Archive for the ‘sales training’ Category

The worst thing you can ever do in your MLM business career is to think, ponder, worry or even get the idea that it’s unprofessional to promote! Here are some MLM training strategies for generating your own MLM leads, even if you’re on a tight budget.

Prospects are basically the foundation of any business, as they are the potential customers to the business. So just how do YOU find MLM prospects?

Let’s start out with a definition of the word promote, which is the most important word in finding prospects for your MLM business. The word promote means: to make known.

I was recently doing some MLM training with a person in my downline. She needed some help with her business, which was not growing. As I asked various questions I finally found the “nasty bug” that was stopping her network marketing business from moving forward. She didn’t want to come off as being or sounding sales-y. This stopped her from promoting.

HOW DOES EVERYONE ELSE PROMOTE?

A politician promotes how he/she can make a whole community’s life better; so he’s/she’s making herself known to the public by promoting and making known to as many people as possible what he/she can do for them. If you’ve noticed, politicians promote on TV, radio, signs stuck in the grass or on telephone poles along a busy street or maybe speaking at various group meetings.

A college promotes what courses it offers. It might promote on radio, might promote to high schools or through sporting events. A stockbroker promotes that he can help his/her prospect make money. A local restaurant will promote via radio, or mailing brochures or discount coupons.

THE WORST THING YOU CAN EVER DO IN YOUR MLM BUSINESS CAREER IS TO THINK, PONDER, WORRY OR EVEN GET THE IDEA THAT IT’S UNPROFESSIONAL TO PROMOTE!

You really need to know and understand promotion. The only way you can have prospects, therefore customers or distributors, is to promote. The only way for you to make money in network marketing is to promote. You can write down your dreams and goals and study them every night, but you’re as effective as a billboard in the middle of the desert. No one knows you exist until you make yourself known. So if you ever find yourself where your business isn’t growing or you don’t have enough prospects, enough customers, or enough distributors, what do you do? Promote!

WHY DO YOU PROMOTE?

The reason you promote is to create desire for your product. If you don’t create a desire for your product, it’s very difficult to achieve MLM success. How would you know that someone desires your product or business? Well certainly if you sent a postcard and someone called the number, that’s someone showing desire in your MLM Business. Even if a person called and asked, “How much is this,” it would still be someone showing desire or at least slight interest. If you called a friend and asked them to look at something and they said, “Send it to me,” that’s showing a desire. People sometimes refer to desire as “responses,” as in, someone responded to my promotion.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF PROMOTION

So now let’s talk about different types of promotion that create desire. You could promote your MLM Business in:

1. The Help Wanted, the Sales and Marketing or the Business Opportunity sections of a newspaper.

2. Advertising section of magazines.

3. Direct mail, such as sending out postcards to everyone in your zip code.

4. Door hangers.

5. Emails and banner ads on the internet.

6.  Networking. I’m sure you could have guessed that I would name that one. But you would be surprised at how many people, when mentioning all the ways to promote, miss that one. In fact, if you use traditional promotion with the mindset of just finding a network of people to work , you will fare far better than most who only measure their responses with how many people respond to their advertisement. You can turn one response from a promotion into thousands if you properly network.
One other place to find prospects for your business is to promote to MLM leads that you purchase from a lead company. The advantage of this is you’re only paying for those who’ve responded and you’re not paying for all the people who didn’t respond. If I send out 10,000 postcards and get 20 responses, then I paid for 9,980 post cards that didn’t get a response.

The advantage of writing your own ads of course is being able to target your specific audience with your specific product or opportunity message, which is VERY important and should not be underestimated. In contrast, when you buy leads, you’re buying general ads; perhaps people who’ve responded to wanting a home-based business. The other downside to buying leads is that very often, lead companies resell their leads to more than just you; so you’ve got extra competition to deal with.

THREE BROAD WAYS TO PROMOTE

Now it probably sounded like I just contradicted myself; I didn’t. I just saved you years of running in circles trying to figure out the advantages and the disadvantages to generating your own leads or buying leads. This is the game. You must promote. There are three broad ways to promote.

1. Networking: this costs the least. You’re going to have the costs of meals with prospects and the costs of joining clubs/associations. So I have rock climbing club fees, I have mountain climbing association fees, horseback riding fees, mountain biking fees; these are like $50-$100 dollars a year.

2. Buying leads: this is more expensive than networking, but less expensive than generating your own. It has some advantages and disadvantages: sometimes you get some hot leads; sometimes, you swear you’re calling a graveyard.

3. Generating your own: this is the most expensive, but has the advantages of targeting your prospects. Here’s a list of advertisements that I’ve run to promote my own MLM business opportunity:

* Some people earn Ten thousand dollars a year. And some people earn One million in the same year. Click here to see difference.

* Need more money; NOW!

* Does it ever break your heart to leave your kids at daycare?

