are often targeted as the reason why they are not achieving great results.  This creates a knock on effect – the managers continue to put pressure on the sales team to “close, close, close”.  The result of this pressure means that the sales person focuses on what they believe to be a closing technique.  The famous sales mantra from the days of power selling springs to mind “always be closing”.  I wonder if there is any logic telling sales people to do this or is it simply an attempt effect their mentality and develop an aggressive manner when selling, only concerned with getting a result.

I suppose every sales person should be concerned with getting the result they set out to achieve.  However the problem with only worrying about closing is that the rest of your sales technique and structure will probably suffer.  Where I do agree with the “always be closing” mantra is in as much that you should always be doing something to help you close the sale.  One analogy that we discussed during the workshops was that closing should be like the closing of the barn door once you have the cow in the barn.  The point being that closing the door should be a simple task once the cow has wondered happily into the barn, because they have wanted to.  The sales person must get the client to want the product/service that they are selling and then close behind them.  If you try to close when the cow is halfway through the door it can be a tricky process!!

So what will help you close the sale comfortably?  Firstly, have an objective.  Never go into a call or meeting with a see how it goes attitude, it makes it incredibly difficult to gain an advance or a close.  Secondly, use questions to develop a need to sell against.  Questions, when used effectively will help change the clients view of the issues and problems they are facing, heightening needs means that the client is more likely to look for a solution.  (the cow starts to move).  Thirdly, gain agreement from the client that they do have needs and recognise them.  Fourthly, when demonstrating how the product or service will help the client, make sure you gain agreement from the client that they do recognise this and are not simply nodding politely.  Finally make a clear suggestion as to what they should buy and ask for the business.  Do not ask “is that the sort of thing you’d be interested in?” or “how does that sound?” or any variation of the above.  You should have demonstrated exactly how it would help them and therefore it is question how much they should buy not whether they will buy or whether they like it!

So, always be doing something to help you close, listen for buying signals and respond quickly, using those opportunities to gain agreement and close.  Always seek to gain an advance from each call or meeting.  All of your closing should revolve around progress.  Good closing skills require all the key elements of sales structure to be used: good introduction, good questioning and need development, good use of the products features and therefore benefits and then an awareness of when to close and a confidence to do so.

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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.

Over the last few years, coaching and mentoring have become much more widely used within the business world. As their popularity has grown however, so have the range of different definitions and understandings. In an attempt to clarify things, I have spoken to our Head of Learning – Martin le Comte and would like to share with you our definition of coaching and mentoring and how you it can benefit you, your team and organisation.

“Martin, please identify your definition of coaching and mentoring?”

Firstly, can I say that you are right – there is lots of current debate about coaching and mentoring and the distinctions have become blurred somewhat. My view is that mentoring encompasses a variety of development approaches dependant on the needs of the learner in question. An effective Mentor may use one or a number of the following skills to help the development of the individual being mentored including feedback, coaching, training, advice and guidance.

The mentor is frequently seen as a role model by the business or organisation for the individual being mentored and will often have specific and relevant task specific skills and knowledge in the same or similar area.

Coaching on the other hand is a specific skill. An individual coach will effectively use a series of questions to help and challenge the coachee. The questions will help the individual to explore ideas and options to help them to overcome a current challenge or obstacle that is affecting their performance.  Expert knowledge of the specific area is not required and is in fact often not desirable.

In summary, many people managers rightly use coaching skills to develop their people in their role. It is however important to remember that coaching   should be just one of the tools at their disposal rather than the only answer. The skill of the people manager is on identifying which of the tools they need to use dependant on the needs of the individual.

“How can you tell whether you should be using coaching or one of the other mentoring tools – feedback, coaching, training, advice and/or guidance?”

In my experience, the best and I might be bullish enough to suggest, the only sure fire way to identify which approach is the most appropriate is to be skilled in asking a couple of great questions initially and then almost more importantly, listen to the resulting response. The skilled people developer does not make assumptions about what is required instead they ask great questions to seek to understand what the individual needs.

