• Prospecting with Dignity and Integrity – Before pursuing the sale, make sure you have your bases covered. You will see the importance of establishing trust, credibility and interest with your prospects, and learn the steps to building them early in the relationship. Next you will find out the ultimate value that your offering holds for prospects using a process that strengthens your relationship with them.
• Know when to hold’em and when to fold them – You don’t make a sale every time. Find out what wise sales professionals have learned for assessing the value of an encounter and understanding when to continue to pursue the sale – when to walk away, and when to run. Professionals learn to qualify early in the game using the Pain, Power, Fit model that assigns a value to the prospect. What you learn in this session will help determine where to most effectively spend your time and how to improve sales forecasting dramatically.
• What to Say – When, Where and Why – to maximize the likelihood of a sale – Master this and you can get rid of the stalls and obstacles to moving forward. Learn to present your services in a way that helps the buyer recognize the highest value you can offer. You’ll also be able to diminish the threats of competitors.

What people are saying about the SolomonRk results:

“A year ago I was the highest producer in the state. This year I’ve increased my production 300% over the same time last year thanks to SolomonRk.”

“Most of the sales training that I have taken has been all about having to do it their way and use their verbiage which is unnatural for me, and I always refused to do it. I can actually implement your process and be myself, and most of all, care about the customer throughout it all.”

Click Here to Register or for more information

Sales Training in Phoenix

At this informative and fun seminar you will learn the simple secret that successful CEOs and Sales Pros know: Sales are the direct result of a process that is scalable, repeatable, and duplicatible. You will leave this seminar knowing exactly what you have to do to make a difference in your company’s sales.

‘Making Sales Easy’ is taught by Michael Goodman, an active sales professional, trainer, speaker, and coach with over 30 years experience in the sales trenches. Michael has implemented his systematic sales framework in dozens of companies with dramatic results. Don’t miss this opportunity to put his system to work for you.

Because of the small class size, seating is limited. Sign up now.

February 23, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

March 2, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Scottsdale

March 6, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

• If you don’t have enough clients you are at the mercy of those you do have.
• You are in a stronger negotiating position if you have the power to say no which comes from another client in line.
• Strong prospecting allows you to qualify your clients more effectively
• Prospecting gives you control of your own revenue stream
• Prospecting well develops good closing skills
• You don’t have to sell a cashew to an almond eater to make your nut
• You will sleep better at night
• Your boss will respect you more.
• And many more

I was fascinated with this notion though, when I was listening to a lecture this morning and the guy referred to his out of work wife. She had worked in the Pharma world in a culture of “farmers” where accounts were nurtured. A Pharma company, made up of a culture of “Hunters” had bought them out and released all the “farmer” sales people. I remembered back to my own experience in the technology education world. When the education technology bubble burst, right along with the “Internet Bubble” the only education technology companies left standing were the ones that had a culture of hunting for new business. The ones who were great at providing the product failed and faded away.

Think of it, a single sales professional, with a habit of constant prospecting for new opportunities, multiplied across a culture, can save a mega-billion dollar company.

I don’t know, I guess it just kind of grabbed me, the importance getting in the game and doing what it takes to succeed. It didn’t matter if it was an individual or a Billion dollar company. The power to win the game we all play is in simply prospecting for more opportunity.

The term is “Toxic Marketing”

Well perhaps not as fast moving as Ebola but certainly as deadly to our profession and more than certainly as deadly to people who sell with integrity.

The definition of Toxic Marketing would be any kind of marketing that attempts to “pitch” a product or service for revenue, with no regard for how many potential customers it loses or turns off. Simple examples are bank clerks who “offer” additional programs or services from the bank or wait staff who “upsell” desserts or fancy drinks. More egregious versions include irritating television lawyers pandering to accident victims as if they had won the lottery or religious zealots knocking on the door way too early on Saturday morning.

The distinct hallmark of Toxic Marketing is that it is common to organizations and sales people that have no regard for their customer base and the toxicity level is in direct proportion to the un-avoidance and the incapacity to say ‘thanks but no thanks” to the marketer. This is the spawning of social marketing and social sales with its own rules of cultural behavior requiring more value than marketing to be successful.

Certainly a fair argument can be made that a waiter offering dessert is doing his duty and being concerned for the customers welfare, even though we know companies train that behavior for the express purpose of raising the cost of a meal, but a recording at McDonald’s that ostensibly greets you at the drive through and “suggests” your order for you is a thinly veiled intrusion attempting to wrest control of your order from you in favor of taking more of your money than you had intended. Multiplied by the thousands of people who drive through, it can result in significant earnings to those who bite.

The problem for these marketers is that they can easily measure how much gain they have received from these efforts but have no way of knowing how many people are irritated to the point of not returning. How many people have they poisoned rather than gaining trust and credibility as a provider or vendor to the customer? That is what makes it toxic. That is what destroys our capacity as companies or sales professionals to do our job as effectively as possible. The toxic marketers have already destroyed our capacity to be trustworthy providers

I was on a plane recently, sitting next to a guy who had been in sales as long as I have though he was happy to remain a field guy. Unfortunately, his company was “promoting” him to a manager. He was going reluctantly but was uncertain how best to be a manager. When he found out what I do he asked my advice. I had to think about that a bit, and then I remembered one of my 30 second intros. I told him to get a book on Dog Training and pretend it referred to his salespeople. He loved the notion, got the point and I am anxiously awaiting the results.

Have you ever taken a dog to obedience school? I’ll let you in on a secret: Dog Obedience School isn’t for the dog; it’s for the owner. My work is pretty much the same thing, you can call me a sales obedience school.

It always gets a chuckle (albeit sometimes just a polite one). It always gets knowing nod because they understand that as salespeople, they will almost always do what they are asked on behalf of the company.

Unfortunately, often companies aren’t quite sure what to ask them to do. So salespeople by default go and do what they think they should do and then hope it both works and it doesn’t get their boss mad at them.

In well run companies a sales process exists that is well known by all, flexible, customized to both the industry and the company and has legitimate milestones along the way. On the other hand, some companies believe that because they have purchased Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) that they now have a process. High producing sales professionals will complain the process slows them down and most companies, who do go to implement a process, do so often only for the capacity to generate reasonably accurate forecasts.

