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Brian Tracy's "How to OUTSELL your competition -- in any market!"

An excerpt from Brian Tracy's The Art of Closing The Sale:

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Nine Objections You Must Answer:

1. Unspoken Objections

The first type of objection you will get is an unspoken objection. The customer has concerns with your offering but doesn't tell you anything. He or she nods and listens to you, but you get no feedback to tell you where you are or how you are doing.

The solution to unspoken objections is to let the prospect talk more. Ask open-ended questions, lean forward, and listen intently to the answers. The more a prospect has an opportunity to answer your questions, the more likely it is that she will tell you exactly what might be holding her back from buying.

2. Excuses, Excuses

The second form of objections is excuses. These are usually instinctive reactions to any sales approach.

"We already have all we need."

"We are really not interested at the moment."

These are just excuses. They are really not serious. The best salespeople nod, smile, agree, and then ask a question to take control of the conversation. The very best way to handle any initial sales resistance, including excuses and impulse is with these words: "That's all right.

Most people in your situation felt the same way when I first called on them. But now they have become our best customers, and they recommend us to their friends." This response immediately shifts the focus of the conversation away from your product and onto other satisfied customers. It almost invariably triggers the response you want: "Oh really, What is it, then?"

3. Malicious Objections

Then there are the malicious objections. Because you call on many different people, you will occasionally call on individuals who are unhappy or angry about their current situations. Since they cannot shout at their bosses or spouses, they take it out on the friendly salesperson.

These people tend to be negative in their demeanor and behavior. They criticize your product or compare it unfavorably to those of your competitors. They sometimes imply that you charge too much or that your product is not pf particularly good quality.

The way to deal with malicious objections is to realize that you are not the target. The person you are talking to has problems of his own that have nothing to do with you. You are just caught in the emotional crossfire between him and other factors in his life. You job, as a professional, is to remain calm, confident, positive, and polite throughout. Very often this behavior on your part will soften the negativity of the prospect and eventually encourage him to open up to you.

4. Requests for Information

The fourth most common objection is a request for information. This is the best type of objection for you to hear, because you know how to answer this as well or better than any other part of your presentation. Whenever a prospect asks for information about the results or benefits she will get from your product or service and how she can get them, you are moving into excellent field position to make a sale.

Use all your objection-handling skills. Welcome the objection. Compliment the person for asking the question. Thank her for bringing it up. And then answer it completely, ending with, "Does that answer your question?"

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5. Show- Off Objections

Another type of objection is the show-off objection. Sometimes prospects try to show you how much they already know about your product or service. They make sophisticated observations or ask you complex questions about your product, service, or industry.

When this happens, respond by taking the low road. Show how impressed you are by how much the prospect already knows. Dominate the listening and let the prospect dominate the talking. Be conciliatory and polite. Remember, when you make a prospect feel important by listening to him with rapt attention, he is much more likely to warm up to buy from you.

6. Subjective Objections

The sixth most common type of objections are subjective or personal objections. These objections are aimed at you as a person. Prospects say things such as, "You look like you are doing pretty well in this business." Ort "You seem to be making a lot of money selling this product."

Whenever a person becomes critical of you, it could be a sign that you are talking too much about yourself. The prospect is attempting to bring you down a little bit by criticizing your appearance or behavior.

When you find yourself talking too much about your company, your product or service, or your personal life, stop and ask a question. Start talking about the customer rather than yourself. Ask questions about what the customer wants and needs. Make the customer the center of attention, and the subjective objections will stop.

7. Objective Objections

You may also hear the objective or factual objection. These are directed at your product offering and the claims that you make in terms of what it will do for the customer. The prospect may say, "I don't think that it will do the job that we require." Or "It looks good, but it's not satisfactory for our needs."

If you can answer an objective objection, you can often get the sale. The very best way to do this is to provide testimonials an other proof that make it clear that your product will do what you say it will. Assure the prospect that she will get the benefits that you promise and you have just made it easier for her to buy from you.

8. General Sales Resistance

The eighth most common form of objection is what we have called general sales resistance. This always occurs at the beginning of a presentation. Until you neutralize the general sales resistance, the customer will be listening to you with a closed mind.

Lower initial sales resistance by using the approach close. Say, "Mr. Prospect, thank you very much for your time. Please relax. I'm not going to try to sell you anything today. All I want to do is ask you some questions and see if there is some way that my company can help you achieve your goals in a cost-effective way. Would that be all right?"

When the prospect relaxes and gives you permission to ask him questions, you immediately begin your preselected open-ended questions to qualify the prospect and find out what he really needs that you can provide for him.

