MTD Sales Training are currently undertaking an aggressive recruitment campaign and are looking for B2B and retail sales trainers.

Due to MTD’s global reach and ever increasingly popularity within the UK and Europe we are currently being inundated with sales training enquries and requests.

If you are looking for a sales training job then MTD can provide you with a very rewarding career.

A WORD OF WARNING THOUGH!

We do not employ trainers who dabble in every area! You need to be a specialist sales trainer and you will have had a very successful career in a sales role in the past and have walked the talk so if you have not had this then please do not apply.

That’s not me being harsh it’s just that we only employ successful sales people.

An MTD person is…

Part of what makes MTD as successful as it is are the highly motivated people who work here and their enthusiasm for developing the business, entrepreneurialism and being apart of “something bigger”. We recruit individuals whose honesty, integrity, initiative and creative approach to their working lives shines through.

An inspiration to your colleagues, you are tenacious, driven and highly motivated sales professional with a proven record of success in the B2B or retail selling environment with experience of selling to “Blue Chip” companies at all levels, with a strong empathy for people. Hungry for success and with a committed motivation to getting things done, you always place the client at the centre of everything you do.

So, if you would like to roll the dice and receive a detailed job description, please click on the following link and make an enquiry

Sean Mc

Sales consultancy is an activity that is high on a lot of our client’s agenda.

MTD Sales Training Consultancy

As a company looking to improve your bottom line you should take time out to look at how you do things and the sales systems you have in place.

Everything that you do should support how your client’s purchase from you. This includes your website, your literature, how you approach your clients, your follow ups, the way your back end systems record data - you name it!

As a leading Sales Training Consultancy, MTD can help you with this and we would be delighted to do so but there are certain activities that you can and should be doing yourself.

Here are 10 questions to ask yourself:

- How do our clients make their purchasing decision?

- What is important to our clients?

- When was the last time we asked our existing clients what they think of us and what they need?

- Do all of our sales people know how to “consult” with our clients?

- What CRM system do we use and is it actually helping us or is it a time consuming hinderance?

- Do our sales people have the tools they need to close the deal?

- Do our back office sales support staff know what our sales people do?

- Have we revisited our USP’s in the last 3 months?

- When was the last time we completed a competitor analysis?

- What are our competitor’s strengths and weaknesses?

This should keep you quiet for 5 minutes! Use your answers to make your sales operation more efficient.

By periodically asking yourself the questions above and many others you can become your very own Sales Training Consultancy!

But if you would like MTD to come in and help you with any aspect of your sales, please do not hesitate to make a no obligation enquiry or download our sales training brochure.

Happy consulting!

Sean Mc

If you run a shop or are a manager in a retail store then listen up as I’ve got a really good tip for you!

We’ve just completed some retail sales training for a retail store and as part of the training we also looked at their sales processes too.

Now I’m not saying that this sales technique will work for your retail outlet but the results we have had with just one technique has added £13,000 to the turnover of each store!

Within this particular business it was sometimes hard to find what you were looking for so I recommend that everytime someone purchases an item that the person serving should ask “Did you find everything that you were looking for today?”

Want to know the results?

Well, it generated on average an additional 5 sales per day. Now it doesn’t sound a lot as the average additional sales amount came to £7.25 per item but it generated an additional £36.25 per day when annualised came to around £13k! The fact that they have over 30 stores as well means that they were adding an additional £400k turnover just by asking a question at the point of purchase!

Making sales in retail is about working smarter not harder!

Make an enquiry today to see how we can help you improve your sales performance!

Sean Mc

Piccolo Teatro - the next Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare!

….and what a nightmare it was too!

Bad management can ruin a business and when that bad management comes from the owner then you are really in the crap!

Piccolo Teatro was a vegetarian restaurant in Paris. But the adage of “build it and they will come” does not work!

Gordon and the team went out onto the streets with a little help from some can-can girls to drum up business and create a buzz around the streets of Paris. As a business owner you need to market your services effectively.

The biggest problem with Piccolo Teatro was the owner Rachel - she was lazy, uninterested and did not have any sense of urgency. She was also waiting on the tables but took no pride in the customer service side of things.

