|
|
| Sales Management Information |
|
|
Are Your Sales Meetings Boring?
Many sales meetings are boring and a waste of salespeople's time, say the majority of salespeople I interview. A review of what's going on in the market is good to know, but to be effective, sales meetings need to be a lot more than that venues for quick market updates. Inviting a vendor's sales representation to present a product training program never hurts, but if product knowledge were the criteria for success in sales, about 90% of the fledgling salespeople in North America who are about to lose their jobs would be top performers. While product knowledge is important, it won't turn a mediocre performer into a top producer. What's missing in most of the salespeople I meet is a general lack of sales skill. But rarely do I see sales meetings focus on teaching salespeople how to sell more products to existing customers or how to penetrate a prospect who is giving the lion's share of his purchases to the competition. Here are several ideas that will allow your sales force to leave their next sales meeting with enough ammunition to improve their performance: 1. Ask two or three of your top salespeople to join the manager or sales manager on a panel. Give the sales force enough advance notice to identify several sales obstacles they are facing and jot each of them down on a separate piece of paper. At the sales meeting, call out the question and allow the panel to respond with their most effective ideas. 2. Invite three loyal customers to attend your next sales meeting and answer questions from the sales force about what services they most appreciate from a salesperson and what it is about your company that makes them such loyal customers. 3. Invite each salesperson draw a number out of a hat to determine the order each salesperson will present a 15-to-20-minute sales presentation on a key product line that the company is emphasizing. What makes this approach especially effective is to capture each presentation on video. When the presentations are over, replay the video and ask the audience to critique each presentation. 4. Ask each salesperson to present to the sales force background and details on one of his or her key prospects. Invite the sales force to make suggestions as to what the salesperson might do differently to penetrate this account. 5. Buy a copy of the One-Minute Salesperson for each salesperson to read, then at the sales meeting, go around the room and ask the salespeople to tell the group what they plan to do differently after reading this little book. 6. Announce a sales contest that will reward the sales force with a weekend getaway if they achieve a measurable goal over a measurable time frame. Goals could include: ? Bring in five new credit-approved customers who purchase a minimum of $10,000 over the next 120 days. ? Identify each salesperson's year-to-date gross margin. Improve individual gross margin by one percentage point over the next 120 days. ? Achieve a sales goal on an emphasis product line over the next 120 days. 7. Identify specific problems your company's typical customers frequently face and brainstorm specific techniques to help your customers overcome them. 8. Brainstorm what your company has to offer customers in your industry that your individual competitors cannot match. What sets your company apart from each of your key competitors? Set a personal goal to make your company's sales meetings more fun and more effective in 2005. Bill Lee is author of Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line. $29.95 plus $5 S&H. All credit cards accepted. http://www.mygrossmargin.com or email blee@mygrossmargin.com
Sales-Management - Google News |
|
|
|
Careers and Employment How To Become A Better Sales Manager YIPPEE! Kendra won, or should I say, "She was hired," by the "Donald." It was no surprise to me. It was all about people and management skills. You either have them or you don't! Kendra had them and Tana, sad to say, did not. Want to Increase the Amount of Business that Your Firm is Getting? Business development is important for every business and refers to the action of bringing in customers or clients that are likely to make positive contributions to a company's bottom line. Business Development is all about establishing relevant and subsisting relationships in the market place. Poor Performance - Fix it by Coaching Coaching is about finding out the cause of poor performance or behaviour and discussing with the team member how to put it right. How to Keep Projects From Spinning Out Of Control Are you involved in projects that seem to go nowhere in a hurry? The Effective Executive What does it mean to be an "effective executive"? Well very simply it means achieving the goals you set out to achieve in an efficient, creative and effortless manner. Some of the benefits that ensue from this self efficacy are: feelings of self confidence, self esteem, self worth, a sense of personal empowerment, feeling invigorated and passionate about everything you choose to do, a sense of resilience, more energy, personal emotional and physical health and for some a great sense of purpose. Your Extended Shadow And Successful Sales Management In a small midwestern town, the local high school of 878 students recently produced its first state championship basketball team in over 90 years. The community has had an organized city basketball league for its younger boys for many years. But, this league, designed to spot talent early and then feed the high school basketball program, did nothing to produce the state title. There is also an open gym at the high school every Tuesday and Thursday night to encourage the young men in the community to play basketball. But like