Characteristics of a True Sales Leader

In the average sales organization, successful sales reps get promoted to managers. These "new" sales managers are suddenly tasked with leadership and training. In these situations, there is one common liability. The salesperson's biggest strength now becomes the sales manager's biggest weakness in leading a team. Typically, top sales reps don't diagnose and document their sales routines and processes; rather, they Уjust do itФ, as the sneaker commercial so aptly says. So, when they are asked to advance the same superior results in a large group, they can not do it. Why? Because these individuals are exceptional "drivers." Most of their past success was due to their personalities and individual abilities, which are not transferable to the masses.

Sadly, most superior sales performers, when promoted to leadership positions, are unable to truly lead. They have trouble analyzing and teaching their personal sales processes in such a way that their sales teams can properly digest. Solo reps who move into the management sphere tend to manage people versus coaching critical competencies and behaviors, which hurts the bottom line. To be effective, sales leaders must understand and know how to integrate knowledge of sales systems and processes to their staff. They need the majority of their salespeople to accept it, own it and benefit from it.

Going one step further, it is crucial for sales leaders to have experience in identifying and measuring critical core competencies and essential performance metrics. Sales leaders should understand that there are a finite number of scenarios in any selling process. If you identify, train to and measure each one of them, you are on your way to excellence. True sales leaders shine a light on the most critical competencies, enabling the highest percentage of their sales force to routinely win. Sales leaders train to each one of these competencies, but they do so by priority. They understand that training to multiple missions at once will achieve minimal results.

The importance of sales training comes into play for sales leaders, who must consider results-oriented training as a process versus an isolated event. They don't just talk about it at sales meetings, or attend seminars that superficially touch on it; instead, they extract the most important critical competency, such as creating new opportunities, and peel back every element that comprises it. They break apart the elements into single scenarios and attach powerful routines to each scenario. Sales leaders, like great business leaders, spend time developing systematic approaches to essential competencies. And they do it so that their people can outperform the standard.

Sales training campaigns should be setup to improve the ratios of success in each core competency. Operational effectiveness equals better competency routines. Better than whose, you ask? Your competitors', of course. With the right systems in place, good sales leaders understand their essential competency ratios and performance numbers, and are able to relate them to revenue objectives. It is important to set realistic goals that are in line with performance ratios, then set "benchmarks" for each competency and train specifically to those benchmarks.

Jim Tressel, head football coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes, gave a preseason interview the year after winning the 2002 National Football Championship. He said, "We decided to identify a number of important performance benchmarks, and effect training to meet them each week. For instance, we found that over the last 15 years, when we gained at least 200 rushing yards in a game, we won the game 98% of the time. So we are training to routines that will help us get better at the competency of running the football on the ground in order to reach that particular benchmark more often."

Sales leaders believe that sales reps will be accountable to results, provided that leadership:
(1) Identifies the important competencies required for success; (2) Supplies targeted training with appropriate structures for learning and application; and,
(3) Measures the degree of improvement.

Sales leaders are dedicated to transforming "C" players into "B" players, and "B" players into "A" players. They hold themselves accountable to develop or invest in relevant training systems, learning structures and support tools. They want most of their people to routinely meet or exceed company revenue goals, as well as personal career objectives. They know that they must provide the setting and the tools that foster this kind of achievement.

While their seat-of-the-pants skill sets are excellent, the natural sales rep, when thrust into the role of sales manager, must learn how to convert these skills into transferable processes and routines that focus on essential competencies. Thereafter, it comes down to how effectively they can train, motivate and support their staff towards maximizing core competencies, which ultimately increases the odds of exceeding revenue targets.

Business Cards Are Excellent Salesman

Since the 19th century business cards were widespread among people of all classes with a business to promote. The earliest form of business cards, known as tradecards, were used as advertising materials and as maps used to direct the public to the merchant’s store. Today business cards are among the most important marketing material that every business must have.

