Sales Training Articles

The ups and downs of selling are a little like the ups and downs on Wall Street. The headline in last Friday's Wall Street journal said "Market's 7-Day Rout Leaves U.S. Reeling." What a difference a weekend can make. Today's Wall Street journal front-page article said "Dow Takes Giant Leap As ...

Do you have some great ideas to grow your business, but when it comes time to taking action, you suddenly come up with all the reasons and excuses not to do it? Do you find yourself lit up with a new idea that you can’t wait to implement? But, then your fears come up and you decide you’re not ...

When you struggle to close the sale you think closing is the problem. But when you struggle to close the sale closing is a symptom of the problem not the problem itself. When you try to fix a symptom as though it were the problem the problem remains because you’re trying to put a band-aid on a wound that isn’t ready to heal. n n Here are 5 reasons you may be struggling to close the sale: nn You lack confidence in yourself and/or your supporting products.nn You fea

One particular self-image possessed by high-achieving salespeople is that they see themselves as consultants rather than as salespersons.nn View Yourself As A Consultant nOne particular self-image possessed by high-achieving salespeople is that they see themselves as consultants rather than as salespersons. They see themselves as problem solvers with their products or services rather than as vendors looking for someone who will trade them money for what they have to offer.nn

I don't know about you, but 24 hours in a day isn't enough. And 8 - 9 hours for work just barely covers the paperwork, order follow-up, client calls, e-mails that need answering, voicemail messages, etc. "You mean you want me to prospect and find closing time, too? What, are you ...

A while back I had the opportunity to work for nearly two days with the best-of-the-best sales pros in a client company. We spent our time together focused on taking their game up another notch with a workshop titled “Powerful Presentations.” One thing I noted is that really successful people generally are very open to new ideas and skills that will allow them to be even more successful! A key idea I shared in this workshop was that our sales presentations are more powerf

I recently spoke to a group of sales professionals at the end of their training conference. The attendees had participated in many learning sessions over a two day period – most of which were product related. I was scheduled to speak after dinner and I was somewhat concerned how attentive they would be by this time. nnFortunately, in the days preceding, the company had structured the entire program to create energy, excitement and to foster a sense of team enthusiasm. They

Do you feel like a dog chasing its tail running and running never catching what you want? It’s true sales is about action, however, successful sales is about right action. And right actions spring from the desired golden ring. n n To get what you want you have to know what you want in specific written terms. Simply having written weekly sales goals, although I do encourage you to have them, isn’t enough. You see you don’t ultimately want sales; you want what

You aren’t going to wake up one morning and magically have people clamoring to work with you unless you’ve done the things you need to do to make that happen. But few salespeople have a clue how to get qualified leads contacting them, and they aren’t going to learn overnight. If you need more business, start by putting yourself either physically or remotely in places where opportunities can occur. n n The first question to ask yourself is, “where do th

The sales game requires a team effort for sustainable success. Ask any successful sales rep and they will tell you about their team. Whether it is the accountant, spouse, children, tech support, delivery people, instructors, or suppliers, the rep acknowledges their contribution and is thankful they are part of her team. Without this team she knows she would not be as successful. Your team Selling involves so many different steps and activities that no one person can manage t

If you’re just joining us in this series of articles I have been talking about recession buster strategies for your business. Guess what; it’s true that you and your home based franchise can thrive in today’s market place, you just have to focus on the incredible opportunities that are right in front of you instead of letting the Constant Negative News (CNN) get to you. So tell me, have you and your team in your home based franchise considered targeting, marketing and selling to people who do naturally well in recessions?

In the competitive marketplace that we live in today, differentiation many times comes simply from the quality of salespeople on the street. How effective they present themselves, build value, drive the sales process and meet and exceed their customer expectations can be the difference between getting a sale and failing. Sales training should be a vital part of your Sales Management philosophy. However, I find that there are misconceptions about what sales training can and ca

Are you an insider? An insider is a person who is able to position themselves in a way to make the connections they need to get all the leads they want. Insiders develop their own proprietary leads list of highly qualified potential prospects. Everyone else pays big bucks to get these names and contact information, but insiders don’t have to. n n Have you been on the costly end of spending your precious dollars for supposedly hot leads? Leads that have already agreed to

It's not too early to start planning for the sales results you want at the end of 2005. Here are seven things you can do to make sure you're in the Winner's Circle at your Next National Sales Meeting. 1. Develop a system for everything. There's a fundamental reason why companies like ...

