Keep Replaying The Sales Call

Sales managers should encourage their salespeople to continually improve. One way to day that is to Replay The Sales Call – Every Time.

Most salespeople continue to make the same mistakes over and over, never recognizing their errors. Therefore, beyond a certain point, they never really get much better at what they do. How can you avoid that trap?

To continually improve your sales productivity and performance, you need two things. First, you need a systematic, step-by-step approach to planning and conducting the sales call that gives you a clear picture of what the whole process looks like when it's done right. Second, you need a strategy for critiquing your own performance regularly in light of that ideal approach.

The nine-act structure of Action Selling provides you with the systematic process. And by mentally reviewing your performance in each act after every sales call you make, successful or not, you ensure that you will never stop improving as a professional sales representative.

Here are some sample questions that top-performing salespeople ask themselves after every sales call:

1. What Commitment Objective did I set for the call? Did I achieve it? If not, what commitment did I gain from the customer and how?
2. Was the person I called upon the ultimate decision maker? If not, did I gain a commitment that will take me closer to that decision maker? Why or why not?
3. What needs did I uncover and agree upon with the customer? Are there needs that will let me differentiate my product?
4. How did I show that my company would be a good match for the customer's company? Could I have done this better? How?
5. Did I tie the needs that I uncovered to the capabilities of my product? Did I describe my product's benefits in terms that address those needs specifically and powerfully? How could I have done better?

Objections are the customer's response to unasked questions. Ask The Best Questions early in the sales call, and customize your presentation so that you'll hear far fewer objections later. If you do hear an objection late in the call, figure out the question you should have asked and ask it now.

In The Field:

After the conclusion of an Action Selling Sales Training Program not long ago, I was approached privately by one of the more mature attendees. "If I had only learned this 30 years ago," he said ruefully, "my life would be much different today."

Naturally, I had to ask: "What would be different?" I will never forget his response. "Everything," he said. "I wouldn't be working at this stage of my life. This workshop has pointed out so many mistakes that I have been making throughout my sales career. Those errors have hurt my income for 30 years."

Those may be the saddest words I've ever heard. If you have a feeling that you may be repeating the same old mistakes in your sales strategy and approach, take charge now.

For more on Sales Manager or Sales Management Training, see our Sales Training site or call 1-800-232-3485.

The Sales Training Series: How To Develop A Strong Sales Culture

In every other business function (accounting, engineering, operations) there are documented processes, common cultures, and established vocabularies with terms that are clearly understood—everywhere except in sales.

It is a rare company that has a strong and distinct sales culture, complete with a common language for discussing, conducting, and improving the sales process. The few companies that have built such sales cultures are easy to recognize—they’re a lot more successful.

Everyone who makes contact with customers should understand your sales language.

It isn’t only salespeople who should be indoctrinated into your sales culture. Every time a customer contacts your company, that customer becomes more or less sold on your products. If your employees all know how your sales process works, they can be far more effective at influencing customers in your favor.

Here are some tips to help sales managers begin building a common sales culture.

• Document the way your sales process works, and identify the important milestones in the process. What are the major steps that lead to a sale? Everyone in the organization who comes into contact with customers should know what the next logical step would be.
• Teach employees how to ask better questions—what Action Selling calls The Best Questions. This allows your people to do a better job of building rapport and identifying how best to proceed with particular customers.
• Teach employees how and when to make Positive Company Statements. Nobody should miss an opportunity to pass along good news about your company, whether it involves a new product, favorable financial performance, a joint venture, or whatever the case may be.
• Within the sales force itself, a common language is especially important. For instance, terms unique to Action Selling (such as Commitment Objective, TFBR, and Universal Stall Breaker) allow a sales team to communicate clearly and precisely about how to improve performance in specific areas of the sales process.

Develop a strong sales culture, based on a common language and built upon a well-defined sales process. You will create a powerful orchestra, with all the musicians playing from the same score for your customer audience.

In The Field:

When companies see the results of Action Selling on the performance of individual sales teams, they often decide to use the system as a catalyst for building or improving their entire “sales culture.”

