Category Archives: Sales Coaching

Sales Coaching

Increasing Sales by Reinforcing Progress

To get the biggest impact out of every coaching session you must commit yourself to reinforcing progress. Doing so will accelerate your salespeople’s development and increase sales.

You can’t fully measure the impact of a coaching session until the actions and commitments made during the session become a reality. Your job is to make sure that the skills and practices you discuss during the coaching sessions become a part of how your salespeople do their job. If you find your coaching sessions are return trips to the same problems, you are probably making one of five basic mistakes.

1. Failure to set up clear and specific expectations or not letting the salesperson know exactly what you want done differently.

2. Giving the salesperson too much to work on that he/she become overwhelmed.

3. Failing to develop the salesperson’s skills to perform the assigned tasks or responsibilities.

4. Failing to give a reward for doing the new behavior.

5. Failing to provide negative consequences for continuing to use the old behavior.

Helping salespeople learn and apply new skills requires regular and specific monitoring and reinforcement. To get what you expect you must inspect and reward the behavior you want. This requires a discipline and commitment to identifying the key behaviors that have the biggest impact on your people’s performance.

One point to keep in mind is that salespeople can’t develop a new behavior until they have performed it successfully and are rewarded for doing so. Major behavior changes require frequent successes and considerable rewards.

Effective managers know that it is important to reward progress as well as absolute attainment of a goal. Recognition for making progress reinforces the change that has occurred and keeps the salesperson focused and motivated to continue changing.

Trainers of killer whales start training the whales to jump out of the water by first teaching them how to cross over a bar at the bottom of the pool. As the whale becomes more confident and trusting of the trainer, the bar gets raised higher. First, they learn to cross the bar under the water, and then above it. After each successful attempt the whale receives a reward.

A manager once asked me, “Is it really necessary for me to make a big deal when my salespeople make progress?” I answered him by saying, “Only if you want them to fully succeed.”

To increase sales you must have salespeople who are well-trained and perform at a high level. Your job as a sales manager is to train, develop and coach them until they perform at the highest level possible. Reinforcing progress along the way is essential for making sure the salespeople achieve their full potential.

To learn more about increasing sales through sales coaching go to: philfaris.com

Phil Faris is a business development consultant, coach, speaker and author. He is president of Phil Faris Associates a firm that specializes in helping organizations hire, train, develop, lead and retain the sales talent required to succeed in a competitive marketplace. Phil has developed a reputation as a “performance improvement doctor” for his ability to help organizations improve their financial health by diagnosing performance issues and then prescribing strategies that produce measurable results.
Phil is the author of the following books: Hiring Winners, Building Customer Partnerships, Training Winners, 50 Activities for Sales Training and Upping the Down Side. He has also written numerous articles on sales, leadership and personal development.
For additional information on increasing sales,profits and customer loyalty go to: philfaris.com

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Sales Coaching

The Sales Roller Coaster

If you have been in sales more than a few months you have seen the “Roller-Coaster Selling Cycle” or possibly have even fallen victim to it. You know the difficulty it causes, how it erodes your confidence and how hard it is to pull out of. This up and down selling cycle is so common that it could be called an epidemic. And yet it’s so preventable! So what’s going on?

Understanding delayed gratification in the sales cycle What’s happening is that the delay between what you do and what reward you receive is causing you to lose focus. This is something that a Professional Business and Sales Coach is trained to recognize and help you get out of. We live in an instant world that does not know what delayed gratification is. Take a look at this example: When you have a job, your employer asks you to do a certain task and in return you receive a paycheck. When you stop working your money stops coming just as fast. Conversely, in sales there will be actions you take today that may not bring results for weeks or even months. This turnaround time varies from industry to industry and even for different prospecting types. Your ability to stay focused on doing the right daily actions regardless of what economic remuneration you receive will dictate how you will do in sales. How do you think you can stay focused when you can’t see results in the foreseeable future?

