Have you ever sat in a sales planning meeting and a few minutes into it realized that you don’t know which account your manager is currently talking about?  While your coworkers have been discussing and making plans, you have been thinking about all the emails that you need to respond to and getting to your kid’s baseball game on-time tonight.  This happens all the time and to everyone; especially in our time-limited, multi-tasking society.  And not to mention with all the technological gadgets and devices that we are constantly being distracted with.  Research suggests that we remember less than 50% of what we hear.  Meaning we miss over half of everything. However, those that excel in sales negotiation have excellent listening skills.  In order to effectively probe, listening is critical.  The more information you are able to obtain from the other side, the better your position and the greater power you hold.  However, getting more information from the other party is always a challenge.  In order to extract information, you have to probe effectively.  This involves focusing and carefully listening to what the other side is saying and telling you.  It is important to hear not only the words that another person is saying, but to understand the complete message being sent and what is being implied so you can ask appropriate follow-up questions and probe further.  It is important to focus, listen and understand. SNI teaches a simple, but effective approach to enhance your listening skills. It is - "The Three Cs" - Connect, Consider and Confirm.  First, connect yourself either through eye contact if you are in a meeting or by using the person’s name that you are on the phone with.   Second, carefully consider your response after listening to the other person.  Pause to reflect and then formulate a response.  Don’t mentally form your comment or counter argument while they are still talking.  You can’t effectively listen if you are busy thinking.  Third, confirm what is to be discussed and what has been discussed.  Using agendas and written summaries help to prioritize and highlight important aspects, and also eliminate harmful mistakes and misunderstandings. These are just a few, easy ways to help you become a more effective listener.  

From cutting deals in the boardroom to learning to recognize your own flaws, we want to help you and your sales team be as effective as possible. To increase your effectiveness, you have to carefully cultivate the habits of your sales team at a fundamental level. 2012 has brought about a shift in sales training trends that places a larger focus on "small-level" performance improvement. Check out seven tips to boost in-office performance that can help you can shave off countless hours of wasted time across the board… Give your sales team "process maps." Your company may have hundreds of processes that happen on a routine basis, from submitting pay sheets to sending out memos. Chances are, some of your employees will spend three minutes on submitting a pay sheet while others spend 20 minutes on the task. Determine the most efficient method for these types of processes to be completed, and give employees recommended guidelines for how much time they should spend on the task. Create benchmarks. Watch your big picture goals become much more manageable when you break them down into small goals for your team. If you want your 20-person sales team to generate 400 leads over the next month, then break it down. That’s 20 leads per person, which is one lead per day over the course of four weeks. Check in to see how your team is meeting your benchmarks. Create your personal schedule at the beginning of every day. Obviously, you have to work around meetings and other commitments. But, you should schedule each half-hour segment of your day with particular tasks. This will keep you on-track and focused. Encourage your sales team to do the same. Block out a morning for "spring cleaning" once per quarter. When you get rid of office clutter, unnecessary papers, and other visual distractions, you will see a big performance improvement. Provide your team with recycling bins and waste receptacles. If you give each employee his/her own waste receptacle, then it’s more likely that your initiative will be acted upon. Reward highly efficient salespeople. When your team realizes that you’re serious about rewarding, they’re more likely to act on your performance improvement initiatives. Get your Internet under control. Efficiency experts like Tim Ferriss have been pushing for this for years. If possible, only access email two to three times a day. Avoid social networking sites during office hours. Use a RSS feed for your blogs. It’s all easier said than done, but good habits take practice. Don’t micromanage. It’s easy to get carried away with these tips. However, the more freedom you grant your team (and the more respect you show them!), the better performance improvement results you’ll witness. What fundamental strategies do you employ in your office?  