In case you haven’t notice theirs a new generational cohort entering the workplace and they are making their presence know. Generation Y (aka iGeneration, Google Generation, Millennium Generation, and the Boomerang Generation), have grown up in a world of diverse Internet resources. nnIf you want to bring out the best in your Generation Y workforce you may have to begin by letting go of traditional methods in favor of a more creative approach.nn According to experts, Ge

I work with and am friends with a number of financial advisors. In a recent conversation with a veteran in the business we discussed the main reasons new advisors don’t make it. Truthfully your odds of making it in the business are pretty slim if you just do what they tell you do to, but your actions determine your results and your future. n n Lots of people enter the industry and only are rare few are still in the business after five years, and even fewer are successfu

Long-term investment sales success requires a buying atmosphere. In a buying atmosphere: you both know why you’re meeting, you both feel comfortable and share open communication, and you’re both focused on one thing; the best outcome for the customer. It takes pre-work to create the most productive buying atmosphere. n n Setting appointments with complete strangers to get to know each other isn’t a good plan for investment sales success. You only want to set appointment

One of the most important parts to the selling process is pure negotiation. It's a valuable skill we needs to close deals and provide the perfect pitch. One of the best ways to do this is by reading the Power Negotiating for Sales People by Roger Dawson. It helps you focus on how to negotiate and do so successfully. This step by step book offers the psychological side sales people need to be successful. Roger Dawson is considered one of the elite experts when it comes to nego

Do you get to the end of the sales presentation only to be thanked for the information and ever so nicely invited to keep in touch? Ouch! Zig Ziglar refers to this as being a professional visitor. So, what happened how did you come to this point only to walk away empty handed? n n Do you even realize that you are truly walking away with nothing? You see, many sales people think this is leaving the door open for future opportunities while the facts indicate you’ve just b

Do want to embody the American Dream for your home based franchise? Follow these 9 must have solutions and watch your home based franchise grow into the home based franchise of your dreams. Have a terrific idea. Do a bit of brainstorming. What type of home based franchise would you like? Are you presently in a business that is not producing the results that you are looking for? Take what you like and keep it. Then take what you don’t like and ask yourself… How would I do it better? Then do it, take massive action!

Do you want to get rid of a client really fast never to have them return? Of course, that’s not what you want. When you’ve earned a client or you have a prospect in your sales funnel you want them to stay a client for a life-time continuing to buy from you, and referring others to you. The life-time value of a life-long client is huge, and critical to sustaining a viable business. n n Unfortunately, you may be making a simple and common mistake that sets you up fo

It's all about price!! Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And did I say - Wrong! If your attitude and mindset about your products and services before you start the day is: "Well it's a commodity marketplace and everyone buys on price" Then you have lost all chance of making any valuable sale before the day has even started. If you are the company owner or senior sales manager then this is nothing short of criminal. This is the attitude that you feed back to your staff and employees.

The quite suburb of Ipswich in Australia's Queensland area, Yamanto is all geared up to be the next best growth corridor in the country. Originally a cotton plantation area Yamanto had seen little or no growth prospects for quite some years now. But thanks to the development of Ripley Valley and the RAAF Amberley military base in the surrounding areas businesses are flocking in droves to Yamanto. And not just this, the existing businesses are also finding newer avenues and fu

Here's a sales secret. The best advice I ever got was from my father. Growing up as a kid, whenever I asked him, "What do you think I should do," he always responded with, "What do you think you should do?" I guess the best advice wasn't really advice, more like a gift. The gift of learning how ...

I am here to tell you that shift happens to all of us. It happens in our home based franchise, it happens when as we become a top sales producer, it happens in life and it all depends on how you handle that shift. I was recently reintroduced to this phrase and for me; it couldn’t ring truer to my ears. Lately it seems as if I have been given a lot of shift. Friends who have be diagnosed with cancer, other friends getting divorces, yet other friends who are now taking their turn in the downsizing of corporate America.

