December 12th, 2009
We have been spending a lot of time at PhoneSmart working on call quality. We realize that a great call is all we have to offer to our clients and to the people we talk to. What used to constitute a great call no longer applies. This latest economic downturn has caused the people we talk with to be a lot more stressed out, a lot grumpier and a lot more finicky.
I attended several meetings this week where our senior staff people were hashing out the latest tweaks to our new style guidelines, new evaluation processes and new training and coaching protocols. I was very proud to see how the team clearly knew the desired outcome and clearly knew how we were getting there. There was healthy debate and generous disagreement. This is all good. What I have been hearing on spot checks of phone calls is very good, too. The callers are responding well, the reps are feeling better about calls and the conversion rates are rising. Sounds like a win-win-win.
This gives me more great stories to tell for the next time I appear as a business speaker and tell people that they can create a selling culture.
Tags: client service, coaching, evaluations, quality control, sales training, style
Posted in Management, business speaker, people, personal growth, sales | Comments Off
October 3rd, 2009
The First Rule of Selling
Tron Jordheim c 2003
You Can’t Sell Anybody Anything
So that is like saying the first rule of football is …you can’t hang on to the ball; or the first rule of baseball is …you can’t score by swinging the bat. Maybe those are true, too. But I do know that you cannot sell anybody anything. You can, however, help people talk themselves into buying just about anything. Your job as a sales person is to help people talk themselves into good reasons to buy your offering. Your job as a sales manager is to help your sales people develop good qualifying questions that will help your prospects think through the purchase. Your job as the product developer is to create something people can see value in.
Then you can set about not-selling. Not-selling is a way to sell according to the first rule of selling. You do not tell people why they should buy; you ask people how they would use your offering. You don’t show people why the offering is good for them; you ask people to show you how it might be good for them. You don’t talk about the features and benefits; you ask about the benefits people find in the features. When the person has finished talking himself or herself into buying you ask for the order and finish the purchase.
Tags: business speaker, sales training
Posted in Management, marketing, sales | Comments Off