“Our goal in implementing Action Selling was to develop a common selling language for our 300-unit franchise network,” says Terry Huber, director of training at Signs Now. “We wanted a solid sales standard that could drive sales productivity in the field.”

Now Action Selling Sales Training is delivering results across the whole network. Roger Watkins, owner of the Signs Now franchise in Bloomington, Ind., sums it up this way: “Before starting my franchise, I was a police officer. Gaining commitment as a police officer was relatively easy. In sales, it’s a different challenge. Action Selling has given me the ammunition I needed. I’m now ahead of my aggressive goal of 26 percent sales growth.”

Similar performance changes are sited by other franchises. “At Signs Now,” says Terry Huber, “we have adopted Action Selling as part of our culture with tremendous success.”

Need more information about managing the sales process. Visit our site or call us at 800-232-3485.

Sales Managers: Coach how to question the question

What Works Best For Your Company?

Action Selling: It’s Not Just for Salespeople Anymore!

The nine acts of the Action Selling sales training program, provide salespeople with a complete strategic and tactical guide for planning and conducting client calls. But the same system offers a clear roadmap and a set of powerful tools for any employee who comes into regular contact with customers. As a quick example, consider the Action Selling principle of “answering a question with a question.” Even veteran salespeople make the common mistake of replying too soon to customer questions that turn out to be “loaded,” instead of taking the time to probe for the real issue behind the question.

Quick and thoughtless answers kill a multitude of sales. If experienced salespeople fall into this trap, imagine how many potential sales are blown by untrained and inexperienced customer-contact people.

Here is a tragic little scene that plays out every day, with minor variations, in thousands of businesses. A customer thumbs though a catalog and points to an item. “Do you have any of these in stock?” he asks the service representative. Customer Service Rep: “No, I’m afraid not. We sold out yesterday.”Customer (annoyed): “All right, I’ll get them somewhere else. You don’t seem to stock as many items as you used to.”

Why would Action Selling call that tragic? Because your service rep might have turned the situation around so easily—rescuing a nice sale and pleasing a valuable customer—if only she knew the value of answering a question with a question. Then the scene might have played like this instead:Customer: “Do you have any of these in stock?”Rep: “How soon will you need them?”Customer: “Well, we’re running a little low. Probably in a week.”Rep: “So if I can get them for you in a week, that would be all right?” Customer: “Yes, that will be fine.”

Ca-ching! Hear that cash register ring? See that customer who is now impressed by your service and by your rep’s helpfulness instead of disgruntled by your lack of inventory?
Now let’s ask our original question again. If you could do one thing to boost your company’s sales astronomically, what would it be? Answer: Arm your customer-contact employees with Action Selling skills.

Contact us to learn more about leveraging the power of Action Selling to transform your company’s entire sales culture

Sales Managers: Strategize better with a common selling language

Action Selling In Action

Our region has jumped to No. 1 in the country,” says Leif Rowles, regional manager for Sears Commercial Division. Rowles moved his region from the middle of the pack to the top in sales while boosting profits by a whopping 111 percent with Action Selling training. His people learned and practiced “The Process” until it became part of their culture.

“Now we have a common sales language we can use to strategize before and after sales calls. We are a stronger team and better able to coach one another,” Rowles says. Action Selling training defines the most effective practices for conducting the entire sales process. Then it provides a template to document exactly what the best salespeople do to gain business.

When you have a system that clearly shows everyone what the Best Practices are, you can achieve great gains in performance and productivity. Rowles puts it simply: “Action Selling is the reason we are closing more customers.”

Find out how to document your Best Sales Practices, contact The Sales Board at 1-800-232-3485.

Learn more about Action Selling Certification.

Sales Managers: Documenting best sales practices

What Works Best For Your Company?

Experience is a wonderful teacher, but only if you pay attention and draw the right lessons from your experience. It pays to document certain portions of your company’s sales process—and the most successful practices that you and your fellow salespeople have found for handling common challenges.

Salespeople who do this maximize the use of their time, shorten sell cycles, make more sales, and cash bigger paychecks.

To learn from what works, document what works.

What parts of your sales process should you document?

