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At Phoenix we always place a great emphasis on understanding exactly what it is our clients are trying to achieve.  This part of the training process is so valuable and yet it is so rarely done as effectively as it might.  At best, it involves a meeting with a selection of key stakeholders, whereupon broad objectives are agreed and content is designed around these.  In many cases it is simply based upon managerial observations and anecdotal feedback which does not always get to the root of the real development issues.  What’s more, the participants themselves are rarely involved in this process which is also not ideal.  By consulting with at least some of those who will actually be attending the training, you not only get a better chance of designing something relevant but also of establishing participant “buy-in”.

This is a particular concern when designing content for telephone sales workshops.  We are often told that the participants need help on a particular skill – for example, closing, negotiating or questioning.  No problem – we’ll design something around these and in many cases, what we design will work pretty effectively and provide the participants with some key tools and techniques that will improve their results.  But how much better could it have been, had we been able to do some real analysis and actually listen to the quality of calls that the participants have been making to their potential or existing clients.

Call recording equipment has been around for many years, however, it is expensive to install and has usually only been utilised at larger call centre operations.  Improved technology has however now made it very easy for any type of organisation to benefit from call recording and here at Phoenix, we have really begun to see just how useful it can be.  Phonecoach provide a very straightforward system which enables call recording simply by adding a prefix to the number dialled – there’s no hardware involved and all the recorded calls are automatically saved as MP3 files.

By being able to listen to exactly what is being said, by both sales person and customer, we are in a much better position to identify what’s working and what skills need further developing.  From a design point of view this “reality check” enables us to focus only on those areas that really need it, ensuring that the training is lean and extremely relevant.  Where appropriate, we can even use the recorded calls to illustrate key learning points during the training itself – which can also be very powerful for the participants.

For just £24 + vat, we can record up to 500 minutes of calls, which is usually enough to get a good selection of a team’s telephone sales activity over a week or so.  After some thorough analysis, we report our findings back to the client and only then, will we design a course based on what’s actually happening.  This ensures that any sloppy techniques can be instantly identified & addressed, leading to a direct impact on an individual’s sales performance. Which is, after all, exactly what any high quality sales training should do.

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I’m often asked by potential customers, what exactly are the key differences between open and tailored training. This got me thinking that it might be useful to develop a quick reference guide that will help you make a more informed decision.

Open Courses

1. Open courses provide the participants with a brilliant overview of their chosen subject – whether it’s Introduction to Sales, Essential Management or Inspirational Leadership.
2. Open courses enable you to work alongside individuals from different industries but often with very similar concerns. They also provide you with great networking opportunities!
3. Open courses provide an off site learning environment to discuss openly challenges & concerns which in some cases individuals feel more open to talk about when not in the company of colleagues.
4. Open courses represent a highly cost effective solution where only one or two individuals require development in a particular area.
5. Open courses give individuals a new set of skills and the opportunity to practice them in a ‘safe’ environment and build their confidence to apply the newly learnt skills back in their own workplace.

Tailored Training

1. Tailored training provides you with a comprehensive training needs analysis conducted in advance of any events we deliver on your behalf.
2. Tailored training enables us to include a wide range of disciplines within a single given event.
3. Tailored training will meet a specific requirement through the unique design to match the objectives of the individual or group.
4. Tailored training offers the possibility to design a specific programme for the whole organisation where everyone will be involved, this enables lasting change which is encouraged and supported internally & externally.
5. Tailored training can be designed specifically to a given company and industry with a choice of ‘best fit’ Learning Consultant
6. Tailored Training allows more flexibility with training dates and location.

I hope this was useful and if you would like to discuss either option in more detail please get in touch and I will be delighted to help.

Our broad experience has taught us much, but today I’d like to focus on one key area – Buying Training.

Many organisations make the mistake of buying training as a reactive response to a perceived problem – i.e. arranging sales training if the figures have dropped off, or management training if staff morale is low. The problem with such reactive training is that it tends to be generic or (to coin an awful HR phrase), ‘sheep dip’ in nature, the kind of training that tackles the symptoms and not the cause. Typically this approach to training results in a short-term lift but changes nothing in the long term, effectively offering very little return on investment, and in the worst case, actually disengaging staff and hindering their development.

With that in mind here are four things to think about when arranging training:

1: What are you trying to achieve?

