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?

Rate Discounting Sets Off Chain Reaction

In today's competitive reality, it is easy to get caught up trying to either justify 'rates' or beat the competitor with aggressive pricing.  We know this isn't where we want to be, but with marketing campaigns often encouraging rate and price comparisons, it is how customers inevitably start their conversations. 

We all recognize that this approach can significantly erode profits and margin, and likely land us in a never-ending spiral of rate cuts and cost reductions. The approach is economically unsustainable, and can easily set off a chain reaction that results in a pullback of customer service, ultimately impacting customer satisfaction. 

Getting out of this rut can often be difficult, and shifting a customer conversation from one of 'price' to one of 'value' is a skill that has taken on increasing significance. Price is the last element of the conversation that we want our customer facing employees to talk about. We need them to focus on 'non-price differentiation', and in order to do that we need to change how they approach each and every customer interaction.

The PowerLearn Sales Development System experiential learning approach has enabled front line employees to systematically engage customers in conversations designed to use the time available during any interaction. The result: everyone significantly contributes to the overall sales and service effort at every stage of the sales process.

Recent results from one of our financial services wealth management clients showed year-to-date gross sales increases of 106%. This was achieved by engaging all customer-facing employees in a program that developed and supported a series of customer-centric conversations.

 

Visit us online at Algario.com, or contact David Batchelor at 416-865-9200 (dbatchelor@algario.com) and we'll show you how.

Algario Insight – The 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

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?

Moving Past a Discussion about Rates and Price

What can we do to influence both current and future sales results?

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? Please submit and let's start a discussion.

Unleash the Frontline Sales Potential in Everyone

Searching and implementing solutions that contribute to sales growth in our organizations is a challenge that we all share. Increasing sales while at the same time dramatically improving the overall Customer Service Experience is what we are aiming for.

Responding to client requests to involve everyone in the organization in their sales effort, Algario created its most advanced system to date, one that blends forward-thinking Sales skills with traditional Service and Transactional skills and delivers the training to all customer facing employees – including customer service reps, contact centre reps and proactive sales professionals. The goal was to deliver and entrench the practical skills necessary to truly differentiate the frontline customer experience.

In business environments where many individuals didn’t see themselves as part of the sales process, the sales role they were asked to play often intimidated and confused them. The Algario PowerLearn™ System not only changes this, but also tightly integrates the sales component into frontline employees’ regular workflow as opposed to traditionally being treated as an add-on responsibility.

The balanced blend of Online Skill Development supported by Personal Coaching Reinforcement focuses on providing the skills that initiate and encourage the sales process to advance… making the most out of every customer interaction with measureable results:

• Customer referrals from transactional service roles increased by 220%
• Referral quality increased by 42%
• Employee confidence escalated by 59%
• Call back ratios jumped from an average of 10% to over 70%
• Booked client meetings increased over 300%
• And the sales of add-on products more than tripled

The Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System fundamentally enables 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.

Battling Time vs. Training in a Busy Work Schedule

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 our first two articles, we looked at the benefits of first considering your training goals and how human nature plays into evaluating how to approach your learning initiative. With those perspectives in place, this week we'll explore a question that clients often ask: 'How much time can we afford for training?'

After all, time is money and independent of how much we know that sales training is important, we have a lot on our plates at any one time.

In any learning initiative, successful and long-lasting impact is dependent on the quality of the information, the skill of those guiding the learning process, the openness of the learners and how effectively you can blend it into the events that are going on at any particular time within the organization.

The world of natural sciences introduced us to a concept of 'a half-life', the amount of time it takes for a quantity to diminish to half of its original size through natural processes. That same concept is also just as applicable in a learning environment – skills and knowledge will have a tendency of eroding over time. The question is: How do you slow that erosion or perhaps top it up along the way?

When clients ask what the best learning methodology is for them, we begin by looking at a delivery method that reduces or eliminates the 'half-life' of the learning in the context of what else is going on around the initiative.

In some cases, a concentrated day or two may be an approach that fits into today's requirements – recognizing that the half-life of such an approach is potentially quite short. In others, you may be able to carve out time each week over an extended period. Each approach fits in different circumstances and both have to consider whether students have to travel, instructors provide onsite services or a combination of online and conferencing facilities would meet the overall goals.

The amount of time you can afford for training will vary based on the goals that you have for the initiative and the type of change that you wish to see within your organization. But there is one inescapable fact: training is not 'an event'. It is a continual process that is designed to change behaviour. And that can't be accomplished by reading about what to do or someone telling you how to behave.

Effective sales training must be a consistent, ongoing process that is delivered, measured, praised, coached and repeated on a daily, customer-by-customer basis.

