Sales training ideas – Who do you hang out with?
This will be short because the idea is simple and yet, a lot of people miss it. You need to surround yourself with positive, upbeat people who are going places in their lives.
If you hang out with negative people, this can destroy any positive progress you would have otherwise made. Negative people will pull you down, tell you why it can’t be done, and do everything to smash your hopes and dreams.
Do you have to replace everyone immediately? No. Let people know the path you are on. Ask them if they would like to come along on the journey and become better or at least hold you accountable and support you. If they laugh and tell you you’re crazy, you may want to look for someone else to hang out with.
If the negative people are your family, make more of an effort at letting them know where you’re going and encouraging them to come along. If they continue to tell you “it can’t be done”, just accept them the way they are and try not to spend too much time with them. Be social on holidays and the like, but don’t surround yourself with these people often.
Also, if you don’t have a lot of positive people around you now, go find some. Join business groups, join groups such as Toastmasters. Volunteer. Look for good, positive, upbeat people and become friends with them.
Bottom line: The level of success of the people around you usually matches your own level of success. If you aren’t already, get around positive people who have goals and a direction in life. It will be one of the most important things you ever do.
John Chapin www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Be a contrarian.
Okay, right now the stock market is crazy, the economy is up in the air, and a lot of people are freaking out. It’s time for you to be different.
Yes it’s true that more millionaires were made per capita during the Great Depression, but guess what? They weren’t standing in soup lines and they weren’t panicking. There is an opportunity right now, perhaps a big one.
It’s time for you to remain calm, cool, and collected, and to look for the opportunities here. Low real estate prices, low stock prices, commodities cheap. Question: when do you want to buy things? At the highest price possible when things look great, or would you like to get them on sale? Well, if you answered “on sale” guess what? It’s time to get some bargains. Also, look to alternative energy and green companies. These are the ones that will be huge payoffs in 10 or 20 years.
The bottom line: Stay calm and help your clients stay calm. Look for the opportunities for both you and your customers and take advantage of them.
John Chapin www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – What do you let stop you?
This morning I woke up, looked in the mirror, and gasped. I looked like I had gotten the bad end of a fight. You see, a while back I got laser eye surgery and I ran into a few issues with my tear ducts. The doctor told me what to do, and as soon as my eyes were better, I stopped doing what I was supposed to. Thus, when I woke up, my eyes were swollen quite a bit. The additional problem? I was speaking to a group of real estate agents that I had never met in 2 hours.
What would you do? For a split second, I thought about cancelling. Sure they’d understand, right? I then started getting ready and just figured I’d tell them about the situation when I got there. Well, by the time I got there to speak, my eyes weren’t too bad, but I still explained what happened.
So what stops you in your everyday life? What do you do when you get a flat tire, a fire (either literal or figurative) interrupts your day, or something else happens? Do you let it stop you or do you look for solutions?
I remember a situation in which a Service Manager for the last company I worked at, missed a customer meeting because he spilled coffee on his shirt. Not only that, but when he called the customer, he actually gave that reason for not being able to attend. I don’t know about you, but if I had been that customer, I would seriously considered whether or not I wanted to continue to do business with us.
On the flip side, I went out on customer calls in the afternoon on a day in which I had basil cell skin cancer removed from my nose in the morning. And no, this wasn’t something they simply had to burn off, they had cut into me and I ended up with 9 stitches, 5 on the outside of my nose and 4 on the inside. But there I was, ugly bandages and all. Another friend of mine got into a car accident on the way to an appointment. His clothes got torn a bit, he was a bit bloody, nothing too serious, and his car had to be towed, but he called to say he was running a little late and would be there shortly. He took a cab.
The bottom line: Again, what stops you day-to-day? To get to the top in sales you have to be creative and you have to go above and beyond, you have to go over, under, around, and through obstacles.
John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Using eye contact to determine whether or not someone is telling you the truth.
Last night I was watching the baseball game and an ad came on for a new television show: Lie to Me. They showed a clip from the show in which one of the actors said to the main character, “I hear people don’t make eye contact when they lie.” To which the main character replied, “Actually, they make more eye contact when they lie.”
