You have gone through the entire sales presentation. You have closed a dozen times. You faced and, you thought, you overcame, what seems like a thousand objections; and still the prospect will not buy.

It’s all over and it’s time to leave. Try this last ditch effort. Hey, you have nothing to lose!

Apologise!
No scripts or magic words here. I want you first to understand the philosophy about this concept. When you have lost the sale, the fact is that you have failed. If you believe in your heart that the prospect would be better off by owning what you sell, then if they do not buy, they have to be worse off. Does that make sense?

The prospect is going to suffer, pay more, lose more, save less, or in some way, pay the price for not buying your product or service and it is YOUR fault. You failed to help the prospect see and understand that they truly need what you have. When you do not close the sale, if your only concern is that you lost a commission, you are not yet a true professional. You should feel that you let the prospect down.

So apologise for your ineptness. Apologise that you were not able to help him, her or the organisation.

Prospect
“I’m sorry. But like I said, I am not going to go ahead with this. It looks great, but I just cannot swing it right now.”

Sales Person
“No Steve. I am sorry. I really apologise to you. I’m sorry. ”

Prospect
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

Sales Person
“Oh yes I do. Apparently, I was not able to show you how much you really need our XJ200.”

Prospect
“No. I can see that I need it…”

Sales Person
“Well, then I was not a good enough sales person to help you see that it will save you thousands of pounds every year.”

Prospect
“No, you did that. Like I said, it really looks good…”

Sales Person
“Well, then I must not have been capable of making it clear of how easily affordable it is and that it will pay for itself in a short time.”

Prospect
“I can understand that…”

Accept Apology or Explain
As you can see, with this approach the prospect has to either argue with your apology, in which case he or she eliminates all the objections. Or the prospect can accept your apology, in which case they tell you exactly what the problem is that is holding them back.

Sales Person
“I apologise that I am not a good enough sales person to show you exactly how our help desk software will save you thousands of pounds every month.”

Prospect
“Well, that’s ok. I think other companies have more problems at their helpdesk than we do…”

BINGO!!

Once you found where you came up short in your sales interaction, you can try to go back and fix it.

Sales Person
“You are so right, Sarah. That is what I think I missed. Give me another minute; let me show you how the help desk features work…”

Hey, it won’t save every deal. But you are sure to close a few that you thought were lost!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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I believe in the power of positive thinking as much as anyone does, and in fact, more than most people. However, the truth is that sometimes, even if it is only on rare occasion, the proverbial bottom falls out, and thinking yourself into a positive attitude, just isn’t going to happen.

The fact is that some things can hit you so hard and are so tangible that it leaves your head spinning and unfocused. Yes, there are a few mental exercises that you can do to help; but you really need some tangible, physical actions to get your mind back on track. Try these two simple, yet effective action items.

#1 – Short Term Work Ethic Goals
When things are bad, that usually means sales are in the crapper and income is tight. It is only natural at that time to focus on more sales and revenue. However, when that does not happen, it drives your attitude further in to the dumps.

Instead, set very short, sales activity goals that you can accomplish every day. For example, set a goal to make 5 more phone calls than the day before. Or, set a goal to send out 20 more emails this week than the last week. Do one additional sales presentation than you did last week.

Not only do these sales activities increase the chances for the sales you need, they also help you see real successes every day. They are tangible objectives that you can accomplish, and they are positive!

#2 – Check the Numbers
Do some detailed sales reporting on yourself. When you check your sales activity numbers, you will find one of two situations:

a. You have not been doing what you should and that is the reason why things are bad. For instance, you know that to be consistent you must do 5 presentations per week, but the data shows that you have only averaged 3.5 per week over the last two months. At first, such enlightenment will make you feel even worse. However, it is short-lived because you can easily change this situation; you can fix it. You can also see how this works so well with Tip #1!

b. You find that you have been doing everything right, all the numbers are on or above par. When this happens, you should jump for joy! In such a case, the law of averages owes you a huge payday. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not talking about psyching yourself up. If you have a concrete closing average of 20%, yet without any changes to other factors, you have closed only half that for a while, your closing average must eventually come true.

