The month of February brings to the forefront a single day where love is the focus. Valentines Day. Yes, that one-day where we go all out for that one person we love dearly. I would suggest to you that if you wait until February 14 you have missed 11 other months to show your love. Because I am a sales coach and not a life coach, I need to quickly move over to the lovers in your business life? From a sales training perspective, what have you done recently to show your clients some love? If you don’t take care of your clients your competitors will! That I can promise you.
Experts tell us that it takes fives times the money and five times the energy to win a new client. So, what can we do to show our clients some love and keep them in a long-term relationship? Let’s have some fun on this topic, but also look at some serious ideas to boost your relationships with your clients.
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Here are 6 ways to show your clients some love this month and beyond.
- What about sending hand written love notes? The art of the hand written thank you note has neared extinction. Join me in reviving this age-old sales retention activity. Buy some nice thank you cards and grab a nice pen and get to work. I like to send along a $5 Starbucks card with my thank you notes too. Is your handwriting poor? Check out Bond.co (not dot com. Dot co) They will write your thank you notes for you for $7 each.
- Who doesn’t love to eat? Send some lovely small edible gifts. I use 1-800-flowers.com to send small tokens of appreciation like popcorn or cookies. A little secret is to buy the free all year shipping pass. This means all of your shipping is covered for the year at one flat rate. There are many non-floral gifts for under $20.
- How about sending non-sales emails of love? On a monthly basis I like to find a great motivational article or Youtube video to share with my clients. I find many on Inc.com under their motivation section. I write a simple email and send them the link. I do NOT mention sales at all. “Hi Bob. I came across this great article and thought I would share it with you. – insert link – . Have a great day. – Ryan” In my sales training workshops, we spend 45 minutes on this important topic. Why? Because this retention activity truly needs to be a part of your daily sales life.
- Introduce your clients to experts that will love them too. Set-up meetings for your clients with subject matter experts that you know will benefit their business. For example, find a cyber security expert or an SEO expert and work out a deal with these pros where the first consultation is free for your clients. Or, you pay for it.
- Online educational love-fests. Or, you can call them “webinars” if you want. Lol. Educational webinars are a great way to show your clients some love. Arrange for an expert to talk on a webinar about topics that are important to the industry or community that you serve. You might event tap some of the subject matter experts from #4 above for these webinars. The topics you choose are important to draw a crowd. You might even consider using a survey to determine the topics that are important to your clients. This is an invitation only type of online event. Those invited can ask questions as well. Don’t worry about large numbers of attendees. Keep it intimate and action oriented. Do not over think this retention activity. I use GotoWebinar for this type of activity. GTW is cost effective and I have never one time experienced a technical issue with the system.
- How about a sexy phone message from the boss? Ok, that might be a stretch. Arrange to have your boss or a member of top brass simply call the client. Even if you get a voicemail the impact is awesome. Clients love to hear that the boss cares about them enough to call them. If you make this a monthly activity, the time commitment is fairly minimal yet the impact is monumental. Keep in mind, you will get voice mail 90% of the time.
If you will wait for the holidays to show your love. By the time you wait for the Christmas holiday to say I love you, your competitor has asked them for a date 11 times. The odds of success are in their favor. Show your clients some love today! Make these activities a part of your sales training program and your annual client retention program.
Loving your clients and having an active retention plan in place is mission critical to your long-term success in the sales business. Those that master the retention game survive a VERY long time in the sales game. Don’t wait. Start showing some love today!
XO Ryan
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Ryan Dohrn is an internationally certified sales coach and sales trainer with a focus on seven multi-national industries. Ryan is also a top sales conference speaker and sales meeting speaker.
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
The key to your success in the world of sales is increasing the number of meetings you are granted by prospective clients. Developing an effective prospecting process can be the difference between life and death in your sales career. For me, the goal of prospecting is simply getting to a meeting. Period. The goal of prospecting is not to sell anything. I am just hoping to meet with a client via phone or in person for 20 minutes. If you are selling during the prospecting phase you will greatly reduce your success. Over the course of 25 years in the sales and marketing business I have seen many prospecting plans from many unique angles. I have identified five factors in the prospecting process that will increase your chances of being granted a meeting with a prospective client – I call this my T.A.R.G.E.T. prospecting tool. I use this tool every day in both writing my prospecting emails and leaving voicemails for my prospects. I will break it down into six pieces for you; each piece builds on the previous.
