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.

Sell And Have A Network Of A Prince

The Network Of A Prince

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

I remember my first sales call in the main office of a big chain of restaurants that offers ice cream concoctions, ice cream cakes and other kinds of desserts using ice cream as a basic ingredient.

The owner was Mr. Edwin. A young but very stern CEO of the company I was calling to.

I think it was probably the hardest sales call that I have ever done in my entire career as a sales mentor. But after several meetings and tailor fitting of his needs, I was able to close an exclusivity contract with him.

Once You Know How To Sell You Already Have More Options

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

The next benefit you can get from learning to sell is related to our number two benefit.
Imagine your career as a one big river. It flows steadily and at a very consistent rate. It provides home for all the fishes in it. It waters the trees and plants around it. And provides food for many people. In essence, it carries with security.

But one day, a drought came to your big river. You assume it was just temporary so you stick to your big river. After a while you were proven wrong. The flow of water gets lesser and lesser each day. The fishes start to die. The plants and trees starts to die. And eventually food for the people also begin to disappear and soon everything will perish.

Are Salespeople Still Needed?

This question was asked to me recently in an interview, "with the dominance of the internet is the salesperson even needed anymore?" It might surprise you to hear my answer. Understand I have worked as a 'sales expert' for over twenty years, rewritten sales processes for entire industries, licensed customized sales processes for organizations, and written three books on selling.

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

Are you playing the competitor's game?

I'm not good at sitting idle.  So if I am stuck waiting for some reason, I get antsy.  To kill that time, I'll fire up my smart phone and play a game (or two) of Hearts.  In the game, by default I am player south.  (4 players sitting around a table, each designated by a direction.)

  

My arch nemesis is player north.  He is the shrewdest of the computerized players and if anyone is going to beat me, it's him.  (Stay with me, I promise there is a marketing message in here!)

I have played Hearts (usually with real people so don't feel too sorry for me!) for many years and I'm pretty good.  I have a sound strategy that has been time tested so I rarely need to vary from it.  But...the fact that north is good and is my most worthy opponent throws me off that track.

I find that I play differently when I am overly-conscious of trying to beat him in particular.  And in fact, the more I purposely change the way I play to thwart him....the more I lose. If I stay disciplined enough to play my own game my own way -- I rarely lose.

(Did you notice the marketing message I snuck in there?)

We all run the same risk in running our businesses and planning our marketing.  Way too many businesses invest too much time and energy worrying about what their competitor is doing.  Then, they change their own game plan to chase after the other guy -- emulating or trying to outdo.

I found this great site which discusses practical marketing strategies that will definitely help us improve our sales carriers and future business. 

This article is from Drew McLellan a top Dog McLellan Marketing Group. As a salesperson I have long understood that for us to improve we need to be completely open and aware of the new and current ideas that are available for us. Yet with this concept from Drew, we are reminded that we also need to "stick with our own guns" if we want to have our own cut of the total Marketshare. 

To continue reading Drew's article please click here.

I assure you Drew will give you great advice on your marketing endeavors.

Again see you next time. 

Dedicated to your selling success,

Sales Mentor TM

Weekly Philippines Sales Update - Export Sector

Future Plans on the Export Sector - A new Industry
A new export plan that will guide public and private sector efforts to grow the sector will likely focus on maintaining the Philippines’ market share as the global economy exits the downturn, officials yesterday said.


The 2011-2013 Philippine Export Development Plan is up for drafting starting today in a workshop to be led by the Export Development Council (EDC).


"For now we will just have to find programs to continue. It won’t be overly ambitious and will be instead more for market holding," EDC Executive Director Senen M. Perlada said in a telephone interview.


"We will only be drafting the framework and will await the imprimatur of the next administration," Mr. Perlada added, noting that a change of leaders would be due in June following the May national elections.


The 2008-2010 plan, he said, was based on the broad Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan. As there is yet a new medium-term road map in place, the new export industry road map will have to use earlier plans as bases in the meantime.


Sought for comment, EDC Vice-Chairman Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis, Jr., who represents the private sector, similarly said the new plan would likely echo the 2008-2010 version.


"It will be more or less the same, focusing on the same markets and winners," Mr. Ortiz-Luis said in a separate telephone interview.


The previous plan aimed to emphasize the country’s competitive advantages, analyze value chains to strengthen production, and bolster public-private sector partnership for export promotion and development activities.


It tagged the following products as the sector’s revenue streams: electronics, textiles and apparel, automotive products and parts, food, home decor, organic products, and construction materials. The export of construction and information-technology enabled services was likewise eyed.


Growth for the sector would have been achieved through product diversification, market expansion and the optimum use of trade agreements, the plan stated.


"We will revise it slightly because of what happened, the crisis. But it is a rolling plan," Mr. Ortiz-Luis said.


Also up on the agenda at the two-day workshop is a review of the EDC’s operations, Mr. Perlada said.


"Part of the workshop will be to revisit the council itself," he said.


