Category Archives: Sales Coaching

Sales Coaching

Problems That Sales Coaches Can Solve

Are you as a Sales Leader or Manager facing any of these issues with your team?

Sales training often isn’t enough to produce long term change in your sales team.

Read this list to see if you might benefit from a sales coach:

Having trouble with:

 

  • Generating new customers
  • Increasing returns on marketing campaigns
  • Failure to consistently achieve sales revenue goals
  • Reduce ever-lengthening sales cycles
  • Increasing costs of maintaining an effective and productive sales team
  • Keeping the sales team motivated
  • Shrinking margins – mounting pressure to discount
  • Protecting and developing dwindling key accounts
  • Increasing erosion of market share
  • Increased failure to forecast revenue with any degree of accuracy
  • Increased quantity and ferocity of competition and being outsold by competitors
  • Limited product knowledge in the field
  • Declining customer satisfaction and increasing customer expectation
  • Global market rationalization Increasing number of stalled sales opportunities
  • Finding and keeping good people
  • Managing salespeople who plan and manage their time and territory by the seat of their pants – they don’t seem to have a game plan or a strategy as to how they are going to win
  • Reducing the “last three weeks of a sales quarter” syndrome where everyone scrambles to try and pull in as much as they can to hit sales targets and we end up giving away our margin
  • The current economic crises are impacting on sales team’s ability to consistently achieve their sales quotas
  • Operating in markets where there seems to be more and more “gatekeepers”, buying committees, tendering processes, RFPs, etc., all of which prevent the sales team from gaining access to decision makers
  • It is becoming increasingly tough to get to talk to the people who matter about what they really need and want when it comes to buying our services
  • We struggle to speed up the buying process and close more deals more often
  • Sales teams that needs constant motivating. They seem to lack passion, focus and commitment
  • “Give us a quote” is a common response my salespeople are hearing. So what I find is that my salespeople often invest large chunks of their time putting together proposals for prospective clients that have no real intention of buying from them
  • The message we hear from our customers over and over is, “Your competitor can do it faster and cheaper.” And they are right! How do we sell against that?
  • No predictable and accountable selling process that moves the sale forward smoothly
  • Constantly grappling with costly, wasteful, and ineffective sales practices (e.g., low yield on direct marketing, low close ratios, high costs for branding, tradeshows, or product development)
  • I don’t have a clue where to start to get sales back on track!

 

If you or your sales team are facing any of these common issues, you should consider getting coached!

As one of Australia’s leading authorities and coaches in sales management, Ian Segail has been involved in the coaching, training and development of sales managers and salespeople for over two decades.

Drawing on 25 years of experience in sales, sales management and leading an HR and training team, Ian brings a strong dose of fiscal reality and practicality to his works as a Sales Performance Coach.

Engaging directly with business owners and both novice and experienced sales managers alike, across a wide variety of industries and selling disciplines, the focus of Ian’s work is to transform sales results for companies by improving sales management practices. Ian is the author of “Bulletproof Your Sales Team – The 5 Keys To Turbo-Boosting Your Sales Team’s Results” and a number of business articles, business reports and white papers including “The fish stinks from the head!” and “Why Sales Training Doesn’t Work.” Ian has an insatiable hunger for studying selling and people management and has passionately pursued answers to the question “How come some people can sell and most can’t?”

Check out sales resources and Ian’s blog at [http://www.salestutor.com.au]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2231945

Sales Coaching

An Effective Sales Strategy That Will Deliver Results in 90 Days

There is no question about it- these are very trying times and sales coaching needs to focus more on innovative if not shrewd approaches in order to maintain present levels of performance. Sales gurus contend that the professional must be dynamic and flexible as he faces the challenges and threat in the market. They have to be a lot more imaginative and persistent in their approaches in order to win additional share in an already tight and shrinking market. In this prevailing sales arena, only the resilient and persistent ones are expected to survive.

There is a fundamental sales strategy that when implemented would definitely hit the jackpot for the professional. This tried and tested technique will deliver positive results within 90 days.

This sales strategy is as simple as it can possibly get. When you are finished covering it, you may ask how this can possibly help your cause. But then again, this strategy has repeatedly been tried and tested and has continued to ring success to a lot of salespeople. Further, this technique is also a popular solution adopted by most experts and is extensively used in sales coaching sessions.