The business card is perhaps the best salesman that you can have. That is why it is essential that it contains much more than your name, address, and contact numbers and services. It should be designed keeping its purpose in mind – that is its being a powerful sales tool. So let’s start with the design. If you want to create a business card that contains a photo with gradient colors you can try using a glossy paper to ensure that the cards are printed as good as they look on the screen. Or else, you can get disappointed with the print out. 

In addition, if your card design contains background color or images, you can use papers that have gaps between them as these gaps will allow you to make up for the unavoidable elusiveness of the printer paper feed system. However, most stock cards don’t have gaps so if you don’t want to have trouble with printing, make sure your photos, images and text are at 3mm off the edge of the card. This way the minor printer imprecision will not destroy your business cards.

When it comes to printing, make sure that the paper stock that you will use is compatible to your printer. As inkjet and laser printer uses different technologies, it is important that you only feed paper type that is attuned to your printer choice. So for instance you will be using a laser printer, using a paper with glossy coating can cause damage to the printer. Hence, the right choice of paper stock will greatly affect your business cards print out.

Now let’s come to the strategies you can utilize in business card distribution. Aside from the usual handing out of your business cards during tradeshows, conventions, meetings and the like, tucking them in your products before delivery can be a good idea. Say you are a florist. You can consider tying your business card around the flowers. Or if use bags in packaging your products, you can staple or tie your card on the outside of the bag. You can also include you cards in your letters and invoices. And if you are really crafty you can slip in your cards into your designs – you can include them in your greeting cards, emboss them with your rubber stamps or blend them with your other artworks.   

There are endless possibilities when it comes to designing and handing out your business cards. You just have to know how to utilize these possibilities to your advantage. Remember that your business cards can be your best salesman, so make them represent you effectively.

Building A Financial Services Sales Culture

A growing number of community banks are recognizing that new and more aggressive competitors are taking new business they “believed” they would or “should” have. To help combat this they no longer accept the practice of “business as usual.” They are taking the time-proven actions it takes to train, coach and reward their key business development team members to get them out on the street. Program results are showing ROI’s of up to 30—to-1!

This isn’t easy, to say the least. A major culture change is required for most community banks when it comes to selling. Bankers have long been of the mindset that banking is a business built when prospects come to the bank and request the service they want. Unfortunately the consumer has developed a slightly different mindset lately.

“Yes, my banker and I have a good relationship but that doesn’t mean I will only consult them for financial needs and services. There are lots of other options. ” Friends are friends but when money is involved there is a different emotion involved……greed.

The CEO of First Bank in Ketchikan, Alaska, Bill Moran, decided something new must be tried when he started planning for this new year. “I realized that to meet our growth goals we must be more aggressive about taking business from our competition and improve our “unfair share” of our market. There wasn’t sufficient  market expansion to maintain our historical growth and profit levels.”

First Bank launched its’ new effort with a 120-day action plan in January 2006 for its’ six branches. The intended focus was to be solely on gaining new customers and establishing new relationships.

“Some of the participating officers found it very difficult to break away from the familiar clients to concentrate only on prospects that had no prior relationship, “said Eric Bjella, VP and Program Manger.

The first step was to assess the sales strengths of each team member. It was important to know who were likely to make calls and build relationships easily (Hunters) and those with good processing and service-related skills but less confidence in their abilities to communicate with prospects (Farmers).  This was followed with a professional sales skills training session which included each member identifying from 5-10 prospects.

“The individual assessments and audience reactions to the training were very informative,” said Bjella. “Some of our people felt they never could be successful at making cold calls to strangers. But were they surprised!”

The training showed how to: qualify prospects, make impossible appointments, start building respect and trust from the first appointment, getting to real pains/needs and overcoming objections for desired actions.

The First Bank team met every 10 days in groups of 12 to report progress against their specific targets. While slow at first, calling activity grew and success was gradually achieved. Through coaching and confidence built on successful experiences, sales meetings progressed from a reluctance to report to lively dialogues between members, sharing helpful prospect insights with each other.

One member reported being devastated on her first call, to the point of tears. Executive Vice President Jack Vaughn reported this prospect had also called him to complain, only to contact him later, inviting him to attend a competitor’s bank sponsored business owners meeting. ”Wonders never cease to amaze me, Jack said. I didn’t think we would ever get any where with this prospect and then she did a complete turnaround.”

