Phoenix Training

Posts Tagged ‘Money’

Ongoing Sales Technique Development

Posted by BillOsmond
Thursday, December 17th, 2009

To improve their skills, sales people often attend training courses. As someone who runs a training company this is something to be applauded and encouraged.  In my ideal world sales people would feel the need to attend a training session of some sort every week.  However, financial constraints often put a limit on how many courses a sales person can attend and so sales people end up attending workshops every so often at best, unless their employers are totally committed to a training culture and invest huge amounts of money and time to develop their team.

So given that the average sales person is only likely to attend one or two courses per year, what else can the sales person do to develop their skills?  Training often provides momentum, and sales people often return from a course full of enthusiasm and new ideas.  They are keen to put into practice what they have learnt and try to use new ideas.  In short, the course has done its job.  No one or two day course will change behaviours completely but it can start the process.

At the start of most years, many people join gyms and head off to their first workout with great gusto and enthusiasm; they meet an inspirational instructor who talks them through what they need to do in order to get fit.  After the first session they leave, excited and ready to become a fit, healthy, powerful, Adonis!  What happens next? gym-pic-2Most people struggle to put into action what the instructor suggested.  They slip back into bad habits.

As do sales people.  After leaving the course, the temptation to return to what they used to do is strong.  To use what they have learnt, they must adopt a strong mentality.  Same as the gym goer, if the lifestyle around the gym sessions does not change the progress will be slower.  I know that people say that going to the gym means that they can drink as much as they like and eat loads of cream cakes, but that seems to be a “treading water” tactic rather than a progressive tactic.

So my advice for you as a sales person is: go on a sales course, learn some new ideas and techniques, come back raring to go!  Then think about how you will adopt the new ideas and stick to them.  Try to break habits.  Sales people often return to tried and tested methods more through habit than anything else.  People do things in a certain way because they have always done them that way.  A sales person should always evaluate what they are doing.  At the end of each week, write a list of what worked, what didn’t and what you could change.  Try wearing your watch on the opposite wrist to what you are used to, see how it feels.  After a week or so it will feel more comfortable and after a month or so, you will wonder why you ever wore it on the other wrist.  This will remind to try to use something new.  Try a new route to work… basically, try anything that breaks the routine, this will help you to adopt new techniques and give you the mentality to stick to them.

At the end of the month or the quarter, evaluate again.  Ask yourself, honestly, how are you doing?  What did I do this month that was better than last month, different to last month, worse than last month and therefore what can I change for next month?  To get fit, you could go to the gym or run round the park but to get really fit and make permanent changes to your health, your lifestyle will have to change as well.  I know it’s not quite the same thing but you can see the connection, I hope.  Sales people must adapt their approach to make real sustainable changes to their performance.  Constant evaluation, habit changing tactics and the setting of personal objectives are three things that could be done to make ongoing changes.  Einstein’s definition of insanity crops up on many training courses, sometimes not always relevant but I think to most sales people it is applicable:  “when a person does the same thing over  and over and expects to get a different result”.

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Full-Time Trainers – Adding Value Where it Counts Most

Posted by TimHolmes
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

lawrence-white-imageIt’s been an exciting 12 months for Phoenix, culminating this month with the arrival of Lawrence White, our brand new permanent Senior Learning Consultant, who has come to us fresh from HSBC.

Lawrence was a high-flier at HSBC, filling a multitude of roles during an illustrious career with them, including 8 years within the bank’s Learning & Development Team.  He was also part of the HSBC ‘Talent Pool’, designated as one of the top 5% of managers in the business.

A proven leader, coach, and sales professional, he brings a great deal to our team, including TAP, MBTI, & Prism Profiling accreditation, not to mention a huge store of practical experience designing and delivering.

tim-holmes-profile-picBut it’s what Lawrence brings as a permanent member of the Phoenix team that I wanted to briefly reflect on in this post, as it is his full-time status that, from a client perspective, we believe will add the most significant value over time.

