Change the Focus of Sales Discussions Away from Rate and Price

As managers we have daily interactions with frontline employees and every one of those is a coaching opportunity. Observing and reinforcing how customer interactions are conducted is certainly a good start, but to truly influence results, you must first institute a successful approach that has been proven to change behaviours and then provide feedback in a way that reinforces and embeds those behaviours.

For instance, take a customer entering a financial institution and inquiring about an interest rate for a five-year mortgage. We know that customers commoditize our products by focusing on rate comparisons so, as managers, we often limit our feedback to the obvious elements of the employee’s interaction with the customer – their courtesy, their professionalism and their accuracy. All are elements that impact the overall customer experience, but not necessarily ones that drive a successful conclusion such as a referral or sale.

‘How’ the conversation is conducted will determine the outcome. In our ever increasingly commoditized environment, the really important part is how the frontline employee moves past the rate discussion (for example), engages the customer and matches their needs with the available solutions.

And what constitutes effective coaching is when we can provide concrete suggestions on ‘how’ an employee’s next customer conversation could be handled in a more effective manner – suggestions that reinforce a verified methodology or activity that improves results.

My belief is that we should provide the tools that enable all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales effort at every stage of the sales process.

And we should provide managers with the coaching systems and skills required to build the foundation of a truly robust Coaching culture.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Submit them now and let's start a discussion.

The Best Customer Experience

Face-to-face customer interactions are precious commodities that are often wasted. Online access to information about our products and services has changed the way customers conduct business. And in the event that a customer has to physically go into a store or branch, online access has also changed what they expect from that retail experience.

When customers physically walk through our doors, we have to both understand their expectations and engage them in conversations that make the most out of the time we have with them. Often, we leave it to frontline employees to address customer transactional or service issues in the most effective way they know. We even ask them to try and uncover opportunities to sell products or obtain referrals that product experts can follow up on.

But, we don't always provide frontline employees with an easily repeatable formula that shows them 'how' to do this effectively. Or a learning process that allows them to learn the formula over time so it becomes ingrained, second nature and is used in every customer conversation or interaction.

As we focus on a value-added customer experience, companies and their employees that consistently engage in interactions that can explore and satisfy both active and latent needs and expectations will stand out in the crowd.

Why? Because customer-facing employees are the key to providing that differentiated customer experience that will open the door to new business opportunities.

The PowerLearn™ Sales Development System enables all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in real, unscripted conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales and service effort at every stage of the sales process.

And since managers are integral to your employees' success, they are equipped with the coaching systems, skills and feedback required to reinforce and embed those behaviours that will differentiate your business well into the future.

Join the conversation and share your thoughts and experiences about changing sales and service behaviours in your frontline employees.


›  Learn more about Measurement

Can Sales Training Be More than Mastering the Sales Process?

It may simply start by one day looking around the organization and determining that the sales team would benefit from Sales Training. 

The impetus might be a desire to rejuvenate and refocus the Sales team, provide a common framework and terminology across a dynamic group of individuals or any number of initiatives that include the need to enhance sales skills to generate additional revenues.

But the scope of introducing a sales training program should extend past a refresher on 'what' the sales process is or 'how' to execute more effectively. It should also consider the types of behaviour that you wish the Sales team – and, in fact, the whole organization – to exhibit once the training is introduced.

Much has been written about developing a culture that introduces beliefs and approaches that encourage the whole team in the effort to generate revenues, profitability and growth. This 'Sales culture' is one that becomes integrated into the fabric of an organization. Getting there involves a common framework of how we think, how we behave and how we communicate.

At Algario, we extend our approach and our tools to not only build upon the skills required to understand how to make sales but we also deliver it in a manner that matches larger brand and corporate objectives.

Over the coming weeks, we will examine a number of areas and topics that our clients have either explored with us or are currently asking themselves.

1. Investing in Customer-facing Sales Teams: A review of a variety of topics designed to determine what type of skills you are looking to improve and the pros and cons of the different methodologies used to deliver them.
2. Building a Sales Culture: A series of discussion items around how to establish and sustain a sales culture, low risk concepts that build early successes and some tools that support the changes required within an organization.
3. Getting the Most out of Sales Training: Combatting the 'Half-life of Learning' is an inherent challenge for sustained change across an organization – but it is possible and different approaches generate different levels of success.
4. Sales – Your Lens to your Customers: Any opportunity to have a two-way communication with your sales force is an opportunity to refine your understanding of what customers are thinking and obtain insights that can lead to fundamental shifts in how you approach them. We'll look at ways to retrieve and use those insights as part of sales learning initiatives.
5. Sales Coaching: Coaching is the key to a sustainable Sales culture. We'll look at how to introduce coaching as a continuous event, differentiating coaching from performance management and providing the measurements required to be an effective coach, just to name a few.
6. Measuring the Impact of Sales Training: And perhaps the one area that has generated the most discussion over the years – determining the ROI of sales training. We'll build on four measures of Sales Training effectiveness – Behaviour Change, Commitment, Skills Development and Business Success – and outline how both tangible and intangible indicators play a role.