9. Last-Ditch

The final most-common objection is called the last-ditch objection. You have make your presentation, and the prospect clearly sees how she would be better off with your product or service. She knows and understands what you are selling and how much you are asking. She is on the verge of making a buying decision, but she still hesitates.

"How do I know I'm getting my money's worth?" she might say. Or "Are you sure this is the best deal I can get?" Listen with respect; then assure the prospect that yours is an excellent product or service, at a good price, and that everyone else who is using it today is very happy with their decision.

You have then overcome the last-ditch objection.

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Sales Compensation and the Law

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Sales Compensation and the Law
By Paul Dorf

The New York Department of Labor recently passed an amendment to the Labor Law relative to sales personnel. Effective October 16, 2007, employers are required to provide written terms of employment for commissioned salespeople or risk adverse impact of decisions rendered in any wage action brought against the employer. In the absence of a written document setting forth the terms of employment of commissioned salespeople, the Department of Labor will rule in favor of the terms alleged by the salesperson bringing forth the complaint. It is expected that this could have a potentially sizable negative financial impact on a company.

Under the terms of this legislation, the following information must be included in the written documentation:

1.Method of calculation of wages, salary, commissions, draws against commissions and any other moneys earned

2. When a commission payment is considered "earned"

3. When a commission payment will be made to the salesperson

4. How often a recoverable draw will be reconciled

5. What commissions will be payable in the event of termination, and when they will be paid

The goal behind any compensation program, but especially sales compensation programs, should be to drive the desired type of performance, and ultimately achieve four (4) key objectives, which can be summed up by the acronym "FARM"

Focus attention on desired activities;
Attract the qualified applicants;
Retain the experienced and highest performing personnel; and
Motivate them top perform at their maximum.

A considerable amount of effort is required in order to achieve these goals, meet various government regulations, and, at the same time, be simple enough to communicate to the affected salespersons, and be within the company's ability to administer the pay program. Unfortunately, many companies are not able to balance these different demands, and therefore their plans do not deliver the desired business results. In an attempt to remedy this less than satisfactory situation, these sales compensation plans continually need to be revised. This builds distrust among the sales staff, and can be a significant de-motivator, leaving the door open for mistakes and possibly illegal activities to occur.

It is unfortunate that New York State felt that it was necessary to enact this legislation, but it apparently is a direct result of action to correct problems caused by companies that did not provide the basic information to their salespersons. This amendment to the Labor Law will have serious implications for employers in New York, and should serve as a wake-up call to all employers, everywhere. Don't wait for complaints filed by salespeople, legal challenges to pay practices, or the adoption of new regulations -- now is the time to review your sales compensation programs to ensure that they meet the following standards:

A. They are properly documented

B. They are monitored to make sure they are achieving the desired objectives, and do not cause any unintended problems

C. They provide a financial Win-Win situation for both the employee and the company

D. The communications of sales activity and earnings is accurate and reported timely

E. They meet legal requirements and best practices

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Sales Management - What Type Of Dog Are You When It Comes To Managing Your Sales

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Sales Management - What Type Of Dog Are You When It Comes To Managing Your Sales
By Bonnie Holscher

Little do most people know that there are five types or breeds of dogs in the sales world. And if you think about, no matter what we do in our lives there is always a time when we are selling something. It could be a product, a service, an idea, ourselves and the list can go on. But little have people thought about the style or way they present themselves during the sale. And managers sometimes can not figure out how to control their sales team because they do not recognized what type of dog their sales people are. Which one of these are you?

Pit Bull is the most aggressive of all the breeds. The word attack is common to this dog and he does it with viciousness, and masses of aggression. If one of these dogs got a hold of you they will not let go. They leave in their path a line of terrified prospective customers. The dog however, has no problem with objections and adversity and will keep on selling no matter what the rejection. This dog does need to be trained in tactfulness to make them more effective.

Poodle on the other hand is the complete opposite with all the class and glitter. They are also quite judgmental when it comes to their customers. They size up their customers by what they wear and what they drive. Looking great is of the most importance. This dog is a highly connected dog and loves to be the center of attention. This is why they are quite the marketers and big price item sellers. Poodles love to be the center of attention.

Golden Retriever is the mast favored of the dog breeds in sales. They will roll over backwards to do things for you just for a pat on the head. Their patience is endless and they are the fetchers for the customer. That is why customer service is number one to the Golden Retriever.

