|
|
|
Virden Thornton - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Serving Discriminating Clients Internationally Since 1983
Virden J. Thornton is the founder of The $elling Edge®, Inc., a training and development firm, specializing in sales, telemarketing, customer relations, and management training, coaching and marketing advisory services. He has trained, coached and advised literally hundreds of clients, including Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, Northern Uniform Supply, The Texas Independent Banker's Association, Deloitte & Touché, Smith Barney, Jefferson Wells International, The Government of The U. S. Virgin Islands, ... [More]
[View Virden Thornton's Extended Author Bio]
[Display Categories] Sort By [Title] [Newest] [Oldest]
Virden Thornton Email Alerts
- The "Video Role Playing Is Counterproductive" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] Many sales managers and trainers feel that video role playing sales presentations and prospecting methods is just too stressful for their sales representatives to be an effective training tool. On the other hand, in most sports, video taping of an athletes performance is a standard training procedure. Today, video tapes play a major role in an athlete's conditioning by most coaches and managers.
- The "100% Commissions Motivate" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] There's a good reason why over 97 percent of progressive companies and service industry firms that I've consulted, use a form of a "hungry base plus commission" compensation plan for their sales professionals, rather than employing a straight commission pay structure. The reason is simple, straight commission pay plans demotivate many more sales professionals than they motivate. Straight commissions reward a specific type of sales professional--the top three to five percent of the sales professionals in the top 20 percent bracket.
- The "Never Play Favorites" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] Many year's ago, while training at a branch of Dean Whitter (now Morgan Stanley), I learned an important management truth. The branch manager at this office was mandated by corporate to spend a minimum of 60 percent of his time working with and supporting the stock brokers who had been given offices (based on their top performance) surrounding the "bull pen," where the vast majority of the brokers had cubicles. Those staff members in the cubicles were allocated 40 percent of the manager's time.
- The "Use Seasoned Sales Professionals As Trainers" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] In some selling organizations, if formal sales training exists at all, it is often performed by seasoned sales representatives or top performers on the staff. Big mistake!
- The "Cold Call Presentations" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] Sales professionals, new to selling or business development, might view the opportunity to make a presentation on the spot as a positive event, especially when they learn how hard it is to set a steady stream of appointments to make their presentation. But this perceived opportunity is far from the best time to make a sales presentation, because they rarely can command a decision-maker's full attention.
- The "Dress Down Friday" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] To be politically correct today, many organizations have set Friday's apart for their staff to dress down. For selling and service industry professionals, this is a major mistake on the part of management. Research conducted in the '90s by John Malloy, the author of the acclaimed Dress For Success series, we learn that people have a picture of how sales and service industry professionals should look.
- The "Staff Competition Increases Sales" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] On the surface, this concept of competition or contests seems like a valuable tool to increase sales. Don't bet on it.
- The "Being Efficient" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] Although successful selling requires a level of efficiency to put each staff member in front of as many decision-makers as possible in the shortest period of time, being efficient in sales is not always effective! Research into effective selling by several major Universities suggests that it can take as many as nine to twelve impressions about a product or service depending on the industry, before a prospective customer or client will make a buying decision. Therefore, your staff needs to take time to soften a decision-maker with appointment confirmations (both written and verbal).
- The "You Can Motivate Your Sales Staff" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] In my first management course at the City College of New York over 30 years ago, I learned an important truth--you can't motivate anyone except yourself. As a manager, all you can do is "create a climate" in which your sales team members motivate themselves. It's true that you can motivate your staff with fear--the fear of management's anger, the fear of looking foolish or even the fear of losing their job.
- Cliche-Ladened Sales Presentations
[Business:Presentation] Buzz words can sometimes aid a sales resentation, but often they tend to confuse a prospect, customer, client or co-worker. Anytime you make your listener (or reader) work hard mentally to understand your message, you run the risk that the person simply won't put forth the effort.
- Impress People With Your Message in Sales Presentations
[Business:Sales] To overcome the discomfort that naturally occurs when you feel unsure about certain features or benefits, often you will instinctively upgrade your language, believing that doing so will help you sound more professional and more knowledgeable. Actually, however, this practice can hurt you rather than help you in the sales communication process.
- Is Your Message Getting Through in a Sales Presentation?
[Business:Sales] When giving sales presentations, remember, industry terminology and jargon kills sales!