At the end of the 120 days First Bank captured several new customers, representing over $300,000 in new income to the bank’s bottom line. Less the training expenses that gave a 30-to-1 ROI, income vs. expenses. Other contacts made during this period are expected to move to First Bank in a few months through continued follow-up activities.

A different success story comes from a bank holding company in Iowa. Bank Iowa Corporation felt it was time for a sales culture to be started within at each of its 6 independently chartered banks, serving 17 communities. 

“We never had any sales training in our Company’s history, said Michael Thompson, VP and Program Leader. Our CEO, Stan Honken, challenged our presidents to have an officer calling program in place by year-end. I contacted some firms who might help us start a sales culture. After reviewing four, we selected Wemmers Consulting Group from Atlanta. Their program impressed us with its’ accountability factors, experience in bank training and real world application following the skills training.”

Bank Iowa’s Calling Teams intermingled Hunters and Farmers and all branch locations. Their program’s primary goal was to get Bank Iowa folks from behind their desks and out calling on prospects. Sales progress meetings were held every two weeks. A sales progress report, prepared by Amy Armitage, was updated and dispersed to all concerned. 

“As Rick had alerted us, calling activity was slow at first but picked up as calling frustrations and excuses were addressed and resolved in the weekly meetings. “We all learned a lot about the process of business development. This will be quite helpful as we continue forward with this program,” Michael said.

It is estimated that Bank Iowa’s 60-day effort helped bring in some $13 million in new business or about $400,000 in new income. Subtracting the sales program expenses this resulted in a 23% ROI.

Boost Your Sales Through Sales Trainings

Many people regard sales as the most effective way of earning unlimited income. In fact, 7 out of 10 salespeople who were interviewed why they preferred sales as their job, they have contended that in sales, they can earn income on tap. This goes to show that they can either earn more or earn less.

From this point of view, salespeople view their success based on the kind of sales training that they have. Of course, no one could instantly exert expertise without the proper training that he needs in his career.

Hence, many salespeople are more than willing to submit their selves to sales training. They know that it would be one of the best ways to earn and achieve success.

So for those who cannot understand why sales training is important in a salesperson's career, here are some of the advantages of engaging into such sales booster activity.

1. It is a great help

Based on its basic concept, sales trainings are especially created to help the salespeople hone their skills and improve their craft. Their ability to create more sales is improved through the acquisition of advanced marketing strategies.

2. Molds better attitude

Another best thing about sales trainings is that they do not mainly focus on improving the skills and abilities of the salesperson as far as selling are concerned. Through these trainings, the attitude and behavior of the salesperson towards sales are improved.

Sales trainings teach them how to deal with the clients properly, how to handle objections, and how to persuade people. These things are not commonly taught on ordinary training programs.

3. Teaches good interaction

Through sales training, the seller will be able to identify the right strategy in dealing with his clients. It provides the right combination of language, perception, attitude, and the art of selling in order to interact with the client in the most favorable method.

The focus of this activity is to make the seller realize that selling should never be hard, or what most salespeople believe as hard selling. The point here is that with proper interaction, selling becomes an art, where the words and emotions are interlaced so as to lure the client to buy the product.

The Upshots

If sales training had been effective and was properly explained, chances are, sales will grow. But if it was done otherwise, more than a few unconstructive results may happen.

One of which is the lack of communication or miscommunication. Without proper orientation on the job and proper comprehension of the nature of the job, both the management and the employees might have difficulty in communicating the correct ideas and concepts.

Also, without sales trainings, salespeople will be less confident in distributing their products. This is because they are not fully aware on how to face their clients and how to persuade them into buying.

And last, without proper sales trainings, the people will not be enticed to do their job and advanced on a higher level of enthusiasm. This is because they are not aware of the possible compensation they will get ever they have performed better.

Indeed, sales trainings are not just any ordinary program and not just like any other training program designed just for the sake of having it. It has its purpose, and its results will definitely reap more income.

