Tweet

Can you teach “old sales dogs” new tricks?

Guest post by: Wayne Berry

Article Overview: Here's how to motivate and get the best out of experienced sales people.

Can you teach “old sales dogs” new tricks?

The short answer is yes you can, but they need to want to learn!

Also it comes down to defining what an “old dog” is.

I have seen 25 year old sales people behaving like “old dogs”, and 50-60 year old sales people behaving like “young dogs”

These people are bright eyed and bushy tailed and keen to learn even more about their chosen profession of sales.

Ray Kroc who met the McDonald brothers and made McDonalds so successful used to say..”If you are green you grow, but if you ripe you rot.”

Of course what he was really saying was, if you are open to new ideas, you will continue to grow and evolve as the pace of business moves faster and faster.

So what it comes down to is attitude.

Attitude is 80% of what it takes to be successful in sales, while the remaining 20% is about 10% product and industry knowledge, and the remaining 10% is skills.

You see, some sales people have an enormous amount of product and industry knowledge, but are not doing well.

Also some sales people have been to all of the sales training programmes, but because of their “know it all” attitude they don’t use the new skills that they are exposed to.

There are 10 key characterists that professional sales people have mastered. It does not matter if they “old dogs” or “young dogs”

Positive Mental Attitude

Attitude is a habit. People who have a negative attitude generally get poor results. Poor results then cause them to have an even worse attitude. So how do we break this cycle and develop a positive attitude? In one word – ACTION. When we do what we know we should do, we feel better about ourselves. When we feel better we are motivated to take even more action. Combine this with the development of good selling skills and the results keep improving. Top sales people are highly motivated, because they are doing well in their company or business.

Thorough Product and Industry Knowledge

How do we get this? Get together with a successful sales person and get their advice. Take good notes. Take them to lunch. When we understand what we have to offer clients, compared to what our competition has to offer, we will be motivated to go out and help clients by offering them better solutions.



Prospecting Skills

Most sales people hate prospecting hence do very little of it. The true professional develops good prospecting strategies. That’s the good thing about skills, all can be developed. We teach a method that allows our grads to achieve a 50% or better conversion. What’s your conversion rate?

Consultative Selling Skills

Today selling is simply a process of helping prospects to solve problems. In many cases the client may not even be aware that they have a problem. The true professional asks questions of their prospect. As the prospect is answering, they start to sell themselves and want to know how you can help them.

Make Shorter but more Persuasive Presentations

As I said, ask the right questions and a prospect will start to sell themselves. Many sales people explain in full what their product will do. A professional sales person simply tells their prospect about 1 to 6 features and benefits of their offering. Brilliant! No dragged out long presentation. We teach how to use what we call “a Power Selling Statement”. Makes it shorter and more persuasive.

Ask for the commitment

them.

Handle Objections

them.

Negotiating Skills

They Follow Through



Personal Management Skills

Related Articles
  All in A Dogs Way Can Make You More Sales
  Eight Below for Devotion, Loyalty and Teamwork
  Want to increase sales? Think Halloween
  The Man Who Sold Hot Dogs
  If the "Dog Whisperer" Was Your Sales Manager
  3 Reasons Sales Training Doesn’t Work
  Success Isn't Magic
  When, How and Why Salespeople Discount Products and Services
  The trick: no tricks
  Must See Work From Home Franchises For The Pet Lover
  Is there a leak in your bucket: Eliminating energy drains in your life and business
  Teaching as a Marketing Tool
  What To Do When Your Job Search Isn’t Working
  Writing Articles When You Cant Write Anymore How To Get Just One More Article Written
  Do You Have Fleas?
  6 Great Small Business Opportunities For The Animal Lover
  Excuses, Excuses, Excuses
  Home-based Business Idea: Dog Breeder
  Are You A Network Marketing Pit Bull, Lab Or Mix?
  Credit Alliance Group asks. Are You Teaching Your Kids Financial Responsibility?

Article Tags: ascii, bidi, cambria, div, family auto, fareast, font definitions, footer, hansi, mcdonald brothers, mcdonalds, mso, old dog, old dogs, orphan, paper source, ray kroc, short answer, style definitions, times new roman



Related Forum Posts
Re: MyDogSpace - For Dog Lovers - That's really cool. I am a dog lover, trainer, enthusiast, etc... Dogs are a big part of my life and always have been. Ever since I was a kid I have always tried to learn everything I could about dogs and I have never owned less than two dogs at any one time since the day I was born. If I could own 100 dogs I would.
How to develop sales contacts? - Unfortunately starting off there isn’t a whole lot of easy tricks. But when you get those 2 interested prospects from sales calls and turn them into customers, you need to develop a referral system that gets 3-4 good prospects from each of them. That's the key to prospecting in sales, referrals from satisfied customers. Sometimes they'll give you the business without having to ask, but normally you'll have to pry a little and ask them who they know that could use your service or product.
Re: MyDogSpace - For Dog Lovers - Thanks everyone, As some of you know I have 2 dogs. But this dog is something special, he is very good looking and people seem to respond to him, everybody loves him, even those who don't like dogs. And...he thinks he is human. He also won the cute avatar at mixx when they just started. My other dog, you can see her in my pic, is 90% black, smart and manipulative, and everybody is afraid of her. Stopping here, I can talk bout them all day.
Re: What's your Business, Ladies? - This appears to be quite an old thread, but I thought I would add my two penneth worth anyway. Having only recently joined this forum, and already very impressed with the level of skills, intelligence and thoughtful responses, I am still "poking" around to find those areas I can contribute and learn from. This place seems like a good one to start, so here goes: I am from the UK originally, but after the loss of my husband in 2000, I decided I wanted to live my own life somewhere new, so here I am in Spain. Unfortunately this country and its inhabitants (at least the areas I have lived in) have more than a disregard for animal welfare, I was shocked at the sort of conditions pets were forced to live in and the frequent abandonment of dogs, who roam the streets causing problems and generally being a nuisance. I love dogs and no "ex" pet should be put through this, so I am very actively involved in rescue, care and rehoming of escaped, unwanted and abandoned pets. Therefore my website! It is actually aimed at ensuring an animals diet is correct, I figured if anyone cared enough about their pets diet, then they werent going to be the sort of person to "dump" their animals after any length of time. The funds raised from the website will go to ensure I can continue to be active in my care and rescue activities. It just seemed very appropriate. Ive been "playing about" on the internet for a year or so, but now need to take this seriously, as a business, and have joined here to teach and learn.
Re: Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.... Keep Going!! - Hi Evan, I saw this on a psychology site [quote:3ojxqt77]We teach people how to treat us. Strategy: Own, rather than complain about, how people treat you. Learn to renegotiate your relationships to have what you want. You either teach people to treat you with dignity and respect, or you don't. This means you are partly responsible for the mistreatment that you get at the hands of someone else. You shape others' behavior when you teach them what they can get away with and what they cannot.[/quote:3ojxqt77] Something i learnt from the school of life which i hope has made me stronger


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Do You Pretend To Listen To People?

Are You Listening?

Good News Travels Fast

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.