The ideal recipe for significant change and sustainable results is a framework that delivers quality content in an environment that blends the learning initiative into a strategic thrust endorsed by the whole organization.

And how much time does that take? In our estimation – every chance you get.

We invite you to visit algario.com to review all of the articles in our Investing in Sales Skills series. We'd be pleased to review the Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System with you and demonstrate how you can maximize your return on invested effort for your sales improvement initiatives.

Individual Attention Adds Up to Group Success

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.

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 everyone will be motivated by different things, interpret each event in different ways, is receptive to new concepts and information to various degrees 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:

• gauge a participant's perspective and involve them the process
• assess the degree and quality to which an individual is engaged
• provide a way to interpret and choose a behaviour, belief or thinking style that we want to influence
• challenge things that don't support a desired outcome
• 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 the right combination of new skills, a measurement process that evaluates the quality of the effort being expelled 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.

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 and the Algario team is always available to assist along the way.

To learn more about Algario's PowerLearn™ Sales Development System, visit www.algario.com and discover what distinguishes this program from all others. To explore opportunities, please contact David Batchelor at 416-865-9200 or at dbatchelor@algario.com.

Your Sales Force is Not Your Only Way to Build Sales

There is a much-used saying, "Nothing happens until someone sells something". However, the sales force is only part of the mix when addressing the sales growth needs of the organization. Other teams are involved in building the business – customer service, marketing, support teams, sales assistants are all important to creating a sales and service culture that helps differentiate your company and sales force from everyone else in the marketplace.

Just training the sales force to develop their sales skills only addresses part of the opportunity to improve sales performance. To address this opportunity, Algario has customized a new approach to sales training to bring together all teams involved in not only selling, but also servicing the client, developing and marketing products and services, or contributing to the frontline sales team.

Take Financial Services as an industry example: PowerLearn™ provides a foundation for sales, service and support for key functional roles such as:

• Financial Advisors
• Mutual Funds Sales
• Marketing
• Inside/Outside Wholesalers
• Lending Specialists
• Inbound/Outbound Call Centres
• Customer Service Reps
• Mobile Sales Forces
• Mortgage Specialists
• Sales/Service Managers at all levels, in all business areas

In the Algario PowerLearn™ model, functional groups are integrated into the training and development to culturalize and habitualize the sales and service methodology to ensure members are aligned and supporting each other.

The result: A significantly enhanced outcome for the sales group and resulting sales performance of the organization.

The Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System not only helps improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales, service and support teams... it can be delivered anytime, anywhere.

How Are you Building your Credibility?

From my last post, the best option for establishing credibility is for the salesperson (or any business person for that matter) to earn it. Prospective clients or colleagues form impressions early and often and sellers have only a small window of time in which to pique their curiosity and establish credibility. 

Fortunately, the best option for earning credibility might also be the easiest and most consistent, where you can use a simple questioning technique we call Diagnostic Questions to significantly increase your probability of success.

When a salesperson asks probing questions without first establishing their credibility, prospects tend to become standoffish, cautious and/or hesitant. None of this can be good, right?

Scope is the first of three attributes that characterize what we call “strategic questions” and refers to a question’s broadness or narrowness. For example, open-ended questions tend to be broader in scope, while closed-ended questions are narrower in scope.

You'll notice we will talk about broadening and narrowing the scope of your questions as opposed to using the terms open and closed-ended. That’s because those terms (open-ended and closed-ended) carry too much old-school baggage to have constructive value.

By narrowing the scope of your sales questions, you can accomplish four very strategic objectives for kicking off the needs development conversation:

1. Kick Off the Conversation in a Non-threatening Manner
2. Gather Valuable Information About the Customer
3. Establish Credibility by Asking Relevant Questions
4. Earn the Right to Expand the Conversation

I made the point that asking for too much too soon is problematic for a salesperson. Therefore, with a “walk before you run” mentality, what if we take a few baby steps on the way to accomplishing the larger objective.

Closed-ended questions tend to be narrow in scope. They probe for very specific pieces of information and they are intended to solicit specific short-answer responses. In fact, the only time we recommend exact words in our sales methodology training is for your very first needs development question.

Here is something to try the next few times you start to engage in a sales conversation. Try it and let me know the difference you experience.

At the appropriate time when you are kicking off the conversation, you simply say, “Can I ask you a couple specifics about ___________?” And fill in the blank with some topic of information that you want to explore.

  EXAMPLE     “Can I ask you a couple specifics about your (pick one of the following) – current sales training methodology/product development/planned move/current mortgage/credit card rewards/renovation plans/competitor situation?"