Many people say that this is very similar to the start of a coaching dialogue and I would not disagree, however at this point coaching may or may not be the answer. Let me give you a practical example –

I’m a driver and have been driving for years but know nothing about what is going on under the bonnet. If I break down by the side of the road I don’t want or need someone to ask me what I think is wrong with it, I want them to ask me a couple of questions to ascertain what happened and then tell me exactly what to do. If they keep asking me to think about what could be wrong, I will get extremely frustrated and it will take me a hell of a long time to get home. When I do eventually get home I will think twice about taking my car out on long journeys in the future and I will certainly be changing my roadside assistance provider.  If the original roadside assistance provider had just asked me a couple of simple questions about my current knowledge and expertise and what had happened before I broke down, they would have quickly identified that my battery was flat and changed it there and then. They then would have advised me what to look out for in the future to avoid it happening again and what to do if it did happen again. I leave the roadside quickly happy with knowledge and expertise and more importantly I get home quickly.

I had a quote from a client recently about an inappropriate use of coaching, which I think highlights this point really well.

“I had coaching from somebody but they never gave me any answers, which is what I actually needed, all they did was ask me lots of questions. It was a complete waste of time and I felt abandoned.”

“What are the biggest challenges you face when coaching and mentoring individuals?”

From my perspective most organisations will ask me and my colleagues at Phoenix for coaching when that might not be what they need at all. In the past I was sometimes reluctant to initially deviate from the process and try unsuccessfully to use coaching when that was clearly not what the individual wanted or needed. What’s the point in asking some open ended coaching questions when they really have no idea what the answer is…I’m sure you can imagine just how frustrating and unproductive that is for all involved!!

What I have learnt is that often when a client is asking you for some coaching, unless you asked to undertake contracted coaching, what they are actually asking you to do is help develop their people.  They are actually interested in the end result rather than the approach that you use.

Marina, as a final thought if you want some additional tips on how to successfully recognise the correct development approach, keep in mind 3 of Phoenix’s Golden Rules of Leadership

1. Know your people, know your people, know your people.

2. Treat people as they need to be treated.

3. Stop it, it’s not about you.

Written by Marina Wirkner, Sales Executive

If carefully designed and delivered well, keeping in mind the objectives of the client and the participant, there is no doubt that a training course can make a big difference to an individual or a team’s performance.  However, it is what is done either side of the course that will make even more difference.  Careful pre course work will create a solid foundation for the course to grow from.  Too often participants arrive on the course without knowing why they are there or even what the course is covering that day!  Buyers of training and organisers of training have a responsibility to set the day up as best as possible.  They should talk to the participants, show them the agenda & discuss objectives.  As I write this I’m thinking surely this would be done, but my experience tells me that often it is not.  We offer pre course consultancy or a meeting with participants before the course but it is seldom used.

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The course itself should challenge and enthuse the participants.  It should leave the group feeling that they can try to use what they have learnt and will have practiced doing so.  Confidence will be high, so what environment will they find on their return from the course?  Too often they find an environment that does not support the training and managers do not have the skills to support the participant after the course.  Managers often hear that the course “was great” and it was “really helpful” and this lulls them into a false sense of security.  This does not mean that the job is done.  The participant will be keen to use what they have learnt and will say all the right things.  However, they will often be as confused by the training as they are excited.  Often training produces as many questions as it does answers.  Most people attend a course having been going along quite nicely, using techniques and skills built up over a period of years possibly.  They then attend a course that introduces a few new ideas or techniques to try and  they get a chance to practice these skills in the safe environment of the training room and then they return to the live environment.  They try to use the ideas and techniques and run into problems and understandably some of their enthusiasm is dented.  After a while they start to feel uncomfortable using the new skills and drift back towards their old, tried and tested methods.

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The environment that the participant returns to dictates the success or failure of the training.  Someone said to me recently that if you put a lovely new gold fish into a tank of dirty water, it won’t do very well.  Obvious I guess!  To help the participant do well, whilst they are out on the course, what goes on back in the workplace?  Does the tank and the water get cleaned? If managers and their support systems are not geared up to help and support the individual, results will not improve over the long term.   If you take training seriously don’t just buy a course.  Analyse the requirement, involve the participants, support the returning participant, follow up the training, read the reports, get the trainer back, train the managers to help their team members do anything you can to help and in short, accept that the course is the start of what could be a long process.  Overnight cures happen rarely.  Improvement can be achieved quickly but it is difficult to sustain.  Test the training company that you want to use and find out what they do to turn a training course into a successful learning experience?

I am not a great fan of trainer jargon and “a successful learning experience” sounds a bit like I am going down that route.  What I mean is that anyone can deliver a two day sales course but not many can deliver a series of events and interventions that ensure at the end of a year or any given period, techniques and behaviours are firmly embedded and results are greatly improved.