So check the numbers and you will see that either you owe the street, in which case you can get out there and work things back into order. Or, the street owes you, in which case you can feel positive for real!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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Many sales people ask if they should buy the product or use the service that they sell. My answer is also a question in, “Do you truly believe in what you sell?” I will make this short and sweet:

“If you qualify as a prospect for what you sell, then the first sale you should make should be to yourself.”

I want to stress, that the prerequisite is that you must be able be a qualified prospect for the product or service. In other words, if you sell jet aircraft to Fortune 1,000 CEOs, then you probably do not qualify as a viable prospect.

However, if you fit the parameters of a prospect that you would normally go after, then yes, you should own the product.

Can’t Afford It
If your first thought is that of course, you would buy the product and you will someday, but right now, you just cannot afford it; then you do not believe in what you sell. This lack of true belief will cause you a ton of problems. You will lose more sales than you can ever realize because you will have to empathize with the prospect.

I Understand How You Feel
Any excuse you use for yourself, for not owning the product; you will have no choice but to believe and understand when the prospect gives you that same reason for not buying. You feel that you simply, and very honestly, do not have the money to buy the product right now. You know you are not lying to yourself, as you know your own financial situation. It is the truth, not a stall or an excuse. Ok.

However, when a prospect, who is equally as sincere, tells you that he or she honestly cannot afford it right now, you will have no choice but to believe them and accept that answer. You may use all of the rebuttals in your sales script, and rattle off the usual off-pat answers to the objection, but deep down inside, you will be saying, “Yeah, I understand how you feel, Mr Prospect. I can’t afford one either.”

Come Back Next Month
Likewise, when the prospect pleads with you, “I really love the product, and I want it. I just can’t do it today. If you come back next month, I’ll be ready to buy…” When this happens, your words may try to overcome the objection, but your eyes will be saying, “Yes, I think I will get one next month too.”

Create the Objection
In addition to the above, you will actually create more objections than you overcome, and ironically, they will be the same objections YOU use not to buy. If you feel you cannot afford it, you will get ‘I can’t afford it’ objections all day long. If you believe the price is too high, watch how many prospective customers tell you the same thing.

Get On or Get Off
If you believe in what you sell, and are a qualified buyer, then buy the product. That means, PAY for it! I am not talking about getting some free-be from the company. Aside from perhaps a small discount, you need to buy the product the same way your customers do.

Huge Return on Your Investment
If you want to energize your career, and dramatically increase your income overnight, try this: No matter how difficult it is, stretch the budget, sacrifice a bit, and buy your product from yourself. The brief pain of the expenditure will dissipate quickly, leaving you with the great benefits your product offers. You will reap the rewards and realise that it was worth the money.

When that happens you will begin to close with such strength, you may not recognise yourself, and your closing percentage will sky rocket along with your income. In addition to the benefits you get from owning the product or using the service, you will essentially get a raise. Oh, and let’s not forget, that when you closed yourself, you got a commission too!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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The sales team works hard. Most put in long hours, study diligently and follow the plan. However, are all doing as well as they can? Are all of your sales people actually working as hard, trying has much and giving it all they have? In short, are they doing their very best?

Below are some effective ways to help you motivate your sales people to do their very best and try their hardest. After all, often the only missing ingredient between success and failure is that last little push.

Money is Not the Prime Motivating Factor
First, find out what it is that truly motivates each sales person. Understand that on the surface, and even to the sales person, that motivator may appear to be the money, but it is not. The sales person who is motivated by money, is really inspired by the things that the money will do for him or her. The person’s desire is the results, lifestyle, power, influence, fun or any number of a thousand things that the money will provide.

