| July 1st, 2008 | Do You Want Fries With That? - Using Suggestive Selling to Increase Your Sales |
Suggestive selling is a powerful tool that can increase your revenuesand your bottom linesignificantly. We are all used to the order taker at a fast food place asking if we want fries with our burgers, or if we would like to “Jumbo-Size” our orders, but suggestive selling can work in any business. Shoe stores suggest socks or polish to go with your new sneakers, hair salons recommend styling products, and stores selling electronics offer an extended warranty on the gadget you just bought. In each case, the business encourages the customer to add on to the purchase they are making. Upselling can be done in person, on the phone or over the Internet. Many online shopping carts allow you to set up a product-specific upselling page. That means that when someone orders Product A, they get the suggestion that goes with that product. Someone who orders another product receives a recommendation appropriate to that product. Here are some tips to make suggestive selling work for you: Make the suggestion after the customer has made a commitment to buy. Don’t try to add on to the sale before the customer has made a firm decision and is in the process of buying. Upsells should be related to the original purchase. An upgrade, a warranty, accessories, or something else that adds on to what the customer is buying can be effective. The customer is more likely to see such a suggestion as helpful than as simply a sales ploy. Consider making the upsell a “two-fer” offer. Because the customer bought one item at regular price, they are able to get a second at half price. The add-on product should have a lesser cost than the base purchase. Suggesting batteries to go with a radio works. Recommending a radio to go with a battery purchase doesn’t. Don’t hit customers with a lot of upsells. One (or possibly two) is enough. Badgering them to buy more can backfire and maybe even kill the sale completely. Make sure employees and order takers are making upsell offers to customers. Remind them of the importance of doing so, and consider rewarding them for great results, or even when you “catch” them upselling. Give telephone order takers a script that includes a suggestive sales offer. Done properly, an upsell is helpful to the customer and builds your profits as well. Copyright Cathy Stucker. As the Idea Lady, Cathy Stucker can help you attract customers and make yourself famous with inexpensive and free marketing ideas. Get free marketing tips, articles and more at http://www.IdeaLady.com/. Posted in World Of Sales | Comments Off
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| May 16th, 2008 | Is It Time To Rethink Your Sales Training Program or Is Your Sales Training Delivering Results? |
Sales is still a must for any company who wishes to stay in the marketplace. A recent Internet search uncovered over 471,000,000 hits on the words sales or selling. Visiting an Internet bookstore revealed similar interest with almost 11,400 titles including the key word of sales, over 8,208 titles with the key word of selling and 4,700 titles with the key words of sales and marketing. Extensive research conducted by the American Society for Testing and Development (ASTD) discovered direct training expenditures were 2% of payroll costs with another 10% of more in indirect costs. With all of this interest and dollars being invested in training and development for improved sales, possibly now is the time to assess your sales development. The following evaluation is for you, your manager, or your organization to determine the effectiveness of the current sales development initiatives within your company. After taking this quick assessment, some thoughts and questions to consider have been provided to help you truly discover how to secure the sales development results that you desire and more importantly require in today’s highly competitive global business market. 1. Are the learning engagements training (learning a new skill) or development (enhancing a current skill set to improve the already learned skill)? Training Development 2. Is there a minimum of 50 hours of training or development per year devoted to the development of the necessary skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits necessary to become a world class organization? No Yes 3. Is the training or development offered on a weekly or biweekly basis providing ongoing opportunities for application and feedback? No Yes 4. Is the training or development offered on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis where learning engagements exceed 6 hours per day without opportunities for application and feedback between learning engagements? No Yes 5. Is the training or development aligned with the current organizational goals and supported from the top down by the CEO and executive committee? No Yes 6. Is the training or development based upon “core” competencies? 7. If training or development is based upon “core” competencies, how many times have you had to repeat the training? None 1 time 2 times 3 times 4 times or more 8. Is the training or development based upon “desired” results? No Yes 9. If the training or development is based upon “desired” results, how many times have you had to repeat the training or development? None 1 time 2 times 3 times 4 times or more 10. Is the training or development based upon weaknesses or upon the strengths of each individual within the organization? Weaknesses Strengths Thoughts and Questions for Your Consideration Now, that you have completed this straightforward assessment, the following thoughts and questions are designed to help you determine the effectiveness of your current sales training or development. 