I knew I had to address this because, if you’ve ever heard me speak about eye contact, I mention that most people in fact DO NOT make eye contact during a lie. They will either glance away or blink during certain key words while lying.
So, which is true? Do people make more eye contact during a lie, or less? Actually, they are both true, but for the most part, you only need to pay attention to people looking away while giving you an answer. Here’s why:
The main character on the show was referring to pathological liars. On the show he deals with criminals and other people trying to deceive others. The point is: if someone is really good at lying, that person will tend to overcompensate by making more direct eye contact during a lie, not less. Kind of like the loud, obnoxious guy who is overcompensating for a lack of self esteem.
The good news is: most of your prospects and customers do not spend the majority of their lives lying and deceiving people thus, they aren’t very good at it. As a result, your prospects and customers fall into the 99.9% of the population that does not make direct eye contact during a lie, as opposed to the .1% of people who make either the right amount or too much.
The bottom line: Pay very close attention to the eyes after asking an important question. If the prospect says she doesn’t like the location of the property, but won’t look at you when she says it, it probably means something else such as: she doesn’t think she can afford it.
John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Are you using technology too well?
Technology seems to be becoming more important in our lives every day. The better, faster, and more advanced devices get, the more we’re able to get done; the more we can get done, the more we seem to find to do. But are you using too much technology in your approach?
The more technology we use in our sales process, the more we eliminate the human factor. The more we use faxes, e-mails, web conferencing, etc., the less real contact we have with customers and prospects. Don’t get me wrong, technology is great, it can give you a “cutting edge” image, it can cut costs tremendously, and, as I already mentioned, it can help us get a lot more done in less time. At the same time, technology does have a way of distancing you from people if you use it as a substitute for another form of more personal contact.
The bottom line: Use technology and all its benefits, but use them as an add-on as opposed to a substitute for other, more personal methods. For example, if you used to hand deliver proposals, but now you e-mail them, it is a good idea to get back to hand delivering them. Instead of using e-mail to replace these former face-to-face functions, use it to send out pertinent industry information or perhaps even a bi-weekly newsletter. In other words, use it as another touch point to stay in touch and keep your name in front of people, not as an alternative to the personal touch that has helped you build solid relationships over the years.
John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Are you chasing your tail with you prospecting methods.
Do you have caller ID? If you do, and you don’t answer calls other than the ones you recognize, you undoubtedly see the number and names of some of the same telemarketing organizations coming up on caller ID daily. Hopefully your prospects don’t notice the same from you.
It amazes me how many organizations will call, and call, and call, everyday, sometimes even twice a day, trying to get me on the phone. Also, 95% never leave a message. This is a waste of time, money, effort, and energy, and it is costing that organization tons of all of the above chasing its tail.
While it’s true that you want to touch each prospect a minimum of 7 times over say a two to three week period, this isn’t the way to go about it. First off, again, very few of these callers leaves a message so how would I know if I’m remotely interested? Second, your 7 touches would not be 7 phone calls. You’d call, then follow up with a fax, then perhaps an e-mail, if you had that information, then perhaps another phone call. And each time you would mention your primary benefit and ask that the person get back to you if interested. After your 7 touches, you reach the point of diminishing returns.
The bottom line: What does your prospecting look like? Are you like the vendor that showed up on my caller ID every single day for 6 months, and never left a message? Unfortunately, this isn’t an exception, this is just the record holder at this point. Many have called for a month or two and again, no message. Go for your 7 touches, leave a message filled with benefits, ask that the person get back to you, and let the prospect go after 7 touches and no contact back. You can then call that prospect again down the road, say 6 or 9 months later. At that point, touch the prospect twice within a week.
John Chapin – co-author Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Are you chasing your tail?
Do you have caller ID? If you do, and you don’t answer calls other than the ones you recognize, you undoubtedly see the number and names of some of the same telemarketing organizations coming up on caller ID daily. Hopefully your prospects don’t notice the same from you.