Amid the global economic crisis, merchandise export sales fell by a quarter to $35.004 billion from January to November, according to latest official data. This came after sales flattened in 2008 to $46.332 billion.


The EDC has been in charge of vetting export promotion and development project proposals that proponents want funded from a P1-billion facility. The council had released just P11.6 million by end-2009, or roughly 1% of the fund, even as exporters railed for more support amid the economic downturn. - BusinessWorld



Jessica Anne D. Hermosa

Source

My Opinion

Being practical, I think Mr. Ortiz should really take into consideration what products we will get our revenue streams from.
Firstly.
I do not think that the world economy is back on its feet. When we were born we start to crawl, then slowly we walk, then we walk well, then we run, then learn to ride a bike and so on. We should be doing the same thing in our approach to export sector.
As a sales "evangelist", I have always taken in to heart to make realistic goals. We all know that improving the export gross yearly sales, will entail a lot of marketing and promotions. Just like in a sales recovering business, we look to our strengths to get back on our feet which is our cheap and quality labor, abundances in resources, and organic products (which is currently a great trend today in the world market).
Secondly.
EDC (Export Development Council) will not be able to handle this sector alone. With the presidential elections fast approaching, I implore all Filipinos to be vigilant in choosing a well economic oriented new president. Our new president will be one of the biggest keys (in the macroeconomic level) to improve our economy and hence improve the sales that many of us are trying to achieve.

In summary, I believe that the export sector will be the key source in which we will be able to grow the Philippines internal businesses and with no reason that is should be taken for granted. We as salespeople should also be aware of the current new trends in the market, and take advantage of it. As Warren Buffet says it - "the trend is you friend". Hence, it is within us to forecast on what we should improve in the future.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed my weekly Philippines sales update.


Dedicated to your selling success.

Sales Mentor TM

Basic Selling Lesson

If you want to sell anything, it has to start with this basic lesson.


“Our prospects will only buy when they believe our product/service can provide for them a need, a desire, or a want that they have.”

If you are serious on earning money from a sales career, whether you are currently an employee for an international company, just starting to sell for a multi-level direct selling or maybe pursuing the entrepreneurial path, this should be the Mindset that you should be following and taking into heart.
I believe that with this guideline alone, you as a salesperson already have a head start among others who just blankly follow what their managers tell them to do, which is just to sell.

Back when I was still a child, I remember I asked my father if he could buy me an acoustic guitar. His simple answer was “show me that you need it, and I will buy you one”. As an eleven year old, that didn’t really make sense to me but since I was really eager to learn to play music, I borrowed my friend's guitar and practice often until I could play a full-length song. Only then did my father surprised me and bought me new acoustic guitar.
With that example alone, we can evaluate that once we have provided the prospects need (in this case my father is the prospect), selling is definitely easy.

Like what Robert Kiyosaki said in his book Sales Dogs, “find out what the person needs and getting him to buy will be easier”.

A reminder to the corporate world:

I’ve seen many good companies in the Philippines that had superior products, yet they did not achieve their expectations with it because they were in the “wrong” market. They spend so much in marketing and promotions only to realize after a few years that they are positioning that product in an area where it has a weak affinity or appeal to the target market. Although I know that we learn best from our mistakes, yet corporate management should really take into consideration the feedback from the front liners who are the ones really marketing the product.

Going back with our selling lesson.
You as a salesperson already have an overview and even before approaching a prospect, you should have asked the question "does this prospect have a need, want, desire for my product?".
With that question alone, you can somehow foresee the possible objections that the prospect will throw at you. When we sell it is important that we have already started the selling process in our mind, with this we become persuasive in every level of the sales negotiation.

In a nutshell our job as a salesperson is to provide that need, that want, that desire. Or it can be to help the prospect to realize that they have that need, that want, and that desire. Jim Robbin says it well - "we become as a co-buyer for our prospect".

Now how do we do that? We show them the benefits and the features of what we are selling in which will be fit for their wants and needs.

This is what we will talk about on my next post.

That's it for today. Do not forget to leave your comments below.


Dedicated to you selling success,

Sales Mentor TM.

Who Should Gain the Most?

Before we go to the details on the selling process, I just want to emphasize a very important point that I have observed most Filipino salespeople lack.

“The Winner or the one that should gain the most should always be the customer.”

(I’m obviously assuming that the product you are selling is legitimate, is fairly priced, and will perform as expected).

The customer is KING and he should be treated as one. He is and will always be our number one priority. This has been my guide and the key to my continuous success in selling. Let’s face it my selling friend, our profession would not have survived this long if all Pinoy salespeople only focused on making themselves better.

During my early days as an Account Specialist (my hairline was not receding then and was really “macho”), I’ve seen how my fellow Specialists complain often about how our customers were gaining too much yet our commissions were not that high. We forget that all these years, the Sales Profession has always been booming because of the growing number of prospects we have; the Kings and the Queens. Thankfully, I wasn’t their kind so I was able to progress rather fast than most of my colleagues.

