Tips for Using LinkedIn as Part of Your Prospecting Strategy With "Sells" as my last name, it seems inevitable that I would make a career in sales. I not only love sales, I love corporate B2B sales, even as the playing field has changed considerably during my career. When I started selling in the late 1980s in Los Angeles, we didn’t have cell phones. You had to pull over on the freeway, find a payphone, and keep a pocketful of quarters. Now there are cell phones, the Internet, and social media platforms as tools of the trade. I often ask the 20-somethings in my training sessions to raise their hands if they’re on LinkedIn. Most raise their hands. When I ask how they use it for prospecting, I hear crickets and get blank stares. The key to using LinkedIn is to not only be on it, but also to use it effectively as a professional sales tool. The following are some tips for making LinkedIn part of your prospecting strategy. Profiles: Make sure your profile is professional, accurate, and complete. Choose your photograph carefully. If it’s a selfie, make sure it looks professional. Don’t use a party pic or cut yourself out of a group shot. Save pictures with your family, kids, and pets for Facebook. Upgrades: Review the additional options available as a Premium member, which offer plans targeted to growing your network, unlocking sales opportunities, and both job hunting and hiring talent. Sales Solutions: Become familiar with LinkedIn Sales Solutions, which includes a Sales Navigator, located under "Business Services" in the header bar. According to the website’s statistics, social selling leaders create 45% more opportunities, are 51% more likely to achieve quota, and are 80% more productive. Resources: Download the free eBook, 7 Social Selling Tips to Drive Revenue and Crush Your Quota, from Koka Sexton of LinkedIn, available from the Sales Solutions page. And, a must-read for anyone in sales, in any industry, is Social Media for Salespeople: A Step-by-Step Guide to Increasing Your Leads & Sales, by Alice Myerhoff. Research: Look at a wide range of profiles, including those of your customers, partners, suppliers, and competitors. This is what LinkedIn was made for: helping business people connect. You can link with people you know and then see who they know, which creates a rich pool of prospects. You can also see who has viewed your profile, helping you to gauge interest. Introductions: Mine your LinkedIn network to find out who knows whom. If someone you know is connected to someone you want to meet, contact your colleague about being introduced. This can be done within LinkedIn or through a more personal phone call or external e-mail. Whatever the mode of contact, the basic message is the same: "I see you’re connected to the CIO at Apex Company. Would you be comfortable introducing me?" Focus: Remember that LinkedIn is a social media platform that focuses on business. This is the place to share articles and ideas related to your professional life. For your personal life, use other social platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram or other popular sites. When you’re in sales, the more you know about prospects, the easier it is to turn cold calls into warm ones. With tools like LinkedIn, the whole process of prospecting becomes even easier. ————- Learn more about Richardson’s Strategic Prospecting Sales Training Solutions The post Tips for Using LinkedIn as Part of Your Sales Prospecting Strategy appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Sales Prospecting Tips to Become More "Social" To be successful in sales, you need to be vigilant in looking for new leads. How to do that in the most time-efficient way is the question. One crucial bit of information is to know your retention rate of business. If you retain, say, 80% of your business each year, that means you lose 20%. That 20% of lost business is the minimum amount that you need to replace. Knowing this number helps you be more strategic in your prospecting. Like B2B sales, the element of prospecting has dramatically changed in today’s mobile, social, and digital world. There’s a lot of talk about the ultra-informed buyer who uses the Web for research before ever contacting a seller. Well, two can play that game. The same tools are available to buyers and sellers alike. It’s the savvy user who works them to their advantage. In my previous blog post, I offered prospecting tips targeted to using LinkedIn: Tips for Using LinkedIn as Part of Your Prospecting Strategy. But, LinkedIn is only one of many free social tools that can amplify your prospecting results. The following are a few others, and new ones are appearing on a regular basis. Google Alerts: This free service from Google allows you to "Monitor the web for interesting new content." You might enter the name of a specific company, person, or technology. Whenever your search term appears on the Web, an e-mail is automatically sent to you. Google Alerts provide an easy way to track breaking news and developing trends by matching your search terms to content that appears in blogs, online newspapers, and webpages. Twitter: Many people don’t think of Twitter as a prospecting tool, but it’s a free and easy way to share links to articles and Websites of interest to your target audience. You can also follow industry thought leaders and then retweet their tweets, showing alignment in your interests. By following competitors, you get insights into their ideas and methods, and by following prospects, you can discover what’s on their minds. The key is not to promote yourself, or to just tweet "Click here for a great article," but to offer compelling content of interest to your prospects. For example: "Here’s a great article on employee benefits by So and So," or, "Read the latest in security for mobile transactions." YouTube: Many companies have a YouTube channel for informational, marketing, sales, or other videos. This provides sales professionals with additional opportunities to contact prospects by forwarding links to specific and relevant videos via e-mail. Additionally, you can tweet these links to reach more people. Hashtags: Using a hashtag (the number or pound sign —"#"), in posts on Twitter and other social sites, in front of a word or a phrase where #allwordsruntogether allows your message to be grouped with similarly tagged messages. If you tweet about #Sales2.0 and someone searches that term, your tweet will appear along with others using the same hashtag. It’s like you’re all part of one conversation about the same topic. Don’t worry about joining each and every social media platform; just focus on the ones used most often by your prospects. You have to figure out how they communicate, and then meet them How to Become More Social in Prospectingthere. Connections on LinkedIn or Twitter can progress to e-mails or phone calls and, eventually, a face-to-face meeting. The thing to remember about social media is that it starts with "social" — and that means connecting with prospects before attempting to go for the sale. ————- Learn more about Richardson’s Strategic Prospecting Sales Training Solutions   The post Sales Prospecting Tips to Become More "Social" appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Richardson’s own Senior Facilitator and frequent blogger, Michael Dalis, is currently featured on the HubSpot Sales Blog. Michael’s post is entitled 5 Tips on How to Use a C-Level Executive in a Sales Meeting and can be viewed by clicking here. In this blog post, Michael presents five practical tips for leveraging a C-level executives in an effective sales call, pitch, or client meeting. He shows how using this vital resource can give you and your sales team the extra boost needed to push you into the winner’s circle. We hope you enjoy! Read the Complete Blog Post>> The post Five Tips on Using a C-Level Executive in a Sales Meeting appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Getting Past "No" - Overcoming Objections in Sales Every sales professional in every corner of the world hears "no" or words to that effect — all the time. "No" can come on the phone, before you’ve ever met the person, or while you’re shaking that person’s hand. Getting past "no" and overcoming objections is an important skill for sellers that must continually be practiced. In sales training sessions on overcoming objections in sales, I always ask participants how they feel when someone resists or turns them down. I guide the conversation toward recognizing the opportunity in what seems like a rejection. Some people are naturals at overcoming objections in sales; the rest of us benefit from practicing a step-by-step, client-focused model. The best way to overcome objections is to understand the underlying concern. An effective process for doing this involves the following skills: STEP 1: Relating — Acknowledge or Empathize By making a statement of acknowledgment or empathy, you let the client or prospect know his/her concerns have been heard. Both your tone of voice and your words should be appropriate and genuine, and avoid any signs of defensiveness or frustration. This helps to reduce negativity and helps you connect with the client. STEP 2: Question Ask a clarifying question to make sure you understand the specific objection being raised, then listen carefully to the response and probe deeper. Most of the time, the initial objection isn’t really the true problem. Getting to the heart of the matter can be two or three or more open-ended questions away. "What do you mean by that?" "What do you like better about the old technology?" STEP 3: Position Respond in a way that tailors your answer to the expressed concerns, and do so in a concise and specific way. "You said my company is too difficult to work with and that, specifically, it was the billing system that caused problems last year. Since then, our IT department has revamped our systems and introduced some upgrades to make everything run smoother." STEP 4: Check Ask questions to get feedback on how well your response satisfies the objection. Questions also help to keep the dialogue open and interactive. "I understand there were some problems last year, and we’ve taken steps to change the process. How well does this revised approach work for you?" There’s one particular objection that I like to talk about in training sessions: when the prospect or customer says, "I love your competitor." In this situation, you can say, "It sounds like you have a great relationship with the competition." Say this in all sincerity. Then, follow up with: "What do you love about them?" The answer that they give tells you the minimum you have to do to gain their confidence, and then, you have to kick it up a notch by adding value. I often use a personal example in training from years ago, when I first moved to Denver. I called an older gentleman who agreed to let me come out to meet him. When I got there, we shook hands, and he said, "I’m so glad you came by, but I’ll never ever use