Your job is to find out exactly what it is that money provides that powers the sales person, and use it as the proverbial “carrot.”

Uncover Past Feats of Great Inspiration
In attempting to discover what a sales person’s motivating triggers may be, look to a time in his or her past, for a demonstration of great inspiration. Everyone has a story when they persevered through enormous adversity to succeed. Everyone has a story about when they would not stop, would not give up and won against all odds.

Such an experience could have been in a business setting, or something personal like overcoming a health problem, passing a difficult test, getting a degree, pursuing a member of the opposite sex, quitting smoking or learning to swim. Everyone has a situation where they pushed their hardest and succeeded.

You should get to know your sales team on a level more personal than just business. Take an interest in their lives and get to know them. In doing so, uncover one of those great challenges, and see what was the underlying motivation.

Perhaps it was love, or the feeling of power, or being in control. Often, it is recognition and pride. The point is that you want to take those past underlying motivational triggers, and use them today.

The Marathon
As an example, you ask a sales team member to explain the greatest challenge he has ever faced and overcome. The reply is that he trained for years, tried and failed many times, but finally he completed a full marathon race.

You next ask him to explain why he went through so much effort. Why was it so important and what drove him to keep trying? He tells you that it was simply to be able to know that he was capable of doing it.

Obviously, self-satisfaction and inner pride are driving issues for this sales person. You then use such ideas during your personal motivating meetings with this sales person.

“You know Steve, it is extremely tough and may take a lot of tries to do it, but if you can hit 45 sales in one month, you can take pride in knowing that you are the first person to ever reach that goal in the first year with the firm.”

Perhaps the marathon runner’s answer was that she wanted to prove all of those people wrong who said that she could never do it.

“Sarah, if you could close 45 sales this month, you will prove me and other managers wrong…”

Do It Again
Please understand, I am not talking about trying to manipulate people nor am I suggesting some psychological mind games. I am simply suggesting that you find what motivating factors led someone to overcome great obstacles in the past, and use those same factors in the present. In fact, do this to and for yourself!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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Due to circumstances well beyond your control, the new software version upgrade will not ship as promised. The sales team has anxious clients waiting for the upgrade, in addition to many prospects who are interested in seeing the new version. Moreover, the delay means that regular monthly maintenance fees are suspended and the sales team will not receive their monthly residual commissions!

Now it is your job to deliver this uplifting news to the sales team. Arrrgh!

In business, things do not always go as planned and there are times when your firm may have to endure negative, costly and painful information. How you deliver such information to your sales team is critical.

The Positive Sandwich
You may have heard of the concept of the positive sandwich, in when delivering disconcerting information, you simply position the bad material in between two positive discussions. Lead off with something good, quickly disseminate the bad, and then close with something good. While there is nothing wrong with this concept as it makes sense and works quite well in many situations such as public speaking; today’s modern sales people may need a bit more.

Start at the Bottom and Go Up
Eliminate the emotional rollercoaster. Begin with the worse news possible, and then deliver good news. Follow that by even better news and then the best news. Finally, show some example of this good news in action.

As an example, using our hypothetical software upgrade above, you would deliver the bad news that the upgrade is late as are residual commissions. Then, share the good news that the upgrade has additional features and benefits. Better news; that clients who upgrade will get a reduction in their monthly service fees. Follow that by best news that sales people will get a raise in their residual percentage. Finally, share an example of the good news with the fact that the new features will open up new markets and more sales opportunities for the sales team.

Expectations Shape Perception
The most powerful way to deliver bad news to your sales team is to shape their expectations of that news.

Have you ever felt a movie would be the best movie of its genre you have ever seen, only to find that the movie was not as good as you thought? Alternatively, the movie you thought would be a flop, was not as bad as you thought it would be.

A company earns $200 million in profits. However, the company failed to meet the Wall Street expectations of $206 million, and therefore did not perform very well. Expectations greatly influence perception.

