One of the passions i have is hunting down old hard to find sales and business information. This sales training video is absolutely a must see.  It is from one of the greatest ever sales trainers, called Elmer Wheeler.

You may have not heard of Elmer, but i can guarantee you have heard of some of his phrases, which you will see in this sales training video. He was instrumental in introducing the following phrases into the English language:

“Don’t Sell the Steak; Sell the Sizzle.”
“Don’t Write: Telegraph.”
“Say it with Flowers.”
“Don’t Ask If, Ask Which.”

Now let’s watch the Sales Training Video

The sales training video is  a bit corny at the beginning so you may want to start watching at about 6 minutes. It might seem old and out of date but this guy was a genius of his time and there is not 1 sales person alive today who could could not learn from his work.

[FLOWPLAYER=http://salesdnaltd.com/blog/wp-content/videos/MantoMan1947.flv,480,360]

Let me know what you think about the Sales Training Video on the comments below!

Below is my latest article on sales prospecting from the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s – Winning Edge Magazine.

Hope you like it!

Sales Prospecting with blogging

See more about sales training on my other posts. Let me know what you think about

Sales Prospecting on the comments below!

I was wondering if you could help me?

I am currently in development of some online sales training modules and wanted to get some of your feedback as to what you would like to see.

What do you think is missing in the marketplace?

What information would you think really needs to be covered in online sales training?

How long would you think the training idealy be i.e short 5 minutes segments or 20-40 minutes sections?

Please leave your feedback and comments as it will really help me help you by tailoring the products/information to what you need.

Many thanks

Peter

P.S. Check out what I currently have in my online sales training blog.

Find it here

To help I have set out a few things for you to consider if you are designing your own mini sales training sessions.

If you don’t think this applies to you remember that everyone that buys from us is human and processes information in the same way!  Therefore —-   Think -

“How can I use this Information to make  my sales presentations better?”

Information V Learning:

• Reading for themselves is Information and is passive.
• Finding out for themselves is Learning.
• Drawing from their own experience is Learning.
• Research and feed back to you and the team/group is Learning.

Your natural tendency may be to present information passively i.e by providing handouts or reading out to the group. See if you can find ways to make this a learning experience as this will aid memory and recall. By turning the learning into a ‘whole’ brain experience, connections will be made in the brain that will ensure recall.

Critical information should be repeated by the ‘learners’ so that it is remembered and that it can create an association in the brain or a ‘hook to hang itself on’. This is why good training (and selling) will draw out associations that are meaningful to the participants i.e how it will relate to their jobs/life. What would be even better is get the participants to actively work this out and vocalise for themselves what the learning will mean for them. This is so powerful because they will form more powerful associations than you will ever be able to create.

Honey and Mumfords Four Learning Styles:

Honey and Mumford developed a model of 4 main styles of learning.

The Activist: They like to learn through doing. They are proactive and often have short attention spans and will get frustrated by long periods of ‘passive’ learning. To engage the activist consider exercises that involve action.

The Pragmatist: They like to know the ‘why’ of learning. Learning has to be immediately apparent or interest is quickly lost. If you cant spell that out at the beginning for any reason then let then know that it will be coming and then debrief by getting them to draw direct relevancy to themselves.

The Reflector: As the name implies they like to evaluate what they are learning. This can be just a few minutes down time or may even be a day or two.  Their opinion is rarely given instant as they need to think it through, so if you want to encourage their participation give sufficient advance warning.

The theorist: Generally the analysts of the audience who want to know – who, why, what, when – and love the option of checking out the facts for themselves. They thrive on further references, reading lists, and facts and figures. Rarely can you give too much information. Without bogging down your session with way too much information make sure you provide the theorists with handouts and the certainty that they can go away with enough supporting material.

A very similar model developed by Bernice McCarthy is a great way of structuring your verbal communications to appeal to different learning styles. It is called the 4Mat system and breaks down learning styles into people who need to know predominantly 1 of ‘What’, ‘Why’, ‘How’ and ‘If’.

For example:

What:

The next session will look at why prospective clients say No to our initial responses on the telephone and will develop 5 key areas that will increase our ability to make connections with our target clients.

Why:

The reason we are holding this session is that, based on our trials of this these approaches, we have been able to prove that each one of you will be able to increase your appointment making rate by 25% by following these principles.

How:

We will achieve this by using the three target clients you have brought with you and a series of role plays. This will allow group learning and the sharing of your experiences directly relevant to your company.

If:

Once you have acquired this knowledge and skills for the initial first contact we are sure there are many ways it will make your job easier and increase your sales such as – face to face meetings and dealing with difficult situations.

One of the most significant factors in the success of any sales training or refreshers you do is the design. Design for impact, retention and use and your sales success is guaranteed.If we can help in any way just give us a call on 0845 6434165.

Sales Training

If you own a SPAR retailer consider a Subway franchise. If you are a huge department store, how about adding an old fashioned  gents hair cutting and shoe shine shop.

Maybe this is a step too far though?

If you are determined to set yourself up to fail I have drawn up the 7 key things you should say to yourself on a daily basis to ensure that you speed up your failure as soon as possible. Might as well get it over and done with right?

1. I can’t…………………….
2. I musn’t………………….
3. I haven’t got a chance.
4. It’s no use………………
5. The world is going to the dogs…..
6. There’s no point trying…….
7. You just can’t win…………..

Why not vote for the one that you think will help you fail the quickest?

Power Of Mind In Sales Training

Do you think?

Murphy’s Airport Parking from Holiday Extras on Vimeo.

And he is British…..

I came across Sir Ken Robinson recently while I was doing some research on creativity.

