Women Empowerment – Workshop 13 (Authentic Selling – Bonus Workshop)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Women Empowerment is provided by Ms. Tull Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
If you would like to view the Client Information Hub (CIH) for this program, please Click Here
Learning Provider Profile
Ms. Tull is a Certified Learning Provider (CLP) with Appleton Greene. She has over 25 years of experience in coaching, consulting and training CEO’s and executives. She specializes in the areas of personal and professional development and leadership. She is passionate about empowering women in the workplace equipping them with leadership skills and helping them to reveal their unique value, so they can reach their true potential and make a bigger impact. She has industry experience in the following sectors: Technology, Financial Services, Biomedical, Consultancy and Healthcare. She has commercial experience in the following countries: United States, Canada, England, Mexico and Sweden. More specifically within the following cities: Austin, TX; Houston, TX; Dallas, TX; Los Angeles, CA; New York City NY; St. Louis, MS; Virginia Beach, VA; Chicago IL. Her personal achievements include 17 yrs. as Founder/CEO of Silverlining Concepts, LLC where she empowers business owners and leaders to own their value and earn their worth, Certified Money Breakthrough Method Coach, Best-selling Author of a book about owning your value, so you can earn your worth in the workplace, Executive Contributor to Huffington Post, Biz Journals and Brainz Magazine, featured on the Brainz 500 Global list 2021. She also is a co-host on a national TV show- that focuses on bringing more light and positivity to the world. Her service skills include; leadership development, executive coaching, business strategy, sales and marketing strategies, mindset shifting and advanced communications and presentation skills.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
Selling is essential in any leadership role – whether you are selling a product, service, concept or yourself. There is a new way of selling – one where you can sell authentically by “serving” not selling. Discover how to master the sales conversation without feeling icky about it. Learn the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula for selling authentically with ease. Discover how you can inspire your ideal clients to say YES to taking action/working with you – closing sales like it’s second nature. You will have the opportunity to practice your skills by role playing with your fellow participants to ensure you have mastered the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula.
Objectives
01. History of Sales: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Selling Principals: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Psychology of Sales : departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Women in Sales: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Pain to Solution: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Research and Prioritize: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Use Storytelling: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Building Trust: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Easeful Follow Up: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Handling Objections: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Selling Confidently: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
01. History of Sales: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Selling Principals: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Psychology of Sales : Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Women in Sales: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Pain to Solution: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Research and Prioritize: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Use Storytelling: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Building Trust: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Easeful Follow Up: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Handling Objections: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Selling Confidently: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
Tasks
01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze History of Sales.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Selling Principals.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Psychology of Sales .
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Women in Sales.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Pain to Solution.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Research and Prioritize.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Use Storytelling.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Building Trust.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze S.E.R.V.E Formula.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Easeful Follow Up.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Handling Objections.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Selling Confidently.
Introduction
Authenticity is the most important virtue salespeople can demonstrate in today’s selling environment, even if it means showing your hand earlier than you would in a poker game.
The old world: One-way information flow from seller to buyer.
Previously, salespeople largely controlled the flow of information in the buyer-seller relationship. Buyers were forced to rely on salespeople to provide the information they required to make purchasing decisions, including pricing, product specifications, and customer evidence.
The old sales world was like a high stakes poker table, with buyers and sellers wearing dark sunglasses and headphones to avoid tipping their hand. Negotiations were disjointed, trust was low, and these processes frequently resulted in buyer’s or seller’s remorse.
If you’ve tried to buy software in the last two decades, you’ve probably encountered the old world of sales. As a buyer, you were most likely greeted with something along the lines of:
“Are you interested in our product?” Please complete this contact form, and a sales representative will contact you within the next 5-10 business days.”
That was the status quo – buyers were expected to provide a laundry list of information about their company without providing any insight into critical questions such as:
• Will this product be useful to me and my team?
• How much time and effort will it take for me to see any benefit?
• How much will purchasing this product actually cost me?
As business professionals, we understand how this information gap benefits salespeople by giving them more control and leverage over a deal. It’s the same advantage you have in poker when an opponent is unaware of your hand, and you can take advantage of the situation to your advantage.
This one-sided relationship does not lead to a win-win opportunity. Customers were at the mercy of salespeople in the old world of sales, making questions like “Is the sales rep telling me the whole story?” or “Am I getting a good deal?” impossible to answer. Bluffing is entertaining in poker, but less so in business.
The new world: A two-way conversation between buyers and sellers.
Thank goodness that the buyer-seller dynamic has shifted dramatically in recent years. We’ve progressed from buyers and salespeople keeping their cards close to their chest to both parties laying their cards on the table. This is primarily due to two factors:
1. Buyers are much more educated these days due to an unlimited access to information at their fingertips.
2. Buyers want to buy from an individual/company that they know, like and trust.
To add value, we need to go beyond product information and walkthroughs.
In my experience, we must first be authentic, which means removing our poker face in favor of a friendly smile. Buyers today expect candid and transparent conversations, and our goal as salespeople should be to create a mutually beneficial partnership with our customers. Being more transparent as a salesperson may be unsettling at first, especially if you were taught to keep your cards close to your chest, but the benefits of being transparent and authentic outweigh the discomfort.
Males have traditionally dominated the sales industry. Women are still underrepresented today. According to a 2014 study conducted by law firm Fenwick & West LLP, women held only 11.7% of senior sales executive positions among Silicon Valley’s 150 largest companies.
When it comes to pay, women are also at a disadvantage. Female salespeople are paid 63 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. Oracle Corporation is one of several companies that have been sued for allegedly paying male sales representatives more than female sales representatives.
“Why aren’t there more women in sales?”
The real question is, “Why do we need more female salespeople?”
1. Women Are Good at Sales
First and foremost, women are excellent salespeople. According to HubSpot, women are 5% more likely than men to close a deal.
Furthermore, Professor Joel Le Bon of the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business Sales Excellence Institute examined the sales performance of his 989 students over a seven-year period. The findings revealed that female top performers outnumbered male top performers by 62.5%. In addition, female top performers outperformed male top performers by 73.9%.
2. Women Can Improve Your Bottom Line
A diverse set of perspectives, ideas, and backgrounds benefits your bottom line.
Let the numbers speak for themselves on this one. According to a University of Illinois at Chicago study, companies with greater gender diversity are 15% more likely to profit. Furthermore, companies with a higher proportion of female board directors have a 42% higher return on sales than companies with a lower proportion of female board directors.
3. Women Can Help You Improve Your Customer Connection
Not only will having women on your sales teams benefit your bottom line, but it will also help you connect with your customers more effectively. To approach customers with empathy, your sales force should reflect the diversity of your customer base. Peak Sales Recruiting puts it succinctly:
“A more diverse sales force is also more likely to reflect the make-up of customer organizations and to have representatives who can connect and cultivate strong relationships with a diverse customer base.” If everyone in the sales organization looks the same and has similar experiences and points of view, they may struggle to find common ground with customers and prospects.
Women have traits and skills that make them natural salespeople, such as the ability to build trust, nurture relationships, listen, and make recommendations.
Let’s face it selling is difficult. It’s not for the faint of heart, and it takes the right selling approach to be truly successful.
Even though many are women are designed to be great salespeople they frequently struggle with sales due to lack of confidence.
Building your confidence in sales is an often-overlooked key to becoming a great seller.
In fact, you will never be able to sell effectively unless you develop sales confidence. It is absolutely essential for your success.
Confidence in sales means closing sales, building rapport with prospects, and demonstrating the value of your offering.
Prospects will begin to think, “They don’t need me, but I definitely need them,” when you have genuine sales confidence.
Studies show that only 31% of salespeople effectively communicate with senior executives.
This is due to the fact that the majority of salespeople lack the confidence to sell at a higher level.
When you gain confidence in sales, you will be perceived as a trusted advisor who provides genuine value to prospects.
In the Authentic Selling Workshop, we reveal a new way of selling – one where you can sell authentically by “serving” not selling.
You’ll learn relationship selling principles, solution focused selling techniques, how to research and prioritize leads, build trust with your prospects, and how to overcome any objections. You’ll also discover how to master the sales conversation without feeling icky about it. Learn the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula for selling authentically with ease. Discover how you can inspire your ideal clients to say YES to taking action/working with you – closing sales like it’s second nature. You will have the opportunity to practice your skills by role playing with your fellow participants to ensure you have mastered the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula.
This workshop provides all of the skills and tools necessary to become a highly confident salesperson.
Executive Summary
While selling is inextricably linked to the concept of a transactional relationship, it does not have to feel icky or cheap. It can be both inspiring and authentic.
Everyone is a salesperson.
• Interviewing for your dream job is a sales process.
• Attracting investors for a project your developing is a sales process.
• Even dating and starting a new personal relationship is a sales process.
A lot of us decide that we’re terrible at selling. It’s usually because we are fearful of the thought of selling. We are afraid because we feel like we have to become someone else.
The truth is selling is nothing more than an energy exchange between conscious beings. Which means you can be yourself.
Authentic selling is the new way of selling.
What exactly is authentic selling? Doing something authentically means acting in accordance with your values. In sales, it means recognizing the factors that align your values with those of your prospects resulting in a sale.
In other words, offering a product or service that addresses the needs (pain points) or desires of your ideal client and offering a solution.
When you’re selling authentically it means you’re focus is on serving not selling.
If you truly believe in your product or service, you can transform into a supercharged sales machine.
Once you understand the real motivation behind your sales transactions – which is wanting to help your prospect get what they want selling becomes much easier.
If you work hard to develop your own authentic selling style and learn specific skills and authentic selling techniques your efforts will be handsomely rewarded with increased trust, increased customer loyalty, and increased sales.
In the Authentic Selling workshop, we’ll equip you and your team with all of the skills and tools necessary to become a confident salesperson.
There are 12 courses (or focus areas) in the Authentic Selling Workshop that will assist in acquiring these skills.
Here’s what we’ll be covering:
1.History of Sales: It’s important to understand the background and the evolution of sales in order to master it. In this first lesson, we dig deep on what selling consists of and how it has changes over the years and what we can do to adapt.
2.Selling Principles: What characteristics distinguishes a great salesperson? Many sales leaders are asking themselves this question as they navigate today’s rapidly changing sales landscape while adhering to their selling principles. In this course, we discover the 10 relationship selling principles and how to adopt them in your sales practice.
3.Psychology of Sales: Do you have any personality traits that assist you in selling? The truth is that how a salesperson perceives themselves is also critical. We’ll begin by reviewing some of the fundamental principles of how psychology is used in sales, we will discover the 7 psychological triggers to increase sales. Then, we’ll learn about relationship selling and how sales is similar to therapy.
4.Women in Sales: Sales has historically been a male-dominated profession. However, women have come a long way in the sales industry, and some have even dominated. In this lesson we will identify the 4 key characteristics of today’s stellar saleswomen. We will also learn insights and best practices from several woman sales leaders.
5.Pain to Solution: In this course, we’ll look at customer pain points, specifically what they are and how you can position your company as a potential solution. We’ll look at several real-world examples to see how marketers address some of the most common customer pain points, as well as general advice on how to make yourself indispensable to your prospects at the right time and in the right place by using the 5 key solution focused techniques.
6.Researching and Prioritizing: Whether you work in a small or large company, you need good prospect research in order to identify your ideal target clients. In this lesson, we will go deep on how to research potential ideal customers effectively and efficiently and then how to best prioritize your leads.
7.Use Storytelling: Storytelling in sales conversations is a terrific way to build rapport, trust, and relatability with your potential clients. When you share stories effectively, your ideal client will remember what you share, making it easier for them to make a purchasing decision. In this course, we will reveal 3 reasons why stories are so powerful in sales, and we’ll identify 5 ways to incorporate storytelling in your sales strategy.
8.Build Trust: Gaining the trust of prospects is critical to sales success. Selling is a people-oriented business that necessitates a customer-centric sales approach. Person-to-person sales are made through dialogue. In this lesson, you’ll learn the science behind building trust, along with 5 tips to gain your clients trust.
9.S.E.R.V.E. Formula: Women tend to overcomplicate sales leaving them with negative beliefs about the sales process. Using an authentic sales process will help to eliminate this challenge. Authenticity is a powerful tool for forging genuine connections with your audience and building trust. In this course, we reveal a powerful proven sales formula called the S.E.R.V.E Sales Success Formula which is an authentic selling process that will inspire your prospects to say YES to doing business with you. You and your team will have an opportunity to put the process into action with powerful roleplay exercise.
10.Easeful Follow Up: Understanding the follow-up process can help you understand how to keep potential customers engaged and persuade them to buy a service or product from your company. In this lesson, we define follow-up calls, explain why they are important. We will walk you through how to make an effective sales follow-up call using our effective 8 step Follow-Up Process. You’ll also get access to some helpful tips for connecting with customers.
11.Handling Objections: You can effectively handle just about any objection if you are prepared and know what the most common objections are. Potential buyers may make excuses or deviate from the sales process, and the response is to handle these objections. Learn to handle objections with truthful facts that do not put your customer on the defensive if you want to succeed as a salesperson. This course will go over objection handling, its significance, and objection handling techniques that you can easily implement into your sales practice.
12.Selling Confidently: The importance of sales confidence cannot be overstated. You can know everything there is to know about your product and have extensive experience in the field, but if potential buyers do not perceive you as confident, you will fail. Customers will not trust you if you don’t know how to sell confidently. But how do you gain confidence if it doesn’t come naturally? In this course, we’ll show you how to become a confident salesperson who can present their offer powerfully and even handle any objection with conviction and unwavering self-confidence.
Curriculum
Women Empowerment – Workshop 13 – Authentic Selling
- History of Sales
- Selling Principals
- Psychology of Sales
- Women in Sales
- Pain to Solution
- Research and Prioritize
- Use Storytelling
- Building Trust
- S.E.R.V.E Formula
- Easeful Follow Up
- Handling Objections
- Selling Confidently
Distance Learning
Introduction
Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Women Empowerment corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.
Study environment
You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.
Study tools & rules
Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.
Successful distance-learning
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.
Self-assessment
Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.
Accepting responsibility as a student
Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.
Planning
By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.
Management
Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.
Study objectives & tasks
The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.
Study forecast
As a guide, the Appleton Greene Women Empowerment corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.
Performance management
It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.
With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.
With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.
Keeping in touch
You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.
Work colleagues and family
You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.
Making it relevant
The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.
Distance-learning check-list
Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Women Empowerment corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Women Empowerment program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Women Empowerment corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Women Empowerment corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Women Empowerment Specialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Women Empowerment – Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
Opportunity for Change
As women continue to advance their careers and take on more leadership roles, they must be able to successfully sell themselves and their products or services. Having confidence in selling is key and it all starts with belief.
In its most basic form, belief is the confidence or conviction that drives people forward regardless of their circumstances of birth, education, or upbringing.
The women who are leading the charge to disrupt the marketplace combine competence with self-confidence.
These women represent the new paradigm in sales, which requires an emotional connection to generate sales.
The Women Empowerment Leadership Program is a method of accelerating women’s professional development at work. Women have made significant strides in the workplace, but there is no doubt that they continue to face challenges in climbing the corporate ladder. This program provides the necessary support and tools to ensure that these women have everything they need to succeed. This will in turn benefit the overall growth and profitability of the company.
In Workshop 13, we reveal a new way of selling in the Authentic Selling Workshop, one in which you can sell authentically by “serving” rather than selling. This is the foundation that allows confidence to naturally build in this area.
This workshop teaches relationship selling principles, solution-focused selling techniques, how to research and prioritize leads, how to build trust with prospects, and how to overcome objections. You’ll also learn how to master the sales conversation without feeling awkward. Learn the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula to sell authentically and effortlessly. Learn how to inspire your ideal clients to say YES to taking action/working with you – and how to close sales like it’s second nature. To ensure you have mastered the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula, you will have the opportunity to practice your skills by role playing with your fellow participants. This workshop will provide all of the skills and tools one needs to become a confident salesperson.
Preparing for the Workshop
Participants are encouraged to continue to show up with an open mind and be ready for a transformation from the inside out. Once again, there will be a lot of mindset work that involves being open to change. You will also need to be ready to learn new skills and start adopting them into your current role in the company.
Be sure to assess your organizations current stance on selling – this will be helpful before you start making significant changes to its structure.
Take a look at your current processes and infrastructure around selling.
Participants should also ensure that they are familiar with the major people-related processes of the company including the current sales processes. The workshop’s goal is not to change these processes, but rather to supplement them with the 5 Step Women’s Empowerment Business Transformation Process (Mindset Shift, Leadership Development, Personal Presence, Advanced Communications Skills and Creating and Implementing an Action Plan) to improve their effectiveness. Participants should compile a list of their most recent successes and failures in each of these processes. The list will be useful later on when discussing how to integrate the process into the existing model.
It may be advantageous to the participants if these processes are also examined from the perspective of the employees. One or two of the participants should meet with a few key employees to discuss the success of the processes. The effectiveness of these processes, rather than the method itself, should be the focal point of these discussions. When discussing the efficacy of the process, it is critical to consider the outcomes from the perspective of the people it is supposed to help. Ineffective processes, regardless of their efficiency, fail to meet the expectations of the customer. The Women’s Empowerment Business Transformation Process will be able to fill in the gaps discovered by identifying flaws in these procedures.
The Thirteenth workshop in our Women Empowerment Program is Authentic Selling.
How this transformation of this process will be achieved, is by implementation of the following strategies:
1. Research your company history, products, mission, and values during a fun group exercise.
2. Learn relationship selling principles including adapting a new belief to support each principle.
3. Go through your company’s buyers journey this will make your salespeople sympathetic to the problems of their future customers, understand the entire sales cycle and how your products/services are useful.
4. Discover the 7 Psychological Triggers used to increase sales.
5. Identify 4 key characteristics of today’s stellar saleswomen.
6. Craft your own elevator pitch (30 second mission statement) revealing who you serve, how you serve them, and the pain points your solve.
7. Learn 5 key Solution-Focused Selling Techniques and how to use them.
8. Identify 5 ways to incorporate storytelling into your sales strategy and exactly how to craft your own during an exciting live exercise.
9. Learn 5 easy strategies to gain your prospects trust.
10. Learn and roleplay the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula- a powerful proven authentic selling process.
11. Discover an effective 8 step Follow-Up process to ensure a successful follow up sales call to a prospective customer.
12. Build confidence while handling any objection with 2 powerful objection handling exercises.
Preliminary Plan
It’s important to have a plan to start implementing the processes learned throughout the workshop. Here are the steps to get this “project” started.
• Define the scope and objectives. Why is this project being initiated? …
• Define the roles and responsibilities.
• Next, you need to identify the project stakeholders – the ones who are responsible for its success.
• Set milestones and create a timeline.
• Then, it’s time to break down the work that needs to be done into manageable blocks. …
• Hold regular meetings to check in on the progress.
Course Manuals 1-12
Course Manual 1: History of Sales
We are ALWAYS selling, whether we are in front of a large client, at the grocery store, or posting about our favorite beach on Facebook. Developing our sales skills will not only benefit us in our careers but also in life.
It’s important to understand the background and the evolution of sales in order to master it. In this first lesson, we dig deep on what selling consists of and how it has changes over the years and what we can do to adapt.
Sales or the act of selling something is defined as the exchange of a commodity for money. Many methodologies, ethics, and business empires have risen and fallen throughout the history of sales as a result of supply and demand, market changes, consumer experiences, and product reviews. Sales leads that connect businesses to their target markets have changed the way transactions are made today, from door-to-door interactions to technological developments that link companies directly to their consumers. Start with Benjamin Franklin if you want to know how the history of sales in modern b2c (business to consumer) and b2b (business to business) interactions has changed.
ROLE SPECIALIZATION FROM 1752 TO 1870
Franklin founded one of America’s oldest insurance companies in 1752. Subscription services were extremely popular during this time period. As a result, the insurance industry built its original business model around a subscription-based service. A salesperson would come to your house, make a pitch, close the sale, and return on a regular basis to collect monthly subscription payments. This model was ideal for businesses and customers at first, but as businesses expanded, successful salespeople realized they didn’t have time to prospect for new clients because they were too busy traveling to different locations collecting monthly subscriptions.
Many sales representatives struggled with time management. As a result, the insurance industry pioneered the idea of role specialization. In the 1870s, the terms ‘farmer’ and ‘hunter’ were coined to describe ‘collectors,’ or people who collected subscriptions, and ‘producers,’ or people who generated and followed up on new leads. This selling structure was so successful that businesses outside of the insurance industry began incorporating it into their customer relationships.
SNAKE OIL SALESMEN & IBM: 1849 – 1924
Between 1849 and 1882, 180,000 Chinese immigrants came to the United States in search of work to support themselves and their families. Due to the construction of the intercontinental railroad, the United States needed a large workforce at the time. With the arrival of Chinese immigrants, a new stigma emerged in the sales world: snake oil salesmen. A’snake oil salesman’ is a fraudulent, greedy profiteer who tries to take advantage of an unsuspecting public by selling fake medical cures. Did you know Clark Stanley was the original snake oil salesman? He deceived the public by portraying rattlesnake oil as a healing medicine containing Chinese snake oil.
