Tag Archives: Sales

Sales Coaching

Hire a Business Coach Or Not? 7 Questions to Decide

Now, above all times, some businesses are prospering and others are falling by the way side. The difference might just be a Sales Coach.

How do you know if you need help? Answer these seven questions. If you cannot easily come up with answers, some help is in order!  Savvy investing in yourself and your company today could be the difference in surviving these times to enjoy the next upturn.

Question #1 – How do I know my business is performing at its peak level? Now is the time to be sure each department is performing at top notch capacity. This is especially true if you are a solo-entrepreneur and the entire company IS you. All parts need to co-ordinate seamlessly and support each other.

#2 – Where are the places that things can be done differently and more effectively? If you have been doing your business for some time, those things might not be apparent to you. What are you doing about your trouble spots?  Do you know where they are? An outside, trained eye can give you valuable perspective.

#3-What should I do first to make a change in my results? If you are wrestling with overwhelm, and have six things to implement, it’s hard to know where to start. If you can see that some (or several) procedures or products need to change, how do you determine where to start?   Use a coach to devise and implement your best strategy.

#4-How do I think about my problems in a constructive way? All solutions come from thoughts first. And thoughts are largely governed by the questions we ask ourselves. Knowing the right questions to ask is the first step to an answer.

#5-How is my company living up to my vision for it and for myself within it? Have you lost your plan and business strategy in a never-ending attempt to solve the daily problems? If you have lost your plan, you have lost your way.

#6 – Who do I talk to when I want to brainstorm ideas, hash out situations, restructure things? A coach is like your own private Master Mind partner with your goals as their priorities. Often simply speaking an idea aloud to an interested and discerning coach can trigger more ideas, suggestions and helpful thoughts to appear in your mind.

#7- Who do I go to when I need support? Where do you find a listener on your side that has no agenda but your own? Even if you have a supportive partner and family, they have a vested interest and a point of view that may not agree with your agenda.

And, if your support is the guy behind the counter at Louie’s Bar & Grill, you definitely want to consider a coach!

To use this article in your newsletter or Ezine, please include the entire text and the following author information:

Beth Lane, CTACC Peaceful Sales Coach, combined her expertise from 30+ year’s business experience as top sales producer, sales trainer and business owner to create Peaceful Selling. This is a Business Coaching and Training Program that teaches you to enjoy selling, increase your productivity and expand your income. To find out more about Beth and receive a FREE e-report visit [http://www.peacefulselling.com]

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Beth_Lane/97401

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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

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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]

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