It amazes me how many organizations will call, and call, and call, everyday, sometimes even twice a day, trying to get me on the phone. Also, 95% never leave a message. This is a waste of time, money, effort, and energy, and it is costing that organization tons of all of the above chasing its tail.
While it’s true that you want to touch each prospect a minimum of 7 times over say a two to three week period, this isn’t the way to go about it. First off, again, very few of these callers leaves a message so how would I know if I’m remotely interested? Second, your 7 touches would not be 7 phone calls. You’d call, then follow up with a fax, then perhaps an e-mail, if you had that information, then perhaps another phone call. And each time you would mention your primary benefit and ask that the person get back to you if interested. After your 7 touches, you reach the point of diminishing returns.
The bottom line: What does your prospecting look like? Are you like the vendor that showed up on my caller ID every single day for 6 months, and never left a message? Unfortunately, this isn’t an exception, this is just the record holder at this point. Many have called for a month or two and again, no message. Go for your 7 touches, leave a message filled with benefits, ask that the person get back to you, and let the prospect go after 7 touches and no contact back. You can then call that prospect again down the road, say 6 or 9 months later. At that point, touch the prospect twice within a week.
John Chapin – co-author Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Speak about benefits on your sales calls.
Are you talking about benefits when you talk to prospects and customers? At the end of the day, people care about one thing: what’s in it for them. You can express this in benefits.
Especially on cold calls, you want to lead with benefits. When a prospect answers the phone, one of the first things out of your mouth should be your primary benefit. For example: Hi, this is John Chapin with Micro Arc Welding Company we’ve been saving companies over 40% on machine parts… Then roll into the rest of your call.
Don’t ask how their day is, or how the weather is, they know you really don’t care, and this fluff gives them a chance to get you off the phone, which is the number one objective of people who you call.
The bottom line: Lead with benefits on everything. On your website, in your letters, on your faxes, in your e-mails, on your phone calls, and on your appointments. The only thing people care about when you call on them, other than getting you off the phone or out of their office as quickly as possible, is what’s in it for them.
John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – Insulate yourself from the negatives.
Bad news on the economy, the stock market, and business are all around us these days. As a result, it is more important than ever that we protect our eyes, ears, and brains from the negatives. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the news and pretend it doesn’t exist. It simply means that we should not indulge in too much negative news or listen to negative news we don’t need. For example, do you really need to know what’s going on with the market every single day if you’re not a financial advisor or in a related field? Probably not, so don’t pay daily attention to it.
Also, now is a great time to stay away from negative people. Not that there’s ever a good time to hang out with negative people, but now is definitely not the time. By the way, if you do have negative people that are persisting in your life, now might be the time to do something about that. If they are friends, let them know you’re on a new positive kick and see if they’ll join you. If they laugh at you and continue to be negative, you might want to drop them. If they are family, try the same thing, and then simply try to minimize the amount of time you spend with them outside of holidays and the like. Negative people can drag you down faster than anything and ruin all forward progress.
The bottom line: Insulate yourself from the negatives by surrounding yourself with positive people and keeping bad news and negatives at bay. Put lots of positive thoughts and ideas into your head. Keep your chin up and move in a positive direction.
John Chapin – co-author of Sales Encyclopedia www.completeselling.com
Sales training ideas – A time for no sales training?
Happy Labor Day! Did you spend time with friends and family today? Did you spend time out of the office? If so, good.
Sometimes no sales training is a good thing. Yesm there are times when the best thing we can do for our sales careers is nothing, or something other than work or sales. You must have balance in your life to be truly happy and to be most productive in sales. It’s simple, if your personal life is in shambles, your work life is going to suffer. That’s also true with your health and the other key areas of your life.
I think holidays are subtle reminders that we sometimes need to take a break from sales and work, and focus on family and other things and yet, make sure you’re doing your best at work too.
The point: Have balance in your life, work when you’re at work, play when you’re at play, spend time on all the key areas of your life. Enough time in all areas but not too much in any.
John Chapin www.completeselling.com
