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Submitted by: Michael Bloxton
I have seen all types and styles of sales training and techniques. But, the truth is, there are only two types of trainings that can ever be given to a sales team to improve closing ratios (the number of presentations made vs. the number of sales made). The first is product (or service) training and the second is personal development training.
The first type of training is relatively straight forward and easy to implement. You can have an intricate product that has thousands of moving parts or you could provide a complex service involving finance, real estate, taxation, or legal matters but no matter the product or service, it is simple to mold a training program.
To do this, you simply need to understand what the product or service is, what is important to the customer when making their decisions, and what information the sales person will want to have in order to fulfill the customers needs. This is very clear in terms of need to know information. You can create a book, manual, or straight forward training system to get all parties up to speed in short order.
Now we move on to the personal development training of a sales force which is the most overlooked, under-utilized, and most valuable training of all. There are sales-specific subjects in this category such as how to sell, how to get prospects to buy from you, how to get customers to like you, how to increase your sales, how to attract your customer, how to move prospects to action basically, how to do EVERYTHING having to do with sales. There are also non-sales-specific subjects in this category like building rapport, communicating effectively, being a good listener, and how to ask action-empowering questions.
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It is in this category that many companies training starts to fail. Even if a company provides good training in sales-specific subjects, rarely do they offer non-sales-specific training. The top sales people in most companies, recognize this, and on their own, have sought out this type of training. They took initiative, knew what it would take, and went after it. However, if you own a company, youd be a leader if you included this type of training for your own sales teams. However, this article is directed to the individual sales person.
If you are a sales person, you may recognize the need for additional training. If not, ask yourself, Am I an expert in all of the topics mentioned above? If you arent, then take advantage of additional training. If you already recognize why its beneficial then the next question is, Where do I start?
There are countless sales training systems and sales techniques out there. Most are useful and informative to some degree. With some research, you can identify the good programs. There is one concept in particular though, that we have found to be invaluable in our careers.
Early in our careers, we were taught that there was a difference between being a powerful sales person and one that relies on a forceful approach to make his/her sales. Power vs. Force. At first glance it may seem as though they are the same, but in reality, they arent. They are very different. Mastering the difference, will jumpstart your sales career in a HUGE way.
If a sales person were to use the same pitch on every customer, how effective might that technique be? Everyone is different, their motivation for buying, their personalities, their priorities. And yet, this sales person says the exact same thing to everyone they meet. Typically, the presentation was designed to attract people like the sales person themselves. This is a perfect example of Force in action. The goal is to make the sale. Its like forcing the presentation on the prospects. Have you felt that? Have you wondered if the sales person you were talking to was even listening? Did you buy from that person? This sales person is inward focused. Its all about him/her.
The other approach is the utilization of power. By choosing this technique, the salesperson listens, asks clarifying questions, and fulfills the needs of the customer, not themselves. The powerful salesperson is more inclined to pay attention to what the customer wants, and the goal is to focus on the customer. Insure that they are satisfied, that your product is well-suited to them, and to satisfy their requirements. This sales person can identify the personality type of the customer, and adjust their approach to suit the person in front of them. They are outward focused.
There is no way for us to cover all of the details on how you do this here in one article. Instead, our goal in this post is to make you aware of the difference between using POWER in your sales approach rather than FORCE. It is crucial to your success.
By
Michael Bloxton,
President & CEO,
oneMYnd, LLC.
About the Author: For more information about OneMYnd – Coaching, Collaboration, Connection please log on to
onemynd.com/
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