In order to make money in a restaurant you need to run it like a business. Now that may sound obvious but you need to think about the systems you operate, customer service, sales opportunities, sales training, marketing, finance - you name it! You can’t just run it like a hobby when you feel like it.

I was actually writing this blog when the show was on and when Gordon went back the restaurant was closed! I was not shocked though!

Set yourself up for success and the success will come. Piccolo Teatro had bags of potential if run in the right way - the owner had a new talented young chef but the owner was lazy and when your head people have no commitment then you are onto a loser.

Sean Mc
PS Good on you Gordon for giving the young chef the opportunity to work with your team in London - at least you can spot talent!

I love analysing sales people at work especially when someone tries to sell to me as I know exactly what is coming next!

One particular instance happened when we moved premises into the prestigous Business Innovation Centre that is part of the new Univeristy of Warwick development.

If you haven’t seen a picture of our premises yet please click here.

Anyhow, I wanted to give the office a makeover so I decided that for the new move we would purchase brand new furniture

I rang around personally to negotiate prices whilst some of my trainers listened in to the call as part of their development.

I ended up with a list of prices that all of these companies would “do for me”.

I then left it.

The following couple of days our office received call after call after call from salesman asking for me. They knew that this was a big deal and they knew that I was the decision-maker.

I played hard to get.

I then got one of my assistants to call each one back to say “Sean has narrowed his supplier search down to three firms, and he is interested in your product, is that the best price that you can do?

That’s it. I told her to say nothing more as I sat next to her whilst she was making the calls. I told her to say very little else and enjoy the silence!

What happened next?

Well, we received a further 10, 12.5 and 15 percent reductions in price!

The truth of the matter was that the salespeople were very poor and yes I screwed them completely.

As a prospect I was in-fact happy with the prices I had negotiated in the first place so to get an additional 15 percent was incredible.

But, all I was interested in was quality and not one sales person talked about quality and WHAT I WANTED and WHAT WAS IMPORTANT TO ME.

Instead I “smoke screened” them with the “best price” reply.

The reason why I say this is because your suppliers will try to screw you too so you need to be careful.

Here are some lessons from this encounter:

* Ask better quality questions up-stream to learn what is MOST important to the prospect. Just because they ask for discount don’t think that this is their main purchasing criteria.

I actually decided to go with a company a little more expensive than all of them who offered a superior product!

* Understand that your prospects will try to “play you off” against your competitors.

Knowing this, you do not have to jump through all of the hoops that they put in front of you. Sometimes its a game of bluff and double bluff.

Maybe that’s why I always clean up at our annual office Poker tournament?!

* Hold firm in your beliefs about the quality of your product.

Don’t discount it just because you may lose the business.

* Be prepared to walk away if the price is not right. A sale needs to be win win situation.

As always if you would like me or any of my team to come in and talk to you about how we could help your company, please do not hesitate to reply to this email and we’ll set something up.

We specialise in helping small and medium sized businesses as well as large organisations so just drop me a line - you are never too large or too small to improve your bottom line!

Sean Mc

Here’s a question I was emailed from one of my sales tips newsletter subscribers:

Firstly, thanks very much for the tips. I really find them useful. I was wondering if you could help with another type of prospect that I seem to run into a lot. “The Procrastinator”. This is the prospect who seems very interested initially and loves to have a meeting and demonstration etc.. But when you try to get a decision out of them they just say things like “I haven’t decided yet” or “We’re pushing it back for a month or two”. Can you give me some tips on how to bring them back to that feeling of interest in order to push for a decision.

My thoughts on this…

Some things to think about:

- Have you REALLY demonstrated and built the value in your sales pitch?

- Have you talked BENEFITS not features?

- Have you responded to objections with “What do you mean?” to qualify it

- “I need to think about it?” respond with “What specifically do you need to think about?” then build the value again

- Is he/she really the decision maker?

- Bring some sort of scarcity into the pricing. Early bird ordering. Discounts for up front payments etc

- Ask him/her what the next steps are?

- “What do you need to make your decision?” this will find out his/her buying strategy!

Overall, you either haven’t build up the value sufficiently enough to convince the prospect or you have not found out how he/she makes their decisions. These two vital areas are very important for closing deals.

Hope these help?

Sean Mc

Cold Calling Technique - What’s yours like?