Listen on iTunes as well, click here.
The T in T.A.R.G.E.T. stands for “time”. A person’s time is highly valuable to them, each and every day. The main reason that more prospects do not grant you access to present to them is the simple fact that many other sales people have wasted their time. It is imperative that you focus on NOT wasting their time in your prospecting emails and voicemails. You want to articulate that you realize other sales people may have wasted their time. But, in doing so, be careful not to sound like all the other sellers that also emailed them that day. An often over-used phrase in prospecting emails is “I know that your time is valuable.” Or, “I want to be respectful of your time.” These two phrases are common and un-authentic. Instead, I want you to consider phrases like, “I promise not to waste your time.” Or, “ I’m sure other sales people in the past have wasted your time.”
The A in T.A.R.G.E.T. stands for “authentic”. Showing that you are authentic is critical in breaking the ice with someone you do not know. People that are authentic are not afraid to admit their faults. People that are authentic are more focused on others then themselves. People that are authentic truly want to help you. I would ask you to consider phrases in your prospecting emails and voicemails like, “I truly feel that this idea will benefit you.” Or, “I have seen firsthand how this has benefited my other clients.” Or, “I have three clients like you that are seeing solid success working with us.” Or, “I fully recognize the fact that you do not know me.” Your authenticity is also further driven by your focus on all the points in the T.A.R.G.E.T. system I am proposing to you.
The R in T.A.R.G.E.T. stands for “relevant”. There is nothing worse that receiving an irrelevant, generic sales email from someone you do not know. I am amazed that companies still continue to use this approach as a prospecting tool. It does not work unless you email thousands and thousands of prospects, and even then it is hit and miss. Instead, I want to prove quickly that I am relevant to my prospect by pointing out something from their website, company Facebook® page or their profile on LinkedIn®. I recognize that this might come across as creepy if it is not handled properly. For example, “before reaching out to you, I was doing some research on your website and saw that you have recently moved into the aviation industry.” Or, “while researching your company, I saw on your LinkedIN profile that we both worked for ABC Company many years back.” Or, “in preparing to contact you, I saw on your company’s Facebook page that you’re promoting the XYZ product right now.“ Generic does not work. Relevant always wins.
The G in T.A.R.G.E.T. stands for “go”. This premise is simple: I want my email to be focused. We want them to move forward, and we need to ask them to do so. I am not suggesting that you be pushy or arrogant, I am suggesting that you consider phrases like, “I truly feel that I can help you with ______. Can we chat for 20 minutes or less via phone Tuesday at 9am, 11am or 3pm EST?” It is important to understand that each component of the T.A.R.G.E.T. prospecting system is important.
The E in T.A.R.G.E.T. stands for “ethical”. Have you ever received an email with a great subject line, and then opened the email to discover that you were tricked? If you are anything like me, this makes you mad. I have never, ever applauded a sales person for tricking me. The subject line is often the ethical barometer by which you are judged – it sets the tone for your chances of getting your email opened or replied to. I recently wrote a blog called 10 Great Sales Subject Lines. Check it out at this link: https://salestrainingworld.com/sales-training/10-sales-email-subject-lines-to-get-an-open-read-and-reply/ Some of my favorite subject lines include the date that you want to meet the prospect and the name of your prospect’s competitor.
The final T in T.A.R.G.E.T. stands for tick-tock. Meaning, tick-tock like a clock. When is the best time to send a prospecting email? What time of day should you send an email to get a reply? 10am and 2pm are the most common times for meetings in corporate America so these would be two times to avoid. Your email will just not get the attention required to receive a quality reply, if any reply at all. What times of day are predictable for fewer meetings? 11:15am and 4:15pm. Why? Not many meetings are booked at 11:15 because they will potentially interfere with lunch. Not many meetings are booked at 4:15 because they will potentially interfere with happy hour. I have seen a dramatic increase in email opens and replies during these two times of day. Maybe you sell to an industry working on a different schedule, like restaurants or contractors? You will need to alter your email prospecting send times to coincide with times that your potential clients will be most attentive.
Let’s bring this T.A.R.G.E.T. blog to a final point: increasing the number of meetings that you are granted by prospective clients is the key to your success in the world of sales. Period. Without the meeting, you do not have a chance to present anything. Developing an effective prospecting process can be the difference between life and death in your sales career, and email is one step of that process.