* Looking for a FUN business?

* Go to the golf course when it’s not crowded.

* The truth about making money. A lot of it.

* WEALTH FORMULA. Click here (banner ads)

* Wealth formula that takes a lot of effort - but retires you in 4 years.

* Extremely well paying position available to right person. Must have sales & marketing experience. sales training a big plus.

* Immediate Need for Effective Sales Person. Unlimited earning and growth potential. Self-starter, sales writing skills and team player will be keys to success in this growing, hightech organization. Will be responsible for generating sales leads, preparing and giving presentations on company products and training sales team for (enter your business type. Example: fitness, high-tech or health, etc.) development company. Great benefits. Great FUN TEAM! Fax resume to:

BE “IN” BUSINESS

The bottom line is you must be using at least one of these three methods to achieve MLM success. If you’re not, you’re not in business; you’re out of business. What you should be doing, if you see the big picture and want the very big income, is you need to be doing all three. All the time. Ideally you’d start out by networking, which will create enough money to buy MLM leads, then you’ll generate enough money from the leads you purchased to generate your own leads. My point is, as soon as you start making any money, reinvest it in promotion.

One other MLM training tip: don’t measure your success by just your immediate responses. Any marketer who is of any value knows that how you measure return on promotion investment is based on the “life of the customer;” NOT immediate return. Get one leader from a MONTH or 6-MONTHS of promotion and it can pay you for the rest of your life. People often ask me, how much money did you make your first year in network marketing and I tell them, “I don’t know, I’m still earning it.”

Much respect and admiration,

Tim Sales

Tim Sales
http://www.articlesbase.com/mlm-articles/mlm-training-how-to-generate-your-own-qualified-prospects-with-10-proven-newspaper-ads-674274.html

Youâ??re struggling with your MLM or network marketing business mainly because you arenâ??t a salesperson. Only 3% of people succeed in MLM - this stat alone caused my wife and I to consider MLM (Network Marketing) Vs. Direct Sales.

Itâ??s ok, there are many people like you!  Iâ??m not a salesperson either, so believe me, when this direct sales opportunity came, I was elated. If youâ??re in an MLM, which most people are who visit my site, then you know what Iâ??m talking about.

But, like me, most of you have no idea what Iâ??m talking about when I discuss direct sales. So, what is it? Direct sales is where you actually sell a program and receive a commission for doing so.

Let me give you an example - this is MLM Vs. Direct Sales, the nitty gritty.

MLM â?? In an MLM (using the structure my wife and I have been with) you will sell a product and receive $30 for the initial signup, then $5 / month after that for as long as that person sticks with the product.

Direct Sales â?? In direct sales (using the structure of the company Iâ??ve been with) you receive anywhere from $20-$3200 for each sale with revenue on every level of the process while also receiving a $50 / month residual check. Ok, so direct sales (at least to me) seems like the way to go - which is why my wife and I stopped working on our MLM (although still with it, we just donâ??t sell it anymore) and began investing in our direct sales business.

Now, to the costs and the differences that lie therein â?¦

MLM:

Costs/expenses: $160 for signup and $130 / month after that for continued shipments plus a minimum of $50 / month in marketing costs (pamphlets, booklets, videos, etc.). Again, this is the costs my wife and I dealt with personally, so, over 6 months our total expenses were $160 (first month and distributor fee) + $130 / month over 5 more months or $650 + $50 (minimum estimate) / month marketing expense over 6 months or $300.

Total Expenses (6 months) = $1110 Income: Over 6 months, we signed up 3 people and received $180 for our efforts ($30 initial sign up fee * 3 signups = $90; $5 residual / month per member * 3 members = $15 * 6 months = $90; total = $180).

Total Income (6 months) = $180 So, for our net income (income minus costs/expenses) equals -$930 or negative $930. WE LOST $930. Nice return on investment over 6 months. That comes out to be over $2200 for a yearâ??s worth of expenses and a total lost of about $1800. NOT GOOD!

Direct Sales:

Costs/Expenses: $2500 startup (If this number seems large to you and too much for anything youâ??re considering, then stop reading this and wander away, this opportunity is NOT for you! For those who are interested in building a business, welcome to the exciting part of this article) + $200 / month for training, support, website pages, landing pages, marketing training and branding information, credit card authorization account for your websites (allows you to accept credit/debit cards), and more.

Total Expenses (6 months) = $3700

Total Income: Sticking to conservative numbers, suppose you sell the same amount of direct sales products as MLM products, 3. For one mid-level sale in the direct sales business you would receive $1220 in compensation.

You get $20 for the application fee, which is a fee that weeds out tire kickers or people who want something for free and donâ??t want to actually invest in a BUSINESS.

