Whenever I found myself in a slump or things just didn’t seem to work the answer always seem to be in the basics. A great chef, master carpenter or champion athlete always seems to have a mastery of the basics. So let’s take a look at what this idea of selling really amounts to.

First: Sales is two people, a customer and salesperson, communicating with each other. The customer is communicating their needs, wants and results required. The sales person is trying to understand these so the issue can be solved by their product or service. Just think of this as two people getting together to help each other improve their situations.

Second: Customers purchase products and services for the results they provide. This can be a real challenge for sales people that have been indoctrinated that sales are all about their product. This means saving time and money, preventing problems, solving problems or creating opportunities; that’s what the customer is looking for. Your product or service is simply a way or method to get the results, so salespeople need to communicate these results to customers instead of the product.

Third: Getting into new accounts, selling new and existing accounts and servicing accounts is all about two people communicating. Getting into a new account is about communicating results that the customer could achieve and communicating it in their language. The selling part is listening, questioning for clarity and communicating the results. Servicing the account is continued communications about the results to date and additional results needed.

Fourth: If we take the selling process, the objection response process or presentation part of selling and take the words “selling”, “objections” and “presentation” away, guess what we end up with. The “Selling” process becomes a communication process that is used every day. The “objection” response becomes a conflict resolution process and “presentation” becomes story telling.

Take this idea of communications instead of selling and see what happens to your productivity. Ask yourself what the potential results of your product could be from your customer’s perspective. Now think about how that could best be communicated to your customers.

We’ll explore each step of the sales process and how communications fits into it in future segments. For now, just think communications.

Here are a few tips on how to get to know your product better:

1. Brochures and Literature: Obtain as much written information as you possibly can on your product. Read up on the features and benefits your product offers until you know them by heart. Keep reading until you can roll every detail off the tip of your tongue including any fee’s associated with the product. Also, keep your brochures handy, open them up in front of your customer and go over the details of your product step by step. Customers love visuals.

2. Role Play: Role playing is a fun way to get to know your products. You will need two of your associates to help you out with this. You play the salesman, have one of your co-workers play the customer, and have one of your co-worker’s critiquing you. Have your co-worker playing the customer ask as many questions about the product as he can possibly think of. When you are finished, go over the sales session with the person that critiqued you. Also, take turns playing each character, playing the customer can give you a great perspective on their point of view. Think about it, how often are you the customer when it comes to buying your companies products? Never.

3. Use the Product: This is perhaps the best way to get to know a product. To actually own, have, and use the product, not only gives you the ability to know it inside and out, you will also be able to tell your customer that you have and use the product, and how wonderful you think it is. This will tell the customer how much you believe in the product and that you have confidence in it.

One of the worst mistakes a sales person can possibly make is to be unprepared. Take some time out of every day to understand your products/services better. Make learning about them fun with the role playing, and concentrate most on the products you know least about.

Remember, the more you know about your product/service, the easier it will be to explain their usage and benefits to potential clients, and sales is a direct outcome of such discussions.

Could you imagine how much more successful you’d be if you could take each and every cold contact you make while prospecting, and transform it into a long-term connection that remains in constant contact with you for the long haul? Think about it. Let’s say you currently make four hundred new contacts per month, in the usual manner, meaning you get a few appointments but nothing more. The first month you make your four hundred contacts and that’s where it ends. Next month, you make another four hundred contacts and they vaporize into thin air. The third month, you go through the grind again. And so on, and so on.

Now, think of what it would be like if you could capture those four hundred contacts and keep them in constant contact with you. After the first month, you’d have your four hundred contacts done. The second month, you’d have eight hundred in your permanent pipeline. The third month, well over a thousand contacts are yours to own. At the end of a year, you’d have nearly five thousand permanent connections!

Can you see how your sales would absolutely explode if you were able to do this? The good news is that lots of salespeople are already doing it with great success, and you can too.

The key here is to forget about the old method of contacting someone, asking if they’d be interested in meeting with you, and then dropping them forever if they are not. What you need to be doing is asking for that person’s permission to receive a free, monthly e-mail newsletter from you that provides the prospect with valuable content that they can use to improve their business.

Getting that content isn’t too difficult at all. If you are not inclined to write helpful articles about your industry, or about general business tips – such as time management, or how to increase productivity – then you can obtain content for free on the Internet. Just do a quick search for ‘Free Reprint Articles’ and you will find thousands upon thousands of articles that you can use in your newsletter. And the newsletter itself is not difficult to manage. Services such as aweber.com that I use personally are very inexpensive, they automate the entire process, and they take care of CAN-SPAM compliance by including an automated unsubscribe link at the end of your newsletters.

What about snail mail? This is effective as well, but the problem is getting your prospects to open and read the newsletter. It’s also expensive. Except for the twenty bucks or so a month that you’ll shell out for the e-mail service, an e-mail newsletter is free.

The long-term effects of doing this are absolutely astounding. Imagine having thousands of prospects, in your target market, receiving your monthly newsletter. They will appreciate the useful content you will provide, and the best part is that your name will be constantly in their minds as the only person to buy from when the time comes! By publishing a quality newsletter, you are no longer just a salesperson in their eyes – you become a highly qualified expert in your field, they will begin to trust you as a business advisor, and that is what the very top of the top sales pros are to their customers.

All outstanding sales managers engage in coaching on a daily basis and counseling on an as needed basis. Sales coaching is the proactive manner to help support the mentoring provided for sales professionals to improve their performance and to help them when having difficulties. It is mainly focused on maintaining existing, strong performance and moving it further. Counseling on the other hand is a reactive fractured approach implemented when an employee is performing below expectations due to either a skill deficiency or an attitude deficiency. It is mainly focused on restoring performance to a minimal acceptable level or failing that, removing the employee from that job.