- Wearing Two Hats Costs A Sales Professional Sales
[Business:Sales] It's difficult at best to reprimand a staff member for poor sales performance, but almost impossible to do it when the reason for a lack of sales is that the representative was servicing a large account. If wearing two hats (sales and service) is not critical to your organization's success, why set up an impossible management situation.
- Turn Inquiries Into Solid Sales
[Business:Sales-Teleselling] This article will give you a series of examples show you how key phrases can turn a common, every day price inquiry into a selling situation, that in turn produces a new customer for your organization
- Top Sales Professionals Ask "The Right Questions"
[Business:Sales] Asking questions is the sign of a true professional. Taking time to discover your client, customer or prospect’s specific needs requires that you ask the right questions and then you listen to what is said.
- The Two-Hour Sales Presentation Vs. A Seven-Minute Attention Span
[Business:Sales] The average decision-maker has an attention span of just a little over seven minutes, while the average sales presentation in the United States runs from one and a half to two hours in length. You should easily figure out what’s wrong with this picture?
- The "Sales Goals Motivate" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] Many sales professionals, through a lack of experience at setting appropriate sales objectives, set unrealistic goals, which in turn assures their failure long before they even start to execute their plans for achieving them. When they find they are not able to meet the objectives they’ve set, they not only experience the frustration inherent in failing, but many of them also receive criticism and in some cases, punishment from management.
- The "Employment Tests" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] The employment tests can compensate for poor interviewing skills is a myth. Giving employment test too much weight in the hiring of sales staff members can be a big mistake.
- Active Listening - A Key To Sales Success
[Business:Sales-Training] Active listening is a process that builds trust in your prospects, customers or clients and helps them to become more focused and candid in thei response to your questions.
- The 8020 Rule Fallacy In Sales
[Business:Sales-Management] The 80/20 rule in sales organizations dies hard. You'll need to work diligently and hard to eliminate it and then even harder to keep it from resurfacing.
- Is Using Past Success As A Factor In Hiring A Mistake?
[Business:Sales-Management] What is vital for you to learn in selecting a candidate for an open sales position, is how well a candidate will perform in a job like the one you are trying to fill. Often an employment interview will never even touch on the candidate's competence for the new position.
- "Cold Calling Is Dead" Is A Lie!
[Business:Sales] One of the biggest lies on the Internet are the ads that proclaim that cold calling is dead just to sell training or books. Don't believe it!
- Canned Sales Presentations Just Don't Work Today
[Business:Presentation] "A picture is worth a thousand words," right? Well it depends!
- The "References Checks Are A Waste Of Time" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] If you think reference checks for new sales cadidates is a waste of time, you need to think again. Learn how to do it right!
- The "Hire Someone With Product Knowledge" Myth
[Business:Sales-Management] It doesn't matter if a candidate for your sales position knows anything about your industry or your products or services. Product knowledge is overrated in the hiring process and selling skills seem to be underrated by many sales managers today.
- A "Closing Sript" Is A Sales Myth
[Business:Sales] Sales closing scripts just don't work in the real world. Just another sales myth that many sales and service industry professionals believe and use.
- The Critical Factor In Consistent Sales Success
[Business:Sales] A “belief in oneself” is and explanation for a sales professional's behavior, performance and overall success levels.
- Stay With It!
[Business:Sales] When working with sales professionals to help them move from order-taking, operational mindsets into successful proactive sales approaches, sales trainers find that these people go through stages that loosely resemble the four phases of learning.
- Impressions: Vital To Sales Success
[Business:Sales] A sales letter is the most powerful selling tool you can use to make a positive impression, with the exception of an in-person sales call.
- Selling Is 90% "Understanding People"
[Business:Sales] It is the ability of a sales representative to understand and work with people, rather than technical skills or product knowledge that produces consistent sales success.
- A Favorable Juncture Of Circumstances
[Business:Sales] Joe Gerrard, for years one of the top insurance agents in the country, once said, "If I can get an appointment, I have a sale." What can sales and service industry professionals learn from Joe's statement?
- We Become What We Think About
[Self-Improvement:Success] What are you planting?
- Breaking Through The Comfort Zone Barrier
[Business:Sales] Your comfort zone barriers—the fear of looking foolish, the fear of criticism, the fear of being successful and the fear of failure—are quite simply attitudes.
- Program Your Biocomputer For Sales Success
[Business:Sales] Selling isn't something you do to people, it's something you do for them. If you feel as though you're being pushy or twisting arms when you are interacting with prospective customers or clients, you might be doing just that.
