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Berkshire | david.davies@sandler.com

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Was every penny you ever spent on Training a waste of money?

In Sales Training we are often challenged to explain the expected return on investment on the training we’re invited to deliver. It’s a fair question, but an incredibly difficult one to answer.

We could, of course, use the simplest of measures.

A simple division of the upfront investment into the results returned as an outcome of the training.

For example: taking the incremental revenue growth over an agreed period and divide that by the training investment. The hope being that a bigger number than the investment presents itself.

R: £100,000 incremental revenue shift / I: £10,000 training = 10X ROI

That’s risky though. There are no ‘silver bullets’. Instant gratification does not exist and if it did, it would be incredibly expensive to buy.

Did you know the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day?

Let’s say you enjoy 7 blissfully decision-free hours of sleep a day, that still means you are making 2,000 decisions per hour, that’s a decision every 2 seconds.

Many of those rapid-fire decisions are based on your beliefs.

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) says "Losers have goals; Winners have systems".

They say that less than 8% ever achieve that goal they were '100% committed to' when they set it.

The reason, I suspect, is because they forget to develop a systematic approach to achieving their goal. Thus, they bash their shins on the first hurdle and fall to the side of the track.

"I want to run faster!".

OK, I accept that this might be a bit of a stretch.

As years go 2020 will be one that most of us would willing scratch from the annals of time.

There are few that will want to undertake the usual 'forensic examination' of the sales mistakes we made in 2020.

Even fewer will agree that the lessons learned in 2019 were applicable to the 2020 playbook. Business unusual times indeed!

That said, is it really too late to discuss some lessons that just might have an impact on your sales performance in the final days of 2020?

Truthfully, it does not matter what month or year it is, some sales lessons stand the test of time.

These are lessons we need to revisit on a regular basis.

DISC assessments were developed based on psychologist William Moulton Marston’s theory about behavioural traits.

Since Marston’s original findings were published in 1928, they have been further developed by Walter Vernon Clarke, an industrial psychologist, and a DISC behavioural assessment tool for the workplace was created by John Geier.

This tool can help you and learn more about personality styles, paving the way toward improved communication.

Read on to learn more about the different DISC assessment styles and communication practices that work with each.

Have you ever missed a signal that there was really never a "deal"? A silent, unspoken or politely dressed up "No."

Traditional sales training taught us, of course, "never to take 'No' for an answer."

When we hear "No', we immediately begin to flick through our mental tome of "overcoming stalls and objections". We ready ourselves to deliver the knock-out blow of a 'tired and testing' response that is 'guaranteed' to flip that 'No' into a 'Yes'.

Of course, the prospect has developed their own tome of "salesperson loses" responses designed to counter-act the effects of the traditional salespersons 'closing' technique.

The debate then rages on, both parties 'objection' wrestling furiously, until the other is exhausted.

It ain't what you do...
“If selling was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

That phrase resonates because.

1) Those who do it, and do it well, reap the rewards! They have tapped into the incredible earnings potential available for those that choose to excel at ‘Selling’ as a career.

2) Those who don’t do it, don’t like it, and will do anything to avoid it. Sales don’t come easy at all, even to the best of us.

The ‘novice’ and ‘experienced’ seller agree wholeheartedly on one thing. Of all the ‘challenges’ they face in selling, prospecting is the biggest.

 

Most salespeople think of success in terms of accomplishments - like winning a big account, achieving a sales goal, earning a big commission ‘cheque’, getting their hands on a sales awards, or even getting promoted.

Salespeople are taught to believe that these are all signs of success.

They are signs, but not particularly lasting indicators of success.

To understand success – the process that actually delivers positive results – we can think of success as a triangle, with a trinity of core elements.

“If selling was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

That phrase makes sense, right? It resonates for 2 clear reasons.

1) The rewards are high! There is an incredible potential income to be had from commission driven selling incentives for those that choose ‘Selling’ as a career.

2) Selling really isn’t easy at all! There are many obstacles/hurdles/pitfalls/roadblocks to overcome.

Both the ‘novice’ and ‘experienced’ seller agree wholeheartedly on one thing. Of all the ‘challenges’ they face in selling, prospecting is the biggest.