Developing Your Team - What Are Your Options?

In today’s highly competitive selling environment, there is less room for apprenticeship, as organisations need to see a swift return on their investment. Therefore, Sales Directors need to allow sufficient time to enable their investment in training and development to “pay off”. Introducing ongoing reinforcement programmes will help accelerate the benefits gained from the training and development investment.

Top Consultant Says: In Sales & Service Training, 4 Stages of Development Are Needed

To be successful in teaching people to be better at their jobs, in selling or in customer service, we have to get their FULL ATTENTION. And just talking to them training or seminar rooms, is insufficient. To prove the point, watch Candid Camera urges Dr. Gary S. Goodman, Fortune 1000 consultant, top speaker, and best-selling author.

Contract & Interim Marketing Management Makes Sense

Many companies over the last 5 years have been forced to cut their marketing staff and eliminate positions that were critical to their operations. Those positions include director, vice-president, and other marketing management positions including product management and product marketing. To counteract this trend and to overcome this shortfall, many companies are increasingly looking to outsource their marketing management functions to firms that can provide contract or fractional marketing managers at different levels of their organizations.

Why Sales And Marketing Recruiting Is Different

Our company specializes only in hiring sales and marketing people, from front line contributors, to mid-level and all the way up to the executive level. We hire sales representatives, account managers, national accounts executives, directors, and vice presidents of sales and marketing. Through that process, we’ve developed a tremendous amount of expertise in these two functional areas that most recruiters don’t have.

What Does It Cost To Make A Sales Mis-hire?

Think about how much time and energy it takes to hire a good sales person. Think about how much it costs to carry a good salesperson on your payroll, and then think about the amount of revenue needed for your company in order to help you accelerate your sales. Finally, add in the opportunity costs for your company if during a given period, particularly a long one, instead of selling a million dollars a year, you have an under performing rep. When you add in all of these factors, it’s very costly to make a mistake when it comes to hiring sales people.

Management’s Mixed Messages: We’re High Achievers, But I Love Average Producers!

I was conferring with a reasonably successful manager in the Banker's Life system. Within the space of a few minutes, he disclosed two things to me: (1) He is doing everything possible to create a high-achievement culture; and (2) He loves his moderate producers because they are steady and reliable. Of course, as you might detect, these statements are contradictory. As a sales manager or a business owner, you don't want to send mixed signals to your people. Are you overtly asking for (1) but secretly hoping for (2)?

Foundational Principles of Persuasion

Central to understanding persuasion is the concept of neutrality. The laws of persuasion are neither good nor evil. They simply exist. Just as nuclear power can be used to create electricity or an atomic bomb, persuasion can be used to create unity or to force compliance. Whether the outcome is good or bad depends on the person using the laws and how that person applies the techniques of persuasion.

Story Selection

In selecting a story that is appropriate for any given circumstance, there are three fundamental questions you must ask yourself. First, does the story fit your audience? How does it support and underscore your main message? Second, is it a story you love, have lived or have learned from firsthand? These are key elements if you want your story to be as compelling as possible. Third, can your story be related in a way that your audience will not only appreciate it, but also identify with it and be able to relive it?

Managing the Sales Floor in a Box Store

One of the most difficult things to do is to manage the sales floor of a large box store, especially when the corporate office keeps cutting your staff, apparently to cut costs and increase profits. Yet when a Box Store is understaffed you need to work a lot harder and this is not always as easy as it seems. Why? Well it is human nature when one person is talking to a sales clerk asking a question, that someone else will think to themselves; Maybe they can answer my questions too, I have been looking around for over 5 minutes.

Sales Managers: Should You Prove Yourself By Selling In Front of Your Team?

As a sales manager your primary job is selling your salespeople on selling more. But the longer you stay away from selling the more you, and those who report to you, doubt your ability to sell. Should you prove yourself by selling in front of your team? Dr. Gary S. Goodman, top speaker, best-selling author, and Fortune 1000 consultant shares his insights and experience in this article.

Compelling Evidence

As you prepare your message, understand that we humans aren't capable of absorbing all of the information you can gather. We are hit with data all day long and most of the time we don't absorb it. In fact, we are very selective in what we allow ourselves to retain. When we hit information overload, we turn our minds off and retain nothing.

In Field Coaching Can Have An Enormous Effect On Sales Team Performance

Even if salespeople have undergone progressive sales training, there's no guarantee that they will be successful. It is common knowledge that skills grow rusty over time and salespeople are prone to pick-up bad habits along the way or to simply skip steps and take shortcuts that can lead to long-term trouble. Perhaps even more important these days, is the fact that markets, competition, technologies and customer preferences are all in a constant and accelerating state of change. This fact requires that sales people are able and willing to rethink their sales strategy and approach frequently and receive a regular top-up of skills and motivational coaching.

Expect with Confidence

Often our expectations are based on the assumptions we have about people or groups of people. The same is true of us. Have you ever noticed how your expectations become reality in your personal life? Expectation is literally a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do this consciously and subconsciously. Remember the kid in grade school who was always really rowdy and disruptive? Sometimes if people already assume they are perceived a certain way, then that is indeed exactly how they will act, even if they don't mean to. The rowdy kid in grade school knew everyone perceived him as disruptive, and so he was. The teacher expected bad behavior, and the expectations were fulfilled.