Put it this way, if a customer is going to give you any information at all, they will surely say “Yes” to this initial request.

Now, we ask that you follow with a series of Diagnostic Questions. The objective here is to gather 5-7 quick pieces of information that can be easily and quickly answered, each furthering to earn, not claim, your credibility. Notice in the dialogue below that the salesperson asks a series of short-answer diagnostic questions to kick off the needs development conversation. If you timed this exchange with a stopwatch, you will see that it takes less than 60 seconds – which has huge significance for a salesperson.

Salesperson: “How many file servers do you currently have installed?” 
Prospect: “We have twenty-two servers downtown and seven in the annex.” 
Salesperson: “Is your network topology Ethernet or Token Ring?” 
Prospect: “Ethernet.” 
Salesperson: “Are you using Microsoft NT or Novell?” 
Prospect: “Microsoft.” 
Salesperson: “Version 5.0 or 6.0?” 
Prospect: “We just upgraded to release 6.0.” 
Salesperson: “How many network segments do you currently support?” 
Prospect: “Two per server for a total of 58.” 
Salesperson: “And how many users?” 
Prospect: “We currently have 550 users... but we’re growing rapidly.” 

By demonstrating that you know how to ask intelligent and relevant diagnostic questions, you can communicate higher levels of competence, credibility and value.

If you want to learn more about developing Diagnostic Questions as a strategy for differentiating yourself from all the other salespeople you encounter, contact me anytime at 416-865-9200 or at dbatchelor@algario.com.

Can You Differentiate Yourself in a Highly Competitive Market?

Have you ever thought about how you can differentiate yourself in a highly competitive market?

I’ve watched thousands of sales people over the past 30 years working hard to “tell their story”. That is typically referred to as the Elevator Pitch. It really troubles me at times to see how hard they work on creating that ‘perfect’ 30-second pitch on how great they are, how great their products or services are, how great their company is and on and on.

Honestly, I have to confess that that was me several years ago. We would sit around the boardroom and work on the next greatest elevator pitch, arming our sales people and ourselves, with the “latest and best version”.

So what’s the problem with this?

When you step back and understand that every company is trying to claim that they are the best, have the best products, service, 24/7 support, are #1 and on and on, they all tend to sound the same. In other words, they are commoditizing their value proposition because they sound the same as every other company they compete against. 

These attempts to claim credibility often fall on deaf ears. That’s because in a competitive marketplace, everyone claims to be a leader and your competitors will all claim to be better than you! Rather than trying to “claim” credibility, an innovative approach is to “earn” Credibility. If we re-engineer your elevator pitch using a positioning strategy, this will give you a significant competitive advantage and exponentially increase the number of opportunities you'll have to provide valuable solutions. 

The traditional elevator pitch puts sellers in an extremely weak position. If you sound the same as everyone else, then you will forfeit your competitive position in the marketplace.

I’ll have more for you on our next blog about how you can earn Credibility which differentiates you from your competition and puts you in a much stronger competitive position.

Collaborate – New Capability Integrated into Algario's PowerLearn™ Sales Development System

Sales success is the barometer of sound sales techniques and approaches. Understanding what works and harnessing that knowledge is valuable for both peers and coaches. And yet the actual detail is often lost during the sales process and valuable insights into the customer experience remain underutilized.

Now, the Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System captures these sales successes with Collaborate – providing a method to share and help embed sales skills across the whole organization. With Collaborate, we ensure sales development skill building and innovation at the frontline contributes to a catalogue of Best Practices for instant dissemination across the team and senior management... detail that provides a view on what's really happening.

Customer points of contact are invaluable assets in any organization. With Collaborate, summarized activity from the sales organization provides vital feedback for business development, marketing and managers determined to build on this framework of sales success.

The addition of Collaborate is a valuable enhancement to Algario's PowerLearn™ Sales Development System that includes:

• An eLearning format that empowers your employees to train on their own time without interfering with sales routines. An iterative and disciplined approach to learning that seamlessly integrates training into an established sales process.
• A customized 9-step implementation process that adapts to the specific needs of every individual and personalizes the training and tools for each person... automatically. A system that wraps itself around the Question Based Selling™ strategic sales development formula to guarantee effectiveness.
• The addition and interweaving of personal coaching and support delivered virtually, in a classroom or a blend of both.
• The opportunity to continually share successes and reinforce new principles in a collaborative peer environment throughout the program.
• Built-in measurement and dashboard reports identifying individual and team progress, providing you with the tools to reconfirm the overall return on your investment.

The Algario PowerLearn™ Sales Development System measurably improves the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales force and can be delivered anytime, anywhere. And now with Collaborate, individual successes and innovation can be shared and capitalized on by frontline peers and management.

