Growth is Found in Regular Sales Training

Today's lesson will be very simple and back to basic principles in selling.

In all sales careers there is one common denominator, and that is really the love for continuous learning.

I believe that is one of the biggest difference with my sales career. I continuously attend sales trainings and seminars to grow me personally. When I started my career, I always knew continuous training and upgrading of skills and even technology is the key to being a success.

Sales Mentor - Closing the Sale using Visual Aids

For today's sales mentor lesson we will now talk of the effectiveness in having a good presentation material to ensure a salesperson closes the sale.

To tackle this topic we need a little background in Psychology. Don't worry I'm not going to talk about parts of your brain or any Psychology concepts to make you understand this topic.

All you need to know as a salesperson is this; when you target audio 15% of the person's attention is with you; if you use audio with proper diction and voice stress you are able to target a preson's attention by 45%; and lastly if you use audio with stress and include visual aids in your presentation 95% of the person's attention is with you.

Sales Closing Technique - Call to Action

I remember learning this sales mentor lesson; it was actually the first sales closing techniques I’ve learned. This closing technique is called, the call to action.

I’ve had many experiences that have good products and good presentations yet at the end they forget something very important, and it is giving the prospect the “call” to “action”, otherwise known as the option to buy.

Remember that we are now leaving in a very busy world. Everyone’s in a hurry. If you take too much of their time or give them too many options, they won’t buy. Or worse, if the options are unclear, they would not buy either.

So how do you correct this?

Top Sales Mentor Closing Technique - Puppy Dog Closing

Have you always been struggling on your selling? Well if you’re looking for a sales closing technique for any tangible product, today’s sales mentor lesson is one of the best closing techniques you can use.

This technique is called, the Puppy Dog Close. Yup, it’s really called that way, though it may sound irrelevant to sales closing. After I explain the entire concept of the Puppy Dog Close, I promise the name will all make sense.

Imagine yourself you going to a pet shop, wherein you plan to buy a dog for your son. While browsing the puppies in the glass window, you spot a very cute Golden Retriever puppy. So you go inside the pet shop ask the sales agent if you can hold him and somewhat “inspect” this very cute puppy.

At first you are joyful to cuddle the puppy, and you admire your cuteness. You are almost 90% convince that you are on verge of getting the credit card to pay for the cute Golden Retriever. But upon further thinking, you ask yourself – is my son going to like this puppy as well?

A Sales Technique By Giving Something for Free.

Well, it did not take me long to get you a sales mentor lesson in just a few days. So for today’s sales mentor tip, we will discuss a very common way to sell, especially on the long term. This concept is called the Free Concept.

Yup, I know you already have an idea from the title of the sales concept alone. Simply put, you give something for FREE in exchange for your prospects trust and to create tangible value for your product.

In my experience, this is one of the best ways to improve your sales without much effort on sales persuasion and sales presentations.

This technique is most effective when you are introducing a new product or a new line of products. But the problem here comes if for example your business or company has very limited, hence this getting more sales using the Free Concept is only good for businesses that have a good budget for the free. Although there are certain ways to apply the free concept to grow your sales but that is another future sales mentor lesson.

Sales Mentor Is Back and Re-vamp to A New Sales Training Series

It’s been a while since sales mentor online has given you tips in your selling endeavor, and I must admit, life has certainly been blessing your sales mentor with many business opportunities.

I am now a fulltime entrepreneur and no longer depend on a job to make a living. Also that I have already given up my sales and distribution business in Bacolod City, Philippines. Though that sales business was also providing for me, it could not produce the passive income which I was looking for.

After my resignation as sales manager of the biggest local company in the Philippines, I am now FREE of a boss. I had already got over the feeling of being so needy of a job, and finally move to a better life of purpose and more selling success.

But here’s the thing, if you’re an avid reader of my sales mentor blog, I can no longer update my post as much I wanted to. Due to certain demands in my business and the many websites that I now maintain (as an Internet Marketer), my time is limited and dedicated to many businesses.

3 Best Ways to Say Thank You, the Sales Mentor Way.

In my years as a sales mentor and a salesperson as well, I have learn that there are really simple things that you can start right away that will help your selling efforts a lot easier than any other day.

This sales mentor technique is called the "genuine thank you".

There are a lot of high-paid sales directors and managers out there that have forgotten the essence of a real thank you. Of course they thank their bosses, like the CEO's or GM's of the company, yet they have trully forgotten how to say thank you.

