Sales Training Preference Survey We are gathering input from our blog subscribers to help us identify and prioritize some important strategic initiatives. We value your opinion and would really appreciate your participation in this brief, four-question survey on sales training preferences. The survey should take you less than three minutes to complete. All participants who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing to win a Nike Fitbit and will receive a copy of our final, compiled business brief. Please click here to complete the survey. Thank you in advance for your participation. We look forward to sharing this information with you in the near future. All my best,   Jim Brodo     The post Sales Training Preference Survey appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

5 Key Elements for Rolling out a Global Sales Training Initiative I am an American who has lived outside the US for 27 years. I’ve worked in 42 countries, lived in the Far East for eight years, in Europe for the last 19 years, and am now based in the UK. At Richardson, Europe Limited, I am a consultant, facilitator, trainer, and coach. I work with European firms, FTSE 100 global companies, and many, many foreign subsidiaries of US companies around world. It is from this vantage point that I see how parent companies often approach the rollout of global sales training initiatives. Some get it right, but too often, problems arise. Here are five key elements that are essential to rolling out a successful global sales training initiative. There has to be a consistent sales process — a benchmark, standard, or consistent norm that clearly and succinctly describes the steps required for successful sales within the company. This sales process must be widely communicated, accessible to all involved, translated into the appropriate languages, and championed by the management team. Promoting the sales process is essential so that everyone will know what "good" and "success" look like. Without this consistency, sales teams have to recreate the wheel everywhere, and sales training will teach a different approach everywhere. Companies can’t afford the false steps, inefficiency, and mistakes as each salesperson around the world creates their own way of doing business. Identify skills and activities — The next step is to break the sales process into the specific skills and activities that people need in order to be trained around the world. Diagnostic tools — such as SkillGauge™, to benchmark existing skills, and TalentGauge™, to assess whether the right people are in the right jobs — can help in determining the current capabilities and need for specific training. These tools, or company assessments, help provide a platform for individuals to identify their strengths and areas to improve. With so many successful people in sales divisions, it’s important that training isn’t perceived as "fixing poor performers," but improving skills for everyone. There is no such thing as "good enough," and even gold medal winners in sports keep practicing and improving. Develop training for skills and activities — Build a global sales training program to support the skills and activities required to implement the sales process. For international training, it’s important to include time or a module to discuss how these will vary based on the culture of different countries. The conclusion will likely be that they do apply, although in slightly different ways. But to not address cultural differences directly will undercut the credibility of the training. And, it’s important for participants to understand the flexibility of the sales process and the expectations of their companies so that they make the necessary modifications. Create a realistically timed agenda — International training should take into account the need for additional discussion coming from the difference in language and cultures, along with delivering training that addresses the gaps in desired skills and behaviors in each country. This might mean spending more time on needs dialogue in one part of the world than another, or developing listening skills so that participants fully understand both the content and emotional message conveyed by prospects and customers. In some cultures, participants may need more practice in the skill of "presence" — learning to project confidence, conviction, and interest in body language and voice. Sales managers are the most important group to train — Rolling out a global sales training initiative is an expensive proposition, and without the full commitment and reinforcement from sales managers, the training has little chance of succeeding and changing behavior. This is true in domestic programs, too. In fact, the training of sales managers is so important that if there’s only a budget big enough for one audience, sales managers should be it. But, they have to be trained in the skills and the ability to transfer them to their sales teams. By focusing on sales managers around the world and improving their skills and behaviors in managing and coaching, they can be the champions who make sure the desired sales process is implemented around the world. By developing a consistent sales process for use across global operations and training local sales teams and sales managers around the world, companies have a greater chance of achieving their targets and getting better results quicker. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post 5 Key Elements for Rolling out a Global Sales Training Initiative appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