Remember, if sales was easy everyone would be doing it.
Ryan
About this blogger:
Ryan Dohrn is an award winning sales coach and offers sales training to thousands of sales executives each year. He is also an international motivational speaker and the author of the best selling sales book, Selling Backwards. Ryan is the President and founder of Brain Swell Media, a boutique sales training and sales coaching firm with a detailed focus on sales training and coaching for media and
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
Today’s consumers demand relevance, but what is relevance exactly?
While Oxford English Dictionary has its definition of “relevance,” what you can take away from that definition is that relevance is a state of “connection” and “appropriate.”
You might ask yourself how relevance plays a role in driving better sales and what it takes for your business to be more relevant.
No, you do not have to stalk your prospects on Facebook. Instead, you can be relevant by training your sales staff to recognize the needs of your client and develop a customized experience based on those needs.
How Relevance Is Finding Its Way into Corporate Sales Training
If you have taken a corporate sales skills training course recently, you might have noticed that there was a common theme: Know your audience.
As a sales professional, you must prove to the prospective customer that you have done your homework, and you are presenting a solution that benefits them in copious ways. While this sounds easy, many businesses have failed at relevance.
4 Ways to Succeed at Boosting Relevancy
Relevancy does not have to be some daunting task, but it also is not something you quickly throw together and toss into the next email campaign. When you are creating your sales courses for staff members, deploy these four techniques to ensure they understand what you mean by “relevance.”
1. Stop Harassing People with Generic Emails
Generic emails to prospects are not only turn-offs, but they border the line of offensive.
Take a recent email I received. A major company in the social media industry sent me a 700-word email. The subject line was catchy and read “Free Food?” Therefore, my interest was piqued, and I opened it.
Sadly, after the subject line, I was left disappointed. The email itself was generic, boring, and talked more about the company. There were no benefits for myself, no personalization, and the email was irrelevant.
I deleted the email disappointed in myself for giving into the subject line. After all, my opening of that email has now sent a message to that company to keep sending them. Luckily, we have “unsubscribe” for that reason.
While the “unsubscribe” option saved me from more generic harassment, for that company, they just lost an opportunity. You do not want to send generic emails that turn people away or worse, force them to unsubscribe from your list.
2. Use the 3 Elements of Relevancy
Relevancy is easier when you have the three proper elements present. These elements are offered up at corporate sales training seminars because they teach you how to draw in your prospect.
What are the three elements?
- Subject Line Specificity: Your subject line presents a solution to a particular problem. For the B2B sector, perhaps you want to help a company save on office supply costs, so start with “Revolutionary Products that Reduce Your Office Supply Costs.”
- Keep the Body Relevant: First, personalize your email. Mention the recipient’s name and avoid the generic “Hello Friend.” Then, keep your body relevant, short, and sweet. Show the prospect you have done your homework, and briefly, explain what solution you offer to their particular problem.
- Include Samples: People will not nip at something that they cannot see. To pique interest, include a link to a promo video or entice them with an introductory discount so that they have a reason to follow through.
3. Do Your Homework
Research your prospect thoroughly.
With today’s technology at your fingertips, you have plenty of ways to research the industry or company you are hoping to work with. For example, you can use tools like Google Alerts for industry news. Research prospects on LinkedIn to see what groups and interests they have.
4. Always Be Authentic with Your Approach
Authenticity means you are genuine.
Being authentic is not a sales strategy either. According to Melanie Lane from HubSpot, everyone knows when you are authentic and when you are trying to force your message.
Consumers do not want you to tell them. Instead, the less you sell, the more open they are to buy. So, if you offer up advice for money-saving tips, stick with the information and do not make it an opportunity to pitch your product. The sale comes naturally when the authenticity reigns.
What Have We Learned About Relevancy and Corporate Sales Training?
If you want to build a team of selling superstars, create in-house corporate sales training courses that implement these four steps.
Furthermore, hire a sales coach to help with your corporate sales training. At Brain Swell, we help you unlock the skills you need, connect you with top-tier coaches, and take your business to the next level.
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training
Fall is not known for being the best time for sales.
In fact, because the holidays and the New Year come one after another, most salespeople expect their numbers to dwindle down to nil as December ends.