So here I am again, your sales mentor knocking on your doors, that you allow me to share a little sales mentor lesson to remind you of how important a thank you is.

So first the step of a genuine thank you is be appreciative to everyone rather than being critical.

Most of us know that saying thank you, is a "branch" of gratittude but only a few realize that gratitude is also an accumulated attitude.

A Sad Closing to the Vizconde Massacre - Hubert Webb and 6 Others Acquitted.

Picture courtesy of Yahoo Philippines

After 15 years of trial, the final decision has been made on the Vizconde Massacre case. One the most in human crimes ever done in the Philippines, the Vizconde Massacre now to a close.

I am not a witness of the entire crime, nor was I there when the entire Vizconde Family was all brutally murdered (except for the father - Lauro Vizconde who went out of town), so I really have no right to judge. But as a sales mentor and as a fellow Filipino, I cannot help but site a few observations.

First

Is the Philippine justice system really that slow? I mean, whether Hubert Webb was guilty or not, it certainly does not have to reach 15 years for the court to fully on decide whether Mr. Webb is or not. There has to be some kind of way that we can shorten the process for justice. It is both painful and frustrating for both Mr. Vizconde and Mr. Webb.

Second

Sorry if I have to say this, but this is the only I can express my thoughts (through my sales mentor blog). In my opinion the DNA samples that acquitted the accused should have not been given of great value by the court. For the main reason of technology. Certainly, during that time DNA sampling and investigation was still not a part of the SOP of the NBI, so obviously it had been overlooked.

Third

I pity whoever the culprit was. I may have not been Hubert Webb who was the head of the suspects in the Vizconde Massacre, but the one who did is really in trouble. Maybe not on these world, but one day he will pay for his sins. If not to man, then he will have to pay to a higher power.

Fourth

I hope they both forgive each other. I know it sounds crazy most especially for Lauro Vizconde, but I think it's the only way they can fully attain peace.

Hubert Webb said he has forgiven the people who have done him wrong, and I hope Mr. Vizconde will be able to do likewise.

For whatever reason, I know one thing for sure, God has purpose.

We Filipinos might not understand now but it will all be clear one day.

Among the acquitted-accused of Vizconde Massacre was Antonio Lejano, Micheal Gatchalian, Pyke Fernandez, Miguel Rodriguez and Peter Estrada were also given the freedom.

I do not know what Mr. Lauro feels today, but I can only pray.

God will always bestow His justice in His due time.

Harry Potter 7 - Deathly Hallows Part 1 Review

Yesterday, I really had a great time watching the official opening of Harry Potter 7 - Deathly Hallows. Together with my beautiful wife, we bought two large boxes of popcorn and one go large ice tea to complete our viewing of Harry Potter 7.

Although again, the movie could not compare to the details of the book, it was for me a good enough deal for 160 Pesos of two and half hour movie enjoyment.

Quite frankly, I'm not much of a movie buff and I can't really critic the movie as the "real movie critics" out there. But at least let me give my opinion as Harry Potter fan and as marketer.

First as a fan of Harry Potter, the "Deathly Hallows" book 7 is actually the revealing book of the entire Harry Potter series but I am sad to say that the movie was not able to clearly convey that. I think it had to focus on more situational conversations and flashbacks for movie watcher's better understanding.

Selling Is Using The Power Of Words To Touch

Sales Words To Touch, Source : Flickr

As always, I am amazed at the effectiveness of being able to understand the concept of selling and being able to use it in any situation necessary.

Just a while ago, I arrived late for my trip to Cebu City. To top it off, I didn't have a ticket and the boat was full. Actually, there were several of us who was under the same predicament. Most of them gave up and went back to the other ticketing office to buy tickets for the next trip.

Left there alone, I knew I could convince the crew and the guard to sell me an "extra" ticket so that I could go along with the trip. Besides what's the use of being a sales mentor if I couldn't convince a guard to sell me a ticket.

Of course, I was able to get one ticket by using simple sales and negotiation techniques. So here's how I did it.

First, I made casual conversations with the guard: like how hot the weather was, the people in his job, and many other stuff that made him comfortable.

Next, I then proceeded to ask him questions about the trip : why there was only one trip instead of two, why the boat was smaller, and the most important question, what would I need to do to get him to sell me another ticket.

I further explained why I needed to get to Cebu City at a specific time and the consequences. At that, he already showed non-verbal signs of "buying my sales pitch".