For the Third Consecutive Year, Richardson has been Named to Selling Power’s 2015 Top Sales Training Companies List Philadelphia, PA—July 20, 2015 — Richardson, a leading global sales training and effectiveness company, announced that it has been included on Selling Power’s 2015 list of the Top Sales Training Companies for the third consecutive year. The Selling Power Top 20 Sales Training Companies list identifies leading companies that excel in helping sales leaders improve the performance of their sales teams. Selling Power editors say that the firms included on the 2015 Top Sales Training Companies list have "demonstrated an excellent awareness of the skills and tools required to succeed and remain competitive in today’s selling environment." According to Selling Power magazine publisher and founder Gerhard Gschwandtner, sales training is a vital component of a high-performance sales organization. "Great salespeople require the right toolset, the right skillset, and the right mindset to win," he said. "A great, consultative sales training initiative can address all three areas. Sales leaders should use this list of the Top 20 Sales Training Companies to find the solution that best suits their needs." "We are very thankful and honored to be recognized once again as one of the top sales training companies in the industry," says Jim Brodo, SVP of Marketing at Richardson. "Richardson’s success is a direct outcome of working with some of today’s most innovative clients and by the excellence and dedication of the entire Richardson team. We look forward to our continued growth and achieving superior results for our clients." Each sales training company featured on this year’s list offers sales organizations the following benefits: Provides a consultative experience. Quantifies results with metrics. Offers customization and post-training support. Has a documented track record of ROI and customer satisfaction Here are the four main criteria that Selling Power considered when selecting the top sales-training companies: Depth and breadth of training offered Innovative and new offerings (specific training courses or methodology) or delivery methods Ability to customize offerings Strength of client satisfaction The list appears in the August issue of Selling Power magazine, which will be available to subscribers the first week of August. For more information, visit sellingpower.com. To learn more about Richardson, please contact Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or visit www.richardson.com. About Richardson Richardson is a global sales performance company that helps leading organizations improve sales results. We do this in three ways. We analyze the structure and talent of your sales force, we train and develop your sales team, and we continue that development through coaching and reinforcement. We equip your sales leaders and sales force with the skills and strategies they need to win in today’s complex selling environment. What is unique about Richardson is how we create truly customized solutions that change behavior and provide measurable results. About Selling Power  In addition to Selling Power magazine, the leading periodical for sales managers and sales VPs since 1981, Selling Power Inc. produces the Sales Management Digest and Daily Boost of Positivity online newsletters, as well as a five-minute video series featuring interviews with top executives. Selling Power is a regular media sponsor of the Sales 2.0 Conference. About Gerhard Gschwandtner Gerhard Gschwandtner is the founder and CEO of Selling Power and the publisher of Selling Power magazine. He conducts a popular Daily Report video series featuring interviews with top sales and marketing executives and CEOs, and he regularly hosts the Sales 2.0 Conference. He is a recipient of the Sales & Marketing Executives International, Inc. 2010 Ambassador of Free Enterprise Award. Read his blog at blog.sellingpower.com. The post Richardson Named to Selling Power’s 2015 Top Sales Training Companies List appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Today’s blog post was exclusively submitted and written by The Online Expert Three Easy Steps in Building your Mobile User Persona The digital boom has helped marketing and sales reach new heights. From conventional print, radio, and television, to the viral, social selling activities, online marketing, and now mobile, the pattern of business development strongly suggests that it will follow the type of medium most used by people. Smart Insight reported that mobile marketing will be vital in the success of marketing and demand generation campaigns for businesses this year. However, there are a lot of factors to consider if you want your mobile demand generation campaigns to be more effective. Start by building mobile user personas necessary for your campaigns. But first, what is Mobile User Persona? Mobile user personas are essentially your ideal target market classified in different personalities depending on how they use their mobile devices, the type of mobile devices, how they consume content via their gadgets and a slew of other factors. It basically provides sales and marketing with ways to identify customer motivations, habits, personalities, expectations, and goals. Building such personas will allow you to create strategies based on the mobile habits of your ideal customers, which can lead you closer to reaching your goal/s. How to create mobile user personas quickly? Building personas for your mobile demand generation and prospecting isn’t really different from defining your target market. The only difference is that you are categorizing them based on how they consume content and use their smartphones and tablets as well as how you can use this set of information to better introduce your brand. It only requires three simple steps to build personas for mobile users. Here’s how: 1. Interview and research Similar to building a buyer persona for your products and/or services, you will have to be able to get information on your own by interviewing possible clients/customers and researching about what they like and dislike. Interviews and surveys can provide you with insightful feedback about your target market with more in-depth information. Consider including the following questions in your survey form to help you out: What do you like and dislike about using mobile to find information regarding potential vendors? What features do you expect to see on a mobile application or website? How often do you visit websites or use search engines to find information? 