This time of year, we could all use a little boost – some motivation to keep our momentum going through the slow season.
Just because it’s Fall doesn’t mean you have to cop out!
As such, here are 7 ways to keep going, keep selling, and enjoy more success as a fresh year moves in.
If you need extra inspiration, we have a podcast that covers this topic right here. Listen in and read up for some timely advice.
7 Corporate Sales Training Tips to Keep You Soaring
1. Use This Time to Prime Your 2018 Sales
Most people don’t make buying decisions on the spot, or instantaneously. Instead, buying decisions often happen weeks or months before the buyer takes action.
With the new fiscal year approaching, many companies will not have an approved budget until after we hang up the 2018 calendar.
This is why it’s important to keep selling at this slow time – and sell hard.
In essence, you’re priming your buyers for a sale that will close a few weeks or months into the future. When the budget is ready, they will be, too.
2. Build New Client Relationships
The holiday season is the perfect time to build new client relationships. There are tons of themed events and parties where networking is easy. People are feeling more generous and giving, too.
Take advantage and set up “meet and greet” or “lunch and learn” meetings where you can build up those essential connections.
3. Keep Prospecting Steadily
Since so many other salespeople think of Fall as a “dead zone” for sales, you have a golden opportunity to get ahead.
Instead of sitting back and expecting dormancy, make those phone calls and send those emails. No matter the season, prospecting is something you should do daily.
4. Get Excited Again
Your feelings about the product you’re selling will affect your sales. It’s as simple as that. If you’re not excited, you’ll have a harder time getting clients excited, too. Combat this by reigniting your fire.
Think back to what excited you about the product when you first started selling it. Tap into that. If it helps, listen to upbeat music on your drive to work, put up positive reminders, or change your desktop to something that motivates you.
5. Do Some CRM Housekeeping
Out-of-date sales tools and data are no help to anybody. It’s important to clean house every once in awhile to keep the ship running smoothly. Make sure your data is updated, your accounts are in order, and you aren’t hanging on to dead accounts.
6. Focus on Your Professional Development
If you still have some downtime, invest in your professional development.
Here are a few ideas:
- Read a great sales book and learn something new. There are lots of lists online to pull from, like this one from Inc.
- Scour the internet and find inspiring sales or management videos. Look for ones that cover your weak points so you can learn and grow.
- Consider hiring a sales coach or enrolling in corporate sales training to truly hone your skills and make the most of them.
7. Create a Client “Wish List” for 2018
Who would you love to add to your client accounts in 2018? Create a list and make goals to nab these clients. Research them, then create a sales marketing plan to reach them.
It’s great to keep setting goals and reassessing old ones. Measure your progress, celebrate your victories, and remember to keep working hard to reach your targets.
Autumn Doesn’t Have to Be Slow for Sales
Forget the myth that the Fall season is a slow time of year for sales. Instead, bust through it and create your own forward motion.
The holiday madness and the drearier weather can contribute to lags, but you don’t have to let these perceived roadblocks win.
All you need is an attitude shift and some determination to steamroll through a slow Fall.
If you could use some extra pushes, teaching, or motivation for your sales gig, reach out to my team for help. We can inspire you to do great things with corporate sales training and coaching.
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
Would you like to know how to attract more businesses to your products or services?
It is actually a lot simpler than you may think. You don’t have to hypnotize or manipulate them into buying. All you need to do is just give them what they want.
With the right corporate sales training, you will be increasing your sales in no time, while maintaining a good business-to-business relationship.
The key to soaring corporate sales is an understanding of the human behavior.
Fundamentally, all human beings have the same mental triggers that usually drive their actions. To fully understand and influence your potential clients, you need to know what those mental triggers are and how you can effectively utilize them in your corporate sales message.
Corporate Sales Training: 4 Things Corporate Clients Don’t Like
Here are four typical psychological behaviors that may block you from closing an otherwise successful corporate sales deal.
1. Corporate Clients Don’t Like Change
Have you ever tried keeping a New Year’s resolution? Maybe lose a few pounds?
If you have, then you definitely know how hard it is to change a particular behavior. Despite your good intention and dedication to fixing unhealthy habits, many people still continue to eat junk food, drink excessively, and fail to exercise.
As a corporate salesperson, you must understand that one of your key roles in corporate sales is asking businesses to change from buying nothing to something, or from buying from a competitor to you.