As you tackle the process of introducing sustainable improvements across your organization, this series of articles is designed to provide a framework that you may wish to explore further when looking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales, service and support teams. 

We hope you find them valuable.

How Does Human Nature Play Into Your Sales Skills Development?

As you tackle the process of introducing sustainable improvements across your organization, this series of articles is designed to provide a framework that you may wish to explore when looking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales, service and support teams.

In a previous post, we started by reviewing the benefits of first determining the goals that you have for your learning initiative. This week we'll look at the other side of the coin and highlight one major factor that plays heavily on the ultimate success of any initiative – human nature.

Human nature has been described as:

'a complex set of impulses that affect all aspects of our daily lives'

Our individual perspectives on what we deem important, our reaction to being told what to do, our survival instincts and our tolerance in the face of change are but a few elements that filter our daily interactions.

Human nature, being what it is, guarantees that:

1. Everyone will be motivated by different things
2. Interpret each event in different ways
3. Is receptive to new concepts and information to various degrees 
4. And react differently to how they are approached

That all adds up to an environment that requires some thought when attempting to move as many people as possible to an elevated and sustainable skill level.

Not only is human nature at play but the characteristics of 'adult learner' suggests that the success of training in a group environment is best achieved when the individual can personalize the learnings and see direct benefit in their everyday routine. The adult learner requires learning to make sense – they will not perform a learning activity just because the instructor said to do it. And with their wide experience, they bring a lot to any learning situation.

We believe that an initiative is most successful when you have the capability to observe, record, analyze and support how an individual – or a group of individuals – is thinking. With the right data, you can tailor discussions that match the expectations of the group.

To best do that, there are a number of tools that can:

1. Gauge a participant's perspective and involve them in the process
2. Assess the degree and quality to which an individual is engaged
3. Provide a way to interpret and choose a behaviour, belief or thinking style that we want to influence
4. Challenge things that don't support a desired outcome
5. Reinforce a successful pattern... over and over 

Once you have an array of data points, you then have a foundation to analyze, interpret and guide the progress of each participant and the group as a whole.

At the end of the day, the motivation to embrace new learning must come from within each person.  A successful learning environment can be developed with:

1. The right combination of new skills
2. A measurement process that evaluates the quality of the effort being expelled
3. And a coaching mechanism that reinforces desired behaviours

We invite you to clearly identify the scope of what you need out of your investment in Sales Training and evaluate how the Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System can maximize the return you are looking for.

Customers Have Choice

In fact, customers have so much choice that independent of what service you provide or product you sell, it’s more and more likely to be viewed as a commodity. And, as is the tendency with any commodity, price and convenience tend to have an exaggerated influence on a customer’s purchase decision.

In our quest to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace, we increasingly turn our attention to delivering a customer experience that makes us stand apart. We may focus on delivering services faster, easier, friendlier or perhaps more professionally than our competitors.

Online access to our business certainly provides an important portion of that experience, but there is no substitute for the role that frontline customer-facing employees play when it comes to increasing sales and building long-term loyalty.

As a result, 'how' employees interact and engage customers is the true differentiator that will make your business stand out from competitors. Similar to the way that the attention you receive at your favourite restaurant dictates your total dining experience, how company representatives connect with you greatly influences your final purchase decision.

Customer-facing employees are fundamental in being able to stimulate a customer’s curiosity and obtaining permission to initiate a conversation that can explore and satisfy both active and latent needs and expectations. And in order to do that, you must first institute an approach that has been proven to change how frontline employees systematically and quickly move customer interactions into a much richer and rewarding experience for everyone.

The Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System fundamentally enables all frontline employees to systematically engage customers in real, unscripted conversations designed to utilize the time available during any interaction and significantly contribute to the overall sales effort at every stage of the sales process.

And since managers are integral to your employee’s success, they are provided with the coaching systems, skills and feedback required to reinforce and embed those behaviours that will differentiate your business well into the future.

Join the conversation and let me know your thoughts. What have your experiences – either from the learner side or the coach/trainer/manager side – been?