Stanley, along with other traveling salesmen and doctors, aggressively promoted his false remedies across the United States until he was exposed and fined in 1917.
Because of Stanley, consumers began to regard everyone in the sales profession as unethical, deceptive businessmen. That is, until a salesman named Thomas J. Watson Sr. founded his company “International Business Machines,” or IBM, in an attempt to restore the sales industry’s reputation in the eyes of the public.
Thomas introduced several key concepts through IBM:
As the number of competitors grows, having a sales force becomes a competitive advantage.
• To maintain your sales force’s competitive advantage, they must be educated, professional, and well-trained.
• With these fundamental ideas in mind, Thomas made a significant contribution to the sales industry in a variety of ways:
Introducing the concept of motivating a sales force through contests, sales commissions, and song singing.
• Recruiting college graduates; As a result of IBM, the sales profession is now regarded as a respectable career option for recent graduates.
• Formal sales training is used.
E.K. STRONG AND DALE CARNEGIE, 1925-1936
In July 1925, E.K. Strong published The Psychology of Selling. Strong’s book introduced a slew of new sales principles, such as question type, objection handling, and features and benefits. He made it clear that selling is a skill that can be learned and practiced. With the combined efforts of Strong’s book’s sales concepts and IBM’s and its sales force’s success, there was a renewed interest in salesmen. Entrepreneurs, corporations, and authors began to make sales investments. Dale Carnegie was one of the most well-known of these entrepreneurs.
Carnegie’s best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, is his most famous work. He was also a business trainer who, with the AIDCA concept, made significant contributions to the sales profession (Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, and Action). AIDCA demonstrated how sellers could guide a buyer through these five steps and close the deal. Dale Carnegie and E.K. Strong’s combined contributions advanced the sales industry in a variety of ways:
• Developing a tactical and relationship selling playbook.
• Using research to clarify ambiguous sales concepts.
• Explaining how sales can be repeated over and over.
• Introducing the notion that sales could be learned, studied, and mastered.
SPIN SELLING IN 1988
Spin Selling rose to prominence in the late 1980s, reinventing old concepts and elevating them to the next level known as Solution Selling or Consultative Selling. SPIN selling is based on the idea that customers will only buy a product if they see a need for it in their lives. Sometimes a client is unaware that there is a problem in the first place. It is then necessary to ask them questions that may reveal specific issues. SPIN selling entails asking four compelling questions in a specific order in order to increase the likelihood of closing the sale. For those who sold complex products and services, solution selling was ideal.
Initially, salespeople attempted to persuade a potential prospect to buy their goods or services without knowing anything about the customer. The Solution Selling method, on the other hand, allowed sales reps to ask a series of questions to determine if the prospect is a good fit before attempting to close the sale. The concepts of SPIN and Solution Selling usher in a new era in which navigating complex sales processes was never easier.
AARON ROSS – 2011
Aaron Ross was the next sales industry innovator to make significant contributions. While at SalesForce, he noticed that, while there were numerous specialized roles in the sales industry, there was one major flaw. Remember that the 1870s introduced the concept of specializing job roles to address issues that salespeople faced at the time. Ross discovered another major flaw that needed to be addressed 141 years later. He realized that account executives and closers were wasting time prospecting for new leads rather than closing new business deals.
To address this inefficiency, a new specialized sales role known as the Sales Development Rep was created (SDR). SDR concentrated on three key aspects of the sales process: lead generation, closing, and account management. Each component was equally important and required the same level of attention. As a result, one specialized rep was required to focus solely on one aspect of the process. This meant that three representatives collaborated while focusing on their respective areas of expertise. Ross proposed that true sales growth can only occur if qualified leads are consistently available. A Sales Development Representative would generate these leads by focusing solely on their one specialized role.
TOOLS FOR AUTOMATION IN 2015
In 2015, a seemingly endless stream of automation tools made selling much easier. The modern salesperson has an infinite number of tools at their disposal that focus on each stage of the sales process. There are apps for lead generation, CRM, contract management, email automation, and other purposes. There have also been apps that solely focus on connecting independent apps so that sales reps can find everything they need in one place.
Top salespeople are frequently those who learn to balance technology with best practices. These individuals, known as sales hackers, understand that mastering both technology and sales concepts will allow them to perform at a higher level. With the introduction of new, more efficient tools, the sales profession has never seen such growth in its entire history.
Other professions, such as marketing and finance, have outpaced the sales industry in terms of growth, but with the advent of new technology, it has never been easier to scale up a business with a consistent stream of new sales leads. Email, SMS, and telephone marketing have enabled anyone with a phone, computer, and a decent internet connection to become a sales guru without ever leaving their home. Individuals who understand the unique aspects of sales will have an advantage over their competition and will likely see success during their career in the sales industry, from its historical best practices to mastering the new tools of the trade.
Sales is arguably the oldest profession and although it’s a noble and significant profession, it still lacks the respect and legitimacy it deserves. Sales has permeated our societies and become an ever-present part of our lives, from the farmer selling his produce at the market to the tech startup account executive using their smartphone. Unfortunately, most of us still associate used-car salesmen with bygone eras.
5 Ways Sales Have Changed Over The Years and How to Adapt
Whether you despise or adore sales, it is critical to the success of your company. This is especially true for aspiring business owners. You will struggle to gain the clients or investors you need to survive in today’s competitive market if you lack sales skills.
The advantages of perfecting your sales process cannot be overstated but becoming a true sales master can be difficult. After all, sales has changed dramatically in recent years as a result of new technological advances and a general shift in attitudes toward how customers make purchasing decisions.
Don’t fall behind by employing antiquated sales techniques—what here’s you need to know to better sell to customers in the modern era.
1. Selling as a Service
Many of us have preconceived notions about selling, as well as negative thoughts and feelings about it.
Modern selling has had to adapt to counteract this perception. This concept is best explained by Kendrick Shope, CEO of an online sales school called Authentic Sales University. This concept she refers to as “authentic selling,” is a process that requires getting to the heart of what selling truly is—providing solutions to people’s problems.
At its core, selling is serving. People who want to buy your product or service are waiting for you, and that is what authentic selling is all about. “Your customers exist, but it is your responsibility to go out and tell them how your product or service can help them,” Shope says.
2. Believe in What You’re Selling
Sales has long been associated with the notion that salespeople frequently pitch products in which they do not truly believe.
However, in today’s market, this approach is no longer viable for entrepreneurs.
As a business owner or sales leader, you must be certain that your product or service solves a significant problem for your customers. This gives you the passion and insight needed to sell to others successfully. You must fully comprehend how your product or service makes a difference in order to be confident when promising results.
How significant is this? According to studies, while financial motivations can influence our sales results, we are generally most persuasive when we believe in the product or service.
3. New Points of Contact
Before a potential buyer converts into a customer, the average sale requires seven to ten touches with the brand. Customers aren’t just giving you money; they’re also giving you, their time. As a result, in order to create positive touch point interactions, modern sales professionals must respect their prospective customers’ time.
Technological advancements have enabled new touch points that better value the customer’s time. Agnes Jozwiak, marketing director at ClickMeeting, provides some insight.
“Tech has made it easier than ever for touch points to show respect for a prospect’s time,” she explains. “For example, a webinar could allow individuals to watch your presentation from their home, rather than requiring them to visit your office. When you use digital touch points that make these interactions more convenient, you’ll make a better overall impression.”
4. The Evolution of Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the best examples of a digital touch point that respects your prospect’s time while also adding value to the sales process.
Today’s consumers want to research a product before purchasing it, and you can provide informative, helpful information that eases the purchasing decision with quality content marketing materials. The more valuable the content you provide, the more trustworthy your brand will appear, and the more likely you will be to close the sale.
The goal of content marketing is not to make a direct sale. Rather, it aims to position the brand as a valuable resource during the problem-solving process. Case studies, infographics, and blog posts can all help strengthen your position with prospects.
5. The Importance of Individualization
In today’s interconnected world, a one-size-fits-all sales approach will not work. Because they treat all customers as a single, generalized group, email funnels and other sales follow-ups frequently fall short. This is not what your sales prospects are looking for.
“We live in an era of unprecedented personalization,” writes Alexandra Jaritz. People want as much choice and control over their lives as possible. Different customers want to engage in different ways, to varying degrees, and at different times in a sales or service environment. This is where mastering the intersection of service and technology becomes critical, providing customers with multiple paths to match their needs and preferences.”
There are numerous messaging techniques available. It’s critical to understand that each type of messaging will appeal to a different group, whether it’s conversational and story-driven, short, and direct, or based on statistics and testimonials. They may, however, appeal to the same person at different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Understanding the unique demographics of your target customers will require you to conduct market research via Google and social media interactions. The better you understand your customers, the easier it will be to create personalized messages for them.
Selling doesn’t need to be an insurmountable challenge. Rather, it’s a process that requires frequent experimentation and fine-tuning.
You’ll face rejection no matter what. But as you stay ahead of the curve by understanding and adapting to changes in how people make buying decisions, you’ll be better positioned to get your message across to both customers and investors alike.
“You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise.” – Patricia Fripp
Exercise 13.1: Product Jeopardy
1. Start by creating five categories related to your company’s offerings. Sample categories can include specific product names, company mission, and values, or customer stats.
2. Then create five questions for each category with assigned point values between 100 and 500 correlated to the difficulty of the question. You can make this game remote work-friendly by creating a template using PowerPoint or Google Slides.
3. Ask the questions in Jeopardy style.
4. Determine the winner based on the most points earned!
Course Manual 2: Selling Principals
We are always selling or buying something in our lives. We are either successful or unsuccessful at what we do.
What characteristics distinguishes a great salesperson? Many sales leaders are asking themselves this question as they navigate today’s rapidly changing sales landscape while adhering to their selling principles.
From the street preacher on a busy corner to the newspaper vendor stuck in traffic to the executives in boardrooms and field agents in the marketplace, everyone is selling something, whether it’s a product, a service, or an idea. We conduct a needs analysis, and if it is successful, we proceed to pitch. We want to close the deal after a successful pitch. However, a successful pitch does not guarantee a successful closure, though the chances are that a successful pitch will be followed by a successful closure.
With this in mind, any salesperson should anticipate a “yes” or “no” response at the closing stage of the sales process.
However, what one does in the face of a “no” decision determines whether one is ordinary or extraordinary/exceptional. Will you accept “no” as an answer? That is the question that must be addressed.
An exceptional salesperson does not accept “no” for an answer; instead, he or she strategically re-plays his or her cards and turns that “no” into a “yes.”
Only 6% of Chief Sales Officers said they were extremely confident in their team’s ability to meet or exceed revenue targets on average. That isn’t to say their salespeople aren’t talented or motivated. However, it reflects a new selling reality. Remote selling is not going away. The purchasing process has become much more complicated. Customer expectations are higher than they have ever been. And organizations are now competing head-to-head for talent as well as new business.
It’s no surprise that sales managers are concerned about whether they have the right teams in place to reclaim lost ground and capitalize on a recovering economy.
The irony is that, despite all of the dramatic disruption, the characteristics of a great salesperson haven’t changed all that much. Neither has the fundamental selling principles that support their success. However, many of these fundamentals are not addressed in traditional sales training and coaching efforts.
Best Practices of World Class Sales Organizations
Here’s something that top-tier sales organizations understand: Creating a competitive advantage in B2B sales is often less about your solutions and more about the day-to-day actions of your sales professionals.
One of our research’s most striking findings is that success, particularly for salespeople, has more to do with “who you are” than “what you know.” Although knowledge and skill are always necessary for success, a salesperson’s attitudes, beliefs, and values serve as the catalyst for long-term customer-focused behaviors. According to our research, these are the key factors that separate the best from the rest.
While this has always been true, it may never have been more so than now. We are experiencing a trust crisis across society, whether it is in the media, politicians, leaders, or businesses. People no longer know who to believe, according to Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer.
This is not a novel issue for salespeople. Unfortunately, the majority of people distrust salespeople. According to one typical buyer survey, 44% of buyers believe salespeople only serve their own agenda. These same buyers stated that only 18% of the salespeople they’d met in the previous year were trusted advisers they respected.
Salespeople can be taught all the product knowledge and selling techniques in the world, but that will not make buyers trust them. Integrity is the foundation of trust, which is the foundation of relationship sales. Developing a customer-centric culture and exceeding aggressive sales targets are all made possible by ethical, values-driven behavior. When we discuss the characteristics of a great salesperson, this is the foundation that supports everything else.
Let’s look at the selling principles and underlying beliefs that enable salespeople to build trust and valuable, long-term customer relationships.
10 Relationship Sales Selling Principles
Selling Principle 1: Selling is a value exchange.
Underlying Belief: Selling is a noble profession in which one creates value for others and is rewarded for it.
Sales professionals who see what they do as adding value to people and/or organizations have a positive attitude toward selling, which drives their relationship sales approach and increases their customer-needs focus. They recognize and expect to be rewarded for adding value to the lives of others, and this belief fuels them.
Selling Principle 2: Selling is something you do for and with people, not something you do to them.
Underlying Belief: Selling with integrity entails identifying and satisfying customer needs, as well as creating value for them, rather than trying to sell them something.
Because it aligns with their core values, this selling principle resonates with customer-focused salespeople and increases their achievement drive. It also allows them to decline an opportunity if what they are offering does not meet a customer’s wants or needs. It will not only increase their commitment to their customers’ needs, but it will also increase the likelihood that customers will want to do business with them. This can also have a significant impact on referrals, which are the opportunities with the highest closure rate.
Selling Principle 3: Establishing trust and rapport comes before any selling activity.
Underlying Belief: You are your first sale!
Before a potential customer will buy from you, they must believe that you are looking out for their best interests. Even (and especially) when selling remotely, you must establish rapport by adapting your communication style to that of your potential customer. Understanding their wants and needs allows you to break through their natural psychological barriers. At that point, you’ll start to build trust in the relationship.
Selling Principle 4: Understanding people’s wants or needs should always come before offering a solution.
Underlying Belief: The most important sales skill is asking the “right” questions to determine if the customer has wants or needs that you can meet.
Many salespeople mistakenly believe that the most important thing is to be enthusiastic about what they are selling and that their “contagious enthusiasm” will lead to a sale. However, if they do not ask the right questions early in the sales process, they will reduce their chances of closing the deal. The “master skill” of relationship sales is the ability to conduct a consultative interview that uncovers what is most important to a customer. It’s a characteristic shared by all great salespeople because it allows them to communicate the features and benefits of the products and services that will meet the customer’s needs rather than focusing on what they believe will satisfy the customer.
Selling Principle 5: Sales ‘techniques’ give way to values-driven sales principles.
Underlying Belief: People don’t want to be sold, but they do want to buy!
Customers prefer salespeople who use a sales philosophy and process based on relationship selling and values-driven selling principles. Rather than focusing on techniques that attempt to persuade someone to buy something, they work on developing loyal customer relationships based on creating value.
Selling Principle 6: Truth, respect, and honesty serve as the foundation for long-term selling success.
Underlying Belief: People aren’t interested in what you know until they know you care!
Beyond products and services, the foundation of customer-centric relationships is a mutual exchange of value. In fact, it is a byproduct of how great salespeople consistently provide more value than expected by engaging in customer-focused behaviors.
Selling Principle 7: Values and ethics contribute more to sales success than techniques or strategies.
Underlying Belief: Do what is right simply because it is right!
Customers are naturally suspicious of any manipulative selling techniques or behaviors. As a result, they will be hesitant to buy from salespeople who use uncomfortable sales tactics. Customers will resist moving forward if they believe a salesperson is communicating in their best interests.
Selling Principle 8: Customers, not salespeople, exert selling pressure when they believe they want or need the products or services recommended.
Underlying Belief: Persuasion Paradox—The more you try to persuade someone of something, the more they distance themselves from you. In contrast, the more you try to understand someone’s wants or needs, the more likely they are to purchase from you.
Another characteristic of a great salesperson is that they maintain their focus on the customer throughout the sales process by establishing trust and rapport. Customers will naturally become excited about doing business with a salesperson who effectively communicates how a specific solution will meet their wants and needs.
Selling Principle 9: Negotiation is never manipulation, it’s always a strategy to solve problems… when the customer wants to solve them.
Underlying Belief: Negotiation is a process of finding common ground and working out a “win-win” solution, not one of confrontation.
When ethics and integrity guide a sales process, the negotiation phase is viewed as a positive indicator and an opportunity to work out any problems or concerns. A great salesperson approaches negotiation with the positive expectation of a “win-win” outcome, rather than creating tension that is transmitted to the customer. It is a collaborative problem-solving process in which both parties feel valued and respected, and an open dialogue is encouraged in order to find a solution.
Most negotiation training programs teach “techniques” that feel unnatural to the salesperson and are perceived as manipulative by the customer. This dynamic generates tension, which can erode trust in the relationship.
Selling Principle 10: Closing is a win-win situation for both the salesperson and the customer.
Underlying Belief: When a customer agrees that the product or service you provide can meet their wants or needs, simply asking for their business is a natural result.
Sales training frequently focuses on techniques designed to get the customer to say “yes” during the “close” phase of the sales process. These dynamics strain the relationship and undermine trust.
However, when salespeople have internalized all of the selling principles discussed here and developed customer-focused behaviors, they will know when to ask for the business — and they will ask for it confidently.
Your Brand Promise and Ethical Sales Practices
Integrity can be difficult to define, but one way to think of it is that it integrates the inner with the outer:
“You get exactly what you see.”
“Do what is right because it is the right thing to do.”
When ethical sales principles such as integrity are crystallized and ingrained in how salespeople behave and organizations conduct business, an impact can be seen and felt. One reason for this is that operating ethically and with integrity energizes people and raises their sense of purpose and value.
Not only is doing the right thing the right thing to do, but it is also more profitable. Over the past five calendar years, the publicly traded companies named the World’s Most Ethical Companies in Ethisphere’s 2021 Ethics Index outperformed a comparable index of large cap companies by 7.1 percentage points. Recently, Ethisphere Magazine summarized a number of its findings and current trends concerning the relationship between business integrity and long-term business performance.
As research and data continue to show, those who “do integrity well” develop and earn a reputation that attracts and retains talent. Integrity shines through when it is a living, breathing core value and part of the culture — and it is an essential ingredient in establishing trust and mutual respect between leaders and employees, buyers and sellers, and organizations.
This is why, with high-integrity organizations, we consistently see that their brand is strong on the outside because it is strong on the inside.
“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” – Michael Le Boeuf
Case Study: Examples of 2 Famous Women Sales Leaders:
Mary Kay Ash
Mary Kay Ash was another trailblazer for women in business. She began by selling Stanley Home Products to regular people at hosting parties. Ash rose from humble beginnings to become known for founding the Mary Kay cosmetics empire. Despite the fact that she didn’t start with much and isn’t your typical salesperson, Ash has built a company with over 5,000 employees that generates over $3 billion in sales per year.
Erica Feidner
Although women do not make up the majority of salespeople, there are some women who are regarded as “Sales Gods,” one of whom is Erica Feidner. Feidner sold more pianos than anyone else in her time as a Steinway & Sons representative for 8 years, selling over $41 million dollars in pianos. This sales ability earned her the moniker “The Piano Matchmaker” or “The Lady Who Sold $41 Million in Steinways.” She took pride in explaining everything the client needed to know and how to help them understand her product. This is a powerful lesson: if your client is unsure about your services or which option is best for them, you haven’t done your job as a salesperson.
A Great Salesperson’s Timeless Qualities
Although almost everything in our world is changing, some fundamentals remain constant. More than ever, the characteristics of a great salesperson are based on selling principles and behaviors based on ethics and integrity. These are the salespeople who cultivate customer-centric skills, attitudes, beliefs, and values and practice relationship selling. They are driven by a sense of purpose, and it shows.
Adhere to the best practices of top-tier sales organizations. When you work with your salespeople to help them develop and internalize these key selling principles and underlying beliefs, they will realize their full potential, attract more customers, build long-term customer relationships, and achieve sales success on a consistent basis. These are long-term advantages that will benefit you and your company no matter what the environment.
Exercise 13.2: Present Buyers Journey
Course Manual 3: Psychology of Sales
Every salesperson understands that humans are not rational economic creatures. Sure, sales is influenced by need, but it is also influenced by how you feel. It’s about the emotions evoked by the situation, the customer’s relationship with the product and the salesperson, and how they perceive themselves. All of these are subject to change depending on how you, the salesperson, present the situation to the customer. (Of course, we’re talking about customer psychology here, but how the salesperson sees themselves is also important.
How do you keep yourself motivated?
Do you have any personality traits that assist you in selling?