As your sales mentor, I have a responsibility to remind you that we should be giving more value on our customers than the monetary value we are receiving. This and only this will be the ultimate reason that we can build a long lasting relationship with our customers. In fact, we as a Sales Force should consider that our customers are the pillars of our growth and label them as our business-partners.

As the great sales trainer Zig Ziglar says, “You can have everything you want in life if you will just help enough people to get what they want”. In my own words, our initial intention should be to help meet the needs of our customers and not vice versa. We as salespeople must be by nature problem solvers, and thru our product/service, we should be able to provide our customers with what they really need so in return we will then get our desired results.

The customer is always the big winner – He is King!

That's it for today, join me again next time.

Dedicated to you selling success!

Sales Mentor TM

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Weekly Philippines Sales Update

As Promise here is my weekly update on the Philippine Market involving sales and possible growth in the business sector in which will open more opportunities for us who want to venture out in the entrepreneurial world (start preparing for that change, it is worth it!). Please read below for the article and of course on my opinion. :-)

Chilled Processed Food in the Philippines - new market report released


This Chilled Processed Food in the Philippines report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data (2003-2008), allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market ? be
they new product developments, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts to 2013 illustrate how the market is set to change.

Product Coverage: chilled/processed meats, fish and seafood, smoked fish and seafood, chilled lunch kits, chilled ready meals, chilled pizza, chilled soup, chilled/fresh pasta and chilled noodles

Data coverage: market sizes (historic and forecasts), company shares, brand shares and distribution data.

Why buy this report?
* Get a detailed picture of the chilled processed food industry;
* Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change;
* Understand the competitive environment, the market?s major players and leading brands;
* Use five-year forecasts to assess how the market is predicted to develop

You can get all this update through this source.

My opinion:

Over the years I have seen many local brands that have emerged in the chilled/processed meat sector, and I believe this niche should be given more attention not only by entrepreneurs but also our government. The fact that CDO and Virginia Foods Inc. are continuously improving in their volumes only indicates that our Pinoy brands can compete with other multi-national brands. Not only that their sales volumes are improving but our local players have also learned to compete with marketing and many sales initiated programs.
Secondly, there is a very big growth for this sector, specifically with the chilled fish meat or seafood. Selling efforts should be done so that we can ultimately dominate this sector. The fact that roughly 18% of us Filipinos are fishermen by profession already gives us an advantage over other countries. We must learn not only to sell our products but also the sell our country as a major player in the Chilled Process Meats sector.

Well that's it for today. I'll be back for more sales techniques for the coming days.
For a detailed analysis that you want to take please visit: www.companiesandmarkets.com.

Dedicated to your selling success!
Sales Mentor TM

I'm A Salesperson - Are you?

SALESPERSON. What does it really mean?

Wikipedia defined it as a person representing an organization or person in business.

Thesaurus offered a couple of synonyms like abettor, assignee, attorney, broker, commissioner, doer, executor, go-between, handler, negotiator, operator, proctor, promoter, salesperson.

Finally, the very dependable Mr. Webster defined salesperson as a person employed to sell merchandise (as to customers in a store or to customers that are visited).

Now for my highly intellectual definition (at least that’s the way my wife puts it).

Let’s break it into two parts.

Sales – a transaction involving a transfer or exchange of goods/services/merchandise that has an equivalent value to both parties often relating to a transfer of money.

Person – Human being/individual/someone/personality. Obviously we all know what a person is, unless you are a 3-yr old kid who hasn’t started school yet.

Add it up together and we’ll easily get the definition of a Salesperson which is an individual who ensures the proper and successful transaction of the exchange in goods with the equivalent money. In other words, he is the one who is doing the actual selling process (more on this on my next blogs) and bringing home the bacon for the company.

However, only a few people have discovered the fact that all of us have the ability to sell. In fact, in most of the routine things we do in a day, we are actually “selling”. We sell stories to our friends like gossiping about actors daily and trying to “persuade” them to believe us by using what we heard from Kris Aquino or Boy Abunda (like the change in love teams between Bea Alonzo/John Lloyd to Sarah Geronimo/John Lloyd). Like the way wives convince their husbands in buying stuff for the house (c’mon, when does an expensive vase became a necessity?) Or when we arrive home late, stinking like we just came out of a beer bath and still we painstakingly convince our wives that we just had a few drinks after work when in fact it took us an hour just to start the car. Heck, even our kids “sales talk” their way on us when they need a new Transformers toy that their classmates already have.

Personally, I consider selling as a day to day activity that it is almost how human life revolves. When we transfer our ideas to another person regardless if he receives it or not, it is already a kind of sales call.

My point - we are all Salespersons in our little way, we are just not that aware of it. But as long as there is an exchange of ideas, we are selling and we are earning whether it is a person’s trust, love, a toy, and for the common aspect of a Salesperson - money.

Well, that’s it for today. Be sure to leave your email addresses and click to follow button so you can get my newsletter updates.

That's it for today, I hope to hear from you in the future.

Dedicated to you selling success!

Sales Mentor TM