Sales Training, Telephone Training, Sales Management

Building a Sales Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 15:21:00 +0000

Don't Sell the Benefits Final Cut

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 22:08:00 +0000

Sales Consultancy - Sales Training - Salesxcellence

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:52:00 +0000

Sales Consultancy - Sales Training - Salesxcellence

Are You Managing Your Key Accounts - Sales Training

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:21:00 +0000

By Colly Graham of salesxcellence
www.salesxcellence.co.uk

“Key Account Management is the process of maximising the return on your investment in a customer by defining and actioning appropriate plans that will enable you to build on the present, to manage the future” (Peter Cheverton)

Key account management is one of the most important changes in selling that has emerged during the past two decades. Key Account Management (KAM) is an organisational process used by business-to-business suppliers to manage their relationships with strategically-important customers, and it producing measurable business benefits.

Business theories based on Pareto’s law tell us 20% of customers generally produce 80% of revenues, so losing such key accounts is expensive and damaging to the bottom line. Proper key account management maximises the chance of keeping these key accounts. Research shows that structured and resourced account strategies and plans deliver consistently higher revenues and margins, lead to higher customer satisfaction levels and hence to lower customer attrition rates.

Key account management helps companies gain the status of strategic rather than commodity supplier to their major customers, guarding margins and improving security of retention. Retaining 5% more customers boosts profits between 25% and 85%. Key Account Management is a strategic planning approach that goes beyond traditional selling to tackle today's customer issues. It reaches inside both seller and buyer organisations.

The top 10% of customers by revenue will be regularly running at a loss due to the increasing level of support they require and because 4 out of 10 firms cannot track profitability accurately. Key account management concentrates on how to develop profitable customers.

A focused approach to key account management dramatically increases both opportunity costs and direct costs of sale and leads to a major fall in the win ratio. A fundamental part of good key account management is a structured and prioritised qualification and bid process.

Have you identified who your key accounts are? Management often fall into the trap of identifying their top 20% accounts by revenue as opposed to profit.

Who are the top 20% key accounts by profitability?

How attractive are these accounts by size, growth potential, financial stability?

What is the closeness of existing relationship?

Do they value your offer and is it relevant to their needs

Having decided who you key accounts are you need to farm the accounts to grow their potential. You may be familiar with the terms hunter and farmer salespeople. The hunter type salesperson is like the woolly mammoth hunters who hunter is responsible for killing fresh meat and bringing it back to the tribe. The hunter sales person makes one off sales, brings it back to the office and goes off hunting again.

The hunter requires aggressiveness, confidence, and the capacity to make an impressive impact. Once the hunter has initiated the first piece of business a different set of skills is required, they are those of the farmer.

Some of your existing accounts require as much active selling as the new business to develop and grow the business within that account. Many sales people wrongfully assume that there is more business to be had from new rather than existing customers. Value-creating businesses recognise that the bulk of their present and future revenues come from the accounts you already have.

The skills of the farmer are not all that far removed from the hunter, they both require equal skills in questioning and problem solving. With the farmer concept, you look upon your accounts the way a farmer would look at his land. The farmer cultivates, prepares, plants, seeds, waters, fertilises, weeds, protects, grows, develops crops, harvests and then starts the cycle all over again.

Key Account Management provides an opportunity to grow your business financially and exponentially through developing and adding value to your key account customers. Specifically, you have discovered that if you can maintain your current customer retention levels and provide additional, value added services to this customer base, you will achieve some important objectives.

First, you will be able to increase revenue levels and subsequently bottom line profits by having existing customers introduce more product lines. Moreover, you will increase your competitiveness in the market place that they are the preferred supplier in their sector by gaining the competitive advantage.

Second, you will have the opportunity to gain a larger share of your key customers’ wallet. This will also cement the relationship with the customer ensuring long-term retention of their business.

Third, assist and train the key account managers, the farmers, to measure the potential of the key accounts to yield growth in your organisation’s overall profit.

The question now is “how will you grow your key accounts?”

Is Your Sales and Marketing Aligned?

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:37:00 +0000

By Colly Graham, www.salesxcellence.co.uk

A hundred years ago the term marketing was unfamiliar. Sales was the only game in town and it incorporated everything we now call marketing. The Chartered Institute of Marketing was originally called The Incorporated Sales Managers’ Association. Marketing as a discipline has its roots in sales. Over time, with the new science of marketing, sales and marketing became estranged.

Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy said in a Harvard whitepaper entitled ‘Ending the War Between Marketing and Sales,’ “Salespeople accuse marketers of being out of touch with what customers really want or setting prices too high. Marketers insist that salespeople focus too myopically on individual customers and short-term sales at the expense of longer-term profits. Result? Poor coordination between the two teams – which only raises market-entry costs, lengthens sales cycles, and increases cost of sales”.

In changing times it is forecasted that in ten years from now there will be no such thing as separate marketing and sales departments. There will be one team comprising two interdependent disciplines. However, when we look at our local business schools, do we see a mention of ‘Sales’ on the curriculum?