you." When I asked why, he said, "Because I love Jim, your competition." So, I probed further and found out that both men were from Minnesota, they were buddies in the mining industry, and Jim frequently wined and dined him. I knew I had to do the same things, at a minimum, and then bring him more value. It took me two years, but I eventually won the account. But, I couldn’t have done it without first knowing why he loved Jim so much. Overcoming objections in sales is all about keeping the conversation and dialogue going. There’s no room for being defensive, so leave your feelings on the sidelines. Show the client or prospect that you hear what he/she is saying, that you care about his/her concerns, and that you’re really and truly listening. Learn More About Richardson’s Consultative Selling Solutions Click the image below or the following link to download a brochure on our award winning Consultative Selling sales training solutions! Or you can contact Jim Brodo, SVP of Marketing directly at Jim.brodo@richardson.com The post Getting Past "No" - Overcoming Objections in Sales appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Six Tips to Leverage Trade Shows as a Sales Prospecting Tool Spring means trade show season, and it’s time to take them seriously. Trade shows fall in and out of fashion as a marketing and sales prospecting tool. But, whether you love them or hate them, it makes good business sense to recognize the significant level of financial, human, and time resources allocated to putting on and participating in a successful trade show. In today’s cool digital marketing and sales world, trade shows aren’t the latest and shiniest tool in the box. Still, trade shows can be an extremely effective marketing and sales prospecting tool. It is precisely because of today’s digital marketing and sales environment that, to differentiate yourself, you need to seize and leverage every opportunity to meet with prospects and clients in person — and trade shows are the perfect tool to do so. Here are six tips for leveraging trade shows as a sales prospecting tool. 1) Marketing and sales alignment — Don’t treat trade shows as a marketing event that requires sales to "show up and work the floor." To be effective, marketing and sales must work together to develop a strategy and tactical plan on what they jointly want to accomplish. Even better, the two groups should create and sign a joint Service Level Agreement (SLA) prior to the show so that each can be held accountable by the other. The SLA should cover elements such as the following: Overall goals, objectives, and budget of the show Personnel coverage model throughout the show Targeted audience (pre-show registration lists are helpful here) and how to meet those targets. Don’t just wait for prospects to come to your booth. Make sure to draw people there before the event by engaging them through LinkedIn or other social media tools, specifically inviting them to visit. Which networking events your company should attend and how you engage prospects there Themes, messaging, communication, and sponsorship tools to develop and deploy, both prior to and after the event Expectations of the attending personnel: what to wear, when to show up, what information to gather, and any reporting documents to complete How leads will be allocated, followed up on, and nurtured. At Richardson, we recommended a lead-scoring system that assigns A, B, C, and D levels of leads. "A" leads go to the appropriate sales rep, "B" to inside sales, "C" to be nurtured by marketing, and "D" to be discarded. 2) Keep messaging simple — Big trade shows can be overwhelming for participants, with thousands of people and thousands of booths promoting thousands of messages. Companies often create messaging about every aspect of what they offer, casting a wide net so that they don’t miss any possible prospect. If, instead, you identify your targeted prospects early, you can work on a simple, clear, and compelling messaging strategy. That’s important when you have only ten seconds to capture someone’s attention as they walk around the showroom floor, looking at potential vendors. Complex messaging can be a distraction; you just need enough detail to spark someone’s interest to start a dialogue. 3) Don’t Pounce — Some booth reps can act too aggressive, pouncing on people as soon as they step near the booth. Traffic flow at shows naturally comes in waves, and this can lead to frustration by those who want to engage visitors and help drive leads. Make sure that you control the pounce factor of your booth representatives. You want your team to be outgoing, but you don’t want to risk scaring people away. 4) Develop an integrated prospecting plan — Don’t just show up at a trade show and expect attendees to stop by your booth. Your teams need to develop pre-show communication plans that drive people to find your booth. There are many good tools to leverage, from LinkedIn and Twitter to e-mail and direct mail. You can be creative by adding booth or show attractions, but the key is to communicate prior to the event. Just because you build the booth does not mean they will come. 5) Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up — One thing to remember after a trade show is that attendees may have visited 50 booths and will have 50 people following up with them. It’s critical to maintain the course and follow-up consistently after the show. You might try a memorable booth giveaway or contest so that you have something concrete to leverage in your post-show messaging strategy. 6) Track effectiveness — Code all leads prior to inputting them into your CRM system. The goal is to track a waterfall of your sales pipeline, looking at responders (booth visitors or those who left or scanned a business card), qualified leads, opportunities, won opportunities, and lost opportunities. Depending on your sales cycle, marketing and sales should, at the very least, develop a monthly review cadence of how the leads are flowing into your system. When all of the leads are closed out, schedule a final joint review meeting to evaluate the effectiveness of the show. Look at what went right and identify areas of improvement for the next show. Trade shows can still be a great marketing and sales prospecting tool, even in today’s digital age. Correction: especially in today’s digital age. The key to effectiveness is focus: on your messaging, on your prospects, on engaging and not scaring away people who visit your booth. Sales and marketing must work together effectively and leverage the myriad communication tools available to drive awareness and build show booth traffic … and interest in your company. ————————- Are you attending the 2015 ATD Conference? If So please stop by booth #1412 to say hello to the Richardson team! Click here or on the image below to learn more about what we will be featuring. The post Six Tips to Leverage Trade Shows as a Sales Prospecting Tool appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Andrea Grodnitzky to Present on Selling with Insights at the 2015 ATD International Conference and Expo Andrea Grodnitzky, Richardson’s Senior Vice President of Global Performance Solutions, will be speaking at the ATD 2015 International Conference & Exposition in Orlando, FL on May 20. Grodnitzky’s session will cover how, globally, organizations are implementing a selling with insights sales approach. She will discuss how these organizations are using insights to guide their clients to make the best decisions for their businesses. Buyers today are equipped with unprecedented access to data and information, but Grodnitzky believes they need knowledge and context to help them sort through the noise. This session will discuss how now, more than ever, the sales dialogue is a critical part of achieving sales success with this type of selling approach and what it really means to deliver an insight that will add value to clients. "We are all aware of just how dramatically the selling landscape and buyer behavior has changed in our information-rich, always-accessible, digital world," says Grodnitzky. "In this session, I will discuss not only why a selling with insights sales approach is necessary in today’s selling landscape, but more on what this approach really entails and how to roll it out in your organization." She continues: "This type of selling approach creates value, value creation builds trust, and trusted advisors influence today’s ultra-informed buyer. I hope that attendees will gain an understanding of how this can lead to greater business results." The session information is as follows: Session: W213 — How Are Fortune 500 Companies Adopting an Insights-based Selling Approach? Wednesday, May 20, 2015 10-11 a.m. Location: W207AB Grodnitzky recently wrote a blog that was featured on the ATD Sales Enablement blog, explaining why this type of approach is needed in today’s environment. Click here to read. To learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights sales training solutions, feel free to e-mail jim.brodo@richardson.com to contact us directly. ————————- Are you attending the 2015 ATD Conference? If so, please stop by booth #1412 to say hello to the Richardson team! Click here, or on the image below, to learn more about what we will be featuring at the booth and conference and to set up a time to get together. The post Andrea Grodnitzky to Present on Selling with Insights at the 2015 ATD Conference appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Seven Tips to Improve your Trade Show Selling Experience In my last post, Six Tips to Leverage Trade Shows as a Sales Prospecting Tool, I discussed ways to adopt a more targeted and strategic approach to leverage this tried-and-true sales prospecting tool. Now, I want to share seven tips for improving a sales rep’s interactions and overall trade show selling experience while working the booth. Don’t pounce — I mentioned the issue of pouncing in my previous post, but it’s such an important point that I want to expand my comments. Demeanor and body language while working a trade show booth are critical to attracting people to stop and visit. It’s intimidating to have sales reps standing, arms crossed, and squinting to read the small print of someone’s name tag, clearly ready to pounce on anyone remotely interested in the company. To make sure that people feel comfortable and interested in coming to your booth, your messaging must be clear and engaging, and it must provide the promise of value. Also, as gimmicky as it may seem, good booth giveaways or promotions are important to initially draw people in.If someone comes into the booth and heads straight for the literature rack, without making eye contact, just kindly say, "Please let me know if there are any questions I can answer for you." Most of the time, that person will engage you after making sure there is a connection with the company. If he/she doesn’t engage after a minute or so, you can ask, "Are you finding