It has been proven in many instances that one-on-one sales performance mentoring is the fastest way of getting results from your assets. This approach affords the opportunity for a two-way interaction between the mentor and the protégé as they explore ways to improve on the performance. The mentor provides the overall framework and roadmap to a successful undertaking. On the other hand, the professional integrates the techniques shared to him by the sales coach while he considers the overall situations in the field. He may or may not advocate some modifications with the close supervision of his mentor. This technique encourages the collaboration between the sales coach and the sales professional by observing a two-way type of mentoring.

To become successful as a mentor, there are certain guidelines that have to be followed. We will focus on the most essential of all the guidelines that can deliver the strongest impact on the performance.

Spend sufficient time with each of your sales representatives. You can do this either by phone or in person. The frequency of the interaction must be a least twice a month. Depending on the nature of your business, you may even choose to have weekly one-on-one consultations with the members of your team. The meeting shall cover the “what was” and the “what will” of your activities. Generally, you will do cross referencing of actual results in the field and compare this with the established action plan or program. Results of the comparative analysis of the previous events will serve as the basis on the action on the plans for the succeeding week. You then have to decide if there is a need to adjust the sales target or make room for some intervention activities in order to meet the target for the upcoming week.

Chuck Stewart recently spent time researching business with a sales coaching [http://www.aburaconsulting.com/] specialist. He found it extremely helpful with building a sales strategy [http://www.aburaconsulting.com/] for his marketing team.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Chuck_R_Stewart/191394

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Sales Coaching

The Sales Training Series – Make Every Buyer a Coach

In a selling situation with multiple buyers, what is your sales strategy for getting through to the ultimate decision maker?

“By any means necessary,” you say? Then you have no sales strategy. What you have is a recipe for failure.

Of all the tragic misconceptions that afflict salespeople in selling environments with multiple buyers, the worst might be the notion that lower-level “influencers” are mere obstacles in the seller’s path to the big honcho-the person with final buying authority. Do you believe that the ultimate decision maker (UDM) is the only buyer who is really worth your time? Do you think that “strategy” means figuring out how to bypass or maneuver around the lower-level customers so you can get to the UDM?

If so, you are losing a lot of business. That’s not a strategy for anything but disaster.

For one thing, a lot of those influencers may not have the power to make your sale, but they do have the power to kill it-and they will, if you alienate them.

There is much more to this, however, than just the danger of making enemies. Lower-level buyers can be your most valuable resource. They can actually direct you to a winning strategy.

After all, what is an effective sales strategy? It is a plan that guides you from one logical step to the next as you move toward a sale. In order to know what those steps must be, and how to complete each one successfully, you need information. Somehow, you must discover the client’s key needs, the forces driving the buying decision, the stakeholders involved, the way the buying process works in the client’s company, and more.

Wouldn’t it be nice if some expert guides within the company would give you this information freely? How about if they also would coach you through the steps necessary to complete the sale? And suppose they’d willingly bring you to the top decision maker because they actually want you to win?

Such guides exist in every client organization and every one is a potential sales coach. If you can get them to see you as a valuable consultant and partner, capable of serving their needs, you can stop worrying about how to get to the ultimate buyer. They will take you there-and root you on to victory.

In The Field:

Dan Crear, a sales executive for Action Selling of The Sales Board, was in hot pursuit of a great opportunity at a thriving global bank. (Yes, even today there is such a thing as a successful bank.) The ultimate decision-maker was the kind of person who liked to spread the decision-making authority around. Nine people surfaced as key influencers.

Crear assessed the situation and determined the role of each player. Then he devised questions to draw out their personal stakes in the buying decision. One key question was: “What evidence do you have that your current situation is producing an ROI?”” This led each decision-maker to define what ROI meant to them.

Once the payback was defined in individual terms, every one of them wanted him to win the deal. With their support, he did.