Everywhere we go, sometimes we saw or encounter a lot of people fighting each other, screaming and shouting to death. What do you think is happening with them? If you are going to ask them and investigate, you will found out that the most reason of their fight is not accepting each other’s point of view or idea. Just see how disastrous is this idea of accepting each other’s point of view. Although there are also some people that are very calm when it comes to talk about e

Do you actually believe that you are going to achieve those lofty goals of being a top home business entrepreneur and make big money in your home based franchise for this last part of 2009, looking into 2010? Most people don’t believe. And when I say believe, sure on the surface they might talk the good game, but deep down there is always that question mark, that voice that says, why should this year be any different than last year…especially in this economy? Do you have that same little voice?

How much do you know about your customers? Do you know what makes them happy? Mad? Restless? Let's face it…you should! Businesses often operate in ignorance of what their customers like or dislike, ignore and abhor. To ensure retention, pay attention!n n The Basics: What Customers Love n- When you know them, remember them by name and remember their preferences.n- To be treated with respectn- To feel specialn- To know you're accountable when problems arisen- The ability to r

establish use the world wide web to build a network of contacts within a short time frame. You could produce leads on autopilot for the business. You will be a step ahead of other corporations who are nonetheless carrying out their marketing and advertising the traditional way. In order to be profitable with networking marketing and advertising, it's important to have a solid client base to build upon. This audience would be the grounds for advertising the product or service

Here's what I'd do, in order, if I wanted to start an internet business, and I was starting out completely from scratch. I would: 1. Focus like a laser beam on ONE niche at a time - and not advance to another until I was either successful in that niche, or, learned enough about it to know ...

At just about every networking event I attended this Summer, there were two complaints I never failed to hear - "no one's around in the Summer", and "the economy is in recession". To the former, I replied, "I - and everyone in this room, and rooms like this all across town - am around this ...

The past year was definitely interesting. Some sales professionals prospered while others suffered. I spoke to one person who doubled his income—and he works in automotive sales! Yet, another well-established person experienced a decline of more than fifty percent in their sales. There are several key sales lessons that can be learned from selling in a recession. These will help you succeed in the upcoming year. Companies are LeanerrnThis has been an ongoing factor for many

For many professionals, selling is becoming an impossible mission. There are even books written on the subject letting you believe that "selling is dead…" Yes, selling is becoming seriously challenging. The first reason is: there are more and more competitors out there who swear they have a better product or service. The second reason is: the customer is getting more confused than ever. The more choice there is, the less easy it is to decide. And, you have noticed, today th

One disadvantage of selling by telephone is the lack of face to face contact. Mastering this phone skill will give you an advantage over most sales people. When you are sitting with a prospect it's much easier to read their body language. You can see the look on their face when they're confused ...

At one time or another, we have all encountered an employee who would clearly rather be anywhere than at the store serving customers. It's unfortunate because there are few professions where a person has a chance to make a bigger impression on someone than in retail.n nEvery day, a retail salesperson encounters customers from a wide variety of backgrounds with an equally wide variety of expectations and needs. The interaction that takes place says a lot about the individual c

When I am working with private coaching clients I note that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a lack of consistent revenues is caused by a lack of consistent prospecting. A failure to prospect on a regular basis will inevitably result in irregular revenues, and inconsistent commissions. It's that simple. This is especially true when we're doing well. It can be so easy to forget about prospecting when we're wrapped up with following a dozen (or so) hot leads, who are demandi

Sales Success: Is it Luck or B.S.?nnAre successful salespeople luckier than those who are not successful? Well, yes! But their good luck has more to do with B.S. than you might realize.nnLet’s get one thing straight: when I refer to B.S., I am not writing about foolish, deceitful, or boastful language. I am writing about your “Belief System” -- how you feel about yourself at the deepest level of your being. nnInterestingly enough, people with the right B.S. are luckier.