everything OK?" Then, you can follow up with, "Would you mind if I scanned your badge?" If that prospect declines, he/she may not be a good fit. Either way, thank the person for stopping by the booth, invite him/her to visit again, or, if someone from your company is giving a presentation, hand the person an overview printout to pique interest in attending that session. Be consultative — Trade shows provide a small window of time to have a full, meaningful dialogue. Often, the show is noisy, and you may have a lot of people in your booth vying for attention. Avoid the natural inclination to product dump during your conversations. Remain true to the task of engaging in good, consultative dialogue and maintaining a strong needs-based methodology. Build rapport, ask great questions to identify needs, make sure that you truly listen, manage any objections, and position the value of the company. Take great notes — For a sales rep, one of the pitfalls of attending a trade show is meeting someone, having a fantastic needs dialogue, and then having to turn that lead over to someone else who resides in the territory or "owns" the account. This is typically the biggest objection we at Richardson see regarding aligned trade show participation. What the sales rep needs to have is a pay-it-forward state of mind, meaning what comes around will go round at some point. Reps should not get frustrated when they have a good dialogue and then have to turn over that lead. Just be professional and write up the conversation on a lead form so that the salesperson who does take over will have all of the important and relevant information that was discussed. This will allow for better follow-up and nurturing. Learn to disengage — One of the hardest things to do at a trade show is disengage from non-prospects. This may sound a bit cold, but often, independent consultants, competitors, and other individuals visit the booth for a number of non-business related reasons, including partnerships and job hunters. Remember, a lot of time and resources go into the planning and execution of a trade show, and your company is there for solid business reasons. Sales reps must quickly establish if a person is a prospect and, if not, politely disengage and move on. Again, it’s not easy, and you don’t want to be rude; you might just ask to connect after the show when things are less hectic. Ask for referrals — You may meet someone at a trade show who is not a direct prospect but either works with or for your potential prospect. Make sure that you leverage that meeting or dialogue and ask for a referral to your main prospect. Don’t eat in the booth — During slow times, you may be inclined to grab lunch or eat something in the booth. This is really my #1 no-no. You never know who is going to come by, or when, and you need to be prepared at all times. You can’t have a mouthful of food when someone comes into the booth. It’s important to be professional at all times; if you need to eat, make sure that you have coverage scheduled, and take a break. Clear your calendar — While at a trade show, make sure that your calendar is cleared during your allotted booth time. There is nothing worse than sales reps having to make a client call during booth time. If, for some reason, you can’t get out of a call, let the booth coordinator know beforehand so that the schedule can be adjusted. If you are chosen to attend a trade show this season, don’t look at it as a punishment; instead, see it as an opportunity. Be prepared, be engaged, hustle, and network — not only for yourself, but for the entire organization, driving good leads and sales opportunities. It’s up to you to have a great trade show selling experience. Are there any other tips to improve trade show selling experience you would add to the list? Let us know and we can put them on. Learn More About Richardson’s Consultative Selling Solutions Click the image below or the following link to download a brochure on our award winning Consultative Selling sales training solutions! Or you can contact Jim Brodo, SVP of Marketing directly at Jim.brodo@richardson.com   The post Seven Tips to Improve your Trade Show Selling Experience appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Prospecting and networking apps for ATD Trade show and Conference attendees If you were to time travel back a decade or two, you could revisit attending conferences with reams of promotional paper goods and boxes of business cards in tow. In the pre-tech era the traditional conference protocol was to bring plenty of hard copy materials, and never be caught short. It was better to come prepared with too many business cards than too few. Think about not being able to share your contact information with a person you just met at a conference that you’d love to collaborate with. If you weren’t carrying plenty of business cards, that could be one crucial missed opportunity. Fast forward to today and how times have changed. Partly due to a more ecologically-minded approach to business and daily life and partly due to convenience, now paper goods have been largely replaced by handheld devices with storage capacities and technological sophistication unimaginable just even a short decade ago. Has conference clutter been minimized in the modern age? Absolutely! But with tech innovations comes a new challenge: Selectively choosing from the many app options at one’s disposal. The scope of available apps can be dizzying, and dedicated conference attendees should have a streamlined list of what is most beneficial for their respective needs. With the 2015 ATD International Conference & Exposition in full gear, there is no better time than the present to offer a consolidated list of important apps that merit consideration for anyone working within a conference setting. Choices are varied, so select wisely and make your ATD Conference visit a profitable one. Operations Apps Gone are the days of hiding handfuls of business cards in your conference materials. Evernote, Cardmunch or Evernote Hello allow users to collect business cards digitally for easy storage and organization. Has there ever been a better reason to dispense with your antique Rolodex? For those interested in daily planners, Rapportive can facilitate the process of reviewing client projects and company information, as well as monitoring interactive contacts for conference speaking engagements. Additional daily planning support can be found with Boomerang. Emails can be scheduled for future transmittal, as can calendar updates and reminders. Gmail and Outlook access have never been simpler. Anyone active on Twitter should consider using Buffer at the next conference. Tweets can be scheduled for future posting irrespective of one’s workload. Buffer is an ideal way to stay active in real time on Twitter without disrupting continuity during conference commitments. Sales professionals will find LinkedIn of special importance as it utilizes an advanced search feature to identify potential marketing targets. Future clients can be located using specifics such as keywords, particular business status/relationship, industry, and geographic location Navigating the conference circuit is always an exercise in time and task management. Charlie can help with the latter by working as a liaison between you and your first time contacts by emailing one-page info sheets on your fellow attendees. Planely is the app equivalent of Big Brother, but without the oppressive surveillance. Simply put, the app allows the user to identify which attendees are traveling at the same time so that convenient meetings can be scheduled prior to conference hours. Logistics Apps For those interested in entertainment through fine dining, Open Table gives users the ability to make reservations, explore menus, check reviews, and earn reward points. During conference season, restaurants can often be standing room only, so it behooves anyone interested in taking clients out to eat to have reservations made early and effortlessly. As conferences often attract participants from different locales, the Time and Date world clock app is vital for keeping current on visitors from other time zones, as well as for managing one’s own travel and meeting plans. Everyone is responsible for submitting T&E reports from their road work, and nothing incurs the ire of Accounts Payable more than missing receipts or shoddy expense reporting. Shoeboxed is your personal accountant for tracking receipts and organizing your expense reportage. Similar to Shoeboxed, GoodBudget tracks and organizes the user’s personal spending from any given business trip. A combination of the two apps will guarantee a clear accounting of what was spent, and what can be submitted for reimbursement. If you are partial to community relations, then Viber may be an app worth considering. Sending free messages and making free calls to other Viber users can greatly reduce company phone charges, especially since communications can be made from any device and network, and in any country. Once the domain of a dedicated personal assistant (or tour manager), travel itineraries can be logged into TripIt and updated as necessary with minimal effort. An organized itinerary will keep a person on time for scheduled conference events, as well as multiple trips. If you plan on visiting the 2015 ATD International Conference & Exposition, we will be one of the 10,500 strong in attendance so please visit us at booth #1412. Our company is a leader in global sales training and sales force effectiveness, and we’d welcome the opportunity to meet you and get your feedback. And if you find us with one of the listed apps, let us know! The post Prospecting and networking apps for ATD Conference attendees appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Five Tips for Building Rapport   I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ― Maya Angelou When dealing with people — customers, prospects, colleagues, friends, family — it’s important to think about them not as creatures of logic, but as creatures of emotion. We are all human beings, and we engage our whole selves in conversations and relationships. Some people call this IQ and EQ, left brain/right brain, and even new brain/old brain. The point is:  People are complex beings who often draw on emotions more than logic, knowledge, or intellect when making connections with others. There’s a dynamic — changing energy or chemistry that passes between people. This is the basis of building rapport. How can you be sure building rapport is positive ? Try these five tips: Be Positive: When engaging with another person, your attitude affects the kind of rapport that you build. Are you smiling? Is your body posture open? Do you exude confidence and enthusiasm? It’s not about being someone you’re not or looking like an excited cheerleader. It’s about showing genuine interest and being authentic in who you are. Be Present: Be mindful of the person you’re trying to build rapport with. Listen carefully to what he/she is saying. Try to understand his/her world and focus of attention. Notice body language and how he/she does and says things. Be an Active Listener: More than hearing words, active listening involves noticing tone of voice, how the person is feeling, and what he/she is not saying. It could mean synthesizing what the person told you into a larger context so that you can share experiences. Be curious about the other person and the words and sentence constructions he/she uses. And, listen without judgment. All of these aspects help to leverage empathy, which comes across in multiple ways: tone of voice, eye contact, word usage, questions asked, and the sincerity that you project. Be Looking for the "Yes": It’s easy to connect with some people. Whether it’s their personal style of communication or something else, they just resonate with you. You "get" each other. And, there are others in which you have no immediate connection with whatsoever. Instead of jumping to conclusions and making assumptions about this person, look for a positive aspect — a "yes" — that you can relate to. Be Aware of Purpose: In the world of sales, we are constantly seeking to help someone solve a particular problem. Approaching with the mindset of, "What can I do to help this person?" helps in establishing rapport. More than just going for the sale, you’re focused on helping another individual. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Five Tips for Building Rapport appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Building Rapport with WIIFO, not WIIFM Salespeople can spend a lot of time on the road, traveling to meetings or client presentations. Thoughts naturally wander to internal dialogue: "How am I going to meet my goals?" or, "What’s in it for me?" — known as the shorthand, WIIFM. When you get stuck in WIIFM, you’re not as "other" oriented as you should be. Building rapport is much easier and successful when you focus on what’s in it for others (WIIFO). In conversation, focusing too much on your own thoughts and what you’ll say next stands in the way of personal connection and rapport. It is better to come to the discussion well versed on the area that you’re addressing and then to have that conversation with a nonjudgmental, open mind. Consider the Buddhist parable of the empty cup. You can come into a conversation so full of information that nothing more gets in, just as pouring tea into an already full cup causes it to spill over. But, if you are ready to listen, becoming an "empty cup," you can receive more than you came with. Building rapport happens when there’s real openness about what is actually going on in the moment between you and the other person. You’re not talking to an organization, but an individual — a person, a human being — who is largely an emotional being. So, if you’re not connecting at an emotional level, which is beyond the realm of words and thoughts, you might be too focused on yourself. Empathy and compassion are important in building rapport in today’s fast-paced world. People can feel when you’re being authentic and trying to connect with them. Instead of focusing just on your own agenda, think about the other person’s agenda. You have to be self-aware and then be "other" aware. At Richardson, we teach rapport as a blend of art and science. You can see the energy flowing when participants practice skills like body language, especially when modeling "matching" behavior. If this sounds too touchy-feeling to you, think about neuro-linguistic programming, a field that involves the connection of thought processes, language, and behaviors. On a more basic level, rapport is an awareness of the other person’s communication style and then being sensitive to it. If someone is a fast or slow talker, match his/her speed. Otherwise, you could either overwhelm the person or cause him/her to tune out. When you smile, be sincere — use your mouth and your eyes to express yourself. The passion of your speech and spirit of your conviction make your intent visible to the other person. As with any aspect of the sales dialogue, being skilled at building rapport takes forethought and practice. The goal is to create a connection and build on it in a way that is concise and genuine. This can happen in the first two to ten minutes or more, depending on the client, the situation, and the culture. Regardless of how much time it takes, it’s worth it to make the effort to differentiate yourself and create a personal connection. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Building Rapport with WIIFO, not WIIFM appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Building Rapport with Six Critical Skills Some people are extroverts; others are introverts. Some people have expressive communications styles; others get their points across quietly but with authority. There is no right way to be. The only right thing is to appreciate the other person and make an effort to building rapport. In my last two blog posts,  I discussed the importance of building rapport in the articles, Five Tips for Building Rapport and Building Rapport with WIIFO, not WIIFM. To be honest, building rapport is one of those concepts that often can’t be explained, but you know it when you see it. You hit it off with someone or get along well. Rapport is about building understanding and harmony with another person in a way that supports easier and more effective communication. At Richardson, we often talk of the Six Critical Skills for consultative selling. They also are useful skills for rapport building, which is essential in differentiating yourself in a sales situations and establishing a personal connection. Presence: Ability to project confidence, conviction, and interest in body language and voice Relating: Ability to use acknowledgment, rapport, and empathy to connect Questioning: Ability to explore needs and create dialogue Listening: Ability to understand content and emotional message Positioning: Ability to leverage client needs to be persuasive Checking: Ability to elicit feedback The first two skills — Presence and Relating — come into play immediately upon contact. This is the "breaking-the-ice" stage, where showing empathy and reducing tension is key. The next two — Questioning and Listening — are layered on top when you begin a dialogue. Nonverbal communication plays a key role here, building a connection subconsciously through body language, eye contact, facial expressions, and tone of voice. The last two — Positioning and Checking — reinforce your approach and strengthen rapport. These involve asking open-ended questions, summarizing what you’ve heard, and building on the ideas presented. The point is:  You’re building rapport with a person, not an organization. You’re interacting with a human being who is likely more emotional than logical. EQ, or emotional quotient, is more important than IQ in establishing rapport. Sometimes, acting as if you already have a good rapport is a good starting strategy. Talking as if the other person were a close friend with mutual trust sends subconscious signals to the other person to view you in the same way. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Building Rapport with Six Critical Skills appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Training Industry Executive to Lead Richardson; John D. Elsey Named New CEO Philadelphia, PA — June 1, 2015 — Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement firm, today announced the hiring of John D. Elsey as president and chief executive officer. Effective June 1, 2015, Elsey will replace Interim CEO Carter Brown, who remains a director of the Richardson Board. For the past 15 years, Elsey held C-suite positions with commercial training and education companies formerly owned by Informa Performance Improvement, most recently as president and CEO for ESI International — a global leader in strategy execution training solutions — and concurrently as president for the portfolio of four other training businesses within the group holding. "John is a training industry veteran with a strong, global perspective and success in driving results. He is a proven leader who focuses on both top-line growth and bottom-line profitability, with international expansion a key element in his strategic thinking," Brown said. "John brings great value to Richardson with his demonstrated ability to work with C-suite customers of large, sophisticated organizations. He understands the subtleties of a conceptual sale and the operational, quality, and financial metrics of an exceptional business service organization." In leading ESI International, Elsey substantially grew revenues and margins while spearheading the growth and integration of the Americas, EMEA, and APAC businesses. He also established product development priorities and the go-to-market and brand strategy. "I look forward to working with the global Richardson team to take this industry leader in sales training and performance improvement to the next level," Elsey said. "I believe leaders have the most impact when they inspire individuals and groups to perform at levels superior to those they would achieve on their own. My role is to create an environment for smart people to excel, empowering them to be self-sufficient while providing underlying support, as needed." Learn more: If you would like to learn more, or set up an interview with John, please contact Jim Brodo directly at jim.brodo@richardson.com About Richardson Richardson helps leaders prepare their organizations to execute sales strategies and achieve business objectives. Richardson has the expertise and resources to help clients scale their initiatives quickly and confidently across their entire salesforce and supporting functions. Working together, Richardson helps clients to identify sales best practices, evaluate talent, build capability and consistency through world-class sales training, and sustain necessary change. Richardson ensures that each customized solution reflects the unique culture and values of its clients, driving rapid adoption and lasting results. The post Richardson Welcomes John D. Elsey as New President and CEO appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Are You Caught in a Negotiating Trap? Here’s a common scenario: You’ve just presented your truly tailored, well researched, totally relevant proposal. The customer, who had been nodding in agreement all along, now has a strange look on her face. The change happened the minute you mentioned price. She says your price is too high. It’s your move. What do you do? If you start negotiating on price, trying to find a figure that she’ll accept without hurting your business, you’ve just landed in a negotiation trap. The trap is in starting to negotiate too early, before justifying your value. This is how a lot of money is lost, either by discounting too early or by leaving money on the table. Getting pushback on price is a common occurrence for sales