Tag Archives: Sales

Sales Coaching

Why Sales Coaching Is Essential For Your Business

One of the keys to increasing sales is to control and reduce the turnover of sales staff and management. It is not only very costly turnover in terms of recruitment, training and end costs, but also very counterproductive when growing sales revenue. Sales are most important for every business. Your business may be some small or some large, but you cannot think of amplifying it without getting a growing number or quality of sales. It is essential that your representatives are smart enough to deal your customers and make them purchase their products over other firms or companies. Competition among marketers is increasing day by day, so even if you have the right kind of products cannot be sold. The main thing to focus on to grow your business is to increase the number of sales you make. This is where the sales of coaching play a major role. A company that provides sales management coaching to its employees is able to attract more customers, and get better income. In a sales coaching program, an employee learns the right direction to interact with customers. They understand how to deal with sales objections, and persuade prospects to buy a product the company. A sales coaching makes an employee to answer the question why an important perspective to choose their products over others.

Without the ability to communicate effectively, not present products or services to your customers. When clients read or hear about the product and its advantages, this creates a positive effect on the client and provides a way in which to solve all your queries. A person can go for training sales to get a better job in the marketing industry, or a company can use this to help their employees improve enterprise growth. Choose a company which provides coaching in advanced sales proven methods is essential. Be Relevant creates sales optimization solutions that boost the efficiency & effectiveness of your sales force. A person who can answer customer questions without searching is able to create a lasting impression and thus increases the value of his product of company in their eyes. A company dedicated to teaching proper management techniques to help clients create success.

There are several courses offered by the sales coaching companies improve employee performance. It is important that the sales company you choose to get the coaching of sufficient experience in the same field. It should have certified personal trainers with degrees to teach essential sales skills for their students. Every company today has a service centre to resolve queries from new and existing customers. Call centre training for employees to greet and talk to their customers in a desired way help to improve their levels of company customer satisfaction. With higher levels of satisfaction, you will get more sales and will be able to generate more revenue from business. Market research carefully and choose the company that matches your needs the best with sufficient experience in the type of sales coaching you’re looking for you or your firm or company.

B-relevant programs can provide reporting and measurement of success for your business. If you are new to the B-relevant craze, rest assured that you are not walking a lonely road and there are many resources available to you now for using B-relevant coaching to growing sales revenue [http://www.berelevantgroup.com] in all type of business.

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Sales Coaching

Become Your Own Professional Sales Training Force

In a information based and online dealings you may miss the special touch of a regular sales job that was once either making you money or wasting your time.

If it was wasting your time, you may not have had the marketing and sales skills at the time of working the job, so you may have ultimately failed at the business. Your professional selling skills could have needed much improvement.

One reason I have always loved sales and marketing is that you can write your own paycheck, have no one employing you, and allow you to take time and days off whenever you need or want and get up from bed whenever it is reasonable.

The thing missing from my entrepreneur career was training from professionals in the industry. When you have to feed a family and make a solid living, you don’t have time to go over training that you cannot duplicate, which leads to less effective results.

The training is the crucial ingredient as experienced by many who are left wondering what they did wrong in sales.

If you were to take the basic marketing and sales skills you may know now and take those back with you in time to succeed at those jobs you will have improved or at least made it in the forgotten profession of sales.

I think that most persons jolt into sales not knowing the quantity of training and skill advancement that it takes to be victorious. It is not an overnight process. Education, being, and doing are very important factors in the success, which means failure is vital to experiencing the sport of professional sales. Your professional sales skills degree will determine your income.

I know when I was working with companies that offered opportunities for much better income possibility and development these companies did not bestow leadership, teaching, or even on occasion decent leads to work with.

With the information out there to work with now, you could take any sales and marketing opportunity and turn it into a safe return on time investment when you have good professional sales coaching.

I like to keep things simple in my articles so I’ll give some down to earth examples of this.

If you are in wireless carrier communication sales, could you not easily write highly converting capture pages and turn those into sales for your company? Absolutely.