How to Get Your Sales Team to Buy Into Your CRM System Do you have a great new CRM system? Does it provide answers to all - or most - of the challenges that your sales team is currently working through? Then why aren’t they using it? Selling your sales team on a new system might be one of the hardest sales you have to make. Sales teams can be stubborn in their ways and slow to accepting change. But, chances are, your problem isn’t really with the sales team. The problem is with how you’re selling them. More Than the Sales Team Sure, a CRM system is most likely to be used by a sales team. If you work in a small company, then you know perfectly well that the sales team doesn’t account for the only users of CRM software. Upper management and the marketing department are just two of the groups that might dabble in the CRM system from time to time. Focus on selling to the senior management of your company before selling to the sales team. When senior management is doing it, your sales team is going to be more likely to want to do it, too. (Also, give special attention to the new hires at your target company. New hires are less set in their ways, and more open to change.) Present a Need & Drive Pain Points In B2B sales, pain points are everything. It turns out that pain points go a long way in getting your employees to buy-in, too. If you’re struggling to sell your CRM system, it might be because you aren’t demonstrating the need to your sales team very well. Present the sales team with real problems in the company, and ask how they’re currently addressing those issues. Then, tell them how the new CRM system would help them more effectively address those issues. For example: "How do you remember the lead channels through which your major, long-time accounts were secured?" "We’ve integrated our lead tracking software with the new CRM system so that our clients’ lead information is automatically attached to their profiles in the CRM system. No more forgetfulness!" Offer a Solution The bottom line is this: your CRM system should offer a solution to specific problems that are currently not addressed. Even if the sales team you’re pitching to is change-resistant, you will have a breakthrough when you offer a truly innovative solution. When you offer solutions, get specific. If you know that your sales team has a propensity for losing valuable information, demonstrate how your CRM system can capture and retain that information. Show how effortless and easy it is. Then, attach dollar figures to what your solution means for each salesperson in gained commissions.

Training your team to be the best they can be is neither cheap nor easy. However, the ROI of a successful training program makes it all worth it in the end. In fact, with the proper training methods and materials, your company’s employees can give your bottom line a tremendous boost. But once the work of training is done, how can you measure its success? Business training pioneer Donald Kirkpatrick was famous for being one of the first people to critically evaluate the success of training programs. Kirkpatrick developed a four-step model that everyone in the training industry knows. The basic Kirkpatrick evaluation method asks four things: What was the participant’s reaction to the training? This is often judged on a scale of 1-10 by asking the participant about impressions and general feelings about the training program. What did the participant learn? This can be measured through evaluation tests. How did the participant transfer learning back to the workplace? This can be more difficult to determine, but is analyzed with further surveys and observation. What overall results did the training have on the business? Again, measuring the direct ROI of the training in terms of sales, revenues, and customer satisfaction can be challenging. However, through formulas and analytical models, fairly accurate dollar amount values can be applied to individuals’ training experiences. Measuring Your Company’s Training Success You can measure the success of a training program within your company yourself or with the help of a professional training firm. Depending on the complexity of the training program and the scale on which it’s implemented, you might choose to do it yourself or hire an outside performance improvement firm. Have more questions about how to evaluate training success in your company? Leave them in the comments section where we see them and respond.

If you have spent more than a few weeks in sales, then you have hopefully learned two valuable lessons about business relationships and networking: There’s no correlation between your sales figures and the number of business cards you hand out. Similarly, there’s no connection between your sales figures and the number of contacts on your LinkedIn profile. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with business cards or LinkedIn. Both can be great tools to help you expand your professional network. However, building better relationships in business is all about cultivation. While training and consulting sales teams and executive leaders, it’s all too often that we run into business professionals who put a focus on contacts, not on relationships. Truly successful businesspeople don’t have a mountain of contacts whose names they barely know. Rather, they have a carefully developed and cultivated portfolio of relationships. How to Develop Better Relationships   Are you interested in developing better business relationships? Listen to people and probe them with questions. Don’t do all of the talking, and definitely don’t tune out the person who’s talking to you. Be honest and forthright with new contacts. Don’t misrepresent yourself or your business just to make a new contact. Relationships built on lies go nowhere - fast! Give more than you receive. Business relationships aren’t a 50/50 deal. Each party should be willing to give more in order to hit the payoff. Be personal in your business relationships. Sure, ultimately you’re trying to make the sale. But people are people - even in business (or especially in business). Why Build These Relationships? No matter what industry you’re in, you’ll probably find this maxim to be true: People want to do business with the people they like and know. It’s a basic fact of life. An unknown company’s small discount or slightly better product is rarely going to take a client away from you if you have a strong business relationship with your client. Also, good business relationships make for a richer, more enjoyable career for you and the people on your team. So what are you waiting for? What will you do to build better business relationships?