So how do you go about it?
The best way to inflict positive change to your potential clients is by sharing your success stories. Businesses will feel more confident and more secure with your products and services once they discover how it has helped many other similar businesses before them.
2. Corporate Clients Don’t Like Doing Business with Strangers
From your childhood, you probably remember the phrase “stranger danger”. Well, guess what? It’s back! And it’s here to tremendously affect your corporate sales.
Nobody is willing to buy from a person they barely know or heard of. A corporate sale is no exception.
When selling a product or service to another company, you need to inject information that is more relevant and helpful to the company. Let the company see how much of an asset your product or service can be to them.
To this end, before making any prospective corporate sales call, ensure that you have thoroughly gone through the company’s website, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles as well as the general internet to gather all the information necessary to beat the “stranger danger” mindset.
3. Corporate Clients Don’t Like Making Hard Decisions
Of course, we’ve all sat for multiple-choice exams. How does it feel when you get to a question and you’re stuck between answer A and B? Frustrating, right?
So how do you expect your prospective clients to buy products or services from you if you put them in a similar position?
When selling, it is imperative that you make it easy for businesses to buy from you. Make it very clear how your products and services will solve their problem, make them more money and/or save them time.
Don’t put your customers into a situation where they have to think hard about striking a deal with you. In fact, don’t let them think at all. Present yourself to them in such a way that they’ll see you as a caped crusader who has come to their rescue.
4. Corporate Clients Don’t Like to Buy What They Don’t Understand
By nature, people are averse to risk. If they don’t understand what you are selling to them, they’ll definitely not buy from you.
86% of people are estimated to be visual learners. So the best way to make clients understand what you are selling is by using visuals. When a client asks a question try to answer it in a more visualized manner. This means that you should use graphs, videos, and previous success stories, basically anything that they can relate to at a personal level.
And that is how they will start buying from you.
Good Corporate Sales Training Gets You More Sales
In order to make it huge in corporate sales, you need to have a sales process and stick to it. Carefully analyze the human behavior and create a repeatable process that can help you learn and grow to replicate with each and every client you come across. That’s the only way you’ll achieve your corporate sales success.
About Ryan Dohrn
Ryan Dohrn is a corporate sales coach and offers corporate sales training to thousands of corporate sales executives each year. He is also an international motivational speaker and the author of the best-selling sales book, Selling Backwards. Ryan is the President and founder of Brain Swell Media, a boutique corporate sales training and sales coaching firm with a detailed focus on sales training and sales coaching for companies in 17 unique industry sectors from media to tech to aviation. He is also the owner and Publisher of SalesTrainingWorld.com an online portal for sales training success.
Contact information: Ryan R. DohrnPresident/Founder, Brain Swell Media LLCPublisher, SalesTrainingWorld.comRyan@BrainSwellMedia.com
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
Many sales trainers talk about the “good ole days” before email. When the phone was your weapon of choice. Many even suggest that email has ruined the sales process. I could NOT disagree more. In my sales training workshops I teach that email is an amazing piece of technology. If used in the right way it can truly help the sales professional win and grow business.
Before we get into the best sales subject lines for email success, please allow me to offer three pieces of email sales advice.
1. Email does not replace the phone. The phone is an amazing tool when trying to build a relationship with a prospect from a distance.
2. All to often you ignore the phone and only focus on email. Sales superstars know how to balance phone, email and face time to maximize the total sales process.
3. Email lacks tone and emotion. Of course you can YELL and 😉 , but, your voice is a powerful sales tool. During my sales training workshops I teach a pattern of voice mail and email prospecting that gets results! Do not give up on the phone when these sales email subject lines get you results.
Here are my top 10, email subject lines that have been getting me results in the last 30 days or less. I will also provided email examples and advice on each as well.
1. Subject line: (Name of a mutual connection) recommended I get in touch.
Body of email: “Hi Donnie. Ryan Dohrn recommends that you and I touch base about _______. He and I mutually felt that this idea could benefit you. Could I have 20 minutes via phone to discuss this week? I promise just 20 minutes. I take pride in not wasting peoples time.”
Advice: There is clearly no better way to connect with a new sales prospect than through a referral. Agree? Also, notice that I assure the prospect that I will not waste their time. Many sales people before you have wasted a prospects time. You want to take pride in not being one of those “vampires of time.”