Chihuahua is your data dog. They tend to be the smartest of the breeds and most intensified and left to their own devices they will talk continuously and drive the customers nutty. Their need for constant mental exercise can keep them up all night researching websites, statistics and whatever other information they can cram into their brains. If you ever need proof about anything...ask a Chihuahua.

Basset Hound is the dog that will stick with you through thick and thin. This dog does not have much personality and it is quite the whiner and beggar and the messiest of all the breeds. This dog is the most loyal, most dependable and not easy to ruffled up. Never make the mistake of underestimating the Basset Hound. They have a phenomenal way of sniffing out a deal and touching people no one else is able to.

It is important to know what kind of dogs are in your sales pack. By knowing what you are dealing with you can accurately structure you and your team to be more efficient and effective. For more information on how to recognize your sales type for success feel free to visit http://www.foryoursuccessfulmindset.com

For addition resources to assist you on your journey to success, you are also invited to visit http://www.inpursuitofwealth.com where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter as well.

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Running a Productive Sales Team Meeting

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Running a Productive Sales Team Meeting - Part Two
By Louis Jordan

Knowledge leads to confidence and confidence leads to better performance. During your meetings your Team should strive to:

Know their customers better than anyone else

Know their products better than anyone else

Know their competition better than anyone else

I understand the amount of pressure many of you are under to attain quota and sales goals. I have also experienced the urges generated by that pressure to focus exclusively on the present, on the numbers.

Too often, in our attempts to keep our teams focused on "this month's quota", today's performance or to make sure we are not "keeping them out of the field" we simply fail to provide them with tools for tomorrow.

Do not take this the wrong way. Staying in the present, not clinging to past victories or worrying about future issues is essential for great sales people. But, you are no longer a sales person, you are now their leader and, as a result, you need to be looking toward the future for your team to ensure they are prepared for it.

As an example, take a moment to think about how Tiger Woods approaches his profession. When competing in a golf tournament, the only thing he thinks about is his current shot. He never worries about what happened on a previous hole, or concerns himself with what will happen later in the round.

He is focused exclusively on the present.

He can only focus on the present because during his practice times he is able to learn from past experiences and look forward to future challenges.

He will work on specific shots for specific holes on specific golf courses he is scheduled to play in the future. So that when he reaches that hole he has already hit the shot hundreds of times and has complete confidence in his swing.

During his practice time he will also focus on areas of his game that he feels need improvement - thinking back to where he dropped shots in previous rounds. How he practices, and the fact that he does actually practice, allows him to fully focus on the present when competing - he is confident that he is prepared for anything, so he can relax, he can focus and execute his plan.

As their leader you MUST create an environment during meetings that allows your sales reps to become confident, prepared and relaxed, so they can focus and execute their plan.

One of the best tools I have used with my teams to increase their knowledge is a short quiz. Often referred to as the "dirty dozen", it contains twelve questions about products/policies, customers and competitors.

The team is given ten minutes to complete the quiz, in silence, so they are forced to think for themselves. Upon completion I would call on each member of the team to read a question and provide an answer. If you are animated about the answers, whether right or wrong your team will join in the fun and start calling on each other.

If you have a member of your team who struggles with policies or keeping up with current products, assign them to produce the quiz for a few weeks. You will quickly see an improvement in their knowledge, confidence and performance. If you announce that the person with the lowest score produces the following weeks quiz the level of competiveness increases and the whole concept takes off.

But, be consistent - if you decide to institute a quiz you need to have it on your agenda for every meeting, you should not cancel it because you are struggling for numbers. This is a tool for tomorrow's business. Do not sacrifice it because you are concerned about today.

Because the response from readers of this article has been so overwhelming we have devoted a section of our website to the topic of running effective meetings. The content is updated each week with new tools, best practices and recommendations http://www.integrity-sales-leadership.com/Effective-meetings.html We hope you find it useful.

My colleagues and I hold Sales Leadership positions within some of America's largest and most successful companies and have complained, often, about the lack of good quality sites our sales people could visit for advice and sales tips.

So, we decided to build the type of site that we would like our sales people to use. It has integrity as its corner-stone and relies on real sales people and sales leaders for its content.

Our goal is to provide honest recommendations on all aspects of sales and leadership, including: interviewing, coaching, cold calling, telemarketing, attending appointments, vertical sales, recruiting, territory management and anything else our readers or contributors suggest.

We would be honored to have you visit our site.

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The Secret Weapon for Sales Coaching

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The Secret Weapon for Sales Coaching
By Bill Truax

If you are in any way responsible for sales coaching field sales professionals, then here is probably the single best information you will ever get for growing your corporate sales. One word - Prospecting.