He then asked me if I could wait since he will ask for the Coast Guard's approval. I also made my "sales pitch" to the head coast guard and was so happy when he gave me the ticket. I paid for the ticket and gave the first guard a tip and profusely thanked the coast guard.

Actually since the sales process is so inherent in me, it is quite normal for me to sell anything. Specially if it's an idea with a sense of urgency.

Well, you would think that there's not much of a sales mentor lesson here right? WRONG. The story I just told you above shows a brief process of how effective a salesperson can be by using what I call the "Power of Negotiations". This will be our next set of sales mentor lessons for the coming weeks. 

Actually this will be a very long series of lessons but I promise you this will be all worth your patience. This will help you to double your closing success.    

Learn To Sell And Lower Your Invisible-Self-Defenses

 source : http://www.flickr.com/photos/materialboy/

"We can all sell if we choose to, but for most people it is one of the most difficult
things to do because they afraid of loosing their self." - Robert Allen 

Based on our last sales mentor lesson, the first benefit from learning to sell is that it lowers our invisible-self-defenses.

I think most of us will agree that as people, we all have our own invisible walls. No matter how sociable we are, there will always be certain areas in our lives that we prefer to leave it a secret.

Train Your Sales People Like Soldiers Going To Iraq

I remember my first day as a salesperson. I was hired by one of the biggest Ice Cream companies in the Philippines as an Account Specialist (AS). I remember being excited for my first ever sales job and anxious at the same time. 

Before we did our selling, we first had a 5-day classroom training, with my very first sales mentor Mr. Rusky. He was a bright person with superb communication skills.

We started with the background of the product lines that we were going to sell. The company's policies and history. The organizational structure and where we were at the structure.

3 Sales Tips To Develop A Long Term Customer-Relationship

I was about to start eating my delicious Pork-Sate meal last night with a nice cold orange juice for my drink to complete my dinner when suddenly someone called out my name.

It was Ms. Rizza, one of my closest customers when I was still selling Ice Cream for Magnolia (San Miguel Foods Premium Ice Cream Brand). We haven't really seen each other for quite sometime and yet she was still very fond of me.

I invited her to join me and my wife for a sumptuous meal in one of my favorite restaurants in Cebu. Our "little chat" took almost an hour, and I noticed that my wife is slowly feeling out of place. (There's a sales mentor lesson here, I promise).

From Good to Great - Three Tips to Being a Great Salesperson

From Good to Great - Three Tips to Being a Great Salesperson By Amy Dee-Kristensen Amy Dee-Kristensen Level: Basic Amy Dee-kristensen...The Truth Fairy of Pragmatic Personal Development. Amy has been a Motivational Humorist Speaker for over 20 years. She a single parent, a psychiatric ... Article Word Count: 688 [View Summary] Comments (0)

1. Consistency/persistence. Be your own lottery. The harder you work the luckier you get!
A few weeks ago I stood in line to buy a lottery ticket. The other folks in line socialized, and joked with each other. It was obvious they'd known one another from past weeks, months, maybe even years of standing in line to buy a lottery ticket.

These lottery hopefuls believe in the power of consistency and persistence. They wouldn't dream of missing their chance at winning and, like clockwork, show up to buy their chance at a better life. They have the right idea but they are in the wrong line.

Sure, once in awhile you meet a smooth talker who has drifted along getting rewarded for little effort but most of the time, this is short lived success. Successful people may make their efforts look easy, but they are often the ones waking up earlier, worker harder, and getting home later.

How Selling A Book Will Help Increase Your Market

I don't know who started the concept, but many authors attempt to sell their books by giving away their books. Charles Sheehan Miles did it. Wicked author Gregory Maguire did it. Cory Doctorow did it.

And of course, Seth Godin did it. (Click on their names to find out how you can get your copy!)

Do You Inspire Customer Service Tales?

Everyone loves to tell a good story. Stories teach, they inspire laughter and the bring about change. As consumers, we love to tell stories about the people we buy from -- good, bad or ugly.

If I stopped 10 of your clients/customers today and asked them to tell me a story about your company's customer service -- what story would they tell?

The Basic Reasons A Prospect Won't or Don't Buy

In all my years as a salesperson, I have finally heard of all the reasons why a prospect won't buy and it would be safe to say that it can be summarized in five (5) basic reasons, namely:
- No Need
- No Money
- No Hurry
- No Desire
- And No Trust

Sales Training Tips

While it is agreed that training can improve the production results of a company there is no shortage of companies and executives that question the return on investment (ROI). Before you calculate the cost of training you should calculate the cost of mishandling opportunities that result from not training your people. Sales training has failed many companies because it was incorrectly implemented, not measurable, outdate and not relevant and did not actual assist in solving problems and actually improving the sales effectiveness of the organization.

