If You Need To Reduce Profits… Do Some sales Training!
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Free Download - “The war of the worlds” novel in 1898 was science fiction, but today in business the battle is real and unabated…and rarely debated! By John Lees |
Do you need to find a way to legitimately and quickly depress excellent profit results, to stave off the pressure of accommodating higher budgets in the next fiscal period? If so I have an idea that will not only diminish revenues immediately, it will ensure that you are not embarrassed by exceptional results for some considerable time to come.
Simply organise some 'sales training' of the most available and favoured variety, the kind that damages sales people in the way that a diet of junk food can impair the health of our children, and your income will dramatically drop in these ways:
• Sales results will begin to suffer the moment the team hears that more of the usual sales training is planned;
• Income will be lost when the sales team move off the road and attend the course;
• The direct and indirect training costs will be an enormous drain on funds;
• The irrelevant nature of the training will subtract from the sales team's value, causing further deterioration in service and sales levels after the course;
Now, you must be sure to select 'the most common' kind of sales training, otherwise you could end up with the very uncommon variety that will actually cause service and sales improvements to take place. Here is how to recognise the most damaging type of sales training programme:
• The actual trainers will have had limited experience or success in selling and management (in other words they will serve as ‘mouth-pieces’)
• The training emphasis will be on memorising puerile 'sales techniques' (for instance the sales force will have to remember 'how to handle objections' ... rather than learn 'how to learn and defend beliefs', plus learning ‘features and benefits’, etc.)
• The sales team will not be consulted about their training needs, and not one customer will participate in the course or in the preparation period (thus ensuring the programme's irrelevance and defectiveness)
• No professional, strategic consulting and self-management tools will be provided (creating an ‘everyman for himself’ scenario)
Quite seriously, I know of two major banking organisations that have invested heavily in the same sales training programme from overseas, and I also know that their employees are more than embarrassed to be associated with the programme. The content of the 'programme' offers the same hackneyed 'sales techniques' we first saw 30 years ago, simply presented with new packaging. As a banking customer, you will perhaps know how well the sales training has worked!
The question is why do managers inflict poor quality training on their sales staff, remembering that no one aims to do the wrong thing in this critical area. The answer is that managers fail to ‘work backwards’ from the needs of the market for excellent service, choosing instead to ‘move forwards’ from company needs to lift sales. The news is that ‘selling’ at its very best is the highest form of service that a company can offer to its customers. Selling is supposed to represent contribution of results and not just distribution of products; it is supposed to cover ‘order-taking’ to a small extent but it must also address ‘sales-making’ to a large extent. Additionally, selling involves ‘the move from being market-driven to market-driver’.
So, when sales people are made to endure an occasional and ruinous training pig-out, as opposed to a valuable diet of professional motivation, real business education, exposure to customers and strategic selling tools, they become 'Scud Missiles' in the market - missing key targets and acquiring the image of product-pushing predators.
Here are the most serious training needs of sales people…who must perform mostly as ‘sales-makers’:
• They need to be informed and motivated about what constitutes high-level behaviour in leading sales people…across many industries
• They need to be sold on what they sell, learning first to understand the distinction and value of their offerings, so as to develop conviction and [contagious] enthusiasm
• They need to be rehearsed on high-level sales conduct and presentation, not to the point where ‘they get it right’, but to the point where ‘they cannot get it wrong’
• They need to be trained and equipped to become 'self-managers' who can see immediate sales potential
• They need to be provided with the apparatus to create simple, dynamic customer and territory development plans
• They need to understand their customers' businesses and their business needs and problems, and to understand how their value propositions fit with those needs and problems
• They need to be held responsible and accountable for high-level conduct and for achieving excellent and profitable sales
• They need a first class service from management - which includes productive meetings, regular training, lots of exposure to customers (away from transaction mode), an equitable and exciting incentive programme and a system of reporting that reflects service and sales performance.
When management gradually attends to these needs, the expense of serious sales training becomes a wise investment and not an extravagant, wasteful and counterproductive cost.
Last but not least this point needs to be made. If sales people who play social golf or tennis at the weekends were offered one hour with a ‘pro’, they would jump at the chance…and the first question they would ask of the pro is ‘what am I doing wrong?’ This is not a sign of weakness; people inherently know that they cannot move ahead until they know what is holding them back. The point is that when it comes to ‘sales training’ sales people must be provided with someone who is recognised as being a consummate ‘professional’…someone who will shake them up and create high-level motivation as the platform for offering strategy of the highest quality. As they say ‘When the student is ready the teacher is never far away’…and so the real training challenge is to invite sales people to become serious ‘students of selling’.
If You Need To Reduce Profits Do Some sales Training - To learn more about this author, visit John Lees's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained 4000+ students worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular home staging guides made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide, Portfolio Guide and Twitter Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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