professionals. That’s why it’s important to recognize the negotiation trap and learn how to avoid it. First, don’t start off trying to resolve any immediate price objections; focus instead on justifying the value of your proposal. Consider the objection as an opportunity to learn more about the customer’s situation. Where does the objection come from? Is the customer at the end of a budget cycle? Would splitting payment over two cycles be workable? Or, would changing delivery options add value? The point is, you need to understand what the customer is trying to accomplish so that you can determine which terms are most important. This can be more than what customers ask for at first blush, so make sure to take the time to question further. If you immediately head into a price negotiation, you’ve limited your options to price reductions. Once you’ve justified your value and have a better understanding of the customer’s concerns, you can begin to trade terms. Just be sure that before you do, you’ve prioritized your trading points and know their value — to you and to the customer. The best kind of trade in a negotiation is to give up something that doesn’t cost much to you but is incredibly valuable to the customer. It could be something as simple as a shorter turnaround time that you have the resources to accommodate. But, if you don’t have the resources to deliver on a shorter timeline, your trade could become an expensive accommodation. I often tell a personal story from when I was in the paper business. One of my sales professionals negotiated a price increase with a major customer. He was quite pleased with himself, as higher pricing is hard to achieve in a commodity business. When I asked how he did it, he said he only had to agree to deliver the paper on half-pallets instead of full pallets. What he didn’t know was his deal meant only half of the paper could be delivered on a truck at a time, which meant twice as many delivery trips. His great pricing deal actually ended up costing the paper company money. Too many people are enamored with the concept of negotiations but very few actually are engaged in them. Instead, what most end up doing is trying to resolve price objections and, in the end, trading away value instead of justifying it. —————————————- LEARN MORE! Click on the following link, or on the image below, to learn more about Richardson’s award winning negotiating training solutions The post Are You Caught in a Negotiating Trap? appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Better Sales Negotiations Go Step by Step Sales negotiations don’t have to be stressful, contentious affairs. Yes, there’s a lot riding on the outcome of a sales negotiation. Just think of it as one more chance to uncover opportunities to provide value to the customer. The secret to successful sales negotiation is all based on knowing what the customer is trying to accomplish, converting demands into needs, and then demonstrating and justifying your value. Richardson teaches the following sales negotiation framework to help sales professionals to structure their dialogue with customers: Preparation for the Negotiation — It all begins by planning the strategy and tactics, including bottom-line terms, to achieve the maximum outcome that meets the needs of both parties. Opening the Negotiation — The sales professional should set the stage and lay out terms at the outset. Counter-opening — This step draws out the customer’s opening terms and demands in order to maintain control and avoid negotiating elements in a piece-meal fashion. Converting Demands to Needs — The customer’s real requirements may not surface without probing more deeply to convert demands to needs and gaining insight into their true agenda. Value Justification and Concessions — At this point, sales professionals need to protect essential terms by trading expendables, positioning value to persuade the customer that it is worthwhile to make concessions, and trading concessions to achieve essentials. Closing the Negotiation — The last step is to maintain the momentum of a win-win negotiation, solidifying what has been accomplished, and allowing for a successful implementation. By honing negotiation skills, sales professionals can build more profitable customer relationships, learning to handle price resistance and objections more effectively. These steps can help to make sure that no money is left on the table or, conversely, that no undue discounting occurs. The sales negotiation process itself can be a positive experience that inspires greater trust and customer loyalty, while strengthening the sales professional’s position to win future opportunities. —————————————- LEARN MORE! Click on the following link, or on the image below, to learn more about Richardson’s award winning negotiating training solutions The post Better Sales Negotiations Go Step by Step appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Open-ended Sales Questions Allow Sales Professionals to Learn More than Just the Obvious When you ask yes-or-no questions during sales calls, you get yes-or-no answers, which either confirm or deny whatever you had posited. When you become more strategic about asking questions, you can often discover important, underlying, and previously unknown issues that matter to the success of prospects and clients. There’s a skill to asking the right questions at the right time. At Richardson, we include Questioning as one of our Six Critical Skills for sales, and we define it as the ability to explore needs and create dialogue. Open-ended questions allow sales professionals to learn more than just the obvious, observable things. As a result, sales professionals are better able to be more consultative and position the best products and services to meet client needs, while demonstrating understanding and caring in helping clients achieve their goals and objectives. These five tips will help you get beyond the usual questioning strategy to discover what’s really on the minds of your clients: It’s OK to leave your agenda behind. In fact, we encourage it. Going into meetings without preconceived ideas frees you to focus on what is important to clients. You can more easily step into their world, identify their needs and objectives, understand their worries and challenges, and align your offerings with their strategies. Don’t focus most of your sales dialogue on open-ended questions related to your product or service. Yes, these are the questions that get you paid: they are your bread and butter, your comfort zone, your go-to questions that help you sell. While these questions are open-ended and elicit important information, they limit the scope of your client knowledge. If you are going to ask targeted or focused open-ended questions, make sure that you truly listen to the answer, so you can probe further. There’s no point asking great questions if you don’t actively listen to the answer. It’s human nature to think about your next question or how you can sell your product while the client is talking, but it’s not helpful. The mind likes to chatter; it’s up to you to stay in the moment with the client and hear what is being said. Don’t discount information that might not be relevant to your particular sale or conversation. Use a variety of questions to add some flavor to your dialogue and engage your client. You might ask about short-term objectives, key needs, the current situation, the level of satisfaction with current business practices, their long-term strategy, their view of you and your company compared to the competition, budget, decision-making process — the list goes on and on. This kind of questioning strategy can change the client’s perception of you, elevating you from just being a vendor to a partner or advisor. You gain greater credibility by being able to speak their language and can move the conversation from a transactional dialogue to a consultative one. Avoid sounding like a prosecuting attorney. Even though you are asking open-ended questions, make sure that you leverage your preparation, acknowledge responses in between questions, and use prefacing statements that let the client know why you are asking something. For example, you might say: "Earlier, you mentioned an interest to do X. How are you planning to go about it?" Then, you can leverage your knowledge and personalize your open-ended question, helping to ensure that the exchange is more of a conversation than an interrogation. The value in asking open-ended questions is that you don’t just explore the tip of the iceberg — the obvious issues and information. You get to dive beneath the waterline to discover those larger, foundational issues that haven’t yet made it to the surface. And, you may learn a few things that the competition doesn’t know, while helping the client in ways they hadn’t yet realized they needed. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post 5 Tips on Asking Open-ended Sales Questions appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Probing questions are at the heart of an effective, consultative selling approach Being able to win opportunities is what separates a great sales professional from a good one — those who excel, understand the structure of sales meetings, and stay in control. Great sales professionals know where they are going with their questioning strategy and what they want to accomplish at every point in the dialogue. They hone their focus on probing, learning, and fully comprehending the client’s needs before ever talking about their own product. In my last blog post, I focused on tips that will help with open-ended questions, today, I will look at probing questions. Probing questions are at the heart of an effective, consultative selling approach — one that is all about the client, not how much the sales professional knows or the great products to be offered. "People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care" ― Theodore Roosevelt At the start of a client relationship, you should show interest in the other person’s world, which may include work and family responsibilities, hobbies, sports, or career development. Let the client take the lead, and then use probing questions to explore what the client has just said and to demonstrate your level of interest and caring. Probing questions are a great way to demonstrate to your clients that you are listening and picking up on key "neon words" — those that can be easily overlooked but greatly affect meaning — to ask for clarification and additional information. Active listening and pacing are key when asking good probing questions. You should be conscious of the pauses and even silence between questions. If you ask a great open-ended probing question and get only silence, be comfortable with the silence. Don’t jump in with another question or repeat the same question (what I call "parrot phrasing") or answer the question for the client. Show confidence by giving him/her time to think and formulate a response. Another way to describe probing questions is drill-down questions.  Sometimes, too much probing can be counterproductive. It’s helpful to go by the rule of threes: drill down or probe at least three times for every vague word or statement. Too little probing will diminish your chances of uncovering the different levels of the client’s needs. Too much probing will feel like you are in a cat-and-mouse chase, with the conversation going in circles. If you don’t know where to probe, and the client doesn’t give you clues, use trading to open up new avenues. Trading is the process of giving information to get information. By exchanging information, you can help clients think, often triggering ideas they might not have considered. An example of trading is the following: "We are seeing a big change in the industry with X becoming a much bigger part of the mix. How has this affected your operations?" A sales professional skilled in using probing questions can more easily build rapport that encourages clients to openly and honestly share information about their needs, decision criteria, pricing, competitors, and other information critical to winning business. With this questioning strategy in your wheelhouse, you will be better able to uncover client needs and then position your product or service in a strategic, client-focused way that wins sales opportunities. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post How to Ask Probing Questions during Sales Meetings appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