Before arranging any training, it is vital to have an understanding of what you want to achieve, and why. Put simply, the training must be designed to address the requirements of the participants. Sending sales people who struggle to close deals on a ‘closing skills’ course, may appear to be logical at first sight, but what if the underlying reason for their difficulty lies elsewhere – for example in poor questioning skills, or in the way they are managed? So talk to your staff, and talk to training providers, be open to new ideas and be ready to have your assumption challenged.

2: Train the right people!

You’d be amazed how often our trainers hear the phrase ‘my manager needs to go on this course.’ When thinking about training, you need to make sure that you are focusing on the right people. For example, if a sales team are underperforming, then it may mean that they need some help, but what about the sales manager? Is the team’s performance down to them? Perhaps the manager lacks the skills to motivate and support their staff effectively. If this is the case, then all the sales training in the world will not address the root cause. The same goes for middle managers, ask yourself, can any of their issues be traced upwards? What behaviours do the senior management team display, and are any of the negatives trickling down. Senior people can find it hard to admit that they’d like some support, but there’s nothing remedial about good training, personal development can only be positive.

3: Make the training relevant!

Sadly we often meet clients who have previously suffered poor training. Sometimes this is down to weak delivery, but often the cause is simpler – the training was not participant relevant. If participants cannot see how to link what they are learning back to their own roles, then at best they may find the training interesting, but not particularly useful, and at worst they may be bored and irritated. In order to be effective, training must be made relevant on a personal level. In practice this means effective pre-course consultancy – ensuring the provider understand participant requirements as well as organisational ones. By keeping group sizes small you can ensure that participants are able to fully engage with the trainer, and understand how to apply what they are learning to their workplace.

4: The importance of support.

Before embarking on any training, whether it be a one day course or a full blown programme, we’d recommend that you think very carefully about how you plan to support the training. Effective support is absolutely key to the success of any training event; without support it is almost impossible to embed learning and sustain any long term improvement in performance. Staff should come back from any training event feeling excited, motivated and eager to put new ideas and skills to the test. Invariably not everything new they try will work first time, they may meet resistance from colleagues, lack the confidence to make changes, or just struggle to transfer classroom learnt skills to the reality of the workplace. If there are no systems in place to support newly trained staff, then the vast majority of them will lapse back in to old habits, effectively rendering the training worthless. On the other hand, well supported staff will maintain momentum and continue to improve and develop. There are many ways of providing support, but in our experience there are two broad methods which prove particularly effective when combined:

Firstly, ensure that management are fully aware of what the training entailed. This may mean just reading the course agenda, arranging a debrief with the provider, with the stakeholders, or just pending time speaking with their staff about the training. Only by understanding what the training entailed can managers hope to provide valuable support. There’s nothing more damaging to training effectiveness than a manager who appears disinterested, or simply expects their staff to improve post-training, without offering to support them!

Secondly, ensure that staff take responsibility for their own development. At Phoenix we ask participants to complete a personal action plan. This doesn’t have to be anything major, just a commitment to trying out some new ideas or making a few changes on the back of the training. Ideally these plans should be shared with line managers and followed up on – if the participant has met their goals then this is an opportunity for praise (and a great indicator of success), if they are struggling then it’s an opportunity to provide further support and encourage development.

James Ashburnham, Client Manager, Phoenix Training

With the ever increasing reliance on email, there is a feeling that sales people are forgetting the basics of actually getting on the phone and selling.  Not too many years ago, sales departments were alive with the general hubbub of chatter and “sales noise”.  Nowadays I find myself walking through sales departments and being struck by a wall of silence, only broken by the click of the keyboard.  The big problem is that email although hugely convenient, does not sell!  The telephone conversation should always make more progress.

What is stopping sales people from using the phone? Firstly, as I mentioned, convenience; it is easier to send an email to a client than phone them and still feel like you are working hard.  First tip:  if you are about to write an email to a client, ask yourself the question “could I phone instead?”  Inevitably the answer will be yes.

Sales people get themselves into to what could be referred to as “avoidance focus” behaviour.  This is where they have got themselves into what is effectively a rut.  Their expectation is low and so their phone calls lack impact and that leads to failure so they start to talk themselves out of making calls because they don’t like the result.  To get out of this rut, the sales person has to start developing “approach focus behaviours”.

To do this, try these ideas:

1)    Start making calls early in the day and in doing so get some momentum going.  You will feel much more positive about your day generally if you have made twenty five calls by ten o’clock.

2)    Set yourself targets.  Can you call ten potential clients by the end of the day?  Can you find out a new need from your existing client base?  Sales people tend to respond better under pressure.  When the deadline is not upon you, you need to create your own pressure.