2. Identify all the necessary information you need Mobile users are highly diverse. There are some that use their phones for gaming and music, others for work and study, and then there are those who just use the device’s most basic functions. These factors will have to be listed clearly for you to create an effective persona. Additional factors, such as the type of Internet connection they are using is also needed for this campaign. Not all mobile users are able to use faster 4G data connections such as the iPhone 6 Plus as some smartphone are only able to use 3G. Content viewed on these mobiles has to be light, fast, and interactive. Take note as well that other features of smartphones and tablets can be used for your campaigns such as the camera, processing power, battery, screen size, and built-in ePayment systems (if applicable). This article on how to create detailed buyer personas may help you in this process. 3. Develop the personas By this time, you’ve already gathered enough data that will help you in creating personas for your mobile targets. There will be some patterns and certain characteristics that will help you categorize them. It’s easy to start with around 3-5 personas first. If it helps, you can make use of persona templates available online. These three easy steps that will get you started in building your mobile user persona. As you go along with your demand generation campaign, it will help you to have a read of our previous post on micro-moment sales and marketing to help you restore the balance in the market. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions.           Photo Credit: MarcelaPalma via Compfight cc   The post Three Easy Steps in Building your Mobile User Persona appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Aligning Key Stakeholders in Rolling out Global Sales Training Programs "Not invented here" is probably the leading challenge facing the rollout of global sales training programs. What happens in too many cases is that someone or some group in corporate headquarters says, "We need a training program for all our locations. We will develop it here, in our home country, and then roll it out around the world." It doesn’t matter where that corporate headquarters is located. If a training program comes solely from any one place, the rest of the world will say, "That won’t work in our country." It could even be that the proposed program is exactly what they themselves would recommend, but the fact that it came from somewhere else makes it tainted. The resistance to a program developed in Country A being implemented in Country B, C, or D is high and often justified because the targeted customers — their communication styles, their customs — are different. Overcoming this resistance is possible and can be relatively easy. It just takes collaboration and alignment of stakeholders. The people in Country B, C, and D should be considered stakeholders, not recipients, of the proposed training. Taking the time and effort to ask their input may not significantly change the construct of what the program would have been without their involvement, but it will make a huge difference in adoption. The stakeholders will feel listened to, engaged, and more receptive. They are more likely to say, "Yes, I think this will work in France," and their acceptance can help influence everyone who takes the training in France. If a training program comes out of the US and it has never been vetted by anyone in Europe, then there is sure to be strong resistance to implementation. Most global sales organizations provide a certain amount of local autonomy, which gives staff around the world the flexibility required to do business locally. They are often given control over local budgets, including local training. They may well use this autonomy to refuse to pay for a training program developed by headquarters without their input. In that case, headquarters has to sell it to the foreign managers, and that’s a very tough sell because the product was created without first identifying the customer needs — the customers in this case being the foreign sales staff. Rolling out a global sales training program is very much like rolling out a global product. It requires understanding the needs of the customer, reviewing and discussing what the stakeholders want, getting their buy-in to the proposed solution, and gaining approval and acceptance of the final product. The conceit by headquarters of thinking, "We know what you need," backfires with regularity. Sales professionals in other countries don’t want to sign up for the program, so it’s difficult to get training events filled with participants in advance, making it harder to book the desired trainers, produce materials cost-effectively, secure the right venues, and settle other logistical matters. As for participation, there will be a certain percentage of people who won’t come, and, as a result, there will be inconsistent approaches to selling across the company and its locations. It may seem cumbersome to do the upfront work of involving stakeholders around the world before developing global sales training programse, but it’s nothing like the task of trying to get a program invented elsewhere implemented by local managers around the world. Simply put, to avoid deep resistance to rolling out global sales training programs, make sure to involve key stakeholders. It can make a world of difference. Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions. The post Aligning Key Stakeholders in Rolling out Global Sales Training Programs appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Many sales people make the mistake of just plain talking too much. Willy: I don't know why - I can't stop myself - I talk too much. A man oughta come in with a few words. Charlie's a man of few words, and they respect him. Linda: You don't talk too much, you're just lively. Arthur Miller - Death of a Salesman We all have sympathy for poor Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He knew he talked too much, but he couldn't figure out why. And he couldn't stop talking too much even though he wanted to be like Charlie, a man of few words, who was respected by all. When business developers talk too much, they generate too few clients.      

