Inside Our Head

Look for opportunities to show interest in all team members. Ask about their life outside of work. Make an effort to learn about their families, their hobbies, their recent vacation, etc. Inquire but never pry. Keep track of names, dates, and events that are important to them, such as birthdays and anniversaries of employment with your company. Showing your team that you care about them as people is one more way to build team sprit. When the sprit is strong, the motivation follows right along.

Create an individual development plan for each employee. Work with your sales managers to create development plans that are customized to each person. The plans should identify things like: current and desired skill strengths; job interests; areas for development and enhancement; and strategies (sales training, assignments, coaching, etc.) for achieving the next step.

Involve your best sales people in hiring decisions. Ask team members to participate in interviewing new-hire candidates, when appropriate. This gives your producer a say in how the team works – a significant involvement in something that truly matters. Make sure you provide pre-training on effective interviewing. Such preparation not only gives team members a new skill, but also helps them to help you choose the right candidates for the sales team.

Hire for attitude, train for skill. It can be tempting to fill a vacancy with someone who has the required technical skills but has questionable attitudes and behaviors. Do not give in to the temptation of adding this "warm body" to your team. Bad hires drag down the entire team.

By following these simple steps, you will be on your way to developing a winning sales team!

The best Sales Managers turn failures into teaching lessons. A failure is a failure only when we don’t learn from it. When people make mistakes, encourage them to share their experiences in order to help others avoid similar problems. This can be a great motivational tool because you focus on learning rather than assigning blame. Just remember that it takes guts to admit mistakes – especially in front of others. So be certain to thank each person for his or her courage.

Sales leadership is easy when your stock price is high. Be tough during tough times. As Vince Lombardi said: "It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up again." To keep your team motivated, you need to show resilience, recovery, and "contagious enthusiasm" for the mission of your team – especially when your job challenges are significant.

Help others on your sales team develop by delegating the lead on certain activities and projects. Most of us like "being in charge" – at least some of the time.

Listen to others. Listening shows respect... that people and their ideas are important to you. When people know you're willing to listen, they will share their ideas as well as their frustrations. Listening enables you to build trust, which is essential for creating an elite, high-performance team.



Clarify your expectations. Meet with your individual sales people and ask each to describe his or her understanding of your sales performance expectations (as well as behavior and activity expectations). Confirm and clarify, as appropriate, to ensure that you're "on the same page" with the employee.

The more people know what you expect, the better they'll be able to contribute and help the team succeed... and the fewer de-motivating surprises there will be for both you and your employees down the road.

We are now offering a 3-Day Sales Training Seminar! This sales seminar will help you Sell More & Sell Faster.

By attending our sales training seminar, salespeople will sell more profitable solutions and increase their win-ratio.

• Our sales training programs are designed to help your sales team to think and feel like a customer.
• Learn how to sell based on how customers buy.
• Thoughtful sales strategy combined with effective sales tactics for each and every sales call.
• Our presenters take time prior to your sales training workshop to learn about your specific needs and customize your sales training program.

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"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
Peter Drucker

As the Student you studied the changes affecting your prospects. This was during the Need stage of the Buy-Learning Process. Then, as the Doctor, also during this Need stage of customer focused selling, you diagnosed "little problems" and uncovered BIG needs.

When the customer recognizes a real need to buy, they have moved from the Need stage to the Learn stage.

Now you are ready to fulfill your role as Architect as the focus shifts to selecting the solutions that best meet your buyers' needs. The objective now is address the buyer's fear of making a mistake, and keep your competitors out.

THE ARCHITECT DESIGNS UNIQUE SOLUTIONS AND DEMONSTRATES INCOMPARABLE CAPABILITIES SO THE COMPETITION IS STYMIED.

Sometimes you don't get involved in the deal until after the Need stage has been completed by one of your competitors, and so you have to play catchup. Other times, if you are the only sales person involved up to and through the Learning stage, you still are not immune from competitive interference because soon your prospect will take time to Compare and consult your competitors. Playing the Architect role is pivotal regardless of your circumstances because it gives you the best opportunity to influence the prospect's buying criteria.

For more information, please visit our sales training section of our website.

Selling is the process of uncovering urgency, and defining it, in the mind of your customer. The more momentum you generate early on in the process, the greater the probability that you’ll make a sale.

Occasionally, buyers skip the Fear step altogether. In fact, this is the only step of the buy-learning process that may not occur. If your customer is fearless, it's time to celebrate! Very likely you will proceed directly from the sales presentation into a negotiation of terms.

However, today most customers have more fear about buying, not less. For your customers, more technology, more change, and more choice means there's more to learn. And downsizing has forced many C-level executives to delegate buying authority to people in the Core-level to people who are closer to the problem that needs to be solved and more knowledgeable about it. But when the power to buy is delegated, those with buying authority feel greater pressure to make the right choice. As a result, many salespeople tell me it's taking more time for customers to make up their minds. This is proof that there's increased fear in buying situations.

It is natural for customers to question their decision when it comes time to put money on the table. If you are prepared for this turn of events, customer fears present you with the chance to solidify your position and show again, in another way, why your offering will be valuable.

When the customer slows down, you must do the same. You have to become a Therapist who is skilled at helping the "patient" explore and resolve the uncertainty and doubt that is causing the fear.

When doing your competitive analysis, be sure to include criteria that reflect the requirements of all decision makers on the Complex Buying Team—operational requirements of interest to users; compatibility information of interest to the Integrator; purchase price and full lifecycle costs for the ROI Authority, and so on.

In professional selling, you can lose credibility when you present a capability that the customer doesn’t need. So the simple answer at this step of the buying process is to first discuss the problems your capability solves. If the customer is unconcerned about some types of problems, you can then adjust your sales process to focus on what does matter to them. The result is that you'll deliver a solution that better matches customer needs.