The truth is that how a salesperson perceives themselves is also critical. We’ll begin by reviewing some of the fundamental principles of how psychology is used in sales. But first, let’s go a little deeper and look at how selling like a psycho(therapist) can help you counsel opportunities to close.
7 Psychological Triggers to Increase Sales
The psychology of selling has long been studied. There are some basic characteristics that make someone more likely to purchase. Let’s take a look at them and how we can help create them.
The desire to help others
If people give us something for free, we tend to want to reciprocate. It’s human nature to want to make things fair. As a result, it’s smart business to first reach out and offer something – a free gift, free content, or free advice and support. If you are supportive and helpful for a long enough period of time, your customer will feel compelled to help you.
Commitment
People prefer to continue doing what they have always done. When we identify that we drink a certain brand of beer or eat at a certain restaurant, it begins to become part of our identity. So, the more you can persuade the customer to commit to you, the easier it will be for them to stick with you. Distribute time-limited freebies. Encourage them to sign up for your newsletter. That is why we offer no-commitment, cancel at any time services, and why they work.
Human connection
We purchase items from people we like. It couldn’t be easier. And we like people with whom we have a connection. That’s why it’s easier to sell to people we like, and why it’s important to try as hard as you can to like all of your customers. When we have a human relationship based on trust, we are far more likely to make a purchase from people. But it isn’t just about making them like you. It’s all about making them like your company and product. This is where the power of branding comes into play.
Authority
One of the most important factors in persuading people to buy is demonstrating authority. It’s much easier to trust your recommendations and believe in your pitch if you appear to be an expert – or, better yet, if you actually are. But don’t limit yourself to discussing your own expertise. Get approval from the experts and emphasize the expertise of those who built your product.
Social proof
We have a tendency to like things that other people like. As a result, demonstrating that your product is admired and liked by peers, competitors, and leaders in the customer’s field is critical. It’s possible that their neighbor purchased this item. Perhaps someone from their previous company is using it. So long as we can show that it is acceptable to someone’s peer group, it is far more likely that it will be acceptable to them.
Scarcity
We are all more likely to consume a scarce resource that may disappear if we do not act quickly. This is the psychology behind the ubiquitous “limited time offer” and “sale ends soon” signs. However, there are other ways to give the impression of scarcity. FOMO (fear of missing out) is based on the concept of scarce experiences and social capital.
Unity
This is about sharing principles and beliefs – the idea that we prefer to align ourselves with those who stand for the same things we do. It’s for this reason that Nike has stopped mentioning shoes in their advertisements and has instead begun to promote their beliefs and moral positions.
Therapist vs. Salesperson
Thus far, so good. All of the psychological tools listed above are essential in closing a sale. Most of them are relatively well known and understood among professional salespeople, despite their importance. But what if we go a little further? What if we look at the psychotherapist’s tools? Psychotherapists, like the best salespeople, are expert listeners. Patrick, a PandaDoc sales trainer, recently posted on LinkedIn about how one top-selling rep has a talk-to-listen ratio of 30:70.
Therapists and salespeople have a lot in common. They both require:
• Listening with empathy
• Problem-solving
• Collaboration
• Influence through adaptation
Isn’t that surprising? Let’s take a look at one of the characteristics of an effective therapist, as defined by the American Psychological Association, and see how well it matches how top salespeople operate.
So, in the spirit of assisting others to succeed in life and business, we’re donning our sweater vests and settling into our comfy armchairs to give you the top psychotherapy qualities you can incorporate into your sales cycle.
• Positive regard without reservation
• Cognitive reorganization
• Conflict resolution and relationship skills
You’ve probably heard of relational selling. This takes the concept to a new level. Let’s get started.
3 Additional Advanced Sales Psychology Techniques
If you want to delve a little deeper into psychology and how it can help you sell, here are three more detailed and advanced techniques.
Positive Regard Without Conditions
Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) fosters an environment in which the client can express his or her true feelings without fear of being rejected. It is an attitude of complete acceptance that many therapists use when building a relationship with a client, according to the American Psychology Association’s dictionary.
How Does It Translate to Sales?
Approaching sales with Unconditional Positive Regard is critical for quickly building rapport. We often talk about having a thick skin and not taking things personally in sales. The same is true for psychotherapy. UPR enables salespeople to create a safe environment in which prospects can express their emotions and feelings about the deal or anything else without fear of being judged or damaging the relationship. This nonjudgmental acceptance fosters trust and keeps prospects returning time and again. It’s important to remember that prospects are doing their best with the skills and knowledge they have right now. This is not to say that we should become the prospect’s doormat.
UPR, on the other hand, promotes healthy boundaries such as call length, topic of discussion, and any limitations in what you’re offering. Establish boundaries early on, but make sure your client understands that anything said within those boundaries is completely safe. You are offering a nonjudgmental ear to listen without promising any special concessions.
How We Can Implement It:
The Client-Centered Therapy approach is built on UPR. With these three techniques, we can use it in sales to implement a Customer-Centered Selling approach:
1. Unstructured interviewing entails asking flexible, open-ended questions in order to learn more about the client. 2.
2. Active listening entails paying close attention and asking questions in order to comprehend the content, rather than simply listening in order to respond or manipulate.
3. Restating — repeating a statement verbatim or rephrasing it back to the prospect to demonstrate that you’re paying attention.
Your presence will generate warmth and trust like you’ve never seen before with UPR. Your clients will be eager to speak with you.
Cognitive Restructuring
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) proposes that how people think about a situation influences their reaction more than the situation itself. Cognitive Restructuring uses that idea to change the way someone thinks about themselves and their issues. Cognitive restructuring is a technique for identifying, confronting, and then changing beliefs by interrupting and disputing maladaptive thoughts in order to create good thoughts. By approaching issues in this manner, the therapist puts the client in control, allowing them to lessen the impact of future challenges.
How Does It Translate to Sales?
Cognitive restructuring sounds more complicated than it is. When discussing “pain points” with a prospect, many top salespeople unknowingly engage in a form of cognitive restructuring. Outlining the flow of a typical painful situation can help you use this sales psychology technique more intentionally. Examine the thoughts that are and aren’t true in your customer’s situation first. Create a more balanced thought pattern and outcome for them to follow in order to keep the deal moving forward. Assist them in realizing this so that they can adopt these new thought patterns. Concentrate on the thoughts that will cause them to change their feelings and behaviors.
How We Can Implement It:
The first few steps of this technique are already being implemented by the majority of sales teams. They simply need to complete the process by experimenting with approaches that target the source of maladaptive — or harmful — thinking. We recommend that prospects who are not decision makers in their organization try cognitive restructuring. Build relationships with your internal champion by assisting them in identifying, confronting, and changing any harmful beliefs they may have. Here’s a quick diagram example of how the process could work:
At the end of the day, the success of your champion is your success. Nurture their development as much as you would your own by encouraging them to think, feel, and behave more positively and productively.
Relationship and Conflict Resolution Capabilities
The Sound Relationship House Theory (SRHT) is one of the most widely used frameworks for nurturing and resolving conflict in couples and families by marriage and family therapists. The seven components that determine whether a relationship will function, or fail are explained in SRHT. These principles predict relationship stability and satisfaction, and the theory applies well when discussing business partners and corporate team dynamics.
How Does It Translate to Sales?
When was the last time you closed a deal with only one person involved throughout the entire sales process? Probably never. The majority of business transactions involve multiple team members from various departments. We frequently require all of these coworkers to cooperate in order to obtain a signature and process payments. You can use SRHT to strengthen these relationships through friendship, conflict resolution, and the creation of shared meaning.
How We Can Implement It:
Don’t be concerned. We’re not going to sit down with prospective clients and hand out bubble-in questionnaires. What we can do is establish solid relationships with our prospects’ teams.
Yes- it’s true.
Regardless of the type of relationship, the principles of a healthy relationship are the same. It is based on trust and commitment and shares many of the same principles. If you focus on just a few of the SRHT components, you will make your life a LOT easier with inner-account conflict. Turning towards rather than away, for example, will help team members express their needs, bring new awareness to small, often overlooked moments that can increase productivity, and create operational harmony.
Making life dreams come true fosters an environment in which each team member can speak openly about his or her hopes, values, convictions, and aspirations for the company and the deal.
This sales psychology technique fosters the trust and commitment needed to close a deal and promote future upselling.
Modern salespeople are more than just quota-crushing machines. We, too, are in the business of assisting and healing. Sales is more humanistic than the trade gets credit for. Adopting and adapting some of the sales psychology techniques used in therapy to heal humans will make us better salespeople, and it may even make us better people overall.
8 Ways to Master Selling Via Email
Understanding Sales Psychology and Why People Buy Can Give You an Unfair Advantage.
Simply put, learning about the psychology of sales can help you master the art of selling.
Let me emphasize one important fact: we are all human beings, and our minds work in the same way.
What irritates me will most likely irritate you, and so on.
The majority of our decisions are not entirely rational. We don’t have time to consider every aspect of information, so we delegate this difficult task to our subconscious mind to process.
On the one hand, you may be gifted and naturally use these techniques to sway people in your favor.
On the other hand, to be a successful communicator, you may need scientific knowledge that reveals what lies beneath people’s decisions.
Let’s now look at how to understand and apply sales psychology to your email communication.
1. Persuasion Not Manipulation
Before we begin, there is one critical distinction to be made.
Using sales psychology as a form of manipulation will not help you.
You might succeed at first, but people will soon realize they are being duped and given false information.
Persuasion is synonymous with informing and educating.
And you do this by pointing out something that moves people in positive and beneficial directions.
2. Similarities Bring Us Together
According to a study on the psychology of sales, we are more likely to connect with a stranger who shares some similarities with us than with someone who does not.
We like people who are similar to us, even if those similarities are incidental, and we are more likely to say yes to them.
Psychologist Jerry Burger and his colleagues investigated the effect of incidental similarity on request compliance.
They demonstrated how coincidental similarities, such as sharing the same name or birthday, can have a positive effect.
Participants in these experiments were also more likely to agree to a request from a participant who shared similar personality traits with this person than those who did not.
In other studies, researchers discovered that simply being in the same room as the requester or having a conversation with them can influence how we respond to their request.
How to Include It in an Email:
Research your leads. The more you know about them, the easier it will be to connect with them, according to sales psychology. You may support the same sports team, enjoy similar music, or are both environmental activists.
Start a conversation by pointing out some of the similarities.
This can be very helpful if you are reaching out to them for the first time.
Example:
Subject: How I lost your Sperry’s and apt. And why you should meet with me.
I kept bidding them up… to $600.
Then I stopped with 3 seconds left, and the other person won. I didn’t want the apartment.
I was going to use it as an expensive excuse to get an App idea in front of you…and we wear the same size shoes.
I have since bought a pair of Sperry’s. Size 11 – they fit!
Another thing that could be very useful is to try to connect to your leads in person.
Meet them at conferences, exchange ideas, and make sure to mention it in your email when you contact them later.
3. Mutual Exchange
Reciprocity is one of the six principles of influence explained by Robert Cialdini, a psychology and marketing professor, in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
People will be more willing to say yes if you have given them something useful, something that will help them improve at what they do.
If you assist them or provide them with positive experiences, they will feel obligated to reciprocate.
How to Include It in an Email:
When your customers first start using your product, offer them assistance and guidance.
Provide content that will assist them in achieving their objectives.
Teach them everything you know.
Segment your prospects and send them emails that will keep them up to date on the necessary information.
Finally, you can provide them with a free trial or free usage of a portion of your product or service.
If they don’t have the funds to invest now, they will remember you when the time comes.
4. Looking for Social Proof
If they don’t have the funds to invest now, they will remember you when the time comes.
Another principle of influence mentioned by Robert Cialdini is Social Proof.
His research shows that when people are uncertain, they are more likely to follow the lead of others.
It will be easier for you to make the same decision if people you like, and trust are using a product or service.
How to Include It in an Email:
Make a point of mentioning the companies or individuals who use your product or service. Mention how you’ve aided their development.
Use positive customer and company feedback on your website.
You can incorporate this into an email in a way that is relevant to the recipient.
5. Positive Labels
We want to be perceived positively, and what others think of us is important.
Positive labels are more than just compliments; they are important to us, encourage us, and we want to nurture them.
How to Include It in an Email:
When speaking with leads or prospects, give them genuinely positive labels.
Fake labels have no influence. Be truthful.
You can inform them as follows:
• “It’s a pleasure to work with you.”
• “You are our most important client.”
“When you assign someone a positive label, like having high intelligence or being a good person, that actually cues them up to live up to that label.” — Vanessa Van Edwards
6. To Commit or Not to Commit
That is the question.
According to Robert Cialdini, if we say yes, we will be committed to following through on our previous statements.
In a phone survey, voters who committed to voting in elections were studied.
Potential voters who received the phone call and said they would vote in the upcoming elections voted significantly more frequently than those who did not.
How to Include It in an Email:
Make sure to follow up if your clients said yes to your proposal once and then disappeared. They were probably preoccupied with other tasks and didn’t have time to consider your offer.
Keep this principle in mind and persevere. Their disappearance should not put you off.
According to Christoph Engelhardt’s book SaaS Email Marketing Handbook, you should follow up until you receive another yes or no.
“The majority of people will be pleased that you follow up.”
Examine his subsequent email correspondence. This is his sixth sequel. He also added some levity.
Hello, Patrick.
Have you fallen and are unable to get up?
Would you like me to dial 911?
I’m getting worried because you haven’t responded to my previous emails.
7. Relying on Authority
To be certain that we are making the correct decision, we want to hear what the experts have to say.
We require proof for any products or services that we are considering.
How to Include It in an Email:
If you’re pitching someone for the first time, show them why you’re valuable.
Mentioning your previous accomplishments and naming relevant companies with which you have worked will help you stand out.
If one authoritative company or individual can guarantee your abilities, you can later aim even higher. KISSmetrics is a great blog with a lot of authority, but it’s also very relevant to HubSpot.
I collaborate with companies such as KISSmetrics and create weekly videos for their blog.
8. When Resources Are Limited
To even begin a business relationship with someone, we want to know if they have previously collaborated with people or companies that we or others admire.
Scarcity is another of Cialdini’s influence principles.
He claims that when things are scarce, they become more valuable.
Products or services may be limited in number or available for a limited time in this sales psychology.
These types of campaigns influence our brains to make snap decisions, causing us to buy because we are afraid of missing out on an opportunity rather than because we truly require something.
How to Include It in an Email:
Inform your customers about the unique and uncommon features of your product or service.
Provide special features that they will receive once they become your customers.
Create a time-limited email campaign to offer a lower-cost upgrade to your users.
Alternatively, offer special discounts to a limited number of users.
Take a look at this email from Hootsuite.
This is how they used scarcity to upgrade new users:
Subject: Give us 60 days. We’ll make you amazing at social media.
To prove it, we’re giving you 60 days to try Hootsuite Professional, absolutely FREE.…
The only catch? This offer expires in three days.
So, click the button below and start your free 60-day trial now!
Cialdini discusses one experiment in his book Influence: Science and Practice in which two different approaches were taken to similar customers.
Changing what they were told from “If you insulate your home, you will save X cents per day.” to a sentence implying a loss of income. “You will lose X cents per day if you do not insulate your home.” made a significant difference.
How to Include It in an Email:
Send an email to customers who are using free or basic service with an offer to upgrade to a pro version for two weeks.
Show them all of the benefits they can obtain, and they will be more likely to continue using it as a paying customer after the trial period expires.
You can also alter the manner in which you present your products or services.
“By signing up for the basic version, you will miss out on X benefits that the pro version can offer.”
And rather than telling them how much money they will save by paying annually, try this:
“If you pay monthly, you will lose X over the course of a year.”
Conclusion:
Now that you understand what influences people’s decisions, you can conduct an experiment on yourself based on sales psychology.
Understanding what lies beneath your decisions and leads you in a particular direction will help you understand others.
It will take time and practice to master these sales psychology techniques, but after a while, you will find yourself doing it naturally.
Exercise 13.3: Share Your Testimonials
Course Manual 4: Women in Sales
Consider traditional sales stereotypes. The door-to-door salesperson The used-car salesperson. The pushy gets closer. The smooth, slick talker.
Consider each of these people in your mind. Do you have them? Good.
Now tell me, were any of your mental images female? They weren’t for me, and I’m guessing they weren’t for the majority of you. Even if these aren’t all of the stereotypes that people want to be associated with, it’s still significant that the majority of iconic sales personas have traditionally been male.
Sales has historically been a male-dominated profession, which makes sense in some ways. Salespeople in the past were aggressive, brash, and hard-nosed – three adjectives that do not typically apply to the X gender. But take note of the word “yesteryear.” Sales directors are looking for sales representatives and managers who are more thoughtful, consultative, insightful, and have better listening skills.
Jill Konrath, sales author, and speaker hosted an all-female panel discussion with some of today’s top saleswomen at Dreamforce 2014. Each provided advice on how women can succeed in sales roles, as well as insight into the unique skills that women bring to the art of selling.
Look for a female mentor.
“Being a woman in sales, especially a young woman in sales, is not easy,” said Joanne Black, founder of No More Cold Calling.
Konrath agreed, noting that mentors do not have to be women the mentee knows in person – or even knows at all. “You can have virtual mentors who are unaware they are mentoring you,” she explained. Mentees can follow the careers and social media profiles of their virtual mentors and look up to them as “role models for what’s possible.”
And just because you’ve found a mentor doesn’t mean you can’t have others. Debra Walton, Thomson Reuters’ chief content officer, stated that she considers finding “mentors for a reason, mentors for a season, and mentors for life.” In other words, different mentors can and should be hired for different projects or stages of a career. A mentee cannot and should not be advised by a single mentor.
“If you haven’t done much giving in your life-try it and see how you feel afterwards.” ― Michelle Moore, Selling Simplified
Be Bold in your career.
Women are not always welcome in the sales profession. Could women be holding themselves back as well?
“Research has shown that men will apply for jobs that they have 70 to 80% of the skills for, whereas women will not apply for jobs that they have 100% of the skills for,” said Trish Bertuzzi, president, and chief strategist at The Bridge Group. “Come on, people. Take a chance.”
Bertuzzi also had harsh words for how women in sales should carry out their duties. “Lean in, speak up, have a say in your organization, and never say ‘sorry.'” (She received applause for this statement.)
Konrath also encouraged women to take advantage of the opportunities that sales provide.
“The sales profession is probably experiencing its most exciting period in history,” she said. “This is an excellent time for women to get involved, and women are frequently the best salespeople.”
Don’t try to act like a man.
Are there any skills that women bring to a sales role that men do not? Certainly, the panelists thought so.
Women, according to Black, are more intuitive than men, and trusting their intuition can help them succeed. Josiane Feigon, inside sales talent evangelist at TeleSmart Communications, said she built her coaching practice largely on intuition, which she said was “fairly accurate.”
Walton brought up an interesting point. “I think one of the things women do really well is bring an incredibly effective level of intimacy to a relationship with a customer,” she said. “Thomson Reuters’ top saleswomen achievers bring their entire selves to the client relationship, and that level of intimacy distinguishes them.”
“I would advise all women not to try to be like men,” Walton added. “Just bring your whole self as a woman to your client relationships.”
Are you a saleswoman? What are your success factors?
4 Key Characteristics of Today’s Saleswomen
Women are no longer constantly competing with one another. We are now beginning to usher in camaraderie, focusing not only on elevating ourselves, but also on who else we can bring to the table with us. Resilience, empathy, willingness to learn, and persistence are all traits that every woman on this list demonstrates on a daily basis. Consider the four key characteristics of a stellar saleswoman you may know. Consider what obstacles these women may have faced and what you can do to help provide more space for more women — just as these women have done for you.
Resilience
Have you ever applied for a job only to have someone else get it? Have you ever asked for a promotion only to be told “no”? How did you react when you were confronted with disappointment? You demonstrated resilience if you got back up and came back even stronger. Resilience is defined as the ability to face obstacles, challenges, and disappointments while still choosing to overcome and give your all. Let us not sugarcoat it. It is not simple. Knowing your worth and being able to persevere in the face of adversity takes a lot of grit. You can become more resilient once you realize you deserve better (which you most emphatically do).
Empathy
When you’re in a conference room, listening to (and truly hearing) your colleagues’ concerns, you’re being empathetic. We have an incredible ability to truly listen and understand what those around us say, as well as to ask questions to delve deeper into the discussion and get to the bottom of it all. Empathy gives you power. You understand the frustrations of your female colleagues in sales and can collaborate with them. This skill is important not only for the boardroom or manager meetings, but also for your team. Empathizing with your employees, hearing their struggles, relating to them, and collaborating with them to improve the situation allows for true growth and future success.
Willingness to Learn
This should be obvious. All of these women got to where they are today because they have a strong desire to not only be the best at what they do, but to learn how to be better than they can imagine. With so many resources available, particularly for free, more women are stepping up and expanding their knowledge of sales, relationships, communications, and so on. Remember that being willing to learn also means being willing to apply what you’ve learned.