Sales people can slip at a variety of different stages during the sales process. People with kids tell me that sometimes you have to let them fail, even when you could have jumped in to save them, so they will learn. Painful to sit by and watch, but necessary for growth. After being on the receiving end of an awful sales call last week, now I know the feeling. Poor kid (he could have been 60 for all I know, but he seemed like a kid), started sinking from the get-go. Since I couldn't dive in and save him, the future parent in me is dying to share the learning with someone. So here goes. While I will protect the name of the innocent, I have summarized my favorite (if I can call them that) 5 deadly sins that pulled him down like a pair of concrete shoes in the Mystic River.      

Salespeople that exhibit the 4 crucial elements are often the perfect fit. People often ask me, "Can rainmaking be taught?" It can surely be taught, but the question that people must ask themselves and their teams is, "Can we learn to make rain?" Makes me think of this one: Q. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? A. One, but the light bulb has to want to change. Same goes for rainmaking: if you want to turn on your rainmaking light bulb, you can. If you’d like to discover if the rainmaking bulb can turn on for you (or for members of your organization), you need to know if the following four elements are in place.      

It's 2001. You work for a new company in the search engine space. Let's call this company Shmoogle. Shmoogle has this huge new idea—businesses are starting to grow based on getting found on the Internet. Why not have businesses pay per click to get found? Brilliant! You're a sales person at Shmoogle, and you know pay per click will be huge. You start prospecting on the phone. You: Hello Ms. VP of Marketing. This is Lamont Sanford with Shmoogle. I'd like to speak with you for a few minutes about our marketing program that's helping companies like yours generate a lot of leads and new business on the Internet. Ms. VP (who pleasantly accepts cold calls): Sure. Let's talk. (FIVE minutes go by. Conversation goes great.) You: OK, then, I think pay per click search engine marketing is perfect for you. How much budget do you have set aside for this? Ms. VP: I don't have a budget for pay per click marketing—or a budget for marketing at all right now. You: (Thinking to yourself: darn, not a qualified buyer.) Well, give me a call when you have one. Of course, only a complete loon would finish a call like that. The wrong turn was the salesperson's fault, though, for asking the question about budget in the first place.      

Tony Robbins, please accept my apology. About 15 years ago, when I was a budding manager in charge of my first strategic business unit, I dissed you pretty badly. I'm sorry. I take it back. My team and I were in a strategy meeting, trying to get something done—something really big that would literally change our fortunes and our lives. We knew the goal, and were now trying to figure out what to do to achieve said goal. A well-read young teammate of mine was a fan of motivational speakers, and was always looking for ways to increase sales motivation. At one point she shared, "Tony Robbins says, 'If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results.'" To which I replied, "That self-help stuff…Bah-loney." So I dismissed what Tony said because I generally dismissed self-help gurus. Why? At the time I had only been exposed to self-help charlatans spouting useless pap wrapped in cheese blankets. As I fancied myself a serious business person, I was anti-cheese. And thus, by mistaken proxy, I was closed to advice from the self-help world that could help us understand, and enhance, the sales motivations of top performers.      

It’s that time of year again when all of the "Best of 2010" blog posts, newsletter, and magazine articles are coming out - from the best new business books to the best restaurants in every city. The inaugural Top Sales Awards hosted by Jonathan Farrington is a new addition to this year’s lists. The awards recognize the best of breed in 10 sales categories, including the top sales resources. I was honored to find out that our online magazine, RainToday.com, is nominated in the category of Top Sales Resource. With stiff competition in the category, we need all the voting help we can get. So click here to cast your vote for RainToday.com. While you’re at it be sure to vote in some of the other top categories, including...      