Watch the video – he could almost make it as a comedian………………….and then read the book.

I have used a number of his principles of creative education in my sales training and strongly agree that 21st Century Education must reflect the way that people live today. Traditional learning methods stiffle creativity.

He is a great big ball of energy that only knows fun and has quickly become part of the family — with all the emotional attachment that goes with it.

Apart from teaching me a few things about communications skills the search and purchase of Pemba has been an introduction to some superb business practices – most noticeable by my vet.

See if you can spot their skill from our tale of acquiring a suitable pet doctor!

We were looking for a vet and asked around the local community and some family and friends. One name kept popping up and as my wife had used them for her cats when she was growing up we decided to give them a try.

They were about 20 minutes drive away so before we went I drove past our local vet to see what they might be like.

I never found out.

The outside was tatty and dirty and just left me thinking that if they were prepared to let their business premises get like this then what care would they give my young puppy. Who by thgis stage we were a little attached to!

We arrived at the recommended vets a little apprehensive as this was Pemba’s first time out of the house and we were still training him to be responsive to us. We walked into a beautifully clean building with immaculately dressed sales/customer service staff (I deliberately didn’t use the term receptionists as I firmly believe everyone in a company is in sales).

We were shown into the vet’s office where we were greeted by a kind, cheerily faced male vet who warmly introduced himself to us. He told us all about his own black Labradors and how he adores them.

The vet then did a thorough health check, produced a detailed report on his first few months and gave us some free food, free wormer and invited us to call in (without an appointment) at least 1 per month to get Pemba used to the place. On these visits, the nurse would weigh him and make a fuss of him and get him comfortable in the unusual surroundings. We were also invited to a puppy party where he could socialize with other puppies.

The charge for all of this — Zero, free, nothing!! Up to this point the vet had made no sales out of us and there was no hard sell.

We took Pemba to his first puppy party and he came back with a goody bag including treats and a soft toy – all free.

My wife and I are quite attached to Pemba and our buying decisions where he is concerned have a large amount of emotion attached. He is now part of the family’.

Who do you think will be his vet for the rest of his life?

Of course. Our nice vet who looked after us.

Look out for part 2 where I will demonstrate the fantastic business practices behind this canny vets operations.

Remember – come back for part 2.

To be honest I wasn’t sure of the point of the rant and what he was taking offence to. The post was this one on persuasion .

The post was a quick quote from Dale Carnegie about human nature. The rant took offense to the terms ‘Influence, persuasion and convincing’ and essentially (I guess) tried to make the point that no one like to be sold to – they like to buy.

I would like to open this up to debate, especially to the sales training, sales consultancy and sales coaching industry.

My take on this is:

· I am a proud sales professional and would never, ever feel uncomfortable telling people this.

· I am a consumer and a business to business buyer and I love being sold to. Although there is an argument that it is only people in the sales training arena love to be sold to. What do you think?

· I love it when I see someone professionally show interest in me, ask me timely relevant questions and show/tell/demonstrate relevant features, benefits and outcomes that I was unsure of or better still did not know of. If they get me to visualise it then superb!

· I am grateful when someone points out that I may not know exactly what is right for me and then demonstrates why

· I am aware of bad practice and can detect BS a mile away. Sometimes I may even buy from bad salespeople but it is on my terms and only ever is it a one off transaction.

· I hold a high level education and have an MBA specializing in Buyer behavior and can argue the semantics of certain words with many of the ‘sales specialists’ around. I do not, however, lose sight of the fact that many of the people that go through my sales training are young, have never been on a sales training program before, have very little awareness of open questions, could not draw up a one page feature and benefits list on their products and services and are looking for the sales skills needed to help them sell. They would be cheated if I stood up and told them that it’s simple -

"Go back to the company and create an environment where people want to buy but don’t sell to them."

That’s best left to sales consulting with the company itself.

I am an avid user of ‘PULL’ marketing and sales techniques such as social media, information giving, blogs and video but that doesn’t make me lose sight of the fact that people do like to be sold to regardless of the words we use to make it fit with our 2008 conscience.

Selling in 2008 is about transparency, information, guarantees of quality to reduce buyer risk, follow through, integrity and honesty. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the people who attend our training courses need us to mould them and shape them in the best way possible. Don’t blind them with semantics.

Give them the platform to be the very best professional salespeople they possibly can be.

Your comments would be appreciated…………

Topgrading For Sales: World Class Methods to

Interview, Hire and Coach Top Sales Representatives.

I was pleased to receive an email recently asking me if I would like to review the new book by Bradford Smart, Ph.D, and Greg Alexander. The ‘blurb’ seems positive:

Their book will teach you how to:

1- Hire top sales talent

2- Prevent costly mis-hires

3- Coach ‘B’ players into ‘A’ players

4- Spot and remove ‘C’ players

5- Exceed your sales quota

Topgrading for Sales in Action

One leader who put Topgrading into play for his sales force is Chris Jones. In his words:

“I started using Topgrading at my previous employer, EMC, where more than 85% of the sales reps I hired exceeded their quota in their first year.

Now a General Manager for Microsoft’s Southeast Enterprise & Partner Group, Chris brought Topgrading to his new team and the results are clear:
“Topgrading helped fuel 2x the growth this year over last year.”

And is topped off with a personal testimonial of Brad from Jack Welch:

“Brad helped us at GE to learn methods to pick the best talent.”

Jack Welch, author of Winning and former Chairman, General Electric

I haven’t received the book yet but when I do I will post my review — so keep your eyes peeled. I think the official launch date is mid July. If you would like to know more then have a look at the web site —– topgrading sales recruitment

Click play on the video below to see the promo video.

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