If you are like the vast majority of cold callers out there then you suck! I really mean that - the standards of cold calling that I have to endure as a Decision Maker are terrible.

The funny thing is, is that they know (or should know) that they are cold calling the head man of a Sales Training Company so you think they would at least try to be a little bit special! I shake my head at times I really do!

So what can you do to stand out from the crowd of cold calling mediocrity?

Here are 5 cold calling techniques to use or avoid as the case may be:

1. Do not sound polished - as soon as a well oiled person comes on the telephone I immediately know it’s a salesperson. Why? Because they are too perfect. No stammers, no “err” “umms” - be human please and you will get a crack at the title.

2. Do not ask “How are you today?” - that’s puke material and smells of “I’m building rapport before I ask you for your money!”

3. Qualify before you call - “Can I speak with who deals with your marketing please?” - “No, bog off - if you can’t be bothered to find out his name, I can’t be bothered to put you through” This is just awful salesmanship. Do your homework.

4. I don’t want war and peace! - If your objective is to set an appointment then sell the appointment! Do not go on and on about your company, your products etc. Just get the appointment and focus on that.

5. “I’m not interested” - How do you reply to this response? Have you got a standard response? Want to know my line? Here it is:

PROSPECT:
“I’m not interested”

SEAN:
“I didn’t think you’d be interested, that’s why I called” THEN DON’T SAY ANYTHING

PROSPECT:
“What?”

SEAN:
“Well, XYZ Company said that they weren’t interested too until they trialled our ABC system which improved their sales by 36% in 1 week - the reason for my call is that I just wanted to pop around and talk you through what it is and how it can improve your sales performance. Would next Tuesday at 3pm be good for you?”

Go for the jugular! I get a hit rate higher than anyone I know!

Use these cold calling techniques and watch your response rates soar!

Happy selling

Sean Mc

Fenwick Arms - A Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare revisited last night!

The Fenwick Arms was a prime of example of potential going down the pan due to lack of motivational leadership and a sales strategy.

Based in Lancaster, the pub had a prime location and from the outside it looked like a Traditional English Pub - the type you’d like to snuggle down to for a Sunday Roast and a pint of Pedigree!

However, the food was too fussy, far too complicated and the owners - Brian and Elaine were working 120 hours per week…….each!

In the Fenwick Arms, “Specials” were called “Additions” - keh? What’s all that about?

Ramsay wanted to get back to basics with rustic, simple English cooking - here here! This was a sound strategy because when I go into a pub I want good old fashioned traditional grub with my pint. He also created a very well thought out PR angle to increase sales. The Fenwick Arms was going to be the safe haven for “REAL GRAVY”.

So, all of this was implemented and the pub started to get back on track and make some money and sales were going up!

Then Ramsay revisited them a year on….

Yes, they were doing 200 covers on a Sunday instead of 50 but the morale of the pub was rock bottom and the owner, Brian, was meddling.

What a shambles! The staff were not being listened to and 30% of them were looking for other jobs. They were serving piping hot meals in the middle of summer!!

Here are some sales and marketing lessons from last night’s Fenwick Arms Kitchen Nightmare:

LESSON 1 - UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT AND EXPECT
When you walk into a pub you expect pub grub. What do your customers expect from you? I’m not only talking about your product and service but what about after-care support? A regular call from their account manager? Make it easy for them to do business with you. Have you even asked them?

LESSON 2 - INVOLVE YOUR TEAM
Involve and encourage your team. Ask them for ideas. Tell them when a job has been done well. Get them involved in the selling, product creation, marketing, customer support. It makes them feel part of the team rather than just a cog in the wheel.

LESSON 3 - MAKE THINGS SIMPLE
Make everything you do easy to understand from your customers and prospects point of view. Don’t overcomplicate brochures, presentations and DON’T try to be too clever with your website. Just MAKE IT EASY!

LESSON 4 - SET UP WINNING SYSTEMS
For a pub it’s about enabling the food to fly out the kitchen door. For the service staff, they need to turn the tables around for 2 or 3 sittings. Everyone needs to know what their job is and WHY. Make it clear as to the importance of having a system and process. The kitchen and service staff need to work as one big team.