2. Subject line: I was just wondering…
Body of email: “Hi Rachel. I was wondering if you would be open to a 20 minute phone call about (insert sales topic here)? I promise to respect your time. 20 minutes is all that I need.”
Advice: This sales subject line is often used as a follow-up or can also be used as a way to offer a meeting invitation. For example,
3. Subject line: May 29th?
Body of email: “Hi Ron. I will be in Clinton, IA on May 29th for a meeting. Could I get on your calendar for 20 minutes in the morning? I promise just 20 minutes. I take pride in not wasting peoples time.”
Advice: I often use this subject line to request a meeting date or to offer a follow-up date for a meeting.
4. Subject line: 3 reasons…
Body of email: “Hi John. I truly feel there are three reasons why we should work together.
1. Your mission. I understand your company and appreciate your mission.
2. Your support needs. I have a quality reputation for offering best in class customer service.
3. Your budget. We are the only company offering your payment options. “
Advice: This subject line is most often used after you have tried several times to connect with a prospect via email. The idea is to list three reasons why the prospect should reengage with you via email.
5. Subject line: Did something happen?
After a proposal or a meeting this subject line will often play with a prospects emotions and get you a response. I might even say in the email “Hi Terry, Was there something that happened after our meeting that I can help you resolve? You sounded very positive about setting up a follow-up call. I am not a high-pressure type of guy. I truly want to help you with ________. ”
6. Subject line: New idea for you.
Body of email: “Hi Bob, I would love to share with you a new budget friendly idea that is really working for other companies like yours. 20 minutes is all that I need. I promise just 20 minutes. I take pride in not wasting peoples time.”
Advice: I like to use this subject line right out of the gate when trying to set a meeting with a new prospect. Of course you need a new idea to share. Or, you can share a thought that will give your prospect a slight competitive advantage.
7. Subject line: (Name of a competitor) is marketing very well? Or, just the company name of a prospects competition.
Body of email: “I see that John Doe is really marketing a lot these days. I have an idea to really give them a run for their money.” Or, “Hi Rex, I see that John Doe just launched the new ABC Model. I have a unique idea to share with you that could give them a run for their money.” Or, “Hi John, your competitor John Doe just bought into our system. I truly feel you need to take a look at this as well.”
Advice: This subject line is most often used by my media sales coaching clients. But, it applies to other sales sectors as well. This sales subject line will ruffle a few feathers. So, be careful. I never EVER share client information with other clients. I am simply using this subject line to prompt a reply based on friendly competition. Again, you want to be ethical with what you share using this approach.
8. Subject line: Wrong person?
Body of email: “Hi Michael, I hate to be that sales guy that keeps emailing the wrong person. Any chance you could point me in the right direction of the person that handles _________ ?”
Advice: Often used as a last ditch effort, this subject line allows the client to provide you information that you can use to move them off your prospect list. Be real and often you will get a reply. This truly only works if the sales prospecting pattern you use is aggressive. If you only email once a month, forget about it.
9. Subject line: 20 Minutes?
Body of email: “Hi Nicole. I saw on your web site that you just launched the A350 Model. I have an idea to help you promote that to our client list of 36,0000. 20 minutes is all I need to share with you an idea. I promise to not waste your time and keep you on the phone for 45 minutes. I pride myself in not being that type of sales person.” Or, “Hi Nicole. I saw on your web site that you just won the contract for Jayco. Congrats. I have an idea to help you with the staffing issues related to that contract. 20 minutes is all I need to share with you an idea. I promise to not waste your time and keep you on the phone for 45 minutes.”
Advice: This subject line can be tricky if you do not also include a promise. You will need to tweak the above based on what problem you hope to solve. Or, what your idea can do to save her time, money or effort.
10. Subject line: I will respect your answer.
Body of email: “I would very much enjoy working together, but if you have decided to not move forward I will be very respectful of your decision. Any update on your project decision status is appreciated.”
Advice: Not used enough. It is often taboo to allow a client to say no. To encourage them to say no is also taboo. But, what I have found is that when the client feels like they can tell you no they will at least reply.