Companies and sales managers miss the critical values a well structured and customized sales process can be and often really don’t want to go through, or more realistically afraid of, the complaining from the existing sales force that have brought in all the revenue for the company.

I am currently in the process of implementing a company wide sales process in multiple divisions and multiple CRM databases with around 40 sales people overall. The highest producers exceed a million dollars a year in production and have ignored the CRM for the most part. The mechanics of implementation include make the CRM products look alike, getting all the sales teams to use it as similarly as possible and most importantly, encourage the use of it throughout the entire company. This is not an overnight project…

To make it work, we have implemented customized training for a hundred percent of the sales assets, we have created a milestone based process and taught that to everyone and then customized the CRM to recognize the assets and the value. We have been careful enough to create a process that recognizes both individual styles and provides flexibility for the sales rep.

Then we made it fun. We have created a game that when used correctly, rewards the sales assets for not only using the process, but frankly doing their job.

So what is the result? In the first 30 days of the process, in one division where the game is going, the people playing the game have an activity rate five times greater than people not playing the game. In this company there is a 6 month selling activity season and then a three month “harvest” or “closing” season. A five times greater activity rate at this point will result in at least a three times uptick in revenue for this group even accounting for brand new reps working alongside seasoned veterans.

Why? Because every morning the sales reps know what they have to do to “win” this day. Most are field reps, and they now know what is expected of them and more importantly, what activities will bring them the greatest success. The process tells them what to work on and what to leave alone, it tells them when to drop a non-performing sales and where to work the hardest on ones that can close. That part of the process also supports forecasting for the company, sure, but for the rep it is critical information on where to spend their time AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE for those that choose to. Guess what. All the reps choose to know how to be as productive as possible. Now they know how.

For the company, this process has created a common language for selling, a database where all customer centric activities can be found and tools to manage both remote and local sales people. It gives control of the sales effort back to the company and denies prima donnas’ from holding the company hostage by its sales effort. Embedding this process has trained the low and mid level performers on what and how to act and given high level performers the freedom to act on their own, in concert with the company.

I almost hate to say it though, the training was really never about the sales people, it was about helping the owners.

Real sales training teaches real skills.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Not a bad pledge for a sales professional either, is it?

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Don’t let them drive you.  There is a better way.

When you understand and track the leading indicators of sales you then know exactly how many of activity X it takes to produce result Y.

When you know that then you can wake up every morning knowing exactly what you have to do that day.  And the result of that is that the annual sales goal will take care of itself.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

We hear this all the time, don’t we? The problem is that we don’t do a very good job articulating benefits.  Try this exercise:

1. What you you sell?
2. What does the prospect buy?
3. When the prospect buys that, what to they get?
4. And when they get that what do they really get?

Keep asking question 4 over and over, digging a little deeper each time.  Pretty soon you’ll hit upon the real emotional benefit.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Manage Your Business Using Leading Indicators

As CEO or Business Owner, you need to understand the leading indicators of sales as well as the lagging indicators.

The lagging indicator is when the check arrives. You can’t run a business just on this lagging indicator, can you?

To effectively run your business, you must understand how to track and measure the activities it takes to make a sale. Those activities will change by sales rep, type of campaign, a number of industry specific reasons such as selling seasons etc.

SolomonRk training will give you all the tools necessary to know the what the leading indicators are. Consequently, when you are managing sales preople or reviewing mgrs reports you will know what must be done that is scalable and repeatable to make a sale.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring your First Sales Manager

Often times, a business owner will hire (or promote) a high-producing salesman into a sales management role. A good salesman is not necessarily a good sales manager. The two require very different skill sets.

If you the CEO or business owner have attended the SolomonRk training then you will understand the skills that a sales manager needs to have and consequently will be able to guide your new sales manager into the right activities to manage vs sell.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring Your First Salesman

When you hire your first salesman you are turning over responsibility for revenue generation to someone else for the first time.  It’s a hazardous transition.  If you know how to think like a salesman then you’ll be prepared to give your new salesman the tools and knowledge he needs in order to succeed:

• He needs to understand your company’s value proposition.
• He needs to know how to qualify prospects according to your criteria.
• You need to be able to collect the right metrics and know how to monitor his performance.

The SolomonRk system will give you the tools you need to effectively manage your new salesman.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

More Accurate Sales and Revenue Forcasts

In Part 2 I talked about tools to qualify prospects. If you have good tools for qualifying prospects (like our 9-element qualification model) then you can eliminate the poorly-qualified opportunities early.

More importantly, your company’s sales forecasts will be more accurate. One of the biggest problems that CEOs have is lack of good data. By qualifying opportunities you will easily learn the revenue you can actually expect in stead of the smoke and mirros that sales people and sales managers unwittingly (or wittingly) push upon you.

From the CEO’s perspective there’s probably nothing more important than being able to forcast revenue, and as a result being able to budget for future expenditures,

SolomonRk put the business owner back in control of his (or her) business.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

The CEO Needs to know How To Qualify Prospects

Portions of the SolomonRk curriculum are designed for:

• A CEO who spends part of his time as Sales Manager.
• A CEO that is also the company sales guy.
• Any CEO that needs to understand what his Sales Manager is doing.

That pretty well covers most CEOs and business owners, doesn’t it? Sales people often go elephant hunting. They often come back with what they think is a great big deal, then they camp on that deal thinking they are going to meet their sales goal on that one deal. The fail to adequately pursue other opportunities that meet their goal.

The only way you can protect yourself from the elephant hunter is to have tools to qualify prospects. By taking our SolomonRk training you will learn to use our 9-element qualification model that identifies and customizes itself to your selling environment. Then you will know if the sales guy is pursuing a real opportunity or if he is wasting time on an opportunity that will never close.