What are Some of the Best Open-ended Questions for Winning Sales? There is no magic wand to reveal the five best open-ended questions to ask for all sales situations. That’s the bad news. The good news is, there are several ingredients that will make asking five great questions easier. Here is the recipe for success: Remember the old joke, "Where does an 800-lb. gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants to." Don’t be that gorilla, starting the questioning dialogue with the questions YOU want answered. Start the sales dialogue by asking about the client’s short-term objectives and needs. This approach allows clients to take the conversation where they want, so they can share what is top-of-mind for them, what keeps them up at night, and what is most important to them in the near future. Even though you control the conversation by the questions that you ask, let the clients control which areas they want to direct the conversation. Here are some sample questions to consider and adapt, as appropriate: "In speaking with your senior account manager, he mentioned three key drivers: X, Y, and Z. What specifically are your key objectives related to these drivers?" (This question leverages your preparation so that the question doesn’t feel too basic or unprepared.) "What are you trying to accomplish in the next six months?" "What is most important to you in your business right now?" "What has prompted the shift in strategy from X to Y?"  Ask a variety of questions to get all of the key areas on the table. It is easy to start asking questions to explore the areas that YOU want to focus on, which typically involve your product, service, or ways to move the sales cycle forward. It is a little harder but better in the long run to forget about your objectives for the call and the questions that go with it. Here are some areas that usually get neglected in a sales conversation: Personal needs: "What is at stake for you?" "What do you look for in a partner?" Future needs: "What are your expansion plans for the next two years?" "What are your long-term strategies?" Implementation needs: "What is the decision-making process in your organization?" "What have you allocated for this project?" Even though you will be letting the client take the lead on conversational topics, you still need to plan specific questions during your pre-call preparation. You should be able to plan half of the questions necessary ahead of time, so take advantage of this prep. For the other half, allow some flexibility for questions that come up during the conversation and during your follow-up probing questions. Don’t become fixated on the questions that you planned. The best conversations are ones in which you follow the client’s lead. The type of questions that you ask will determine how the client perceives you: as a vendor or as a partner. The more generic your questions, the more generic the sale. You also lose the opportunity to use the client’s own words to position solutions or uncover additional opportunities. The most important, open-ended question in this blog post is, "What is your questioning strategy for winning sales?" Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Some of the Best Open-ended Questions for Winning Sales appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

3 Barriers to Better Client Dialogues When it comes to effective selling practices, there’s often a difference between what’s commonly known and what’s commonly practiced. We know people make buying decisions based on a combination of emotion, logic, credibility, and both business and personal needs and wants. We know that client dialogues are crucial for uncovering needs, exploring solutions, establishing next steps, and building relationships. And yet, too many sales professionals falter in the interpersonal skills needed for open, effective, engaging client dialogues. Here are three barriers to look for so that you can adapt your approach. Different communication styles You might be an extrovert, and your client an introvert. Financial folks want numbers; technology groups understand systems and software; HR departments focus on the people element. How do you communicate with these different styles and information needs? The answer is to match your client’s demeanor, while still being yourself. You have to remain authentic to who you are and accommodate your client’s way of approaching business. With technology groups, your presentation should be succinct, based on solid data, with some charts and graphics to convey your message. For financial folks, the focus should be numbers and the economic benefit of pursuing your recommendation. In conversations with HR departments, you might focus on how your solution will make employees more productive. Beyond just considering job function, you should also try to pick up on what motivates your clients. Are they looking for recognition? Do they lean on you for insights? Are relationships important, or do they only want their product or service? Through the years, I’ve learned that people approach business very differently, and if you can match the way they approach the business and their decision-making process, you can eliminate those barriers. Reserved and secretive clients Some clients like to play things close to the vest. They won’t open up, and they won’t let you into their world. In this situation, it can take a lot longer to build the trust needed to have an honest conversation. Still, it’s well worth trying. It may take many conversations before they drop their guard to discuss their strategy or what’s important to them. But, when they do, you will typically get a treasure trove of insight into those people and what drives them. Truthiness Truthiness, a word coined by comedian and TV host Stephen Colbert, is similar to the truth, but it is not completely accurate or valid. It is the perfect word to define what some clients will tell you: "I am the decision maker." "I hold the budget." "I have responsibility for this area." Because these assertions are not always 100% true, you need to assess what you’re told and look for ways to verify facts. Finding the truth can be challenging, and you need to be careful about how you approach this so as not to alienate your client. Breaking down barriers can take time, as you try to whittle away clients’ protectiveness of their turf, themselves, or maybe their image. Knowing where people have been in life — education, work history, where they have lived — plays into who they are today and how sales professionals might best approach them. Sometimes, you can break down barriers with clients just by recognizing and commenting on things they’ve achieved, awards received, and progress made in their lives or their careers. I always say: this isn’t rocket science, but not all sales professionals recognize dialogue skills to be as fundamental as they are — or as transformative as they can be. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post 3 Barriers to Better Client Dialogues appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

2 Essential Elements for Building Client Relationships It’s not rocket science. There is no app. No magic tricks are needed. When it comes to building client relationships, the most fundamental aspect is who you are. Too many sales professionals confuse client relationships with Customer Relationship Management. The first is a human endeavor — person to person — while the second, known as CRM, is basically a software system that automates the collection of data related to customers and sales opportunities. Think of the two as cause and effect; you have to build a relationship with your clients in order to have data about it to organize and analyze. Before you can add insights and value to the process of working together — and before you can even win the deal — you have to win over your client. Here are two essential elements that are foundational for making that connection and building client relationships. 1) Be authentic When I began my career in selling, for Xerox, many years ago, I approached working with my clients as authentically as possible. What I mean by authenticity is being reliable, dependable, and genuine. If you are not "real" with your customers, and you don’t sincerely care about them, they get that message right away. You just can’t fake being authentic. You relay your authenticity by talking with clients naturally, looking for common bonds and interests, and being friendly. Conversations should be, well, conversational — not full of consultant speak, training speak, acronyms, or jargon. Clients are people, too, and when people like one another, they often look forward to working together. While this certainly isn’t a popularity contest, clients like working with people who provide value and people they enjoy. 2) Trust A strong relationship is built on trust. What that means to me is that, even for the little things you promise, you have to deliver to the client what and when you say you’re going to deliver. Meeting these deadlines can become challenging if you first need to get answers from other people, so set realistic time frames and continue to follow-up until you get the desired information. Communication is key with all parties, so you can advise clients about delays and convey urgency to those on your team working on answers. Establishing yourself as a trustworthy person with the client is an important step toward being able to differentiate yourself and add value through insights and forward-thinking ideas. When you are trusted — and, even better, if you can achieve trusted advisor status — you can begin acting as a true partner. Maybe the client is overwhelmed with some aspect of his/her job. You might be able to take something off of his/her plate and either handle it or provide your best thinking and resources to make the client’s life easier. Often, the client may be thinking too narrowly about what he/she wants to develop and how he/she wants to do it. Then, you can step up to expand that thinking, giving the client the benefit of your expertise, to broaden his/her perception of what will make a certain initiative most effective and working within the client’s budget and time constraints. Every interaction with a client is an opportunity to build on the relationship, whether you’re executing on work he/she already agreed to implement, prospecting and making outbound calls, or following up on requests for information. Take every occasion to demonstrate your authenticity and trust by listening well, offering relevant solutions, and continuing to bring value and insights throughout the relationship. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post 2 Essential Elements for Building Client Relationships appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