For over 30 years I have been training field sale people. I work initially with their sales managers, sales coaches, whatever the title. One thing I have learned is that everyone is very well trained in selling skills, but few, if any, are trained in Prospecting skills.

So what happens when sales begin to lag or volume isn't growing? They conduct sales skills training once again!

A few weeks ago I lead a 4 hour discussion with a group of sales trainers on the East coast.

The focus of the discussion was the fact that most of their client company sales people aren't using their selling skills training. What these folks do is continue to call on their existing client base. Which, of course, is a great way to maintain their customer base.

However, without adding new customers, the only sales growth they experience is based on the re-orders from their existing customers. Which doesn't require selling skills.

The folks in the audience had done a study to see how their selling skills' training was affecting sales growth. They found that the growth was a little over 10% but was due almost entirely to the growth in re-orders from existing customers. Virtually no new sales growth. No need for sales skills at all, the field sales force was actually functioning in a customer service role.

That was why I was asked to speak and lead the discussion.

My focus, as you know, is on that very small, but critical skill of Field Sales Prospecting. And Prospecting on a regular basis all the time.

My continuing motto goes like this.

"If you were to make 6 four minute Prospecting calls per week, that is, 240 Prospecting calls per year, how would that affect your sales life?"

That is why I developed my Prospecting System since it must fit seamlessly into the day of a Field Sales Professional.

This format provides a lot of benefits to the salesperson. First of all, it makes Prospecting easy, since it is only 4 minutes in duration.

Second, you get a lot of Prospects at the right pace. Some companies use what they call a sales blitz once or twice a year. They get a lot of names, but seldom follow up on them. I have seen this happen dozens of times.

Third, considering the correct pace of getting Prospects again, people buy at different times. We in sales never know when someone will be ready to buy, so we need to have a lot of folks in our system. Some will buy soon, some a little later, some a little later still, some into the future, etc.

Fourth, some Prospects are really bad to work with, make life miserable and can cost more than they are worth. Unless you are a glutton for punishment leave these folks for your competitors. You will have so many Prospects that you can choose who to work with. What a great feeling that is.

So for you sales coaches out there, all this is due simply to Prospecting. The only skill that gets the sales professional into a position to actually use all those selling skills.

So now you know the secret weapon for sales coaching - Prospecting.

Sell Well and Often,

Bill Truax

© Copyright 2007 WJ Truax

Bill Truax is a field sales Prospecting trainer based in Cleveland, OH. He offers a self learning Prospecting Kit with 4 books, 2 CDs and one year of Free consulting. He also conducts seminars, workshops, and Train-the-Trainer programs. All product and contact information is available at http://www.BlitzCall.com

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How To Become An Effective Sales Manager

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How To Become An Effective Sales Manager
By Tony Jacowski

A customer's opinion about an organization is largely based on the people that he deals with. For the organization, this is the ultimate salesperson. It is the salesperson's job to build and enhance a customer's opinion of the company. Therefore, the success or the failure of any organization rests largely on the effectiveness of the salesperson.

Customer servicing, and adding a personal touch, is now a growing trend. As a result, there has been an increase in "face time" with clients, and the focus is largely on servicing the client. With an increasing number of metrics available to measure the outcome, sales management is definitely changing. Furthermore, globalization poses as a challenge, when it comes to understanding how cultural elements influence business behavior.

"Face Time"- the Key to Long-Lasting Success

Face time with the client is one of the biggest factors that contribute towards the lasting success of a sales force. Developing a more productive sales force can increase your revenue, if the sales person is talented and efficient.

The best way to increase productivity is to present your sales force with more freedom. Many sales people opt for hiring an assistant to help increase their face time with clients. This can be a tricky, but a valuable step for the sales expert. An assistant can help free them from the tedium of daily routine and time-consuming paperwork. This will provide the sales expert with more time to return client calls faster, build face time and eventually increase sales.

Metrics and Customer Relationship Management

By using the new CRM, or customer relationship management software that is available on the Internet, the sales professional can increase sales and productivity. CRM computerizes the customer contact, recording it in its database, and improves the production of goods and services by identifying present buying trends, and channeling access to customer information.

Business organizations are recognizing that to meet their business targets, increasing only efficiency is not sufficient. Any organization selling goods and services needs to maintain good customer relations. To measure how good their customer relations are, companies must assess the productivity of their sales force.