If you require some form of written contract agreement to provide a service or product through your company, could you not share that with your local Facebook or other social network to people in your local area. Absolutely.

If you are self employed could you not realize specifically targeted customers in the home rehab and recuperation trade in your local area through ad campaigns that are deliberate to capture the attention of people looking at the home depot web site online and advertise in the penny saver. Certainly.

And lastly, if you are required for your job to be highly friendly, personal, and customer service oriented, could you not improve your offline marketing and closing skills to be one who is trusted and build relationships with potential customers and clients at these local locations. Absolutely.

The skills of attraction marketing, direct sales, and connecting, along with networking, outstanding buyer service, and being an expert in your niche field would give any ambitious human being more than an adequate amount of information to be highly successful in their existing occupation.

Not everyone has the constancy and discipline to be able to make these things work for them, but originality and alpha leadership mentality are the key points that will help you to accomplish particular goals for your revenue streams that can set you up a be rich in the current economic condition. Your own professional sales training force can be you. You can be self trained with a little suggested help and good resources.

There is a goldmine of prosperity in professional marketing and sales that can make any motivated individual with solid whys or reasons for their goals, eager to make more time and money, and a lifestyle for their efforts to become what they truly want to be as a marketing professional. See my article entitled 7 steps to becoming financially free for a larger picture when it comes to true wealth prosperity.

Get on the fast track with professional sales training [http://myonlineleadsystem.com] where the top leaders and closers in industries come together to make a mastermind dream team and learn to master the skills needed set up a system [http://www.mlmforthemasses.com/articles/become-your-own-professional-sales-training-force-9173/?c=29807], obtain quality leads, and profit for freedom from a current job.

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Sales Coaching

Sales Managers – The 6 Steps to Become a Great Sales Coach

Although a salesperson’s professional development is limited when it centres only on classroom learning many organisations still persist with it. At the risk of upsetting those in the learning and development field it has to be said that classroom learning has minimal impact in the medium to long term and by every measure the return on investment for the company is poor. At best the retention for the salesperson is 30% if active learning such as role play is part of the skills development and considerably lower at 5% if it is passive when the facilitator talks most of the time. When infield sales coaching becomes integral to the sales person’s development this figure can escalate to a staggering 90%. With up to 70% of top sales performers leaving because of dissatisfaction with their manager relationship sales coaching provides an opportunity to forge close working ties.

So why doesn’t every sales manager incorporate sales coaching for their salespeople?

Based on our research the reasons are:

1) They don’t know how
Many of you reading this may relate to this category. You were a very successful salesperson and so promoted to sales management with inadequate or no training for the role. You were not aware of infield sales coaching because it wasn’t part of the company’s culture

2) They don’t have a sales background
The sales manager came from another department within the company such as administration or operations. This is seen as a good career move and endorsed by senior management and is for a limited time of 2-3 years before the person moves onto another role. Because such an individual lacks sales experience they feel uncomfortable and incompetent in front of clients and prospects so avoid being in that position. A credibility issue with their sales team also becomes a problem

3) They don’t have the time
The sales manager becomes tied up with administration and other internal matters. They try to manage their sales team from their desk. To illustrate how serious a problem this is: one large national company with a network of business throughout Australia had each business unit manager also in a sales management role. Not 1 hour was invested in the field with one sales person over the previous12 month period.

Sales coaching needs to become part of a company’s sales culture just like coaching in sport is a part of the sporting culture. In fact to be effective sales managers need to spend at least 25% of their time with their salespeople in the field coaching.

Sales coaching is the key to achieving lasting sales improvement and is suitable for new people to sales through to sales veterans to reinforce knowledge and skills already known but not used effectively.