Persistence
We’ve all had moments in our lives when we had to choose whether to continue and complete a task, or to stop dead in our tracks and turn around. Hopefully, you chose to be persistent and faced that opportunity head on, and you succeeded! The powerful women listed below aren’t here because they changed their minds when things got tough. Instead, they embraced the challenge and decided to milk it for all it was worth. They worked very hard. They worked hard. They were struggling. Nonetheless, they persisted and succeeded.
Case Study: 10 Top Influential Women Sales Leaders
Trish Bertuzzi is the CEO of The Bridge Group and a female evangelist who speaks at conferences. Trish Bertuzzi established The Bridge Group to assist B2B technology companies in developing world-class Inside Sales teams. She has promoted sales development and inside sales as a community, professional, and revenue generator for more than two decades. Her book, The Sales Development Playbook, is a must-read for anyone working in sales. She also serves on the Women Sales Professionals advisory board.
Carolyn Betts is the founder and CEO of Betts Recruiting. Carolyn spent the majority of her career in sales and recruiting before launching Betts Recruiting. Betts Recruiting is the go-to agency for companies looking for sales, marketing, and customer service talent in the United States. She has assisted many venture-backed companies in scaling their sales teams and has worked with early-stage companies in finding their first critical sales hire. Carolyn was named one of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals’ Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals and was a finalist for the Ebbies Change Leader Award.
Lori Richardson – Score More Sales Founder and CEO; Women in Sales Advocate Lori Richardson has been the Women Sales Pros’ driving force for the past six years. She spent her first 15 years in business as a salesperson and leader, closing $100 million in deals. She now advises mid-market technology companies on how to increase front-line revenue and build world-class sales teams based on her years of success and failure.
Jamie Crosbie is a peak performance mindset expert. During her training sessions, she shares both science and practical tools that you can use right away to improve your own and your team’s performance. She has 20 years of sales leadership and talent acquisition experience. She began her career in traditional recruiting firms, primarily in sales leadership roles, before launching her own company, ProActivate. She is the author of The Power of 2 – Exponential Sales Leadership, a sales management book based on real-world sales experiences.
Amy Volas is the President and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners. Amy Volas, the CEO of Avenue Talent Partners, has closed over $100 million in sales over the course of her 20-year career. She is a top sales thought leader and a regular contributor to the Sales Hacker blog. She specializes in recruiting, ramp, training, sales culture, and a variety of other areas.
Kasey Jones – BetterJones Cofounder, CEO, and Growth Strategist Kasey, a thought leadership and growth coach, enables resilient entrepreneurs to transform personal adversity into professional triumph. As the founder of A Better Jones, she works with entrepreneurs, early-stage startup founders, and ambitious business professionals to define their future vision, capitalize on their unique strengths, and chart the quickest path to business growth.
Shari Levitin is the CEO of the Levitin Group and a best-selling author. Shari Levitin is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, sales trainer, and keynote speaker. Her primary goal has always been to see people’s personal transformations through learning and development. In 1997, she founded the Levitin Group to share her proven techniques in two ways: keynote speaking and assisting businesses in scaling their training programs. She collaborates with sales leaders and VPs to assess and develop their sales teams. Her book Heart and Sell is recommended for all salespeople.
Bernadette McClelland – CEO at 3 Red Folders Trainer | Coach Bernadette McClelland assists CEOs and their sales teams in increasing their sales results and performance by building resilient, high-performing, and super-successful teams. Her company, 3 Red Folders, ensures that their customers achieve solid results by incorporating the art, neuroscience, and psychology of modern-day selling into the sales processes of each company with which she partners. Her new book, ‘The Art of Commercial Conversations,’ highlights the commercial leadership skills and conversations required for today’s B2B sales executives, leaders, and business owners.
Deb Calvert is the CEO of People First Productivity. Deb Calvert works with businesses to strengthen their organizations by putting people first. Her work in sales training, leadership development, and team effectiveness is evidence-based and human-centered. Deb personally “puts people first” by providing individuals with free resources. Her book Stop Selling, and Start Leading is a must-read for anyone interested in buyer experience and sales.
Misha McPherson is the CEO of HumbleGritSales and the Sales Enablement Manager at SaaSy Sales Management. Misha McPherson took her experience running sales enablement internally for many years and turned it into a hands-on consultancy. She has over 20 years of experience in tech sales and has created sales enablement programs for companies such as Mixpanel, Responsys, Yammer, Yahoo!, Monster, and others. She has also launched the first Sales Enablement BootCamp for professionals in the field.
Why We Can Benefit Getting More Women in Sales
Increasing the number of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields has become a hot topic in recent years, as these fields have historically had a low female representation. As a result, a number of organizations have emerged to assist in closing the gender disparity gap in STEM fields. Despite these great efforts, the US Department of Commerce’s 2017 STEM Update reports that women hold only 24% of STEM jobs.
Equally important, but less discussed, is getting more women into sales positions. According to this LinkedIn report, women make up 39% of the sales workforce. Over the last decade, this percentage has only increased by 3%. Unsurprisingly, the percentage decreases with seniority, with the lowest percentage of women in VP and CXO positions. Only 21% of Sales Vice Presidents are female.
There are several possible explanations for this. For starters, women may have preconceived notions about what it means to work in sales. People who still picture the stereotypical used car salesman, eager to do whatever it takes to close the deal, may associate sales with negativity.
Dan Pink asked people in his book To Sell is Human to describe what they think of when they hear the word “sales.” The most commonly used adjectives were “pushy,” “annoying,” “manipulative,” and “dishonest.” These are words that no woman, or man, wishes to be associated with. Pink’s research demonstrates that there is clearly still a gender bias in sales, regardless of gender.
The job descriptions for sales positions do not help the situation. Vivek Wadhwa, author of Innovating Women, argues in a New York Times Op-Ed that bias is already present in the hiring process. “Most tech job descriptions are geared toward men and have long lists of skills, the majority of which aren’t required or can be learned on the job,” he says.
Sales job descriptions, in particular, frequently use masculine terminology such as “hunter,” “aggressive,” and “compete.” Some job descriptions even state that candidates with experience in competitive team sports are preferred.
According to research, women are hesitant to apply for roles unless they check all of the boxes. According to a Hewlett-Packard study, women apply for jobs only when they believe they meet 100% of the qualifications listed. Men, on the other hand, apply even if they believe they only meet 60% of the requirements. This is why it is critical to write job descriptions in gender-neutral language in order to attract a diverse set of applicants.
The question, however, is not “Why aren’t there more women in sales?” The real question is, “Why do we need more female salespeople?”
1. Women Are Effective Salespeople
First and foremost, women are excellent salespeople. According to HubSpot, women are 5% more likely than men to close a deal.
Furthermore, Professor Joel Le Bon of the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business Sales Excellence Institute examined the sales performance of his 989 students over a seven-year period. The findings revealed that female top performers outnumbered male top performers by 62.5%. In addition, female top performers outperformed male top performers by 73.9%.
2. Women Can Improve Your Bottom Line
A diverse set of perspectives, ideas, and backgrounds benefits your bottom line.
Let the numbers speak for themselves on this one. According to a University of Illinois at Chicago study, companies with greater gender diversity are 15% more likely to profit. Furthermore, companies with a higher proportion of female board directors have a 42% higher return on sales than companies with a lower proportion of female board directors.
3. Women Can Help You Improve Your Customer Connection
Not only will having women on your sales teams benefit your bottom line, but it will also help you connect with your customers more effectively. To approach customers with empathy, your sales force should reflect the diversity of your customer base. Peak Sales Recruiting puts it succinctly:
“A more diverse sales force is also more likely to reflect the make-up of customer organizations and to have representatives who can connect and cultivate strong relationships with a diverse customer base.” If everyone in the sales organization looks the same and has similar experiences and points of view, they may struggle to find common ground with customers and prospects.”
To be honest, the information presented in this article should not come as a surprise. Women have traits and skills that make them natural salespeople, such as the ability to build trust, nurture relationships, listen, and make recommendations. Whether or not they were successful on a sports team is not an indicator of these skills, nor does it predict whether or not women can succeed in sales.
If you’re a startup looking to build a new sales force, or a company rethinking its sales talent strategy, consider gender diversity as a key component. Set goals for the number of female sellers you want in your organization and work hard to meet those targets.
At Microsoft Inside Sales, we’ve had the opportunity to hire 1,500 sellers in the last 18 months. We have set thoughtful goals for ourselves to ensure that our sales force has a balance of gender diversity, not only for the reasons stated above, but also because it is the right thing to do.
The strategy is effective. In some markets, women make up more than half of our inside sales force, and we’re continuing to invest in attracting female talent. I urge other companies to follow in our footsteps. The best part is that hiring women actually attracts more women. Women are more likely to hire, according to a Founders Club study.
So, rather than focusing solely on getting women into STEM, let’s add a “S” and start focusing on STEMS (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Sales).
Exercise 13.4
Course Manual 5: Pain to Solution
Today, we’ll look at customer pain points, specifically what they are and how you can position your company as a potential solution. We’ll look at several real-world examples to see how marketers address some of the most common customer pain points, as well as general advice on how to make yourself indispensable to your prospects at the right time and in the right place.
But, before we get to the examples, let’s go over the fundamentals.
What Exactly Are Customer Pain Points?
A pain point is a specific issue that prospective customers of your company are having. In other words, you can think of pain points as simple problems.
Customer pain points, like any other problem, are as diverse and varied as your prospective customers themselves. However, not all prospects will be aware of the pain point they are experiencing, which can make marketing to these people difficult because you must effectively help your prospects recognize they have a problem and persuade them that your product or service will help solve it.
Although pain points can be thought of as simple problems, they are frequently classified into several larger categories. The four main types of pain points are as follows:
• Financial issues: Your prospects are overpaying for their current provider/solution/products and want to cut back.
• Productivity Issues: Your prospects are wasting too much time with their current provider/solution/products or would like to switch.
• Process Problems: Your prospects want to improve internal processes like assigning leads to sales reps or nurturing lower-priority leads.
• Support Problems: Your prospects aren’t getting the help they require at critical points in the customer journey or sales process.
By categorizing customer pain points, you can begin to consider how to position your company or product as a solution to your prospects’ problems, as well as what is required to keep them satisfied. For example, if your prospects’ primary pain points are financial, you could highlight your product’s features in the context of a lower monthly subscription plan or emphasize the increased ROI your satisfied customers experience after becoming a client.
While this method of categorization is a good starting point, it isn’t as simple as identifying price as a pain point before pointing out that your product or service is less expensive than the competition. Many prospective customers’ problems are layered and complex, and they may involve issues from multiple of the categories listed above. That is why you must consider your customers’ pain points holistically and present your company as a solution to not just one particularly problematic pain point, but as a trusted partner who can assist in the resolution of a wide range of issues.
How to Determine Your Customers’ Pain Points?
Now that we understand what pain points are, we must figure out how to identify them.
Although many of your prospects are likely experiencing the same or similar pain points, the underlying causes of these pain points can be as varied as your clientele. As a result, qualitative research is an important part of identifying customer pain points.
Because your customers’ pain points are highly subjective, you must conduct qualitative research (which focuses on detailed, individualized responses to open-ended questions) rather than quantitative research (which favors standardized questions and representative, statistically significant sample sizes). Even if two customers have the same problem, the underlying causes of that problem may differ greatly between them.
Your customers and your sales and support teams are the two primary sources of information you need to identify your customers’ pain points. First, let’s look at how to get the information you need from your customers.
Conducting Out Qualitative Customer Research
Listening to your customers is one of the best ways to learn about their biggest problems.
Wordstream, an online advertising platform held a Customer Insight Round Table event, in which they invited 11 WordStream customers to spend some time at their Boston offices to share their experiences openly and honestly – good and bad – with them.
They asked attendees to participate in an Ideation & Design workshop as part of this process, which was a collaborative, hands-on session in which our customers identified some of their biggest challenges as online advertisers. This allowed attendees to stay focused on the issues they faced as advertisers rather than as individual entrepreneurs and business owners, and it also allowed us to concentrate on problems that were within our control.
They learned things about our customers’ problems that even the most detailed questionnaire could not uncover, and it allowed them to discuss those issues in the context of larger issues that their customers are facing. This provided them with a remarkably detailed view of our customers’ pain points as well as a broader understanding of how the current system works.
This type of event is priceless for your company. It not only allows you to speak at length with the people who use your products, but it also fosters an environment in which problem-solving is a collaborative process.
Your sales team is another research resource at your disposal. Every day, your sales reps are on the front lines of the battle for the hearts and minds of your prospective customers, making them an invaluable source of feedback on their pain points.
However, as useful as your sales team’s feedback can be, it’s critical to distinguish your sales reps’ pain points from your prospects’ pain points; your sales reps’ problems may be very real, but you’re not building a product or providing a service to make their lives easier (at least, not in the context of this training).
It is critical to distinguish between operational challenges and genuine customer pain points. Assume your sales reps are having a slow quarter and have missed sales targets for two months in a row. This is where things can become complicated. When faced with the prospect of missing another sales target, your reps may be tempted to complain about a lack of qualified leads, or the poor quality of the leads assigned to them. While this is a legitimate complaint, it has nothing to do with your customers’ pain, so you must filter out the noise to get to the real issue.
Assume your reps tell you that several potential deals have fallen through because the prospect stated that PPC is “too complicated.” This is a genuine customer concern. This speaks to a number of potential pain points, such as a lack of experience or training, a poor understanding of PPC best practices, a poorly allocated ad budget, a fundamental misunderstanding about your product and what it does, and a slew of other issues.
Whatever is causing the pain, you now have a pain point to address in your marketing. Remember the list of problems we made earlier in this post? Let’s look at the pain points we identified and how we can address them in our marketing:
• Financial: Highlight lower price points (if applicable), average client savings, and use language that reinforces better. ROI
• Productivity: Highlight reductions in wasted time experienced by current customers, as well as features that are simple to use (such as at-a-glance overviews or a centralized dashboard)
• Processes: Mention current/planned integrations with existing products/services (for example, Slack’s integration with Dropbox and Salesforce), and emphasize how your product/service can make traditionally difficult/time-consuming tasks easier.
• Support: Make the prospect feel like a partner by emphasizing your after-market support, and use connecting language in your copy (“us,” “we,” etc.).
It is critical to remember that you cannot “prove” that you can alleviate your prospects’ pain, and what works for one customer may not work for another. That is why social validation is so important when using customer pain points in your marketing; word-of-mouth recommendations and user reviews become far more persuasive when a prospect already believes your product or service has the potential to improve their life.
There is no gain without pain.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of what your customers are looking for when they search for companies or products similar to yours. Although many customer pain points are similar, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for alleviating your customers’ discomfort. Fortunately, no one knows your customers better than you, so get to work on your research and start assisting your customers in achieving their goals.
Techniques for Solving Problems
If you’ve spent any time in sales over the last 30 years, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Solution-Based Selling.
Solution-based selling, which began in the 1970s, was a game changer in the sales industry. It was a paradigm shift that turned everything we knew about convincing leads to buy products on its head. It does not provide lists of features and benefits, but instead focuses on solutions to problems and pain points.
And, while many have declared that solution-based selling is no longer effective (or even alive…), this is not entirely correct. Solution-based selling as we knew it in the 1980s may no longer be as effective as it once was, but the technique, like all things, has evolved.
Today, we’ll look at how you can incorporate some new solution-based selling techniques into your sales repertoire to ensure you’re not only assisting your customers in finding the product solutions they require, but also closing the deal.
What exactly is Solution-Based Selling?
Before we get into the specifics of improving your solution-based selling program, let’s define what solution-based selling is.
SBS programs, as Keith M. Eades explains in THE NEW SOLUTION BASED SELLING, are a type of sales and selling methodology. A problem-led SELLING PROCESS is used by a SALESPERSON or sales team in solution selling (rather than product-led). This assists in determining whether and how a change in a product could result in specific improvements desired by the customer.
This was a significant departure from the previous sales strategy. Salespeople used this methodology to regale potential customers with all of an item’s features and benefits. It frequently emphasized how unique and or cost effective their product was.
That was abandoned in favor of a more organic approach by the solution-based selling sales model. The salesperson concentrated on assisting the potential customer in resolving a problem. Then, using one of their existing products, they reverse engineered a solution.
It was critical to shift from “we” the company selling the product to “you” the customer. It made potential customers feel more like they were being helped rather than sold to.
That changed everything.
Is consultative selling synonymous with solution-based selling?
At this point, we should take a moment to discuss consultative selling. Why? Because many people are unsure if it is the same as solution-based selling.
You’ll get different answers depending on who you ask – this could be an entire article in and of itself. However, they are largely interchangeable for our purposes here. A consultative selling program essentially accomplishes the same thing as a solution-based approach. It consults with a prospective customer to assist them in resolving a problem. Then proposes a solution that benefits both parties. The customer’s problem has been resolved, and the salesperson has closed a deal.
As a result, solution-based sales techniques and consultative selling techniques are essentially equivalent.
Is Solution-Based Selling Extinct?
Sales, like marketing, has never met a buzzword that it didn’t like. It’s also a field that’s all too eager to declare things “dead” in order to promote some new variation of the thing we insist doesn’t work any longer.
When something has been around for as long as solution-based selling, it’s inevitable that someone will call it quits sooner or later. This has been the case with this technique for many years.
Yes, solution-based selling as it was practiced 30 years ago is a little out of date – but, like so many other things, it has evolved. The fundamental principles are as relevant today as they were during the Carter administration. The principles of focusing on your customer’s pain points by assisting them in identifying them and then providing solutions.
What has changed – and presumably will continue to change – is how salespeople qualify leads, what questions they ask, and who they target.
Case Study: Harvard Business Review
“In fact, a recent Corporate Executive Board study of more than 1,400 B2B customers found that those customers completed, on average, nearly 60% of a typical purchasing decision—researching solutions, ranking options, setting requirements, benchmarking pricing, and so on—before even having a conversation with a supplier.”
In recent decades, sales representatives have honed their skills at identifying customers’ needs and selling them “solutions.” Customers didn’t know how to solve their own problems, so this worked. However, the world of business-to-business selling has changed: companies can now easily define their own solutions and force suppliers into a price-driven bake-off.
However, there is some good news, according to the authors, all Corporate Executive Board directors. A select group of reps thrive in this environment, and lessons from their playbook can help other reps and organizations improve their performance.
These top reps look for a variety of organizations, focusing on those with emerging rather than established demand. Instead of waiting for the customer to identify a problem that the supplier can solve, they engage early on and suggest provocative solutions. They look for a different set of stakeholders, preferring skeptical change agents over friendly informants, and coach those change agents on how to buy rather than quizzing them on their company’s purchasing process.
High-performing salespeople are still selling solutions, but they are also selling insights. In this new world, that can mean the difference between a pitch that fails and one that wins the customer’s business.
Despite claims to the contrary, this is not the end of solution-based selling. Rather, it serves as a reminder that your sales team will need to step up their game by modifying their solution-based selling techniques.
Solution-Based Sales Techniques
We have defined solution-based selling and determined that it is not dead. Let’s go over some of the techniques your salespeople can employ to assist your customers in resolving their most pressing issues. While also completing the transaction.
Just a quick note. If you’re reading this and thinking that your old solution-based selling techniques from the 1980s and 1990s, have you future-proofed, think again. Yes, the demise of solution-based selling has been overstated. However, if you want to be truly effective in today’s market, you’ll need to understand insight selling techniques.
5 Key Solution-Focused Selling Techniques
1. Identify the Customer’s Problem
In the early days of solution selling, the salesperson would approach a lead and ask them to share a potential problem or pain point they were experiencing.
The salesperson would then work backwards. They’d figure out how to tailor their offering to perfectly solve that problem for the company, and they’d frequently close the deal.
So, how does the solution seller re-enter the discussion? By identifying problems that the company isn’t already aware of.
Providing solutions to problems that the company is unaware of is a great way for a solution-based seller to add value. This method necessitates a little more thought than simply asking open-ended questions. That technique is now less effective than it has ever been. In today’s market, being a salesperson isn’t enough; you also need to think like a consultant and problem solver.
2. Get Rid of Scripted Communications
People nowadays can tell the difference between a sales pitch and a genuine conversation. You’re doomed if you approach prospects with the same old deck of open-ended questions that are as stale as the box of Animal Crackers in the back of your pantry.
Previously, a solution-based seller could rely on his expertise to gain the trust of a potential customer. Companies nowadays have teams of people who can conduct their own product research. Salespeople are usually not involved in the process until much later. This means that, more than ever before, the seller’s opportunity to build trust with the customer is much smaller.
As a result, you must hit the ground running – and a stack of the same old questions will not suffice. In the twenty-first century, sales can feel a lot like an elevator pitch. You have two minutes to make a good first impression and win them over. So, instead of asking tired questions, provide insight and value.
Prove that you have a thorough understanding of the potential client’s business and issues, and you will gain the prospect’s trust.