When you bring sales and marketing together your company will experience rapid improvement in sales productivity. The quantity and quality of leads improve, sales cycles grow shorter and conversion rates increase. Your business will grow faster and generate more profit.

The abundance of web content, white papers, brochures and other marketing collateral effectively document product features. However, it fails
to provide sales professionals with the words and concepts needed to:

· Identify customer goals or problems.

· Link your product or service to the capability to solve their problems and achieve their goals

· Help customers envision how they would use those capabilities to
achieve their goals and solve their problems.

From the perspective of the sales force, one major problem is that most marketing materials stress functions, features, and benefits, things that say what the product will do for the prospective customer. Typical materials include claims that a product or service will reduce expenses, save time or improve productivity.

By leading with features, functions and benefits on a sales call, the sales professional leaves it to the customer to envision how to use the product or service. That's a leap that many customers cannot or will not make on their own.

While prospective customers certainly need to understand features and benefits, the fundamental questions leading to closing a sale relate to how the product or service will help prospects:-

• Achieve a goal.

• Solve a problem.

• Satisfy a need.

How can marketing create sales-ready messaging which the sales team can use to help prospective customers build a vision and shorten sales cycles and close more sales?

These are the steps you can take to achieve this:

· Study the potential buyer's roles and goals. Identify the decision maker in the target company who have the power to buy, fund and implement the seller's offering.

· Determine each of these executives' business goals and objectives within the organisation. What are their missions? What are the obstacles to achieving those goals?

· Consider how your company's products or services can help each customer achieve the goal, solve the problem or satisfy the need.

· Develop a set of targeted questions that will lead the prospect through the process of identifying one or more goals, problems or needs.

· Develop various scenarios that will help sales people guide the prospects to an understanding of how they or others within the company can use your product or service to satisfy that problem or need.

· Carry the message throughout the marketing mix, from the company Web site through brochures, sales sheets, and media relations.

By following this process, marketing can give sales professionals the tools they need to influence and steer sales calls to their advantage.

Our experience shows that companies who arm their sales people with sales-ready messaging have been able to shorten sales cycles, accelerate revenues and improve the profitability of each sale.

Colly Graham, www.salesxcellence.co.uk

Nine Hidden Buyer Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:53:00 +0000

Do you need to build a telesales script or a sales presentation? Here is an easy to follow plan to build your script or a presentation; take time to answer the following nine hidden buyer questions. I call them the nine hidden buyer questions because these are the questions your prospective customers may not ask but do need answered to make a positive decision.

Nine Hidden Buyer Questions: -

1. Why should I take your call you?

2. Why should I take time to listen to you?

3. What’s my problem?

4. What benefits have you to offer my business?

5. How will you support these benefits?

6. Why should I trust you?

7. Why should I trust your company?

8. Why should I make a decision to proceed?

9. Why should I proceed today?

Write out your answers to the nine buyer questions, you will discover it will keep your presentation focused and on track.

Article By Colly Graham Salesxcellence a division of Graham Associates Sales Training and Development

www.salesxcellence.co.uk

The Changing Role of Selling

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Back in the myths of time people bartered and exchanged goods and services. The word “selling” comes from Middle English sellen, from Old English sellan, to give, sell. The word “sales” come from Middle English, from Old English sala, from Old Norse. In the 1930’s the National Cash Register Company (NCR) with the growing need for cash registers had someone write a script for their salesmen. From this early script came the development of an early sales strategy. This same strategy has been used for some sixty plus years and is known as AIDA

Attention – do whatever it takes to get the buyer to listen

Interest – get the buyer interested in what you are selling

Desire – create a desire within the customer to own the product
Action – get the buyer to take action – close the sale

This model is still largely taught to students of marketing however it is no longer effective in to-day’s business world of the complex sale. Buyers’ to-day enjoy a multiple choice, they have expertise, they compare, they are trained negotiators and they demand professionalism and satisfaction. People love to buy but they hate to be sold, they want to be in control. Most customers work under the premise with sales people “you are guilty till proven innocent”

COMMON PROBLEMS OF THE COMPLEX SALE

Problem 1 - POOR QUALIFYING
"Customers smile and say all the right things. Then when I try to close the sale, they pull the rug out from under me. I feel used and strung along. But what really hurts is that I should have seen it coming." We need to acquire the skill to qualify our customers before valuable time is wasted. Know what to ask to determine a customer's sincerity. Discover a system to reach the decision maker from the start every time. Become a Doctor and Do a House Call
Often poor qualifying is the reason many sales fail. You need to act like a doctor and do a house call.

a) Discover.
You set the stage for a compelling engagement and a continuing relationship based on trust and respect. You push beyond the traditional boundaries of prospecting to create a solid foundation on which to build a long-term, profitable relationship.a)

b) Diagnose.
Understand the customer’s problem as it relates to your solution. You maximise the customer's objective awareness of their dissatisfaction, whether or not that dissatisfaction supports your company's offerings. You assist the customer in understanding their situation and, as a result, reinforce your credibility by refusing to alter the customer's reality to fit your needs.