Sales coaching consist of 3 components:

1. Knowledge and skills
A common sales criticism of classroom learning is that it’s theoretical and won’t work in the ‘real world.’ However, when sales coaching becomes part of their development program the classroom theory is converted into practical know how. In fact when a specific skill is applied by the sales manager and then later duplicated by the salesperson, behaviour change and motivation are immediate

2. Objective sales competency levels.
When salespeople are measured against the 6 competency levels their true competency level can be identified. For the sales person to progress to a higher level the sales manager needs to use every teaching method available from seeing, hearing and demonstration to clarifying what to do and why.

3. An evaluation methodology to measure the outcomes.
A competency based training and development format is one of the best ways to measure skills performance.

The Curb Side Conference
This is the term used to describe how the previous sales call is reviewed for the purpose of developing or refining the sales person’s selling skills. The 6 step sales coaching process is used to achieve this outcome:

1) Briefly recap the sales objectives.
The objective/s for the sales call should have been set before the call. Recapping at the beginning of the curb side conference helps the salesperson to focus on the discussion at hand.

2) Provide a critique of the selling skills that were competently applied.
Use your sales process as the guiding template and leave out those selling skills that were incompetently or not applied. This is because you want to acknowledge and compliment the skills that demonstrated sales competence. For example “Mary let’s go over the last sales call and if it’s okay with you I’d like to give you feedback on the skills you applied competently.” The salesperson may want to interrupt and highlight the skills they didn’t apply or applied inadequately. When this happens you need to stop them and let them know they will have their turn soon. For example “I appreciate your concerns and we will deal with them shortly.” Emotionally you need to come from a place of caring and support which will then be reflected in your vocal tone. Sounding judgmental or frustrated could destroy your relationship with your salesperson.

3) Ask the salesperson to self critique their sales call.
Suggest to your salesperson to also use the sales process which will assist them to critique their own sales performance in a logical manner and then it’s your role to actively listen. They may focus too much on what they didn’t do or did incompetently so watch for this tendency. You may need to ask them to give you a balanced view. Actively listen for any skills they omitted or believe they applied well when in reality they didn’t do so. On conclusion of their self critique compliment them and move to the next step. For example “Mary you obviously have a great understanding of the sales process and I agree with your self assessment. Let me ask you, if you had the opportunity to…”

4) Ask the salesperson if they had the opportunity to do the sales call again what they would do differently?
This gives the salesperson the opportunity to uncover anything additional they may have previously missed and drawing on what they had learnt in step 2 will reaffirm those competencies.

5) Use the sales process and provide a summary critique of the salesperson’s selling skills.

When you go through the summary ensure it is weighted 3:1 in favour of the positive behaviours and skills that were competently applied. This will also build their sense of self worth as well as the learning experience.

6) Finish on a positive note and set the next sales call objective.
This has to be done from the heart and for example could be expressing how impressed you were with how the salesperson qualified the prospect. When planning the next sales call objectives one needs to be a skill development objective from step 3 or 4. Caution: whilst there may be many skills needing attention focus on one which you consider to be the most important. Overloading the salesperson with too much is counterproductive and isn’t the way we learn.

A last word or two…

• Curb side conference those sales calls where the learning will be the greatest
• Schedule regular monthly sales coaching even if it is as little as half a day and avoid cancelling. It will pay dividends. Staying in the office doesn’t create revenue but developing a salesperson’s selling ability does
• Ask your salespeople for feedback on your coaching. What could you do better?
• Sales coaching provides you with the opportunity to show sales leadership

If sales coaching is new to you or you are dissatisfied with current sales coaching practices contact Sales Consultants.

Kurt Newman is the co-founder of Sales Consultants Pty Ltd a firm that works with companies to increase sales and reduce the cost of selling. http://www.salesconsultants.com.au

Kurt’s expertise is in sales strategy, sales management development; group structured sales training and infield sales coaching. As a sales person he has successfully sold products and services in 4 major market/product segments: new product sales, consultative sales, relationship sales and retail. During his selling career he created sales records for three companies in two industries and won many other sales awards for outstanding performance.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kurt_Newman/417035

 

Sales Coaching

3 Simple Tips to Develop Sales Coaching

A good sales leader coaches, while a poor sales leader simply directs. Most people who desire success focus almost entirely on themselves, not others. However, this is not the way to be truly successful. As a sales leader, team work is paramount and coaching, becomes a rewarding calling. Certainly, it takes work and may not have immediate returns. Yet in the long run, you get to build up a dream team, exceeding your group target beyond your wildest dreams. How do you develop sales coaching? This article seeks to demystify the area of sales coaching in 3 simple steps.