If you can eliminate the elephants your staff will save a lot of time and be able to focus on the opportunites that will actually generate revenue.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

• Prospecting with Dignity and Integrity – Before pursuing the sale, make sure you have your bases covered. You will see the importance of establishing trust, credibility and interest with your prospects, and learn the steps to building them early in the relationship. Next you will find out the ultimate value that your offering holds for prospects using a process that strengthens your relationship with them.
• Know when to hold’em and when to fold them – You don’t make a sale every time. Find out what wise sales professionals have learned for assessing the value of an encounter and understanding when to continue to pursue the sale – when to walk away, and when to run. Professionals learn to qualify early in the game using the Pain, Power, Fit model that assigns a value to the prospect. What you learn in this session will help determine where to most effectively spend your time and how to improve sales forecasting dramatically.
• What to Say – When, Where and Why – to maximize the likelihood of a sale – Master this and you can get rid of the stalls and obstacles to moving forward. Learn to present your services in a way that helps the buyer recognize the highest value you can offer. You’ll also be able to diminish the threats of competitors.

What people are saying about the SolomonRk results:

“A year ago I was the highest producer in the state. This year I’ve increased my production 300% over the same time last year thanks to SolomonRk.”

“Most of the sales training that I have taken has been all about having to do it their way and use their verbiage which is unnatural for me, and I always refused to do it. I can actually implement your process and be myself, and most of all, care about the customer throughout it all.”

Click Here to Register or for more information

Sales Training in Phoenix

At this informative and fun seminar you will learn the simple secret that successful CEOs and Sales Pros know: Sales are the direct result of a process that is scalable, repeatable, and duplicatible. You will leave this seminar knowing exactly what you have to do to make a difference in your company’s sales.

‘Making Sales Easy’ is taught by Michael Goodman, an active sales professional, trainer, speaker, and coach with over 30 years experience in the sales trenches. Michael has implemented his systematic sales framework in dozens of companies with dramatic results. Don’t miss this opportunity to put his system to work for you.

Because of the small class size, seating is limited. Sign up now.

February 23, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

March 2, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Scottsdale

March 6, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

• If you don’t have enough clients you are at the mercy of those you do have.
• You are in a stronger negotiating position if you have the power to say no which comes from another client in line.
• Strong prospecting allows you to qualify your clients more effectively
• Prospecting gives you control of your own revenue stream
• Prospecting well develops good closing skills
• You don’t have to sell a cashew to an almond eater to make your nut
• You will sleep better at night
• Your boss will respect you more.
• And many more

I was fascinated with this notion though, when I was listening to a lecture this morning and the guy referred to his out of work wife. She had worked in the Pharma world in a culture of “farmers” where accounts were nurtured. A Pharma company, made up of a culture of “Hunters” had bought them out and released all the “farmer” sales people. I remembered back to my own experience in the technology education world. When the education technology bubble burst, right along with the “Internet Bubble” the only education technology companies left standing were the ones that had a culture of hunting for new business. The ones who were great at providing the product failed and faded away.

Think of it, a single sales professional, with a habit of constant prospecting for new opportunities, multiplied across a culture, can save a mega-billion dollar company.

I don’t know, I guess it just kind of grabbed me, the importance getting in the game and doing what it takes to succeed. It didn’t matter if it was an individual or a Billion dollar company. The power to win the game we all play is in simply prospecting for more opportunity.

The term is “Toxic Marketing”

Well perhaps not as fast moving as Ebola but certainly as deadly to our profession and more than certainly as deadly to people who sell with integrity.

The definition of Toxic Marketing would be any kind of marketing that attempts to “pitch” a product or service for revenue, with no regard for how many potential customers it loses or turns off. Simple examples are bank clerks who “offer” additional programs or services from the bank or wait staff who “upsell” desserts or fancy drinks. More egregious versions include irritating television lawyers pandering to accident victims as if they had won the lottery or religious zealots knocking on the door way too early on Saturday morning.

The distinct hallmark of Toxic Marketing is that it is common to organizations and sales people that have no regard for their customer base and the toxicity level is in direct proportion to the un-avoidance and the incapacity to say ‘thanks but no thanks” to the marketer. This is the spawning of social marketing and social sales with its own rules of cultural behavior requiring more value than marketing to be successful.

Certainly a fair argument can be made that a waiter offering dessert is doing his duty and being concerned for the customers welfare, even though we know companies train that behavior for the express purpose of raising the cost of a meal, but a recording at McDonald’s that ostensibly greets you at the drive through and “suggests” your order for you is a thinly veiled intrusion attempting to wrest control of your order from you in favor of taking more of your money than you had intended. Multiplied by the thousands of people who drive through, it can result in significant earnings to those who bite.

The problem for these marketers is that they can easily measure how much gain they have received from these efforts but have no way of knowing how many people are irritated to the point of not returning. How many people have they poisoned rather than gaining trust and credibility as a provider or vendor to the customer? That is what makes it toxic. That is what destroys our capacity as companies or sales professionals to do our job as effectively as possible. The toxic marketers have already destroyed our capacity to be trustworthy providers

I was on a plane recently, sitting next to a guy who had been in sales as long as I have though he was happy to remain a field guy. Unfortunately, his company was “promoting” him to a manager. He was going reluctantly but was uncertain how best to be a manager. When he found out what I do he asked my advice. I had to think about that a bit, and then I remembered one of my 30 second intros. I told him to get a book on Dog Training and pretend it referred to his salespeople. He loved the notion, got the point and I am anxiously awaiting the results.

Have you ever taken a dog to obedience school? I’ll let you in on a secret: Dog Obedience School isn’t for the dog; it’s for the owner. My work is pretty much the same thing, you can call me a sales obedience school.

It always gets a chuckle (albeit sometimes just a polite one). It always gets knowing nod because they understand that as salespeople, they will almost always do what they are asked on behalf of the company.

Unfortunately, often companies aren’t quite sure what to ask them to do. So salespeople by default go and do what they think they should do and then hope it both works and it doesn’t get their boss mad at them.

In well run companies a sales process exists that is well known by all, flexible, customized to both the industry and the company and has legitimate milestones along the way. On the other hand, some companies believe that because they have purchased Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) that they now have a process. High producing sales professionals will complain the process slows them down and most companies, who do go to implement a process, do so often only for the capacity to generate reasonably accurate forecasts.

