Sales Training Connection

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

Onboarding new sales reps. Today a sales team must not only be able to sell a competitive advantage; they must be a competitive advantage. In most companies, it is increasingly difficult to sustain a competitive advantage by traditional means. Traditional factors, like superior products and innovative manufacturing technologies, may provide short term advantages but unfortunately they can be replicated in relatively short order by an increasing number of agile and aggressive domestic and interna

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Sales Training Connection

DECEMBER 20, 2016

From time to time we post a guest blog written for the Sales Training Connection. Today we thought we would share with you some thoughts from Rachel Davidson of Highspot. _. Sales enablement technology helps accelerate the time towards close and gives you the power to leverage faster, better, and stronger sales best practices. At its heart, modern sales enablement exists to organize, strengthen, and drive results in these three concrete ways: Content management.

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Sales Training Connection

DECEMBER 14, 2016

Selling to C-Suite Puzzle. In major accounts sales success at the C-level is a “do or die” proposition. What makes it particularly challenging is “one strike and you’re out.” There’s no second chance to get it right. Successfully selling to senior executives is a book with many chapters. However, three footnotes are particularly important: When do you sell to senior executives?

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Sales Training Connection

NOVEMBER 24, 2016

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving … and for many a long weekend filled with fun, football, and perhaps some shopping.

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Sales Training Connection

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Companies spend a tremendous amount of time, money and effort every year to improve the productivity of their sales teams. The intervention strategies range from sales training efforts to coaching initiatives to sales tools to marketing materials. These efforts tend to be laser focused on helping sales reps enhance their ability to sell more effectively.

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Sales Training Connection

OCTOBER 17, 2016

Developing a sales culture. Traditionally when talking 
about sales best practices, most of the emphasis has been placed on individual sales rep and
 sales management skill sets. But the more we have studied high 
performing sales teams, the more we have come to realize that the
 cart has often been placed before the horse. Perhaps sales teams
 would be even more successful if greater emphasis were initially directed towards creating a culture that drives individual excellence.

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Ideal Customer Profile Sales Leadership Study Coaching 50

Sales Training Connection

OCTOBER 13, 2016

Sales training. Here’s the conundrum … You have a 250 person sales team. You are a new, first time Sales Training Director. You replaced a sales manager who did no sales training for a long time. To add urgency, revenue numbers have been stagnant for too long. The VP of Sales now feels that sales training is definitely needed and it needs to be done in short order.

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Sales Training Connection

AUGUST 17, 2016

Sales Management Excellence. Herminia Ibaraan, an INSEAD professor, published a provocative book arguing that in today’s market if you desire to get better at management you must venture outside your comfort zone. Being stuck in outdated mindsets or ways of doing things will not lead to success. The message is: to achieve success, managers must learn to pivot – that is do something different rather than just getting better at doing what they are doing.

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Sales Training Connection

AUGUST 1, 2016

Sales Training – 2026. As a way of exploring the future of sales training, let’s time travel to the year 2026 and examine the major trends of the day. Suspending disbelief, assume you have time traveled and have arrived in the summer of 2026. You are journeying south on Highway 1 towards Big Sur in your Apple Titan 2.0. You have preprogramed your new Titan including a stop for lunch at Nepenthe.

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Sales Training Connection

JULY 4, 2016

July 4th Fireworks. Wishing everyone a happy 4th of July holiday!

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Sales Training Connection

JUNE 30, 2016

Complex Sales. When comparing small transactional sales to large complex sales, the differences in the buying process are difficult to overstate. In a complex sale the buying cycle is longer with more twists and turns; more buyers are involved both as individuals and as committees; and the competition is keene r. Everyone knows it – some because of a leap of faith and others because of experience.

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Sales Training Connection

JUNE 6, 2016

One important core question presently circulating among those who care about sales training is: What percentage of sales training ought to be done in the classroom vs. some form of guided self instruction? The obvious secondary question is what goes where – that is, what should be done in the classroom vs. what should be assigned to some form of guided self-study.