Final thoughts: There are certain sales training programs that teach you “sales tricks”. Those zinger lines of narrative that force a client to a “yes decision”. In the day and time when there were not many options for products and services those “sales tricks” worked well. Today, most buyers will not tolerate the high-pressure sales tactics of the past. I find that my systematic approach to sales relies on three things… working the right client on the right pattern with the right message. Relevance is key.
How can I help you and your team? Each year I train hundreds of sales professionals. My methods are fun, ethical and based on the simple fact that I sell every day to feed my family. My ideas are fresh, relevant, tactical and you can use them right away.
Media clients please visit: http://360adsales.com
Get out there and sell something!
Ryan Dohrn
Ryan@BrainSwellMedia.com
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
When you interact with others, you probably focus a lot on what you say. Words, of course, matter. But there’s something that might matter as much as, if not more than, your words.
Nonverbal communication holds a lot of power to influence others either positively or negatively. And it doesn’t just include your arms and hands: You can communicate with eyes, with your posture, with your stance. Once you’re aware of your own body language, you can start to use those insights to read other people’s thoughts and reactions—particularly important when you’re going on a sales call.
Even if the conversation isn’t one-on-one, nonverbal communication makes an impact. When you’re standing in front of an audience, convincing them to listen or to buy in to whatever it is you’re talking about, your nonverbal communication can help you fight a winning (or losing) battle.
What should you know about nonverbal communication? This graphic explains it.
Click To Enlarge
Via Salesforce
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
When AE’s hear “sales training” they think … boring! Been there. Done that. I have found great success in using improvisational comedy as a way to train and increase retention during the sales training session.
As we all know, selling is an act of improvisation. Many times selling is more like comedy than many of us might ever think. The problem is most sales people are not ready to react on the fly and thus they rely on old, bad or untested sales habits from days gone by. The end result is a client that “needs to think about it” or “doesn’t have any budget.”
When sales professionals begin to embrace the basics of improv, they begin to align their brains with a higher level of thinking. Improv is not just about making people laugh. Lets be honest, some people are just not funny. And, in some cases being funny is not appropriate. The idea behind improvisation comedy based sales training is to set up an account executive for success when in the field or on the phone. I want them to embrace an idea and create a winning solution to that idea quickly. This is about training the brain to react. Improvisation is also about listening and responding positively, thereby, moving the process forward. Additionally, these skills translate not only between an account executive and an external customer, but, also, between ‘internal customers’ (within/between your company’s departments).
So, how does this work at your company? You can either hire a pro to facilitate or do-it-yourself.
Thoughts on DIY:
- Create games and carefully think through how the game is won.
- Watch Youtube or TV replays of shows like Who’s Line Is It Anyway for creative inspiration. Be sure to adapt those ideas to the sales world you live in.
- Don’t focus on being funny. That is something that is natural not fake.
- Use props where appropriate to create stimuli.
- Focus on creating fast paced scenarios that are based on real world sales objections.
- Participation is key. Asking for volunteers will not produce results. A random draw or forcing all is the way to go.
Want to hire a pro comedy legend and veteran sales rep to facilitate? We offer a 9am-4pm day long workshop that is 50% improv sales training and 50% standard, “what you would expect”, core sales training. We have found that this approach increases retention and results!
At Sales Training World we believe in this approach so much that we have aligned ourselves with improv comedy expert and 25 year sales veteran Clay Sander.
Reach out to us for a no-obligation quote on this unique corporate sales training service for your sales organization.
Ryan@BrainSwellMedia.com
803-634-3886
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
Is Santa Claus real? I say yes. But, I have been “sold” on Santa for many years. 44 years to be exact. But, I was not always so convinced. Perhaps, the greatest “sales job” of them all just might be the never-ending quest my Mother placed on “selling Santa” to my two brothers and I for over 40 years. The “Santa Sell” is still alive today in homes around the world.
My Mom believes in Santa Claus. Period. She will undoubtedly ask what Santa brought me this year on Christmas day. For as long as I can remember my Mom would purposely wrap gifts in different wrapping paper with bright labels that proclaimed they were To: Ryan, From: Santa. She was very quick to point out that the wrapping paper was so unique and pretty. Such great wrapping paper they have at the North Pole she would say. As a young boy, there were many unique occurrences that made me question my ever-growing doubt about the legitimacy of Santa. One Christmas eve we had returned home from my Grandpa Dohrn’s house when a most authentic Ho, Ho, Ho was heard from the family room one story below. I quickly looked down the stairs and saw no one. Almost as quickly my father appeared next to me on the second floor as it to quietly proclaim his innocence as the “Sales Assistant” to this “sales plan”. There is no way that he could have played the role of Santa and then appeared right next to me. He clearly saw the question forming in my mind. Like many of my sales clients I needed to “think about it” overnight.
