Sales
Workshop
Once upon
a time, the standard sales strategy was “show up and
throw up;” just get to the appointment and start telling
your customer everything you could possibly think of about
how great your product or service was, and hope you could
convince him to buy what you were selling. Those “good
old days” are long gone – and they weren’t
really all that great to begin with. Today, successful sales
account reps try to focus on value selling in order to offer
customers solutions that will meet their needs. In our Introduction
to Selling workshop, we help you get up to speed with
all the tools and insights you need to develop the exceptional
sales skills you need to win today’s value-oriented
customer.
Sales
Training - Rise Above It
You're
not alone if the following scenario sounds familiar: You're
making a few sales—enough to keep you happy for the
time being—but every day seems the same as the last.
Or maybe the big sale you've been going after fell through,
and you start thinking, "Why am I trying to sell anyway?"
Whatever the reason, feeling disheartened and unmotivated
happens to every salesperson at one time or another.
Here are
four steps you can take to get yourself back on track:
1. Cultivate
positive influences. Harvey Mackay, sales guru and author
of Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive (Ballantine
Books), insists he won't have any friends who are negative,
because those people would drain his energy and drag him down
to their level. Positive, action-oriented people, however,
bring you up to their level of success. Their passion and
enthusiasm will rub off on you—and you'll probably pick
up some valuable sales techniques from them, too.
2. Monitor
content input. There are so many resources available these
days, it's important to get the best information possible.
One successful sales manager I know insisted that every single
day, 15 minutes before his reps went out into the field, each
one had to read something inspiring, something that would
remind him or her that the day ahead offered hundreds of unknown
opportunities—or, as Shakespeare once said, "Every
day is a king in disguise."
3. Take
a step. Every journey begins with just a single step. If you're
depressed, disillusioned or unmotivated, the best thing you
can do for yourself is to take an action. Write that letter
you've been putting off. Make that phone call. The longer
you wait, the harder it gets. If a task seems overwhelming,
don't look at the job as a whole; instead, break it down into
small steps. Once you get started, momentum takes over and
you'll find it easier to focus on your goals and objectives.
4. Set
goals and go after them. I recently met a multimillionaire
who was at one time a very successful television personality.
He was fired when new management came into his organization.
After going through an agonizing period of depression, he
turned himself around and became incredibly successful in
an entirely different field—sales. When I asked him
about the secret of his success, he told me it was because
he kept his eye on the oak tree.
"When
I was growing up in the country," he told me, "we
used to plow the fields. We'd never look down at the ground
we were plowing. We'd look at the oak tree, shoot for that
and plow a straighter furrow. If you look at the adversities—there's
a rock, or a tree stump, or a small ravine—you'll be
wandering all over the place. But if you've got an oak tree
in your sight and you're heading right for it, you'll get
past the [obstacles] and accomplish your goal."
It doesn't
matter if you're plowing a field or plowing a trail to new
business; you want to get to the other side. If your goal
is fuzzy and you're not sure where you want to go, you'll
bump into every stone and stump in your path. If, however,
you have that goal in front of you, firmly planted in your
mind, it will act as a magnet and draw you to it.
Unfortunately,
motivation has become an overused word in our society. Everyone
is telling you to make yourself feel better by walking on
hot coals or taping positive affirmations to your bathroom
mirror. Those techniques are fine for the short term, but
their effects fade away pretty quickly. Motivation works best
when it's based on concrete, practical steps that can be used
in the real world. Follow the tips mentioned above, and you'll
head straight into the arms of success.
By Barry
Farber
"Sales Training - Listen to Your Customer's
Needs"
Sales
Training Quote
"If
we are together nothing is impossible. If we are divided all
will fail."
Winston Churchill
Suggested
Reading:
Seven
Secrets to Successful Sales Management: The Sales Manager's
Manual
by Jack D. Wilner
Your
Successful Sales Career
by Azar. Brian
The
Successful Sales Manager's Guide to Business-to-Business Telephone
Sales
by Lee R. Van Vechten
The
25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople
by Stephan Schiffman
It's
Show Time: How to Plan and Hold Successful Sales Meetings
by John K. Mackenzie
25
Sales Secrets Of Highly Successful Salespeople [ABRIDGED]
by Stephan Schiffman
Secrets
of Successful Telephone Selling : How to Generate More Leads,
Sales, Repeat Business, and Referrals by Phone
by Robert W. Bly
Successful
Cold Call Selling: Over 100 New Ideas, Scripts, and Examples
from the Nation's Foremost Sales Trainer
by Lee Boyan
Selling/Bldg
Sales Skills Pkg -Wb/23
by Weitz
Sales
Skills For An Unfair Advantage (The Short Attention Span Library
series)
by Pat Weber
Essential
Sales Skills: Mastering the Art of Collaborative Selling
by Dr. Robert W. Joselyn
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