Understanding the cycle It’s important to know the flow of your sales cycle. What I mean is how the steps you take work together to produce a sale. Every sales cycle can be broken down into a series of steps that are interlocked together to produce the results you are looking for. From the first time you contact someone to the opening of a relationship there could be 4-6 major steps. Knowing these steps and how long each one will take can help you stay focused on what you have to do.

If you are doing well right now (sales are flowing in and you’re busy), keep your head down and focus on daily activities that will keep your prospect funnel filled. Working with prospects on “now” business is exciting and exhilarating for all sales people. Unfortunately if you do only that you will be buying a ticket for a future roller-coaster ride.

This roller-coaster is no fun – so get off! Here are some coaching tips that can help you off of your own roller-coaster:

 

  1. Get your finances worked out to take the pressure off of yourself for the next three months or so. In this way you can focus on doing what you need to do instead of worrying about the money you need to live.
  2. Get a support partner to help keep you focused. A good friend, coach, mentor or boss can help you when you are struggling. Make sure to be in contact with them daily so that you don’t get side tracked.
  3. Pick the most productive activities and stay focused on them only. This is no time to be lost in researching a future project or doing bookkeeping.
  4. Set a goal for the prospecting action that you will do each day in the form of people you will talk to or contact. Remember, you have to meet a client for them to become one!

 

Rich Grof Performance Development is a leading provider of innovative, coaching and leadership seminars – workshops for business and sales professionals. We help those who want to achieve success in their business. By using highly effective skills and techniques, we activate people’s natural abilities to create and sustain lasting change so that our clients are amazed at how easy achieving success can be. For those wanting more out of their business career and personal life, Rich Grof is an excellent connection to the dreams they want to create.

For free Business, Sales and Leadership videos and information, http://www.richgrof.com/
http://www.youtube.com/RichGrofTV

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Sales Coaching

Coaches – How Are You Handling the Sales Part of Your Free Consultation?

Are you selling your coaching services through a “free consultation” model?

If so, then you know it’s challenging to transition from one role to the other in that call. On the one hand you’re a coach, and you want them to value you deeply and be motivated to work with you. On the other hand, you need to close the sale.

These two tasks seem incongruent.

But they don’t have to be.

I was having a chat with a business partner the other day about how sales managers often complain that members of their sales force don’t LISTEN and ASK QUESTIONS very well. They present, handle objections, and close, but fail to engage and motivate. So in the end, they lose the sale.

Coaches know how to listen and ask questions VERY well. They know how to engage and motivate. But in the end, they lose the sale because they don’t know how to present, handle objections, and close.

In fact, coaches may see the selling part of their free consultation as distasteful and separate. While sales reps see all that listening and questioning as too touchy-feely.

Let’s get together!

Coaches…you can blend your coaching consultation with a sales conversation, not have two separate things that are stuck together. By adding the sales part onto the end of a consultation, your job is made harder than it has to be. By making your consultation itself into a sales tool, you’ll find converting clients to be much easier.

And sales reps, you can make your sales call more of a coaching conversation. By mingling sincere and warm communication with your sales calls, your job will be easier.

How To Meld the Two Halves of the Free Consultation and Sale

I’ve had many clients comment that my sales conversation with them seemed very much like a coaching conversation. What it really is, in fact, is a consulting conversation in which I use coaching skills to draw the person out and explore their situation.

Sales calls by sales reps are not typically coaching conversations…you don’t want to delve too deeply into the interpersonal workings of the customer. However, you do need to connect at a deeper level than most sales reps are comfortable with, and so coaching-type questions can serve this purpose.

The right type of question is Openhanded and provides what Judy Rees calls, “intelligent influence.” Whether you’re a coach or a sales rep (you’re both if you’re a coach selling your own services), your sales questions need to be just deep enough to guide the customer to a decision, not to solve their problems.

Secrets of the Soft Sell?