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Training Study Negotiation Maximizer 50

Sales Training Connection

JUNE 1, 2016

Sales Training Investment. It is also not about the elapsed time since you last did it. The strategic “it” in this case is the decision about whether you should make an investment in sales training. If you traveled back in time and drop in on some of the conversations about sales training, you might hear: “We are not knocking the ball out of the park but things are okay plus we have a lot of other things going on so let’s think about that sales training thing next year” or “We just did some t

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Sales Training Connection

MAY 18, 2016

Sales Training and Start-ups. Why do some start-ups make it and some don’t? As one might suspect, given the staggering number of start-ups formed every year, there is no shortage of information on critical success factors. Some common ones are: Timing, working capital, and the leadership team. In addition, the ability to develop and sustain a viable growth plan is seen as one of the more difficult and tricky success factors.

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Sales Training Connection

MAY 4, 2016

Sales Training Investment. How much money are companies spending on sales training? And is it enough to worry about whether or not one is optimizing the investment? This, as they say, is the easy part. The answer to the first question is a lot; the answer to the second question is – yes. Companies spend a hefty amount of money – so yes, it is worth worrying about.

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Sales Training Connection

APRIL 6, 2016

Sales Strategy – Stop, Pause, Reassess. A sales manager recently finished sales strategy reviews for the top 20 accounts in her geography. She told me, “Let’s not talk about the quality of the sales strategies – some were great and some not so much. I expected that. What I didn’t expect were the stories about how the sales reps executed their sales strategies.”.

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Sales Training Connection

MARCH 23, 2016

Podcast – Sales Trends. Recently I had the pleasure of being a guest on Andy Paul’s great interview series – Accelerate! – that explores the world of sales. The topics we covered ranged from the merits of account based selling to the success factors for implementing sales models such as SPIN selling. We thought you might enjoy tuning in – Dial up the interview at.

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Sales Training Connection

MARCH 9, 2016

Etch A Sketch Sales Force. The Etch A Sketch was introduced at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1960 and was one of the best-known toys of that generation. Today, it can be found in the Toy Industry Association’s hall of the 100 most memorable 20th Century toys. This toy of yesteryear is a perfect image to use in framing a discussion about the need to revamp a sales force to be better aligned with ones customer base.

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Sales Training Connection

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

Melanie Whelan, CEO of SoulCycle, shared in a NY Times a simple, interesting framework for management strategy sessions. Whelan noted – we train our teams on what we call empty-bucket sessions where people state the facts of the problem, their interpretation and analysis of the facts and then and only then work collaboratively with their manager towards a solution.

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Sales Training Connection

JANUARY 13, 2016

Recent years have seen a tremendous disruption in how customers buy. And if buyers change how they buy – salespeople need to change how they sell. Customers want fresh ideas and creative insights for addressing a set of needs and opportunities that are both new and challenging. They expect sales reps to be knowledgeable about their industry, company, and issues at a higher level of proficiency than ever before.

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Sales Training Connection

JANUARY 6, 2016

When is selling the most fun? Certainly when you have a superior product. Perhaps it’s even a “killer product”, like the Xerox copier vs. the mimeo machine. Unfortunately with global competition and advanced manufacturing technologies, those days are rare and if they do occur they are difficult to sustain. Today even when you have a superior product a competitor is likely come out with one that is just as good or better than yours in half the time of yesteryear.

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Sales Training Connection

JANUARY 1, 2016

Wishing you a successful sales year. Keep an eye on the Sales Training Connection for new ideas that may help you improve your sales performance. To a smashing 2016, Janet and Richard.

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Sales Training Connection

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Sales reps need to know more and their knowledge must be at a higher level of proficiency today than ever before. To be among the emerging winners, sales reps must not only be able to sell a competitive advantage; they must be a competitive advantage. They must bring value to the customer by the way they “sell” as well as by what they sell. All this means that sales training has moved closer to center stage and the spotlight is a little bit brighter than in yesteryear.

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Sales Training Connection

DECEMBER 2, 2015

Transition from Sales Rep to Sales Manager. Congratulations! You were a top salesperson. Now, you’re a newly appointed sales manager. The good news is you have the pivotal job for improving the sales effectiveness of your organization. The bad news – many perils and pitfalls are lurking in the shadows. Let’s take a look at 7 best practices for making the transition from sales rep to sales manager a little bit easier.

