Sales Skills Development Blog

Two Examples of Initial Benefit Statements

  

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An Initial Benefit Statement is the tool smart salespeople use to capture the interest of their prospects. When you're ready to make your initial call to get an appointment, prepare one or two initial benefit statements.

Situation 1: You want to sell an appointment to meet with a Training Director referred by a current client.

Situation 2: You want to sell an appointment to meet with the HR VP at one of your target accounts.

To create interest with prospects, create initial benefit statements that involve things THEY would be interested in.  Use THREE benefits in the statement to improve your chances for capturing their interest successfully.  Use this approach on the phone or in written communication.

How to Learn More
Download our free whitepaper on "Sales Strategies: Creating Interest".  This will provide you additional information to help maximize employee potential to drive bottom line results.

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Sales Interview - The First Step

  

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Begin your interview by confirming the amount of time the prospect said they could spend with you.  Then let the prospect know what you want to accomplish during the interview by stating your objectives.  Tell the prospect you want to listen to what they have to say and learn more about their business.  Remember, this is an interview, not a sales presentation.  You want to listen more than you speak.

Break the ice with a comment or two about the general state of their industry.  Then transition into a discussion about their company. Ask a few open-ended questions and probes about them and their company.  These general topics of discussion will be easy for people to talk about.  All four behavioral styles (DiSC) will have something to say.  This is the warm-up portion of the interview and these questions will be easy for the prospect to answer.

You can greatly enhance your credibility by doing some preliminary research about their company.   Show the prospect you’ve done your homework and ask them to confirm and expand on the information that you gathered previously.  This will help differentiate you by showing the prospect you are a professional.  Why?  Because you have taken the time to learn something about them and their business.  Get the prospect to open up to you by using probes and open-ended questions to gather additional background information.

Be creative and ask a few thought-provoking questions that will provide you with information about this person as well as facts about their company.  Differentiate yourself from other salespeople by asking what important challenges the prospect is facing this year and how they differentiate their company from the competition.

How to Learn More
Our free whitepaper entitled "Sales Strategies: Creating Interest" provides additional information to help in your sales process.

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Sales Methodology - Sales Training

  

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1. Planning for Success

• Where to go – Who to see – and What to say to create interest
• Gain favorable attention
• Understand important business issues, opportunities and challenges

2. Developing Strong Relationships

• Read behavioral styles and adjust
• Build credibility and trust
• Active Listening

3. Discovering Where and How to Add Value

• Customer Focused Sales Interview (F.I.N.D.) to uncover needs, goals, priorities and personal win
• Qualifying the opportunity
• Map the political and power structure and aligning to it
• Understand the competition’s products, strategies, and business practices (strengths and weaknesses)

4. Presenting Your Value Proposition

• Craft and present a customer focused solution
• Respond to their business and personal needs
• The evaluation and justification

5. Beginning/Expanding the Partnership

• Gain commitment to action (closing)
• Negotiate a Win-Win
• Ask for a reference and testimonial letter
• Continue to look for opportunities to provide value throughout the organization
• Gain knowledge of your client’s clients and attempt to identify value based propositions
  
  

10 Sales Coaching Tips

  

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Ten Sales Coaching Tips for Sales Managers

1. Coach your people all the time
2. Consistently coach your team
3. Coach the positives and negatives
4. Find something positive every time
5. Prioritize your sales coaching time to get a return on your investment
6. Don't ignore a problem hoping it will get better
7. Avoid jumping in at the first sign of trouble
8. Have them analyze their performance first
9. Recommend and model a preferred method
10. Practice - Practice - Practice

Customer Focused Selling

  

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THE HEART OF BEING CUSTOMER FOCUSED IS CONDUCTING AN EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW. When sales professionals utilize the professional probing and questioning skills they learn the customer's needs, wants, dreams and goals. Then they can then present a Value Added Solution that best answers these requirements. 

The right questions will determine the benefits that will be considered as value added by your customer. This will help distinguish you from your competition.

We believe using a system for conducting customer-focused interviews will establish your credibility, save time and help you determine what is most important to a prospect or customer.

We have developed a system that will structure the probes and questions that need to be used during a customer-focused interview. Since you may work with multiple levels within an organization, your sales interviews will vary according to the position and the behavioral style of the individual. Think for a moment. Would you conduct an interview with the CEO the same as you would with a Procurement Manager. Probably not: because they have different interests and different agendas. Even experienced salespeople can sometimes misread a person's interests and needs.

Better understand our customer focused selling interview system, preview for free our online course "Customer Focused Sales Interviews."

Win-Win Negotiations

  

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NEGOTIATION IS A BASIC MEANS OF GETTING WHAT YOU WANT FROM OTHERS, AND THEM GETTING WHAT THEY WANT FROM YOU. It is a communication process that allows you and your customer to reach agreement.  It assumes that you and the customer have common interests and would like to reach agreement on terms and conditions relating to doing business. These can include pricing, support levels, quality issues, training, product enhancements, contract renewals, etc.

