Sales Training Articles

Are you an independent sales professional or small business owner? If you are you may have found some sales success, but you may also feel kind of stymied, and you aren’t sure where to turn or what to do to continue your business growth? Neither sales nor marketing are the whole story when it comes to your professional success, but rather they are the partnership that will enable you to achieve superior performance. n n What does marketing do? First, I’d like to explain t

The heart of the new approach to selling is an intense focus on the prosperity of your customers. This is a radical departure from what most salespeople and selling organizations do. The entire psychological orientation is shifted 180 degrees. No longer do you measure your own success first. Instead, you measure success by how well your customers are doing with your help. You're not focused on selling a specific product or service; you're focused on how your company can help

Wouldn’t it be great if you could make cold calling pleasant for both you and the other person? Well, it’s very possible, if you’re willing to remove sales pressure from the interaction.. nnWhy? Because sales pressure is the underlying cause of all tension in cold calling. You’re pressuring yourself to make the sale, and you’re also pressuring the other person to buy what you have to offer. nnIn the old traditional mindset, you’ve been trained to approach cold cal

How much business is you company losing due to sales executives using the marketing approach when meeting with existing or potential clients?nnOver eighty percent of sales executives in South Africa actually market their company’s products and services. The modus operandi of a sales executive in today’s business arena, when meeting with clients is to tell the client about themselves, their company and products or services. The effect of this can cost company money, becaus

As a sales professional do you take full responsibility for your actions? Do you take full responsibility for what happens to you? You are responsible for your actions, your decisions, and what happens to you. Blaming yourself or anyone else, using excuses, and denial only hurt you and keep you from being able to succeed. n n But the people who are supposed to support you just make things more difficult, and they don’t do what they say they will. Ok, so you know this to be

Smart buyers will always ask for a better price. Unfortunately, too many sales people and business owners automatically think that reducing their price is the most effective way to respond to this request. nnHowever, negotiating is not always about price. Although price is a factor in virtually every sale it is not usually the primary or motivating factor. Everything you say and do from the first contact with a prospect affects the value of your product or service in their mi

The insurance sales training you’re getting from the insurance agency and insurance carriers does little to prepare you for success. For the most part, this training provides half-solutions and makes your job at least 100 times harder than it has to be. Look over this list and circle each bullet point that represents a critical mistake you’re making as a result of your training: n You try to set appointments with the wrong people.n You use a presentation during the appoin

Prices of commodities change while we go on our daily lives. They frequently rise and fall but to our disheartenment, prices tend to increase more often than meeting what we have set aside to avail clothing, furniture, footwear, health products, and houseware as well as luxury items such as appliances, fashion accessories, jewelries, and toys for our children. nnThat fact questions the practicality of buying brand new products featured in the market as time goes by. With gas

When you spoke with the recruiter and then the sales manager you were told you’d get all the training you needed to succeed. Now that you’ve been in the business nearing two years do you look back and realize that you aren’t even close to knowing how to do what you need to do to succeed? You’re pay structure is coming to an end, it would take a miracle to meet the demands you have for expected sales, and you have no idea what to do. You aren’t alone and this is exac

We all do it. We all go to a variety of networking functions: mixers, meetings, seminars, conferences. Just showing up certainly doesn’t guarantee getting connected or meeting people who are your buyers or can get you closer to your decision maker. Just showing up certainly doesn’t guarantee that you will increase your sales. And how often do you end up talking to the first person you encounter and never have a chance meet anyone else? That certainly doesn’t help you ac

“Winning as a Sales Strategist”nA strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often “winning”. A strategy involves tactics or immediate actions along with premeditation, and well designed, rehearsed and executed. Strategies are used to make the problem or problems easier to understand and solve.nToday’s sales professional must be at the top of their game in order to win sales through competitive advantages. Successful sales pro

Do you have the desire to work as a retail salesperson or promoter? Do you want to learn how to get plenty of signups or sales? This article can help you. Over ten years ago, I worked as a window display demonstrator for a magnetic window company that was based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company made magnetic windows that were installed on the inside of people’s existing windows to stop drafts, noise, water and damaging sunlight from coming through. I was eventually promote

Career sales training not getting you the results you want? Is it the training that’s letting you down or the actions you aren’t taking? Sales success is all about the actions you take. Taking more right actions than wrong actions means you get to success that much faster. Continuously taking the wrong actions even though you think they’re right just makes you stuck. n n Do you have the right message? You can’t sell anything until or unless you talk to someone, right?