Until the 1st November 2008, Phoenix operated with a familiar model in the training industry: aside from our MD, Bill Osmond, every one of our trainers was an Associate, i.e. they were freelancers with particular subject or industry specialisms, who we called on to fulfil work under our banner, as and when required.  This arrangement is ideal for a small training provider, as it enables you to punch far above your weight, bringing in delivery resource according to sales – and in truth the rationale is generally a financial one: why pay a salary for someone who might not be needed all the time?  Instead, bring people in when you need them and pay them a daily rate; and when you don’t have work, there is no overhead.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting down freelancers: many of Phoenix’s Associate Consultants have been working with us for more than a decade, and will continue to do so.  Moreover, these long-term collaborators have successfully aligned themselves very closely with what we call The Phoenix Way – our methods and philosophies of training, and our focus on the practical transfer of learning.  I salute the fantastic job they do as designers and deliverers.  Thank you guys!

However, even the most dedicated freelancer has to take off their ‘Phoenix hat’ at some point, and turn their attentions to their other non-Phoenix projects – and it was a realisation that as a company we wanted to consistently uphold The Phoenix Way, and give maximum attention to the pre-course and post-course elements of the learning cycle, that led us to a turning-point decision: to build a full-time team of Phoenix Trainers.

Thus in November 2008 we started with our first talent acquisition, Phoenix’s Head of Learning Martin le Comte.  Martin joined from Barclays Asset & Sales Finance, and had been runner-up in the Training Journal 2007 Training Professional of the Year Awards. Martin is an absolutely inspirational figure to everyone he works with: he has an infectious charisma and ability to carry participants with him on even the most difficult development journeys, and in a very short time he was proving the absolute wisdom of the full-time trainer model.  Client after client has fed back how much they appreciate his passion and commitment, and prove it by rebooking with us again and again.

Specifically what makes the difference with a full-time trainer is their ability to extend our engagement with clients without having to charge them on a measured time basis – it lets us truly operate with Covey’s Abundance Mentality.  For example:

  • You want to meet us to discuss possible content?  That’s no problem.
  • You’ve decided to use Phoenix, but feel that the participant buy-in would be enhanced if delegates had a chance to meet their trainer in advance of the course? No problem.
  • You want to debrief the training with all stakeholders round the table?  It’s all part of the service.
  • We’ve delivered a successful programme for managers, but they would benefit from a bit of impartial advice on dealing with specific issues from time to time?  No problem, our full-time trainers make sure everyone they train has their mobile number, and it’s not a problem to call or email at any time.  Genuinely.  Many of our participants use Martin or Bill or now Lawrence as informal coaches or mentors, long after the formal training events they may have attended.

In these and many other ways, having full-time trainers means that we can add value at every stage of the learning cycle, and it enables us to move training away from its traditional, transactional footing (you pay your money, the trainer delivers a course for a day), into a properly ongoing process of development in which we partner with clients.  They can then use us as and when they need us, in a variety of ways and on deeper and deeper levels, so as to help drive real change in their people, and ultimately their organisations.

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Attitude & Approach – Bill Osmond

Posted by admin
Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Selling during a recession presents, without doubt, a serious challenge to most sales people.  The market is suppressed, money is tight, the media are talking everything down, customers and clients are cautious, all reflecting the reality of the situation.  Sales people cannot fail but to pick up on this negativity.  The problem for them is that still have to sell their products and services and as the pressure to sell grows, the pressure on the sales person’s technique starts to tell!

Sales managers spend a lot of time reminding their sales teams how far off the target they are, they tell them that they need to sell more!  Do they imagine that the salesperson is not one hundred per cent aware of the situation. Almost every sales person knows how far they are from their target. They are desperate to hit their targets, not only for the financial gain in terms of bonus and compensation but also for the recognition they receive both from colleagues and friends and even family.  Hitting targets is what it is all about, a sales person status depends on it.  A sales person’s motivation is more often than not success, it is not as simple as money, money is a bi-product, success leads inevitably to success because the sales person’s mind expects success.  During a recession a sales person’s mind tends to expect failure.

Approach and attitude are vital for a sales person’s success at the moment.  Sales people are often expected to be “self motivated” and when things are going well this is less of a problem.  Many of the conditions needed to maintain motivation are in place; success for one, recognition, praise, progress, engagement with clients are all of the aspects of the job that make it fun, interesting and challenging.  Challenging but not impossible.  During a recession sales are fewer and farther apart, targets are going up, the distance between success and where I am at the moment is growing.  The sales person thinks “I will never make this month’s target”.  So many of those positive conditions are replaced with negatives.

