one employee has a fear of cold calling and another needs help finding ways to prospect, both can register for their separate events. This saves the company money and the employee’s time. Furthermore, webinars work better with the adult learning style. Typically, adults learn more when they are sent to seminars that are short and to the point. Since webinars are normally only an hour and they are usually about a target area, adults will have an easier time focusing and engaging.

In the long run, webinars benefit both the speaker and the salesperson. For speakers, webinars allow for instant feedback. At the end of the event, they can ask participants to fill out a survey, or they can send a follow up e-mail asking them what they liked, disliked or would change. Webinars offer speakers a way to connect with their audience. They can set up polls or surveys or open a live question and answer segment. Salespeople also benefit from the instant engagement. They can have their questions answered right away, and they can learn from the questions or experiences that other people are sharing.

Download our free webinar whitepaper to find out more ways that webinars can help with sales training and sales progress.

admin Sales Training active listening, business opportunities, linkedin, Sales Progress, sales training webinar

Let’s face it- we live in a world that is becoming more and more technology based. Customers are turning to the World Wide Web when they need a new product or service, and companies are relying on websites, blogs and online articles to boost sales. Inside sales people need to know where traffic is coming from in order to efficiently gather leads and prospects. There are three important ways that potential customers are brought to a website: direct traffic, organic traffic and social media traffic.

1. Direct Traffic

Direct traffic involves people accessing your website through a bookmark or by “directly” typing the web name into the URL. This sort of traffic does not depend on your SEO ratings or the popularity of your blog. It is important to understand how direct traffic works because it tells you that people view your company as credible, and they came directly to your page or blog to look for information and updates.

Direct traffic is great for lead generation because you know that the people purposefully came to your site, and they are interested in your product or service.

2. Organic Traffic

Any traffic that comes to your website or blog because of words typed into a search engine, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo, is known as organic traffic. It relies mostly on keywords and search engine optimization which help your website appear earlier in any search. The more content you have built surrounding your company (this can include multiple website pages, blogs, whitepapers and articles), the more likely you are to increase your sites popularity.

Organic traffic tells inside sales people that there are people out there that are in need of their product or service, and if prospected properly, they could become long-time customers.

3. Social Media Traffic

This is the traffic that comes from people reading your blogs, clicking on twitter links or visiting from sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Typically, these people can constitute both customers and competitors. Include an RSS feed button onto your blog to keep people coming back and measure the amount of time people spend re-tweeting your information and participating on your Facebook page.

If you monitor social media traffic properly, inside sales people can generate leads from the active participants because it shows that they are genuinely intrigued by the information that you are posting.

If companies want to see their sales progress, they need to help their inside sales reps fully understand how to create leads from the tools that are out there.

admin Sales Training direct traffic, lead generation, linkedin, organic traffic, prospecting, Sales Progress, social media, Twitter

“Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction”
-John Kotter

In business, it is important to have a strategy that will take your business to the top, and managers need to be the ones stepping and taking charge. Training reinforcement needs to be part of that sales strategy. In order for any inside sales team to be successful, they have to possess knowledge of the product, the skill set to sell it, and the right behavior and confidence. All of these things can be tailored and cultivated by any sales manager.

There are seven steps that managers can take with sales training if they want to see their sales progress.

1.    Include the three main tiers into any sales training.
Those three tiers include: knowledge, skill and behavior. If any sales person is going to go from average to great, then they need to have the confidence that they can successfully perform in each area. Managers may have to tailor sales training around one specific area or around all three, but before they start coaching, they need to define which area a specific employee is having trouble in.

2.    Make sure sessions are short and engaging
Most people have short attention spans, and you do not want to spend money on something that an employee is not going to be able to sit through. So, make sure that seminars are short, two to three hours at maximum. Encourage reps to participate during events. If they are engaged and attentive, they are going to learn more and apply more.

3.    Set up dedicated practice times
Dedicated practice sessions refer to time put aside at the workplace for employees and managers to review what they have learned after training seminars. They engage employees in activities that will help reinforce key points of a seminar, and they simulate and practice for real world application. The sessions should last about 30-40 minutes, and throughout the dedicated practice sessions, sales reps should be assessing themselves and their performance.

To read the rest of the seven steps to sales training, download our FREE whitepaper , and pick up some tips and techniques for successful sales training.

admin Sales Training great salesperson, linkedin, Sales Progress, sales tips, sales tools, Sales Training, training reinforcement

admin Sales Training Enhance Performance, great salesperson, linkedin, Sales Progress, training reinforcement

Salespeople know that the best way to reach potential customers is through their current ones. It is important to work well with your clients and to build up trust because essentially you want them to recommend your product or service to their friends and family.