3)    If you have a successful call, don’t rest on your laurels and have a celebratory cup of tea, make five more off the back of that success and momentum.

4)    Equally if you make a call that does not get the desired result, do not sit and mull it over and become depressed by you lack of progress.  Analyse the call, try to identify areas or techniques that you could improve and call someone else.

5)    Don’t be put off by an abrupt or rude response.  People react in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons.  It is almost always not personal and should not be taken as such.

6)    Turn your email off for a day and concentrate solely on telephone sales.  Email by its nature is not an “urgent” tool.  If people need to get in contact they can call you.  Likewise if people don’t want to respond to you they don’t have to if you send an email.  Admittedly they don’t have to take your call but it is harder to turn down.

7)    Make sure you have an objective for your call.  Think about how you can gain attention quickly.  Do not sound like you have made fifty calls that day (even though you might have)

8)    Variety can help to maintain momentum.  Call different types of clients, present different products (if relevant), mix up your calling pattern to maintain impact.

9)    Back yourself!  Have belief in your ability to make the call and get the result.  Use techniques and objectives to create interest and engagement.

10)   Positive, imaginative and creative telephone sales can be extremely effective, certainly more effective than a stream of emails.  Think about what sort of impression you are making on your client if you phone them and ask them not if they got your proposal but whether they could see how it would benefit them and if they had any questions.  Sales is all about impact, the telephone call does that far more effectively than the email.

Bill Osmond – MD of Phoenix Training

As Phoenix continue to grow steadily, having recently taken on another full time trainer, we decided that now would be a good time to review our existing office and training space and explore the possibility of moving into somewhere larger.

The recession has led to a surplus of office space in central London and we thought that there would be a good chance of securing a long term lease at a bargain price.  What’s more, we were sure that London’s lettings agents would be falling over themselves to convince us of the value of their properties and how they would be just ideal for a training company with our particular needs.  Sadly, our experience of the latter could not have been more different.

Now, I know estate agents are an easy target but I can assure you that this isn’t yet another dig at the profession as a whole.  It is however designed to expose the lack of basic sales skills that those we met displayed, and to reinforce how critical it is to have the core skills in place before you can even hope to sell in today’s tough markets.

On arriving at the first potential office, we were left hanging around for 15 minutes before the agent finally arrived.  We’re all late on occasions and there may well have been a good reason, but the very least we could have expected was a call to manage our expectations.  Every week, I’m amazed by sales people who think that it is acceptable to turn up ten, fifteen or even thirty minutes late without so much as a phone call.  It’s not, and in most cases you’ve lost the sale before you’ve even begun.

Nevertheless, we’re still keen buyers so, on this occasion, the agent’s transgression will be forgotten if he can really convince us of how this office space will work for us.  On first inspection, it all looks pretty good – modern, stylish and in a great location – but we just couldn’t visualise where the training room would go, mainly because the whole space was still a shell.  We turn to the expert for inspiration, but he’s actually walked away to the other side of the space to take a mobile phone call, and is merrily chatting away oblivious to us!  The moment is lost.  On finally regaining his attention, his answers lack conviction and we’re left totally unconvinced by the potential of the office.  On reflection, the phone incident, though scarcely believable, was hopefully a never to be repeated mistake; however, from a sales perspective, the lack of expertise was even more worrying and is actually very common indeed.  If you’re going to sell anything – property, software, pharmaceuticals, even training services – you must know all there is to know about your product or service and be able to relate this knowledge to your customer.

Despite our initial experience, we were still in the market for a new office, so headed off to view another couple of options with high hopes.  Both agents were on time which was a good start and both had properties with real potential and yet, once again, simple mistakes were made that resulted in the collapse of the sale.  At the first, we were left abandoned in the office whilst the agent enjoyed some banter with the builders over the road!  With no one to ask about the details, how could we be expected to commit?  Just like our mobile phone friend, they demonstrated an unbelievable lack of interest in us.

The next and final viewing was going well, until the agent admitted that the landlord was not interested in the property as a whole and that he doubted he’d be willing to modernize the 1970’s décor in the common areas.  Now honesty is a real virtue, but by creating a picture of uncertainty and possible conflict with the landlord, he immediately lost us.  Potential customers want assurances and certainty before they commit, not vagueness and ambiguity.