Metrics allow managers to assess the following:

• Develop sales efficiency
• Develop customer relations and services
• Increase communication
• Develop forecasts
• Provide the latest information
• Increase profits
• Increase sales time
• Develop sales management
• Develop marketing efficiency
• Reduce sales costs

CRM and metrics are a powerful combination, as managers have more ways to measure the productivity and effectiveness of the sales force.

Globalization and Comprehending Cultures

Companies that sell goods and services over the Internet feel the need to maintain customer relations even more. With competitors just a click away, every online business needs to develop customer services and loyalty, to survive in the market. With an increase in cross-boundary sales, organizations have realized the importance of understanding and comprehending cultural differences.

Foreign governments play an important role, and their rules and regulations should be carefully considered. Cultural consideration involves specific approaches related to the customs of each region, their selling techniques and corporate culture. Cultural considerations are also very important when carrying out management of the sales force. Decisions like whether or not to focus solely on the US corporate culture in foreign countries, rather than permitting them to build their own methods according to their traditions, are key elements to success in globalizing a company.

An organization's viability depends on the success of the sales force. Improving face time between the sales person and the customer is what creates an effective sales force. Over the years, sales force management has increasingly been in favor of using Metrics and CRM software. As organizations sell to a large number of foreign countries, comprehending and understanding cultural differences is vital for success.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

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After Measures are Set, You Must Track their Actions

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Why Can't I Hire The Right Sales People?
By Lee Salz

Candidate screening is one of the most difficult tasks that recruiters and managers face. Most will tell you that screening sales talent is the toughest of all. Why? Sales people are trained in the art of persuasion. They know how to provide the desired responses to the questions. Even more daunting is when you are interviewing sales people that worked for a competitor. These sales people know the language and industry buzz words making it even more challenging to screen them. Fret not! It is possible to successfully screen sales talent, but there is work to be done before you even look at a résumé.

The most important step a company can take is to develop a sales talent screening program. This helps bring focus to the initiative. The mission of this program is to provide data that allows for the measurement of the candidate pedigree versus the desired profile. Think in terms of formulating a marriage, a sales marriage, that is.

This program should be fully documented showing step-by-step the components of the screening program. It is best to define who will be interviewing the candidates and their role in the interview process. It should define the tools that will be used as well as their purpose. Below are seven key components of an effective sales talent screening program.

1. Ideal Sales Person Profile. It has always surprised me how many companies have fully documented profiles of their ideal client. Yet, few have a profile of their ideal sales person. How can you screen when you don't know for what you are screening? Many of you have a clear picture in mind of the profile of your ideal mate. My bet is most of your close friends can rattle off your profile in a heartbeat. The same principle applies to sales talent. If you don't know exactly what you are looking for, how will you find it?

This profile should be fully detailed. Some of the areas to address in the profile are the experience you expect that candidate to already have, the skills that the candidate should already possess, and the skills you are not willing to teach. Truth is, this is an extensive topic about which I have dedicated another article. (Send me an email and I'll send you a link to that article.)

The lack of a fully-defined profile of the ideal sales person is the most common cause of bad sales marriages. It is also the major point of frustration between sales managers and recruiters. Recruiters often tell me that they feel they are throwing darts while blindfolded because they have so little detail about the desired profile.

2. Always Be Recruiting. In sales, there is an old expression. "The toughest time to make a sale is when you really need one." The same holds true for recruiting. When a slot is open on the sales team, it becomes an all hands on deck exercise to fill it. While the seat is open, revenue targets are in jeopardy. This leads many to forget the profile of the ideal sales person profile in the interest of filling a seat. Playing this forward a bit, the seat becomes vacant again a short time later when either side determines that it is not a good fit.

Sales recruiting is a year-round exercise. The best sales forces are always on the look out for strong sales talent. Find a company that identifies a strong candidate that meets their profile who wouldn't find a way to hire this individual. It is a rarity to say the least. Sales teams have turnover either driven by the company or the employee. It is best to have a candidate portfolio at the ready than to begin a process of surfacing candidates when a seat is open. Poor hiring decisions are made out of desperation to fill a seat. The open seat is a cost to the company every day it is unfilled. Yet, the cost is more painful if the seat is filled by someone who doesn't fit.

3. Reverse Interviewing. Since the intent of the process is for both sides to be able to determine if a marriage should be formulated, a wonderful technique is reverse interviewing. This is an interview performed by a member of the sales team who would be a peer if the candidate was hired. It is important that the individual(s) selected to participate in this step are loyal to the company, knowledgeable, and make a favorable impression. However, the "interviewer" does not ask any questions of the candidate. As you know, it is very easy to get yourself in hot water if illegal questions are asked. Thus, you don't want untrained people asking questions. There are two purposes of this component of the sales talent screening program. The first is to provide the candidate with an opportunity to ask questions of someone who would be their peer if they were to be hired. In essence, it is a way for them to get a picture of a day in the life of this job.