Is the selling of Santa to our children perhaps the greatest sales job of all time? Lets compare the “Santa sell” to what we sell every day.
Step #1: Pre-sales marketing is critical to your success as a sales professional: Maybe you remember the days as a kid of circling toys in the Sears catalog? My Mom would often put the catalog in our little hands months in advance. Coincidence? I think not. (I was born in 1972. I’m not that old. Lol.)
Step #2: Persistence pays off when selling anything: There was of course the constant reminder of the Naughty and Nice List. I was the oldest of three boys. This reminder happened every day. Mom used persistence to keep the sales message alive. Coincidence? I think not.
Step #3: Sales marketing reinforcement is critical during all phases of the sales process: What about the visit to sit on Santa’s lap? Was it a coincidence that you were taken to the mall by your Mother to have your photo taken with Santa in a massive retail establishment? Wait, what about Santa reinforcing the sales message while you sat on his lap? Coincidence? I think not.
Step #4: The negotiation of the deal: As a young child I did not know our financial status, nor did I care, because I felt rich every Christmas morning. But, prior to that big reveal my Mom would begin the process of “gift negotiation”. She would remind me that Santa wants to bring me all I request, but his elves can only make so many toys each year. She was managing my expectations too. Well-done Mom. Coincidence? I think not.
Step #5: Closing the deal: The night before Christmas the tradition of cookies and milk for Santa was my Moms way of brining the deal to the table. The Santa Sell rested on her ability to convince three boys that some fat dude was coming down the chimney bringing us gifts from a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. You know the story. Huge sell! Coincidence? I think not.
Step #6: Delivering on what you sold: A ton of preamble goes into Christmas morning for many families. My mother has ten boxes of “stuff” that needed to come up from the basement for the big morning. My father also worked hard on clues for a treasure hunt. We had to solve clues to find our last gift which was usually something that cost way more than we could afford, but they some how bought it. Pure joy is how I describe Christmas morning at the Dohrn house. Coincidence? I think not.
If you factor in all of the above, you will see that my Mother is the best sales person ever. If you ever question your ability to sell think about this… thousands of loving adults sell the idea of Santa to millions of children each year. If they can pull off that sales miracle year in and year out… your sales job should be a piece of cake, or Christmas pie.
No matter how you celebrate this holiday season I hope that you will find the humor and love in this blog post.
Merry Christmas to you all and thank you for allowing me to be a part of your sales training life in 2016.
About this blogger:
Ryan Dohrn is an award winning sales coach and offers sales training to thousands of sales executives each year. He is also an international motivational speaker and the author of the best selling sales book, Selling Backwards. Ryan is the President and founder of Brain Swell Media, a boutique sales training and sales coaching firm with a detailed focus on sales training and coaching for media and technology companies. He is also the owner and Publisher of SalesTrainingWorld.com an online portal for sales training success.
Contact information:
Ryan R. Dohrn
President/Founder, Brain Swell Media LLC
Publisher, SalesTrainingWorld.com
Ryan@BrainSwellMedia.com
http://www.BrainSwellMedia.com
http://RyanDohrn.com
http://360adsales.com
http://sellingbackwards.com
http://SalesTrainingWorld.com
Follow him on Twitter.com/ryandohrn for daily tips and advice.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryandohrn
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales coaching, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
The only event where you can learn from FIVE of the worlds best sales coaches in one venue! No conference tracks or break-out sessions. One venue, 5 amazing speakers. Plus, the most amazing sales focused networking events on the planet.
Who should attend? Rookies, veterans, sales managers.
Date and location coming soon!
We would love to hear from you about this event?
Where do you feel it should be? So far, we are considering Orange County, CA. Denver, CO. Or, The New School in Manhattan, NYC. What do you think?
How much do you feel it should cost?
What is the best date?
Please place your comments below. I would love to hear from you.
Ryan Dohrn, Publisher – Sales Training World
Tagscorporate sales training, sales coach, sales keynote speaker, sales training, sales training program