When you need to deliver bad news to the sales teams, start by shaping their expectations of the upcoming news. Let the team know that in the next meeting, you have some very bad news to share. You do not want to exaggerate or lie, and you don’t have to. Individual human imagination will run rampant as sales people envision their own worst possible nightmarish fears.

Now, by the time you deliver the actual news, you can rest assured that it will be nowhere near half as horrible as they thought. Now use a nonchalant, light-hearted tone of voice when delivering the news and the sales team’s perception will be that the news was really not that bad at all!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

Stop scratching around for sales and learn how to sell the modern way with my FREE 40 minute online training session. Click on the image below to find out why you’ve got to be changing the way that you prospect and sell…

Most people in sales management or with a title that is responsible for leading a sales team, speak about leading by example.

However, exactly what does that mean?

Many think that to lead your team by example, is to sell as much or as more as each member of the sales team. In some sales organisations, this may be practical. However, in many other situations, due to time constraints, additional responsibilities and a host of other reasons, it may not only be impractical, but impossible for the manager to lead the team in sales. And should the sales manager still be responsible for “closing sales” too? In some companies when a sales rep moves into a sales management role they step back from the day to day selling and are now responsible for motivating, coaching, developing and driving the sales performance of their teams.

So how can you lead by example?

Excel in the following four critical areas and you will not only lead your sales team by example, but lead them to another level as well!

Just remember that your goal is to L.E.A.D.!

L = Loyal
The single most vital leadership area that your sales people must see in you is a complete and unalterable loyalty to your company, products or services and your industry. You must believe in what sell wholeheartedly, but also in HOW you sell it. You have to have total faith in your sales processes, your operating methodology, sales philosophy and the future of your entire industry. Your sales teams must know that you eat, sleep, walk, talk and even bleed your company at all times.

E = Ethics
First, you need to have a set of ethical standards that are uncompromising and you must practice what you preach. You must have a zero tolerance for anything that in any way represents a misleading concept or statement, misrepresentation, over exaggeration or a fabrication of any kind. In addition, you need to posses and demonstrate an unyielding personal work ethic. Be the first one in, and the last to leave.

A = Attitude
You need to be the unshakable rock of positivity. Nothing, from tough economic times, to competitive issues, to personal problems, should ever dampen your enthusiasm, passion and optimistic outlook on today, tomorrow and beyond. You should be able to see some good in everybody and everything. Your sales people should get a boost of positive energy just from being in your presence.

D = Done It
Finally, to lead by example truly, you need to have been there and done that. While it may not be possible for you to get in the field and sell with your team, the goals and quotas you assign should be things that you have accomplished at sometime in your career. You can tell your sales team that they should be closing ten sales every week and that it is easy and all they have to do is follow the plan. However, if you have never, personally closed ten similar sales a week in your life yourself, you have a serious credibility problem. The team needs to know that anything you ask of them, that you are not only willing to do yourself, but have done it.

L.E.A.D. and your sales team will follow!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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Practice, practice, practice because practice makes perfect! While that age-old sentiment is nice, it is not true. Practice does not make perfect. Only Perfect practice makes perfect. I ask sales people if they routinely practice their presentation and often I get the response, “Oh, I have been doing this for years. I got it.” Or, “I’ve done this presentation so many times, I can do it in my sleep.”

Well, I have been “practicing” my golf swing for over 20 years, and it’s still not perfect. While you need to invest a significant amount of time in practicing your craft, you must make certain you are practicing the right stuff! Furthermore, you must routinely “check in” on yourself to ensure that you have not deviated in the wrong direction or got into bad habits.

Below are a few tips on practicing your sales presentation to get it perfect and to keep it that way! Depending on how long you have been selling some tips may not apply.

The Mirror
One of the best places to practice your sales presentation is alone, in front of the mirror. It is imperative that you first become very comfortable and natural with your sales presentation. No matter what you say, if you are uncomfortable saying it, you will have problems in the field. Practice adapting the presentation to fit your personality and style. Of course, assume the prospect responds as your presentation predicts.