The second purpose is to measure how the candidate prepares for a sales call. A debrief is conducted with the "reverse interviewer" to see what questions were asked. If the candidate took advantage of this opportunity, they brought prepared, insightful questions and wrote down answers. If they didn't, what kind of preparation will the candidate do for a sales call? How interested are they really in this job? Every once in a while, a candidate will ask a question of the sales person like, "Can you take off at noon on Fridays?" Needless to say, the lapse in judgment raises a red flag of concern?

4. Standard Interview Questions. Often times, many candidates are screened for one job slot. This creates a need to be able to compare candidates to each other, in addition to the profile. To do this, a standard set of interview questions are needed. The responses are documented during the interview and reviewed after a candidate leaves the office. These questions are not designed to provide right or wrong answers. They are designed to see if this candidate's thought process is congruent with the needs of your business and with the profile of the ideal sales person.

When formulating your list of standard questions, it is helpful to include some sales scenarios that are common in your environment. "Your client balks at the price of your proposal. What do you do?" It is also helpful to have questions that show what makes this person tick. Since few colleges have "sales" as a major, it is always interesting to find how someone arrived at a sales career. "Of all of the careers you could select, why did you pick sales?"

The hot topic in today's recruiting world is behavioral interviewing which is a powerful tool. Behavioral interviewing, also called competency-based interviewing, focuses on past behavior. As a doctor friend of mine always says, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. The idea here is not to ask arbitrary questions, but rather to ask questions that help to expose areas that affect the sales marriage. If your company is always changing, you might want to determine how the candidate handles change. "Please share with me a time where you had to adapt to change." Like with any good interview, additional probing is necessary to get to the root of the issue. "How did you deal with that? What did you learn from the experience?"

You can probably imagine just how hard it is to formulate questions that demonstrate if this marriage will work if you don't have a profile against which to compare. If it will help you, send me an email and I'll send you my favorite 28 standard questions when interviewing a sales person.

5. Mock Sales Call. What better way to see if someone fits into your company's selling environment than to put them right in it! To do this effectively, you need to create a scenario for the candidate. I've found it most beneficial to give the candidate the scenario with one day's notice so they can prepare. They should be provided with the same amount of information a sales person in your company normally has before making an initial sales call.

Those members of your company who participate in the exercise should be somewhat scripted. I say "somewhat" because you don't want it to be so dry that it is unrealistic, but without any scripting it can be hard to stay in character.

The last piece you need to do this well is a score sheet. Know what you are looking to measure in the process and score accordingly. Can they conduct a thorough needs analysis? Did they identify the challenges faced by this prospect? Would you buy from them?

It is best if the scoring is done by a non-participant of the mock sales call. It is very distracting for the candidate if someone jots notes while they are speaking. What happens is that the candidate spends the rest of the exercise trying to read what was written.

6. Online Assessment Testing. There are a myriad of tools that are very helpful in the screening process for both personality and skill. Where some err is in the application of the data from these tools. Few, if any, of the online assessment companies suggest that their tool should be used to make a hire/no hire decision. The most appropriate application is to treat it as an additional data point in the sales talent screening program.

Linda Moeller, Product Director of market leader Employee Continuum, has seen companies use this great tool incorrectly. "We have seen many organizations fail to take the context of an organization into account when deciding the most appropriate assessment to use. For example, many organizations assume that implementing a sales assessment will guarantee them improved sales performers. This is not necessarily the case. For example, the personality characteristics required for a sales person selling office supplies to purchasing agents are very different than those required for a salesperson selling everything needed for a dentist office. In order to be successful, an organization needs to consider the type of relationship they have with their clientele and the competencies that will make these relationships successful."

7. The Ultimate Screening Tool. Writing is a lost art. Yet, we are more dependent on written communication than ever before. Email! Is there anything worse than a poorly written email that is sent to a prospect? It doesn't matter how good your product or service is, your company now looks sloppy and unprofessional.

An effective technique for screening sales talent is the use of the mini-business plan. When the candidate has satisfactorily completed all of the other steps of the pre-offer process, the request is made for a one-page business plan that shows how they would approach the job. I mention three times that I'm only looking for a one-page plan and ask when they can send it to me. It is important that the submission date be asked of the candidate, not the other way around as you will see in a moment.