Companies and sales managers miss the critical values a well structured and customized sales process can be and often really don’t want to go through, or more realistically afraid of, the complaining from the existing sales force that have brought in all the revenue for the company.

I am currently in the process of implementing a company wide sales process in multiple divisions and multiple CRM databases with around 40 sales people overall. The highest producers exceed a million dollars a year in production and have ignored the CRM for the most part. The mechanics of implementation include make the CRM products look alike, getting all the sales teams to use it as similarly as possible and most importantly, encourage the use of it throughout the entire company. This is not an overnight project…

To make it work, we have implemented customized training for a hundred percent of the sales assets, we have created a milestone based process and taught that to everyone and then customized the CRM to recognize the assets and the value. We have been careful enough to create a process that recognizes both individual styles and provides flexibility for the sales rep.

Then we made it fun. We have created a game that when used correctly, rewards the sales assets for not only using the process, but frankly doing their job.

So what is the result? In the first 30 days of the process, in one division where the game is going, the people playing the game have an activity rate five times greater than people not playing the game. In this company there is a 6 month selling activity season and then a three month “harvest” or “closing” season. A five times greater activity rate at this point will result in at least a three times uptick in revenue for this group even accounting for brand new reps working alongside seasoned veterans.

Why? Because every morning the sales reps know what they have to do to “win” this day. Most are field reps, and they now know what is expected of them and more importantly, what activities will bring them the greatest success. The process tells them what to work on and what to leave alone, it tells them when to drop a non-performing sales and where to work the hardest on ones that can close. That part of the process also supports forecasting for the company, sure, but for the rep it is critical information on where to spend their time AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE for those that choose to. Guess what. All the reps choose to know how to be as productive as possible. Now they know how.

For the company, this process has created a common language for selling, a database where all customer centric activities can be found and tools to manage both remote and local sales people. It gives control of the sales effort back to the company and denies prima donnas’ from holding the company hostage by its sales effort. Embedding this process has trained the low and mid level performers on what and how to act and given high level performers the freedom to act on their own, in concert with the company.

I almost hate to say it though, the training was really never about the sales people, it was about helping the owners.

Real sales training teaches real skills.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Not a bad pledge for a sales professional either, is it?

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Don’t let them drive you.  There is a better way.

When you understand and track the leading indicators of sales you then know exactly how many of activity X it takes to produce result Y.

When you know that then you can wake up every morning knowing exactly what you have to do that day.  And the result of that is that the annual sales goal will take care of itself.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

We hear this all the time, don’t we? The problem is that we don’t do a very good job articulating benefits.  Try this exercise:

1. What you you sell?
2. What does the prospect buy?
3. When the prospect buys that, what to they get?
4. And when they get that what do they really get?

Keep asking question 4 over and over, digging a little deeper each time.  Pretty soon you’ll hit upon the real emotional benefit.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Manage Your Business Using Leading Indicators

As CEO or Business Owner, you need to understand the leading indicators of sales as well as the lagging indicators.

The lagging indicator is when the check arrives. You can’t run a business just on this lagging indicator, can you?

To effectively run your business, you must understand how to track and measure the activities it takes to make a sale. Those activities will change by sales rep, type of campaign, a number of industry specific reasons such as selling seasons etc.

SolomonRk training will give you all the tools necessary to know the what the leading indicators are. Consequently, when you are managing sales preople or reviewing mgrs reports you will know what must be done that is scalable and repeatable to make a sale.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring your First Sales Manager

Often times, a business owner will hire (or promote) a high-producing salesman into a sales management role. A good salesman is not necessarily a good sales manager. The two require very different skill sets.

If you the CEO or business owner have attended the SolomonRk training then you will understand the skills that a sales manager needs to have and consequently will be able to guide your new sales manager into the right activities to manage vs sell.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring Your First Salesman

When you hire your first salesman you are turning over responsibility for revenue generation to someone else for the first time.  It’s a hazardous transition.  If you know how to think like a salesman then you’ll be prepared to give your new salesman the tools and knowledge he needs in order to succeed:

• He needs to understand your company’s value proposition.
• He needs to know how to qualify prospects according to your criteria.
• You need to be able to collect the right metrics and know how to monitor his performance.

The SolomonRk system will give you the tools you need to effectively manage your new salesman.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

More Accurate Sales and Revenue Forcasts

In Part 2 I talked about tools to qualify prospects. If you have good tools for qualifying prospects (like our 9-element qualification model) then you can eliminate the poorly-qualified opportunities early.

More importantly, your company’s sales forecasts will be more accurate. One of the biggest problems that CEOs have is lack of good data. By qualifying opportunities you will easily learn the revenue you can actually expect in stead of the smoke and mirros that sales people and sales managers unwittingly (or wittingly) push upon you.

From the CEO’s perspective there’s probably nothing more important than being able to forcast revenue, and as a result being able to budget for future expenditures,

SolomonRk put the business owner back in control of his (or her) business.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

The CEO Needs to know How To Qualify Prospects

Portions of the SolomonRk curriculum are designed for:

• A CEO who spends part of his time as Sales Manager.
• A CEO that is also the company sales guy.
• Any CEO that needs to understand what his Sales Manager is doing.

That pretty well covers most CEOs and business owners, doesn’t it? Sales people often go elephant hunting. They often come back with what they think is a great big deal, then they camp on that deal thinking they are going to meet their sales goal on that one deal. The fail to adequately pursue other opportunities that meet their goal.

The only way you can protect yourself from the elephant hunter is to have tools to qualify prospects. By taking our SolomonRk training you will learn to use our 9-element qualification model that identifies and customizes itself to your selling environment. Then you will know if the sales guy is pursuing a real opportunity or if he is wasting time on an opportunity that will never close.

