Ken at Brian Tracy's Sales Seminar

It was a real honor to finally meet "the man", Brian Tracy, himself at one of his recent seminars here in Denver. I like Brian's "40 plus" rule, and so much more, from his Advanced Selling book, and his audio/video resources. Brian's great.

Jeffrey Gitomer and Ken Calhoun #2

It was great to see Jeffrey Gitomer in Denver again this last week, Friday June 9th. You can tell I'm thrilled to see him again - that's me on the right with the cheshire-cat grin:



What can I say? He's my sales hero. Gitomer gets it.

And so did the 300 other sales pros who eagerly crammed into the hotel's biggest ballroom to hear Jeffrey's latest words of wisdom on how to sell (and deliver superb customer service) successfully, every time.

Highly recommend you buy all of Gitomer's stuff if you haven't already. Looking forward to seeing Jeffrey again in person!

Sales Training Tip of The Week: Matching & Mirroring

Sales training tip for building rapport and new sales:

Here's how successfully use the old-school "NLP" (neuro-linguistic programming) techniques for selling in 2006's fast-paced sales situations...

What is NLP/matching/mirroring/leading/pacing?

Developed by Bandler et al from Erikson's work, it's a technique for building rapport with prospects based on subtly copying their rate of speech, body language, breathing pace and more ...

SALES GOAL:
At a minimum, not have the prospect feel 'mismatched' or turned off by you as a person ... so you become a 'physical chameleon' (without overdoing it, so that it's imperceptible), and prospects unconsciously start to like you, identify with you, and gain rapport instantly.

HOW TO NOT SCREW IT UP:
If you "pace" and "copycat" the prospect, they'll be pissed off and you'll lose them. The artistry, is in being yourself, but subtly doing as they do, just a bit, to build rapport. So if they're outgoing and expressive, you should be more like that too ... if they're withdrawn and quiet, so should you be.

Main point: don't "mismatch" yourself with the prospect.

Sales point -- world-class salesmanship draws on many skills, this is one you should PRACTICE with other sales reps/family members, til you're on "auto-pilot" with your matching/pacing skills ... it really works - try it!

ken calhoun
http://www.sellingu.com

Sales Lessons Learned from Dan Kennedy

I was thrilled to be able to finally meet one of the men who's had a profound impact on my lifestyle, a man who I've learned so very much from -- Dan Kennedy, live in person in Denver on March 3rd, 2006.

Here's a picture, below, of he and I ... He was there for a book signing ... and delivered dozens of useful tips as the standing-room only crowd peppered him with questions.

I'll share new insights on just a few of the hundreds of tactics I've learned from Dan in a future post, for now enjoy the picture (note that no endorsement from Dan should be inferred nor implied, per his standard request for those of us who are fortunate enough to get our photos taken with him).

Here's the photo, you can tell I was in a great mood:



Ken Calhoun finally meets Dan Kennedy in person! I learned two new tactics that'll help me boost sales, plus more. Dan's a treasure - top-notch strategies.

Sales Training for Successful Sales Management

Sales managers have a tough job - they've got to help their people make their numbers, plus use CRM systems effectively (for some companies) and make tough calls.

They're caught between senior management hollering for "productivity! show me the numbers...!" and sales reps with "help me boss" pleas for assistance, coming in daily. What's a sales manager to do?

Here's a few strategies for effectively managing a sales team:

- Do more visual process management - I have my clients create "Sales Action Boards" where they basically post goals and "lessons learned", jotted down in quick 3x5 card format, for easy use.

- Make the tone a successful one, of gently expecting the best ... when you're out in the field with one of your sales reps, be sure to lighten things up by letting them know 2-3 things they did great, as well as where they need improvement.

- Pair up your top-performers with 1-2 "needs help" sales reps, just 1 full day every other month ... get them to share what works, and make sure you're compensating your top performer by paying them what they'd normally be making, for the lost day, while they help train the folks that need it. Overall sales force productive will improve over time.

- Quietly fire your low-performers, quickly. A couple of bad apples with a crappy sales attitude can absolutely murder your bottom line, and poison the group with a "blame other departments" lack of responsibility / accountability attitude. Only keep winners around, fire the rest. You can't afford to keep bad-attidude or incompetents hanging around like a weight on the neck of your sales team.

- Have quarterly sales meetings in a fun restaurant, and feature a success story with 2-3 of your best reps (different ones each time!) to encourage time for celebration. Make your sales team entrepreneurial and aggressive.

Ok that's it for now - try out a few of these practical tips, they can make a huge difference in leveraging sales success with your team!


Ken Calhoun
http://www.SellingUniversity.com

Sales Presentation Strategies #1

Many of my clients have asked me for coaching to help them improve their sales presentation skills.

The first thing I have them do is:

Step 1: Video record yourself using a camcorder, with a role-play sales presentation with another sales rep in your office.

Step 2: Identify how strong you are at
a) your greeting/rapport-building tactics,
b) establishing initial credibility with intelligent questions and
c) how tightly/closely you integrate what you're saying, with how the prospect is responding.

Step 3: Practice improving weak areas.

In working with thousands of sales pros, I've found that top performers do a terrific job of "meshing" with the prospect almost immediately. Barriers go down, the prospect feels like they're being listened to, and that the prospect is the center of attention, as they should be.

Low performers and new sales reps, on the other hand, tend to be too self-conscious, worried about what they're going to say, and don't inspire credibility and confidence, much less the rapport that's needed for successful selling.

Bottom line: practice much more, til you learn how to be a chameleon and mesh with your prospect, the person (whoever they are), immediately when you're on your next sales presentation, and watch your sales skyrocket!

-ken

Sales Training : How To Use Specific Sales Tactics

One challenge I've seen with many of the sales training books, cds and videos out there is that it's all generic. There's little or no examples that apply to individual, specific industries.

At Selling University, one of our key points is to provide sales training that goes beyond the basics, and helps with very specific questions and strategies tailored for individual types of sales reps. Make sense?

Books that tell me to ask intelligent questions and build rapport and be nice, aren't going to cut it.

EXAMPLE: TECH
On the other hand, saying "ok if you're a sales engineer at ABC High-Tech selling computer systems - the next time you're in a customers' office, try asking things like:

a) What kind of downtime does your current LAN network have?
b) If we could reduce that by 36%, and guarantee it, how would that help your IT department? (follow-on, "Is there anyone from IT who should be in on our meeting right now?")
c) What other kind of guarantees are important to your systems engineers?

Get it? Specific questions and sales tips are critical for success, to show exactly how it's done, and how the sale is made.

EXAMPLE: RETAIL

Or, say you're in retail sales and you're having a hard time getting
browsers to actually buy merchandise - what's the fix?

Several come to mind - one thing most retailers completely fail to do is post testimonials or pictures around the registers, or near dressing rooms. The next time you have a customer appreciation day (these work best around major holidays), have someone with a digital camera roaming around, and ask customers "if you've bought from us before, can you tell us something you liked best about shopping here?" and ask their permission to take their photo, and print what they've said and and put it in the store. (Get their signature on a photo release, too).

FACT: Most (though not all) customers will be thrilled to be "famous", and the added boost that these testimonials will give is priceless. Try it..


Back to my point - most sales training books/cds/dvds don't give you practical real-world "how to" tips like that, right?

I've trained over 30,000 sales professionals worldwide, from over 140 businesses - I'll keep sharing real life successes like this with you in the blog and in the webinars and videos at the main site!

To your sales success,

Ken Calhoun, Pres.
http://www.SellingUniversity.com