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When Selling Keep It Simple Stupid

When Selling Keep It Simple Stupid

After our first half-hour telephone coaching session, when asked what he thought about our training, my client felt the learning process we had undertaken together earlier in the week, “was a bit too elementary.” As a Branch Manager with over 18 years of sale experience, a supervisor who must also produce sales over and above the five representatives reporting to him, when he purchased our training, he thought that he would receive and then drill-for-skill some new and yet undiscovered selling process that would magically change his ability to produce sales. What he actually found was a “deceptively simple” system with methods proven in the field to produce a consistent flow of new business. Later he wrote:

“I was at first, skeptical about your program’s efficacy. However, it turned out to be deceptively simple.

This program (telephone coaching) is set up with simple bite-sized lessons for sales people. Once using it, one discovers the complexity of the sales process and a need for a focused approach. Your weekly telephone coaching does that and re-inspires excitement for the sales process.

I can't say enough about your practical suggestions and flexible approach to an individual's specific situation…”

Another personal coaching client has written:

“…There are some decent selling systems available out there and I have used a few of them. However, most of these selling approaches have too many steps and have too much to remember when you are in the heat of the selling battle.

I mostly have one shot with a veterinarian to convince them to invest $10,000 to $24,000 in new laboratory instruments. I need an easy system to plug into—one that will get me where I need to go and distinguish me from my competitors. The Selling Edge gets me there."

I have a client in the Northwest, that after five years of working together and after tripling his sales team’s production in the first three years, he decided that my training programs were not complex enough for his staff. For the last two years of our engagement, he tried to have me put into my selling system every new fangled sales technique that he read about in the latest best seller on sales, Over that same period, my goal was to take things out of the selling process that I was teaching, to make my system even more simple and easy for sales and service industry professionals to learn and use daily.

It has been interesting to see if all the complexity that this client brought to his firm’s selling process after my engagement ended, gave him the selling edge that my simple, yet effective system had originally produced. His staff tells me that if anything, they are seeing less success as they try desperately to learn and then implement the latest selling fad that he requires that them to use. The lesson to me is clear, to be consistently successful in selling, you need to keep the selling process as simple as you can.

As my client’s quote above suggests, I now try to keep the selling process that I teach as simple as possible. In my personal coaching sessions on the telephone or in the field ( www.TheSellingEdge.com/personalCoaching.htm ) I now employ a unique self-directed learning series of manuals that, in short daily lessons, outline six “simple” and easy to learn steps that must be executed to consistently produce sales or to achieve higher levels of personal productivity. These self-administered lessons take about 20 minutes each day to read and then drill-for-skill the communication technique being taught--using a programmed learning method built into each lesson. At the end of the week, on the telephone or over an internet voice connection we discuss the principle learned during the last five days and help participants worldwide to see how they can apply the technique(s) outlined in each of the daily lesson to their individual selling or management situation.

Six simple steps are all that’s needed to dramatically improve your sales success levels and not 54 ways to close or learning the ten best scripts to use when your client or customer has an objection. You don’t need a series of complex pitches or to tell your prospect everything they ever wanted to know about your product or service. All a sales or service industry professional needs is a simple, yet structured communications process with today’s sophisticated consumer.

Just keep it simple if you want to sell more!





When Selling Keep It Simple Stupid - To learn more about this author, visit Virden Thornton's Website.

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Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan 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

Linda Richardson
Linda 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

George Ludwig
George 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

Cheryl Matthynssens

Cheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur.  Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well.  A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles.  She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide-  to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being.  Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com

- Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website

John Power
John Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website

Staging Diva
Debra 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 over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates 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 ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website

Jay Kubassek
(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek)  In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.

 

As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)

 

Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. 

 

Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper.  Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website


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Virden Thornton
(Visit Virden's Website) VIRDEN J. THORNTON is the founder and President of The $elling Edge®, Inc. a 23 year old firm specializing in sales, customer relations, personal coaching and management training and development. Clients have included Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Deloitte & Touché, Bank One, Jefferson Pilot, and Wal-Mart to name a few. Virden is the author of Prospecting: The Key To Sales Success, Organizing For Sales Success, 101 Sales Management Myths, A Realtor's Success Formula, and two best sellers 101 Sales Myths and Building & Closing The Sale. He also has a video/audio tape training program entitled Close That Sale, published by Thompson Learning. He has also authored a Self-Directed Learning series of sales, coaching & team development, telemarketing and personal productivity training guides. To obtain a substantial discount on two of Virden's new manuals, 101 Sales Myths and Organizing For Sales Success, just go to http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/book1 .htm Note: You can contact Virden at virden@TheSellingEdge.com. You can also see an expanded biography at: http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/bio.h tm

Virden Thornton is a Platinum author on EvanCarmichael.com
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