If you can eliminate the elephants your staff will save a lot of time and be able to focus on the opportunites that will actually generate revenue.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

• Prospecting with Dignity and Integrity – Before pursuing the sale, make sure you have your bases covered. You will see the importance of establishing trust, credibility and interest with your prospects, and learn the steps to building them early in the relationship. Next you will find out the ultimate value that your offering holds for prospects using a process that strengthens your relationship with them.
• Know when to hold’em and when to fold them – You don’t make a sale every time. Find out what wise sales professionals have learned for assessing the value of an encounter and understanding when to continue to pursue the sale – when to walk away, and when to run. Professionals learn to qualify early in the game using the Pain, Power, Fit model that assigns a value to the prospect. What you learn in this session will help determine where to most effectively spend your time and how to improve sales forecasting dramatically.
• What to Say – When, Where and Why – to maximize the likelihood of a sale – Master this and you can get rid of the stalls and obstacles to moving forward. Learn to present your services in a way that helps the buyer recognize the highest value you can offer. You’ll also be able to diminish the threats of competitors.

What people are saying about the SolomonRk results:

“A year ago I was the highest producer in the state. This year I’ve increased my production 300% over the same time last year thanks to SolomonRk.”

“Most of the sales training that I have taken has been all about having to do it their way and use their verbiage which is unnatural for me, and I always refused to do it. I can actually implement your process and be myself, and most of all, care about the customer throughout it all.”

Click Here to Register or for more information

Sales Training in Phoenix

At this informative and fun seminar you will learn the simple secret that successful CEOs and Sales Pros know: Sales are the direct result of a process that is scalable, repeatable, and duplicatible. You will leave this seminar knowing exactly what you have to do to make a difference in your company’s sales.

‘Making Sales Easy’ is taught by Michael Goodman, an active sales professional, trainer, speaker, and coach with over 30 years experience in the sales trenches. Michael has implemented his systematic sales framework in dozens of companies with dramatic results. Don’t miss this opportunity to put his system to work for you.

Because of the small class size, seating is limited. Sign up now.

February 23, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

March 2, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Scottsdale

March 6, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

• If you don’t have enough clients you are at the mercy of those you do have.
• You are in a stronger negotiating position if you have the power to say no which comes from another client in line.
• Strong prospecting allows you to qualify your clients more effectively
• Prospecting gives you control of your own revenue stream
• Prospecting well develops good closing skills
• You don’t have to sell a cashew to an almond eater to make your nut
• You will sleep better at night
• Your boss will respect you more.
• And many more

I was fascinated with this notion though, when I was listening to a lecture this morning and the guy referred to his out of work wife. She had worked in the Pharma world in a culture of “farmers” where accounts were nurtured. A Pharma company, made up of a culture of “Hunters” had bought them out and released all the “farmer” sales people. I remembered back to my own experience in the technology education world. When the education technology bubble burst, right along with the “Internet Bubble” the only education technology companies left standing were the ones that had a culture of hunting for new business. The ones who were great at providing the product failed and faded away.

Think of it, a single sales professional, with a habit of constant prospecting for new opportunities, multiplied across a culture, can save a mega-billion dollar company.

I don’t know, I guess it just kind of grabbed me, the importance getting in the game and doing what it takes to succeed. It didn’t matter if it was an individual or a Billion dollar company. The power to win the game we all play is in simply prospecting for more opportunity.

The term is “Toxic Marketing”

Well perhaps not as fast moving as Ebola but certainly as deadly to our profession and more than certainly as deadly to people who sell with integrity.

The definition of Toxic Marketing would be any kind of marketing that attempts to “pitch” a product or service for revenue, with no regard for how many potential customers it loses or turns off. Simple examples are bank clerks who “offer” additional programs or services from the bank or wait staff who “upsell” desserts or fancy drinks. More egregious versions include irritating television lawyers pandering to accident victims as if they had won the lottery or religious zealots knocking on the door way too early on Saturday morning.

The distinct hallmark of Toxic Marketing is that it is common to organizations and sales people that have no regard for their customer base and the toxicity level is in direct proportion to the un-avoidance and the incapacity to say ‘thanks but no thanks” to the marketer. This is the spawning of social marketing and social sales with its own rules of cultural behavior requiring more value than marketing to be successful.

Certainly a fair argument can be made that a waiter offering dessert is doing his duty and being concerned for the customers welfare, even though we know companies train that behavior for the express purpose of raising the cost of a meal, but a recording at McDonald’s that ostensibly greets you at the drive through and “suggests” your order for you is a thinly veiled intrusion attempting to wrest control of your order from you in favor of taking more of your money than you had intended. Multiplied by the thousands of people who drive through, it can result in significant earnings to those who bite.

The problem for these marketers is that they can easily measure how much gain they have received from these efforts but have no way of knowing how many people are irritated to the point of not returning. How many people have they poisoned rather than gaining trust and credibility as a provider or vendor to the customer? That is what makes it toxic. That is what destroys our capacity as companies or sales professionals to do our job as effectively as possible. The toxic marketers have already destroyed our capacity to be trustworthy providers

I was on a plane recently, sitting next to a guy who had been in sales as long as I have though he was happy to remain a field guy. Unfortunately, his company was “promoting” him to a manager. He was going reluctantly but was uncertain how best to be a manager. When he found out what I do he asked my advice. I had to think about that a bit, and then I remembered one of my 30 second intros. I told him to get a book on Dog Training and pretend it referred to his salespeople. He loved the notion, got the point and I am anxiously awaiting the results.

Have you ever taken a dog to obedience school? I’ll let you in on a secret: Dog Obedience School isn’t for the dog; it’s for the owner. My work is pretty much the same thing, you can call me a sales obedience school.

It always gets a chuckle (albeit sometimes just a polite one). It always gets knowing nod because they understand that as salespeople, they will almost always do what they are asked on behalf of the company.

Unfortunately, often companies aren’t quite sure what to ask them to do. So salespeople by default go and do what they think they should do and then hope it both works and it doesn’t get their boss mad at them.

In well run companies a sales process exists that is well known by all, flexible, customized to both the industry and the company and has legitimate milestones along the way. On the other hand, some companies believe that because they have purchased Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) that they now have a process. High producing sales professionals will complain the process slows them down and most companies, who do go to implement a process, do so often only for the capacity to generate reasonably accurate forecasts.