Prospecting by obtaining references from clients is a great way to conduct business, and the process has slowly begun moving to the World Wide Web. There are many advantages of computer based training, but the biggest advantage comes with using the social media site Twitter. Most people believe that Twitter is useless, that it is just a place for people to follow their favorite celebrities every move, but in fact, a study conducted by Deming Hill proves otherwise:

·    20% of all Twitter communication contains a reference to a product or a service
·     41% of business owners say that Twitter delivers great value to their business

Read more…

admin Sales Training advantages of computer based training, business opportunities, linkedin, re-tweet, Sales Progress, social media, Twitter

Recently, I had a salesperson come into my office to try to sell me a service. He came in, sat down and asked me two questions: what I do and how I think the business is running. He then immediately launched into his sales speech. I sat back and listened as he made a classic selling mistake.

I had no need for his product, but he was intent on selling to me. He had an “I have to sell” mentality. This is oftentimes where salespeople go wrong. If you have to sell, don’t you think it would make the most sense to sell to people who have a need for your product or service? It is important that during any sales call we operate with a needs based selling mentality. People will only buy what they need; so, ask questions and listen to your customer.

Read more…

admin Sales Training active listening, great salesperson, linkedin, needs based selling, proven sales techniques, Sales Progress

We all know the importance of social media. We have heard that it will help lead us to prospects, and it will give us more face time with our customers. Deming Hill did some research and put together these statistics:

·    Adults spend 15+ hours on the internet every month
·    93% of B2B buyers use search engines to begin the buying process
·    9 out of 10 consumers will find you when they are ready

This means that your company had better be out ton the Internet for someone to find you, and this is where social media is the most beneficial. The more items you enter into a Facebook page or a blog, the more likely a potential client is to find you. Deming Hill found these statistics out when they did research on the biggest social media site-Facebook:

·    40% of Facebook users become fans or followers of brands/services.
·    60 million status updates happen daily on Facebook
·    50% of users log on everyday and average more than 55 minutes a day
·    If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest:
1.China
2.India
3.Facebook
4.USA

More…

admin Sales Training business opportunities, Facebook, linkedin, sales, Sales Progress, social media, Twitter

You may be the top salesperson in your company, but you had to start somewhere. Sales is not an easy job, and it is difficult because of preconceived notions about salespeople, which makes it difficult to get that first meeting with a potential client. Here are some sales techniques that you can use to help your chances of closing that sale when you do actually land that meeting:
Believe in what you sell.
No one wants to buy a product from someone who doesn’t believe in the excellence of what they’re selling. If you aren’t excited about your product then your customer won’t be either. You need to be upbeat and positive. If you have difficulties in this area, then focus on the features, advantages and benefits of your product since these are what make your product great, and they often answer the, “What’s in it for me?” question.

Be able to define and engage with your target audience.

Read more…

admin Sales Training active learning, business opportunities, linkedin, prospecting, referrals, Sales Progress, sales techniques, sales tips

You’d be shocked to find out that employees are not motivated by money or incentives.
What really drives them is progress.

A study conducted by Teresa Amabile, a Harvard professor, asked 600 managers what they thought was the number one thing that motivated people in the workplace. Most believed that it was recognition, and guess what, they were wrong.

Employees were than asked to document, via an email diary, their emotions and feelings as it related to motivation and 76 % reported that PROGRESS was the number one attribute that motivated them.
This comes as great news for managers because we have the power to motivate our employees. We can provide employees with goals and encouragement. Give employees the resources they need and always use positive language and reinforcement.

If you want to see sales progress, you first have to help employees progress.

admin Sales Training Add new tag, Enhance Performance, linkedin, Results, sales performance, Sales Progress

A lot of times typical sales messages and lessons are targeted more toward the outgoing extrovert, leaving some of us less outgoing professionals to think, “Yeah that’s a great idea, but I could never do that.”

I found this great article from Monster.com with 10 great tips for introverts to develop some of the characteristics of extroverts, to they can reap some of the benefits of being more outgoing.  Many times these articles are full of fluff but I thought this one made valuable and do-able points.

I encourage everyone to check out this article, even you extroverts, it really is a great article.

Check Out: 10 Ways Introverts can Promote themselves to Extroverts

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Management, Sales Training networking, Sales Progress, sales skills, Sales Training