Better still would be to video your presentation and then play it back.

Friend, Loved One
Now practice in front of a friendly, non-threatening, non-judgemental audience. Once again, this will help you to become comfortable in front of people.

Management or Trainer
Now get in front of your sales management or someone in your firm who is a confirmed expert in delivering the same sales presentation. It is important that this person or group are “qualified” to offer criticism and to help you correct your mistakes. Understand that this may not include your fellow sales associates.

A major mistake is to practice in front of and look for advice from an associate. Unless this person is qualified as a sales trainer who is authorised by your company to teach the sales presentation, do not choose such an audience.

Because a sales person has a higher closing average than you have, or is even a top sales person, it does not make him an expert to teach the sales presentation. That sales rep may do or say things that are grossly incorrect, but due to his personality, experience or any of a dozen other reasons, he is able to close successfully. However, it is possible that those same mistakes that cause one sales person no harm, can destroy another.

Practice with a qualified trainer, making adjustments until you know that you are practicing perfectly and then record your perfect presentation. If possible make a full video recording of your presentation.

On-the-Job
Now get out there and practice in front of people who can write a purchase order!

Review
Periodically, record yourself again, and compare it to the last recording of your sales presentation. While there may be some deliberate changes and enhancements, you will see when you begin to deviate too much. Keep practicing with the perfect presentation as the guide.

Tip For Sales Managers
Here is a way to help ensure that sales people practice perfectly and that the more experienced sales people do not get too far off track:

Have the more senior, experienced sales people perform the sales presentation in front of the sales team. You can do this as a sales training session or at a sales meeting. Give the sales person a few days advance notice that he or she is to perform the sales presentation for the team to help train the newer members. Inform him or her that your goal is for the new sales people to see the presentation done exactly the way it is supposed to be done, by a pro!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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In this age of economic problems, strained budgets, reduced revenue and increased competition; companies the world over are doing what is necessary to survive. Often this includes reducing expenses, and rightly so. However, there is one area where reducing expenditures can cause more harm than good. In fact, you may think about increasing your budget in the area of Sales Support.

Let the Sales Team Do It
While it seems to make sense to decrease or cut out support expenses for sales people, this often decreases sales. How much time do your sales people spend filling out paperwork and other mundane administrative-type tasks, trouble shooting, or solving very basic customer service issues?

For every minute a sales person spends putting out fires or pointless admin, is a minute they are not closing a sale. It is true that depending on your organisational structure, this may not be an issue, but for many it is.

Income Producing Tasks
Sales people should handle customer issues that give them the opportunity to broaden the relationship with the client or to find new opportunities, but some issues should be the responsibility of the support staff. Your sales people should spend 90% or more of their time doing one thing…selling. That does not mean they should only be asking for the order; they should be performing income-producing tasks.

Sales Person or Administrative Staff?
Ok, so you figure you will save £20,000 if you choose to eliminate a support position as the sales people can handle those tasks. However, now the sales person must personally print the letters or brochures, stuff the envelopes and get the mailers in the post. They then must run the needed reports, along with other pre-sales work. After closing the sale, the sales person must handle the needed time-consuming paperwork, set up the account in the delivery system and more.

In the midst of all of this, the sales person must spend hours speaking to customers on the telephone about routine maintenance issues and answering elementary questions that anyone on the staff could answer. What does this actually cost your firm?

What is the Cost?
Look at this example: Your average sales person closes ten sales per month, generating £50,000 in revenue, averaging £5,000 each sale. Also, on the average, it takes the sales person 100 “touches” to achieve the objective. That is, adding up all the sales related tasks such as emails, phone calls, and personal visits, the sales person makes 100 contacts with prospective clients before closing one sale.

