In general, people who choose to work in sales have been through a selection process to identify competencies and the individual has a realistic understanding of the sales role, responsibilities, and challenges.

When starting a sales career, sales training plays a critical role. Any good sales training program usually focuses on three key areas: technique, process, and product. Layered over these are marketing components that address networking, prospecting and promotion. Together they form the technical components of sales training.

The technical learning described above is not difficult, but it takes several years to master them, with practice and repetition. 
Product knowledge may be the exception as product can be complex. The topics have been studied and presented over many years. They have evolved and adapted but there have been few changes to the fundamental concepts of selling. Perhaps the last major change was the shift to needs based selling and the impact of a more informed consumer due to greater access to information on the Internet.

So then has the art of selling been perfected?

Perhaps, but some say it’s all for naught if you haven’t first tackled the way you think!

In fact my experience suggests that how think should be an “up front” consideration.

Before getting on the road to technical development, there are real advantages to individuals and their organizations if both appreciated the impact effective thinking has on learning.  Imagine an individual who is negative, pessimistic, lacks self-esteem, and  procrastinates. Compare that person to a positive, self-starting optimist who is full of confidence and believes in himself or herself.

How you think, or your mindset, sets the tone for what follows in your career. It sets the tone for how you learn, how you interact with peers as well as prospects and clients.

In the perfect world, we would only hire those with a positive and optimistic attitude. We attempt to avoid recruiting those with a negative mindset, who don’t have a strong self-belief, and who are not achievement oriented. In reality, we meet individuals all along the spectrum, and individuals change with time and experiences.

The good news is someone with a negative or neutral mindset can learn to be an effective thinker. In fact, even those with a positive mindset can find ways to improve.

If one consciously understands their personal thinking style, and is able to recognize such things as negative self-talk and counter-productive behaviors, they are well on the way to affecting their mindset.  Similar to learning, practice and repetition will enable and adjust the thought process. In time, the conscious re-framing, positive self-talk, and awareness becomes the new mindset.

Imagine the impact a positive mindset can have during the training event. The outcome can be significant. This permits an organization to better leverage its training investment – and ultimately the individual benefits from increased likelihood of personal success.

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” – Confucius

You can create significant success even if you are starting from scratch -its achievable and hundreds of people have already done it.

You must believe in yourself and commit to taking control of your own destiny. You can use these suggestions to create a stronger work ethic and a more positive self-image.

The key is to believe in yourself and start taking action today!

http://alphasalestraining.com/sales-training-course/

Why does this keep happening? You put in effort, find pain and uncover reasons for them to do business with you, show them what you can do-and then the opportunity evaporates in an instant.

The problem here is one of sales process. If you find yourself disappointed again and again by prospects who are eager to hear what you can do for them, but at that critical moment announce they do not have the means to pay for it, let me suggest that your process steps are out of order. You’ve brought forward your solution too soon. You’ve invested too much energy on this prospect without first finding out their budget.

This common circumstance occurs typically because of two reasons. First, the sales person does not have a formal selling process, and therefore does not have steps or stages in any particular order. Having such a selling process would reduce stress on themselves and systematically increase the odds of a successful outcome. Second, the sales person has been taught (often early in life, perhaps by a parent) that bringing up the subject of money is impolite. While perhaps well-intentioned, this taught premise is a bad one for success in sales.

The budget question has to be raised with the prospect before demonstration of any possible solution. Uncovering the prospect’s budget is not impolite: it is a necessary and important component of the qualification process. Imagine someone walking into an automobile dealership and saying to the first sales person he sees, “I want to buy a car.” Are you already starting to see the problem here? The price of cars ranges considerably. A consultative sales professional can doctor for pain, find out underlying issues, prescribe a solution-and totally miss the prospect’s budget. “Yes, Mister Prospect, I have a lovely Lamborghini that will give you that feeling of youth, vitality and power that you’ve been craving!” “Amazing! That sounds fantastic!” “It’s only $455,000.” “…Uhh…gee. There’s no way I can afford that.”

Prior to working on solutions, bring up the budget question. If you’re nervous or uncomfortable about discussing money, do it like this: at the start of your conversation, say, “Misses Prospect, I have a minor problem I’m hoping you can help me with. You see, I always get a little uncomfortable when it comes time to talk about money. When we get to that point, will you help me? I want to make sure that, if it turns out that I do have a solution to offer you, we’re on the same page with what you can afford. I’d hate to talk with you about something inadequate or too much for your budget. When we get to that point, can you help me talk with you about that?” The prospect will almost always move to rescue you, and say of course. Naturally, if you’re comfortable with the subject of money, you don’t have to do this-just bring the topic up at the right time. And when is that time?