Of all of the techniques that I have used over the years, this is the one where I have the most candidate fall out and I was always happy to learn that this sales marriage wouldn't work, before it was formulated.

This technique allows you to evaluate a number of important areas:

§ Can they communicate in written form coherently? If you were a client receiving this document, what message do you get about its author?

§ Do they understand what the role entails? Since this component is performed late in the process, they should have a clear picture of the job and expectations.

§ Is their approach consistent with the expectations of management? It is best to know now if you don't feel comfortable with their game plan.

§ Can they meet a self-imposed deadline? If the plan is late, the candidate is no longer considered for the role.

§ Can they follow directions? I asked for a one-pager, not an epic.

Having a sales talent screening program has many benefits. The most obvious impact is a longer sales tenure of your sales team which means an increase in sales performance and a reduction in personnel turnover. This can do nothing short of helping the bottom line of any company.

Lee B. Salz is President of Sales Dodo, LLC and author of "Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager." He specializes in helping companies and their sales organizations adapt and thrive in the ever-changing world of business. Lee is available for keynote speaking, business consulting, and sales training. He can be reached via email at lsalz@salesdodo.com, his website at http://www.salesdodo.com or by phone at 763.416.4321. This article is reprinted with permission from ERE http://www.ere.net

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AchievementRadio.com's

After Measures are Set, You Must Track their Actions
By Dr. LM Foong

In one of the performance meeting a couple of days ago, the operation manager was questioned on his performance in his operation. The measure in question was the Return of Investment to the business.

It has not been able to meeting the target of 25% return. The Operation Manger explained his position in several presentation slides. One of the slides indicated the performance todate as follows:

• Profit achieved 12 mil against a budget of 15 mil
• Sales - Local achieved 128 mil against budget of 150 mil
• Sales - Export achieved 180 mil against a budget of 230 mil
• Variable cost achieved 750 per ton against a budget of 690 per ton

The operation manager acknowledged the short fall of the profit and presented a recovery plan as follows:-

• Sales to pick up and meet the budget for the rest of the financial month
• Production to continue its cost down initiatives to meet the budget of 690 per ton

Report A: The sales manager was called to explain the shortfall of sales for both local and export. He reported that local competitors have drop their prices while export market faced with keen competition from the China players.

Report B: The production manager report a plan to conduct aggressive cost down that include immediate cost negotiation for several purchased services such as sub-contracting, pallets purchase etc. On top of these immediate actions, production department will look into quality improvement to further reduce the variable cost.

A calculation sheet was presented to indicate those actions has the potential to bring down the variable cost to 690 per ton as budgeted. However, the production manager requested that sales volume must be met as per budget in order for the variable cost to materializes as some of the variable costs are production volume related.

From the two reports, it was obvious that the sales managers give some reason for the shortfall but failed to provide a more comprehensive recovery plan as in the case of the production manager.

During the last quarter performance review, both the sales and production managers gave similar explanation for its shortfall in the first quarter. The sales did not pick up while production managed to keep quite closed to its budget.

What are the differences?

The Variable cost was able to keep to budget level mainly due to some tracking system was put in place by the Production manager as a recovery plan as opposed to the sales manager who failed to provide any plan. The fact was that sales could not recover while variable cost has improved.

This case study is a real application issue and it hope to provide an early warning sign for you to avoid such a performance review.

Click here to join the TQM Ezine Community to subscribe to a 5-series Understanding of SWOT Analysis and download a FREE ebook titled: Articulated Baldrige Values and Concepts

About the Author: Dr. LM Foong, PhD
He writes and publishes TQM articles, ebooks, case studies, trainer manual and other TQM Related information made available at the Resource Center in Total Quality Management

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Business Growth - You Must Have A Living, Breathing Customer Database

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Business Growth - You Must Have A Living, Breathing Customer Database
By Shawn Meldrum

Your customer database is, or should be, much more than just a list of your prospects and customer records in a box, on a spreadsheet or stuffed in a file cabinet. It should also be more than your email address book or your contact manager. Your customer database should combined into one, easy-to-use, easy-access application that stores every piece of meaningful information about every contact, every prospect and every customer who can help you build your business.

Think of it this way: without a customer database, your company doesn't really have a customer base. Instead, you have a customer

scrap-heap. Alternatively, if you have a living, breathing customer database you have a powerful asset that can help you grow your business year after year.

So, what is a "living, breathing customer database?"