Next, you get $200 for the business in a box sale. The business in a box tool teaches those who purchase it how to leverage the internet to gather qualified prospects to buy into their business, this is the most extensive internet marketing training on the web today (you receive this too when you invest in this business).

Then, you are paid $1000 for a sale of the wealth building training kit, another box of tools to teach you how to reduce debt, build wealth, and live a healthy lifestyle.

Finally, you are paid $50 / month residual for each person you sell to that remains in the program.

Your income after 3 sales is $1220 * 3 = $3660 + $900 ($50 / mo. residual for 3 signups over 6 months) which added up all equals $4560.  For your net income (income minus costs/expenses) you come up with $4560 - 3700 which equals $860.

There you have it. In an MLM you receive less compensation, do more work, and do not leverage the tools of the internet to do your sales and still come in losing nearly $1000 after six months (like we did).

Or, you can use a direct sales system that teaches you how to leverage the internet to sell the products, have a call center make your follow up calls (the system we use has a call center at your disposal), get taught how to market and brand yourself on the internet with full training and support using a 30 day step-by-step marketing plan and make nearly $1000 selling the same amount over a six month period as your MLM. This was an absolute no-brainer to my wife and I, so we switched from our MLM to the Direct Sales business.

If you have questions about our transition, let me know. Iâ??d love to give you advice on how we decided on this.

Also, this is not a sales pitch, I just want you to know how we thought through the whole process. This was so obvious to us, we wanted to make sure that others had the opportunity to see what we saw!

Travis Fitzwater

Travis Fitzwater
http://www.articlesbase.com/mlm-articles/mlm-vs-direct-sales-729123.html

I remember years ago hearing from a phone trainer from Belgium, in his heavy French accent, “If you live off the floor, you’ll die off the floor”. He was right.
People will RV, and thank goodness there is nothing we can do to stop them. Part of our problem today is that there is not a lot of them coming in the front door. Don’t get, or stay, discouraged. Remember the harder we work the luckier we’ll get. I know that the sales and money are available to us if we just know where to look.

Diggin’ for Gold.
California is Gold Country and I enjoy prospecting as a hobby. Unfortunately, I get to use the analogy more than I get to go out actually looking for gold anymore but… Prospecting for gold is an art and a science, combined with hard work. You could just pack up your shovel, pan, sluice box and a strong back, head into the hills or a river and start digging. But more than likely you’ll end up with a sore back and an empty pan. Or you could do some research first. Discover where gold might actually be. Understand what geological features of the land to look for. Go where gold has already been found. Listen to people who prospect. (Don’t ask them where the gold is, they won’t tell you. Just let them talk…there’s a lesson there.)
We do all this, before we even pick up the shovel. You see, I don’t mind getting dirty. I just want to do it with a Purpose in mind and maximize my return.

So where is the “Gold” in the RV business. Well, like prospectors during the gold rush, many times it’s laying right at our feet. 3 key markets to look at are.

1. Repeat Business
2. Referral Business
3. Service Drive

Let’s look at the facts:
1. Repeat Business.
Math doesn’t lie. If someone bought an RV, there is a good chance at some point they will buy another. The average time for someone to trade in their RV is around 39 months depending on where you are. If you’re relatively new to the RV business and you have not built your customer base yet, there are still ways to tap this market.
If you have been in the RV business for a couple of years you should be taping this now. If you have been in for several years you should be taking, (or waiting for), very few walk in customers.
Do your own math. Find out how many RV’s you have sold during your career. Most sales people don’t know. After the deal rolls we maybe, maybe call the customer to make sure they are happy and that’s about it. I know as well as you do that it is all about “the deal today” but if I don’t continue to stay in contact with my sold customers I have placed my own self imposed limits as to their value to me, and my income. If we work smart, we “create” be backs, not hope we will get one. Customers trading in quickly is not unusual. I’ve seen it happen the same day. I’ve seen customers buy and trade 3 units within 6 weeks! Stop thinking that “you would never do that”, “you” are not buying anything. “They” are…let them.

Find out today how many RV’s you have sold at your dealership. Managers, get the sales people the info. If you have been with your dealership for a few years you may be shocked to learn what that number is. Say you sell 5 units a month. That’s 60 a year and you’ve been with your dealership for say, 4 years. That’s 240 sold customers.
240 buyers who liked you, believed you, listened to you, and trusted you. Now ask yourself when was the last time you called any of them? It’s not about the floor traffic…it’s about our attitude and work habits.
If you’re new to RV sales, get a list of orphan owners. Orphan owners are previously sold customers whos salesperson no longer works for the dealership. How big is that list? At one of my in house training dealers they estimated they had over 30,000. Most with no salesperson attached to them.
You work hard for your deals. How would you like to work half as hard for the next one, and make more money?

2. Referral Business.
How do you get referrals? ASK
Ask and ye shall receive.
Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and the door shall be answered.