Corporate Sales Coaches has researched the concepts in this module from a variety of third party sources including the Harvard University Negotiations Project.  We have combined our research on sales negotiations with over forty years of actual personal experience negotiating sales contracts valued in the hundreds of million of dollars.

We define a win/win sales negotiation, as an agreement that is equally beneficial to both sides. The buyer and the seller come out of a negotiation with a workable agreement they both can live with and feel good about.  When this occurs, lasting relationships can develop that benefit both sides. Anything less usually spells trouble down the road.

Salespeople sometimes approach a negotiation from a "defensive position." They believe the buyer may be trying to squeeze them or take advantage of them. They may end up compromising a "preferred" position to get the business.  Negotiations like this usually end up win/loose. They often have an adversarial cloud over them. We will examine the negotiation process and determine the types of negotiations that cause people the most difficulty.

To better understand our approach to reach a win-win, visit the free demonstration of our online course titled "Win-Win Negotiations."

Five Basic Principles for Effective Sales Management

  

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Do you want to avoid the cycle of management failure and create a success system that will keep you on top?  Below are five basic principles based on our careers as sales executives and our work with many sales and customer service organizations over the past sixteen years.

Principle #1 - Managers Make a Difference
The overall effectiveness of a sales or customer service organization is directly related to the effectiveness of its front-line supervisors and managers.  The time you invest training these people will reduce turnover, increase productivity, and build a strong base of satisfied and repeat customers that can be leveraged into opening new accounts.  That will produce higher profits.  Investing in training your front-line supervisors and managers is smart business.

Principle #2 - Managers Life the Entire Organization
If you're not investing in your front-line supervisors and managers, how can you improve the quality of your sales and customer service people?  Training the individual performers alone will fail.  We've seen it time and time again.  Clients will train their individual contributors and either don't include the supervisors or managers or don't train the managers on what to do afterward.  Our smartest clients train the entire team.

Principle #3 - Effective Training is a Process, Not an Event
Any engineer will tell you that an effective process requires training, supervision, quality control and reinforcement.  This is particularly true for sales and customer service organizations trying to increase their production and effectiveness.  They require skills training.  When the training is delivered as a one-time event (like at the annual meeting) it doesn't last  People are left to go their own way.  They quickly fall back into their old bad habits or unproductive activities.  Events certainly can be fun - but don't confuse them with training.  Implementing best practices is a process that requires time and effort.  Our smartest clients reinforce this process with their front-line supervisors and managers.

Principle #4 - Effective Managers Coach All Their People All the Time
We have seen huge improvements in the effectiveness of sales and customer service organizations when managers are trained to coach their people all the time - not just when things are not going well.  It's usually too late then.  The most effective managers know how to set goals and expectations, create the right emotional climate for their people, conduct performance reviews offering praise as well as constructive criticism, and listen to their people.  Too many senior managers are unaware of how paying attention to these issues actually drives results.  Out smartest clients know the importance of coaching all their people all the time.

Principle #5 - Practice Manager Fundamentals Consistently
Keep investing in the training and development of your front-line supervisors and managers.  Practice the fundamentals of good management consistently and constantly.  If you develop your frontline sales and customer service management team, it's likely they will be focused on developing their people and driving your business.  Strong leadership examples begin at the top of any organization.  That's smart!

Summary
That's why we believe:  managers make the difference!  Remember that good managers are not magicians or miracle workers  They don't have a bag of magic pixie dust to sprinkle on their people.  Your sales and customer service teams need both great coaches (front-line supervisors and managers) and great players.  It's impossible to hire all the great supervisors and managers you'll need from the outside.  You need to develop them as coaches internally, provide them the tools to be successful.  And they in turn will help develop their people - the people that touch your clients and customers.

Sales Training and Development Self-Paced Courses
These online self-paced courses help sales professionals learn a comprehensive set of basic skills and knowledge - the grounding they need to sell successfully, consistently.  New hires can quickly acquire the knowledge they need to begin and experienced sales people can focus directly on bolstering strengths or develop areas they'd like to improve upon.

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What is your Professional Perception as a Sales Professional?

  

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What we think of ourselves will certainly influence how others see us.  Think about a successful professional person you know, a doctor, judge, nurse, business executive, clergy member, accountant, etc.  Most of these professional people will have a very healthy ego.  Not that they think they're better than other people, although, some do project this feeling and we all know the negative affect that can have.

True professionals transmit their confidence to others by their appearance, demeanor, words and actions.  They expect other people to recognize and respect their strengths and abilities.  They are usually good role models and good people to study.

We can often be our own worst enemy by being too tough on ourselves.  Don't underestimate your abilities.  By paying attention to a few simple basics, your ego will be strong and you'll feel better.

1. Good Health - Your appearance is enhanced because good health creates a pleasing image.  It brightens and animates your presence.  It's also good for you.  Some regular exercise and watching your diet will help you live longer while it enhances your professional image.  Sounds like a reasonable thing to do for yourself anyway.
   