1. Are the learning engagements training (learning a new skill) or development (enhancing a current skill set to improve that already learned skill)? Training Development If answer was training and the objective is to learn a new skill, you are right on target! However, if your people already possess skills, then the learning needs to focus on development. Development goes beyond training and works to build the What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) leading to the What’s In It For Us (WIIFU). 2. Is there a minimum of 50 hours of training or development per year devoted to the development of the necessary skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits necessary to become a world class organization? No Yes If the answer was Yes, GREAT! You and your organization are committed to the your people and to reaching that next level of success. However, if any part of the answer was NO and you want to create a World-Class Organization, how are you going to achieve that goal? Much of the traditional training or development focuses on only knowledge and skills. Yet, performance failure more often than not is because of poor attitudes and habits. Attitude redevelopment is the KEY driving force to changing behaviors and securing sustainable results. Remember, if your people have spent at least 20 years learning something, one or even 10 hours per year will not significantly change their behaviors. 3. Is the training or development offered on a weekly or bi-weekly basis providing ongoing opportunities for application and feedback? No Yes If the answer was Yes, again CONGRATULTIONS! People need numerous opportunities to practice newly learned skills so that they are highly “competent” in both their attitudes and behaviors. For example we all know what 10 x 10 is. However, very few of us can answer as quickly and with as much confidence what 23 x 24 is. 4. Is the training or development offered on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis where learning engagements exceed 5 to 6 hours per day without opportunities for application and feedback between learning engagements? No Yes If the answer was Yes, then the learning may not be delivering the desired results and potentially creating a negative return on investment. Research suggests that a one time exposure to a learning event such as a 1 or 2 day full training or development session results in 50% cognitive retention after 24 hours; 25% cognitive retention after 48 hours and less than 2% cognitive retention after 16 days. Remember, the brain only absorbs, but the butt will endure. 5. Is the training or development aligned with the current organizational goals and supported from the top down by the CEO and executive committee? No Yes If you answered, Yes, again you and your company are headed for success. If the response was No, then you may wish to consider looking at your organizational goals to ensure alignment. An important side question to ask is can everyone in your organization name exactly the same top 3 organizational goals for the current year? If not, what are those “miss actions” costing you in terms of financials, leadership, relationships both external and internal and growth and innovation? 6. Is the training or development curriculum based upon “core” competencies? No Yes If you answered yes, then whose competencies are you using? Do all those competencies work for and with your organization and your people? 7. If training or development curriculum is based upon “core” competencies, how many times have you had to repeat the training? None 1 time 2 times 3 times 4 times or more If you answered more than none, then is a core competency based curriculum, truly effective and creating the desired end result of transformation? 8. Is the training or development based upon “desired” results? No Yes If you answered No, then why are you undertaking this training or development? 9. If the training or development is based upon “desired” results, how many times have you had to repeat the training or development? None 1 time 2 times 3 times 4 times or more If you answered more than none, then potentially, the desired end results were not clearly communicated within the ENTIRE organization. (Refer to above Question 5, the side question.) 10. Is the training or development based upon weaknesses or upon the strengths of each individual within the organization? Weaknesses Strengths If you answered, weaknesses, then the question is why do winning teams win? Is it because of their weaknesses or strengths? Training or development should be strength-based not weakness-based. A strength-based curriculum ensures that everyone is leveraging their assets while working to improve their potential strengths and weaknesses. This quick assessment as well as the hints and questions are designed to help you easily recognize where your current efforts might be redirected to ensure that your sales training and development is truly delivering your desired end results. Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. President of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, is the Process Specialist. With over 25 years of business and education experience, she builds peace and abundance by connecting the 3P’s of Passion, Purpose and Performance through process improvement. Her ROI driven process solutions affect sustainable change in 4 key areas: financials, leadership, relationships and growth & innovation with a variety of industries. She aligns the strategies, systems and people to develop loyal internal customers that lead to external customers. As co-author of M.A.G.I.C.A.L. Potential:Living an Amazing Life Beyond Purpose to Achievement due for June 2005 release, Leanne speaks nationally to a variety of audiences. Please call Leanne a call at 219.759.5601 or email leanne@processspecialist.com if you are seeking amazing results. Copyright 2005 Leanne Hoagland-Smith, http://www.processspecialist.com Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted) Posted in World Of Sales | Comments Off
