Are Talented Salespeople Slipping Through Your Fingers…and Costing Your Company Millions?

We all know the difference having top performers can make in your organization: they typically produce 3 to 5 times more than their peers, take up less of your time, and hit the office every day ready to sell.

So why doesn’t your sales department have more of them?

In more than 20 years in the field, working with salespeople, managers, and business owners throughout the World, I’ve found that the problem often lies in the way companies look for and hire new talent. Simply put, they aren’t finding the motivated, high-performing men and women they need because they aren’t looking in the right place or asking the right questions.

But finding top talent is more important than ever. You don’t have room in your schedule or budget for dead weight, and the old practice of hiring 10 salespeople just to keep two isn’t cutting it anymore. That’s why I’m urging my clients to start their search for Top Talent off the right way – by revamping their recruiting and hiring processes to find and keep winners.

Through sales assessments that show you how and why a salesperson performs – and whether they’ll do it for you – to sales benchmarking and interview coaching, I’m ready to show you and your team the secrets of hiring top sales talent. And best of all, they cost a fraction of what you’d spend on a single new employee!

Call me today at 704-847-7390 to find out more about these programs, or for a complimentary e-book copy of Hiring Top Talent for Sales & Customer Service.

Having the right sales staff makes all the difference in your company’s future, so find out how you can start hiring better before it’s too late.

Sales Training Mistakes: One-Sided Sales Training

Abstract: If you are choosing sales training based on recommendations from senior management, what’s hot in your industry, or what your trainers are offering at the moment, you could be missing an important piece of the puzzle. By asking your producers what they need to learn, you make it easier to find programs that can help you improve the bottom line quickly by bringing in new customers.

Who decides what topics you are going to train your salespeople on? If you are like most organizations, the decision is probably a combination of input from senior management, some impressions about what’s current or trendy in your industry, or which programs your sales trainer happens to be offering at the moment.

A lot of the time, there’s nothing wrong with that approach, and it can be a great starting point. The only problem is that every once in a while, companies end up with programs that aren’t doing them or their sales team any good, because they’re a poor fit for what’s actually going on in the field.

The simple solution: ask your frontline producers what they need help with once in a while.

When you take that step, a funny thing can happen – you might just find out that what your team needs isn’t what you had planned on giving them. Even though a good sales manager usually has an ear to the ground and can tell what kind of issues are coming up with prospects and clients, there are always going to be day-to-day problems that are best known to the men and women who are making the calls, going on client visits, and getting feedback on proposals.

Granted, you might get too many variations in your answers to be meaningful. While one newer salesperson is struggling with prospecting, perhaps another could stand to have a refresher on product knowledge, and a third wants to work on closing the negotiation techniques. You might not be able to accommodate all of them, at least at the same time, but you will gain a better perspective on where each of your salespeople is at the moment, so you can go back later to get more training or just address the issues individually.

Just as likely, though, is that you’ll discover your sales team is facing a common challenge that they’d like some help with, or that one person’s suggestion will trigger agreement from the others. This is exactly what you should want from your training – a chance to work on whatever it is that’s holding your business or division back from bringing in even more customers. It’s more important to get the sales training your group needs than it is the program you had in mind, or the one that’s hot the moment.

As a business owner or supervisor, you should have a good feel for the pulse of your sales team. You probably have a strong idea of what sort of training they need already, and it could be that current market forces or industry changes mean that you don’t have much of a choice anyway. But try to ask your sales staff what sort of programs they want from time to time. The answers might surprise you, and they could be the key to increasing business in a hurry.

Sales Training Mistakes: Buying on Price

Every sales manager teaches his or her team to sell value, not price. But many forget the difference when they search for sales training. By buying on price alone, they don’t just get a bad deal – they waste time and money.

If the first thing you learn in selling is that it takes persistence, the second thing might be that nearly every customer or client thinks your price is too high. It doesn’t matter what you sell, where you sell it, or who you offer it to – people are going to beat you up over price.

