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.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
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:
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.
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
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.
Friday, April 27, 2012
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
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:
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.
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
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.
Monday, October 3, 2011
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:
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.
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:
- Kick Off the Conversation in a Non-threatening Manner
- Gather Valuable Information About the Customer
- Establish Credibility by Asking Relevant Questions
- Earn the Right to Expand the Conversation
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.
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