You may think that I’ve exaggerated things here, but I can assure you these experiences are very real indeed and I’m sure they are repeated in sales situations in many different markets.  One final thing that struck me with all three agents, was that not one of them even asked us what we actually did – maybe they already knew, but it is this lack of basic questioning and interest in our business that meant we were never going to commit.    Maybe we just got a bad bunch who have got lazy, simply used to taking orders rather than actually selling, but in the current climate a return to the basics would go a long way to winning more business.

We’ve now given up the search for a new office, instead looking for a larger space at our current Leathermarket site run by Workspace.  What’s more, we’ve recently run some training events for their site managers to make sure that they properly engage with the customers and create a fantastic picture of what the office will look like once they’ve moved in. After all, it’s this image that will create the real desire in the customer to move in.  Simple but effective.

Oliver Osmond – Sales Director, Phoenix Training

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When most people are asked to do a presentation, their first reaction is to panic.  This is even the case for experienced sales people.  The culture these days is to move more and more towards using technology to help us sell or make an impact.  I still hold the view that to make a really strong powerful impact presenting in person is still the answer.

The most important tip that can be given to a would be presenter is to make sure you prepare well.  Lack of preparation is the single biggest reason why presentations do not work.  Having a quick “run through” on the train or in the back of the cab on the way to the venue simply does not do the job.  Sometimes people bemoan the lack of time they have and use that as an excuse to present without preparation.  Whatever time you have use it wisely.  In simple terms, if you only had one hour to prepare, use twenty minutes to research the subject, twenty minutes to develop the content and put it into useable format (i.e. slides) and twenty minutes to practice it.
Too often presenters spend hours thinking about what they are going to put into the presentation and then create incredibly complex and sometimes dramatic slides but fail to practice it at all.  If they do practice, it will be at the end of many hours putting the presentation together and will therefore be in no mood to make any changes!

The general rule is to work out roughly what you want to put in, knock that into to some basic slides and start practicing.  What you will find is that the practice (out loud, not mumbled under your breathe in the shower) will help to mould the presentation.  You will get used to the material, the flow, the slides and the whole thing will grow organically.

Simplicity is generally the key to success in presentations.  Too complicated a message will be difficult to deliver, the presentation will too long and it is very hard to maintain attention once an element of confusion sets in.  Think of simple themes and to accompany that, simple slides.  By working to a pre-determined objective, the presenter can apply a simple rule to what is included in the presentation.  “The only elements to include are those which help me achieve my objective”.   It is a bit like holiday packing; ask yourself the question ‘do I really need it?’  Far too many people take far too much with them on holiday, as presenters do, they put far too much in to their presentations, they over complicate, over elaborate and over fill slides.

Powerpoint in essence has a simple format.  It has a heading, followed by bullet points.  This format is often totally abused by presenters, generally trying to be clever.  Animation is fine – if appropriate.  Do not have spinning logos and chequer board titles unless you can safely say it is helping me meet my objectives.  Too much time is spent animating and generally filling slides, when it should be spent practicing.  The main mistake people make is that tend to use “bullet paragraphs” and not bullet points.

This means that they put everything that they are going to say on the slide and then proceed to read it.  This is very boring for the audience.  They will have probably read the slide before it has been presented.  If you only put up a few key words or an image on the slide, you are able to present around it.  This is far more interesting, remember you are the presenter, not the slide.  The reason people put lots on the board is because they think they will forget what to say if there is only a few bullet points to work from.  This is not true.  If you practice you will know exactly what to say.  The other thing to remember is that the audience do not know what you are going to say, so you have a degree of flexibility with bullet points that you don’t have when it is all up on the board.

To make the presentation “sit up and take notice” interesting, you must ensure that it is relevant.  The audience must be connected to the content.  The more you can link the audience to what you are presenting the better.  In sales we talk about creating the benefit, it is the same when presenting.  “What’s in it for me”, is a well used phrase in presentation.  This is particularly relevant when making a specifically sales presentation.  How will it help me, why do I need to know that, what will it do for me, are the types of questions an audience will be asking.  When practicing keep a check on how many times you can answer those sorts of questions.

Finally, think positive.  See the presentation as an opportunity and not something to simply get done, survive and move on, it will make a massive difference to your performance and impact.  People rush presentations because mentally they do not want to be there.  If you try to view it positively your pace will be better, your movement better and the overall impression far greater.
Written by Bill Osmond

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Having worked with many sales people over many years, I am often asked, as I was last week, “what makes a good sales person”.  I used to work in the city many years ago, straight after leaving school.  I didn’t do very well and left after about two years.  At my leaving do, one of the senior traders said to me “you’d make a good sales person”.  At the time I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or as a way of saying, “why on earth did you think you’d be a good stockbroker!!”  His justification for this statement was that he believed I would be able to talk enthusiastically about my products and generally get on well with people.  I guess it was a form of compliment.  I now find his statement interesting because it starts to examine what people think makes a good sales person.  It also shows what people think about sales people.