Let’s say you have been doctoring for pain, have some, and are thinking about possible ways you can help the prospect. You have a small, medium and large model for handling the prospect’s problem, with respective prices. Now, before investing the energy in demonstrating the potential solution(s), you can gently bring up the budget question. “Mister Prospect…I don’t suppose you’ve set aside any kind of budget for solving this issue, have you?”

Or: “Miss Prospect, I think I have something for you. However, we offer a range of potential solutions. I’m not sure which one is right for you…I have an idea, though. Would it be okay if I shared with you the investment range of each solution, and you can let me know which you’re most comfortable with?”

If you’re a more direct person, you could even say something like, “John, I have to be frank with you. These items aren’t cheap. Before I explain to you how they’ll solve your problem, could I go ahead and share the rate with you and you can let me know if that works for you?”

Remember, uncovering the budget is nothing more than another solid step in the qualification process. You want to know whether or not the prospect can afford your product or service. If they can’t, why would you want to waste your time?

Now, I’m not suggesting that you be a jerk and roughly steer those who cannot afford your help out the door. While consultative selling professionals do not give out free information as unpaid consulting, in many cases it can be a very good thing to educate people who don’t have it in their budget to retain your services. People tell other people -a few people, it’s true, but they do tell some-about positive experiences. This can directly and swiftly lead to qualified referrals. I’ve recently seen this happen in the field of wedding videography.

Prospect A discovers Superstar Videographer’s rates are way out of their league, but because he bothered to spend the time educating them nicely, they quickly referred other people to him-and those new prospects could afford his time. What’s important to keep in mind here, however, is that Superstar Videographer rapidly qualified Prospect A out, and while he did help them, he didn’t get himself all worked up about offering a beautiful and expensive potential solution, investing that time and energy, getting his hopes for a project up, and becoming extremely disappointed when it turned out (as it would have) at the last minute that they couldn’t afford his services.

The time to uncover the prospect’s budget and ability to pay you is after you’ve doctored for pain, and before you show them any kind of solution.

Author: Jason Kanigan is a consultative sales training professional originally from Vancouver, BC, Canada, and now based out of Wilmington, NC, USA. His background includes selling both tangible and intangible products & services, and work with clients across North America.

Reference: http://EzineArticles.com/6032926

Let’s talk about the intent of your sales process for a moment. Are you trying to push your prospects into buying from you, or pull them into buying from you?

In my opinion, both those approaches are wrong. Selling based on features and benefits results in trying to make the prospect buy from you. Whether you attempt to:

* Push them into buying from you, by forcing your values of the features and benefits of your product or service on them, or
* Pull them into buying from you, by trying to attract them with those same values, and hoping they will match up with their own values, and you will have an ineffective and inefficient sales process.

If you’ve read some of my articles on resume writing and the job hunting process, you’ll note a similarity here. The employer does not hire you (and the prospect does not buy from you) for your reasons. They buy for their reasons.

So if you can’t push and you can’t pull in the sales process…what can you do? This can be a very disturbing question for salespeople. I was in technical sales for several years, and worked with features and benefits selling because that’s all I knew there was. Here’s the kicker: I didn’t know why in some situations I’d get the order, and in others I wouldn’t.

Talk about a weird situation! Here I was, supposedly experienced, knowledgeable about the products and services offered by the companies I worked for…and I had no idea why things worked some times and didn’t others.

Here are some key indicators of sales confusion:

* No documented sales process
* No sales coaching
* Doing a great deal of quoting to prospects who then disappear
* Consistently getting squeezed on price.

Trying to push or pull my prospects into buying from me, based on features and benefits, resulted in this situation! Recognize any of these indicators in your own work?

Yes, there is a way to improve your sales efficiency and effectiveness and at the same time eliminate these sales confusion indicators. Remember from the last entry, customers buy from you for their own reasons, not yours! So how do you find out their reasons? Ask Them.

And that process, the systematic and effective questioning of prospects, is the real key to sales success. It’s something different in sales, and hardly anybody does it well or at all. I’ll bet 95% of salespeople have no idea, just like I used to think, that there is another way than features and benefits selling. It takes time and practice to learn. So this is the powerful alternative to trying to push or pull your prospect over the “passion fence” to buy from you: help them find out their very own reasons. Consultative Selling is what it’s called, and it will completely change how you go about the sales process.

Another take-away thought: If they say it, it’s true.

Author: Jason Kanigan is a consultative sales training professional originally from Vancouver, BC, Canada, and now based out of Wilmington, NC, USA. His background includes selling both tangible and intangible products & services, and work with clients across North America.

Reference: http://EzineArticles.com/5875932