3. Teach When Possible
It is not sufficient to simply identify the problem that your customer is unaware of. You must also teach them why this is a problem that must be addressed and how to overcome the obstacle.
Hopefully, your first thought isn’t that “teaching” means showing them how your specific product can solve the problem. If it is, you are missing the point, and your lead will most likely shut you down.
If you were brought in late in the process after they requested an RFP, the customer is already familiar enough with your product to be interested. Instead, this is your chance to delve deeper (but not with canned questions…). Determine the source of the pain.
In today’s solution-based selling system, the salesperson is a problem solver as well as a salesperson. They are often more of a problem solver than a salesperson in many cases. You’re still providing solutions, but the emphasis is on the customer’s problem rather than how your product can solve it.
If you don’t teach leads and potential customers how to better solve problems, they didn’t know they had, closing sales will be much more difficult than expected.
4. Modify Your Lead-Generation Strategy
Most sales teams used to prioritize potential customers in the same way. They’d look for businesses that had a problem that needed to be solved and a well-defined vision. And one with a well-defined procedure for making purchasing decisions.
That method is no longer applicable.
According to research, top sellers (defined as those in the top 20% of quota attainment) target potential customers in a completely different manner.
Rather than focusing on the tried and true, the best salespeople today seek out what are known as “agile customers.”
These are the customers who have been pre-programmed to be ready and able to act quickly when presented with a viable solution to a problem. They are not bogged down in processes that take weeks or months to complete (or years even).
They are also looking for areas of “organizational flux.”
These are businesses that are experiencing external or internal upheaval. According to the HBR article, this could be due to regulatory reform, management changes, or any number of other factors.
The point is that in these organizations, radical change is now part of the daily routine. This allows a solution-based seller to enter and pitch new ideas without upsetting the status quo.
In the traditional solution-based selling approach, neither of these scenarios would be potential targets. However, in today’s market, these are the whales that captains hope to catch.
Change creates opportunity, and this is especially true in this case.
5. Find the Right Person in the Organization
Taking this a step further, once top salespeople have found the right company, they have shifted their thinking about who to align with on the inside as well.
Salespeople were once taught to look for “advocates” within the organization. The idea was that these people would open doors to decision makers and help push a potential sale through.
For decades, lists of characteristics to look for in potential advocates have existed – but in the modern world, the advocate is no longer the target.
It’s all about what’s known as “mobilizers” these days.
The HBR article’s researchers break down all of the people who make up the various client archetypes.
They go into far more detail than is required here. The mobilizer grouping, on the other hand, is made up of educators, go-getters, and skeptics.
You might be thinking to yourself, “Skeptics? That appears to be counterproductive…”
The thing is mobilizers all have one thing in common. They’re all interested in bringing about change and finding better ways to solve problems. Consider how this might appeal to a solution-based salesperson.
Recruiting the mobilizer is frequently more difficult than recruiting the traditional advocate. This is due to their lack of interest in you, your company, or your product aside from how it can benefit their company. But what if you can solve a problem that a mobilizer isn’t aware they have? The chances of making a quick sale skyrocket.
These are the contacts you should be making.
Conclusion
As you can see, solution-based selling has evolved significantly over the last few years. Businesses have become more savvy and aware of their own challenges and available solutions. As a result, the solution-based sales team has had to evolve.
That’s fine, though; change is good.
While it’s common to hear that solution-based and consultative selling are dead, what we’re really seeing is a sales system that’s simply mutating to keep up with the times.
While the techniques and buzzword names may have changed, you are still solving customer problems. You’re still having discussions. You’re still assisting customers in finding solutions. The foundation is the same whether we call it solution-based sales, insight sales, or something else entirely.
Using these tips will not only help you bring your sales strategy into the twenty-first century, but they will also help you improve your bottom line.
“A salesperson’s ethics and values contribute more to sales success than do techniques or strategies.” – Ron Willingham
Exercise 13.5: Elevator Pitch/Mission Statement
1. Hand out a printed version of this outline and have all participants fill it out to the best of their ability.
2. Then, go around the room and have everyone share their pitch!
Course Manual 6: Research and Prioritize
Everyone tells you that you should conduct research on your potential customers, but no one tells you how to do it. Whether you work in a small or large company, you need good prospect research, and you may be wondering where to start and how to add useful details to that enigmatic group known as “potential customers.”
In this lesson, we will go deep on how to research potential ideal customers effectively and efficiently and then how to best prioritize your leads.
Research:
Combine research methods and resources.
Overall, you want to have a mix of qualitative and quantitative research, using both primary and secondary sources — a mix of interpretive observations, objective testing, and irrefutable data. When researching prospects, you want to understand not only the statistical profile of a group, but also the subtle nuances of an individual buyer and his or her thought process.
Here is a list of five simple ways to learn more about your prospects to get you started. There are both online and offline methods included some of which require money and others which do not. Here are five methods for researching potential customers.
1. Make use of Google Alerts, Mention Alerts, or Talkwalker Alerts.
Are you taking advantage of the wealth of information available online to learn more about your customers, prospective buyers, and purchasing habits? If you haven’t already, you should. I used to simply recommend going to www.google.com/alerts and creating an alert for each company or behavior, as well as selecting the frequency for notifications you want to receive, but as Google alerts have become unreliable in recent years, I now recommend using Mention and/or Talkwalker Alerts as well. Both of these Google alert alternatives perform far better when it comes to monitoring social media networks and obscure blogs.
Preview results from any alert service(s) you’re using to ensure your search parameters are correct. You will quickly learn about your prospect’s new initiatives, interests, and activities if they are a publicly traded company or a small business active in their local community. A Google Alert will notify you whenever new research is published if you are trying to monitor the behavior of B2B tech buyers or consumers in the sandwich generation, for example.
It’s an excellent opportunity for marketers to keep track of key trends, customers, and specific prospects. (Send a note of congratulations if an existing customer or prospect wins an award, for example.)
2. Conduct current customer interviews
This may seem obvious, but when was the last time you had a long conversation with one of your customers? They are an excellent resource because they have already purchased your product or service and are relatively close to you. Interviewing customers will not only provide you with insight into their decision-making process, but it will also provide you with content for a case study. Offering to prepare and promote a collaborative case study can benefit both you and your customer. In addition to speaking with customers one-on-one, consider surveying prospects or holding focus groups. (This will undoubtedly be the subject of a future blog post.) Your goal is to identify common interests, sources of information, and challenges.
But be cautious. Remember that each client or customer is unique, especially for professional services firms and nonprofits. It can be very tempting to project the opinions and behaviors of a favorite nonprofit client onto every other nonprofit, which can lead to disastrous results. To reduce this risk, you should read “How NOT to Use Customer Demographics in Your Marketing.”
3. Examine your web analytics
You have a lot of data at your disposal thanks to web analytics, but are you using it to learn more about your buyers and others who share your values and interests? Consider the following questions:
• What are the visitor behavior patterns?
• Where do they originate?
• What search terms did they use to find you?
• Where do they go when they’re on the site?
• How long will they be there?
• What are the most popular content formats?
• Do these patterns tell you anything about where your customers are in their purchasing process or what content is most effective at each stage?
Use this data to improve your website and landing pages in order to attract others who are interested in the same services, products, or issues.
4. Make use of your competitors and the industry
Not only do your customers have more information than ever before, but you do as well! One way to gain valuable insights into your buyers is to examine the websites and research or case studies published by your competitors. Remember that ‘your competitors’ include inaction, DIY software, and other financial professionals. Your competitors are, by definition, attempting to reach the same prospect audience as you. Examining their case studies may help you better understand your prospect, as well as why they may have previously chosen your competitor over you.
5. Make use of professional social networks.
Use the major professional networks (such as LinkedIn and Quora) and look for other, industry-specific networks where your prospects may be.
Offline (or in person), consider collaborating with other professionals to sponsor a series of local ‘Tuesday Morning Coffee Clubs’ or other informal opportunities to talk with groups of potential clients and referral sources.
3 Research Tips to Help Attract your Ideal Clients
Often, you’re so close to your product or service that you don’t understand why your ideal clients require it…
That is why, when developing your marketing strategy, you should always begin at the beginning – even if you believe you know your ideal clients better than they know themselves…
Where to begin?
Before you spend time or money marketing your services, you should first figure out who you’re talking to…
• What do they want?
• How do they communicate?
• What are their thoughts?
• What issues do they require resolution to?
• What’s important to them? Values, mission etc.
Knowing these facts about your potential customers will help you attract, connect with, and ultimately sell to them.
Begin with research, with the goal of understanding your target market’s true needs…
Here are three methods for researching your ideal clients in order to attract more of them:
1. Consult with previous and current clients.
Your actual customers are the best resource for researching why your customers buy your product or service.
Real customers, who have paid real money, provide real insight.
In many cases, they will explain why they chose you over someone else.
You can then use that information to appeal to potential clients who are similar to them. (Note: Only do this if you like your current clients.)
When someone purchases your product or service, ask him or her right away, “Why did you purchase today?” or something along those lines. For example, you could inquire:
• What aspects of (this product) excite you the most?
• Why did you decide to purchase (product or service) today?
• What was the most important factor in choosing me as your freelance contractor over other freelance contractors?
The sooner you ask these questions, the better, because you want the answer while it’s still fresh in their mind.
You could include a form on your “thank you” page, call or email past or current clients, or incorporate this question into your client intake process.
Simply ask your customers why they purchased.
Then, using their responses, highlight the benefits that matter most.
2. Dig Into Social Media
Facebook is a great tool for understanding your ideal clients. All you need to do is create a business Facebook page and gain a few fans who are also your ideal clients.
Then, go through the pages of your fans. Consider the following:
• What other websites do they enjoy?
• What do their status updates say? And how exactly do they say it?
• What are their grievances, or what problems do they require resolution to?
Look for similarities as well as the language they use. After that, incorporate those elements into your marketing.
Insights into Pages
Go to the Page Insights feature to get information on all of your fans at once (found at the top of your Page Manager).
You can view basic demographic data about your audience using Page Insights. They provide information on gender and age, as well as countries, cities, and languages.
Our results improve dramatically when we concentrate our marketing efforts on a specific demographic. Why? We’re appealing to the vast majority of our fans.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is primarily used for professional networking and business. LinkedIn is an excellent source of information.
While many people use LinkedIn to find and contact potential clients, it can also be used to gain a better understanding of your ideal clients.
Assume your ideal clients are marketing directors… A quick search on LinkedIn, for example, yielded 4,916 results for “marketing director”.
By combing through LinkedIn results, you can find things like:
• They are members of various groups.
• They are involved in discussions.
• They’ve left reviews for others.
• Things they consider valuable enough to share.
• And much, much more.
You can learn a lot about your ideal clients in just a few minutes, from the skills they value to where they’re active online.
3. Monitor your competitors.
While I always warn against blindly copying your competition, you can still learn a lot by watching them – and their interactions with potential clients.
For example, if you’re company designs websites, look at the websites of other web designers, but don’t stop there… dive deeper.
What specific characteristics are praised if they have testimonials? Which particular clients?
Which social media posts have received the most attention?
Or, for their blog, which posts have received the most comments?
Pay close attention to the precise wording used by your potential clients.
If you come across a company doing something that appears to be effective, why not contact them and inquire about their specific results with that method?
Google Alerts
Once you’ve finished your first round of “spying,” you’ll want to keep up with your opponents. After all, things change quickly on the internet.
If you don’t have much time, I recommend Google Alerts
It’s quick and easy to set up, and Google will automatically send you updates based on the keywords you care about.
Simply enter your keyword term, select how frequently you want results, and then click “Create Alert.”
Google will then notify you of new search results for your keyword term, ensuring that you are always aware of what your competitors are writing and how potential clients are reacting.
Now Let’s Prioritize!
Prioritizing customers and prospects is an important aspect of business management. Fortunately, it is also the area of a sales position that has the most influence on sales performance. Based on my personal experience as a salesperson for more than 30 years, as well as my consulting with over 300 companies and training thousands of salespeople, I’m convinced that this one area has the greatest potential for making dramatic and immediate changes in your results.
It is the first consideration for effective working. Becoming more effective begins with deciding where to invest your valuable time: with customers and prospects.
First, examine your attitude.
Begin with an attitude assessment. Too often, salespeople spend their time with customers who like them, are easy to notice, or have become friends. All of these are nice, and those types of customers have a place in every sales territory. However, if those customers aren’t high potential, investing time in them isn’t a good idea.
Other salespeople let their days be dictated by their customers’ problems, interests, and whims without regard for their potential. They spend the entire day responding to and reacting to whoever is on the phone or requesting their time. Again, there is a place for this, but salespeople who let their reactions to customer inquiries shape their days are wasting their time.
A Change in Attitude
Working smart necessitates the right mindset. Time is precious and time is money therefore this is a great attitude to adopt: I will make cold-blooded business decisions about where to invest my time.
We are naturally drawn to people who are simple and easy to visit. We prefer to be with people who regard us favorably. However, just because a group of customers makes us feel at ease does not imply that we should spend our time there. By instilling a cold-blooded attitude, we can eliminate the natural proclivity for the comfortable call. We must base our decisions about where to spend our time on more logical, hard and fast financial criteria. To protect ourselves from us and make the most of the situation, we must use cold-blooded logic.
Let’s think about it together. Some prospects and customers are more likely to convert than others. That doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out. But what does this mean for our behavior? If some prospects and customers have greater potential than others, shouldn’t we spend the most time with those who have the greatest potential?
Without a doubt. That makes perfect sense. So, did you spend the majority of your time last week with your most important customers and prospects? Most likely not. Let’s fix that.
Pareto’s Principle:
A fundamental principle of human labor states that the majority of your results will come from a small portion of your market. You’ve probably heard of the Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers. I came across a similar principle a few years ago in Richard Gaylord Briley’s book, “Everything I Need to Know About Success, I Learned in the Bible.” Briley described the 5/50 principle, which states that 5% of the population generates 50% of the jobs and wealth in a society. It has been tested on businesses and sales territories and has been found to be consistently true. (50% of the business comes from 5% of the customers)
Better Results = Concentrating on a Few High-Potential Accounts
Assume you have one high-potential account with $1,000,000 in potential and ten lower-potential accounts with the same potential. How long will it take to make a call on each of those ten accounts? Include time spent driving, making appointments, waiting, preparing, and so on. How long do you think it will take you to call on that high-potential account? Significantly less. Even if you call on ten people in that one high-potential account, your total time investment will be less. So, just from an efficiency standpoint, focusing on high-potential accounts makes sense.
Identifying High-Probability Customers and Prospects
In order to put this strategy into action, you must first define “high potential.” When it comes to potential, many salespeople have a big misconception. They define potential through the lens of history. To put it another way, if I asked you to show me your high-potential accounts, you’d pull out a computer report with sales data. However, in reality, history has little to do with potential. Just because an account has been a good customer in the past does not guarantee that it will be a good customer in the future. Potential describes what they might buy in the future, whereas sales reports document the past.
The second common misconception is that sales potential is only measured in dollars. In other words, an account with the ability to buy $500,000 from you is automatically thought to have greater potential than an account with the ability to buy $250,000. It isn’t always the case. Consider the following for a moment.
The true potential is measured by a ratio of two numbers, not by a single number. High potential is the ratio of the likelihood of receiving dollars to the amount of time required to obtain those dollars.
Case Study Example:
Let’s take a look at two different accounts. Smith Brothers could theoretically buy $500,000 from you next year, while Ajax Manufacturing could only afford half that — $250,000. Smith has more potential if we only consider total dollars. However, that viewpoint is overly simplistic and does not reflect the reality of the situation. Assume the truth is as follows: Smith Brothers has a long-standing contract with one of your competitors. That sole-source contract will not expire for another three years. Not only that, but your competitor and Smith Brothers are also extremely close in other ways, as their CEOs are brothers-in-law.
You could spend hundreds of hours calling Smith Brothers and not make a single penny in additional sales.
Ajax, on the other hand, has no affinity for your rivals. In fact, you and the key players there have very good personal relationships. Their business philosophy is very similar to yours, and you have a good track record of working with them. You know several key people within the organization and have even had lunch with the CEO.
Now, given the reality of the situation between the two accounts, where should you invest your time? Is it Smith, with its greater monetary potential? Is it Ajax, with its smaller size? The answer is Ajax which took about two seconds to choose. Why? Because the customer’s or prospect’s potential is a ratio of two numbers.
• The likelihood of dollars returned for your time investment is defined as potential.
• 10 hours of selling time spent on Ajax will net you far more money than the same amount of time spent on Smith.
• It is not how much they can buy that is important, but how much they are likely to buy in exchange for your investment of selling time in them.
This is a critical concept in your quest to become more effective. Many of your decisions will be based on this understanding. The potential isn’t dollars, but rather the likelihood of dollars returned for time invested.
Prioritizing Your Leads
Have you ever noticed that some qualified leads take longer to convert than others? Sometimes this is true only for certain salespeople. Hiring new salespeople, generating more leads, or increasing conversion are all ways to increase sales. The third option is exceptional in that it will result in both lower costs and higher revenue. Optimization is a process, not a destination.
B.A.N.T. is binary because it helps you determine whether or not a lead is worth your time. There are a few factors you can consider when deciding which leads should be prioritized over others. With this information, you can arrange leads in the proper order and learn what factors to consider before proceeding.
Outbound vs. inbound
If an inquiry is sent (inbound), you can assume that the lead is having some issues and that the potential client is aware of how your product may work. When you initiate contact (an outbound lead), it is likely that your potential client has never heard of you. They are most likely at the beginning of their customer journey. That means that if you don’t have perfect timing, you’ll have to assist them in identifying their pain points. You must persuade them that a conversation with you is worthwhile. Your inbound lead, on the other hand, is most likely speaking with a couple of your competitors. Outbound, once trust is established, you may have a chance for exclusiveness.
To gain a deeper understanding, you can ask:
• Why did you respond to my cold email (or cold call)?
• Why did you decide to contact us now?
• What prompted you to learn more?
These questions will assist you in determining what motivates the leader. Typically, you will receive one of three responses:
• A commendation (you have great case studies, reputation, or portfolio).
• An understanding of what you’re doing well (for example, they wanted to talk to you because they thought your cold e-mail was funny), so you know what works.
• An understanding of your customer’s plight (they wanted to get in touch now because the problem you can help them solve got pressing)
Decision Maker
Even within the same company, the CEO, CMO, and HR Director all have different points of view and priorities. Assume that CEOs are concerned with growth, CMOs with marketing presence and lead generation, and HR Directors are concerned with ensuring that employees do not want to kill each other on a daily basis. Of course, this is a generalization; you can meet HR-focused CEOs, for example. It is your responsibility to comprehend the customer’s unique point of view as well as his pain points. Based on your knowledge, you should highlight various outcomes of using your product.
Localization
The country of origin can help you forecast what to expect from your lead. Each country has its own unique characteristics.
You should understand where closing deals is faster or slower and prioritize the faster ones. You should understand your deal size and concentrate on geographies with larger deals. You should be aware that some countries do not pay on time – and charge them upfront.
Has your lead ever used a solution like yours?
A company that previously worked with one of your competitors is usually more insightful when it comes to your solution – they already have something to compare you to. The previous supplier may have generated positive or negative experiences, which you should inquire about and address if necessary. Leads who are purchasing something for the first time typically require more education, so be prepared for longer sales cycles with those clients.
Lead qualification will provide you with more information on who is most eager to work with you. Then you’ll know which leads are important to you.
Do they hire a specific specialist or groups of specialists?
If your product, for example, solves HR issues, check LinkedIn to see if your lead employs HR specialists. This information will allow you to adjust your communication and manage the conversation more effectively. You can use data to determine which leads are more important than others.
The size of the deal
With all of these variables, you can estimate how long and labor-intensive the sales process will be. Consider the size of the potential deal. You can then do some math to determine whether prioritizing a specific lead is worthwhile.
Remember that no two businesses are exactly alike, so some of the above factors will be more important than others. It’s always a good idea to identify your own factors that are unique to the product.
By qualifying leads, you will be able to quickly determine how important some leads are to you and the likelihood of potential collaboration. If you have a sales team, data will help you determine who performs best with a specific group of leads and effectively relocate sales opportunities. Then “lack of time for a good lead” will not be an issue in your organization.
Exercise 13.6: Conduct a Competitive Analysis
• It exposes your team to what internal documentation you already have on the subject.
• It can focus on one specific aspect of your product/service for a more thorough deep dive.
• It compares you to your competition with a fresh set of eyes, which could offer new talking points and arguments for future sales situations.
• A description of your company’s target market
• Details about your product or service versus the competitors’
• Current and projected market share, sales, and revenues
• Pricing comparison
• Marketing and social media strategy analysis
• Differences in customer ratings
Course Manual 7: Use Storytelling
“Stories connect us at a human level that factual statements and logical arguments can’t possibly match.” –Steve Woodruff (Clarity Wins: Get Heard. Get Referred.)