The Fenwick Arms was a prime example of people working hard and getting bugger all out of it. Just by working smarter, understanding your customer requirements and setting up your systems to support this will always increase your chances of success.

Happy Selling!

Sean Mc

Hi,

Here’s some free sales training for you!

I received an email a couple of days ago that asked for advice on how to react to prospects when you are more expensive than the competition.

Here’s the question:

“Our company sells installations, a problem that we have is that our prices are quite high and some customers say they have found a cheaper option. I know there is always try and sell it on the basis of having a USP but I was wondering what other ways could really make it appealing to customers to use us instead of a cheaper alternative. Could you please help me with a few ways we can try and get around this and still win the customers with a higher price than a competitor?”

My thoughts:

There are many sales techniques that I could cover here but here is something to get the grey matter working…

If you know that you are the most expensive than admit it and use that as an excuse to go over your value proposition. I assume that you are offering something that they don’t here and don’t just put the price up for the sake of it?

Say something like:

“Yes, you’re right, we are not the cheapest game in town but we offer the highest quality of installation and ongoing support within the region. We have a warranty that lasts for 5 years when our cheaper competitors offer only 3 which means that you still have the peace of mind for a further 2 years in the event of a breakdown and huge bills to fix it. Don’t forget the additional cost also includes 3 visits per year to ensure it is optimised…”

See where I am going with this?

Use it as an opportunity to explain the reasons why you are more expensive. Don’t hide from it.

I don’t care what anyone says people do not buy on price alone.

Don’t believe me? Well, just look outside at the cars in the car park!

Instead, bring to your prospect’s attention to other factors like quality, peace of mind, ongoing support, handholding, relationship, future costs, snob value, making them look good when they decide to go with the best etc…

You normally get what you pay for in this world and I would think that if things go wrong with what you are selling, then it can be costly and cause a lot of disruption to the business so you should use this to your advantage.

At the end of the day if I were to employ a surgeon to operation on my long standing tennis elbow injury I would rather pay £10k and have a specialist complete the operation than an ears, nose, throat and elbow surgeon for a grand!

Happy selling!

Sean Mc

What do you do and say when the prospect says:

“I want to think about it”?

Well, I know that if a client says that to me I haven’t really unearthed what the true objections could be.

“I want to think about it” is not really an objection.

Instead, it’s a way to buy some time and is a stalling tactic.

As a salesperson you need to know why your prospect is stalling and then help them to make their decision.

Here’s a way to unearth what I mean:

(Use your own words and style here)

PROSPECT:
I want to think about it

YOU:
Ok, great. So you are interested Mr Prospect? Is that what you mean?

PROSPECT:
Yes we are

YOU:
I hope you’re not just saying that to get rid of me Mr Prospect!! (say it in a joking way and create some rapport with some laughter and banter)

PROSPECT:
No, far from it. I just need to weigh up all of our options.

YOU:
Sure thing. Investing in XYZ is a big/important decision. (then talk about why etc) Do you have to run what I’ve covered by anyone else? (this tells you whether or not they are the decision maker!)

PROSPECT:
(If he says yes, then you need to meet/talk with the “other people” for a fair hearing!)

No, I will be making the final decision.

YOU:
No problem. I bet you’ve got a lot of questions in your mind to think through and reflect on?

PROSPECT:
Yes, I have. (They will then tell you why or you respond with..)

YOU:
Which question would you say are the most important for you?

(Whatever the prospect now says will be the major objections)

Please remember that objections can come in many shapes and guises, it’s your job to find out what they really are and respond accordingly.

Here are some objections that they could come out with when they say “I want to think it over”

- The prospect is not the decision maker and needs others to help them decide

- You are too expensive

- They don’t have the budget

- They were just investigating the possibility of your product/service

- The other two businesses that they saw were both cheaper than you but you had the better products

- They are not ready to buy right now

- They do not like you

- Your product/service does not do what they want

- They want a more reputable/established company

- They always use XYZ for this type of work in the past

Keep it simple, be yourself and until next time, happy selling!

Sean Mc

PS
By the way, we have got some 2-day Essential Selling Skills workshops coming up at the Crowne Plaza, Heathrow.

** IMPROVE YOUR SALES PERFORMANCE **

We can come to you to help you close more sales and overcome those objections! Check out in-house sales courses