Problem 2 - PROSPECTS WON'T OPEN UP
I know I'm dealing with qualified prospects, but they won't open up and give me the information I need to help them." Become a Valued Resource and a Trusted Advisor. Here's the truth: In the minds of customers, salespeople are guilty until proven innocent. Discover the subtle behaviours that may harm your credibility and keep you in the dark. Set yourself apart from 90% of salespeople who reinforce the negative stereotype. Allow your customer to feel safe. How do you make your customers' lives better, easier, safer, more productive...? That's what will get your prospect's attention and that's what will enable you to have a good conversation. Discover how to establish trusting relationships that will provide an unrestricted flow of vital information.

Problem 3 - WEAK TEAM SELLING
All too often, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. We need to ensure our marketing is aligned with sales. Does marketing understand the ideal customer, do they understand the customers problems. Learn to use your internal people as a powerful support for your sales effort. Know how to judge when to bring in support people and when not to.

Problem 4 - PRICING PRESSURE
"Even though we provide a highly-technical and complex solution, we find our prospects and even our most knowledgeable customers are forcing us to compete as a commodity with severe pricing pressures and relentless negotiating." I keep hearing, "your price is too high” The answer is: focus on your value. If the value is worth it to the customer they will pay for it.

We need therefore to develop the knowledge and skill to effectively negotiate the complex sale.

Making the Complex Sale

Focusing on a total understanding of critical business issues faced by customers.

Demonstrate you capability of solving their business problems with your solution.
Develop potential value to be gained by your customers.

Understanding these three major issues in the complex sales will help you close more sales.

Five Steps to Elicit Outcomes

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:38:00 +0000

By asking the right questions, you can learn how to elicit the outcomes or results the customers are seeking. The previous exercise told us how they bought in the past; this exercise will help us discover how they will buy in the future.
When your customers are thinking about buying something, they try to imagine themselves with your product or service in the future. They image the possible outcomes or results of using the product or service.

These images are influenced by past experiences customers have had with similar products or services. They are also influenced by the present - what they want and think their needs are.

By asking the right questions, you can learn how to elicit the outcomes or results the customers are seeking. The previous exercise told us how they bought in the past; this exercise will help us discover how they will buy in the future.

1. Reveal You Own Interest
You are really saying to your customer "I am here to find the best solution to your needs. If I can do that for you, then we can do business and that is what I want to do" Revealing your interest will allay feelings of suspicion. In a controlled test Robert Cialdini in his book on influencing, reveals when giving someone valid reason for doing something then they become more willing to listen and be empathetic.

2. Find Out What Your Customer Wants and Needs
There is an old sales adage which says
"Give them what they want first, then sell them later"
We need to be able to distinguish between wants and needs.
Wants help customers achieve their goals, why they are willing to listen to you and talk to you about your product or service. They some idea of what it is they want to buy. However what your customers want is not necessarily what they need.

3. Translating Needs into Benefits
People have wants and needs.
Products have features and benefits.
The word benefit comes from two French words; bein or bon meaning well or good, and fit from faire or fait meaning to do or to make, so a benefit is what does your product or service do that will fit well or do a good job for your prospect, how well will your product/service fit your prospects needs.

Another way to view the benefit of the product is to see how the product solves a problem the customer may have, and the customer will make a gain or avoid a loss. The need is the perceived value in the prospects eyes so you need to present the benefits of your products that will match the perceived values of your customers, how can you find the perceived value, by asking questions, features support the benefits.

4. Instant Replay
As we have already discussed people like to buy the way they have bought in the past. Return to the answers we came up with on the exercise we did on eliciting the decision making strategy, and we will add one more question:
"Just suppose, you were to do this all over again, what would you change in this product/service?

When putting your strategy together you need to present it to fit the customers buying strategy.

5. As If
As if and Just Suppose!
This is useful when you are dealing with customers who have never bought your product or service before. You elicit their buying strategy by focussing on what results they want to receive in the future.

"Just suppose you were to go ahead with Your company on this project, what would need to happen to let you know that you had made the right decision?"

The answer will tell you what your customer will hope to have achieved from Your company and must form the basis of focus for your proposal.

Colly Graham

www.salesxcellence.co.uk

Ten Mistakes Made on the Telephone

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:24:00 +0000

Ten Mistakes Made on the Telephone Part One

Ten Mistakes Made on the Telephone Part Two

Colly Graham
www.salesxcellence.co.uk

Become a Doctor and Do a House Call

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:42:00 +0000

Often poor qualifying is the reason many sales fail. You need to act like a doctor and do a house call.

Discover.
You set the stage for a compelling engagement and a continuing relationship based on trust and respect. You push beyond the traditional boundaries of prospecting to create a solid foundation on which to build a long-term, profitable relationship.