the city league, this open gym contributed nothing to the team in its championship bid. The Art and Science of Managing Expectations in Selling It is very easy to fall into a trap with the customer by extending offerings beyond that of what the company infrastructure is able to supply in a reasonable timeline. Is Your Sales Trust Factor High Enough to Win Against the Competition? How high is your sales trust factor? Disclosure Laws Favor International Terrorists The Federal Trade Commission has rule that are supposedly in place to protect franchise buyers from fraud from franchisors who might attempt to mislead them into purchasing a franchise. Part of the franchise rules are addressing required disclosure paperwork. In this disclosure document, which is required to be given to franchisees 10 days before any purchase is made are the names, addresses, phone numbers of all franchisees in the system. For smaller home based franchises this means home numbers, addresses and personal information. Promoting Your Private Label at Industry Trade Shows So everyone thought you were crazy when you announced 6 months ago that you were quitting your "real job" in hopes of chasing starting your own Private Label Clothing Line. Your house is a disaster, blank shirts and line sheets everywhere, your living room has been transformed into a makeshift production lab. You've bled and sweat, investing every last of ounce of time, effort and inevitably?your life savings. At last, you are first sample line is complete and your line sheets are nothing short of spectacular. Congratulations! But wait?better take a deep breath as the real work has only begun. What next? How You Can Raise Your Business Earnings By 50% With An Age-Old Magic Truth Imagine increasing your business earnings by 30, 40, or 50%. And this just by putting into use a fundamental truth of life. Many great men of history have used this truth in turning around their fortunes. Moving a Business Relationship from Free to Fee: Turning Strangers to Friends with Power of Freebies In the last issue I shared with you a technique for getting permission to follow up with people who have seen you speak on stage. This was just one example of a tactic for filling your pipeline. Pointless Targets I recall a heated discussion with a sales director some time ago where I proposed that the long-term effect of setting activity targets for salespeople would eventually lead to failure. He vehemently made the point that he had systematically imposed activity targets on his sales force and that the result had been to treble average income per salesperson within 18 months. Whats a Professional Sales Manager? I was in the depths of a major depression. As a third year salesperson with a good company, I was doing well, and was on my way to becoming the top salesperson in the nation for that company. But business had slowed down a little, and I did not have my usual number of proposals out for consideration. So, I wasn't as busy as usual. As my activity slowed, I began to worry. My doubts increased to the point where I had thought myself into a real depression, stuck on the question of "What's the use of trying?" The more negative my thoughts became, the less energy I had. My lack of energy led to fewer and fewer sales calls, which of course, led to less activity. And that led to more depressing thoughts. I was caught in a powerful downward spiral. 6 Steps to Avoid Losing Summer Sales It's a fact - the online world dies down in the summer time. Kids are out of school, families are on vacation, there's fairs to attend to, and many are just spending too much time outside to be online. For those that market mostly online, the summer months could be eating your profit. The good news is, it's easy to take your product to where your market is - offline. Profitable Relationships: Is It Amateur Hour or King of the Hill? "We're in the relationship business...airplanes are what we use to provide a service." remarked Colleen Barrett, President and COO Southwest Airlines remarked, Transforming Your Sales Force by Creating Specific Expectations I just finished a phone call with a potential client who had called to discuss a problem. His 18 person sales force was paid on straight commission. All had been with the company for 8 - 15 years and were earning healthy incomes. His problem was that he could not get them to do what he wanted them to do. Here's the example he shared. How To Build A Worldwide Distributor Network When your product is market ready and has a good bargain, it will be no value to you if you don't know who's going to buy it, or how you are going to tell the world about it. Your product will only sell if it has a good wide distribution network. Raise Concern About Sales Competition, Not About Yourself As you are reading this sales article, read very carefully. Because I wouldn't want you to think of a pig right now. No, do not think of a fat, brown, smelly pig right this moment. What are you doing? Do you have a picture of a smelly, fat, brown pig in your head right now? I thought I just told you not to do that. What are you doing then? Do You Really Want Local County Contracts? If you really want to secure government contacts at the county level; there is a lot more than just getting on a list and bidding on a solicitation. Government even at the country level is a little corrupt and insider-ish. You can complain about the evils, backdoor deals and wasting of tax payers money or you can remember that the imperfect system is run by humans and what goes on in generally what should be expected. No difference than the shenanigans of the Catholic Priests.
|
| home|Sales Training|Telesales Training|Site map | 
|
© 2006 www.elearn-university.org |