Let us further assume that each tasks takes the sales person an average of 20 minutes to perform. So, emails may take but a minute or two and cold calls average perhaps 5 minutes each. It takes the rep 45 minutes to prepare a proposal and the sales interactions run about an hour. Let’s just assume that when averaging all of this, each income-producing touch takes the sales person 20 minutes.

“Do the Math!”
Therefore, it takes 100 touches to close one sale that generates £5,000. Those 100 touches took 2,000 minutes (20 minutes x 100). The average sales person in this example generates £2.5 per minute! Do you really want to pay £150 per hour for someone to stuff envelopes? Also, you not only pay that £150, you lose it.

High-Level Executives
Realise that your sales people are high-level, high-paid executives and should be treated as such. In fact, depending on your organisation and sales structure, you should give your sales executives enough support so they can spend the majority of their time actually speaking to or in front of prospective buyers.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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It’s that time of the year again when everyone is second guessing what’s going to happen in 2012 so I thought I’d put together my top 10 predictions for the sales industry.

1. Recession Or Not, It’s Going To Be Like This For A Long Time
Whether you think we’re coming out of the recession or not, business has changed for a long time to come. You’ve got to accept that no-one is going to wave a magic wand and open the flood gates of spending again so if you’re waiting for that moment then you’ll be waiting for a long time! Instead, accept that these current conditions are going to be like this for some time to come and just “get on with it”

2. Sales Professionals Will Finally Get Around To Using Social Media
Sales 2.0, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube – these are all sites, terms and services that Sales Pros have had on their “to do” list for some time. So you’ve got your LinkedIn profile…well, now’s the time to start using it! 2012 will the be the year where the adoption of these sites gathers momentum and this will snowball as more and more success stories are made “public” and the return on investment finally filters through.

3. “Entrepreneurial Salesmanship”
The modern day sales professional will need to think more like an entrepreneur and opportunity seeker more than ever before. They will need to look at different and new avenues of generating business and fresh and innovative methods of keeping their existing ones. Sales recruitment will look at potential candidates who also possess innovative, entrepreneurial and creative traits in addition to the tried and tested sales recruitment assessments criteria.

4. A Shift Towards Unbiased Benefit Selling
The term what’s in it for me (WIIFM) has been around since the beginning of time. The problem with this is that today’s modern buyers know that this is a biased point of view! WIIFM will be superseded in 2012 with PISB (Prove I should buy) Demonstrating and explaining “The What” is not enough. Instead there will be a shift away from “you” telling the whole story, features, benefits etc and instead a move towards a joint effort which will include input from your customers via video, audio and written testimonials, interviews, unbiased social media feedback and showcasing your products and services in action via live customers using your products and the like.

5. Negotiation Skills Become Vital
The modern day sales professional will need to add negotiation skills to their armoury if their margins are going to be protected in 2012. Negotiation skills is normally a section tagged on to the last part of a sales training course or as part of the closing/objection handling section but it’s a vital skill that if often overlooked. Your buyers are going to demand more and more and will want to pay less and less so those that are best equipped to deal with the price bashing barrage that is to come will win the day over the competition.

6. Marketing & Sales Alignment For Early Engagement
“The leads are weak” say the Sales team. “They can’t close anything” say the Marketing team! More so than ever before, the sales and marketing functions are going to have work very closely together to engage with your buyers much earlier on in the sales process. Reports and research illustrate that between 25%-40% of the buying process is completed online before they engage with your sales team. Those companies that can “catch” their prospects while they are conducting their research online, on blogs, forums, groups and the like with have a distinct advantage over the competition. This will need an aggregated approach via both marketing and sales to create the “bait” and “thought leadership content” all over the internet to attract interest and then to create effective lead capture, follow up and engagement systems.

What are your predictions? Have your say below and write a comment!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

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In the recent post, “The 3 Worst Practices For Conducting A Successful Sales Meeting,” I highlighted the three main DON’Ts for a successful sales meeting:

DON’T
1. Berate
2. Intimidate
3. Subjugate

Now let us look into three BEST practices to help you structure your sales meetings to raise people up, increase sales and elevate your sales team to the next level!

