Progression Of a Sales Leader- The Sales Progress Blog

Sales Training Webinars

     Picture this scene: an inside sales team is gathered in an office, taking notes and actively listening as a speaker gives a presentation about sales training…but the speaker cannot be seen. That’s because this group is listening to a webinar, the newest tool for speakers and businesses. Webinars let large amounts of people attend a single presentation from anywhere in the world. You just simply have to register and log in to gain access.

     Companies can utilize webinars for just about anything. They can use it to teach their employees about a product or service’s features, advantages and benefits. They can also help sales reps improve their skills and behavior. Webinars allow for customization, and sales reps can attend events that target a certain problem that they may be experiencing. So, if one employee has a fear of cold calling and another needs help finding ways to prospect, both can register for their separate events. This saves the company money and the employee’s time. Furthermore, webinars work better with the adult learning style. Typically, adults learn more when they are sent to seminars that are short and to the point. Since webinars are normally only an hour and they are usually about a target area, adults will have an easier time focusing and engaging.

     In the long run, webinars benefit both the speaker and the salesperson. For speakers, webinars allow for instant feedback. At the end of the event, they can ask participants to fill out a survey, or they can send a follow up e-mail asking them what they liked, disliked or would change. Webinars offer speakers a way to connect with their audience. They can set up polls or surveys or open a live question and answer segment. Salespeople also benefit from the instant engagement. They can have their questions answered right away, and they can learn from the questions or experiences that other people are sharing.

     Download our free webinar whitepaper to find out more ways that webinars can help with sales training and sales progress.

Lead Generation 2.0

     Lead generation is important if you are going to be a successful salesperson. You can’t sell if you don’t have any potential customers. So, you set up a website, you write a blog and you become a social media expert, but how do you track and keep in contact with all those leads?

     Part of being a great salesperson is turning potential customers into regular clients, and thanks to new technology, that task has become easier. When people come to your page or post on your blog, most website companies will send you a detailed report of who these people are and how they found you. If you create a landing page for a whitepaper, then people have to fill out a form giving you an e-mail address and their information. You can use all of this material to reach out and make a direct connection to your lead. Send them a quick thank you e-mail or ask them for feedback. Either way, you will be engaged with your lead and hopefully make them a client.

     If you don’t want to spend hours online, there are tools that do the work for you. One product, Jesubi, “helps sales teams to double their productivity by reducing time per call, automatically scheduling follow-up activities, and adjusting quickly to optimize results.” This dramatically reduces the work that inside sales people have to do and gives them more time to follow up with leads and clients. They help you prospect, sell and manage your time.

     If you want to see your sales progress, then you have to be able to turn a warm lead into a full-fledged customer, and new tools help you do this more effectively.

An Insight into Webinars

     When it comes to sales, the person with the best pitch, the most product knowledge and the highest level of confidence will usually be the one that makes the close. Becoming a great salesperson takes time, and it requires constant learning and practicing. Salespeople need to pick up different tips, tools and techniques that they can apply to their day-to-day work, and these can often be found in a sales seminar. Furthermore in order to retain that knowledge and garner confidence, managers need to set up a training reinforcement program that allows inside sales teams to practice their skills and increase their confidence. Typically, the first part is accomplished by sending a team to a one-day event, but that no longer needs to be the case. There is a new tool that is rapidly taking over the training world, and it is important to catch on.

     Webinars are a great tool for training reinforcement. While most people typically use them for their initial sales training, the technology can be used to keep learning sustainable through practice and coaching.

     Use the tips in our newest whitepaper to find out how to apply webinars to your traditional sales training. Click here to download your free whitepaper.

Create a Go to Performance Strategy

Companies need a strategy if they are going to see results from their sales people. Managers cannot just tell reps to make some calls and close some deals. They need to make sure that they employees are prepared to do the best job that they can. Download our free audio pointcast to find out how to enhance performance using strategy.

 

Click here to download: Create a Go to Performance Strategy

A New Way to Present

    Plane trips. Hotel rooms. Expensive training sessions. All of these are a thing of the past with a new type of technology: webinars. Webinars are here to replace the original form of speaking presentations, and they are here to stay. These types of speaking engagements allow people to connect via the Internet as opposed to face-to-face. Participants all log in around the same time, and the presenter begins. He or she speaks to the group and encourages everyone to join along. Attendants can answer or ask questions, take surveys or take part in chats.

 

      There are two key factors that make a webinar more enticing then a typical training seminar. First, the cost is significantly less. Companies only have to pay for their employees to attend. Some webinars also allow for businesses to make money if they recommend others. The second factor deals with employee engagement. During webinars, people are encouraged to participate and give their thoughts. At the end of the presentation, the technology lets everyone give their feedback, and speakers can evaluate where they succeeded in helping people and where they may need to change things around. 

Coach for Success

Coaching is important to the success of any business. Managers need to set aside time to meet with their inside sales and customer service teams, and they need to be involved in the molding process.

If you want to enhance performance and see business opportunities grow then follow the steps in this powerpoint and download our free whitepaper.

Three Looks at Traffic for Lead Generation

        Let’s face it- we live in a world that is becoming more and more technology based. Customers are turning to the World Wide Web when they need a new product or service, and companies are relying on websites, blogs and online articles to boost sales. Inside sales people need to know where traffic is coming from in order to efficiently gather leads and prospects. There are three important ways that potential customers are brought to a website: direct traffic, organic traffic and social media traffic.