A Tickler File For Sales And Networking

If you are involved in sales, fundraising or just an active networker, you have probably tried a variety of tools to manage your contact list and remind yourself to stay in touch with all of the prospects and people you meet. This tickler file is designed to be an inexpensive, effective, tool that can be used by salespeople in a variety of different types of organizations.

This tickler file uses inexpensive index cards and a simple file box. You will need the following items to create your own index card sales tool. I found everything I needed at my local office supply store. The total cost was around $25.00.

- A box to store the index cards
- Monthly 3" by 5" index tabs
- Daily (1-31) 3" by 5" index tabs
- Alphabetical 3" by 5" index tabs
- A ton of white ruled 3" by 5" index cards (you don't need a photo, right?)
- A bunch of colored 3" by 5" index cards (pick your favorite color)
- A small case to carry your in your pocket

Once you have purchased the required supplies, you can organize your 3X5. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that you are assembling your 3X5 on January 1st. If this is the case you would first organize your tabs in the order below (front to back):

- January tab
- Daily tabs 1-31
- February - December monthly tabs
- A-Z alphabetical tabs
- Blank index cards - white and your favorite color

All of your cards should now be in the file box and the first thing you should see is the January tab.

Next, you should start creating cards for your leads. In the beginning, this is going to take some time (assuming you have a lot of leads). You might choose to use one color card for prospects, one color for customers, another for personal contacts, etc. If you are not going to organize your contacts by color, you will only need white cards. Nonetheless, you can either copy your contacts information onto the cards or simply staple their business card to one of the index cards.

The system works like this.

Let's imagine it is January 1st. and you attend a networking event where you meet a potential client. You get this lead's business card at the event and you want to contact him/her on the 2nd., so when you get to your office, you staple the leads business card to a white index card and drop it behind the "2" tab and then go home for the day. After all, it is new years day and you have been working hard to create your new sales system and you attended a networking event.

So, you arrive at work on January 2nd. and open up your tickler file. The first thing you should do is move the "1" tab back behind the February tab. You will always be rolling the system forward like this, so that the first tab you see in the box represents the most current month, then the most current day.
Now, you go to the tab for today (Jan 2nd.) and find the card for the lead that you met at the networking event yesterday. You call the lead and learn that he/she is out of town until January 6th. so you make a note which says, "1/2/05 - Mr. Lead is on vacation till 1/6". Now you drop the card behind the "6" tab for the month of January.

You will continue to roll this lead forward in the system, making notes at each step, until the lead either turns into a customer or asks you to leave them alone.

When the lead turns into a customer, I staple their business card to a colored card and place it behind the appropriate alphabetical tab. If their is another opportunity with this client, I move the colored card back to the dated section and move them through the process again.

Of course, as you add more people to your pipeline, you might not get to contact everyone on the day you have them slotted for. Just move them to the next day's slot at the end of the current day so you contact them tomorrow.

You will not want to carry around a huge metal box full of index cards, which is why you want to have a small index card wallet or box, so if you are going to be on the road or out of the office, you can simply grab your cards for the day and go.
Not just for salespeople.

While the system is great for salespeople, it also is a great tool for those of us who are focusing on networking. I actually use three different colored cards and use white for leads, blue for clients and red for my networking contacts (patriotic, I know). On the red cards, I write either 7, 14, 30, 45, 60, etc in the upper right hand corner of the index card to remind myself how frequently I want to contact the person, so I simply move the card forward based on the number on the card. If I want to contact someone every seven days, I move the card ahead a week after I make contact.

A Sales Resume Is Your Ultimate Sale, Your Skills and Experience Are Your Pitch

The toughest of all resumes to write is a sales resume. Basically, the employer is looking for a person who can sell himself through the resume first.

Every employer is looking for that specific set of skilled sales executives who will determine their next quarter sales and drive their growth. As a candidate you will want to win the employers' heart just with your resume. Minute details can be exaggerated or big failures can be hidden by a good sales person. Also, any employer will be expecting a sales executive to possess reasonable learnability and good convincing skills. A good sales resume will convey these messages directly or indirectly.

Basically, your resume should include the following information:

A clear cut career and job objective which shows your sense of direction to the employer.

