THE “MAKE IT HAPPEN” BLOG
Why Do You Deserve to Be in Business in 2014?
It's All Talk
Everyone is starting to talk about what they'll do in 2014. Few people are talking about why they deserve to be in business in 2014. How about you?
Why Your Company Matters
Here are some questions to consider. Your answers will strengthen your resolve to win in 2014:
Question 1: How will your products make the world a better place? Whose lives will be enriched by your products? How will they be enriched?
Question 2: How will your sales methods and support services enrich the lives of your customers? How will you help them make the right product choices? How will you support your customers if something goes wrong?
Question 3: Considering your answers to the first two questions, why does the existence of your company make the world a better place?
Your answers will help you realize the unique reasons your company deserves to exist in 2014. Congratulations!
How to Fix Sales Training - Part 2
Sales Training is Broken
- Most sales training events consist of canned, boring presentations.
- The audience is not engaged. Snoring and smartphone usage are the rule.
- 80% of learned skills are forgotten thirty days after the sales training event.
- Three to four months after the event, it's as if the training never occurred.
Review of Part 1: Storytelling Skills
When you tell the right story, you touch hearts and minds. The right story causes buyers to take action. The right story offers to take buyers from "what is" to "what could be."
Part 2: Apply Storytelling to Your Selling Process
Imagine what happens when you apply the right story to each step of your selling process:
- Stories for prospecting, to make suspects say, "Tell me more."
- Stories for need-finding, to learn the buyer's overt and latent needs.
- Stories for showing how the buyer is enriched by using your product.
- Stories to handle objections, to remind the buyer of ways your product takes them to "what could be."
- Stories to close the sale, the incidental step to reaching "what could be."
- Stories to follow up.
- Stories to show the need for cross-sales and up-sales.
- Stories to seek referrals.
It's time to rise above your competitors by serving the buyers better. It's time to apply storytelling to your sales process.
Where will you begin?
How to Fix Sales Training - Part 1
Sales Training is Broken
90 to 120 days after the sales training event, it's as if the event had never occurred.
The Number One reason for such a poor return on investment is that we aren't touching the hearts and minds of buyers. It's their money, and their decision. We haven't given them reasons that matter, so they don't act.
The Best Storyteller Wins
Whether you are delivering a sales presentation, explaining your driving to the judge, or running for office, The best storyteller wins.
The first part of the fix for sales training is effective storytelling. The right story will touch buyers' hearts and minds. The right story will cause buyers to take action.
The Story Structure is Simple
- Describe the buyer's current situation: "what is."
- Offer to take the buyer to a higher place: "what could be."
- Offer to take them to "what could be."
The story is not about you or your products. Your story is about the buyer. The buyer is the hero of your story. Your product becomes the "incidental essential" to achieving the buyer's success.
That's why our sales training program begins with storytelling skills.
Imagine what happens when you apply storytelling to a sales presentation...
How Sales Projects Strengthen Our Economy
"Nothing happens until someone sells something." Each sale causes goods and services to flow in one direction, and cash to flow in the other direction.
The Urgency of Achieving Your Sales Goals
As salespeople and sales leaders, we have an awesome responsibility to make something happen. Our economy needs us now, more than ever. To strengthen our economy, we must increase the flow by selling more.
How to Sell More
How do you sell more? You get better at all aspects of selling. You become a better prospector, a better qualifier, a better need-finder. You make better presentations. You handle objections better. You become a better closer. You follow up better. As a result, you win more sales. You build a larger community of loyal customers, who refer their friends to you.
How to Sell Better
Most salespeople and sales leaders begin the year with their annual sales goals, their personal strength, and their optimism. During the year, they may receive sales training to fine-tune their skills.
Part 1: Get Better Sales Training
If their sales training is like most programs, it's based on the sellers point of view. It's about the selling process. The buyer's role is merely to buy after being exposed to the selling process.
To sell better, we need a more realistic sales training program. The new program must be focused on the buyer, not the seller. After all, it's the buyer's decision and the buyer's money. We sell more by enabling and enriching more buyers.
Part 2: Make It a Project
An annual sales program can either be a collection of activities, or a sales project.
An annual collection of activities may keep everyone busy, but the activities are usually not connected.
A sales project is focused on achieving the project goal: the sales quota. A sales project includes milestone events during the year. Each milestone contains a deliverable, a due date and an accountable person. Accountability leads to achievement.
Each milestone is comprised of activity steps. Each step contains a deliverable, a due date and an accountable person.
When the steps are completed on time, they cause each milestone to be completed on time. When each milestone is completed on time, they cause the project to be completed on time.
To maximize your sales, and improve our economy, you need a sales project. A successful project requires project management. Here's how it works:
- Your annual sales goal becomes the goal (and deliverable) of the project.
- Weekly, monthly and quarterly sales goals become milestone events of the project.
- Activities to achieve your milestones become steps of your project. Because they all have deliverables, due dates and accountability, they tend to get done on time.
- Regular progress meetings enable feedback and mid-course adjustments.
Why It Matters
Our economy, your company and your checking account need more sales today. A sales project is the best tool to increase your sales. Let's apply project management to selling now.
Three Components to Supercharge Your Sales Training Program
For decades, sales professionals and sales teams have sought additional training to improve their performance.
This week, I realized what was missing. I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. The components were right in front of me. I have used each component successfully, but I'd never considered combining them.
When I combined these powerful components into one system, I realized the explosive potential of their combination.
Here are the three components that will supercharge the success of any sales professional or sales team:
- Sales Training. It doesn't seem spectacular, because it's always offered all by itself as the total solution to growing sales. Even if it's done well, it's only one-third of the answer.
- Storytelling Training . When you tell a story effectively, you can move mountains. Why not be the expert storyteller who explains why the buyer needs your products and services?
- Project Management . Until now, the project management profession was not acquainted with the sales profession. I have introduced them successfully. When you apply the principles of project management to achieving your sales goal, you help ensure that all the necessary steps to success are completed on time. You break your year down to a series of milestone events. Each milestone has a deliverable, a due date and an accountable person. Each milestone is comprised of steps. Each step has a deliverable, a due date and an accountable person. When you complete the steps on time, you guarantee that the milestones are completed on time. When the milestones are completed on time, you guarantee a successful sales project.
The Problem with Sales Training
Sales training began in 1937, when Dale Carnegie published "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Demand for sales training began to build shortly afterwards. Entrepreneurs built collections of sales tips, tricks and "insider secrets" into sales training programs. They couldn't match Carnegie's passion and wisdom. They were incomplete. But at least they could help a salesperson who wanted to improve.
Not much has changed in the last eight decades. Until now.
Packaged, off-the-shelf sales training is not the answer for you. It's time to step up to sales project management.
In the past, if you wanted to increase your sales performance, you had two choices:
- Teach yourself. Read books and articles on selling.
- Hire a sales trainer. Try to implement their pre-packaged tips, tricks and "insider secrets."
Option 1 is easy on your budget. Your challenge is to find the time, the right books, and the skills that can help you.
You'll purchase Option 2 by the hour, the event or the packaged program. Your challenge is to make it personal.
Those two options seem rather empty, don't they? They've been the only choices for decades.
It's time for a new way to boost your sales and margins. The answer: Sales Project Management.
The discipline of project management evolved in the mid-1900's. It was applied to civil engineering, construction and defense activities.
The Project Management Institute was founded in 1969 to advance project management. Today, there are 700,000 PMI members worldwide.
PMI's Project Management Professional (PMP) credential is the most important industry-recognized certification for project managers. Globally recognized and demanded, the PMP demonstrations the experience, education and competency to lead and direct projects.