Generally sales people don’t get a good press in this country.  They are often considered to be a pain.  When introducing my wife (girlfriend at the time) to some of my family years ago, she was asked what she did for a living by my cousin (I think) and she said enthusiastically that she sold advertising for a national newspaper.  “Oh,” he said, “so you are one of those annoying people that phones me all the time trying to sell me something.”  Not a great introduction to that branch of my family!  Also not true on many levels.

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Why is it that many sales people are viewed as annoying?  I think that the first thing is that they do not sell with the client or potential client in mind.  They are totally fixed on hitting their targets and selling what they want you to buy.  This almost immediately creates a competitive flavour to the conversation.  They try to “get you to buy”.  If a sales person thinks like a buyer they will develop a far stronger relationship.  Why might they want or need to buy from you?  That is the first question a sales person could ask themselves.  Then consider how they can develop a need for the product and match the two together.  Sales people become annoying when they are constantly in contact with a potential buyer selling without considering the needs of the buyer.

It is not only the needs they do not consider.  They do not consider the buyer’s situation.  Are they busy?  Are they stressed? Knowing when to sell is an art, sales people are always told to be persistent but I would add a warning, think about your buyer and think if it is what you would want.

Talking a lot is something associated with ‘good’ sales people.  ‘Having the gift of the gab’, is often the phrase used.  I think learning when to talk is more important.  Talkative sales people are often annoying.  How many times has someone talked and talked and talked, trying to sell you something.  Less is definitely more.  Using information with relevance is one of the keys to successful selling.

Generally, sales people don’t need to talk a lot, they don’t need to be thick skinned, they don’t need to be super enthusiastic and positive.  They need to use some of all of those but they need to know when to use them.  They need to know when to talk and when to listen.  They need to do what they say they will do. Too many over enthusiastic sales people promise much and deliver little.

Some of the best sales people I have ever come across were successful because they did exactly what they said they would do.  They would call back when they said they would, they would send proposals when they said they would, and they generally left such a good impression the client would buy readily from them.  One thing these characters did not do was to over-elaborate matters.  Accuracy and dependability are vital.

So, what makes a good sales person is still a difficult one to answer.  I firmly believe that anyone can learn to sell, personality is one part of sales but is it more important than technique?  I think that a quiet personality can sell as well as a loud “talk the hind legs off a donkey” type character, if not better.  Ultimately the one thing that really makes the difference is the ability to think as the buyer would.  If you can work out what drives the buyer you are able to adapt your selling style to meet that person’s requirements on many levels which will lead to truly successful sales results.

Bill Osmond – MD of Phoenix

Going into a new year, it is always a good idea to address the techniques you are using to hit your sales targets.  Many sales people return from the Christmas break full of good intentions but after a few days, momentum is lost and they fall into the same old routine.  Now is the time to assess your existing tactics, be honest and make changes! The following tips are designed to help you rethink your approach and make solid changes and not try to do too much too soon.  At this time of year people try to lose weight, the sensible ones will take it steadily and gradually lose weight , the foolish will try to lose two stone a week and get fed up when it doesn’t happen.

Tip number one: always be prepared to adapt your approach to suit the client and the selling environment.  A sales person must be flexible.  When selling you must try to match not only the client’s needs but also their buying style and manner.

The second tip is “remember sales structure and technique”.  After the first tip this might sound a little bit of a contradiction.  Sales people worry that by using a solid structure they might become robotic in their selling style.  Actually a solid sales structure enables a sales person to be more flexible.  In sport, top performers all have fantastic technique, they have a core of solid skills that enable them to adapt and flex, when necessary.  Golf is a good example of this.  Golfers have all manner of different scenarios to battle with; it is the top technicians that can play effectively out of bunkers, water, trees!  As a sales person’s experience grows they tend to drop their structure and technique and this leads to problems, normally in the form of objections.

The third tip for the New Year is; through questioning, find needs not information.  Information does not help a sales person as much as needs.  Too many sales people question a potential client but do not create or establish needs.  This means that there is no urgency created and the potential client only sees what is being sold as an option not a necessity.  Be brave, focus on problems and needs.