We Asked and You Answered! What is your biggest training challenge? What better place to take the pulse of learning and development professionals than the ATD 2015 International Conference. We did just that, in Orlando in May, discovering some hot issues in that hot climate. Richardson randomly stopped conference participants to ask a single question: "What is the biggest training challenge you are currently facing?" Among the leading training challenges uncovered were: 1) Training Reinforcement 2) Measurement/ROI of Training. In my recap of the full survey which was published on the ATD Blog site, we identify 24 issues that are top of mind, along with insights into ways of dealing with the top five. Read the full article on the ATD website. Please feel free to contact me directly at James.brodo@richardson.com if you have any questions. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post What is your Biggest Training Challenge? appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Way back in 2002, Richardson’s founder, Linda Richardson, published a Cyber Sales Tip called "Make a Thank You Call to Help Build Relationships." I found this email newsletter while cleaning up some of our archives and in honor of #tbt (Throw Back Thursday) and the pending holiday weekend, I thought I would post it to our blog site as these points are sometimes lost in today’s digital world and are still quite relevant even 13 years later.  Hope you in enjoy this post and "thank you" for your readership and support of our blog. Make a Thank You Call to Help Build Relationships If you like feeling appreciated by your clients, if you want to strengthen and build relationships, and if you want to win more business, start making thank-you calls today. Certainly the thank-you call after a meeting or when you win a deal is expected, but the ones after the sale at any time or triggered by a milestone (such as one month or one year after the project, pilot, or implementation…) to say thank you has tremendous relationship and selling power. For example, you could say, "It has been a month (a quarter, even a year, we just completed X and since…I wanted to call…) and I wanted to say thank you…" Whether you get voice mail or actually reach your client, the power of the thank-you call is the same. Here are some guidelines: Tickle in your calendar making thank-you calls as a reminder (since there’s no deal at hand). Be sure you are fully up-to-date on the status of the relationship and initiative. When you make the call be positive. During the conversation jot down all key ideas and perspectives — not just facts. Jot things down you want to refer to later so you don’t forget, but also don’t interrupt the flow of the call. Prepare and keep it concise! State the purpose to position the call. Thank the client for confidence in choosing you or for his or her introduction to the head of IT or the support of your proposal that helped you win the business. Be enthusiastic. Show energy and conviction. Be upbeat. Give a five to ten-second summary of what’s been accomplished (of course, before the call check that things are going well and be aware of any snags or issues). Compliment the client’s team and be specific. State that you welcome feedback to serve him/her even better. Say the words "thank you" at the start and the finish. The salesperson was so elated by the call that he went further. He called the former liaison who had been reassigned to another area to thank her (and identified a future opportunity) and called one of his own teammates on the account to say thank you. Goodwill leads to more goodwill and more good sales. One salesperson called a very senior decision maker at a Fortune 100 company and left a thank-you message to mark one year into the ongoing relationship. The salesperson’s reward - so far, a gracious complimentary call back from the senior who, in the course of a one minute voice mail, said thank you to the salesperson six times!!! The salesperson was so elated by the call that he went further. He called the former liaison who had been reassigned to another area to thank her (and identified a future opportunity) and called one of his own teammates on the account to say thank you. Goodwill leads to more goodwill and more good sale Another important thank you, from a senior, is also often overlooked. Ask your senior to make a thank-you call on your behalf and to express the organization’s commitment. Be sure to concisely prepare your senior. Enlisting the support of seniors in key situations will not only strengthen the client relationship but will also strengthen your internal relationship. And, of course, be sure to call and thank your senior. The holidays are a perfect time to make relationship calls, say thank you, and extend your best wishes for the holiday. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Make a Thank You Call to Help Build Relationships appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

The Real Moneyball: The Importance of Analytics to Improve Sales Forecast Accuracy The term "moneyball" is best known for applying an analytical approach to evaluating players on the baseball field, as written about by Michael Lewis in his book of the same name. The concept of moneyball can also apply to the field of sales, where analytics are used to improve sales forecast accuracy. In my role as Director of Sales Operations at Richardson, I manage support functions that are essential to sales force productivity. When I took on this role in 2012, my primary goal was to improve sales forecast accuracy by providing insights into performance trends, identifying gaps, and recommending ways to fill those gaps. To do this, I had to develop meaningful reports that would highlight trends and key deals, while assisting the sales team in managing the pipeline. These reports also had to give senior management the detail and visibility needed for decision making on additional strategies and whether to become personally involved in specific opportunities. To me, there are two key aspects of sales forecasting. One is the analytics of deals in the pipeline. I use these metrics as a pressure test to qualify the risk of the forecast. This is important because, at the end of the day, if senior leadership is making decisions about investments, incentives, or promotional programs on the basis of information that I’m providing, I need to make sure I’m not being too conservative nor too optimistic. The risk in going too far in one direction or another has a direct impact on the business. The leadership team could decide to cut spending when they actually have the ability to spend more, or they could promote the wrong products and solutions. If I’m too optimistic in my forecast, they might interpret that as the go-ahead to spend more or not promote when they should. The other aspect is that analytics can give sales leadership better insight into their team. Metrics that are measured consistently and thoughtfully allow leaders to 1) see how effectively their sales reps are performing and 2) more effectively coach sales reps and see how they are managing their work. When evaluating sales reps, it’s easy to get stuck in the trap of thinking that those who hit their goals are performing well, and those who do not hit their goals are not performing well. This isn’t necessarily true because a sales rep could hit his/her goal with one or two major deals; this doesn’t mean he/she is doing the right things to continue being successful or truly effective at the job. Those who aren’t making goal may still have won many deals and be doing well in terms of things that are important to the company, such as account management or building relationships or prospecting. In this case, analytics can provide insight into areas where sales coaching would be helpful. What is needed to be successful in sales operations is a balance of qualitative and quantitative skills. If you are overly strong on just the quantitative side, you risk throwing metrics at people without thought behind why you’re doing the analysis, what other things might be impacting the analysis, and not telling a proper story to help them understand what’s going on. This approach can easily lead to analysis paralysis, where you overwhelm people with data, and they don’t know what to look at or what any of it means. What sales forecasting requires is thoughtful analysis so that you can tell the right story and have the data to back it up. If you’re looking at the wrong things, or not thinking from a holistic or comprehensive standpoint, you could be telling the wrong story - and that’s a story never worth telling. Learn more about Richardson Sales Coaching Training Solutions! The post The Real Moneyball: The Importance of Analytics to Improve Sales Forecast Accuracy appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Can micro-moment sales and marketing help restore balance in the playing field? Mobile devices and 24/7 access to information have certainly changed the way business is conducted. Case in point: More than half of all searches on www.Richardson.com are done on mobile devices, the numbers rising to 52% from 19% in less than a year. In a B2C world, such a dramatic and rapid shift would make more sense, driven by on-the-go searches by consumers looking for restaurants or best product prices. But for a B2B company like Richardson? It’s hard to imagine someone waiting in line for a latte to suddenly tap her iPhone and say, "Siri, I need to implement a sales training transformation for my 5,000 global sales reps — which providers should I call?" Google