This is where the managers have to help the sales teams.  Helping them to focus on obtainable targets.  Targets such as “contact ten customers you haven’t spoken to ever/in the last two months etc”.  I have been telling sales managers to change the focus; “tell your team not to sell anything this morning”, this seemingly strange piece of advice has a purpose.  By getting your team not to sell but to find out something new about their clients, it will focus them on questioning and investigative techniques that will inevitably lead to a sale.  The point is that the focus is on strong technique and it changes the attitude and approach of the sales person.  If the sales manager puts pressure on the sales person to sell, it will change the focus to the closing aspect of the process.  In the modern environment, clients are too sophisticated to be swayed by hard selling.

Strong consultative selling will develop relationships and result in positive results.  Sales people will be encouraged by the results they see, the progress they make and this will maintain a positive, proactive approach which is precisely what is needed at the moment for many sales people.  Tightening up on structure and maintaining a positive approach will ultimately hit targets, panic and pressure will not.  This is difficult for sales managers – I know they themselves are under huge pressure to achieve results – but I think it is essential that they maintain focus on how they will achieve those results.  The argument between quality and quantity rages during times like this but putting pressure on making more calls will lead to a drop in quality.  Sales managers must maintain the balance between the two.  They must work hard to maintain the attitude and approach of the sales team, this is the vital factor whilst selling in a recession.

[Image from Wikipedia on licences: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 and GNU Free Documentation License ]

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Upselling & Cross Selling – Bill Osmond

Posted by admin
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Women's shoes on display in a shop window, 2005.
Image via Wikipedia

During an economic downturn, a sales person is confronted by challenges.  They receive many knocks.  They are told “no” more than they would like and certainly more than a year or so ago.  For approximately a year, sales people have worked hard just to get a sale.  Now that, dare I say it, we are starting to see a few green shoots of recovery, the sales person must be thinking about maximising opportunities.  Six months ago the prospect of cross selling or upselling might in some areas have been a little fanciful, over ambitious or simply not appropriate.  All efforts were put into just achieving a sale, clearly budgets were and are tight, the sales person has to work extremely hard to make a sale.

Upselling is always talked about in sales meetings, sales managers are clearly keen for their teams to take every opportunity to upsell, however the pressure they put on their sales teams often ends up with poor execution of the task.  Sales people enter a sales situation, the client may well be showing interest in “product a”, the sales person identifies a need for the product, the client agrees and so the sales person presents the product matching the need.  So far so good.  The client agrees to buy “product a”. The sales person suddenly remembers the sales manager’s voice “upsell wherever you can”.  So they blurt out “would you also be interested in Product b?”

The result is that the client thinks to themselves “I have just committed to buying product a, which matches my needs and is therefore of use to me and so I will spend some money on it.  Product b, seems to be an add on which I had not thought about and certainly not budgeted for, so NO THANKS”.  It is the same scenario when cross-selling.  By introducing something else after having sold the first product or element to the service pretty much always gets the same result unless the sales person is lucky!  I am always reminded of the shoe shop example.  We buy a lovely new pair of shoes and are then asked when we get to the cash desk, would you like to buy some “waterproofing cream” for your shoes or some such product.  At that moment, we do not think for one minute that we will need it.  We have never needed it in the past (or have forgotten that we did need it once) so we see this as an annoying effort by the shoe shop to take more of our money.

So what is missing?  If you want to upsell or cross sell, your whole sales strategy must reflect this and do not simply add on options.  Use questions to develop more than one need.  When selling training solutions, I will try to develop two conversations, right from the start.  If the enquiry is about sales training, for example, I will ask questions about their managers, (and vice versa) this will start to create a need for both.  If it does not the opportunity for cross selling is reduced.  The point is that when trying to upsell and cross sell the client/customer must have a need for everything you are selling.  After selling the “lead” product, add ons, extras, options are not attractive to a buyer. Their needs have been matched and they have committed to the first product. They do not think they need anything else.  More questions will create more needs.

In conclusion, to upsell, a sales person must develop existing levels of purchase.  To do this a need to buy more must be created, rather than more being offered!  To Cross sell, a sales person must create a need for a customer to buy another product from their range.  Instead of assuming that they will want to do this, a new level of need has to be created.  Remember, I have one need for shoes, I have another need for polish!

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