Your own fear has a strangle hold on you, and it’s keeping you from insurance sales success. Fear isn’t a logical response it’s an emotional response, and emotional responses have very little if any logic to support them. You’re afraid: to focus on a target market, to ask people for an appointment, no one wants to talk to you, to make phone calls, of marketing yourself, of failing, and of succeeding. You know what you’re afraid, but what you may

In your sales training program have you been told that if you want more referrals you just have to ask? If you’ve been asking you may have experienced some problems with just asking, such as: the people you’re asking don’t really feel comfortable referring you, the people your asking are at a loss as to who to refer to you, it makes you feel like a beggar, and you really don’t like imposing on people always asking them for something. These are all very real and very v

Why do cold calls based on the old-school traditional mindset break down so quickly? Because we usually start with a predictable introduction and a mini-sales pitch. Right away the other person puts up “The Wall” and we’re trying to scramble around it.nnNone of us intentionally want to create uncomfortable situations with other people. It's against our nature as human beings. But that's the core reason why many of us who make cold calls get that knot in our stomach, eve

You don’t need to get in front of more people, in general, you need to get in front of the right people. Meeting with anyone who has a heart beat is not the path to insurance sales success. Meeting with the wrong people is tiring, frustrating, and non-productive. Meeting with the right people is energizing, rewarding, and very productive. nn Do your research before you identify the people you want to meet with. Common sense in any business dictates that you have to find a h

You think your failures and lack of success is someone else’s fault. Ok: your sales manager’s a jerk, the underwriters just ruined a perfectly good product, no one is providing you with good marketing materials, everybody already has an agent, you haven’t got a great presentation or all the gizmos the competition does, you can’t get compliance to approve anything, etc. So what, all that may be true and more, but if you want to succeed it’s entirely up to you and no

What beliefs are you holding, that are holding you back in your career sales training? Mr. and Mrs. Claus are found dead on the floor. They are found in a locked room. On the floor is broken glass and water. There is an open window and a table in the room. How did Mr. and Mrs. Claus die? What do Mr. and Mrs. Claus look like? Are you thinking Mr. and Mrs. Claus are rather round older folks with white hair wearing red velvet garments? That may be your belief based on your past

You pass up more opportunities each day than you could ever handle. Anyone who wants to be a top producer knows there are two aspects to sales success you need to succeed. First, you have to recognize opportunities others overlook. Second, you need to understand the opportunity well enough that you can communicate how you can solve that problem better than anyone else. All this comes before you even get the chance to “sell” anyone anything. n n Stop knocking on the same d

I’m told that parts of Southern Europe are littered with ‘T.I.R.E.D.’s’ (Thirty-Something Independent Radical Educated Drop-outs) – people who have walked away from big jobs because they just “weren’t happy…”nnSalespeople should be as far removed from ‘T.I.R.E.D.’s’ as it is possible to be. Creating wealth is a big job – and this most misunderstood role is about creating wealth for your business…. or it should be….nnHave you got the right people?

Most companies today struggle with sales challenges. With economic instability and world conflict, these issues may seem to be externally afflicted; however, most businesses can utilize a sales check-up to determine areas of vulnerability and to uncover healthy, revitalized sales.nnnSales is an operational area that confounds even the savviest executives from time to time. Determining when it is appropriate to call for reinforcement and when a simple adjustment to a vulnerabl

I had a friend who was just getting into sales for the first time. She knew I was a business coach and had trained many sales teams and sales managers in the past. She wanted to try her “pitch” on me. “Pitch” is sales talk for presentation (if you live in LA it means, “I have an idea for a movie”). The biggest mistake that most people make when getting started in a sales career is the importance they put on the “pitch." Sales organiza

Customers are saying ‘It costs too much.” “Business is slow I don’t need to advertise.” And most sellers have a prepared response. Unintentionally, these responses are often framed to prove the customer wrong. There’s a better sales technique. It’s very simple: You don’t need to have an answer. You only need a question! This week Ed Baron of Ed Baron and Associates and myself are facilitating an annual 5-day Sales Boot Camp for 18 sellers of radio, internet, n

Isn't it true that before you can ever sell anyone anything you have to sell them on having an appointment? Do you find it challenging to fill your appointment book? Wouldn’t you like to hold appointments each week with people who are genuinely interested in doing business with you? n n You can. You just have to realize that selling starts way before the appointment. That means you have to set yourself up to attract the people you want to work with. nn Be very clear abo