If you’ve ever wondered how to DO soft selling, you’re not alone. Grab my free report on the tips and tricks of Openhanded Selling [http://openhandedselling.com], showing you how to have persuasive, confident, high-integrity sales conversations without caving in and without changing your personality.

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Sales Coaching

How to Improve Sales: Top Sales Strategy Tips From a Business to Business Sales Coach

If you sell value-add or business critical solutions or services B2B, these top sales strategy tips could be the catalyst to help improve sales performance. Find out how a coach that constructively challenges your strategy and approach could be a key factor for success.

Sales Coach Tip #1

Eliminate Comfort Zone Selling to Improve Sales Performance

Many salespeople and often the companies they work for are slaves of comfort zone selling. They go through the same old “hit and hope” sales routine, hoping for the best but winning too little profitable business. This is the best place to start looking when considering ways to improve sales performance.

A prospective customer requests a presentation, proposal, demonstration or trial and most salespeople are keen to oblige. That’s a lot of commitment from a supplier. Effective salespeople qualify well and work to ensure they gain enough commitment in return, before they agree to dedicate time and effort.

Few companies stop to calculate the cost of each failed sales attempt, whether a formal tender or a less formal proposal. Consider the total hours lost in meetings and response preparation for a bid that fails. A skilled sales coach will ensure valuable time is spent wisely and only on winnable opportunities.

Sales Coach Tip #2

Profit is Sanity So Keep the Focus on a Margin Rich Sales Strategy

Now think how many of the bids you win are “margin compromised” as opposed to margin rich? Being the price leader in an attempt to improve sales performance may work for the budget shop, but it’s a very poor sales strategy if you sell value-add or critical solutions or services business to business.

Business critical purchases tend to be far less price sensitive than prospective customers would ever like to admit. The risk of a poor buying decision is too high for false economies. Yet supplier nerves often trigger unnecessary discount just to get the deal done and thus the margin is often compromised.

Before you weigh up the merits of using an external coach, think just how much you might be losing by pandering to false price pressures. A good sales coach is a catalyst for the behaviour changes needed to improve margin rich sales performance and any investment here should produce healthy returns.

Sales Coach Tip #3

Why Let Purchasing Departments Determine Your Sales Strategy?

The market too often expects suppliers to jump at any opportunity to bid. Many suppliers conform without really considering how well positioned they are to win or the business viability if they did. Suppliers that professionally hold their ground can gain significant credibility with prospective customers.

Too many salespeople just look for a solution match. Ticking the boxes against a specification, RFP or ITT is only one aspect to consider. Any good sales coach will ensure that the primary focus is on access to the key influencers and decision makers – the people who can make things happen.

Assuming the project is real and they will actually spend money with someone soon, there is always a danger you may only be making up the numbers. A smarter B2B sales strategy helps you weed out the false opportunities from the real ones to avoid situations where the odds are stacked against you.

Left to their own devices, most salespeople can become habitual and even if they work hard, they may not work smart. A skilled external sales coach will help them identify and avoid the false opportunities they might otherwise chase, whilst honing their ability to qualify, develop and win the true ones.

Sales Coach Tip #4

Serious Buying Decisions Demand Deep Consideration

Imagine your career relied on selecting the right supplier of a business critical service. How much would you be influenced by a likable salesperson and how much by their ability to correctly set and meet your expectations? Suppliers failing to grasp this will find it hard to improve sales performance.

We often hear that “people buy from people they like.” This is just too simplistic when it comes to value-add or business critical solutions or services. In such situations people will buy from people they hold credible to deliver to expectations. Anything else would put their careers seriously at risk.

And if people make serious buying decisions based on how confident they feel in a company’s ability to meet expectations, then why do so many suppliers waste time pitching their solutions instead of asking constructive questions and listening well in order to build strong relationships with the key players?

If you lack confidence it’s often tempting to slip into pitching mode rather than really engage your prospective customer. You may feel on safe ground talking about the features and benefits of a solution you know like the back of your hand. Your prospective customer may well be more bored than engaged.