   
2. Dress the Part - Studies have proven that when people dress in business suits, they are treated with more courtesy, respect and attention than those who conduct business in casual clothes.  They project professionalism and efficiency.  You can argue this is not true, but we are talking about image and perception.  Distracting clothes send the wrong messages.  This doesn't mean you have to lose your individuality or look drab.
   
   
3. Good Grooming and Hygiene - This is not just for kids  It's the basic things that mean a lot in projecting a proper image.  You can leave your home in the morning looking great and smelling clearn.  But if halfway through the day you've lost that neat look and clean scent, you project a much different image.  Check yourself out through the day.  It's just as important to look neat and clean for the late afternoon meeting as it was for the first of the morning.
   
   
4. Sight and Sounds - First you're seen, then you're heard.  What you sound like and what you think you sound like have a tremendous impact on the image you project and the impression you make on others, especially the first impression.  The sound and tone of your voice, your diction and annunciation, your use of vocabulary and language can be great pluses or unnecessary impediments.  Unnecessary because offensive or distracting vocal communication habits can be easily corrected once the problem is recognized and a decision is made to do something about it.  Ask the people you respect to let you know if they think you're using slang, profanity or incorrect grammar or if they think you talk too loud or soft.  We all have blind spots and need the input of others to help us improve.

Appearance and Conduct

• Present yourself in a neat, clean, well-groomed busineslike manner.
  
  
• Your appearance and personal conduct should bring a favorable reaction from the customer.
  
  
• Make sure your clothes fit well, collars or sleeves aren't frayed, colors are well coordinated, shoes polished, fingernails clean.
  
  
• It is best to dress on the conservative side and select clothing that resists wrinkling.  Stripes will make you look taller and more slender, while plaids will have the opposite effect.
  
  
• Men should only wear functional jewelry, use cologne sparingly and hair should always be clean, neat and combed.
  
  
• Women should avoid large jewelry, strong perfumes, excessive makeup and exotic hairstyles.
  
  
• When in the presence of a prospect do not do anything to cause criticism of yourself or your company.
  
  
• Your vehicle should be clean inside and out and your brief case neat and organized.

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Why Salespeople Should Enhance Their Professional Image

  

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How do your customers and peers perceive you?  What is the image your project to them?  What do you want them to see when they look at you?  Perhaps you feel you know the answers to these questions.  You think you know how your customers and associates perceive you.  If the messages they send back to you indicate acceptance, competence, respect and even admiration, you're probably very pleased with the way you're being viewed.  That's good and you should feel proud.

If you're not 100% sure of how you're being perceived, or if you want to make sure you're doing all you can to make sure you're projecting the image of a modern sales professional, the following ideas will help.  You will receive many long-term benefits by projecting a professional image in person and on the telephone.

A professional image is a necessity if you are to be successful in a career in sales.  There are a few simple things to remember that can differentiate you from the competition.  You'll be able to leverage your professional image into positive actions with your customer base and with your sales team.

Enhancing Your Professional Image

Enhancing your professional image is directly related to your attitude and self-image.  You will present a successful professional image if you:

• Are driven from within to look and act professional at all times
• Have a positive mental attitude about your abilities and your company
• Know how to add value to your customers
• Know how to differentiate yourself from the pack

Why Enhance Your Professional Image?

There are many opportunities and rewards in business today for salespeople who are motivated, knowledgeable, professional and able to add value to their customers.  Our professionalism coupled with top performance provides us with an incredible sense of well-being and accomplishment.  For some of us, this might be worth the effort if well-being and a sense of accomplishment were the only rewards we receive for superior performance.  There are of course many other rewards available from top performance.  These can include career enhancement, job security, increased compensation, respect and recognition from customers, superiors and peers.

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6 Tips on What to Avoid in a Sales Call

  

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Your Words Are Important

1. Eliminate the grunts:  Um and Ah and Uh!
   Be comfortable with the silence and resume speaking when the thought is there.  People who use "um" to illustrate their thought process may appear less sure and less knowledgeable.
   
   
2. Sorta, kinda, shoulda - what?
   These words make you sound unsure of your ideas.  Casual language sounds unprofessional and sends the wrong message.
   
   
3. Avoid absolutes.
   When you use absolutes, you are asking to be proved wrong.  Substitute often for always and rarely for never.  Use absolutes sparingly.
   
   
4. Avoid slang or rough phrases.
   Avoid using slang like "ain't" or rough phrases like "that sucks."  They make you sound very unprofessional.  Find another way to say what you mean.
   
   
5. Stop the hard sell.
   Ending each though with "You know?" or "You know what I mean?"  Come across as the hard sell and are annoying.  People who abuse these phrases are seeking support for poorly explained ideas.
   
   
6. Avoid but and however!
   These words negate whatever was said before them and send a message to the prospect that you didn't mean what was said before "but" or "however".  Here's an example - "I understand why you might feel that way, however, there is another way to view this."  A simple pause will serve you much better than "however" ever will.

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