Listening is one of the most important sales and selling techniques you can have. Many of you think you’re listening, but you’re not. I can’t tell you how many clients have told me they are really good listeners, but it was obvious to me and everyone else that they aren’t. How often do you get all wound up telling someone about something only to realize at some point that you are the only one enjoying the conversation? When a prospect shares a story do you have to tel

Affiliate marketing has been an incredible opportunity for people around the globe. While some affiliate marketers earn a few extra thousand dollars each month, others consistently bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars each month. However, as more people have begun marketing affiliate products, the competition has soared. In 2007, there was a tidal wave of new marketers competing for a piece of the commission pie. In 2008, that competition is growing and becoming more sav

Your insurance sales manager is on a mission to build champions. Make sure his or her mission is in your best interests. It’s not uncommon for insurance agents to be forced into master mind groups. I say forced because your attendance and participation is mandatory. Master minding can be an excellent idea if properly understood and applied, but when misapplied it’s potentially a very destructive experience. n n Napoleon Hill may have been the first person to write about t

You don’t work on being the best. If you want to be the best you have to have a plan for being the best and work your plan. The more you invest in yourself and what it takes to be the best the better you’ll become. The better you become the easier sales become because you understand yourself and others. n n It takes a commitment to continuous learning to be the best. Develop your area of expertise and know more than the competition about how you can use that knowl

Monday Blues or “Make Money” Monday?nMondays-love them or hate them. Do you look at Mondays as the exciting opening to a productive week? Hold high expectations coupled with a brilliantly executed plan? Or are your Mondays a slap in the face reality, back to the grind, mark time to the next weekend?nSuccess doesn’t just ‘happen’; it is a culmination of expectations, planning and actions. Creating a brilliant plan means utilizing the weekend to its fullest so that yo

You forget sales boils down to people liking you because you’re real. The first step in the sales process is gaining an introduction and establishing rapport. When you try killer sales lines and gimmicks you spoil your chance to establish rapport. You’re perceived as a fake and untrustworthy. That means your prospect will be very guarded with you and will never let you know what’s really on their mind. They will suspect an ulterior motive behind everything y

It’s the beginning of August, and I just received a phone call from someone I met at a July 4th Bar-B-Q. Quite honestly I had forgotten about this particular conversation until the phone call today. You see, I had given this person a personal challenge and asked him to try it for 3 weeks and let me know if there was a difference. John approached me and introduced himself as someone had told him that I help sales people sell more and managers manage better for their sales pe

Public speaking offers a unique path of opportunity. Not only will it provide exposure in numbers but develops a rapport with the audience of credibility, knowledge and proficiency. The ability to offer information in an authentic and genuine manner develops confidence in the speaker, and allows the speaker to connect with large numbers all at once.n A deep, powerful presence and relaxed self-expression emerges naturally when seen and heard in a supportive environment. Connec

All too often getting the appointment is the crescendo of your sales training program and then things fall a little flat after that. Getting the appointment is just the entry to begin the sales process. It’s what you do during and after the appointment that determines the sale. In many cases, especially when the item involves a service is more expensive or binding, you won’t close the sale in one appointment; so it’s the next steps that really determine if you have a sa

I have had several inquiries about scripts recently. Readers want to know how to say what they want to say, or they want to know why a proposition that seems perfectly reasonable and compelling to them doesn’t go over well with the prospect. Or they want to ‘break the code’: find the perfect sequence of words that will in a high percentage of cases lead to ‘yes’.nnWhile a good script is not a cure all, it can make a difference both in the effecti

I don't mean the hyper-active jumping up and down talking too much enthusiasm of a person who lacks self-control. I do mean your energy and the way you control that energy, and how it's conveyed to potential buyers. It’s been said many times and it’s still true that the first person you have to sell is you. n n If you don’t believe in and if you’re not excited about what you’re selling you won’t have sales success. When you do believe in wh

Here's my advice - forget about sales training. nnWhy? Because sales professionals have to get past all the old-school "Same-o Lame-o" sales approaches to break through to generating real business results.nnIf you’re a solopreneur, consultant, business owner, or independent professional, you probably have asked yourself some or all of the following questions:nnHow can I get more clients? nHow can I get better clients? nHow do I sell more to the clients I’ve got? nCan I ea