Have you ever heard of the saying facts tell and stories sell?
We’ve been telling stories for as long as we’ve been human, and they’re an essential part of our daily communication. When done well, storytelling can do wonders for a business, such as turning a brand into a legacy, developing a strong marketing strategy, generating profit, and gaining audience loyalty and affection, to name a few.
Storytelling in sales conversations is a terrific way to build rapport, trust, and relatability with your potential clients. When you share stories effectively, your ideal client will remember what you share, making it easier for them to make a purchasing decision.
3 Reasons Storytelling is a Powerful Tool in Selling
When compared to other forms of sales communication, storytelling has a number of distinct advantages. It can aid in capturing your buyer’s attention and developing your mutual relationship. It communicates with the decision-making areas of your buyer’s brain, making you and your product more memorable. Moving your product to a different context can literally increase its value.
Here are three compelling reasons why storytelling is such an effective sales tool:
Stories aid in the formation of strong relationships.
Storytelling builds trust, which is the foundation of all good relationships, almost magically. In a 1999 New York Times/CBS poll, respondents were asked, “How many people do you think are trustworthy in general?” ” The average response was 30%. Then it asked, “How many people do you think are trustworthy among those you know?” ” The average response increased to 70%! 1 What does this imply? It implies that people who don’t know you are unlikely to trust you. People who do know you, on the other hand, will trust you unless you give them a reason not to.
Because it provides a personal, intimate, and possibly vulnerable glimpse into your world, telling a story can help you move from 30% to 70%. Reading the facts on your resume will not allow someone to get to know you and spending enough time together may take months or years. A story is the shortest path between being a stranger and becoming a friend.
How important is it to increase from 30% to 70%? Quite a bit, it appears. Mike Parrott, vice president and general merchandise manager at Costco Wholesale, has spent the last 15 years on the buyer’s side of the desk. “If all other things are equal, buyers will buy from the salesperson they like and trust the most,” he says. It breaks the ties. And there are a lot of ties in this business.”
Storytelling speaks to the part of the brain that makes decisions.
Much of cognitive science over the last two decades has revealed that humans frequently make subconscious, emotional, and sometimes irrational decisions in one part of the brain and then rationally and logically justify those decisions in another. So, if you want to influence buyers’ decisions, facts and rational arguments alone will not suffice. You need to emotionally influence them, and stories are the best way to do so.
“The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor,” says NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
Stories assist the buyer in remembering you, your ideas, and your product.
Many studies show that facts that are embedded in a story are easier to remember than facts that are delivered in any other way. However, you are not required to believe these studies. Decide for yourself after going through the following exercise.
Demonstration Exercise:
Aside from connecting with an audience on a deeper level, storytelling allows you to be creative with your sales pitch and add some personality to what you’re selling.
Consider the type of sales pitch you’d like to hear: do you want to hear a bunch of boring industry-related statistics?
Alternatively, would you like to hear about a real-life scenario in which the product made someone’s life easier or better?
To tell your story, use case studies or customer testimonials. Which could look like this:
“Max from X Enterprise sells manufacturing software.” He began using our service a few months ago. He told me the other day that their sales productivity is skyrocketing and that they’re doing ten times as many demos. His salespeople also appreciate the all-in-one, mobile-friendly dashboard.”
This type of storytelling provides prospects with visual, relatable outcomes (in the form of increased sales productivity and demos).
And telling the story through characters (like Max and his reps) makes the pitch more engaging than just data and statistics.
Storytelling is a powerful business tool and a skill that every company that wants to build a strong and lasting brand should master.
5 Ways to Incorporate Storytelling Into Your Sales Strategy
To use storytelling in sales, you don’t have to be a great writer or a creative genius. It only takes a little planning and practice.
1. Master the Fundamentals of Storytelling
Most stories have a distinct beginning, middle, and end. This structure keeps the story simple and easy to follow.
In addition, your story must center on your prospect’s journey. Create your pitch using the following guidelines:
• Who is the main character?
• What is the main challenge that the character faces?
• How will the character overcome the difficulty?
2. Identify the Takeaway
Knowing your endgame will make it easier to lay out the framework for the story.
What is the main point you want the listener to remember after you finish your story?
Alternatively, why should your customer care?
The prospective customer will care because, by the end of the story, they will see how your product can help them get what they want.
3. Capture Your Prospect’s Interest (and Hold It)
Stories must be both interesting and informative. Put yourself in the shoes of the listener and consider whether this is a story you’d want to hear.
Keep the language short and punchy and use familiar (but not boring) phrases.
When telling a story, you must remove any complications or barriers that prevent prospects from grasping the overall goal: to sell your product!
4. Personalize Your Sales Story
This is most likely the most important aspect of storytelling. It takes some effort but pays off big when it comes to closing deals.
To tailor the message to your prospect, use past client experiences (such as case studies).
Check for industry changes that may affect your prospect’s business and incorporate that information into your story.
Did they announce a recent merger in a press release? Mentioning the change makes the pitch more meaningful.
5. Practice your story aloud.
Whether you’re sending an email or making a cold call, you must practice reading your story aloud to ensure it feels natural to you and sounds authentic to your listener.
Act as if you’re speaking to your ideal prospect. You’ll pick up on awkward language, which can make your pitch appear robotic.
The more you practice, the more assured you will sound — even when pitching your most difficult prospects.
Example of Storytelling in Sales
Here’s how your story might sound if you followed the advice above.
Beginning: Jack, the VP of Sales, is the main character.
“Jack, I see your organization recently upgraded its CRM. How are things going with you and your sales team?”
The character’s challenge in the middle.
“One of the difficulties in managing a CRM is keeping it up to date with accurate data.” Perhaps you’ve seen it: your sales reps waste a lot of time researching dead-end contacts when they could be closing deals.”
Conclusion: How the protagonist overcomes the obstacle
“You’ve made an excellent investment in a CRM. However, it is only as good as the data that goes into it. In fact, we recently assisted a VP of Sales in a similar industry in increasing their productivity by tenfold.
Their sales team is working overtime. They’re quite content. I’m confident we can do the same for you.”
Great sales storytelling is simple – it’s all about being genuine and communicating how your product can help people in real-world scenarios.
The key is to make your prospect the focal point of your story (i.e., the main character).
Use case studies and customer stories to demonstrate how your product or service will help solve your prospect’s business problem.
Case Study: What makes you different?
When entering a crowded market, the question is: what sets you apart?
There are numerous supermarkets, design firms, and dentist offices. Nonetheless, each of them has a distinct profile or a vibe that is tuned into the energy of their target audience.
Nike sells athletic equipment. Aside from the well-known “Just do it,” they’ve positioned themselves with numerous influencer-baked stories via athletes such as Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, and a slew of football players.
McDonald’s spent $2.3 million on a national advertising campaign in 1967, establishing a strong brand, pioneering in exceptional customer service, and innovating in the “Happy Meals” department. Since then, they’ve created hundreds of incredible campaigns, such as “love story” journeys with marriage proposals in their stores, reactions to international events, and pivots in takeaway products (among others).
Apple was not the first company to sell smartphones or headphones, and unlike competitors such as Dell, they were the only company to position itself as a leader in multiple categories. Their original mission statement stated that they wanted to “make personal computing accessible to everyone.” To broaden their product portfolio, they rebranded themselves from “Apple Computers” to “Apple,” and pitched their audience on incredible designs, simplicity, and user-friendliness (rather than boasting about).
Businesses operate in a variety of ways and adhere to a variety of business processes. Some prioritize quality, while others prioritize price.
Each market is valuable to a specific group of people.
To strengthen the bond between your company and its market, you need a story that acts as a link between you and your customers.
Businesses that understand this inherently human desire for connection, can wrap their vision into a beautiful and captivating story, and clearly communicate this story to their audience using an effective and heartfelt marketing strategy, create long-term brand loyalty.
“Your audience is waiting for your stories. They have memory slots tailor-made to light up and remember you.” – Steve Woodruff (Clarity Wins: Get Heard. Get Referred.)
Exercise 13.7: Your Sales Story
1. Follow the guidelines in this lesson to craft your story.
2. Share with the group.
3. Have group provide feedback!
Course Manual 8: Building Trust
It should come as no surprise that gaining the trust of prospects is critical to sales success.
Selling is a people-oriented business that necessitates a customer-centric sales approach. Person-to-person sales are made through dialogue. The conversation can take place in person or over the phone, but the ability of the seller to build trust in client relationships is at the heart of a successful outcome.
This requires salespeople to perform at their peak, bringing value to the table and to their customers. Instead, they sacrifice goodwill and trust by simply pushing products. Their sales success is likely to be fleeting, rather than the foundation of a long and mutually beneficial relationship.
Getting Your Customers to Trust You
Building and sustaining trust over the course of a customer relationship necessitates attention and focus in the following areas:
• Make your preparations with the customer in mind.
• During sales conversations, ask great questions, not bad ones.
• Create value proactively rather than reactively.
• Be truthful about what you can and cannot do.
• Make your value explicit rather than implicit.
• Even if you disagree, always maintain a collaborative tone.
It’s a combination of things we do — and, frankly, don’t do — that helps us manage the emotional tone of the conversation. We must be able to anticipate, look for, and accurately read the customer’s emotions in order to be sensitive to the potential emotional response in both preparing for the sales conversation and navigating the conversation in the moment.
“Building Trust is a process. Trust results in consistent predictable interaction over time.” – Barbara M. White
The Science Behind Building Trust
While we often think of trust-building as a social process, it is also a neurological one. You’ve probably heard of the brain hormone oxytocin. This hormone, on the other hand, is critical for developing trust and connecting emotions.
The results of an experiment conducted by Paul Zak show that increased oxytocin in the brain reduces the fear of trusting a stranger — oxytocin is referred to as the trust molecule by Zak.
So, how can a salesperson boost a prospect’s oxytocin levels?
Try these 5 Tips To Gain Your Prospects Trust:
1. Create Credibility
It has been proven that humans are naturally afraid of the unknown.
According to psychology research, humans value the ability to predict the outcomes of situations. This is analogous to falling: we are afraid of falling because we don’t know how it will end.
Gaining comfort requires establishing credibility. Trust can be built once your prospect feels at ease with you.
However, providing hard data about the results to your prospect or customer is one way to establish credibility. Give them useful advice and information so that they can rely on you. However, you must first establish yourself as an authoritative figure.
Credibility reduces the natural fear that humans have in unfamiliar situations. Making your prospect feel at ease will only result in increased oxytocin hormone levels, allowing your prospect to feel relaxed.
Example of a Credibility Tip + Email Template:
To overcome their resistance, mention a similar company you’ve worked with and how you helped them.
Bonus: Example Email Template
2. Demonstrate Empathy
Be a person and show genuine concern for your prospect.
Unlocking empathy in sales is a technique that all salespeople should be familiar with. The following are the essential steps for leveraging empathy in sales:
• Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes.
• Identify their issue and provide solutions
• Pose genuine curiosity-based questions.
• Listen, but make sure it’s compassionate listening.
• Continue to put yourself in your customer’s shoes until the end.
Empathy is what drives connection. Prospects will not purchase from someone who does not truly understand their requirements. To truly connect, sales professionals must be able to reach out and deliver empathy, regardless of their own experiences or life circumstances.
Maintaining a personable demeanor and remembering that you are both humans. Don’t speak in a robotic tone. Put yourself in their shoes, be truthful and honest, make connections, give the prospect the opportunity to speak and explain themselves, and listen.
3. Nonverbal cues should be provided.
Nonverbal communication is just as important as verbal communication.
Body language is crucial in forming relationships — first impressions, new relationships, and maintaining old ones, according to scientific studies.
The 7%-38%-55% rule, proposed by psychologist Albert Mehrabian, identifies three factors that influence first impressions:
• Words account for 7% of the message.
• The tone of voice accounts for 38% of the total.
• Body language accounts for 55%.
Here are our top tips for increasing sales trust through nonverbal cues:
Eye contact: In a study published by the Society of Participatory Medicine, psychologists examined videotapes of doctor visits and analyzed interactions between doctors and their patients. They discovered that the amount of eye contact the doctor made with the patients was the most important factor in gaining their doctor’s trust.
To establish rapport with another person, you should meet their gaze 70-80% of the time. According to research, in a one-on-one conversation, eye contact should last approximately 7-10 seconds. According to Ben Decker’s research, people who make little eye contact are often perceived as untrustworthy, unknowledgeable, and nervous.
Smiling can increase a person’s likeability and trustworthiness. According to one study, a smile can increase someone’s willingness to trust by 10%. Smiling never hurts, and it will increase your trustworthiness more than you think.
Tone of voice: They discovered that the sound of a speaker’s voice matters twice as much as the message itself in an analysis of 120 executive speeches. Use pitch variation to avoid sounding monotone, slow down when speaking, and use expressive speech to moderate your tone of voice.
4. Maintain Consistency
If your behavior is consistent over time, a customer or prospect is much more likely to trust you.
Our main tip for staying consistent is to stick to a process — consistent activities produce consistent results.
Also, make sure to follow through on your promises to your client. You must not only gain their trust, but also keep it. Remember that trust can be broken.
5. Establish a Connection
A connection must be made in order to gain trust in sales. Implement a great conversation starter that will engage your prospect in seconds to start this connection. Here are some suggestions:
People want to be around others who share their attitudes, values, and preferences, according to the similarity-attraction effect. This is due to social reinforcement; similarity attracts because people enjoy it when someone shares their opinions and worldviews. Social reinforcement raises oxytocin levels, allowing for the formation of a social bond.
Mutual Connections: Making a mutual connection is a great way to start a conversation and connect with someone. It is possible to find a mutual connection by searching on LinkedIn.
Ask for their opinion: By asking for their opinion, you demonstrate that you care about and respect their viewpoints. When someone believes you care about their point of view, trust is more likely to develop sooner.
Every sales equation requires trust.
Developing trust isn’t an easy process, but if you work on it and implement these five key strategies, you’ll be far more trustworthy in the eyes of your prospect.
The Importance of Rebuilding Trust (after it has been lost)
Building trust and credibility with prospects and customers can be difficult. It is even more difficult to rebuild trust after it has been harmed by a scandal or blunder. It makes no difference which company or industry is making headlines for bad decisions, unethical or illegal practices, or bad behavior by individuals. There will always be some event that causes a trust crisis.
During difficult times, especially when bad news dominates the news, you may find yourself spending more time explaining, defending, and deflecting. When faced with a stressful situation, most people think of “fight-or-flight” reactions. These natural reactions protected your forefathers when conflict meant life or death, but they are all ineffective for regaining the trust, respect, and confidence of customers and, as a result, increasing sales.
So, what actually works? The following four-step process is simple and effective in rebuilding trust with clients and customers when executed with authenticity, patience, and skill:
Empathize: Expressing empathy will assist you in eliciting and reducing negative emotions.
When attempting to rebuild fractured trust, open-ended questions and effective listening require courage and a strong stomach. The payoff: the customer is allowed to vent and feels heard, while you demonstrate genuine concern and a better understanding of the customer’s point of view on the issue.
Position: If you’re like most competitive salespeople, your first reaction to customer rage may be to explain and defend yourself. While accurate, your comments will not be persuasive and may come across as defensive, triggering customers’ own fight, flight, or freeze responses. Instead, take a customer-focused approach to selling after empathizing and questioning, your solutions or ideas should be linked to what you learned from the customers response to your questions.
Elicit Feedback: Only by checking and using open-ended questions can you elicit enough feedback to determine whether the proposed ideas were successful or not.
Trust is a delicate thing to gain, quickly lose, and even more slowly regain. Customers expect a consistent commitment to them and their problems. Your consistent effort, combined with successful execution of small actions developed in collaboration with the customer, will allow you to begin rebuilding trust and credibility.
3 Case Studies on How Building Trust Pays Off
How Lexus Does It:
Lexus Sweden was the first automaker in Europe to give customers a voice by incorporating reviews into its overall marketing and branding strategy in 2011. Since then, Lexus has relied heavily on reviews to create and build consumer awareness. This strategy has proven to be effective, with 99% of reviewers saying they would recommend the automaker to friends and family. The average customer rating among those reviews is 4.7 out of 5.
The Take-Away
Reviews are effective because they lend credibility to the brand and encourage engagement within the Lexus domain. Customers who are passionate about a brand become vocal brand ambassadors. This benefits both the brand and the resellers because Lexus can better understand their customers’ needs and then act on that information.
How Burberry Does It:
It may surprise you to learn that businesses have been leveraging user-generated content long before social media became popular. Burberry launched a new website called “The Art of the Trench” in 2009, where users could share and comment on photos of everyday people wearing the brand’s products. Burberry’s e-commerce sales increased by 50% year on year after the site’s launch.
The Take-Away
It’s critical to understand what your target audience is interested in. Discover ways to engage them that capitalize on their passions and interests. Burberry’s website focused on fashion and style with real people rather than models. Seeing an increasing number of real people enjoying a product builds trust and increases interest in the products and brand.
How Target Does It:
Target pledged $500 million to support education in 2010, and later aimed to double its donation to $1 billion through a competition in which students shared their acceptance letters. Customers were asked to submit videos of acceptance letters being opened as part of the campaign. Target used its favorite submissions to create a commercial that highlighted and expanded the visibility of Target’s philanthropy.
The Take-Away
The millennial generation expects more from businesses: they want to be a part of something meaningful in the world, both at work and in their personal lives. Using user-generated content, Target is presented in a more appealing way to a younger generation, building trust through philanthropy and humanitarian efforts.
“Building trust begins with an appreciation and understanding of trust, but it also requires practice and practices.” – Robert C Solomon
Exercise 13.8: Blind Polygon
Course Manual 9: S.E.R.V.E Formula
After years of working with brilliant, ambitious, change-makers, I’ve come to the following conclusion:
Smart women have a proclivity to complicate sales.
This may be one of the few situations (aside from dating) where being smarter can make things more difficult. Here are three ways smart women complicate sales and what they can do about it:
1. They overthink things.
Many female business professionals despise selling. They spend a lot of time worrying about coming across as pushy or desperate, or about how their prospects will react if they discover they are being sold to. Selling does not appear to be respectable, and it is a departure from the skillset they have worked so hard to acquire. However, selling is a skill. It’s one of the most important skills any business professional can have – and mastering it is a top priority. It does not have to be difficult.
2. They use content marketing strategies that overlook last-mile delivery.
Companies that use content marketing for lead generation understand that sharing insightful, informative, and helpful content is one of the best ways to attract high quality qualified leads. What most marketing strategies overlook is last mile delivery – they’ll have the obligatory CTAs, but that’s not always enough of a nudge. If you’re investing time and energy in content marketing but aren’t seeing the desired results, rethinking your approach may be necessary.
• Who is reading your content?
• What does this reveal about them?
• Are they interacting with it?
• Is there any way to engage these leads and open the door to a sales conversation?
This type of targeted direct outreach does not have to be difficult; it simply has to be genuine. Begin with a genuine compliment and a genuine curiosity and see where it leads you.
3. Lies masquerade as beliefs or truths
Successful female founders are smart and influential – so good at influence that they’ve convinced themselves of seemingly innocuous white lies that are fatal to their sales career. Here are a couple of examples:
I don’t want to appear pushy.
Let go of the notion that salespeople are pushy. If you believe selling is pushing, the less likely you are to do it- it won’t be in alignment with who you are. Shift your perspective around selling. Look at selling as an exchange of a valuable product or service or a solution to your clients problem.
“If you don’t offer your product or service to your ideal prospects, then you are robbing them of getting the solution they’re looking for!” – Megan Tull
My prospects buy when they are ready, so any prompts violate their autonomy.
Nice try:) One thing I’ve learned is that feeling ready and being ready are not the same thing. Making independent purchasing decisions and giving your prospects the opportunity to discuss the difference between feeling and being ready are not mutually exclusive.
My results (or our results) speak for themselves. I don’t need to persuade anyone.
When we say that attention and dollars flow to the point of greatest clarity, I’m quoting Eleanor Beaton, Founder of SAFI Media. Prospects require and deserve context, not just testimonials and results. They must understand how your expertise and solution can help them in their specific situation.
Selling can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. It is your choice how you make people feel when you sell to them.
The recommendation?
Don’t overthink it; instead, identify consistent ways to apply direct outreach to your existing marketing strategies, and check in with yourself each time you make a statement about your selling process to determine whether this is a true statement or a story you tell yourself to spare your feelings.
Best Way to Take the Pressure Off…Be Authentic
Authenticity is a powerful tool for forging genuine connections with your audience and building trust. Remember, many consumers care about a brand’s values and the causes they support.
When you go into a sales meeting or any high-stakes sales negotiation, it’s natural to tailor your technique, style, and approach to your clients’ perceived needs. After all, you’re attempting to make a favorable impression on them while also persuading them that you understand what they require to succeed. However, there is a real risk that, far from being effective, such an approach will come across as inauthentic and fake. There’s a reason why so many people have little faith in salespeople: they know they’ll say or do anything to close a deal. If you’ve ever bought a used car or been duped into purchasing an expensive vacation time-share property, you probably have experienced this in some form or fashion.