Duane Sparks is CEO of The Sales Board, Inc. and author of the Action Selling Sales Training Series. Action Selling is a sales management training program that creates a culture of sustained revenue growth. This success is based on a researched-proven selling process; an easy-to-follow road map that shows salespeople how to consistently win more sales, shorten sales cycles, protect margin and cultivate loyal customers. Over 300,000 have been training in Action Selling and consistently show results of selling at a rate that is 6 times more than those without training.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Duane_Sparks/17945

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2080831

Sales Coaching

Life Insurance Marketing Techniques – Use a Sales Marketing Advisor Or Sales Coach?

There is no argument that acquiring life insurance marketing techniques that improve your sales growth is a strategy of attaining success. At first it is hard to determine if the advice of an insurance sales marketing advisor or sales coach would be more beneficial. Looking at this report clarifies the advantages or disadvantages of each ones’ skilled techniques.

Both a sales marketing advisor and sales coach are experts at providing advice, tip, tricks, hints, and demonstrations to advancing quicker to achieving your goals. They are both honest about providing constructive criticism over methods insurance marketers, brokerage sales directors, and recruiters may currently be using. After having a ten to fifteen minute conversation with any marketer, I never encountered a conqueror implementing all the correct techniques. Extra wisdom with outside insight would be beneficial virtually every life insurance marketing firm.

The marketing strategies refer to a mastery of prospecting of a wide spectrum of talents. These include prospecting methods for acquiring new insurance brokers, increasing quality of lead response, converting interested brokers to signing a contract, and the prized result of ending up with producers consistent in writing valuable premium cases. Oh, add in improving performance procedures of providing unique broker service. This would not only include new brokers but also maximizing and improving sales from the existing broker force.

Start with the values of an insurance sales coach. Like a pro sports player often has a personal trainer, so will a marketing firm, insurance agency, or even an independent broker or general agent. The sales coach is very flexible as training can be one on one or to a group. Here we are not talking about a rah-rah motivational speaker who only has home office experience or no insurance knowledge whatsoever. The coach is a not only a guide, but a trainer, teacher, instructor, and tutor all in one. Expect to pay an hourly rate for individual services rendered. However if the coach is training your entire marketing staff, or group of brokers, a flat more economical fee can be determined. Do not forget one of the coach’s strongest abilities. That is as a speaker when you are giving a sales seminar. This is an excellent method of upping attendance, and strengthening recruiting.

Contacting an insurance sales marketing advisor, provides a different set of values. The advisor is viewed more as a mentor providing expert advice and suggestions. This is strictly one on one with clients that include the insurance company recruiting director, a brokerage managing general agent or independent marketing organization. There is usually not a face to face consultation, as it a big cost advantage to use the telephone or a conference call. The number of marketing advisors, especially those specializing in the facets of insurance brokerage, is very slim. Like a lawyer their fee could be an hourly rate, however a short introductory to answering briefly a few questions are on the house. Unlike a coach, there is improved willingness to give out some free advice. However, they are not going to instruct your staff, your brokers, or speak at your next recruiting seminar.

You may be surprised by how much knowledge insurance sales marketing advisors have locked up somewhere in their tiny crammed brains. This is not simply attained by reading well-written business sales books and inspirational materials. It is all acquired by talking many years with thousands of insurance marketers, and secondly by implementing a method few sales coaches have at their disposal. This is a personal analysis of hundreds of thousands of agent and broker data records spotting unique trends and characteristics that are constantly changing. An insurance advisor of authority status can rattle off personally researched facts and figures you will never see printed in any insurance magazine publication. You will often find out not just the pros of proceeding on your present path but also all the possible pitfalls of any directions taken.

Evaluate your needs and review the benefits a coach and advisor both provide. Before making a decision, remember that placing a phone call is free.

Well published author, Don Yerke likes to concentrate on what you don’t know or what no one else dares to print. Tell it like it is.

Watch for his new paperback book debuting on Amazon early this summer. It is loaded with great insurance marketing and recruiting information.

Come and get your FREE “Think and Grow Rich” Ebook by Napoleon Hill instantly. The website address is [http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2074720

Sales Coaching

Effective One on One Sales Coaching Sessions

Recently I have read posts on this subject on a several popular blogs. My most recent “snooping around” session revealed on one of those blogs that an “effective One-On-One coaching session should be planned six months ahead of time”. My curiosity ended, as did my snooping session. If you are holding your coaching session every six months you should be fired as a sales manager! You sales people are customers of your leadership, and they need service from you more often than every six months.