Sales people who have a poor start at the beginning of a year, often find themselves struggling for the rest of the year to catch up. The good news is, whatever you're experiencing, we've all been there at least once. The bad news is, most of us don't know exactly how to snap out of a slump, and start making sales.nnFirst - don't panic! If you're in panic mode, you can't be creative, and creativity is exactly what you need right now. Besides, just as dogs can smell fear in hu

The People aspect of business is really what it is all about. Rule #1: Think of customers as individuals. Once we think that way, we realize our business is our customer, not our product or services. Putting all the focus on the merchandise in our store, or the services our corporation offers, leaves out the most important component: each individual customer. n nKeeping those individual customers in mind, here are some easy, down-home steps-to-remember when you want to keep â

What do your sales goals for the coming year look like? The most successful sellers usually have two numbers in mind: their quota, which is their piece of the company's yearly revenue target, and then another higher number that represents what they need to sell to achieve their own personal goals. The second number is the more important one, since the best goals come from inside your own mind. Just as you can't lose weight because someone else wants you to, neither can you feel excited or motivated about a target that has been imposed on you from the outside.

What does it mean to live your life to the fullest every day? Well it means different things to different people. Take Nick for example. Just two weeks ago Nick was driving to the US Military Academy at West Point. Two days after he got there he was scheduled to step out of the door of an airplane and make a tandem jump of 13,500 feet - with the Black Knights parachute team. By the way, his jump included a 50-second freefall. After the jump he was flying to Washington DC on his way to Ethiopia. There he will meet his new adopted 31/2 old son.

Copywriters have advocated for years how critically important headlines are to the success of any advertisement or sales letter. Because they are. To prove it they often quote copywriting legends such as John Caples, who pointed out “If the headline of an advertisement is poor, the best ...

How much time, energy, and money have you invested in sales training programs, seminars, workshops, and books? If you’re serious about becoming a top sales professional the total is a large number…perhaps so large you could buy a car or at least make a couple house payments with that money. Congratulations on your commitment to yourself and your success. n n However, I must ask you how much has your sales grown as a direct result of any of those things? Now some o

Let’s face it. We all have those difficult customers to whom we are required to sell. From the demanding, abrasive buyer to the individual who never seems to make a buying decision, we encounter challenging people on a regular basis. Part of the reason this happens is due to the disconnect we have because of conflicting personalities. This article will look at the four key types of people and how to improve your results with each. nnDirect Donna. Donna is very direct in her

When you try to sell instead of trying to match you can’t sell. Have you ever seen the children’s toy where the child tries to put different shaped objects into matching shaped holes? Essentially selling insurance is the same thing only the shapes and holes are conceptual rather than physical. n n All too often you approach the client trying to push a product rather than trying to figure out what the client wants that you can match. Product pushing doesn’t w

How many of us procrastinate? How many of us don’t fill our day with the actions and activity that is needed to ensure that success in our home based franchise will come our way each day? On a more personal note, how many of us don’t take the time to even say I love you to those that we truly do love and care about? What Og Mandino’s important message is teaching is that you must live today for today. Forget about yesterday...what is done is done.

We all make mistakes when selling our product or service. Here are the most common mistakes people make. I have to admit I have made many of mistakes listed in this article even though I have been teaching this stuff for almost a decade. I hope you can learn from them.nn1. Allowing a prospect to lead the sales process. The best way to control the sales interaction is to ask questions. This is also the best way of learning whether or not your product or service meets the needs

Bob, had just finished up another frustrating day that yielded no sales, and no appointments for future sales. He plopped down at his desk and began to sort through his mail dreading the bills he knew he’d find, and wouldn’t be able to pay. As he quickly sorted through the pile setting the bills off to one side he came to an envelope that he knew wasn’t a bill. Bob eagerly opened that envelop first. n n When he opened the envelop he discovered a card inside.

I’ve noticed that the word “sell” can be a strongly negative trigger for many of us creative service-based business owners. It tends to conjure up visions of polyester, pressure and pushiness, all of which are just downright unattractive qualities. nnBut, the fact is, without a selling component, your promotional launches and your one-on-one “selling conversations” are going to fall flat. People won’t buy. nnBesides being a bummer for your bank account, when peopl

As entrepreneurs and business owners, we all have dreams of closing sales beyond our wildest dreams, signing up lots of clients, and making more money than we ever thought possible. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen as quickly as we’d like it to. Many entrepreneurs and business owners come to me frustrated with their lack of sales, hoping to learn specific sales skills to turn around their businesses.