1. Getting your team members to articulate
A seasoned sales man knows how to ask the right questions to his customers. Similarly, a good sales leader coach must ask his team the right questions and get them to answer. This is truly a powerful tool as the personal articulation creates a self- realization. A good sales coach helps others learn how to analyze their own performance, take responsibility for their own development, find their own answers and gain the team members’ commitment to doing it.

2. Focusing only on one priority at a time
Most of us are highly ambitious and seek to accomplish a lot at a time. Perhaps in a bid for time, we often rush through the motion. However, to engage your team and for them to be able to give issues the focus they require to accelerate change, one should not have too much on the agenda. The team member has to learn the ropes and take time to internalise the good habits. Research has shown that simple repetitive tasks require a timeframe of approximately 21 days to condition!

3. Separating evaluation from development
Your team member may feel threaten if they feel that they are being appraised when you are trying to coach them. There is a time and place for everything, thus try to separate the development and evaluation aspect. In fact, some staffs that correctly identify areas to develop may be evaluated more positively. It is good for you to have a list of your team members, with their names, greatest strength, areas to develop and resources to share clearly tabulated in a list. This will allow you to picture your dream team clearly!

When these things are in place, sales coaching become your most powerful tool in achieving results and will far surpass a directive approach. The foundation is then built on trust and strengthening relationship. When coaching your sales staff, you are better able to gain an understanding of the areas where one is stuck and can broaden their perspectives, based on your experience and help to formulate a solution for their obstacles. Sales coaching require affirmation, time and effort. However, this is resources well-invested, and this will help you, as a person to develop lasting qualities for life.

Perrine Oh is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a young and budding writer. She is launching a book on Turbo Charging your Life in 15 minutes flat. Her principle is founded upon achieving your goals in incremental 15 minutes each day. Do check out her other articles for more insights into self- improvement and sales tips. Check out her personal blog at: http://turbochargingyourlife.blogspot.com.

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Sales Coaching

Why Sales Managers Don’t Coach – Even Though They Think They Do!

“We do that” said Tim, “that’s part of the sales managers’ role”. I was going through a checklist of effective performance drivers with a client, a senior sales VP of a financial software vendor. We came to coaching the sales people.

Tim and his sales managers sincerely believed that they coached their sales people. I don’t think you would get a very different response from sales chiefs in most IT companies. In our experience, however, the reality is that sales management doesn’t coach their salespeople effectively. There’s a lot of vague thinking about coaching.

Depends What You Mean by Coaching – People tend to associate coaching with sport. The majority of the top professional golf and tennis stars have a coach. Occasionally, they fire the coach and go it alone. Generally coaches are credited with helping the sportsperson to improve their performance – in the fastest way possible. The hallmark of a successful sports coach is a one-on-one relationship, built on trust and dedicated to improving the “coachee’s” performance. A coach has the advantage of objectivity – being able to see and show exactly where the coachee can improve. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that coaching sales people, if done properly, really does produce improved sales performance. Some US research identified a 35% increase in sales just by coaching. Neil Rackham, founder of Huthwaite Research (the people who invented SPIN) says “no other activity has so positive an impact on the success of consultative selling… a strong coaching culture is the hallmark of success”

Sales Coaching – the Wasteland of Corporate America? Linda Richardson, President of the Richardson Company and a lecturer at Wharton Business School argues “Every organisation and every person has blind spots. The power of coaching lies in turning those blind spots into perspective”. She goes on to say: “The critical importance of coaching a sales force is universally acknowledged – as is its almost total absence. Sales coaching is the wasteland of corporate America”.