Yet, you waste a ton of time and energy trying to do just that. When you could be selling a whole lot more insurance, and doing a whole lot less work if you just knew how. Instead of trying to convince a suspect, only focus your efforts on people who’ve already decided they want what you have. n n It isn’t that the people who don’t want to be sold are rejecting you they’d reject anyone because they just don’t want and don’t have an interest

You don’t know how to gain the interest of your prospects. You use marketing to effectively gain the interest of your prospects so they reach out to you wanting to know more about how you can help them. You can use the shot gun approach to marketing which is what the average agent chooses by default. When you use the shot gun approach to marketing be prepared to work very hard, to have a poor response to your marketing message, and to earn an average income. The other a

If your sales aren't hot you may be frustrated and confused. You know the sales and marketing systems you're using are working for others, but they aren't working for you. How or why can that be? n n Because you’re reading this article I’m pretty confident that you have at least some experience and knowledge with eating. And that’s why I think you’ll be able to relate to the examples I’m going to use to convey my point even if you’ve never

You’re trying to succeed by being someone else? In your training you were probably given or mandated to follow a sales system. The problem is you don’t feel comfortable doing a lot of the things you’re required to do as part of the system. Because you don’t feel comfortable doing them you get poor results and because you get poor results you begin to hate doing them and the more you hate doing them the worse things get. It’s just one big vicious

New information is an essential part of your sales and marketing strategy. What new information are you looking for? You should be looking for new information: to improve your own marketing and sales skills, about your product or service, about what’s going on in the world, and information about what is going on with who. Your new sales and marketing strategies can be found in the “what’s new” that you know about. n n If you want your sales and marketing strategies to

The first thing to know when focusing on your sales development, sales training, and coaching, is to know that everybody is selling. It might not be a product or service they are selling, but everyone sells everyday. If somebody wants something from you then they will be selling to you. They will sell you the vision, the need, or the value of buying that sale:nn• A doctor is selling you on being healthy.nn• A parent is selling you on the value of hard work, being

Why don't prospects buy? It's no secret they don't buy because they feel buying is too risky. And they have a very valid concern. With the wrong decision they can get locked into products that are completely wrong for them and too costly to walk away from. n n It’s your job to help them to identify their real risks and then use the facts to make a good decision. A lot of their concerns are based on perceived risks and information rather than facts. Just like any buyer o

Is your sales training program helping you to be a proactive seller or a reactive seller? A reactive seller isn’t really prepared for, not now. Consequently when a reactive seller is faced with buyer resistance or objections they aren’t prepared to develop a positive alternative for the potential buyer. A proactive seller understands and is prepared for buyer resistance and objections and has several alternative options that move the potential buyer closer to a buying dec

I’d like to introduce you to a radical new thought. In the old sales mindset, you’ve probably been trained to focus only on making the sale. You approach your cold calls with the idea of moving things towards a sales event. nnBut think about what this does to your cold calls. Before you even say “hello,” basically then, you have an agenda. You want something. nnWell, your prospects can sense this immediately, and they put up their guard. As people, whenever we know th

When you begin to learn how to sell you’re learning at a conceptual level. Everything you read and hear sounds pretty good. After all it has worked for other people it should work for you, right? n n Well, yes and no. Yes, it has worked for other people. But you aren’t other people you’re you and what worked like gang busters for someone else may be a total flop for you. nn That doesn’t mean you are a failure, or that you can’t sell. It does mean

You think you need a killer presentation and it’s killing your insurance sales success. Your insurance sales success is never about a “presentation”. The only person a presentation is helping is you. You may be using it as a crutch so you don’t forget anything, and so you have something to say. You think it helps you to move the prospect forward and gets them to buy into your line of thinking. These are all false premises and the sooner you change your thinking about

Sales Success in Challenging Times This article has come about because of the need to provide quality information on the sales process to the myriads of sales people who want to improve their sales and make a lot of money in sales but don’t have a whole lot of information as to how to effectively represent a product or service professionally. Although some of the companies that these potential "superstars" represent have some kind of a sales training program in place, it is

I’m told that parts of Southern Europe are littered with ‘T.I.R.E.D.’s’ (Thirty-Something Independent Radical Educated Drop-outs) – people who have walked away from big jobs because they just “weren’t happy…”nnSalespeople should be as far removed from ‘T.I.R.E.D.’s’ as it is possible to be. Creating wealth is a big job – and this most misunderstood role is about creating wealth for your business…. or it should be….nnHave you got the right people?