Solid Training Is The Key!

Sales Training:

The on-going recession has changed the economic climate and it is now more important than ever that your company is equipped with expert salespeople. Whereas in some industries the only task salespeople used to have was taking orders, your sales team now need to be proficient in every aspect of the sales process. Selling that is recession proof means that the skills set of your salespeople need to be better than that of your competitors. Solid training is a key advantage for successful sales teams and research has shown that businesses that fail often did not put in the proper amount of time and effort into polishing the skills of their salespeople.

Try A Different Approach:

To decide what type of sales training program is suitable for your company you need to understand a few concepts. Firstly, there is a difference in approach to selling to businesses as opposed to selling to consumers. B2B (business to business) commerce are transactions between businesses where both the buyer and the seller is a business entity, for example a manufacturer and a wholesaler. In contrast B2C (business to consumer) describes commercial activities between a business and a private individual, for example a retail store and its customers. The sales approach is very different and your training provider should be aware of that. Regardless of whether you sell B2B or B2C, there are three modes of selling. Telesales is a familiar method where either a telesales representative calls a potential customer directly to sell a product or service (cold calling) or where a customer calls in to a call centre. The sales representative will go through the entire selling process over the phone. In contrast, field sales involve a sales representative visiting the customer – be it a business or a private individual – on their premises, going through the sales process face to face. Finally retail sales is the sale of goods from a fixed location owned or rented by the seller such as a department store, a kiosk or a boutique which an individual can visit to enquire about the company`s products.

Closing Can Make All The Difference:

When sales training is insufficient there are a number of negative outcomes. Sales people can lack confidence in their ability to sell the company`s service or product offering: a sales team can fall back to a comfort zone of old tried and true selling methods which may have worked in the past but have gotten less effective over time. Management`s expectations relating to products and services are not communicated through the ranks and neither is frontline feedback on the company`s products and service communicated back to management. Finally, closing sales is one of the most difficult steps in the sales process and this is where training can make a big difference: if salespeople are unable to close sales all their effort may be wasted but there are proven techniques to make asking for the sale easier.

Increase Your Revenue:

A good training program will help fix the above problems and cover a broad array of skills: basic communication ability, how to build an understanding of the prospect`s needs and wants, how to present the proposition and how to close a sale by dealing with objections and negotiating. The training provider will tailor the lessons to the way your company sells and to your target audience. New technology is giving salespeople additional tools to the sales process. In addition to well established technology salespeople can now make use of novel methods such as social networking and an excellent training course will teach salespeople how to use technology to reach out to customers. Even though training courses involve some expense the additional skills will give your salespeople a permanent advantage which means a large increase in revenue. Not only will revenue increase, you will also build better relationships with your customers and the turnover of salespeople will drop. Business Marketing Courses are also valuable as this will teach salespeople the basics of running a business, important knowledge for salespeople that do not have a commercial background.

Thought this might be interesting!!!

In these days of really hard work, uncertainty and crisis (probably more fear and panic than real problems), it’s good to remember the following words from

Albert Einstein:

Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born form the dark night. It’s in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis.

The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There’s no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead.

Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.

I had this sent to me from Carsten pro- Plan interactivo S.L, wwwpro-plan.eu and thought you might find this interesting.

Make Money With Direct Mail

Direct Mail

Let’s remove any doubts; direct mail is a profitable source of income for any business when done properly, but not done properly it will waste your time and money.

For those that say Direct Mail doesn’t work then let me tell you you’re not doing it right.
Clever businesses will take the time to write direct mail properly, after all you would give this time if you were sat with a customer wouldn’t you? I have said many times Direct Mail is like having your best salesman in print if done properly. To remove the confusion.

Direct mail is anything you send to existing or potential customers.

Let’s dispel some of the myths about Direct Mail. The favourite is

‘Direct Mail doesn’t work.’

This is usually derived by the fact that when you get direct mail at home it ends up in the bin, (which means it must be a waste of money right?) the truth is that about 80% to 90% of people do throw direct mailing in the bin, however have you considered what would happen to your business if you could get customers to read your Direct Mail?

The reason that Domino Pizzas, Viking Direct and many other big companies continually fill up your post box with direct mail is because it works. How much do you think these companies spend testing and fine tuning their direct mailings, probably thousands and thousands why because it works, better still they know what works and what doesn’t. All this said I wouldn’t want to mislead you not all direct mail works and this is why, Small to Medium size businesses don’t spend enough time thinking about the message they are trying to get into their customers minds neither do they give enough thought about what they are trying to achieve, if they gave the time and consideration to think about this then direct mail would make their profits soar.

Another myth is that the response rate of Direct Mail is a very low percentage, compared to number of mailings you send and that you need to send a thousand letters to get a single response, this is nonsense and a dangerous way to budget for your direct mail, there are all sorts of factors that will make a difference to your response rate, your product, the price and so on what really matters is not the response you get but the profit you make, which is why testing what you send is paramount. Don’t use a Direct Mail campaign without testing it on a small scale first. Why?

The beauty of Direct Mail is that it is statistically very predictable.

Your Direct Mail will fall into two categories, existing customers and potential new customers.
If you have a date base of existing customers you are sitting on a fortune, start by mailing these, think of something you can offer these customers, send them a letter and measure the response. If it works, mail them again next month and measure the results and if it works keep doing it, when you perfect this try it out on new potential customers and again measure the response each time.

REMEMBER

Test your Direct Mail campaigns for new customers on a small scale before rolling them out.

Always send a letter with any literature you send as it will increase the response rate you get

Your mail should focus on the benefits of your product or service; your customers want to read what your product will do for them not you.

Spend your time wisely

Make sure you spend the time you need getting the headline right its 90% of what people read and has to make them interested to read the rest of your letter, you repeat a successful mailing a few weeks later and expect a response rate around 50% of the original mailing you sent, and following up your letter with a phone call will also increase the response you get.
Don’t make costly mistakes on your future Direct Mail, remember write for the reader not for the writer, and take the time to think what your writing in your letter.

Fighting The UK Credit Crunch

When market conditions soften and the recession mongers surface, the solution is not to batten down the hatches, start by asking yourself “AM I HAPPY?’ if the answer is yes tell your face about it then the whole world will get to know.

A friend asked me last week,

“How is the credit crunch affecting you?”

“Its Not!” I said!

We all have a choice YOU, ME and everyone else can choose not to participate.

THE WHOLE WORLD needs to wake up and smell the roses, the last time I looked there were plenty of people buying plenty of products, so the great news is your products haven’t gone out of fashion, just ask yourself, how many of your products you want to sell this month?

Whatever the number you have picked I am sure it will be considerably less than the number of products your competitors will be selling in this market place in your area, ITS NOW TIME crank up the pace!! Stack the odds in your favour and focus on things that really matter, all this talk of a downturn and recession is the best time to re-ignite the passion that is needed to make your business stronger.

Develop an action plan & this time:

Pull the trigger.

Ask yourself:

What do I need to stop doing and what do I need to start doing?

What do I need to do less of and what do I need to do more of?

And Remember this, if your not out there selling your being out sold!!!

So go get em! Absolute positivity sells absolutely anything.

The bottom line is get excited again and start;

SELLING UP IN A DOWN ECONOMY