In our increasingly globalized world, many businesses that used to be 100% local are outsourcing their needs to foreign firms and agencies. You probably have at least one or two suppliers, distributors, or customers overseas for whom English is not a first language. Then again, you could be negotiating with someone in your own city that doesn’t speak English as a first language.  Getting Past Language Barriers If clear communication is a challenge for you and one of your business contacts, here are a few words of advice to help you get on track with your language… Avoid euphemisms and idioms. "The cat’s out of the bag" can be a very confusing way of letting a business contact know that one of your secrets has been made public knowledge. Avoid phrases like these when communicating with someone of a different cultural or ethnic background. In Basic English, there are 850 words, only 18 of which are verbs. Don’t use big or impressive words - especially if they’re not particularly relevant to the line of work you and your business contact are in. Keep your written and oral communication brief and to the point - even at the risk of overstating/oversimplifying.   The Negotiation Phase Once you’re comfortable with communicating clearly, you can turn your attention to negotiating with the contact of a different background. In negotiating, body language goes a long way. Different cultures use body language in different ways. Understanding how your culture and how another person’s culture uses body language can eliminate the risk of offense and achieve results.   Here are a few examples of how body language varies from culture to culture: In Asia, it’s common to avoid eye contact, as looking down is a sign of respect. In Middle Eastern cultures, people of the same gender are likely to stand quite close to one another. Crossing your legs while negotiating with someone of Islamic culture can be perceived as offensive. Handshaking and touching is common in North America, France, and Italy, but these practices are much less common in Asia and northern Europe.  We can’t highlight all of the body language differences between cultures in this post. Rather, the point is to give you some insight into a few types of body language you might not be aware of. Before negotiating with someone of a different culture or ethnic background, you should always do some preliminary research on body language. As for the negotiation part, don’t be afraid of making your needs and desires known. However, express yourself with sensitivity to the other person’s cultural background. A little bit of willingness to learn about someone else can take you a long way!

Training Magazine has just released their annual "Salary Survey," and the figures are a little disheartening for the training industry. According to the report, "Total 2012 U.S. training expenditures - including payroll and spending on external products and services - fell 6.5 percent to $55.8 billion." The report also mentions that 65% of organizations either decreased their training budget or kept 2011’s budget. While the current trend is going against training, many business owners are coming to realize the impressive ROI of professional training services. If you are one of the companies in that 65%, consider these affordable options:   "Learning Teams" Donna Flagg, writing for the Huffington Post, advises that employers encourage "Learning Teams" in the workplace. A "Learning Team" can take on the form of a business book club or an arranged weekly lunch. Essentially, diverse groups of employees in your organization get together to discuss an idea or share experiences. This is a great way to supplement your current training curriculum. We believe that this strategy works best in a mature organization that employs leaders who are willing to take charge in discussion. Otherwise, these "Learning Teams" can turn out to be nothing but wasted man-hours. If you choose to start "Learning Teams" within your organization, encourage younger employees to share new strategies with top leadership, in addition to having top leadership share about their experiences.   Formal Mentoring Opportunities Mary K. Pratt, a Verizon employee writing for Computer World, suggests that employers set up in-house mentoring programs. Pratt cites an example in which a Prudential executive selected 10 of her best leaders and 10 of her best new employees, and paired them together for nine months. The process was entirely voluntary (a huge factor in its success), and took place off-site, outside of office hours. The mentored employees were encouraged to share their goals and objectives, while senior leadership provided guidance and made suggestions. This is a great way for the senior leadership on your team to share formal training experience with newer, younger members.   Online Training & Blended Solutions Even if your budget is down, that doesn’t mean you can’t afford professional training. Many companies (SNI included) offer blended training solutions with strong online components. If you want your employees to have the best training experience possible, without breaking the bank, consider exploring one of these blended training options. Training your employees doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. All it takes is a little bit of creativity and strategy! Have training ideas of your own? Share them in the comments section below.

In our last blog post, we shared some information from the latest Training Magazine, which reported that 65% of organizations had decreased their budget or experienced no budget change in 2012 from the year before. Of course, the converse of that fact is that 35% of organizations increased their training budgets in 2012. Let’s take a look at how small companies (100-999 employees) increased their training budgets this year. According to the Training Magazine report, small companies grew their training budgets in the following ways: Growth of more than 25%: 17% Growth of 16% to 25%: 13% Growth of 6% to 15%: 37% Growth of 1% to 5%: 33% The majority of training budget growth in 2012 was small, but even a 6% to 17% growth is significant in the world of training. A survey of all size businesses reveals that the vast majority of budgetary growth was in: Increasing Scope of Training (56%) Increasing Numbers of Learners Served (52%) Adding Training Staff (49%)  Below, you’ll find some effective ways that your small company can grow in 2013… Increase the scope of your training to get ahead of your competitors in 2013. Training may be stagnant for some industries in 2013. So, while your competitors are cutting corners, know that now is the time for you to push your employees ahead. Look into online training options if your company doesn’t have the time or resources for weekend seminars or month-long courses. Increase the number of learners served by bringing in a professional training group to deliver a series of brown bag lunch seminars. In order to maximize the effectiveness of these seminars, require employees to get into breakout groups to discuss the topic in terms of their own roles in the company. Lastly, increase your training budget in 2013. Reduced training budgets may save money in 2013, but will hurt companies in the long run. Without training, employees fall behind in their skill sets, which results in overall depreciation of a company. How will you train your employees in 2013? Are you increasing your budget or decreasing it?