First, it is something that you actively build--every day, every week, every month! You do this with systems that store all of your contact,

prospect and customer data, as well as, order and billing information in a single comprehensive database. These people need to be organized into meaningful groups and your system needs to be flexible enough to allow you to sort through the database so that you can pull up prospects or customers that might bring you more business on a moment's notice.

For instance, you may want to pull up a list of all the customers in your database who did business with you where the sales total was above a certain amount. Or, you may want to look at all prospects you made sales presentations to over the last year who didn't do business with you because of a specific reason. Your system must allow you to slice and dice your data in different ways so that it provides you with the names of prospects and customers who are likely to respond to a particular product or service you offer.

Your system must also include the capability for doing sequential follow-up campaigns. Having a comprehensive database combined with follow-up functionality will give you the ability to land lots of new business in a short period of time. With this ability you can easily run a customer loyalty campaign that keeps your name in front of your customers... and keeps repeat business and referrals coming your way. You can do marketing blasts, loyalty campaigns, special announcements, newsletters, courtesy calls, and much more. The sales and marketing possibilities are endless when you have a strong customer database combined with follow-up functionality!

You are more organized. You know what to do, who to do it for and when to do it. You are able to do what you say you'll do with professionalism and deliver superior service.

In short, you can use this type of system to cultivate a relationship with your customers and prospects that will cause them to bring you

business when they (or their friends) are looking for your product or service. This philosophy is at the heart of a movement called Customer Relationship Management, or CRM. It's a hot topic in the marketing world because it is all about helping businesses win and keep customers.

For more information and guidance about business growth and customer relationship management visit http://www.crmsalestools.com, a website designed for small and medium businesses that are looking for ways to improve their marketing, sales and customer service.

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Sales Analysis and How They Can Benefit Your Business

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Sales Analysis and How They Can Benefit Your Business
By Dan Cavalli

How do you get the most from using Sales Analysis Reports (SANs)? A SAN provides you with the data by which you analyse the activities of the sales people and how that activity has affected sales results. A SAN will tell you who your best salesperson is, what your best product is and which department is performing the best.

Before SANs you actually had no idea if you were on your way to going broke or you had a great business under foot.

SANs can be used to set sales projections.

Business owners need to know as much as they can about their SANs. With that, they can project growth. A SAN helps identify areas that need improvement. The key to getting the most from a SAN is to have it available to you at the push of a button.

Building a better business with SANs has always been my key to a great business.

You can identify whether or not you are profitable, not only in the overall business but by departments or products within each department.

A SAN is More Than Just Numbers.

Everyone looks at information differently so when people see different things from a SAN it can have the potential of business improvement from different areas. The main benefit of a SAN is that it shows what is working and what is not.

It is essential to have access to SANs in your business. A SAN will be the first place you will go to if you want to know anything about your business. If you don't have them in place, get them and fast.

About the author

Dan Cavalli is an entrepreneur and expert on small-business success. He teaches essential marketing tactics and sales techniques. Get your copy of Dan's free subscription for Business and Personal Development Tips at or for your free 5 day mini-course on "How to Get More Sales in 5 Days or Less" go to

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The Work Behind Sales Manager Jobs

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The Work Behind Sales Manager Jobs
By Rama Krishna

If you are looking for a career in sales, then you should definitely eye the sales manager job. It is one of the most coveted positions in the hierarchy of a company. But, its not easy being a sales manager. The job requires certain specialized skills like excellent team management, analytical ability and the ability to negotiate.

A sales manager is responsible for creating and leading sales teams. When you have a complete sales team working under you and you have the company sales targets to meet, life can be really difficult. Here are some of the tasks that may be assigned to you as a sales manager.

• You will be responsible for recruiting and training sales staff.
• You will also be responsible for setting sales targets and allocating different areas for your sales teams.
• One of the most difficult things to do is monitoring the team's performance and motivating them to do better.
• You will also compile and analyze sales data and collate figures.
• Collecting customer feedback and conducting market research and developing new strategies to stay up to date with the market and customers.

The employer's perspective

So if you think you have all of the above mentioned skills, then its time to consider the second phase of the job. What does an employer look for? Most employers need people with a proven track record and considerable experience in sales. There are very few companies who require specialized formal qualification in sales. If you wish to acquire formal qualification in sales, you can seek it from professional institutions like the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Normally, every company will have a few weeks of in house training for you before you begin.

You can look up online for the best sales manger jobs. Most companies now prefer looking for employees on job portals. So if you still haven't uploaded your resume, then its not too late.

For more info visit : Sales Manager Jobs

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