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Sales Management Top of Funnel Pivotal Motivation 50

Sales Training Connection

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

Customers Buying Journey. McKinsey&Co’s David Edelman and Marc Singer recently wrote about the world of consumer buying. We thought the overall conclusion also had relevance for the B2B market. According to Edelman and Singer – “the traditional funnel model in which customers begin with a set number of brands in mind and then whittled them down until they decided what to buy—has been usurped by a customer decision journey model.

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Sales Training Connection

OCTOBER 30, 2015

Ghosts and goblins galore. Tricky witches at your door. This is the time for spooks and bats. Halloween spirits and black cats. But don’t forget nifty treats … and to fill up on some sweets! Happy Halloween to all!

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Sales Training Connection

OCTOBER 28, 2015

Whether or not you have put in place a sales process – it is happening everyday. It is whatever your salespeople are doing Monday morning to navigate the customer’s buying process. The real problem is not, therefore, a lack of sales process. The problem is too many companies do not systematically manage and evaluate their sales process. In today’ markets buyers are changing how they buy but sales organizations often fail to adjust and adapt their sales process to the new reality.

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Sales Training Connection

OCTOBER 21, 2015

Sales excellence. Major account selling is truly a highly skilled and information-intense profession. Just like any highly skilled profession one must not only master skills; you must also understand the principles upon which success is built. In major account selling, the most important underlying principle is the following – sell the problem before you sell the solution – the horse must be in front of the cart.

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Sales Training Connection

SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Online Sales Training. Recent years have seen tremendous disruption in how customers buy. And if buyers change how they buy – salespeople need to change how they sell. Customers need fresh ideas and creative insights for addressing a set of needs and opportunities that are both new and challenging. They expect sales reps to be knowledgeable about their industry, company, and issues at a higher level of proficiency than ever before.

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Training Knowledge Base Exercises Travel 50

Sales Training Connection

AUGUST 4, 2015

MedTech Sales. Constant change has always characterized the business world – so looking in the rear view mirror has never been an ideal strategy for determining future direction. Yet, from time to time the scale and speed of the changes are so large and so fast that they can only be described as disruptive. Today’s medical sales industry is a case in point.

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Sales Training Connection

JULY 27, 2015

Sales Coaching. Today having a superior sales team is more important than ever. Good is no longer good enough. Several factors are driving this need for excellence – two stand out: You can’t sustain a competitive advantage by product alone. Because of advanced manufacturing technologies and global competition even if you have a great product, the competition is likely to come out with one that is just about as good (or sometimes better), in half the time compared to yesteryear and it’s likely

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Sales Training Connection

JULY 6, 2015

If you missed the Best Small Business Blogs of 2015 (as culled by FitSmallBusiness.com) – take a look. You’ll find the Sales Training Connection … along with our 2015 featured post: Sales Reps – How to Bring Value by Saying “No” Take a read … Technorati Tags: sales best practices , selling economic value , selling value.

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Sales Training Connection

JUNE 24, 2015

Ssales Simulation. Historically companies have often used sales simulations as a capstone sales training program for their senior sales reps or their national account group – that is when the program is positioned as a Top Gun school. While sales simulations certainly fit this need, thinking of sales simulations only as a training design for advanced programs is unnecessarily limiting.

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Sales Training Connection

JUNE 3, 2015

Sales Coaching. Sales leadership talks about it all the time. Sales consultants advocate it and sales managers say they would like to do more of it if they had the time. The “it” of course is sales coaching. Yet if you nose around, you will often find less sales coaching is occurring then might be expected given all the voices of advocacy. Why? Well there are a number of reasons but four seem to be particularly telling: Conflicting Demands.

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Sales Training Connection

MAY 25, 2015

Wishing all of our readers a Happy Memorial Day. Janet and Dick.

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Sales Training Connection

MAY 20, 2015

Sales Success. Constant change has always characterized the business world. Looking in the rear view mirror has never been a recommended strategy for determining future direction. However, from time to time the nature of the change takes on a different look. The scale and speed of the changes during these periods can truly be labeled disruptive. In the early 19 th century the Industrial Revolution changed everything.

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Sales Training Connection

MAY 18, 2015

Reduce risk – Sell value. Major account sales occur in a dynamic business environment with multiple players, long buying processes, and complex solutions. In this market everybody gets it. You can’t win by just pitching products; you have to sell value. Selling value is about helping the customer understand how you can help them achieve their business goals.

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