To learn more about Algario's PowerLearn™ Sales Development System, visit www.algario.com and discover what distinguishes this program from all others. To explore opportunities, please contact David Batchelor at 416-865-9200 or at dbatchelor@algario.com.

Thought for the Day: Do You Use All of your Assets to Achieve Your Goals or Are You Handicapped by your Lack of Ambition?

This just landed in my email and think is has a great message for all us in our busy days.

A blind boy paid his way to a Master's degree at Northwestern University by taking notes on class lectures in Braïlle, typing them and selling copies to classmates who had stronger eyes but weaker ambition.

One of the great mysteries of life is why some people who seem to have all the advantages – the right connections, education and experience – never seem to amount to much, while others who have had to struggle for everything they have reach incredible heights of success. It hinges on determination. If you have the will to succeed, you will somehow find a way, regardless of the obstacles you encounter. Do you use all of your assets to achieve your goals? Or are you handicapped by your lack of ambition?

No other person can create in you a desire to succeed. With enough motivation, you will see things all around you that will help you reach your objectives, things that you may have overlooked many times before.

Are You a Leader or a Soldier?

I just read this posting by Judy Williamson, Director of the Napolean Hill World Learning Center at Purdue University and thought it had some great words of wisdom to share. Would appreciate your thoughts on it....

"Consider the words 'constructive criticism'. Upon hearing them you may be subjected to a little squirming. Although many people delight in unloading criticism on others, the opinions involved often reflect more on the observer than the person under evaluation. If you listen to criticism that is supposed to help you grow, develop, and improve oftentimes the path under construction is one laid out by the evaluator, and not defined by yourself. It is a given that if the recommended path is trod, your superior will be happy because his or her plan is now in place.

Napoleon Hill asks us to consider whose life we are living anyway. If it is yours, then you should determine your path’s destination. If you have abdicated the role of master of your life, then anyone’s plan will do. Think about it. Are you required to justify your existence by marching to another’s tune? Or, if your marching orders are still in your head and not in synchronization with your life’s plan, who do you really have anyone to blame but yourself? Being a good soldier is not the same as being a good leader. Leaders lead and soldiers obey. If it is your decision to be a soldier, then orders from your superiors cannot be over over-analyzed or subjected to daily constructive criticism. But, if you want to be the Captain of YOUR life, then you must ask and answer the questions that position you best on your success path.

Deciding to take command of your life is not easy because you must then make decisions for yourself and inherit the consequences of your choices. To do any less, is to abandon your leadership position. If your fear of criticism stops you in your success tracks, recognize this and get over it. Second by second, minute by minute, and hour by hour, you determine your future via the choices that you make.

Ever think about giving yourself constructive criticism? This upfront and personal approach allows you to get to the very heart of the matter where critical change can occur. Only you can do it and only you can process it. Hire yourself as the devil’s advocate and through an intense evaluation, uncover what you already know is holding you back. Next, accept the self-evaluation, and go immediately to work in creating a better you for the sole purpose of self-enhancement. Riches begin within. Within you in a better plan for your ultimate good just waiting to be uncovered.

Be Your Very Best Always,
Judy Williamson"

Opportunity

Statistics from the U.S. Small Business Association suggest that only 50% of small businesses survive their first five years.

Building a business requires a significant investment in time and money. It’s not uncommon for a new entrepreneur to operate at a loss for the first few months and make mistakes along the way (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, mind you – fumbles tend to be the best teachers). That being said, why do so many people take the entrepreneurial leap only to close up shop a few years later? Sure, the economy isn’t what it used to be, but we can’t blame everything on the stock market.

Experts have long debated why the success rate of the average business is dismal at best. Most chalk it up to a lack of experience on behalf of the owner. I’d like to take this theory one step further and argue that a large percentage of businesses and business ventures fail because they are unable to identify and act upon an opportunity.

Thomas Edison once rightfully said that “opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work” – and I couldn’t agree more. The opportunity to build a business or to take it in a new direction never comes in a perfectly-wrapped package that can be implemented right out of the box. Like a diamond in the rough, an opportunity often requires a significant amount of work before it can be turned into a usable (and profitable) venture.

Business leaders are often regarded as 'thought leaders' in their chosen fields. They possess a vision and open-mindedness that allows them to take calculated risks and steer their company into unchartered territory, giving them an edge over their competitors.

Long-term success requires work and lots of it. It’s also dependent upon keeping ahead of trends, possessing the ability to network and maintaining some level of diversity in one’s business practices.

No matter how big or how small, astute business owners know that every opportunity that presents itself deserves some serious consideration on their part.