Cold calls don't always start perfectly. But learn to overcome these objections, and you'll instantly find more success in it. A business-to-business client we at RAIN Group work with recently closed a mid-six figure deal that started with a cold call. But it started out rocky. Indeed, about 20 seconds in to the cold call it almost fell apart. After the prospect answered the phone, Jim, a sales person that works for our client, began speaking and the prospect immediately said, "I’m not interested."  This is where many salespeople give up. Jim didn’t. He knew that this was just the first of three common cold calling objections. He persisted and, as a result, he got our client on the prospect’s radar screen and ended up winning a major deal. If your initial attempt to capture attention and create interest on a cold call doesn’t work, don’t just wilt! It’s easy to say "okay" and just move on, but, then again, it’s easy to fail at cold calling. All is not lost. You can overcome common objections and make saves. Here are the three common cold calling objections along with examples for how you can overcome them.      

This post started out as one about the best sales books of the year. However as I was looking through my bookshelf I couldn’t help but add a few of my favorite new business books too. So without further ado, here are my top reads of 2010 (in no particular order)...      

RainToday Takes Home the Gold for Top Sales Resource I am pleased and honored that our online magazine RainToday.com was chosen as the Top Sales Resource of 2010. Thank you to everyone who voted for us and to the judges; we couldn’t have won without your support. I’d also like to send a big thank you to Jonathan Farrington who did an excellent job putting together this much needed event. Bravo! Congratulations to All the Winners Winners were named in 10 sales categories and I encourage you to check all of them out. There’s a wealth of information to be learned from these sales leaders...      

Prospecting can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack... I recently conducted a webinar for a client on prospecting. Leading up to the webinar, I asked what questions the client had in regards to prospecting so I could tailor the content to their particular challenges. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I only got one response. And that is not because they are masters of prospecting. Quite the contrary. It’s because they do so little of it and were unsure of what questions to ask. Like most sales people (50% according to Dave Kurlan’s extensive studies), they were doing little prospecting at all.1 While most sales people will tell you that creating conversations is important and must happen if you want to succeed in sales, the dynamics of how it works continues to baffle many. When sales people seek to understand it better they find conflicting advice. Different situations rightly call for different approaches, so some of the experts themselves are confused about what works and what doesn’t. If conflicting advice and lack of understanding is holding you back from prospecting and becoming a great sales person, let me break it down for you to its most simple steps.      

Last week I shared my top sales and business books of 2010. In this post I share part two of the "best of 2010" series with the best sales resources, blogs, and tweeters that I follow and find most helpful.      

The New Rules of Selling Consulting Services in 2011 Selling in professional services firms has changed. Gone are the days when repeat business and referrals were enough to grow your practice, when providing great service and results led to more business, when you were the only consultant, accountant, lawyer, or engineer on the block providing your specific service specialty. Prospects are busier than ever, there’s ten-times more competition, and price pressure is rampant. Despite these challenges, there are many service providers thriving in the new economy. To help you overcome the selling challenges and grow your firm in 2011, we’ve created the special report, The New Rules of Selling Consulting Services in 2011.  In this report, our very own Mike Schultz not only reveals the new rules for selling professional services, but also explains how you must transform the way you sell in 2011.      

Sometimes buyers don't know how to buy. Don't be afraid to show them. A recent conversation with my nephew reminded me how a little guidance can go a long way when tackling something for the first time. I was telling my nephew, a newly licensed driver, about my first experience piloting my ’68 Buick into the big city. The big city in this case is Boston, a labyrinthine tangle of one-way streets masquerading as a modern metropolis. Throw in aggressive drivers with a pathological penchant for double parking and you’re courting disaster the second your front bumper crosses into the city limits. As I nosed my Buick into the city for the first time all those years ago, everything fell apart…fast. Nothing looked familiar. It seemed like the entire city was on my rear bumper, and…darn, that was my turn. I needed a guide.      