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| May 10th, 2008 | Sales Training - How to Maximize Sales by Changing Your Sales Training Focus |
Maximizing account penetration is one of the most critical functions in sales. Why? The depth of account penetration has an enormous impact on revenues and profitability. Think about it - if every one of your company’s salespeople sold every product and service in their portfolio to every business unit, department, and division of every account, what kind of number would they produce? Something huge, right? From a sales management perspective, few things are more frustrating than having a bunch of “one trick ponies” on a sales team. These are salespeople that have developed a comfort level with one product or service, and that product or service makes up 80% to 100% of their sales. I used to work for a computer distributor that had numerous salespeople that fit this mold. They would congratulate themselves for selling servers to an account, completely oblivious to the fact that the very same account was also buying storage, networking equipment, software, and professional services. The distributor’s salespeople only scratched the surface of the total available opportunity in most accounts. Here is a second huge frustration for sales managers and executives — salespeople that don’t produce “traction” with new products and services. When your company introduces a new product or service, you make a pretty sizeable investment to train your salespeople to sell the new product or service, right? Doesn’t it drive you crazy when only a fraction of your salespeople actually sell the new product or service? The return on your sales training investment stinks, and your company never sees the revenue boost it expected to receive from the new product or service. Why do I bring up lack of account penetration and lack of sales traction for new products and services in the same article? Because the same problem is often at the root of both issues! That problem is an excessive focus on technical details. Many managers and salespeople believe that salespeople need to become experts in order to sell a product or service effectively. To develop this understanding, companies invest enormous amounts of time and money in exhaustive training to educate salespeople on product features and benefits, performance characteristics, industry information, pricing guidelines, promotional activities, available collateral material, etc. Unfortunately, when salespeople leave these training sessions, they often have no idea how to find or qualify opportunities for the product or service they were just “trained” to sell! This leaves the salespeople frustrated, as they feel the time spent in training was wasted. Management is equally frustrated with their sales team’s inability to gain traction with new products and services, and their inability to learn to sell their company’s entire portfolio of products and services. This mutual frustration results from a lack of recognition of one very important fact:
When a salesperson identifies a qualified opportunity, there is usually no shortage of knowledgeable resources that can assist the salesperson with converting the opportunity into a sale. These resources may include technical or other specialists from the salesperson’s own company, or similar resources that are employed by suppliers or channel partners. If salespeople have access to product/service experts, why should they spend time learning technical details? Instead, why don’t they laser-focus their learning on how to find and qualify opportunities? Your company can facilitate this kind of focused learning by redesigning product and service training curriculums to address the following topics:
If your salespeople have access to product/service experts, you can turn them into prospecting and qualifying machines by focusing your company’s product/service training curriculums on how to find and qualify opportunities. This strategy will help your organization maximize account penetration and jump-start sales for new products and services. Copyright 2005 — Alan Rigg  Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople Don’t Perform and What to Do About It. His company, 80/20 Sales Performance, helps business owners, executives, and managers DOUBLE sales by implementing The Right Formula for building top-performing sales teams. For more information and more FREE sales and sales management tips, visit http://www.8020salesperformance.com. Posted in World Of Sales | Comments Off
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| April 16th, 2008 | Two Strong Weapons for Business Popularity to Increase Sales Part 1 |
Many people think that writing of press releases is only It differs if you are writing an advertising article or a press Actually there are few steps and rules you need to follow to Step one: Find out what you want to tell the reader Take a paper and write down some notes about your business. Your Step Two: Writing the short text Once again take a paper and explain the best note you’ve found Step Three: Writing the main part After writing the first section of your press release prepare Step Four: Writing the Company Information Some reader would like to contact your company. In this section Step Five: Writing your own Information Your contact information shows the reader who wrote this press Step Six: Writing the Headline Many people start writing a press release by thinking about the In this most important step, read your press release several TIP: People are interested in solutions and answers of Posted in World Of Sales | Comments Off
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