Diagnose.
You maximise the customer's objective awareness of their dissatisfaction, whether or not that dissatisfaction supports your company's offerings. You assist the customer in understanding their situation and, as a result, reinforce your credibility by refusing to alter the customer's reality to fit your needs.
Design.
This is where you help the customer create and understand the solution. It is a collaborative and highly interactive effort to help the customer sort through their expectations and alternatives to arrive at the optimal solution.
Deliver. You begin with the preparation and presentation of a formal proposal, and the customer formally accepts your solution. Next is the implementation and support of the solution and the measurement and evaluation of results. Finally, the Deliver phase includes the maintenance and growth of the sales team's relationship with the customer

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/salesxcellence-newsletter.html?soid=1011134954244&aid=4ZuV7rRU1SQ

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:18:00 +0000

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/salesxcellence-newsletter.html?soid=1011134954244&aid=4ZuV7rRU1SQ

Sales Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:11:00 +0000

Vision without execution is hallucination – Thomas Edison

Sales Managers are prone to ask two questions of their sales team:-
How much? and By when?
I have jokingly made the remark in the past that is all that a sales manager needs to manage his sales team. Fortunately there is more to motivating, coaching and leading a sales team than these two questions. These two questions pre-suppose that the only thing to focus on is closing sales.

However that is like telling a pro-golfer all he needs to do is be a good putter, forgetting that there is a lot of work to be done before getting to the green. Driving off the tee up the fairway, avoiding the bunkers and getting on the green. So in sales it is a series of steps and agreements throughout the sales process.

The steps may look like this:
Initial Engagement
Qualification
Identifying Needs
Specifying the Solution
The Proposal
Commitment (the close)
Follow Through

Most sales are lost because one or more of the steps in the process are overlooked without any agreement before moving to the next step.

Each step needs to built on a firm foundation before moving to the next step. And each step requires a certain skills set of communication to enable the sales professional achieve a commitment and a series of agreements which will allow him to move the sales successfully forward.

In future blogs we will discuss each step in depth, in the meantime visit our workshops on Sales Solutions

Colly Graham
salesxcellence

The Role Of The Sales Manager

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:05:00 +0000

The Role Of The Sales Manager

Sales Call Objectives

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:06:00 +0000

Imagine you are working with your sales manager and as you recap the daily schedule for him, he asks one or more of these questions.

What’s the purpose of the sales call?
What do you want to accomplish here today?
Why are we making this call?
What’s the reason for the call?
What are the primary sales objectives for this call?

How would you respond?

To make a sale
Introduce a product
To demonstrate a product
To do a review
To find out about the customer’s needs

Or would you respond with very specific sales call objectives that are so specific and clearly defined?

There are several key advantages to preparing specific sales call objectives for every sales call. But first, when should you plan these objectives?

The best planners always try to set aside the same time each day to map out their objectives and strategies.

You may want to devote fifteen minutes at the end of each day preparing the objectives for the next day. Some sales people prefer to do it the evening before, and still others like to do it early in the morning.

How specific should you be when planning your sales call objectives? Consider this: how specific would you want to be if you knew there was a very high correlation between specific objectives and desired results.

When you plan exactly what you want to achieve during the sales call, you become incredibly focused and so does the customer.

Here are five reasons why you should spend at least fifteen minutes every day planning specific sales call objectives.

1. You’ll achieve "definition of purpose."
2. The objective will direct and guide the call.
3. The customer will know why you’re there.
4. Your focused efforts will save wasted time.
5. You’ll be able to measure results on every call.

Your sales objectives are clearly defined by where you are on the sales process. Knowing where you are on the sales process you ask yourself the simple question:

“What do I need to do to move this sale forward?”

Your answer will define your call objectives.

Colly Graham

Visit salesxcellence

Sales Solution Workshop

Setting Call Objectives

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:34:00 +0000

Imagine you are working with your sales manager and as you recap the daily schedule for him, he asks one or more of these questions.

What’s the purpose of the sales call?
What do you want to accomplish here today?
Why are we making this call?
What’s the reason for the call?
What are the primary sales objectives for this call?

How would you respond?

To make a sale
Introduce a product
To demonstrate a product
To do a review
To find out about the customer’s needs

Cold Calling - Making Effective Appointments

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:10:00 +0000

Six Basic Elements in Making the Appointment
1. Get the customer’s attention
2. Identify yourself and the company
3. Give the reason for your call
4. Make a value/qualifying/question statement
5. Open the discussion
6. Ask the Hard Question

1. Get the customer’s attention

When you phone someone no matter what you say you are going to get a response - and the better you get at the opening the better response you get from your prospect.

People Respond in Kind Ask a stupid question and you will get a stupid answer.
“Would you be interested in me coming to see you…”
“NO”
End of conversation!

“How is your stock of…”
“Fine,
OK”
End of conversation!