As a result, being authentic in sales may be more effective in fact, authenticity is essential in sales.
Authenticity is defined as the healthy alignment of internal values and beliefs with external behavior. Authenticity comes from discovering your leadership style and making life decisions that reflect your ethics, values, and personality.
People are fed up with being misled, duped, or outright lied to. People are questioning every industry, from consumer products to the media, in their quest for the truth, and they are choosing to work with and buy products from businesses and people who exhibit characteristics they consider honest and trustworthy.
The good news is that being authentic is not difficult.
Don’t try to be someone you’re not, and don’t go too far in changing your sales approach to meet the needs of a potential client or customer. If you find a method that works, don’t be afraid to use it again and again. Simply being yourself is the best way to win over a prospect. People value authenticity because it is associated with trust and credibility.
Simply put, you must be true to yourself and your values. It means you’re open about what you believe in and what you don’t. It implies that you are trustworthy and honest.
Case Study on Authenticity in Sales:
The assertion of authenticity is supported by a large body of research. In the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, a trio of business school professors, including Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino (author of “Rebel Talent” and “Sidetracked”), published an in-depth research study on authenticity in 2020. The study (“To Be or Not to Be Your Authentic Self?”) looked at how people frequently cater to a target’s interests and expectations in order to make a good impression and secure a positive outcome. However, they discovered that catering does not produce the desired effect or benefits. Catering actually reduces your chances of success, whereas authenticity increases them.
Gino and her research colleagues [link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx? Catering to what you believe others want has a negative impact on performance for several reasons. [URL: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx? For one thing, it has a negative impact on working memory and is harmful to information processing. In layman’s terms, having to constantly change your sales approach in order to succeed is “draining.” Furthermore, catering increases your overall anxiety and adds to an already stressful situation. You’ll be up all night, tossing and turning, trying to figure out what to say or do to impress a prospect rather than just being yourself. This eventually has a negative impact on performance.
So, what’s the big takeaway for sales professionals here?
Finally, it’s critical to be as genuine as possible in your sales interactions. Most people, like Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye,” can spot a “phony” a mile away. Worse, you’ll be so mentally drained and anxious before the sales meeting that you won’t be able to perform at your best. Even when millions of dollars are on the line in high-stakes sales negotiations, it is critical to be genuine. Know what you stand for and be aware of your own flaws and limitations. You’re much more likely to be a top sales performer if you’re not trying to be someone you’re not.
Belief as a Superpower in Selling
Have you ever met a top-performing salesperson who didn’t believe in themselves, their solution, or their company? Most likely you have not.
On the other hand, there are thousands of sales representatives who are desperate for obtaining a strong sense of belief. It is, without a doubt, the most significant single impediment to anyone who believes they can perform better.
What I find most intriguing is that it is almost never discussed or trained on. Companies spend thousands of dollars each year training reps in tactics, templates, systems, and processes in the hopes that some of that knowledge will rub off and manifest itself as belief in their reps. This happens occasionally, but most of the time it does not.
It’s not the most tangible thing on the planet. Perhaps it’s just a touchy subject for people to be comfortable with. Perhaps the desire to see hard and fast KPIs and train on specific strategies is easy to recognize.
Having a foundation of belief in yourself, in your products and services will give you the confidence to execute and build your integrity.
This cycle creates a virtuous cycle and momentum, similar to how a snowball gains mass and momentum as it rolls downhill.
This cycle is precisely why top performers maintain their competitive edge and consistently deliver. Failure to enter and initiate this cycle is why so many reps struggle to achieve the success they know they are capable of.
Belief is at the heart of the sale. You believe you can make the first one and then sell it again. Regardless of how many blueprints, playbooks, and methodologies are available, none of them are worth the paper they’re printed on unless the seller believes they can be implemented.
We need to pay more attention to this superpower allowing us and our sales team the foundation they need to succeed.
A New Way to Sell
The S.E.R.V.E Sales Success Formula was developed as an easy-to-follow formula for selling success! With having struggled in the past with hard core sales tactics I wanted to create a way to sell that felt really good and that focused on Serving vs. Selling. This is customer focused process that allows the salesperson to be authentic and true to themselves while being perceived as an expert in their field that has a viable solution to offer.
The S.E.R.V.E Sales Success Formula™
Use this formula as your key to success to create and deliver authentic and effective sales conversations. Conversations that will inspire your ideal clients to say YES to working with you.
Share. Have your prospect share the one thing that they would like to be different in their life or business. Reveal the problem or challenge that they’re experiencing. (You can customize this based on the products/or services you offer.)
Sample Question: What is the one thing you would like to change in your life/or business?
E stablish the cost of continuing on the same path that they’re on. Reveal the pain points that they are experiencing. (This step is necessary to allow them to get emotionally connected to their problem.)
Sample Question: If you continue on this same path how do you think it will impact your relationships, your health, your finances, your goals/dreams?
R esults. What are the results that they truly desire? What are their goals and dreams?
Sample Question: If you can paint a picture of the life/business (customize based on your business/specific company) you desire, what would that look like for you? Be as specific as possible. (Example: What would your average day look like, who will you be working with, how much money will you be making and what will your lifestyle look like?) How would you feel when you (repeat what they shared)?
V alue. Provide value by sharing 2 tips or strategies that they can implement right away to move them towards their goals. (This will allow them to experience your work “your expertise”. Be sure not to over deliver here!)
E xtend your offer. Here is where (if it’s a fit) you’ll recommend a product or service that you offer, that will provide the solution to their problem. This is the “transformation” that you offer.
Sample Question: I believe I have a clear understanding of where you are and where you want to be. Now I’d like to, with your permission – recommend what I feel would be the next best step for you to reach your goal of______________. Would you like to hear my recommendation?
If they answer “yes” then you share the appropriate offer (your solution/your transformation)
After you share your offer, ask them – Would like to know the price? Once you share the price.
Be silent…. wait for their response.
Then say- On a scale from 1-10 – 1 being absolutely no and 10 being absolutely yes, where do you stand?
Be silent.
If it is a 10, you say Great, so here’s how we get started.
If it’s below a 10 – like a 7, 8 or 9, ask them- What would it take to get you to a 10? (Handle objection- More on objection handling in Course Manual 11)
If it is a 5 or less, you can ask them why. Chances are it is not the right fit for them.
**Remember you are not there to convince them you are there to get them to a decision.
Leadership success including being a successful salesperson begins with authenticity — doing our jobs without sacrificing our values or personalities. When we are true to ourselves, people trust us, and that trust allows us to get things done and accomplish anything we set our minds to.
“Give up being perfect for being authentic. Be who you are. Love who you are. Others will too.” – Hal Elrod
Exercise 13.9: S.E.R.V.E Sales Success Formula Role Play
Course Manual 10: Easeful Follow Up
“Diligent follow-up and follow through will set you apart from the crowd in communication excellence.” – John C. Maxwell
Understanding the follow-up process can help you understand how to keep potential customers engaged and persuade them to buy a service or product from your company.
In this lesson, we define follow-up calls, explain why they are important, walk you through how to make an effective sales follow-up call, and share some tips for connecting with customers.
What is a sales follow-up call?
A follow-up sales call is a phone call that occurs after the initial contact between a sales representative and a potential customer or lead. The sales representative encourages the customer to make a purchase during this call. This call allows sales representatives to remind potential customers, also known as leads, about the value of a deal and provide them with additional information.
What is the significance of a follow-up sales call?
Here are some reasons why sales representatives should make follow-up sales calls:
• You can use them to create a sense of urgency, which increases the likelihood of a sale.
• They can refresh the customer’s memory about the company’s products and services.
• You can use them to raise brand awareness and encourage leads to refer others to the company.
• They allow you to provide customer service and answer questions, which can make a good impression on potential customers.
The 8 Step Follow Up in Sales Process
Use these 8 steps to ensure a successful follow-up sales call to a prospective customer:
1. Make quick contact with leads.
Generally, it’s a good idea to contact leads shortly after speaking with them about the product or service you’re selling. A simple rule for sales representatives is to contact potential customers within an hour of initial contact, preferably within ten minutes of establishing a deal. You could send them an email after the initial conversation and then call them a few days later to ensure that your lead remembers the details of the potential deal and to increase the sense of urgency.
2. Prepare for your phone call.
Plan your follow-up call using the information you gathered during your initial sales call with the customer. You may have asked the customer questions about their needs and discussed some product features during your initial call to identify areas of interest for them. Once you’ve determined what motivates them, you can highlight those aspects in your follow-up call.
If you’re a sales representative for a tutoring company, for example, you might use your discovery call with a parent to learn about their student’s tutoring needs and preferences. Before your follow-up call, you could request that the tutor management team recommend specific tutors who match the customer’s preferences.
3. Select strategic call times.
Calling at critical times can increase your chances of speaking with a potential customer. The timing of your follow-up call may be determined by the type of customer. If you sell office supplies to small businesses, for example, you might make follow-up calls during business hours, when your clients are likely to be in their offices. Other customers, such as working parents, may be more likely to answer the phone at night. If you call a customer and don’t get a response, consider calling them again the next day at a different time.
4. Messages can be used to supplement phone calls.
Although phone calls are useful for reminding customers of deals, consider using multiple channels of communication in addition to phone calls to help leads keep track of the information in the deal and your contact information. If you call a customer and get a voicemail, leave a message, and then send them an email or text to let them know you tried to reach them. To encourage the customer to call you back, include your phone number in the message. You can still have your follow-up call this way.
5. Begin with a summary of current status.
When speaking with a customer in a follow-up call, it can be beneficial to remind them of the points you discussed with them during your discovery call. Talk to them about their needs and ask if anything has changed since the last time you spoke, using your notes from the previous call. Summarizing your previous conversation can help them remember why they were interested in the product or service you’re offering. It also ensures that the information you provide during this call is correct.
A salesperson for a solar panel installation company, for example, may have a follow-up call with the facilities manager of a local college. They may have discussed the cost of installing solar panels on three campus buildings during the initial call. Following the discovery call, the facilities manager may have met with the college president, who decided to invest in solar panels for all five campus buildings. By summarizing the previous conversation, the salesperson allows the customer to provide updated information that may affect the deal.
6. Add value to the discussion.
A good sales call typically adds value to the customer by providing additional information about an existing deal. When calling a potential customer to discuss a deal, try to include useful information to keep them interested in your company’s products and increase the likelihood that they will close the deal by the end of the call. You could describe related products or provide a discount for bundling services.
You could put a time limit on the added value to increase urgency and encourage the customer to close quickly. A telecommunications salesperson, for example, might offer a discount on bundled phone and internet services to customers who buy over the phone during a follow-up call. The possibility of saving money may increase the proportion of customers who choose to make an immediate purchase.
7. Overcome objections.
After you review previous calls and emphasize the value of the product or service you’re selling, the customer may express concerns about price or service level. You can try to overcome their objections by focusing on the benefits they might receive from the deal because you’ve built a relationship with them over several calls. Your sales team could meet to discuss common objections and develop a script for dealing with them.
A salesperson for an office cleaning service, for example, may face price objections from customers who are hesitant to pay a premium for someone to clean their office. To counteract this objection, the sales representative may calculate the cost of cleaning products as well as the lost work time that the company’s employees may incur if they do their own cleaning. The sales representative may be able to overcome the objection and close the deal by providing concrete benefits.
8. Include a strong call to action.
Many effective sales calls conclude with a call to action, in which a sales representative encourages the customer to take a specific action, such as signing up for a free trial subscription to a software product. The course of action may be determined by the industry and the product or service being sold. Include some of the benefits you discussed with the customer in your call to action to persuade them to close the deal.
If your sales process consists of several steps, you could describe what happens next for the customer. For example, if an office manager signs up for a snack delivery service during a follow-up phone call, the snack company’s sales representative may estimate when the first snack shipment will arrive or instruct them on how to adjust the types of snacks in each delivery.
Example: 7 Powerful Call-To-Actions
Here are 7 examples of calls to actions:
1. Find out more
This call-to-action technique encourages readers to take action in order to learn more about a product or service. This action could be as simple as clicking on a link, visiting a blog page, or calling a company.
• Click here to learn more about our organic dog food.
• 20 Great Landing Page Examples and Why They Work
2. Subscribe
Businesses may use this type of call to action to entice viewers to sign up for their newsletter or streaming service. You could also use this CTA to entice readers to subscribe to a magazine or sign up for a subscription box from a company.
For instance, subscribe today to save money on your one-year subscription to the Boston Globe.
3. Try it out for free.
Free trial offers allow people to try out a product or service to see if they like it and if it’s worth the money. You can use this type of CTA to encourage readers to try a product before purchasing it.
For instance, come see what all the fuss is about with our eco-friendly shampoo made from real, natural honey. Try it for free right now.
4. Donate
A donate button is typically placed after a company’s explanation of a cause or financial need. This call to action encourages viewers to donate money to a charitable organization or charity.
As an example, assist hungry children in our community. Donate now!
5. Get a quote
Companies, such as those providing insurance, can offer a free quote to show consumers what their rates might be. The company converts an estimate to send to the individual after they complete a form with relevant information, like their car or house type.
Example: Get a free quote today for how much you could pay with Sunrise auto insurance.
6. Follow us on social media
This call to action encourages users to interact with a company on social media platforms. This may increase the company’s number of followers, improve online engagement with the brand and get more people to see its digital ads.
Example: Follow us on social media to see our daily rotating ice-cream flavors and specials.
7. Refer a friend
Another tactic for engaging with consumers is recommending that they refer a friend in exchange for a discount or raffle submission for a large prize. This allows the company to reach new consumers and generate more revenue.
Example: Refer a friend to our monthly beauty bag and earn $5 off your next bag.
Tips on How to Make an Effective Follow-Up Sales Call
The following tips can help you make more sales calls and increase revenue for your company:
Be succinct but informative. Because your potential customer is likely to be busy, keep your calls brief and informative in order to provide them with the most important information. You could offer to send them additional information via email or direct mail.
Make use of a sales script. Sales scripts can help you remember the most important points to make during a sales call and provide answers to frequently asked customer questions. Consider asking your manager or an experienced colleague to assist you in creating a sales script. (or Use the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula Script)
Keep meticulous records. Customer relationship management, or CRM, platforms are used by many sales organizations to organize customer information and track deals. Salespeople who work for companies that do not use CRMs frequently use spreadsheets to track customer information.
Be specific. Deliver your sales calls clearly and use specific details to entice potential customers to stay on the phone with you and close the deal. Customers can feel more relaxed and develop a deeper understanding of what they need to do to close a deal, how they can benefit, and what the costs are if they are given specific information and instructions.
The Best Follow Up Questions:
Follow-up questions is the key to understanding what a prospect wants and needs.
Every successful salesperson has mastered great questioning, and follow-up is an important part of that questioning process.
Specific follow-up questions will vary depending on the opportunity and the circumstances. With practice, your sales representatives will be able to ask customized follow-up questions in the moment.
If they’re just getting started, here’s a list of follow-up questions to ask after an initial question:
• Can you tell me more about that?
• Why does that matter to you/your business?
• Can you be more specific about that?
• How did that impact you?
• How did you feel about that?
**Check out the Resource section for this Workshop to get access to the “5 Sample Call Scripts to Following Up with a prospect. ”and “5 Sample Follow Up Emails to Prospective Clients.”
Exercise 13.10: Objections Handling: Part 1
Course Manual 11: Handling Objections
Many people believe that dealing with objections is a deep, dark mystery. If there’s a secret, it’s in your proactive approach to understanding how people make decisions and intelligently mirroring their process in order to influence behavior.
An important thing to note is that if your prospect has an objection that’s a not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not a no. It’s a yes, but… They most likely just need more information. This gives you the opportunity to provide more value to make sure they are clear on why they should move forward with your offer!
You can effectively handle just about any objection if you are prepared and know what the most common objections are. Potential buyers may make excuses or deviate from the sales process, and the response is to handle these objections. Learn to handle objections with truthful facts that do not put your customer on the defensive if you want to succeed as a salesperson. This course will go over objection handling, its significance, and objection handling techniques.
What is objection handling?
The handling of objections is a response to a concern about the service or products being sold. The sales representatives will effectively alleviate that concern, allowing the business transaction to proceed. The majority of objections are based on competitor information, product price, product fit, and other factors.
By handling objections, you remove any doubts customers may have about your products or services and assist them in changing their minds. To build trust, salespeople should handle prospects with care during objection handling. Instead of telling your prospects that they made a mistake, let them draw their own conclusions. You should not force buyers to buy your products or services as a salesperson because most people believe you are selling counterfeit items.
It’s also important to distinguish between brush-offs and objections. Brush-offs are justifications, whereas objections are genuine. Learn how to respond to customer concerns in a way that strengthens your relationship with them and persuades them to purchase your services or products.
4 Key Steps to Handle Any Objection
If there is a secret to dealing with objections, it can be found in step one.
STEP 1: Clarify
The first and most important step is to clarify the objection. Do not be fooled by what appears to be an easy step. Clarification can be difficult because it necessitates quick thinking. Nonetheless, it is the most important step, with its own three-step procedure:
1. Get to the heart of the matter. People rarely express their true objection right away. Maybe it’s embarrassing, maybe they think it’s personal or maybe they don’t think it’s as important as you do. One thing is certain: once you’ve identified the true objection, you can address it. It’s so easy to jump to your favorite response about something that had nothing to do with the question being asked because you didn’t get to the real objection. What happens is you will be rewarded by having to fend off the objection you had now created by the time you finished answering the question that was never asked. What a mess!
2. Avoid coming across as confrontational. Here’s an odd irony for you: suppose you guess correctly and actually understand the real objection without first clarifying it. Your reward will be annoyance due to your confrontational, stubborn, and insensitive communication style. Set the stage for understanding rather than being confrontational. You will not only buy yourself time to think, but you will also send an important message about your intention to listen and understand by clarifying the objection that comes your way.
3. Avoid too much talking. Put yourself in the shoes of the other person. You are faced with a difficult decision and are attempting to analyze it as thoroughly as possible. You’re perplexed by one aspect of this decision, so you ask a seemingly innocuous question to see if the person can help you understand something. A never-ending response pours forth. It just goes on and on. “This was really not such a big deal to me a minute ago, but judging by this person’s response, I must have hit on a bigger problem than I thought!” you think to yourself.” So, your inability to understand the objection, demonstrated by providing a slew of information in which the answer is buried, severely undermines your credibility.
If you’re still not convinced of the importance of clarifying, consider this: one out of every ten objections isn’t even an objection (and that’s a conservative estimate). What you are actually hearing is someone who is stalling and does not want to be influenced. If you ask that person to clarify the objection, don’t be surprised if you get the response, “Uh, well, you see, I think you actually answered that question earlier.” That’s because there isn’t one!
STEP 2: Acknowledge
When you acknowledge another person’s objection, it’s time to confirm your understanding of the person’s concern. Clarifying may assist you in arriving at the correct objection; acknowledging will confirm it for you.
STEP 3: Respond
Assuming you now understand the true objection and have acknowledged it, it is time to respond. To do this effectively, we must first determine the type of objection you are responding to. Then we’ll be ready to respond.
There are two kinds of objections Misunderstanding and Drawbacks.
Misunderstandings:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all objections were misunderstandings? A misunderstanding objection means that the person with whom you are communicating has misunderstood something, and you must clarify it. The solution is straightforward, but not without risk. In fact, it’s frequently a case of “how you say it” rather than “what you say.”
Avoid making yourself “right” and the other person “wrong.” The goal is to remove an impending impediment of personal ego and get back on track to influencing behavior.
“Feel, Felt, Found”
When dealing with misunderstandings, there is a great technique. It’s what we call “feel, felt, found,” and it works like a charm when it comes to telling someone they are wrong.
This technique’s feel component is intended to deflect the ego. When you tell someone that many people feel the same way she does, you immediately avoid putting her on the defensive.
The felt portion of your response adds empathy. It’s one thing to hear that a lot of other people feel the same way she does. It is, however, far more powerful for that person to hear that you have felt the same way.
Your response is provided in the found portion. The answer should be obvious at this point, but there is no point in skipping this step. By explaining what you discovered, you open the door to providing your response with the least amount of confrontation.
Using the “feel, felt, found” technique allows you to gracefully inform someone that she is incorrect. I would avoid using this technique more than once per conversation. Don’t be concerned if you don’t include all three parts of the process. It’s nothing more than a guide, but you’ll be surprised how often it gets you out of a jam.
Drawbacks:
The drawback is the more difficult type of objection to deal with. An objection based on a disadvantage indicates that there is a specific aspect of the argument that you are unable to address. But don’t worry, because where there’s a will, there’s a way!
First, let’s put this in context. Did you get everything you wanted when you last bought a car? Oh, I’m sure you got the color or the style you wanted, but unless you ordered that car and had it custom built for you, most likely it only had almost everything you wanted.
