Sales Training
If you only read one page on our website, it should be this one.
Old "tried and true" cold calling and sales techniques that were once successful have completely lost their effectiveness over the years.
That's why we only use a new sales mindset and cold calling approach that will quickly and automatically put you ahead of the game and instantly in a league above your competition.
OLD SALES GURU MYTH # 1 - "Cold calling is a numbers game." But, sales is only a numbers game when all you know is traditional selling. Yes, you can call people over and over, chase them until they listen to you so that you just go away. However there is a better - easier method of building trust and getting your product or service message across - all on one call. Simply by changing your sales approach you'll make FEWER CALLS and MORE SALES. OLD SALES
GURU MYTH # 2 - "Use a sales script to cold call." People can tell when you're reading from a script, even if you think you're pretty good at it and getting away with it. There's nothing personal about it and people can pick that up. Being artificial just puts you into the typical "Salesperson" category. If you can learn to get your message across in a different way, you'll eliminate the negative triggers that can lose your sale within seconds.
OLD SALES GURU MYTH # 3 - "Focus on closing the sale." Are you "going in for the kill" with your closing sale technique? - If you are, you could end up killing your deal instead.
Old sales techniques do nothing more than pressure the client or prospect, and as a result they naturally want to retreat away from that pressure - and that pressure is you. By learning to avoid the "push and pull" dynamic between you and your prospect, you'll be able to move the sales process forward to get the result you want.
Welcome to Ari Galpers's "Unlock The Game™"
Unlock The Game is a radically honest sales and cold calling approach based on integrity and common sense. It challenges traditional sales thinking and helps you achieve better sales results. It's the missing link -- a new mindset and language that converts selling into a natural conversation between you and your prospect.
It offers you a new way of thinking about selling, from cold calling -- the most dreaded selling experience of all -- to the end of the sales process.You don't have to abandon the selling skills you already know -- Unlock The Game gives you a new approach and new tools to help you let go of old behaviors that bring you negative results.
It's incredibly effective. Best of all, it's easy to learn.
Sales Staff Incentives
Have your past incentive programs been a disappointment to both you and your salespeople? The dangling of the proverbial carrot is an ancient art that is commonly understood to be at the heart of human behavior, psychology, motivation, and, in particular, business. Manufacturers and distributors commonly use this technique with their channel partners in an effort to add unique motivational value to move specific products or services.
The reason this technique has stood the test of time is because, for the most part, it works!
At times, however, elements of the technique are executed improperly. Sales incentive programs under perform or fail as a result. The monetary values of incentives are often not the critical factor in motivating salespeople to succeed. The problem, from the vendors' point of view, is that not all salespeople are motivated the same way.
Consequently, not all incentive programs work. Why is that? The 80-20 Rule: Twenty percent of the salespeople make eighty percent of the sales and profits. Too often, sales incentives - perhaps in an effort to be fair - are geared to the entire sales force or VAR channel. The risk in a program like this is that the glove that fits everyone, in the end, fits no one. Enlightened marketing strategists know that the top twenty percent are already motivated. Simply put, a strategy that's geared to light a fire under the next twenty percent - the next logical group - doubles the business in a more cost efficient manner.
The looming questions for most business owners when it comes to sales compensation or awards are these:
Should I offer a base salary plus commission or just straight commission? How much commission should I offer? Should I cap their earnings or make their earnings unlimited? How can I get my poor performers to produce results? How can I get a lazy salesperson back on track?
Don't - Arbitrarily cut costs Probably the biggest mistake that we've observed is reducing sales compensation expense just for its own sake. Don't get me wrong, reducing expenses is the right thing to do; the problem is that cutting expenses across the board is the wrong way to do it. It is better to reduce headcount 10% than it is to maintain the current headcount and reduce each incumbent's income 10%. Reducing headcount sends a very strong message and is usually quite motivating.
Do - Rationalize compensation expense Make sure you take into consideration who you are paying, instead of just looking at what you're paying. Are your "best" sales representatives being paid the most? Is the contribution that each sales rep provides commiserate with the incomes they are earning?
Do you have charter members of the "lucky territory club?" Outside sales representatives are the most expensive sales resource a company owns. Make sure this resource is being employed as effectively as possible. It is not atypical that one of the top three highest paid sales reps in a company has become such only through tenure. This is the guy that has inherited the best accounts as previous reps retire or leave the company. Do you have one of these guys? If so, you may have found a way to put $100,000 or so back to the bottom line by promoting this guy to your competition and reassigning his accounts to a hungry newcomer.
Don't - Create inappropriate performance measures Another big mistake that companies make in down times is tying a sales rep's commission or incentive to something that is out of their control. The typical train of thought goes like this, "why should I be paying my sales reps these big bonuses/incentives when the company is not making any money?" The answer is the same as it always has been: Because that's what the market dictates. Sales representatives are motivated by their pay, but for some reason down markets seem to bring on cases of delusion. This delusion leads to practices such as paying on things like "net contribution," "Account profitability," or even "Net Income."
The problem with this is that all these measures include costs that a sales representative has no control over. Be careful to avoid measuring a sales rep on how efficient your order fulfillment, purchasing, etc., practices are or you are sure to have disgruntled reps sitting across the desk from your customers. There are situations where a company may want to incorporate some expenses into a sales representative's compensation program but a down market is not the time to do it. These types of changes are most successful when certain guarantees are put in place, such as paying the higher of the new or old pay plans for several months. A down market is when a company can least afford these types of expenses.
Do - Revisit performance measures affecting compensation You know the old saying, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach?" Well the way to a sales guy's heart is through his wallet. Is the existing pay program rewarding your sales representatives for the results that are important to you and your company? If your mind started wandering along the train of thought mentioned in the above section, slap yourself.
What I am talking about here are products and customers. Are there certain products that you have deemed crucial to your company's long-term success? Is there a type of customer, whether it be a particular line of business or certain size company, that finds your value proposition attractive? If so, gross profit dollars from these should pay a premium. There are many ways to incorporate a premium such as using a "load" or higher commission.
You will notice that I did not mention growth as one of the premium categories. That is because this is an article about down markets, and expecting growth when the overall market is recessing 10% is an inappropriate performance measure. In a stable or growing economy, growth is obviously the premium premium.
Don't - Shrink in fear The biggest mistake any company can make is to not do anything. Considering the sizeable expense associated with sales, it should not be treated as a "sacred cow." I can't tell you how many times I've heard executives, usually sales executives, say that the last thing you want to do is cut from customer-facing resources. Leaving sales alone and focusing expense reductions in administrative and order fulfillment functions inevitably leads to reduced customer service which, in turn, leads to sales reps spending more time being high paid apologists.
Do - Be creative Recessing economies call for creativity and can be the catalyst for long-term growth. Looking back over time, companies gain and lose market share going into and coming out of a recession. Now may be the time to execute some of the good ideas that have been around for a while. Expanding or creating a true inside sales department that actively solicits business can be a long-term cost saver. In some industries, a good inside sales person can cost less than half an outside sales person.
Moving from a commission program to a salary and bonus program can also generate long-term savings. A guaranteed salary may be a lot more attractive to a sales person when markets are slow and commissions are not what they were last year. Over time, a company will realize expense savings due to the fact that with a salary and bonus program, the linear relationship between revenue and compensation expense will no longer exist as it does with a pure commission program.
A word of warning though on the salary and bonus configuration: Effective sales management is a prerequisite for these programs to be successful. Commission programs are self-regulating while salary and bonus programs are management-regulating.
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