The Best Way To Get Someone’s Attention

Most sales people think they need something unique to grab a customer’s attention. Such as,
“If I could show you a way in which you could………………would you be interested?”
That builds mistrust and makes your job harder.

The easiest and simplest way of opening a call and getting the customer’s attention is by saying his or her name.

“Good morning, Mr Smith?”
“Good morning, John?”
When someone calls your name you respond.
So the first way to get someone’s attention is to say:
“Good morning, Mr Smith?”

When you analyse a call the key points to focus on are the response and the turnaround.
How well can you handle a response?
How well can you turn that response round?”
People worry about how they are going to open the call, no matter what you say you are going to get a response.
People will respond positively to a positive sounding call.

If you speak politely and intelligently to people they will respond politely and intelligently to you. There will be a response.

2. Identify yourself and the company
If I called you up and simply said:

“Good morning, Mr Smith this is Colly Graham from salesxcellence”

You wouldn’t know who Colly Graham or what salesxcellence was – I wouldn’t get the kind of response I wanted. I need to go further and build a brief introduction, a radio commercial.

I might say: “Good morning, Mr Smith this is Colly Graham from Salesxcellence, we are a leading sales training company and we help companies like yours grow their sales”
Now they know who I am, Colly Graham
The company I am from salesxcellence
What we are a leading sales training company
What do we do? We help companies like yours grow their sales
And what type of companies we do it for companies like yours

Put it all together:

Who are you? ____________________________

The Name of your company ____________________________

What we are and what we do ____________________________

Opening Value Statement ____________________________

The type of companies we do it for ____________________________

3. Give the reason for your call

Simply say “The reason I am calling is to make an appointment to come along and let you see, hear and get a feel for how we have helped ___________________ like (name a company similar to the one you’re speaking with). However before we do that do you mind if I ask you a few questions to establish if what we do might be of value to me and you?”

Note “to me and you”

4. Make a qualifying/question statement

Now we need to add a question that will allow the customer to respond.
And the question we ask has to be based on our reason for calling.
It needs to follow easily and logically from the statement above and make sure that you start with their name again.
What are the top three difficulties that are experienced by your prospects?
1. _______________________________________________
2. _______________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________

“(Their name), in dealing with people/companies like yourself we often hear that the top three difficulties they experience are (list the top three difficulties) now I can’t presume that this is your experience, however I would like the opportunity to come along and discuss our approach.”

Pause and wait for his reply, whatever the reply this leads you to open the sale.

5. Open the discussion

This is your opportunity now to start asking questions.
Agree to discuss - free to talk now – or make a phone appointment
Gather Information
1. What have you done in the past?
2. What are you doing now?
3. What will you do in the future?

Discover the customer’s decision-making patterns

6. Ask the Hard Question

“Mr Decision-Maker, what would we need to do to allow us to meet?

Or

“Mr Decision-Maker, I would like to make an appointment to come along and discuss these issues and show you how we have helped people and companies like yourself, when would be a good time to do this?”
Pre-plan your call, make some notes be prepared.

Colly Graham
salesxcellence

Sales Training - Pre-empting and Reframing Objections

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:29:00 +0000

Pre-empting an objection means that you bring an objection that you expect to hear early in the sales call and then deal with the objection so it cannot be brought up again. Make sure to answer any common questions and concerns before the client can ask. By pre-empting objections before the client can raise them, you decrease resistance.

For example: Want to think about it, you might say:

“I had one client who wanted to think about it, when he was taking his time to think the opportunity had gone, you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you? ”

List the Objections you normally hear:-

How can you pre-empt these objections?

Reframing Objections

A frame provides a context or focus for your thoughts and actions.

Just as a picture frame puts borders or boundaries on what you can see in a picture, the frames of reference that you choose as a result of your beliefs about yourself and others, your perceived role in life, your perceived limitations in skills/abilities, etc. can limit what you see as possible or can open up all sorts of possibilities.

You (and if you allow them, others) are continually setting timeframes, boundaries, limits, etc. on what you can and can’t do - often without any real thought about the consequences or if the limitations are true.

Changing the frame of an experience can have a major influence on how you perceive, interpret and react to that experience.

The purpose of reframing is to help a person experience their actions, the impact of their beliefs, etc. from a different perspective (frame) and potentially be more resourceful or have more choice in how they react.

Reframing going on all around us:

Politicians are masters at reframing. It seems no matter what happens, they can put a positive spin on it for themselves or a negative spin for their opponents.
You may be frustrated at your wife for inviting the elderly gentleman next door for supper. Until she points out that if you were in his shoes, then you may find this simple act to be the highlight of your week.
Consider that old wooden table in the basement that you use as a temporary workbench for sawing wood, nailing things together, etc. Instantly, it is seen differently if someone tells you that it is a valuable antique.
Jokes are reframes - you are guided to think in one frame and then the frame (meaning or context) changes.
Fairy tales often use reframes to help children see different perspectives or the consequences of ‘crying wolf’.
An excuse is a reframe that attributes a different meaning or context to your behaviours.