1. Direct Traffic

Direct traffic involves people accessing your website through a bookmark or by “directly” typing the web name into the URL. This sort of traffic does not depend on your SEO ratings or the popularity of your blog. It is important to understand how direct traffic works because it tells you that people view your company as credible, and they came directly to your page or blog to look for information and updates.

Direct traffic is great for lead generation because you know that the people purposefully came to your site, and they are interested in your product or service.

2. Organic Traffic

Any traffic that comes to your website or blog because of words typed into a search engine, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo, is known as organic traffic. It relies mostly on keywords and search engine optimization which help your website appear earlier in any search. The more content you have built surrounding your company (this can include multiple website pages, blogs, whitepapers and articles), the more likely you are to increase your sites popularity.

Organic traffic tells inside sales people that there are people out there that are in need of their product or service, and if prospected properly, they could become long-time customers.

3. Social Media Traffic

This is the traffic that comes from people reading your blogs, clicking on twitter links or visiting from sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Typically, these people can constitute both customers and competitors. Include an RSS feed button onto your blog to keep people coming back and measure the amount of time people spend re-tweeting your information and participating on your Facebook page.

If you monitor social media traffic properly, inside sales people can generate leads from the active participants because it shows that they are genuinely intrigued by the information that you are posting.

      If companies want to see their sales progress, they need to help their inside sales reps fully understand how to create leads from the tools that are out there.

7 Steps for Sales Training Success

“Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction”
-John Kotter

    In business, it is important to have a strategy that will take your business to the top, and managers need to be the ones stepping and taking charge. Training reinforcement needs to be part of that sales strategy. In order for any inside sales team to be successful, they have to possess knowledge of the product, the skill set to sell it, and the right behavior and confidence. All of these things can be tailored and cultivated by any sales manager.
    
    There are seven steps that managers can take with sales training if they want to see their sales progress.

1.    Include the three main tiers into any sales training.
Those three tiers include: knowledge, skill and behavior. If any sales person is going to go from average to great, then they need to have the confidence that they can successfully perform in each area. Managers may have to tailor sales training around one specific area or around all three, but before they start coaching, they need to define which area a specific employee is having trouble in.

2.    Make sure sessions are short and engaging
Most people have short attention spans, and you do not want to spend money on something that an employee is not going to be able to sit through. So, make sure that seminars are short, two to three hours at maximum. Encourage reps to participate during events. If they are engaged and attentive, they are going to learn more and apply more.

3.    Set up dedicated practice times
Dedicated practice sessions refer to time put aside at the workplace for employees and managers to review what they have learned after training seminars. They engage employees in activities that will help reinforce key points of a seminar, and they simulate and practice for real world application. The sessions should last about 30-40 minutes, and throughout the dedicated practice sessions, sales reps should be assessing themselves and their performance.

To read the rest of the seven steps to sales training, download our FREE whitepaper, and pick up some tips and techniques for successful sales training.

Make a Sale. Even on Friday the 13th.

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     It’s Friday the 13th, and everyone knows what that means. Bad luck. If you’re like me, this day is no different than any other…but maybe I’ll drive slower to work to avoid a crash and triple check that no cars are coming before I cross the street. When it comes to bad luck, everyone has it once in a while. We can spend all our time preparing for a meeting and woo-ing a potential client, but we won’t always land them.

        If you find that you are having a stint of a bad luck, there are a couple measures that you can take to combat it. First, reconnect with old customers and clients. Find out how they are doing and how they like the new product. Ask them if there is anything you can do for them or if there is anything else they need at the time. By going back to an old client, you are interacting with someone who had a positive experience with you, and this can point you in the right direction. Next, consult your co-workers. Your fellow sales reps can give you advice and help you solve whatever problem you are having. If you are having trouble landing prospects, go to a co-worker that seems to have success in this area and ask them for any tips that they may have. Finally, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. No one is successful all the time, and sometimes you just have to keep pushing. Remember, even a great salesperson has their rough times. So, keep making phone calls and getting in front of prospects. Eventually, your luck will change.

Good luck with your sales today and have a great Friday the 13th…and watch out for those black cats.

Three Techniques for Training Reinforcement

     As most coaches know, training reinforcement is the key to any salesperson’s success. It keeps learning sustainable, and it helps sales reps apply what they learned in the real world. There are a few sales techniques that managers can use when coaching:

1. Peer to Peer

Have employees work together. This way, they can coach one another through each of their problems. If you pair two people together that have strengths where the other has weaknesses, you will begin to see both people improve, and your sales team’s performance will begin to rise.

1. One-on-one

One-on-one coaching gives managers the opportunities to sit down with their individual team members and help them. You can provide them with exercises to complete and you can give them feedback. Training works best when the manager is there for reinforcement.

1. Group Coaching

This technique allows the manager to put role-playing into place. While the activity may seem tedious, it does actually help inside salespeople improve in the real world. Have your team practice things such as confronting price objections or leaving voicemails.

 

      Managers can use these three techniques when they want to reinforce learning, and it will help an average salesperson transform into a great salesperson. Use training reinforcement, and you will begin to see your sales progress.