For any training to be effective there are certain criteria that must be adhered to:

1) Must include management and not just the sales team. Not including management suggest that the training is not significant enough for the organization to embrace completely. The content should be so compelling that management can use it to run meetings, solve problems and even used to coach sales people during the day.

2) Expectation of the results should be significant and measurable. Sales training is not something you do because you need to train but something you do in order to win the game and make more sales! Training needs to be approached as valuable and vital ingredient to increased production and THE WAY to increased sales and revenue.

3) Sales training must be delivered in very short segments and interactive. What is short? Two to five minutes and even shorter. Most training fails today just because the segments are too long and loses the attention of the trainee. Our Sales Training Virtual Technology uses interactive engagement and testing forcing interaction and validating duplication with one question for every one minute of training content.

4) Training must be measurable and rewarded. Just like you track someone's production results sales training should be tracked and rewarded. It is proven that consistent training done at regular intervals over extended periods of time will create increased levels of sales production. Training that is not easily measurable, like any process or best practice will fail. We use buit in monitoring system that track everything a user of the program does while on the program, including how long, what they looked at, and whether they passed or failed the testing component.

5) Sales training should be focused on those that have been with the organization not the new people. Most organizations put all their attention and training dollars on the new hires and forget to continue to train the most stable in the organization. Effective sales training programs should focus 80% of the training content, time and energy on the proven sales people in the organization.

6) Sales training should be made part of the culture and delivered continually throughout the day. All staff meetings should include training, with sales people following that up with a minimum of two segments each day on their own, and then supported with sales coaching throughout the day to solve problems. We added this last component via our virtual technology whereby sales people can interctively consult me in real time and I am actually able to coach them through and transaction and improve their chances of closing a transaction. This combination of training throughout the day is similar to how you would correctly hydrate the body with fluids with an IV drip.

For sales training to be effective it must be made the first thing and then a continued activity each day in order to maximize every opportunity and guarantee a ROI. If you think it is expensive to train sales teams try the alternative. Missing sales in this environment is suicidal. Train them daily, demand they train throughout the day and provide soutions during the day and you will increase sales in any economy.

By: Grant Cardone (@ HuffingtonPost) 

Let me summarize what Mr. Grant is talking about and with a few of my added suggestions for Philippine based companies. 

First. Make Sales Training a "all-company" activity. 

Filipinos are generally hardworking but unlike other countries most of us ended our education after formal school. We tend to take trainings for granted and even make lesser effort on applying the discussions done during the trainings. Hence, this will be management's job to involve everyone in the loop. 

Second. Make training a regular habit.

Set fixed dates for the entire sales training schedules for the year. Management should include this on the one year business plan. 

I remember joining a company wherein the salespeople would get surprised when management suddenly announces a training activity. Instead of getting excited, the sales force will tend to complain that training will only take away their supposed to be productive selling days. 

Third. Immediate measurement of results. 

We all know that procrastination is one of the main reasons for failure. Again, this too has to be included in management's one year business plan. This measurement will also help us gauge the effectiveness and timeliness of our trainings. More importantly, if the kind of training done is cost-efficient for the company. 

Lastly. Choose wisely who will conduct your trainings.    

In my experience this will be the main "argument" of management. Who should conduct the sales training? Should we get our top sales managers to do the training? Or Should we hire well-known third party who has a reputation and track record to show. In my opinion, I follow these three (3) premises in choosing who will conduct the training. 

1. Topic Competency - the one to conduct must have more than sufficient actual results done on the topic

2. Additional Services - often, when getting an external sales training company will give more value and results to the training since they provide extras like worksheets, up-to-date market reviews, measurement tools, and etcetera. 

3. Cost Efficiency - no matter where we look, we have to remember that everything done in business has to have a return-on-investment (ROI). So please include the cost of the sales training in conducting such an activity. 

Before we end this topic I want you to remember this line: "We as salespeople owe it to ourselves to continuously learn to sell". 

That being said, no matter what kind of sales training we do, as long as we do not learn from our past mistakes our sales success and productivity will never improve. 

That's it for today, join me again for my next coming post. 

Feel free to contact me at salesmentoronlinephilippines@gmail.com or to get my post updates click the Followers Area on the side. 

Dedicated to your selling success,

Sales Mentor TM