Companies and sales managers miss the critical values a well structured and customized sales process can be and often really don’t want to go through, or more realistically afraid of, the complaining from the existing sales force that have brought in all the revenue for the company.

I am currently in the process of implementing a company wide sales process in multiple divisions and multiple CRM databases with around 40 sales people overall. The highest producers exceed a million dollars a year in production and have ignored the CRM for the most part. The mechanics of implementation include make the CRM products look alike, getting all the sales teams to use it as similarly as possible and most importantly, encourage the use of it throughout the entire company. This is not an overnight project…

To make it work, we have implemented customized training for a hundred percent of the sales assets, we have created a milestone based process and taught that to everyone and then customized the CRM to recognize the assets and the value. We have been careful enough to create a process that recognizes both individual styles and provides flexibility for the sales rep.

Then we made it fun. We have created a game that when used correctly, rewards the sales assets for not only using the process, but frankly doing their job.

So what is the result? In the first 30 days of the process, in one division where the game is going, the people playing the game have an activity rate five times greater than people not playing the game. In this company there is a 6 month selling activity season and then a three month “harvest” or “closing” season. A five times greater activity rate at this point will result in at least a three times uptick in revenue for this group even accounting for brand new reps working alongside seasoned veterans.

Why? Because every morning the sales reps know what they have to do to “win” this day. Most are field reps, and they now know what is expected of them and more importantly, what activities will bring them the greatest success. The process tells them what to work on and what to leave alone, it tells them when to drop a non-performing sales and where to work the hardest on ones that can close. That part of the process also supports forecasting for the company, sure, but for the rep it is critical information on where to spend their time AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE for those that choose to. Guess what. All the reps choose to know how to be as productive as possible. Now they know how.

For the company, this process has created a common language for selling, a database where all customer centric activities can be found and tools to manage both remote and local sales people. It gives control of the sales effort back to the company and denies prima donnas’ from holding the company hostage by its sales effort. Embedding this process has trained the low and mid level performers on what and how to act and given high level performers the freedom to act on their own, in concert with the company.

I almost hate to say it though, the training was really never about the sales people, it was about helping the owners.

Real sales training teaches real skills.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Not a bad pledge for a sales professional either, is it?

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Don’t let them drive you.  There is a better way.

When you understand and track the leading indicators of sales you then know exactly how many of activity X it takes to produce result Y.

When you know that then you can wake up every morning knowing exactly what you have to do that day.  And the result of that is that the annual sales goal will take care of itself.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

We hear this all the time, don’t we? The problem is that we don’t do a very good job articulating benefits.  Try this exercise:

1. What you you sell?
2. What does the prospect buy?
3. When the prospect buys that, what to they get?
4. And when they get that what do they really get?

Keep asking question 4 over and over, digging a little deeper each time.  Pretty soon you’ll hit upon the real emotional benefit.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Manage Your Business Using Leading Indicators

As CEO or Business Owner, you need to understand the leading indicators of sales as well as the lagging indicators.

The lagging indicator is when the check arrives. You can’t run a business just on this lagging indicator, can you?

To effectively run your business, you must understand how to track and measure the activities it takes to make a sale. Those activities will change by sales rep, type of campaign, a number of industry specific reasons such as selling seasons etc.

SolomonRk training will give you all the tools necessary to know the what the leading indicators are. Consequently, when you are managing sales preople or reviewing mgrs reports you will know what must be done that is scalable and repeatable to make a sale.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring your First Sales Manager

Often times, a business owner will hire (or promote) a high-producing salesman into a sales management role. A good salesman is not necessarily a good sales manager. The two require very different skill sets.

If you the CEO or business owner have attended the SolomonRk training then you will understand the skills that a sales manager needs to have and consequently will be able to guide your new sales manager into the right activities to manage vs sell.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring Your First Salesman

When you hire your first salesman you are turning over responsibility for revenue generation to someone else for the first time.  It’s a hazardous transition.  If you know how to think like a salesman then you’ll be prepared to give your new salesman the tools and knowledge he needs in order to succeed:

• He needs to understand your company’s value proposition.
• He needs to know how to qualify prospects according to your criteria.
• You need to be able to collect the right metrics and know how to monitor his performance.

The SolomonRk system will give you the tools you need to effectively manage your new salesman.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

More Accurate Sales and Revenue Forcasts

In Part 2 I talked about tools to qualify prospects. If you have good tools for qualifying prospects (like our 9-element qualification model) then you can eliminate the poorly-qualified opportunities early.

More importantly, your company’s sales forecasts will be more accurate. One of the biggest problems that CEOs have is lack of good data. By qualifying opportunities you will easily learn the revenue you can actually expect in stead of the smoke and mirros that sales people and sales managers unwittingly (or wittingly) push upon you.

From the CEO’s perspective there’s probably nothing more important than being able to forcast revenue, and as a result being able to budget for future expenditures,

SolomonRk put the business owner back in control of his (or her) business.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

The CEO Needs to know How To Qualify Prospects

Portions of the SolomonRk curriculum are designed for:

• A CEO who spends part of his time as Sales Manager.
• A CEO that is also the company sales guy.
• Any CEO that needs to understand what his Sales Manager is doing.

That pretty well covers most CEOs and business owners, doesn’t it? Sales people often go elephant hunting. They often come back with what they think is a great big deal, then they camp on that deal thinking they are going to meet their sales goal on that one deal. The fail to adequately pursue other opportunities that meet their goal.

The only way you can protect yourself from the elephant hunter is to have tools to qualify prospects. By taking our SolomonRk training you will learn to use our 9-element qualification model that identifies and customizes itself to your selling environment. Then you will know if the sales guy is pursuing a real opportunity or if he is wasting time on an opportunity that will never close.