DO
1. Educate
2. Illustrate
3. Motivate

#1. DO Educate
While this important “DO” seems obvious and easy, it’s usually not the case in most sales meetings. You need to coach or train during every meeting. Sales people need to learn more and such continuing education is everlasting and is an investment.

The problem is that many managers have difficulty in figuring out exactly what to train/coach/teach. The sales team has already gone through the company sales training. You went over objections a dozen times and there seems to be nothing left to talk about when it comes to prospecting. In fact, the sales team feels that they know everything.

So where do you get educational topics that are not only informative, but also useful and timely solutions?

Uncover Problems and Pain
Just as when dealing with prospects, with your sales team, you need to unearth their problems even when they are unaware that they have any.

You then need to use those problems as the basis for your sales meetings.

You should have a personal one to one meeting with each sales person at the end of every day or month, depending on the logistics and your sales cycle, even if it is by telephone. During that individual meeting, you want to make note of the problem areas the sales person has. However, do not correct those issues then.

If your correct the sales person at that time, it will come across as a de-motivator. Instead, make note of the issues, and uplift the sales person. Then, in the sales meeting, do not single out that sales person. Simply use that issue as a training topic.

Here’s an example:

In your one to one meeting with Steve, you noted that at least twice, he lost sales you think he should have closed. You ask some questions of Steve and find that he is not correctly demonstrating how to run the Profit & Loss Reports of the accounting software.

Three Approaches
There are three ways you can handle this situation.

a) You can inform Steve of the problem right then…
“Oh Steve! I can see exactly what you’re doing wrong. You are not showing the P & L report the right way. It’s in your manual! As soon as possible, come in and I will go over it again with you…”

While this appears to be an innocent approach, what really happened is that Steve went home depressed. He knows he lost a few sales he should have closed and that he is probably doing something wrong. His self-esteem is at an all-time low. Then his wife hammers on him that money is tight and he should forget that sales thing and get a real job. Then he calls his sales manager, who confirms the fact, “Yep, Steve! You blew it!” Not good.

b) You can bring up Steve’s problem during the sales meeting and completely embarrass and berate Steve. Not good.

c) You can bring up the problem as a general training topic for the group.
You can bet that if Steve is having the problem others are as well. Also, it cannot hurt to reiterate something that is apparently so crucial that it can mean the difference in closing the sale or not.

With this method, you single out or berate no-one, and the sales teams always receive just-in-time training topics that are always relevant.

Ask questions to uncover the problems and then offer the solutions as educational topics in your sales meetings.

#2. Illustrate
By illustrate, I’m referring to demonstrating, or proving what you say. This relates to such things as in the above example. Demonstrate the method of how to show the P & L report. If you have sales people who may be experts with that part of the sales interaction, then have them illustrate to the group. In this way, you not only keep the older pros interested, but you also help ensure they stay on track.

Illustrate other topics as well. When you speak of goals and milestones that are possible, exemplify such with someone who has done it. The key is always to back up, show and prove what you say.

#3. Motivate
As you can see, with this structural process, there is already a certain amount of motivation embedded into the sales meeting. In fact, the very structure itself leads to motivation.

Now it’s time for the rah-rah, pep rally. Now is the time for the cheering, congratulations and new sales incentives. Now when you talk about reaching new heights, the sales team can believe it because you demonstrated exactly how. You illustrated how to do it or showed how someone did it in the past. Also, you gave them the education and the tools they need to reach the next level.

DON’T
1. Berate
2. Intimidate
3. Subjugate

DO
1. Educate
2. Illustrate
3. Motivate

Do this and your sales team’s belief will expand their reach and their reach will always slightly exceed their grasp.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Bestselling Author, Sales Authority & Speaker On Modern Day Selling Methods 

MTD Sales Training

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