You see, just like your car, job, house, or spouse (okay, maybe not your spouse), you made your decision based on the issue as a whole, not just one or two aspects of it. If you truly believe that the decision you are influencing is in the best interests of the person you are persuading, keep going! After you’ve clarified and acknowledged, it’s recommended you put things in context and summarize the benefits of the solution you’re pursuing.
If you’re wondering where these additional benefits to your solution come from, remember the lessons you’ve learned up to this point. Rather than telling someone what they should do, you built trust and urgency around the other benefits of your solution. You were the one who created perspective!
Remember to be ethical. If the solution you propose does not address the other person’s most important criteria, you must consider how you are influencing him/her. The goal here is to gain perspective on the disadvantage, not to persuade someone that it isn’t necessary.
STEP 4: Confirm
It’s not uncommon to hear people say things like “I really like that” or “That sounds great,” which means the confirmation step has already been completed for you. It would be awkward to say, “Uh, so does that address your concern?” after someone has said, “That sounds great.”
Now, I’m not going to tell you that by confirming your response to the objection, you’ve guaranteed it won’t be heard again. What I can tell you is that by confirming, you’ve made it much more difficult for the objection to be raised again.
An objection can sometimes be misinterpreted as a question. And sometimes a simple question can be misinterpreted as an objection. You could try to figure out which one it is by observing nonverbal cues, emotional expressions, and other difficult signals, but I believe this will only add to the confusion. I’ve got a better idea. Why not treat objections and questions in the same manner?
Isn’t it natural to clarify a question to ensure that you understand it, and to confirm that it has been answered once you’ve finished answering it? You no longer have to worry about misinterpreting someone’s intent when you treat perceived objections and questions the same way.
In the Future…
When you hear someone complaining about an issue involving you or your company, simply say, “I can understand your frustration” or “I can certainly appreciate how disappointing that must be.” This acknowledges the other person’s concerns. Then restate the issue: “You put a lot of money and faith in a market that has provided a lot of volatility.” This shows that you’ve been paying attention. It also demonstrates empathy, which is important in this situation. You can now start addressing the real issue.
I can’t promise that if you go through this process, an irritated person will magically become content with the realities of his current situation. Based on years of using this process and teaching it to thousands of others, I can tell you that it will significantly help defuse the emotion. The rest is entirely up to you.
Top 12 Objection Handling Techniques
Having a strategy for effectively managing unhappy prospects can help your company become more adept at handling complaints and identifying solutions that meet the expectations of your prospects. Here are some effective objection handling techniques to add to your tool belt:
1. Pay attention to the prospect’s concerns.
Prospective buyers may be turned off if you disregard their objections when making sales. If you do not listen to them, they may seek out other products or services. Take notes on what customers say and provide relevant feedback.
To deal with customer objections, offer a solution that works for both parties and admit that there is room for improvement. You will retain current customers and persuade prospects to purchase your products or services in this manner.
2. Explain how your solutions aided others.
For example, “Others felt the same way when they heard about the quality and price of the products.” Ensure that your prospects understand that their concerns are understandable to you as a salesperson. Giving them an example of a solution, you provided to a similar situation can assist them in understanding your abilities to address such concerns and meet their expectations.
3. Take advantage of the opportunity to start a meaningful conversation.
Always remember, as a salesperson, that objections are opportunities for conversations. Miscommunication or a lack of communication can mislead salespeople and cause them to lose potential customers. To avoid this, they should use the prospect’s objections as a starting point for a meaningful conversation. Salespeople can understand the value and needs of their clients through conversation and meet those needs.
4. Recognize and respond to objections
Determine whether or not prospects’ concerns are genuine, and then provide genuine solutions to meet your client’s expectations. If their objections are unfounded, explain why in a way that doesn’t make them feel like you’re arguing with them; they should feel as if their needs are being taken seriously.
5. Ask rather than tell
An objection can be a great opportunity to provide your prospect with additional product information. To ascertain their concerns, ask them a variety of questions. Try to be inquisitive and calm when questioning. Once you’ve identified the source of the objection, try to resolve it to the satisfaction of your prospect.
6. Begin at the end.
Begin your conversation by addressing the customers’ concerns or questions, ensuring you provide the desired solution. The response you give to the first concern sets the tone for other more complex objections you may face. Most prospects are reasonable and may be open to your solutions. The conversation you have together can help the customer have a better experience and consider purchasing. When selling your products or services, make sure you consider all of your prospects’ objections.
7. Be truthful about your services or products.
No service or product can be 100% of what customers want because customers will always bring objections that must be handled properly in order to maintain excellent customer relations. Be willing to tell your prospects what your products or services can and cannot do. Customer stories can help you back up your brand. Maintaining honesty while making sales deals and addressing customer objections can be critical to gaining customers’ trust. In addition to trust, honesty lends credibility.
8. Stick to the Objective.
Bring every customer objection back to the goal you established at the start. The goal outlines your shared interest with the client and what demonstrates your connection with prospects. If your relationship with a customer deteriorates, this can be used to gauge your concerns. Determine whether the objection will help or hurt your sale.
9. Set expectations and then deliver on them.
Most successful salespeople ensure that their companies progress and meet their customers’ expectations. A sales team, for example, can interact with prospects, follow up to identify their concerns, and comprehend products and services that are appropriate for them while addressing customers’ issues with the company. Manufacturers can ensure that their products are consumed by their target markets.
Establish long-term business relationships with your customers while evaluating your performance to ensure you are meeting their needs. Listening to your customers’ concerns can lead to opportunities to increase sales or strengthen your brand.
10. Share customer testimonials.
Sharing stories about other customers who raised similar objections during previous sales processes can be beneficial. Outline how you overcame their objections to meet their needs. Explain why the company moved forward and address their concerns. Customer testimonials can be extremely useful in persuading prospects to buy your brand.
11. Use empathy when addressing objections.
Be genuine, listen, and demonstrate empathy to show your prospects that you understand their concerns. Your salespeople must be curious in order to solve customer objections and increase sales.
For example, if price is a major concern, look for a way to negotiate and ensure that the set price corresponds to the value of your product or service. Listening to your prospects and demonstrating empathy can aid in the retention of current customers as well as the development of new business relationships.
12. Consider an educational strategy.
Instead of taking an educational approach, salespeople frequently try to prove their potential customers wrong when they hear their objections. Instead of sounding superior, learn how to use an educational approach to solve their concerns if you want to attract more prospects to your business. Concentrate on educating your customers about how your products or services can improve their lives and turn them into long-term customers.
Objection handling can be difficult but it’s unavoidable in sales. However, if you know how to get to the heart of your prospects’ problems, lead with empathy, understand where most objections come from, and read these types of interactions correctly, you’ll be in a good position to deal with these issues as they arise. Look at it as a great learning opportunity!
“We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.”– Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Exercise 13.11: Objection Handling: Part 2
1. Split the group into two teams, team 1 will be the Sellers, team 2 are the customers.
2. The sellers team will start off by sharing something positive about the company/product/Service something like “Our network is the largest in the country and customers enjoy uninterrupted service”
3. Team customers now should come up with an objection or an issue with what was said about the product or service, something like “Actually the network is not that good, there are certain dead areas where customers get no coverage.”
4. Now the sellers team will need to come up with a suitable way to handle this objection. Once a suitable response is agreed to be a good way to handle the objection, switch team roles so that now the sellers become the customers and the customers become the sellers.
Course Manual 12: Selling Confidently
The importance of sales confidence cannot be overstated. You can know everything there is to know about your product and have extensive experience in the field, but if potential buyers do not perceive you as confident, you will fail. Customers will not trust you if you don’t know how to sell confidently. You can offer all the discounts in the world on the amazing features of your product. And trust is the bedrock upon which customer acquisition, loyalty, and lifetime value are built.
But how do you gain confidence if it doesn’t come naturally?
In this course, we’ll show you how to become a confident salesperson who can present their offer powerfully and handle any objection with conviction and unwavering self-confidence.
What is Sales Confidence?
Sales confidence is the ability to walk into a room and easily sell your product to anyone present. We’ve all met someone who exudes such confidence: the person who speaks about something with such passion and conviction that they convert everyone around them into believers.
Nobody feels 100% confident all of the time when they learn how to sell with confidence. Selling with confidence, on the other hand, means immediately putting a customer at ease by speaking to them with conviction and sincerity. It entails bringing your mission to each sales conversation. It uses the law of attraction to create a positive and confident cycle that attracts people to you rather than you chasing them down.
Secret to Unbreakable Confidence When It Comes to Selling
The ability to sell with confidence is the one thing that most new salespeople lack the most. One of the most important skills to master on your way to becoming a sales pro is the ability to confidently deliver your pitch and answer the prospect’s objections.
Managing objections, like many other aspects of the sales process, is all about transferring trust. Your prospect has reservations, fears, worries, and reservations about your solution. An objection is simply an expression of these concerns and reservations.
The goal of sales is to create a trusting relationship.
As a sales professional your job is to transfer your confidence in your offer to them so that they believe in your confidence more than they believe in their doubts.
It’s not so much what you say as it is how you say it.
People will often buy a message, no matter how illogical, if it is delivered with enough confidence. Simply listening to politicians speak demonstrates that they have mastered this skill.
Our brains have an intense desire for consistency. If our perceptions contradict the story in our heads, the brain will often make the perception fit the story, rather than the other way around.
Case Study: Example of how our perception can interfere with the facts:
Assume your prospect inquires, “Your solution appears to be adequate, but I am concerned about security. How safe is our information on your platform?”
You could respond to this question by going into great technical detail about the safeguards your engineers put in place. But, as a salesperson, you probably don’t understand them, and most prospects won’t either.
Instead, you could say: “I’m delighted to pose that question. We have over 5,000 customers who rely on our solution, we send out over 7 million emails per month, and our company has received funding from some of Silicon Valley’s best venture capital firms. What other concerns do you have?”
You didn’t actually say anything about security, but you delivered confidently; the prospect’s brain will most likely interpret this as: “All right, I guess he answered the question, so I’ll move on.”
In dealing with objections, confidence is the key ingredient.
But what if you’re a new and inexperienced sales representative who lacks confidence?
The quick fix for instant confidence
Work with a script but not for the sake of the words…. for being prepared!
I am frequently questioned about the benefits of using a sales script and having a sales objection management document. In the sales community, there is an ongoing debate about whether or not to use a sales script.
Opponents frequently accuse scripts of turning salespeople into trained monkeys.
The purpose of a script, however, is not for reps to memorize and recite the words verbatim. It is about providing the sales representative with a standard procedure that they can access at any time a guideline if you will.
Selling is a highly complex skill, and as with many other highly complex skills, having these procedures in your repertoire is beneficial. Just as an aircraft pilot or a surgeon has learned routines and procedures to help them navigate the complexities of their jobs.
When you have a simple, concise one or two sentence answer readily available to you as a sales rep at any time, rather than having to think up an answer on the spot, it frees up your mental RAM to focus on powerfully delivering your message rather than thinking up an answer on the spot.
The true purpose of a sales script is to provide a short-term solution for selling confidently when you don’t feel particularly confident.
However, there is a deeper level of developing true confidence that you should strive for if you truly want to succeed in sales.
The long-term training plan for developing genuine confidence
You can’t do that on a mechanical or tactical level.
The key to sales (and life) confidence is success and failure. You must expose yourself to a lot of both. More than most people are willing to admit. You need successes to be truly confident. You must have the feeling of achieving your goals and winning in life.
But that is only the first pillar of sales confidence.
Building genuine, unbreakable confidence necessitates massive failure. You must go through difficult times, face difficult challenges, and roll with the punches.
Those are the moments when you truly discover yourself, what you’re made of, and what you’re capable of overcoming.
You must go through the struggle that forces you to dig deeper than you would otherwise. That way, when life throws shit at you, you already know you’re capable of overcoming it, no matter how difficult it feels in the moment. It’s not even about the outside world—not it’s about proving it to them. It’s about proving to yourself that you’re capable.
How do you apply this in your daily life?
Not by destroying your life to the point of no return. But by taking on bigger challenges, setting higher goals, and attempting things you’ve never done before.
Every day, motivate yourself to be a better version of yourself.
9 Tips to Sell More Confidently
1. Realize Your Value
Realizing your value means believing in yourself and the impact you make as a leader for your company. Just as we learned in Workshop # 1 owning your value allows you to stand in your power and present yourself and your product and services with confidence. When you believe in yourself other people will follow.
2. Make a Good First Impression
People form opinions about you within seconds of meeting you. It’s simply a fact. The first impression you make on potential buyers is critical to learning how to sell with confidence, and it is entirely accomplished through nonverbal communication. How are you going about approaching them? Are you stumbling over them? Do you stand off to the side, arms folded across your chest? This posture gives the impression that you are closed off and unapproachable. Instead of making direct eye contact, are you staring at the floor or out the window? A buyer will notice this behavior and conclude that you are untrustworthy. And you haven’t even begun to speak yet.
3. Change Your Body Language
Building sales confidence begins with your body language, which sends a silent message to everyone you interact with. Customers want you to appear knowledgeable and trustworthy while also putting them at ease. Stand tall and avoid any nervous habits. When you fidget, you appear insecure when you want to appear calm and collected. Throw your shoulders back. Changing your physiology can actually make you feel more confident. Take a power pose, such as putting your hands on your hips. When you project confidence with your body, the customer will feel safe and will be more likely to do business with you.
4. Practice Mirroring
As discussed in Workshop 7, Mirroring makes use of mirror neurons in our brains to assist us in developing rapport and connecting with others. To better communicate with someone, you can mirror them by using similar body language, matching their tone of voice, and adjusting the words you use. This strengthens your bond with the person and often leads to a more favorable response. All of these things are important, but don’t forget about physical feedback. When appropriate, nodding and smiling show the customer that you’re listening and allow you to build rapport.
5. Transform Your State of Being
Take stock of your current situation while building sales confidence. How do you feel when you consider making a sale? Are you worried? Does it pique your interest? When it comes to securing sales, if you are fearful or uncertain, you will alert potential customers to your negative mindset, and they will go elsewhere. To train yourself to be comfortable and relaxed when selling, you must first recognize how you truly feel. Concentrate on that feeling: if it’s negative, let it go and replace it with a positive belief. If it’s positive, build on it. You’ll have complete control over your emotions in no time.
“Quality performance starts with a positive attitude.” –Jeffrey Gitomer
6. Develop an Alter Ego
Todd Herman, a guest on The Tony Robbins Podcast, is an expert in assisting people in adapting to difficult situations. One of his top sales confidence tips is to create an alter ego that allows you to assume a different persona in order to achieve your objectives. Create an alternate version of yourself that is the best salesperson at your company, for example, if you lack sales confidence. How do they communicate? What types of words do they use? Take note of their body language and self-image. What modifications would you make to your own posture and language to walk, and sound like them? You can channel this energy once you’ve learned how to create an alter ego that serves your mission – making sales.
7. Improve Your Communication Skills
Mirroring body language and learning the true motivation of your prospect are only two aspects of communication. Deep listening is the most important skill when it comes to selling with confidence. From there, you can anticipate objections, develop solutions ahead of time, and gain customer commitment. You can even learn how to adapt your communication style, which is another advanced strategy mastered by many great leaders. (Re-visit Workshop 7 – Course Manual 7:6 for more information on this).
8. Have a growth mindset
Developing a growth mindset is essential for learning how to sell with confidence. This means you believe you can always learn more, and you see challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles. Feed your mind with new information that inspires your sales confidence and teaches you new skills to embrace a growth mindset. Surrounding yourself with people who can help you take your skills to the next level is another important way to keep your mind fed. You are the people you spend your time with, so don’t settle for anything less than the best.
9. Leverage Sales Training
Every salesperson should be trained. Consistent, ongoing training, not a one-time seminar or a couple of hours of online courses. Even the most successful salespeople can benefit from a refresher course once or twice a year. More training is required for new sales hires. Managers who want to build superstar sales teams must invest in cutting-edge software and devote time to extensive training. Sales confidence comes naturally when salespeople have been properly onboarded, oriented to the product, and trained on how to connect with customers.
“Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.” –Jennifer Lopez
As a company it is essential that your sales reps feel confident and prepared on every sales call. You can do this by providing them with this effective sales process (demonstrated in this Workshop) that they can easy access as if it were second nature.
When your salespeople are confident, they can instill trust in your prospects and customers, removing any doubts or fears they may have about your offerings. This in turn will elevate your brand and credibility of your company.
Exercise 13.12: Success Panel
1. Set up 5 chairs in the front of the room
2. Choose a moderator
3. Select 5 participants to sit at the front of the room to be part of a panel discussion
4. Have the moderator ask each panelist the following questions (taking turns)
•
• How did you feel and what did you learn?
• Share a time when you fell short of a sale, you didn’t close the deal or things went wrong.
• How did you feel and what did you learn?
Project Studies
Process Review:
As a whole, the Women Empowerment Program aims to create a better culture and a level playing field for women in your organization. Each workshop is designed to delve deeply into a specific topic so that we have a clear understanding of how to apply the information in our daily personal and professional lives. This Workshop on Selling Authentically – focuses on Step 4 of the Business Transformation Process – Advanced Communication and Presentations Skills.
After completion of the Selling Authentically workshop, and after going through the implementation exercises in this Project Study it will be clear to see how to best incorporate these new processes into your organization. Once you develop your own authentic selling style and learn specific skills and authentic selling techniques your efforts will be handsomely rewarded with increased trust, increased customer loyalty, and increased sales.
This Workshop and Project Study focuses specifically on the following areas and strategies:
1. Research your company history, products, mission, and values during a fun group exercise.
2. Learn relationship selling principles including adapting a new belief to support each principle.
3. Go through your company’s buyers journey this will make your salespeople sympathetic to the problems of their future customers, understand the entire sales cycle and how your products/services are useful.
4. Discover the 7 Psychological Triggers used to increase sales.
5. Identify 4 key characteristics of today’s stellar saleswomen.
6. Craft your own elevator pitch (30 second mission statement) revealing who you serve, how you serve them, and the pain points your solve.
7. Learn 5 key Solution-Focused Selling Techniques and how to use them.
8. Identify 5 ways to incorporate storytelling into your sales strategy and exactly how to craft your own during an exciting live exercise.
9. Learn 5 easy strategies to gain your prospects trust.
10. Learn and roleplay the S.E.R.V.E. Sales Success Formula- a powerful proven authentic selling process.
11. Discover an effective 8 step Follow-Up process to ensure a successful follow up sales call to a prospective customer.
12. Build confidence while handling any objection with 2 powerful objection handling exercises.
Personal Implementation Exercises:
**Complete the exercises below after you complete the following courses in this workshop.
1. Watch the Story of Sales (approximately 1 hr. and 20 min.) – https://www.salesforce.com/story-of-sales/documentary-video-player/
2. List your top 3 selling principles and why. (Course Manual 13:2)
3. Go through the complete list of influential women in sales. https://www.saleshacker.com/influential-women-in-sales/
4. Create (or revise) your own personal 30 Second Mission Statement (Course Manual 13:5) (Insert 30 Second Mission statement doc here)
5. Download your own copy of the S.E.R.V.E Sales Success Formula and start practicing it! (Include S.E.R.V.E Sales Success Formula Doc here)
6. What is your biggest takeaway from this workshop?
*** Share what you learned/your experience with your group. ***
Project Study (Part 1) – Customer Service
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 2) – E-Business
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 3) – Finance
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 4) – Globalization
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 5) – Human Resources
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 6) – Information Technology
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 7) – Legal
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 8) – Management
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 9) – Marketing
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 10) – Production
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 11) – Logistics
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Project Study (Part 12) – Education
The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Authentic Selling process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:
01. History of Sales
02. Selling Principals
03. Psychology of Sales
04. Women in Sales
05. Pain to Solution
06. Research and Prioritize
07. Use Storytelling
08. Building Trust
09. S.E.R.V.E Formula
10. Easeful Follow Up
11. Handling Objections
12. Selling Confidently
Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.
Program Benefits
Marketing
- Customer experience
- Sales support
- Effective communication
- Positioning power
- Market growth
- Increased ROI
- Increased productivity
- Competitive advantage
- Improved image
- Accelerated growth
- Cutting edge
Management
- Increased collaboration
- Leadership excellence
- Improved communication
- Happier team
- Empowered employees
- Positive environment
- Innovation
- Augmented skills
- Valued skills
- Increased productivity
- Increased engagement
Human resources
- Improved culture
- Happier workplace
- Greater retention
- High-impact teams
- Growth mindset
- Increased engagement
- Improved management
- Leadership excellence
- Improved skills
- Strong Communication
- Empowered employees
Client Telephone Conference (CTC)
If you have any questions or if you would like to arrange a Client Telephone Conference (CTC) to discuss this particular Unique Consulting Service Proposition (UCSP) in more detail, please CLICK HERE.