If you can eliminate the elephants your staff will save a lot of time and be able to focus on the opportunites that will actually generate revenue.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

• Prospecting with Dignity and Integrity – Before pursuing the sale, make sure you have your bases covered. You will see the importance of establishing trust, credibility and interest with your prospects, and learn the steps to building them early in the relationship. Next you will find out the ultimate value that your offering holds for prospects using a process that strengthens your relationship with them.
• Know when to hold’em and when to fold them – You don’t make a sale every time. Find out what wise sales professionals have learned for assessing the value of an encounter and understanding when to continue to pursue the sale – when to walk away, and when to run. Professionals learn to qualify early in the game using the Pain, Power, Fit model that assigns a value to the prospect. What you learn in this session will help determine where to most effectively spend your time and how to improve sales forecasting dramatically.
• What to Say – When, Where and Why – to maximize the likelihood of a sale – Master this and you can get rid of the stalls and obstacles to moving forward. Learn to present your services in a way that helps the buyer recognize the highest value you can offer. You’ll also be able to diminish the threats of competitors.

What people are saying about the SolomonRk results:

“A year ago I was the highest producer in the state. This year I’ve increased my production 300% over the same time last year thanks to SolomonRk.”

“Most of the sales training that I have taken has been all about having to do it their way and use their verbiage which is unnatural for me, and I always refused to do it. I can actually implement your process and be myself, and most of all, care about the customer throughout it all.”

Click Here to Register or for more information

Sales Training in Phoenix

At this informative and fun seminar you will learn the simple secret that successful CEOs and Sales Pros know: Sales are the direct result of a process that is scalable, repeatable, and duplicatible. You will leave this seminar knowing exactly what you have to do to make a difference in your company’s sales.

‘Making Sales Easy’ is taught by Michael Goodman, an active sales professional, trainer, speaker, and coach with over 30 years experience in the sales trenches. Michael has implemented his systematic sales framework in dozens of companies with dramatic results. Don’t miss this opportunity to put his system to work for you.

Because of the small class size, seating is limited. Sign up now.

February 23, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

March 2, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Scottsdale

March 6, 2010 – Making Sales Easy – Tempe

• If you don’t have enough clients you are at the mercy of those you do have.
• You are in a stronger negotiating position if you have the power to say no which comes from another client in line.
• Strong prospecting allows you to qualify your clients more effectively
• Prospecting gives you control of your own revenue stream
• Prospecting well develops good closing skills
• You don’t have to sell a cashew to an almond eater to make your nut
• You will sleep better at night
• Your boss will respect you more.
• And many more

I was fascinated with this notion though, when I was listening to a lecture this morning and the guy referred to his out of work wife. She had worked in the Pharma world in a culture of “farmers” where accounts were nurtured. A Pharma company, made up of a culture of “Hunters” had bought them out and released all the “farmer” sales people. I remembered back to my own experience in the technology education world. When the education technology bubble burst, right along with the “Internet Bubble” the only education technology companies left standing were the ones that had a culture of hunting for new business. The ones who were great at providing the product failed and faded away.

Think of it, a single sales professional, with a habit of constant prospecting for new opportunities, multiplied across a culture, can save a mega-billion dollar company.

I don’t know, I guess it just kind of grabbed me, the importance getting in the game and doing what it takes to succeed. It didn’t matter if it was an individual or a Billion dollar company. The power to win the game we all play is in simply prospecting for more opportunity.

The term is “Toxic Marketing”

Well perhaps not as fast moving as Ebola but certainly as deadly to our profession and more than certainly as deadly to people who sell with integrity.

The definition of Toxic Marketing would be any kind of marketing that attempts to “pitch” a product or service for revenue, with no regard for how many potential customers it loses or turns off. Simple examples are bank clerks who “offer” additional programs or services from the bank or wait staff who “upsell” desserts or fancy drinks. More egregious versions include irritating television lawyers pandering to accident victims as if they had won the lottery or religious zealots knocking on the door way too early on Saturday morning.

The distinct hallmark of Toxic Marketing is that it is common to organizations and sales people that have no regard for their customer base and the toxicity level is in direct proportion to the un-avoidance and the incapacity to say ‘thanks but no thanks” to the marketer. This is the spawning of social marketing and social sales with its own rules of cultural behavior requiring more value than marketing to be successful.

Certainly a fair argument can be made that a waiter offering dessert is doing his duty and being concerned for the customers welfare, even though we know companies train that behavior for the express purpose of raising the cost of a meal, but a recording at McDonald’s that ostensibly greets you at the drive through and “suggests” your order for you is a thinly veiled intrusion attempting to wrest control of your order from you in favor of taking more of your money than you had intended. Multiplied by the thousands of people who drive through, it can result in significant earnings to those who bite.

The problem for these marketers is that they can easily measure how much gain they have received from these efforts but have no way of knowing how many people are irritated to the point of not returning. How many people have they poisoned rather than gaining trust and credibility as a provider or vendor to the customer? That is what makes it toxic. That is what destroys our capacity as companies or sales professionals to do our job as effectively as possible. The toxic marketers have already destroyed our capacity to be trustworthy providers

I was on a plane recently, sitting next to a guy who had been in sales as long as I have though he was happy to remain a field guy. Unfortunately, his company was “promoting” him to a manager. He was going reluctantly but was uncertain how best to be a manager. When he found out what I do he asked my advice. I had to think about that a bit, and then I remembered one of my 30 second intros. I told him to get a book on Dog Training and pretend it referred to his salespeople. He loved the notion, got the point and I am anxiously awaiting the results.

Have you ever taken a dog to obedience school? I’ll let you in on a secret: Dog Obedience School isn’t for the dog; it’s for the owner. My work is pretty much the same thing, you can call me a sales obedience school.

It always gets a chuckle (albeit sometimes just a polite one). It always gets knowing nod because they understand that as salespeople, they will almost always do what they are asked on behalf of the company.

Unfortunately, often companies aren’t quite sure what to ask them to do. So salespeople by default go and do what they think they should do and then hope it both works and it doesn’t get their boss mad at them.

In well run companies a sales process exists that is well known by all, flexible, customized to both the industry and the company and has legitimate milestones along the way. On the other hand, some companies believe that because they have purchased Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) that they now have a process. High producing sales professionals will complain the process slows them down and most companies, who do go to implement a process, do so often only for the capacity to generate reasonably accurate forecasts.

Companies and sales managers miss the critical values a well structured and customized sales process can be and often really don’t want to go through, or more realistically afraid of, the complaining from the existing sales force that have brought in all the revenue for the company.