has a brilliant name for what’s happening in B2B and B2C marketing: micro-moments. Basically, buyers are having instantaneous impulses when they want information, when they want to watch something, when they want a demo, or when they want to learn more about something. Wherever they are, whatever they are doing, and whatever devices they have access to, they can satisfy these sudden needs and desires in real time. Buyers waiting until they get home or to the office to use a stationary computer for searches is so yesterday. Where does that leave marketing? The digital environment has shifted the playing field in favor of buyers, and now, marketing and sales are forced to catch up to their demands. Savvy marketing organizations are starting to transition to the micro-moment approach. They realize the importance of including in their overall strategy such elements as content-based marketing, social marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and search engine marketing (SEM). Only through these elements can marketers ever hope to satisfy a buyer’s micro-moment, making sure that their brand, value, and products show up when there’s an instantaneous search. Additionally, marketing groups need to continue with outbound, push campaigns, while also thinking about and identifying any gaps in content to capture these micro-moment searches. This means leveraging analytics and spending a significant amount of time looking at both short-tail and long-tail key words, reviewing competitive digital strategies, and monitoring website bounce and visitor trails — just to name a few key aspects. Marketing today has to be able to understand the buyer’s complete journey and anticipate potential moves, along with the devices that will be used. Beyond readiness to meet the buyer’s reactive mode, marketing also needs to develop strategies to create what I call a supplier-induced micro-moment. These strategies leverage such digital tools as re-marketing and both persona and content-based data capture tools that push customized content and recommendations to website visitors based on searches and visited web pages. BrightInfo is one such tool that does an excellent job in helping to improve conversion rates and leads. It works by tracking a website visitor’s movement, and then, based on that movement, serves up appropriate content. In effect, it creates a flipped micro-moment. In this brave new digital world, there’s little time to waste. Messaging, positioning, and differentiation are becoming ever more critical for marketers as every competitor is trying to make sense of this trend, which also adds more noise to the marketplace and, to an extent, commoditizes each digital tool and technique. What does this mean for sales? Do micro-moments mean the end of sales professionals? Quite the contrary. They are more important than ever before, although their role continues to evolve, change, and grow. During the micro-moment process, buyers may be researching products and company information. They will download content, articles, and brochures. Sales professionals need to be able to follow up, nurture, challenge, and provide insights to buyers to help influence and differentiate themselves and their companies. Selling with insights and possessing the skills to have extra-ordinary dialogues with well-informed buyers will become ever more critical to sales professionals’ successes. They also will need to prepare for and execute on buyers’ micro-moments, joining the conversation by participating in social media activities, such as tweeting or posting updates on LinkedIn. They need to focus on building a personal brand by blogging and sharing marketing content. I recommend a tool like PeopleLinx for an automated system that enables social selling. Finally, sales professionals need to be contributing consistent value in group discussions and when talking directly to prospects — not just pitching products or delivering data points. By deploying social-selling and value-added tactics, they are better able to gain quick access to buyers when a micro-moment occurs. Much work and potential ahead For organizations to be successful in this new reality, marketing and sales groups must be completely aligned and working in the same direction. Marketing needs to map out the buyers’ journeys and leverage analytics, while sales professionals need the skills to have deep dialogues that provide value. The successful sales professionals will be those who become stronger experts in their fields and products so that they can provide insights and value to clients and prospects. While the digital environment has initially shifted in favor of buyers, micro-moment sales and marketing tools are helping to restore balance in the playing field. Contact Us to Learn More! Learn more about Richardson Selling with Insights Sales Training program The post Micro-moment Sales and Marketing appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

A Global Sales Training Program Can Be Challenging, but it’s Worth It! Global companies often have global customers, which creates certain global expectations. While customers desire customization on the local level, they require consistency across countries. Often, customers negotiate a global agreement so that they can have similar terms around the world, regardless of their volume in different countries — and they expect supplier representatives in all countries to understand the agreement and to know how to support local differences in applying the agreement. The challenge is that the people who develop the sales relationship and service the account in one country are not the same people who do the same job in other countries. As a result, unless they’ve all been trained the same way, the sales experience for customers of a global supplier will be all over the map. The need for a consistent sales process across domestic and foreign subsidiaries is clear. To achieve this, global companies need to implement a global sales training program that brings the same skills, methodology, and process to those who work with or support customers around the world. Equally true is the need for consistency in companies that are expanding their geographic reach to find new business. Often, these growth-oriented companies want their customer experience in new countries to be based on the same best practices developed where the headquarters is located. This means replicating these practices across global subsidiaries through consistent training. One challenge in delivering global sales training programs is that there may not be enough people in each country to justify holding a workshop exclusively for those in, say, Japan or Israel or France. The alternative is to bring these groups together in a common training environment, using English — the language of business around the world — as the language of delivery. An added benefit is the ability for people from different countries to learn from one another, share success stories, and strengthen their network of internal contacts. And, if they all happen to serve the same global customer, they can trade information and experiences related to that account. One difference from a typical US training environment is having a workshop full of people for whom English is not their first language. For the facilitator, this means slowing down the pace of speech and taking somewhat longer to deliver some of the content. The slower pace is needed so that participants, who are usually translating English to their native language as it’s delivered, can fully absorb the content. When course content involves complex concepts, it can take speakers of basic English even longer to translate and understand the nuances. In one workshop I conducted, one participant spoke English and Italian well, and someone else spoke Italian and Polish well. One Polish participant spoke very little English. After I would present a concept, the person who spoke English and Italian would translate it in Italian for the person who spoke Italian and Polish, and then he would translate it for the Polish speaker. Not every word needed translation, but the complexities were conveyed in their native language. It sounds problematic, but it actually worked quite well, and the translators increased retention through the retelling, as well. Much is made about cultural differences in selling, and they do exist, but our research in building sales processes at Richardson has found that most of the time, the selling process remains constant in all locations. We have interviewed people from China, Dubai, England, and Canada — all over the world — about what they do successfully in sales. What we discovered is that most of the actual sales process is the same, although the length of time spent in each stage may differ. While some activities may be added or not needed, the overall path and process to create a successful sale is usually the same. Take building rapport, for example. In the Middle East, nobody does business until after they have socialized and gotten to know each other. There may be four or five social meetings before sales is ever discussed. Conversely, in Germany, people prefer to get down to business faster. They do build rapport, but they’re more comfortable doing it in a business setting. They don’t feel comfortable socializing until business relationships have developed more fully. But, nobody skips the rapport-building stage, although the way they do it and the amount of time they spend on it can differ. One of the biggest challenges for global companies, especially with the speed and influence of social media around the world, is the ability to manage the behemoth of a global presence and brand. The difficulty of consistency and alignment among 50,000 or 150,000 people working for the same company around the world is enormous. With the growth of international business, this may be one of the biggest challenges of the next ten years. The role of the sales team, which is usually the most externally focused part of a company, has a huge impact on that international presence and brand, so getting this right in different countries is critical. Companies that can get it right can provide the best customer experience and demonstrate consistent control of quality around the world, and they will differentiate themselves and create a significant competitive advantage. This is why global sales training programs are such a challenge and a necessity. Learn More! Richardson has been delivering global sales training solutions for more than 20 years in key theatres, including the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. Learn more about just one of our global solution, Richardson’s Consultative Selling Skills Solutions or contact Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@Richardson.com to learn more. The post The Challenge (and Necessity) of Implementing a Global Sales Training Program appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.