I remember the first time that I was managing a full sales force of individuals and I was asked to evaluate the sales performance of a young woman by the name of Ivy. Unfortunately I was predisposed because I had discovered that Ivy had very poor selling skills, was typically late and was not meeting the quota goals assigned to her. It was up to me to decide whether or not she was worth keeping or terminating her employment. So, with both solutions open to for either coaching or counseling I used both to help increase her performance and reverse many of the poor things people were saying. In the next few moments I will provide you some information on coaching and how to use it to help those with weak into personal skills.

My belief is that all sales representatives should be coached on an ongoing basis. It is a form of mentoring that enables ongoing dialogue between the manager and the subordinate so that feedback on performance doesn’t occur only when there is a problem. Nor should it occur and only one time of the year-the performance review. Moreover it allows for excellent sales work and customer service to be recognized, supported, exploited and then finally conveyed to others.

Unfortunately many sales managers spend 10 times more of their effort and energy counseling. Managers often confuse the two and don’t understand the difference and usually respond only to problems, meaning that the preponderance of their time is spent on correcting weak efforts rather than supporting strength.

The most important attributes of a sales coaching relationship includes:

1. 1. That the dialogue is constant and ongoing it’s not situated around the periodic review.

1. 1. The feedback must be timely and it has to be offered at a point where an issue or a problem arises.

1. 1. It is important to understand that the manager simply coaches and mentors but the employee ultimately performs.

1. 1. In order for a good mentoring process to occur there must be a good relationship. In other words both sides must be approachable whenever and wherever.

1. The employee must be able to be coached. Some people simply do not like the told by others how to improve performance therefore is how will to have someone who really wants the assistance to improve.

Counseling on the other hand is a short-term sequence of interactions with sales professionals that results in either restored or acceptable performance or unfortunately and when necessary the employee leaves the job where they can perform better. Counseling is essential to improving sales performance yet few sales managers ever engage systematically and most don’t effectively engage in it at all. The reason being is that many sales managers might believe that counseling requires too much time and effort of which they don’t have and that the employee might actually engage them in too much conflict.

The following is a checklist when you need to use sales counseling:

1. 1. Determine if the poor performance is caused by a lack of skills or simply a poor attitude.

1. 1. Focus on the behavior of the individual.

1. 1. Get agreement on the standard and the actual performance.

1. 1. Discuss the impact of the performance on others in the organization. Remember here to keep things objective never personal.

1. 1. Discuss the alternatives and consequences and actually have the employee, suggest some solutions.

1. 1. Establish action plans and dates so that the employee can be held to accountability standards.

1. Constantly review and monitor the process.

©2011. Drew Stevens PhD All rights reserved.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6480667

The old adage in selling has always been, “Find out what they want, then, give it to them.” The fundamentals of selling are clearly that elemental. The application thereof, however, continues to be the litmus test that quickly separates the skilled from the rest.

In the past, the selling profession relied upon its own bullpens crowded with accomplished journeymen to assume the role of mentor or coach to guide the up-and-coming. But sadly, those days are gone.

Statistics show the average tenure in today’s typical sales force is only two to three years. For many reasons like downsizing, smaller margins, and fewer incentives, experienced salespeople now find it necessary [easy] to move on. Some get entrepreneurial and open small companies of their own. In their wake, younger and far less tenured people fill the ranks – quickly becoming the less experienced mainstay of frontline selling.

There is still another challenge. Due to the evolution and ever-changing complexities of products and solutions, heavy employment emphasis over the last decade in particular has and continues to be, placed on technical skills over selling skills. No one will argue the importance of knowing one’s products inside and out – especially when they are complex. Nevertheless, without experience, training and a natural aptitude for selling, any sales person is more a “Teller, not a Seller.”

That is to say, a salesrep today can be quite adept at providing correct technical answers for customers but can often lack the sales aptitude and education to do what they need to do – ‘Close Deals’. In practice, now armed with the right solution, customers are free to shop it to other “Tellers” for price. The result? Dwindling margins, unhappy salespeople and high turnover… Huge Costs for the Corporation!

So what’s the answer? In a word, “Coaching.”

At a time when companies outsource for strategic expertise like legal, accounting and payroll services, professional speakers / trainers / consultants – most of whom with decades of distinguished sales and marketing experience – are in demand to meet the need for coaching, mentoring and training

The sad reality is today’s overworked executives and small business owners often find themselves engaged in a delicate balancing act between the needs of their inexperienced sales force and the demands of fundamental day-to-day business survival. Something inevitably has to give and it usually does. For this reason, outsourcing for needed coaching [not available in-house] makes so much sense.

Professional Coaches with ‘proven’ experience work directly with companies and individuals to put ‘proven’ programs into place expressly focused on sales/motivation and success-strategies integral to personal and corporate long-term goals in today’s more Unique Value-Driven marketplace.

Successful companies know:

• Coaching programs work.
• Coaches drive greater sales and profitability.
• Coaches are an Investment – Not a Cost. and,
• Coaches are far less expensive than the status quo.

Fact: Government sources purported the cost of recruiting, hiring, benefits/salary and training the average sales rep is approximately $50,000.00. “No small investment for even a large corporation.”

Fact: “Without proper training and attention, sales aren’t made, reps move on and – the Investment Cost Doubles!”

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/17047