I am currently in the process of implementing a company wide sales process in multiple divisions and multiple CRM databases with around 40 sales people overall. The highest producers exceed a million dollars a year in production and have ignored the CRM for the most part. The mechanics of implementation include make the CRM products look alike, getting all the sales teams to use it as similarly as possible and most importantly, encourage the use of it throughout the entire company. This is not an overnight project…

To make it work, we have implemented customized training for a hundred percent of the sales assets, we have created a milestone based process and taught that to everyone and then customized the CRM to recognize the assets and the value. We have been careful enough to create a process that recognizes both individual styles and provides flexibility for the sales rep.

Then we made it fun. We have created a game that when used correctly, rewards the sales assets for not only using the process, but frankly doing their job.

So what is the result? In the first 30 days of the process, in one division where the game is going, the people playing the game have an activity rate five times greater than people not playing the game. In this company there is a 6 month selling activity season and then a three month “harvest” or “closing” season. A five times greater activity rate at this point will result in at least a three times uptick in revenue for this group even accounting for brand new reps working alongside seasoned veterans.

Why? Because every morning the sales reps know what they have to do to “win” this day. Most are field reps, and they now know what is expected of them and more importantly, what activities will bring them the greatest success. The process tells them what to work on and what to leave alone, it tells them when to drop a non-performing sales and where to work the hardest on ones that can close. That part of the process also supports forecasting for the company, sure, but for the rep it is critical information on where to spend their time AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE for those that choose to. Guess what. All the reps choose to know how to be as productive as possible. Now they know how.

For the company, this process has created a common language for selling, a database where all customer centric activities can be found and tools to manage both remote and local sales people. It gives control of the sales effort back to the company and denies prima donnas’ from holding the company hostage by its sales effort. Embedding this process has trained the low and mid level performers on what and how to act and given high level performers the freedom to act on their own, in concert with the company.

I almost hate to say it though, the training was really never about the sales people, it was about helping the owners.

Real sales training teaches real skills.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

Not a bad pledge for a sales professional either, is it?

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Don’t let them drive you.  There is a better way.

When you understand and track the leading indicators of sales you then know exactly how many of activity X it takes to produce result Y.

When you know that then you can wake up every morning knowing exactly what you have to do that day.  And the result of that is that the annual sales goal will take care of itself.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

We hear this all the time, don’t we? The problem is that we don’t do a very good job articulating benefits.  Try this exercise:

1. What you you sell?
2. What does the prospect buy?
3. When the prospect buys that, what to they get?
4. And when they get that what do they really get?

Keep asking question 4 over and over, digging a little deeper each time.  Pretty soon you’ll hit upon the real emotional benefit.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Manage Your Business Using Leading Indicators

As CEO or Business Owner, you need to understand the leading indicators of sales as well as the lagging indicators.

The lagging indicator is when the check arrives. You can’t run a business just on this lagging indicator, can you?

To effectively run your business, you must understand how to track and measure the activities it takes to make a sale. Those activities will change by sales rep, type of campaign, a number of industry specific reasons such as selling seasons etc.

SolomonRk training will give you all the tools necessary to know the what the leading indicators are. Consequently, when you are managing sales preople or reviewing mgrs reports you will know what must be done that is scalable and repeatable to make a sale.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring your First Sales Manager

Often times, a business owner will hire (or promote) a high-producing salesman into a sales management role. A good salesman is not necessarily a good sales manager. The two require very different skill sets.

If you the CEO or business owner have attended the SolomonRk training then you will understand the skills that a sales manager needs to have and consequently will be able to guide your new sales manager into the right activities to manage vs sell.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

Hiring Your First Salesman

When you hire your first salesman you are turning over responsibility for revenue generation to someone else for the first time.  It’s a hazardous transition.  If you know how to think like a salesman then you’ll be prepared to give your new salesman the tools and knowledge he needs in order to succeed:

• He needs to understand your company’s value proposition.
• He needs to know how to qualify prospects according to your criteria.
• You need to be able to collect the right metrics and know how to monitor his performance.

The SolomonRk system will give you the tools you need to effectively manage your new salesman.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

More Accurate Sales and Revenue Forcasts

In Part 2 I talked about tools to qualify prospects. If you have good tools for qualifying prospects (like our 9-element qualification model) then you can eliminate the poorly-qualified opportunities early.

More importantly, your company’s sales forecasts will be more accurate. One of the biggest problems that CEOs have is lack of good data. By qualifying opportunities you will easily learn the revenue you can actually expect in stead of the smoke and mirros that sales people and sales managers unwittingly (or wittingly) push upon you.

From the CEO’s perspective there’s probably nothing more important than being able to forcast revenue, and as a result being able to budget for future expenditures,

SolomonRk put the business owner back in control of his (or her) business.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.

The CEO Needs to know How To Qualify Prospects

Portions of the SolomonRk curriculum are designed for:

• A CEO who spends part of his time as Sales Manager.
• A CEO that is also the company sales guy.
• Any CEO that needs to understand what his Sales Manager is doing.

That pretty well covers most CEOs and business owners, doesn’t it? Sales people often go elephant hunting. They often come back with what they think is a great big deal, then they camp on that deal thinking they are going to meet their sales goal on that one deal. The fail to adequately pursue other opportunities that meet their goal.

The only way you can protect yourself from the elephant hunter is to have tools to qualify prospects. By taking our SolomonRk training you will learn to use our 9-element qualification model that identifies and customizes itself to your selling environment. Then you will know if the sales guy is pursuing a real opportunity or if he is wasting time on an opportunity that will never close.

If you can eliminate the elephants your staff will save a lot of time and be able to focus on the opportunites that will actually generate revenue.

Michael D Goodman is the founder and CEO of Revenue Kinetics and the author of SolomonRK, a unique system for training sales professionals, business owners, and CEOs. SolomonRk is a whole company solution to revenue and teaches you how to create a revenue-producing mid-level pipeline in 90 days in any selling environment. SolomonRk is currently available as sales training in Phoenix Arizona.