Your resume should have the names of each of your employers and your corresponding job titles.

Give a brief description about the employer like what they are doing, if they are not well known.

As a sales person, include your sales results and targets in a highlighted manner.

The number of staff that you manage in your team or company in general.

Include your overall roles and responsibilities in planning and budgetary matters in your department or company in general.

Include your sales responsibilities with some description of what you sell and the markets in which you sell your products or the concepts and the type of clients that you targeted.

If you had budgetary responsibilities, specify some of the important projects that you have worked on and whether you completed the projects on budget and on time.

Include, if you have introduced new sales procedures, practices and techniques which helped or enhanced in improving sales.

Mention how you improved the efficiency and productivity within your department or the organization in general.

Mention how you have reduced costs and saved money in your department or the organization in general.

Highlight any other achievements that have benefited your department and obviously your organization.

Auto Sales Training

If you're a salesperson whose dealership has recently gone online, you're probably wondering about the best way to handle online customers. This new breed is entirely different, and dealerships everywhere are incorporating internet sales techniques into their existing auto sales training programs as a result.

The internet buyer is much more discriminating than their offline counterpart. They are searching for added value, choice and much more than the best price.
Therefore, being able to turn their enquiries into sales should be the goal of all online dealerships. But how do you, as a salesperson go about this effectively?

To begin with, a good understanding of today's internet buyers is in order. They are much more educated about what can be had online. That's because most auto dealer websites allow them to do just about everything except kick the tires. Internet car buyers have greater control over the buying process. They can access information around the clock, greatly reduce searching time, comparison shop and even obtain financing online. That means that once they've reached you, they are much better informed than the car buyers of old. However, it doesn't mean that the salesperson has been outmoded! Salespeople are as an integral part of the auto-purchasing process as they've always been. Customers still need someone to help clear confusion and finalize the sale.

It should be understood that the internet presents a golden opportunity for auto retailers and sales people to re-evaluate and reinvent their customer image. For example, the online salesperson can elevate the entire dealership's image by assuming a more advisory role with customers. This role is highly important, considering that said customer will already know a great deal about what you have to offer. As well, internet buyers, already being used to the low pressure, self-controlled buying process are more likely to respond negatively to traditional pressure selling tactics.

Internet auto sales training should communicate the benefits of using the internet to engage a customer at the shopping stage and provide superior customer service, something that has always been a cornerstone of the auto industry. Training should also identify the benefits of utilizing internet customer relationship marketing to reinforce strong brand loyalty.

How many internet sales a dealership makes will ultimately depend on the amount of useful information on that dealership's website. Today's internet buyer will not wait for new information to be added; if a website does not have what they are looking for, they will simply go elsewhere. The internet is seen as 'the great equalizer' of all businesses. Dealerships are no longer just competing with companies down the street; they are being compared to dealerships world wide. Therefore, it is even more critical that any auto sales techniques be original and dynamic; something that catches the buyer's eye or ear and leaves them compelled to know more.

Customer service is just as important online as it is offline; the salesperson must be willing and able to follow up with any and all internet enquiries received. According to a recent J.D. Power Autoshopper survey, 22% of all new vehicle buyers said that the internet affected their choice of a dealer, up from 14% in 2002. Therefore, how a dealer or salesperson responds to internet requests is of increasing importance to customers.

Quality customer relationship management software is another way that a net-savvy dealership can manage its enquiries. Incorporating technology into the office has many other benefits as well. Today's salespeople can now communicate from anywhere, whether it via PDA, cell phone or laptop, making them more accessible to customers than ever before. Web chat offers an additional outlet for sales people and customers to connect, giving customers the opportunity to receive real-time answers to pressing questions.

But the tactics and advice is the same: take the time to listen to what customers are saying so that you can tailor services to meet their needs, don't rush the sale and if a problem arises, avoid excuses; instead, explain why the problem has occurred. Assume a courteous disposition, be willing to ask what you can do for them, and showcase the benefits of working with you and your dealership. Internet customers are after the same things traditional customers are; to be heard and be advised.