Lip Service to Coaching Working one-to-one with a salesperson is generally considered coaching. An example of this – reviewing the salesperson’s pipeline or progress with a particular opportunity. Let’s look at a typical example of what all too often passes for coaching. Suppose a salesperson requests help from his/her sales manager because they feel that they need some assistance with a big deal. They may have set up a meeting with a more senior person and want the manager along. Maybe I’m being too cynical but perhaps the salesperson feels that by involving the sales manager they are covering their backside. That way they can spread the blame if anything goes wrong! Who handles the call? The sales manager. How much learning takes place? Some – the ‘watch- how- I- do- it’ method of training has its place. This is thought of as coaching. But is it? According to Neil Rackham, there are two types of sales coaching – strategy coaching and skills coaching. Strategy coaching is a bit like the coach and the player poring over a map of the course in the club house discussing the way the golfer might play the course. Tactics could be likened to the coach observing play – perhaps noting the way the player positions his feet and suggesting a better stance. Similarly, sales strategy coaching might take place in the office – discussing what needs to happen to win a deal. Using something like Target Account Selling or Miller Heiman’s blue sheets is a form of strategic coaching. Even if the salesman sometimes feels that it’s a way of catching them out, this coaching is very valuable. What is largely missing, in our experience, is skills or tactics coaching. This may be because there’s never enough time. Or perhaps because sales managers like to think that they have hired salespeople who know how to sell.

What Happens Typically on Call Accompaniment Let’s revisit the sales manager out on a call with one of his sales people. More often than not little or no preparation gets done. A few words may be exchanged over coffee in the local Starbucks or driving to the call. Worse, (and I’ve done it) a few words are exchanged in the lift on the way up to the meeting!

Next, how often does the sales manager assume the running of the call? 95% of the time? Why does this happen? The sales manager is there for a purpose. He or she is there to help close the deal perhaps – and that generally involves, as they see it, controlling the meeting. If it’s an important deal the manager doesn’t want to see the call go wrong. Once the sales manager takes over the conversation, the prospect’s focus switches away from the salesperson. Result? The salesperson is sidelined; their authority shot to pieces. But our sales manager fondly imagines that he has coached the salesperson in how to do it. Whatever the outcome of the meeting, doing the call for the salesman isn’t developmental coaching any more than the tennis coach playing a shot for the player in a match would be coaching.

What Should be Happening? Sitting down with the salesperson to plan the call. Careful preparation is never time wasted. Question the salesperson about their objectives for the call. How is he/she going to handle it? What issues is the prospect likely to have? Is there any skill that the salesperson wants to improve and practise in the call?

The meeting should ideally be run by the salesperson with the manager saying as little as possible. (A useful accessory might be a large piece of sticking plaster for this to happen!) After the call, a formal de-brief should happen. The manager asks the salesperson about the extent that the call objectives have been achieved and listens to the salesperson’s answers. What does the salesperson think could have been done better? The manager should went wrong!

Ok, I know life isn’t like that and the relentless pressure to make the numbers can militate against doing coaching properly. But no sales manager can sell everything personally. The more he can develop and enhance the skill sets of his sales team the greater will be the improvement in their performance overall. The immediate sales manager is THE best placed person to improve selling effectiveness. Personal coaching is increasingly recognised as the best vehicle for him or her to accomplish this.

Tim and his sales managers plan to devote a proportion of their time to real coaching and not playing the shots themselves. They are developing some KPIs to allow them to measure individual performance improvement. Linda Richardson again: “The sales manager role is re-emerging into a new and vital role – from evaluator to developer, from expert to resource, from teller to questioner… it is a 180 degree shift from how most sales managers manage”

Author: Graham French, gfa Sales Improvement.

Graham French of gfa Sales Improvement can be reached at
gfrench@enterprise.net +44 (0) 20686 4930

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