Some more notable reframes are:

During the 1984 campaign, there was considerable concern about Ronald Reagan’s age. Speaking during the presidential debate with Walter Mondale, Reagan said “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.” Reagan’s age was not an issue for the remainder of the campaign!
There is a story about Thomas Watson Sr., the first President of IBM. A young worker had made a mistake that lost IBM $1 M in business. She was called in to the President’s office and as she walked in said, “Well, I guess you have called me here to fire me.” “Fire you?” Mr. Watson replied, “I just spent $1 M on your education!”
A father brought his head-strong daughter to see Milton Erickson - the famous hypnotherapist. He said to Erickson, “My daughter doesn’t listen to me or her mother. She is always expressing her own opinion.” After the father finished describing his daughter’s problem, Erickson replied, “Now isn’t it good that she will be able to stand on her own two feet when she is ready to leave home?” The father sat in stunned silence. That was the extent of the therapy -- the father now saw his daughter’s behaviour as a useful resource later in her life.

Reframing an objection is taking the objection and putting in a different context.

Let's use the price objection -is the context of the price objection - too expensive or outside the prospects budget.

Mostly the problem with price objections - they need to be pre-empted and handled at the qualification stage of the sales and then reframe should they come up when you are at the commitment (or closing stage of the sale).

Colly Graham

www.salesxcellence.com

www.salesxcellence.co.uk

Ten Mistakes Made on the Telephone Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Building Rapport

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:30:00 +0000

Being in rapport is the ability to enter someone else’s model of the world and let them know that we truly understand that model.

To be able to establish rapport is one of the most important skills a salesperson can have. It is the ability to form a powerful common human bond and develop long-term relationships with customers.

Most sales people are trained to convince, persuade and manipulate the buyer by tricks and closing techniques. That was based on the assumption that the sales person knew best, and that the buyer had made bad choices in the past and that people will only buy what they need. With that belief in mind; sales calls are easy, help the person find out what he needs, create an environment of agreement so that he feels comfortable with you, and if he needs what you’ve got and is in a position to buy it, he’ll buy it.

One of the fundamental rules of communication is that we need to operate from the customer’s map. We need to create a buying environment. A buying environment demands a comfort zone to establish trust and rapport – to create a “we space.”

What are your personal beliefs around creating a relationship?

We need to learn how to be in sync with strangers in order to feel comfortable. And rapport means being similar enough not to notice the difference. It is a highly individualised skill; different people will establish rapport with their customers in different ways. To some extent connecting is a matter of "chemistry" and chemistry is not always found between people.

If a salesperson is aware of the importance of building a bond, however, and makes an effort to do so, he or she will increase the likelihood of establishing rapport. Sincerity is the cornerstone of the salesperson's establishing a bond with the customer.

To get into rapport, we must learn to be comfortable on three levels:-

1. Physical (voice and language patterns)

2. Mental (shared interests)

3. Emotional (beliefs, values and goals)

"When people are like each other they tend to like each other"

Take any relationship between two people and you will find the first thing that created their bond was something they had in common. We create rapport by discovering things that we have in common, "mirroring". Mirroring means getting into rhythm with the person on as many levels as possible.

The Secret of Rapport – PACING
Pacing means meeting the other person where he or she is, reflecting what he or she know and assumes to be true and matching some part of their ongoing experience. We can pace a person’s mood, body language and speech patterns (including speech, tonality, volume, the words phrases and images the other person uses, pace their beliefs and opinions and pace their breathing patterns

Pacing is a way of building trust and credibility.
The degree of rapport that you establish with a customer depends on your ability to MIRROR that person. Mirroring the person in such a way that you are talking the way that they talk, sitting the way that they sit, moving in the general patterns that they are moving, breathing in the same general rhythms, and appearing to share the same values, you are establishing the basis of rapport.

Emotional Mirroring, if a person is emotionally down and you approach them with an enthusiastic, "back slapping", hail and hearty manner then rapport will not be established. The reverse is also the case, if the person is feeling on top of the world and you are obviously having a bad day, then the person will not want to be dragged down to your level of emotion. Meet the person at the emotion they are displaying. If it's frustration or anger you experience with them not at them.

Posture mirroring can be thought of as body language mirroring. Posture mirroring is certainly not "monkey see, monkey do." This would look ridiculous and insult the other person. The technique called "cross over mirroring" is very effective at developing rapport.

If your customer crosses his arms then you cross your legs. If they rest their head in their hands, then you touch your chin. If your customer’s hands are in his pockets then you should put your hands in your pockets or fold your hands in your lap. Obviously matching the other person's body language should not be overdone. Be subtle.

The tone and tempo of your voice are just another way that you can establish rapport. Tone and tempo is how you speak, not what you say but the way you say it. 38% of the impact of a message is how we say the words! It's the speed, loudness, inflection and rhythm. Each of us tends to speak at a pace that we enjoy listening. The rate of speed varies among individuals and among cultures.