Of course, any good salesperson knows that price is only part of any solution, and it’s rarely one of the most important ones. What usually matters in the end isn’t the figure on the invoice, but what your clients are going to get for their investment. Value, as we explain time and again, is the thing to keep your eye on.

Salespeople who can’t understand this idea, or can’t get past their client’s objections, can be a major frustration. It isn’t only that they’re costing your company big money by giving away your margins, but that they don’t really understand what selling – or even buying – is all about. At the end of the day, it’s never about what you paid for something… only what you received in return.

This is something we all know, but it’s interesting how quickly that knowledge can fly out the window once we’re on the other side of a buying decision. I know lots of veteran, tough-as-nails sales managers in all kinds of industries who wouldn’t blink for a moment at a price objection. They’ve been through them dozens of times before, and won’t give an inch on the bottom line because they know that value is the most important thing. And yet, when it comes to choosing a person or company to come in and train their sales staff, what’s the first thing they do? That’s right, they shop on price.

Sales training, more than anything else you buy for your company or department, is all about value and results. A six-figure training program can be a far greater value than one that costs a tenth as much, if it leads to a lot of new prospects and customers, better client retention rates, or some other improvement in your sales team’s performance.

Not all training is good training, and even an excellent program might not be the right fit for what your sales team needs. By choosing an option based on price, you’re only increasing the odds that what you get is going to be a complete waste of time and money. You want a trainer who has been successful in his or her own career, understands your industry, and is going to take the time to learn what your needs and challenges are. It’s very rare that that person is going to come at a bargain-basement price.

Remember, sales training isn’t really about the program at all – it’s about where your sales team is going to be three months, six months, and one year down the road. With that in mind, think like a top sales performer and not a first-time buyer. Pay attention to prices, but look more closely at what you are actually getting for your money.

Sales Training Mistakes: Buying (or Creating) Training That’s Boring

Boring sales training is never effective, so make sure you’re coming up with topics and ideas that appeal to your sales staff. You’re never going to get your time or money’s worth otherwise. If you want to get the maximum impact, talk to them about the one thing you know they are interested in – making more money.

For those of us who were raised on classrooms with beige walls and long lectures, a stroll through a modern high school or university might come as something of a shock. In many parts of the country, textbooks are being supplemented – or even replaced – with software, video, and other training aids. What’s more, the material today’s young people are learning from isn’t littered with references to Dick and Jane, but real world applications of the issues they are studying.

It isn’t just technology that’s driving these changes; it’s the realization of something that’s simple yet profound: people need to be interested if they’re going to learn.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s very hard to pay attention when you’re bored, and it’s very easy to be bored when the information is not put in an interesting way. Even so, companies will devote all kinds of time and money to sales training that resembles those old-style lectures. But as helpful as the tips and techniques might be to your producers, it’s never going to make any kind of impact if it isn’t engaging them and holding their focus.

There are lots of ways to make your training more interesting, and a few of them – like using technology, making it more interactive, and choosing the right time slots – will be recurring themes in these articles. But for the moment, I’m going to skip past all of that and mention a technique that’s pretty easy to put in play, but lots of sales managers forget about: make your training practical.

Few salespeople want to spend a day learning about “Advanced CRM Retention Techniques,” or “Profit Forecast Utilization,” but I’ve never met a single producer who wasn’t interested in making more money. Show your sales staff that you’re going to present them with some practical, real-world ways to increase the size and frequency of their commission checks, and I guarantee you’re going to have a captivated audience.

In fact, making your training about profits doesn’t even usually mean changing topics, but simply framing them in the right context. Try to avoid heavy jargon: the best salespeople prefer simple language. Instead of “margin improvement,” teach them about “selling at higher prices.” Likewise, “maximize customer value” becomes “making more money off of your best clients.” Too many companies, and trainers, get so caught up in sounding professional that they forget to say what they really mean.

Boring sales training is never effective, so make sure you’re coming up with topics and ideas that appeal to your sales staff, because you’re never going to get your time or money’s worth otherwise. If you want to get the maximum impact, talk to them about the one thing you know they are interested in – making more money.