Tip four; after questioning the client, gain agreement that you have indeed not only created but understood their needs.  This agreement is vital because the buyer is accepting that that they have a need that needs a solution.  Too often a sales person will assume what the client needs and sell against that assumption.  Assumptions are created by a sales person thinking that this client will be like the last one they spoke to.  Tip four (b) treat all clients as individuals.

Tip five: use what you find.  Once needs have been created and agreed, sell against them.  Too often sales people present a lot of information about their products or services but do not relate it to the client’s needs.  Always explain how the product will help the client.

Tip six: Revise or update your product knowledge. I am always staggered by how little even experienced sales people seem to know about their products or services.  Test yourself, think of as many features of your product or service that you can.  I think that you should be able to come up with at least fifty.  Too often sales people use only a handful of features and this makes it hard to create a tailored presentation that matches exactly the needs of the client.  If it is too general it will probably only match some of the clients needs and this will lead to objections.

Tip seven: set yourself activity targets.  Financial targets tell you how much revenue you need to bring in, activity targets tell you how to get there.  Activity targets could be number of calls to make in a day, how many meetings to attend in a month, how many new clients need to contacted in a month.  I would be confident that if a sales person was hitting their “activity targets” they would almost certainly hit their financial targets.

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? Most 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”.

Whilst running training courses, it is always nice to have a series of anecdotes or stories to highlight key learning points.  For all the models and structures that surround a subject like sales, I often find an actual example of what a sales person has done, works really well.  It is by showing and highlighting what not to do that sales people start to see how techniques and skills can really help them.  Fortunately, sales people in all sorts of environments provide me with an endless stream of examples of “what not to do”.

Possibly one reason as to why these mistakes and errors creep in could be pressure.  As pressure grows on sales people, techniques get pushed aside and sales people start to use what I term “street sales” techniques.  These revolve around getting a sale as quickly as possible. The results can be catastrophic not only for short term business but for long term as well.  However much pressure a sales person feels that they under, they should always use solid techniques to achieve a sale.

It is not just pressure that leads to poor sales technique; over confidence can lead to some terrible mistakes.  Experienced sales people often get into routines and do not change their approach, “because it worked once”.  Poor training is a major factor as to why sales people start using random tactics.  If you are not pointed in the right direction how do you know what to use?

So what do sales people do, that in a training room one can laugh and say knowingly “I would never do that”.  All of these are true and some more disastrous than others but the common denominator being that each sales person had no idea of what they were doing in terms of damage!

• A sales person once phoned me and asked to speak to Mr. Osborne, I politely told them it was Mr. Osmond, he said Osbourne, I said again, no Osmond, O.S.M.O.N.D, to which he replied, “yea, whatever”. That was an obvious example of someone thinking I just want to sell to you, so his brain is moving quickly to where he wants to be. Unfortunately he has let the cat out of the bag and verbalised that feeling. Lesson: get the customers name right and take your time. He now has no chance of ever selling anything to me.
• I walked into a car showroom and told the guy I needed a bigger car because we had twins and needed more space. To cut a long story short, he showed me a Ford Galaxy and sat me in the front seat. He then proudly demonstrated the front and back parking sensors, returning to me, pronouncing that parking sensors are now standard on Galaxy’s. As a sales trainer, I felt like saying to him, “what in my conversation has led to think that I need help with my parking?” Lesson: don’t tell someone what you think is good about your product. Tell me what will help me. All I needed to know was whether my double buggy would fit in the car.
• I was buying a digital camera for my office recently and asked the assistant for a camera that was light weight and easy to use. He got me a camera off the shelf, which fitted the bill perfectly. As I was just about to say that all seemed fine and could I buy it, he told that “the other excellent thing about this camera was that it had sepia mode and sports mode”. Now I was starting to think that I was about to pay for things that I simply did not need. Lesson: do not over sell, tell the customer only features that can be of benefit to them.
• When I walked in a clothes shop, with two of my children, I was somewhat surprised by an assistant who greeted me with the phrase “Alright big fella” Quite an extreme example, but over-familiarity with a customer does not sell. I wanted to know where the jeans were. He thinks he’s getting on well with me. Lesson: earn the right to be familiar, by being solid and professional, you can develop a business relationship before you are their best mate.

Some are more extreme than others but these examples show how easy it is for sales people to slip into bad habits, thinking they are increasing the likelihood of making a sale.  Beware!