Values and beliefs mirroring means that you do not step on the other person’s values and beliefs. You should avoid using the word BUT because it negates everything you said before it. e.g..” You have a lot of great books in your bookcase, but I don't see any best sellers?" The best way to establish rapport is to not take exception or be argumentative, HOWEVER or AND is a better bridge if you wish to move from one supposition to another.

Shared interest
Shared interest can be an extremely strong rapport builder. You should demonstrate to a customer, for example, that you fully understand their problem and together you will work on finding a solution. If there is something that you can relate to that you also have an interest in e.g. children, football, weather, etc.

Studies have also shown that one of the skills that highly successful people in business have is the ability to build a strong rapport base before moving into influence strategies. This is a very valuable skill in selling and the foundation of all long-term business relationships.

www.salesxcellence.co.uk

Sharpen your sales skills - Selling in a recession

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Colly Graham of Salesxcellence offers some tips on Selling in a recession

Once people believe there is going to be a recession they start to feel negative about their selling prospects.

Do you have a clearly defined Sales Strategy?

A Sales Strategy is basically a calculated and tactical plan for acquiring new business, growing existing business and making and exceeding the company sales quota. As in all good plans you need to begin with the end in mind. What is it you want to achieve - be specific? Knowing what you want to achieve will allow you to formulate the necessary steps to achieve the results you are seeking.

• How Much?
• By When?

There are four basic parts of a sales strategy:
1. New business acquisition
2. New business acquisition tactics
3. Existing business growth strategies
4. Existing business growth tactics

Four Parts of the Plan
Sales Quota: This critical element of plan sets the tempo of efforts throughout the year and provides quarterly, monthly, weekly and even daily sub-goals for you to achieve.

Sales Territory: Refers to the geographic area, list of named accounts or specific market niche you have been assigned to in which you are to sell products, services and solutions.

Strategy: The plan necessary to accomplish the company's sales' goal

Tactics: The steps necessary to carry out the plan.
Analyse your existing customers - who has not bought in the last three to six months - go after them and bring them back into the fold.

Stop being a hunter and become a farmer - look at the activities of the farmer and apply it to your accounts.

With the farmer concept, you look upon your accounts the way a farmer would look at his land. The farmer cultivates, prepares, plants, seeds, waters, fertilises, weeds, protects, grows, develops crops, harvests and then starts the cycle all over again.

1. Cultivating - learning as much about your customer as possible to discover opportunities to see what you need to plant so that you can harvest the results.
2. Preparation - putting yourself in a better position to service the customer, building your relationship to understand his business at depth, asking questions to uncover and discover further opportunities.
3. Planting - using your skills as a problem solver to offer solutions for the further problems you have uncovered within the account. Helping the customer realise that he has further problems that you can solve.
4. Seeding - demonstrating how you can solve this problem.
5. Watering and Fertilising- showing how other customers have benefited by placing further business with you
6. Weeding - keeping your competitors out of your accounts.
7. Harvesting - requires that you get further business from the existing customer - you get more sales!
8. Continuous Harvesting - requires that you maintain excellent customer relations

And finally build and strength your relationships with your customers.
Build a relationship of mutual trust and respect with clients through rapport. Protect your accounts from competitors by adding value to the relationship by identifying opportunities that have a positive impact on their business. Today's customers have become more sophisticated and demanding of higher levels of customer service than ever before. They want someone they can trust who understands their needs and wants.
Customer loyalty should be what we seek to give rather than what we seek to get.
As Zig Ziglar is famous for saying, "You can get anything you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want."

Businesses Growing Despite Recession with Sales Training

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Colly Graham, CEO of salesxcellence, with over forty years experience in sales and business start-ups, says companies who are thriving and surviving the recession are focusing on their sales strengths and deploying sales training to grow sales.

salesxcellence is experiencing an increasing demand for solution based sales training from businesses who see the recession as an opportunity to win business and grow sales.

Colly says, yes you can grow in a recession, past recessions companies who focussed on growing and strengthening their sales teams through sales management and sales training have watched their profits grow. Colly continued to say managing and focussing on your key customers in tough times is the way forward in tough times. Define where the top 20% of your profit is coming from and focus on building a closer relationship with these accounts.

Referrals from top customers will win business from your competitors start asking to be referred and give your customers referrals to help them grow.

Identify your customers pain and offer a solution to their problems. Solution based selling means working with your customers to offer a solution to their business problems. Build a relationship with your customers to understand their businesses and learn what keeps their CEO awake at night.

One of the most valuable tools in any sales programme is the ability to forge and strengthen customer relationships। The complex sale demands multiple contacts, impacts shifting sources of power and decision in your customer's organisation. It requires you to manage a multitude of details thrown at you from every direction. Today's professionals need strategic and tactical advantages to retain and win valuable customers in a market of high uncertainties and intense competition. Salesxcellence's Sales Solutions training employs the latest research and development in the field of sales communications.