- At-ti-tude, n
[Business:Sales] At-ti-tude, n. a mental position; the feeling one has for oneself. Your attitudes are mindsets—or points of view based on what you believe to be true about life, other people and yourself. Attitudes impact your ability to succeed at sales.
- Baditude!
[Business:Sales-Management] Selling staff attitudes are often a reflection of what they see in their managers.
- Your Extended Shadow And Successful Sales Management
[Business:Sales-Management] What you say and do speaks louder than the words you use to manage the selling process...
- Closing Sales Is Not A Problem, It's A Process
[Business:Sales] Today, most successful sales professionals know that if you use a consultative sales process, one with a series of selling steps like those listed below, the close (asking for the business) will literally take care of itself.
- Sales Stategy: Just Ask!
[Business:Sales] If your prospects cannot vividly see personal benefits from taking action, there will never be the sense of urgency needed to follow your suggestions.
- How To Dramatically Improve Sales Closing Ratios
[Business:Sales] Using trial-closing questions, you'll watch your closing ratios and profitability dramatically improve.
- Being Politically Correct When Selling Can Cost You Sales
[Business:Sales-Training] Sales trainers, coaches and managers teach that you must be “politically correct,” polite or professional, when you for information. Being politically correct may just cost you the sale.
- The Multiplying Factor In Sales Success
[Business:Sales-Training] As I have studied the success patterns of top sales professionals from all types of industries and from all parts of the country, I began to make an exciting discovery. I learned that for the 20% of the sales people who sell 80% of the goods and services in the United States, achievement or failure is controlled in large measure by a multiplying factor that any sales professional can reproduce.
- How Pareto's Principle Impacts Your Sales Success
[Business:Sales-Training] Hiring Top Sales Producers Is Almost Impossible Because Of Pareto's Principle. Find Out What You Can Do About It!
- The Truth About Sale Success!
[Business:Sales-Training] Top sales professionals and service industry “rainmakers” earn a lot of money. Learn why they consistently produce sales success from research conducted in the United States and Germany.
- Sex Sells!
[Business:Sales] An attractive woman has a decided advantage as sales representative over her male counterpart.
- The Biggest Mistake In Selling!
[Business:Sales] Many sales and service industry professionals accept the stall, “I’ve got to think about it.” at face value, believing that a buyer truly has an interest in what they are selling. Are they mistaken?
- The "Finding Common Ground" Sales Technique, Is A Myth!
[Business:Sales-Training] Studies conducted by Dr. Al Mahribian at UCLA into effective communi-cation, strongly indicate that often the decision to purchase a product or service is made in the first two minutes of a sales transaction. Two min-utes is usually not enough time to discover something you might have in common with a prospective customer or client and then build on it to create a trusting relationship.
- The Added Value - Is YOU!
[Business:Customer-Service] The words “Quality Service” are deceptive at best. There are at the least two levels of quality service--high quality and low quality. Only you can make the difference in which adjective is used to describe the service levels in your organization.
- What Level Of Telephone Sales And Customer Service Do You Provide?
[Business:Sales-Teleselling] Using the telephone as an effective sales and customer service tool.
- An "Ideal Selling Situation"
[Business:Sales] Tradeshows are one of the most cost-effective tools in a marketing arsenal.
- Turning Sales Techniques Into Sales Success!
[Business:Sales-Training] There are a number of methods you can use to move beyond an intellectual awareness of new sales techniques and systmes. By applying the ideas outlined in this article, you can begin to see a steady improvement in the number and scope of your sales transactions.
- The Processionary Caterpillar Syndrome Costs You Sales?
[Business:Sales-Training] Why sales and service industry professionals fail to move beyond an intellectual understanding of sound selling principl to achieve consistent sales success.
- When Selling, Keep It Simple Stupid!
[Business:Sales] To consistently sell more you must keep the selling process simple!
- The "Canned Sales Pitch" Myth
[Business:Sales-Training] A Selling Myth That Can Cost A Sales Professional Sales!
- Hiring--A Vital Key In Sales Management Success
[Business:Sales-Management] When hiring a sales professional, checking an employment candidate's references properly, can make managing your sales staff members much easier.
- In Sales, Words Just Don't Compute
[Business:Sales-Training] Dr. Al Mehrabian’s research at UCLA, who reported that only 7% of a person’s communications effectiveness comes from words.
- Hire A Six, To Consistently Produce Sales Success
[Business:Sales-Management] How To Hire A Top Sales Producer
|
|
|