Warp 9 Walt is a change agent with a strong sense of urgency. He's just one of the eight buyer personas... A while ago at a conference I had dinner with two people. The first, (we’ll call her Janine) I had known since we worked together six years earlier. The second person (Ed), Janine and I had just met. Janine described a sales challenge she was facing. She’d been working with two prospects at two different organizations, one for over a year and one for almost two. The typical sales cycle is 6 to 9 months, and these were both well beyond. She felt she was nearing a sale with both, but for all she knew, "nearing" might mean a year or two to go. This is a fairly common sales challenge: The sale looks good, but it’s taking forever. Janine happened to be facing two at the same time...      

Do your sales managers know how to coach and motivate your sales people? Your sales staff is underperforming, but you can't figure out why. You're pretty sure that you've hired the best possible talent, but some days it seems like your sales staff is the gang that can’t shoot straight. Where did you go wrong? Inconsistency and poor sales performance can be the result of a number of factors:  - Lack of necessary skills and knowledge  - Inefficient pipeline and process design  - Poor use of CRM and other tools  - Inadequate compensation and incentives And the list goes on…      

Keep your prospects engaged, and lead them to the next step. Imagine you’re a business leader, and you’re considering buying a new technology that could help your business succeed. You log in to the web presentation and, after a few pleasantries, the presenter starts in, "We started in 1978 by John Doe and have grown into the market leader in the space. We provide efficient effective solutions leveraging a unique combination of people, process, and technology to help you achieve results…Here’s a sample list of our clients…Now let me log in to the software. It’s all hosted online so you can login from wherever, whenever you need to…Over here is where you control admin rights of the users…" Boring. Unfocused. Unhelpful. At some point comes the time for every sales person to deliver a presentation. For some this may be early on in a demo of your product or capabilities, or to share a new approach to solving a problem. For others it may be later in the sales process as you present your proposed solution. In any case, delivering engaging sales presentations is a key to success. Why, then, do so many professionals and sales people put prospects to sleep during their presentations?      

It’s 4 PM on a Thursday and you’re about to meet the CEO of a major company you’d like to win as a client. The conversation starts as you walk into the office, approach the CEO, stretch out your hand, and say, "Nice to meet you, Jill. I’m Steve Webb." Fast forward to a meeting about 7 months later. You head into the office. Jill gets out from behind her desk and says, "Good to see you again, Steve. Here’s a check for $1.2 million. Let’s get started." Suffice it to say, a lot has to happen to get from, "nice to meet you" to "here’s a check, let’s get started." Yet two things are true:      

Is this "wuss factor" dragging you down? I had the pleasure of meeting Ed Rendell when he was the mayor of Philadelphia. He was pointed and direct, quite different from the other politicians I have met over the years. So it came as little surprise when early this winter, Rendell, then Governor of Pennsylvania, called NFL officials "wimps" for canceling a game between the Eagles and Vikings due to snow. When asked about the NFL’s decision the next day, Governor Rendell made his stance clear: "My biggest beef is that this is part of what's happened in this country. We've become a nation of wusses." This nation of wusses has extended into the field of sales. There’s no hiding that sales is difficult. Day in and day out you face rejection, you must constantly be filling the pipeline with new leads, you have quotas you must meet, and results are often inconsistent.  Yet too many sales people use these difficulties as excuses and let them hinder their own success - they wuss out. How can you tell if the wuss factor is dragging you down? Look out for the following 5 symptoms...      

Join us for this live webinar tomorrow, April 5! Much of your selling success depends on how well you lead conversations with potential clients - a lot has to happen between, "Nice to meet you", and, "Here's a check, let's get started." If you're like most sellers, you struggle to move these conversations towards the close. To help, join us on April 5 at 2:00 p.m. ET for the live webinar, The Keys to Mastering Sales Conversations - In Person, on the Phone, and Online with Mike Schultz, President of RAIN Group, Publisher of RainToday.com, and co-author of the breakthrough new book Rainmaking Conversations. During this webinar, you'll learn: How to convert more prospects into customers How to uncover your prospects' needs and sell the largest solution set - at the highest margin The secrets to running sales meetings that move you toward the close How web conferencing enhances the client relationship and cuts travel costs Special Bonus: 10 lucky attendees will receive a free copy of our new book, Rainmaking Conversations. Register today