If you can convince a genuine prospect they are in safe hands with your company, that you clearly understand their requirements and will deliver to the expectations that you set, then why would they not select you? Ironically, many salespeople only scrape the surface of sales opportunities and thus fail.

Sales Coach Tip #5

Specialist Niche Player Supplier or Large Generalist Supplier?

Small companies often have an inferiority complex, however with the right B2B sales strategy, a specialist niche player can often beat larger well known bidders. The key is to determine early on whether a prospect is prepared to break from the herd to go with a lesser known company with a better offering.

Prospective customers may operate within their own comfort zones and some will turn away from the better solution in order to ensure the safety of their own derriere. A good sales coach will help you separate prospects that will only ever play safe from those that are prepared to back the best solution.

And Finally, Back to Sales Coach Tip #1

When you think about it, comfort zone selling is in many ways at the root of all of the above issues. It is habitual, even self-satisfying in the short-term to be working so hard on so many opportunities. However it is far less rewarding in the medium to long-term when too little of any real value comes to fruit.

To eradicate comfort zone selling means raising the bar across the board. A business to business sales strategy evolution is more viable than a potentially disruptive revolution. It can be a mistake to try to change too much too soon. An experienced sales coach can help you move towards your goal step by step.

More sales and business articles by Harry Hayden [http://www.performbusinesscoaching.com/resource/]

About the Author

Harry Hayden is an experienced sales coach [http://www.performbusinesscoaching.com/sales-coaching/] based in the UK. In his previous career he led multinational sales groups across Europe for several large and medium sized corporates. He now helps SME business leaders and salespeople with the development and execution of their sales strategy.

Harry is MD of Perform Business Coaching and can be reached directly at harry@pbc-hh.com or through the website above.

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Sales Coaching

Sales Coaching To Get To The Top

The good news is a lot of your competitors seem to be looking at the sidelines – that is good for you and bad for them. Next, even though historically on-boarding has been understudied, in the last several years enough has long been completed to provide a starting list of best practices to get the job done – and getting it right.

Today a sales force must not simply be in the position to sell an aggressive advantage; they have to be considered a competitive advantage. In most companies, it is significantly difficult to sustain a competitive edge by conventional means. Traditional factors like: superior products, scale, and innovative manufacturing technology may possibly give temporary benefits, but unfortunately they could be duplicated in relatively small order by an increasing number of agile and aggressive domestic and international rivals.

Although an excellent sales staff is difficult to build, they have the potential to provide a significant competitive advantage and, maybe more excitingly, one that’s difficult for competition to easily copy. So refining sales performance matters a lot more these days compare to what it did yesterday and it will make a difference more the next day compared to what it does today. A significant length of time is spent in most sales calls asking questions about simple background information – and rightly so. Today, however, there’s a much better way. Sales people can and should obtain nearly all of that basic information by using the Internet. Clients anticipate sales agents to provide value – however they can’t add value if they’re spending their time having basic information that may have and should have been obtained prior to the call ever started. You’re basically squandering your time budget with the physician, nurse, or administrator.

Today, if you want a world-class sales force, you have to specify on boarding as an on-going training process, not as a one-time event. Sales training programs are needed not only for on-boarding new hires for the company but also for on-boarding your existing sales team to handle an extremely changing buying environment. As your company enters new markets, launches new products, deals with keener competitors, as well as deals with ever changing demands within customer organizations, sales training is among the answers for executing an excellent response to these changes. You just cannot sustain superior sales force overtime, if you don’t invest in skill development overtime.

Sales Coaching could open up your eyes to assist you to meet your sales goals. In the past, sales training had a questionable report card. That was then and this is now. Today, leading edge sales training companies have crafted a new generation of sales training – they work, they make a difference, plus they are affordable.

Do you want to increase your sales exponentially and triple your revenue? Joining a Sales Training Workshop along with the proper Sales Coaching techniques will surely help you. You will definitely earn more and will maximize your business opportunities!

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