Action Sales Management Coaching

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:53:00 +0000

Have your people set specific goals and connect with them regularly to maintain accountability.
Evaluate where people are at from a personal, and/or competency basis to assist you in developing them to their full potential.
Always leave people with action steps, goals and deliverables.
Use a template or formal tool for inputting, tracking progress, and generating feedback on the coaching progress.
Have a process of profiling and targeting those people who are ready to be coached now, invest coaching time with these people.
Provide quick focus sessions to problem solve and trouble shoot between regular coaching sessions.
Listen to truly understand others unique point of view.
Are you an effective listener?
¨ Facilitate the process of problem solving with your people in coaching sessions instead of just giving them the answer.
¨ Gain rapport and credibility with a wide variety of people that you coach.
Keep the conversation focused and on track.
Ask probing questions that get people communicating and sharing truth, challenges and fears that may be inhibiting them from succeeding.
Use and fully understand the applications of assessment tools and processes as a coach.
Ensure People finish a coaching session with re-energized, focused and committed consistently

Colly Graham
www.salesxcellence.co.uk/

Identifying Decision Making Strategies

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:26:00 +0000

The classic model for decision-making is as follows:

1. Analyze the problem or situation

2. Generate alternative solutions

3. Pick one of the alternatives

4. Implement the chosen alternative

5. Monitor the results of that choice

People actually make decisions on a highly individual basis. It is important to understand how people make decisions when you want to influence the decision they make. You will want to know his or her decision strategy. A decision strategy is the process a person typically goes through in making a certain kind of decision. Any given individual may have several decision-making strategies for different kinds of decisions, such a buying a car, purchasing a computer, approving budgets.

Bandler and Grindler, the founders of NLP, divided the decision strategy into three phases:

1. Motivation
In this phase a person becomes interested in considering making a decision. The person is ‘deciding to decide’

2. Decision
Once interested, the individual in this phase decides on a particular course of action (such as buying a particular car or a computer system or approving or disapproving a budget). The decision not to do something is also a decision and gives you as much useful information as the decision to go ahead with a particular course of action.

3. Verification
Here the individual verifies that his or her decision was or was not a good one. (Sometimes called ‘buyer’s remorse’)

In the Motivation stage people are only motivated to consider looking for another car when their present car starts to give trouble or some people may be motivated by impulse when they see a shiny new sports car.

In the business-to-business role people are motivated when they have a business problem that is causing enough pain to demand a solution. However the case may arise that you as a sales person needs to uncover the problem/pain to provide an opportunity to solve a problem. Or alternatively a company sees an opportunity to do something more efficiently or to grow sales for example; this again provides the motivation to look for a solution.

In the decision phase some people examine every alternative. Others need only two or three alternatives from which to choose. People use their perceptual modes, (representational systems) to make a decision. They want to see proof, hear about or have an intuitive feeling. They may be concerned how others will react to their decision and how they will be perceived for making this decision.

The verification is as equally individual. Some may experience buyer’s remorse whilst others may spend time justifying their decision. There are numerous combinations of the decision-making strategy.

1. Motivation

· What prompted you to buy your last ___________________?

· How did you decide you wanted or needed to ___________?

2. Decision

What factors went into your last decision to _____________?

When you made your last purchase of __________, what were the deciding factors in your mind?

How did you reach the decision to ___________?

What factors were most important in your decision to ______?

3. Verification

How did you feel after you decided to _________?

Visit www.salesxcellence.com

How to Handle Sales Slumps

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:42:00 +0000

HOW TO HANDLE SALES SLUMPS

Sales Manager's Workshop

A slump in sales can be caused by a single factor or a combination of factors. It can result from a recent event (such as the loss of a major account) or from faulty sales tactics (such as neglecting accounts or poor customer relations) during an extended period of time. Here are some suggestions for dealing with a sales slump:

* Review your sales call reports objectively. How many calls have you made during the past three months? What percentage of those calls was on prospects? What was your average number of calls per day?

* Review your sales volume for the same quarter. What was your average sales production per call? What percentage of your sales volume was from new accounts?

* Review your customer records. Were there any significant changes in the buying patterns of established accounts?

* Correct the faults that the review of your sales calls and sales production reveals.

* Change your sales routine. Work a part of your territory or market that you might have neglected.

* Freshen up your sales presentation. Have friends and colleagues give you their critique.

* Stay out of the office for several days, calling in from the field. Concentrate on calls to new prospects, rather than existing accounts.

Print this list out, for ready use, to deal head-on with a sales slump, as soon as it presents itself.

Source: Stephan Schiffman, "25 Sales Habits" (adapted)

The Sales Process

noreply@blogger.com (Salesxcellence) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:23:00 +0000

Join our Weekly Vlog"
What's a vlog? I hear you cry - simply a video blog"

Join our weekly video blog with sales techniques and tips to help you grow your sales.