Business and Money Tips

"I want you to train my salespeople to become powerful closers better than the insurance people." "Can you train my sales team and get them to increase their closing rate?"  "Andy, I want you to come and train my sales guys on how to hit and exceed their sales targets"   The above are the three most common requests I hear from my clients and prospects.  It seems that in this weak economy, every company wants to focus on sales and they think that sales training is the fastest way to increase sales.  But is this true? As a full-time trainer, consultant and coach since 2001, having trained tens of thousands of people in 15 countries, my answer to the above questions is simply, "Yes".   But we know deep down inside that sales training is just one aspect in sales. For a company to increase its sales, there are 5 major factors. Macro environment: Is the industry going up or down? What stage of the product or industry cycle are we in? Are w...

Yes, managing a sales team is not the same as managing the operations team. Salespeople that got promoted into sales managers may not know how to manage salespeople effectively. This is because  salespeople are not normal employees . They cannot be controlled, coerced or managed like anyone. There are 5 things to know to manage sales people: 1.  It is NOT all about Hitting Targets Many people think that if we hit targets, we are doing well.  Unknown to many, hitting targets is easy.   It is  how  they hit the targets that makes the difference.  Do they hit targets in ways that enhance future business, or do they hit targets in ways that create bad debts?  Do they hit targets with good teamwork, or are they just lone wolves? 2. Is Your High Performer Earning More than the Boss? When you have a high performing salesperson earning more than his boss, you know your company will go far.  The opposite is true 3. Are L...

Salespeople are known to be a different breed of people, and top management often do not treat them the same way as they treat office people.  They say that you must give salespeople lots of freedom, just make sure that they achieve your sales targets and everything will be fine.  Is it so? From our experience in managing, training and coaching salespeople, there are 5 fetters that all salespeople must avoid if they want to be more successful: Sales as War - such a aggressive approach will imprison salespeople to constantly win battles with a 'out to kill' mindset.  If we were to examine closely, we discover that t he biggest war the salesperson need to fight is not with the marketplace but within himself . A good salesperson work on improving himself first before he can conquer the market . Sales as Entertainment .  Here the salesperson simply believes that all customers must be entertained in order to get the business.  We know that the focus on entert...