There are four types of coaching sessions:

Behavioral – something has come to your attention that must/should be shared. Though we think of these sessions as addressing negative behaviors you should use them to recognize positive behaviors also.

Discovery – As a manager you have uncovered a developmental issues that should be addressed. This is the first session of a field training program that should end with a bi-lateral contract between you and the sales person.

Follow Up – These are frequent mini-sessions to check up, and exchange feedback.

Bottoms Up – If you are a great leader this should happen often. Instead of you discovering a developmental issue one of your team members seeks out your help. Why? Because you are trustworthy and they know you are there to serve them.

First a note about tone. Attitude is everything. If this is a behavior coaching session do not send mixed messages. If a negative behavior issue is serious enough to warrant exploration and coaching, don’t mince in other topics. The outcome of behavioral coaching sessions are usually uni-lateral next step contracts. If you have discovered a specific sales skill that needs improvement you do want to recognize those other skill areas that are best in class. If this session is a follow up you should summarize previous discussions, recognize progress and discuss next steps. The key to follow up coaching sessions is that this is a bi-lateral agreement to next steps.

Coaching sessions should be orderly. You should control some parts of the discussion and you should let your team member control others. However, this is not a free flowing, never ending conversation. You may end up being friends with some of you sales people but remember, friendship is the outcome of effective leadership, leadership is never the outcome of friendship.

The coaching session outline;

Warm Up – I guess you could just hit them over the head, but why? This is a team member. The only reason to minimize this part of the discussion is if you have uncovered a negative behavioral issue that if not addressed could result in the termination of this team member. Initiating a serious conversation with frivolous small talk is disingenuous.

Orientation – If this is the first coaching session to reveal something you have discovered, particularly if the team members overall contributions are satisfactory, this part of the discussion is crucial. For instance, if you are concerned with this team members prospecting skills you should discuss what lead to this discovery. “Jim, thanks for your first quarter results. It helped show the others that the goals are achievable even with this difficult economy. But I was exploring our CRM system and think I discovered something. I noticed that you not only made your goals, but had the highest proposal to contract closing ratio! In fact, you also had one of the highest closing ratios in moving prospects from the needs analysis to the proposal, congratulations! But that led me to think, are you motivated to dramatically increase your earnings? Because if you are I think I discovered something that is holding you back…” Now the stage is nearly set for you to focus the conversation.

Focus – This is the meat of the conversation and two-thirds of your time should be spent here. But step back a little. Dust off those sales skills from your past life. If you sold like I did, you’re best sales pitches were not about what you told a prospect right? First you need to sell the need. Continuing our conversation with Jim…”Since you have world class skills at the end of the sales cycle, I did a little arithmetic. You may already know this but if you were able to put 3 more prospects into your pipeline every quarter your earnings would increase by 10%!” My best sales presentations came about because of the questions I asked! You need to use your open ended probes, your directional probes and confirming probes. You need to find out if the lack of prospecting is a skill gap, or a will gap (see separate articles on each subject on blog). If Jim agrees he has a need to increase the number of prospects in his pipeline, you’re halfway home! You now have to come to agreement on how to satisfy that need.

Contract – Every coaching session should end with a contract. Simply put this is the agreement going forward, which defines each person’s action plan and roles. In my Sales Excellence Process there is a form which defines each person’s commitment. The contract (unilateral or bilateral) should be driven by what you determined to be the cause of the problem. If the issue is skill then you as the leader will have an obligation to the sales person to deliver the training. If the issue is one of will to do the task then the sales person will have more obligations to the contract while your role will be inspecting what you expect.

Coaching sessions are the most important duty of a sales manager. How you go about delivering a coaching session will define your leadership. Get your mind right! Are you there to help, or are you there to catch someone doing something wrong? Remember “Cool Hand Luke”?

Boss: Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.

Luke: Nah – calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss.

Sales Performance Advisors delivers field ready tools to help sales people, sales managers, directors and executive management optimize their sales results.

You can contact Gregory Deming @ (925)216-5081
gregorydeming@gmail.com

You can view our blog @ http://www.peaksalesperformance.wordpress.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2063716