Sales Progress Blog

22% vs 88%

That’s the difference coaching and training reinforcement can make on a companies ROI when it comes to sales training.

It goes without saying that practice and reinforcement are the keys to any success. You can’t just practice your baseball swing for one day and think you’re going to win the home run derby. The same theory applies to sales. You can’t expect to be a great salesperson if you don’t keeping practicing and improving your skills. Practicing once will not make you salesperson of the year.

Training reinforcement is the key to success. Seminars help employees learn new selling techniques and new ways to stay in front of customers, but a study conducted by Sales Performance International found that participants in sales training forget half of what is taught within 5 weeks. Managers need to take it upon themselves to implement regular training sessions so that employees can keep up what they learned.

Here are some things managers can do to make sure that their inside sales reps have sustainable sales training:

Read on…

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admin Sales Training Employee Coaching, Enhance Performance, linkedin, managers, Results, ROI, Sales Representative, Sales Training, sustainable sales training, training reinforcement

These days people are more protective of their money, and instead of spending it freely, they are saving. For sales teams, it has become increasingly important to keep a hold of current clients; since, as most studies show, it costs six times more to get a prospect to buy than it does an existing customer. So, the question becomes, “How do we maintain our relationship with our client and get them to buy?”

Most customers leave because they are unhappy, and sixty-seven percent of clients leave because of a perceived feeling of indifference. Managers and supervisors need to coach their inside sales team to keep in front of their customers. Look at who you have not talked to in the past year and who you have not contacted in the past 30 days and make sure to send them an e-mail or phone call to let them know that you are still interested in them. Ask customers how the product you sold them is working out or if they need anything else. This way, you are letting your customers know that you value them.

Here are a couple more steps that you can take to improve your sales and increase your business opportunities:

Send Items of Interest. Find out information about your customers.

Read more…

admin Sales Management business opportunities, employee training, linkedin, Manager, Results, sales coaching, Sales Representative, sustained learning, training techniques

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:

Read More…

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

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

I spend a lot of time reading other business, sales, and training blogs, and I ran across one today, written by Will Fultz, that really got me thinking.  His post, "Should I trust my Sales Manager’s Advice," caught my attention, as we are a consulting company that focuses a lot on coaching and employee development this question made me take a step a back.

We encourage managers to coach their employees to better performance, but should a sales rep take everything a sales manager says as the truth.  I thought Mr. Fultz’s insight was dead on.  For the most part, YES we should trust in a sale’s managers advice, after all it was probably their insight and experience that got them promoted in the first place.

HOWEVER! A sales rep should NOT take everything they say word for word, especially if they don’t agree.  Mr. Fultz points out that you should take their advice but also add in your own experiences and thoughts.  A great idea he brings up is engaging your sales manager with those thoughts.  You never know, your discussion could come up with a better solution than either of you had thought of on your own.  Your combined knowledge certainly adds up to more than each of you individually.  You have experience from the front lines your manager may be missing.

*NOTE: It is not ok to take advice you know is not quite right and then blame your manager for poor results.  It’s always a good idea to ask for help when you need it, but you have to own the results that come of taking it.

To recap:

* Trust your sales managers advice
* Add in your own experience and wisdom
* Engage your manager, 2 heads ARE better than 1 it’s not just a saying

Shannon Gburzynski Sales Management, Sales Training Leadership, sales, Sales Management, sales performance, Sales Representative, sales skills, Sales Training

The article that follows will give you a nice overview of what sales’ coaching is and why it is so important for companies (especially sales mangers) to coach their employees to success!

http://salesandmanagementblog.com/2009/08/17/boost-your-sales-coaching-sales-people-to-success-by-steven-rosen/

vfarnia Sales Training coaching, sales, Sales Manager, Sales Representative, Success