First, identify the milestones in your sales cycle. What are the necessary steps that lead from your initial contact with a prospect to a completed sale? What commitment must you gain from the customer at each milestone that will lead to the next step? For instance, does your sales cycle usually require an initial meeting with several decision makers followed by another meeting at which you present a formal proposal? Both of those meetings are milestones.
Write down your 10 strongest sales features—the features of your products or services that have the strongest appeal to most customers. Include a benefits statement for each feature. Remember that benefits usually have dollar signs attached.

Next, write down the expected customer needs associated with those 10 features and benefits. Customers will only buy if a benefit represents a solution to a perceived need. So what needs must you look for? Write some open-ended questions that help you draw out needs for which your 10 strongest features offer solutions.

Write the best sales questions that you can use to determine what your sales strategy must be for a particular client. Your sales strategy is determined by the competition you face, the buyer’s time frame, and the buying influences that will play a role in the sale. What are the best questions with which to draw out information about those factors?
Document a crisp (30-second) and powerful company story that you can tell in all first-call selling situations.

Ask your peers about each of these topics, and compare their approaches with yours. If somebody else has a great question for drawing out needs, for example, by all means write it down and use it. Create reminder lists for yourself, and review them before every sales call. Then you can stop making the same expensive mistakes.

Contact us to learn more about documenting your Best Sales Practices

Sales Management: Use TFBR's to support field sales skills

Action Selling In Action

The TFBR method (Tieback, Feature, Benefit, and Reaction Question, a selling skill used during sales presentations, is explained in my previous post.

The TFBR method isn’t just for salespeople who meet clients face to face. The marketing professionals who support your company’s sales efforts can use the TFBR format to help salespeople zero in on ways to present products as solutions that address key customer needs.
Marketing people should think in terms of the TFBR process when communicating product information to the sales force and to customers.

Connie Fuller, manager of human resource development at Ball Seed Company, put it this way: “When marketing presents information consistent with Action Selling concepts, it is immediately more useful to our reps. It also supports our training efforts and creates a wonderful synergy.” Cont act The Sales Board at 1-800-232-3485.

Learn more about Sales training, selling skills or our Action Selling Certification program.

Sales Managers: Coach the best sales presentation skills!

TFBR Spells "Better Product Presentation"

You have asked great questions, you’ve uncovered at least three important customer needs that your offerings can address, and you’re ready to begin your product presentation. Know what you’re going to do now? If you’re like most salespeople, you’re going to lose all of the momentum you’ve built—and maybe the sale, as well—by launching a long, boring, standardized recitation of product features. Your presentation won’t even focus directly on the key needs you took such pains to identify.

People don’t buy product features. They buy solutions to their own needs.

Customers don’t care about your product features or even about the benefits those features offer to the world at large. Customers care about one thing only: How can you help me solve problems or seize opportunities that matter to me?

What you need is a simple, structured method for product presentations that lets you stop rambling about features that may be irrelevant to this customer and start presenting solutions to specific needs instead—solutions that are crisp, clear, brief, and to the point.
There is such a method. It’s called TFBR. Here is how it works.

T – Tie-Back . Tie the conversation back to a need you identified with your earlier questions:
“You told me earlier that you want to match the products that you stock with the unique needs of each region.”

F – Feature. Describe a product feature that meets that need:
“Our regional purchases history reporting will show you exactly what the most popular products are in each region.”

B – Benefit. Explain how that feature will serve this customer’s specific need:
“What this means to you is that you will improve service to your customers while minimizing the inventory needed at each location.”

R – Reaction. Ask for the customer’s own view of how the benefit would serve the need. This confirms that you correctly understand the need. Also, importantly, it turns the product presentation into a dialogue with the customer instead of a monologue by you:
“How will this information help you improve your business?”

Cast each product feature or capability you present in the TFBR format. And present only features that represent solutions to needs you have already uncovered and agreed upon.
The TFBR method will shorten your sales presentations dramatically and make them far more powerful. Why put your customers to sleep when you can engage them instead in a problem-solving dialogue that makes them very happy they agreed to meet with you?

Would you like to see how well your sales presentations compare to the best? Taking our free Selling Skills Assessment online, right now.

Contact us to learn more about a full explanation of the TFBR method and how it fits into the complete Action Selling system.