We’ve seen it time and time again: a sales team that’s overly careful not to be seen as "sharks" fails to close the deal. The excuses go on and on, but usually sound something like this: "We didn’t want to pressure the client." "We thought we would leave the ball in their court for a week." "They said they needed time to think about it." "The client loves their current provider." At the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that a sale has been lost. If your team is losing sales, then it might be time to step in with some negotiation tactics. Here are some strong approaches you can employ to get your sales team closing deals again. 4 Assertive Sales-Closing Techniques Geoffrey James of MoneyWatch wrote an interesting piece for CBS News a couple years ago, titled How to Close a Sale in 6 Easy Steps. The title leads you to believe it’s too good to be true (it is). The steps to closing a sale are never easy. However, James does start off with a strong first piece of advice: "Ignore the ABC Strategy." You probably know this strategy: Always Be Closing. The fact is, the sales game doesn’t work that way, but your salespeople may not know it yet. Let them know that they don’t have to Always Be Closing. Instead, encourage them to focus on developing relationships and setting your company apart from the competition. It’s all in the little details… which later lead to assertive sales-closing! Ray Silverstein, writing for Entrepreneur.com, hits the nail on the head when it comes to picking up on details. Silverstein suggests that when you go into a sales call, you think about what the person you’re pitching to wants. This may sound like standard sales advice, but it’s not. Focus on unique emotional wants, advises Silverstein. He draws upon the example of an entrepreneur, whom he believes doesn’t want to make big profits. Rather, "Entrepreneurs are in business for themselves because they want to call the shots. Their true wants including being the boss, ensuring the company’s security and perhaps passing the company along to a successor." Have your sales team think about how they will meet these unique emotional wants. At least 8 of the 12 Commandments for Closing a Sale by Grant Cardone involve body language and communication. If your sales team isn’t practiced in clear communication and effective body language, then a little bit of sales training can go a long way in affecting your bottom line. Eye contact and a smile is just the beginning. Lastly, how well does your sales team know your product? Jay Delahousay, writing for the Small Business Chronicle, believes that sales teams who are comfortable with their product can be much more assertive and effective in closing sales. He also makes a great closing point: being assertive is different from being aggressive. Where do you see ‘assertive’ sales crossing over into ‘aggressive’ sales territory? 

We recently wrote a blog post about building and developing strong business relationships. We covered some strategies for reaching out to people, and turning ‘contacts’ into ‘relationships’. Now, as we step into 2013, let’s take a closer look at some strategies for maintaining those business relationships. 5 Tips for Maintaining Relationships in 2013 Do yourself a huge favor. Write down the name of every business relationship you want to maintain in 2013. We can guarantee you that if you don’t write down names, you’ll get to the end of 2013 and have completely forgotten several people on the list. Be a listener. In November, we covered the importance of listening to other people. It turns out that it’s a great way to maintain business relationships, too. Entrepreneur.com recommends listening as a key strategy to maintaining business relationships. When you listen, you know the right questions to ask a person, which everyone appreciates. Create an ‘Editorial Calendar’ for sending out emails, making phone calls, and touching base with the contacts on your list. When you plan out time for calling a business contact, it’s much more likely to happen. Also, you’ll avoid that awkward feeling of calling up for a favor when you haven’t even spoken to the person in 11 months. Though the editorial calendar is important, you don’t want to be robotic (which won’t happen anyways if you’re following the tip about listening). Make your correspondence unique. It’s fine to send out a monthly newsletter - just don’t assume that it takes the place of maintaining a relationship. When it comes to relationships with the customers and colleagues that are important to you, form letters and mass emails won’t cut it. Reach out on a personal level to the people on your list this year. Lastly, don’t be objective-oriented. If you’re always thinking, "What am I getting out of this relationship?" then you’ll give up on half of them before the year is out. You might invest yourself in a relationship for 8 months - or years - before it’s of any practical "business use" to you. Don’t give up. The payoff will come with time - often in the most unexpected way. And, if not? Well… sometimes a relationship is its own reward! What do you plan on doing to maintain your business relationships in 2013?