I don’t make this stuff up! It never ceases to amaze me what people will do if you ask.
So who do you ask for referrals from? Everybody.
When do you ask for referrals? All the time.

I run a web video production company as well as my sales training company.
It started from me doing my own personal videos for training and marketing purposes.
A friend of mine in a different industry saw what I was doing and asked me to do some work for him. Not only did I take the job, but I did it for free. I owed this man, for many reasons. He’s one of my mentors. Someone I would trust with anything or anyone.
This type of human association is worth more than all the gold in the world. More on mentors another time but suffice to say this person did not come into my life by accident.
It felt good to repay his guidance with hard work, a good product and good service.
He has since sent so much business my way I can barely keep up. He has put our business on the map. Now the clients he has referred to us, have begun sending us referrals as well.
We don’t have to look for any clients. We do good work, provide a good service, provide tremendous value, and they just keep coming. I am a firm believer in referrals.
I spoke at the RV Dealers Association Convention this year, because of referrals.

You see it doesn’t matter if your customer buys from you or not, or if they qualify or not.
None of these have anything to do with asking for referrals.
If they buy, tell them thank you, and ask them for referrals.
If they don’t buy, tell them thank you for coming, and ask for referrals.
If they can’t buy, tell them your sorry, and ask for referrals.

I’ve been in the RV business for a long time so here’s a little truth.
I don’t care what other trainers have told you.
I remember going to classes and they would talk about asking for referrals and tell me most everyone would give me a referral. I remember thinking, what planet are you on?
Most people will not give you a referral. Get over it.
I come from the RV sales line and did very well and I know most people won’t cough up a name and number, period. Setting unrealistic and unachievable goals is foolish.
Your job is to ASK EVERYONE. The right way.
Some will, some won’t, so what, next. The few you will get will be worth all the no’s you will ever get.
Referrals have a higher closing ratio ( 6 times the walk in customer ) and usually decent gross profits as well. A warm relationship, an appointment coming in, beats a fresh up any day of the week. It is usually not just an easier sale, but a more pleasant experience for you and the customer alike.
I personally know a salesperson who sells 5+ motorhomes per month without taking any ups because of repeat and referrals alone. He got in one dealership and stayed there.
Check out our Phone Skills PowerPoint Video Training to get more repeat and referral customers with high quality phone skills.

3. Service Drive
This is an untapped gold mine. If you have a service department talk to your sales or service manager and ask how many customers come through the drive in a month.
Depending on the size of your dealership and how long the dealership has been in business, it is not unusual for me to hear numbers like 200-400 per month. Yours maybe more or less but that is not the point. The point is who is out there. Qualified buyers, that’s who’s out there.
Figure out, realistically, how many customers you could touch in the service department per month. As an individual salesperson, taking out the weekends, then your week days you are off. You have about 2-3 days per week to do this. Go meet 1-2 people each day.
You have the time. I know it, you know it. Take action and watch what happens.

Let’s say you meet 5 new people per week. Remember, all you need to do is offer someone a cup of coffee and start a conversation with open ended questions. That’s 20 opportunities per month or 240 opportunities a year you got because you stayed away from the updesk, got off the internet, stopped texting your buddy (who doesn’t pay your bills) etc. If I gave you 240 more opportunities, qualified RV owners, do you think you would make a larger income? The closing ratio on these types of customers is high but let’s say that it was typical of a walk in customer, 10%. That’s 24 deals per year.
Now you do the math. How much is your average voucher times 24? Probably between $8,000 and $25,000 per year. And that is just the service drive.
We didn’t even count the money from repeat and referral business. We do this in our sales training classes in more detail

If you know what you are doing in RV sales you could make a living and rarely take an up.
Work smart and eliminate the frustration. The RV business, regardless of our present temporary economic condition, is a great business that will allow you to take care of yourself and your family, if you Sell On Purpose. If you focus and take action, you just got a big raise.

May the bottom of your pan…. always be yellow.
(That means filled with gold for you city folk

Now Go Sell Something!

Chuck Morgan
http://www.articlesbase.com/sales-articles/how-to-generate-sales-and-income-when-floor-traffic-is-down-part2-742892.html

Itâ??s amazing to me that most sales people, mangers and corporate officers believe they know what their prospects and clients are thinking and wanting.  On the surface and/or in general terms they may be correct sometimes.  However, itâ??s not the vague generalities that win sales.  Besides, when in a selling situation you donâ??t know if you are working with the rule or the exception.

As Iâ??m mingling at a networking meeting an elderly gentleman stops me and offers a hello.  He asks me who Iâ??m with, so I say, â??I help people develop business.  So what are your major issues as it relates to business development during this economic down time?â? And he says, â??Getting more business.â?

Then I ask him, â??Do your current clients have business that youâ??re not getting?â?Â  At first he says yes, but then quickly moves to tell me how heâ??s getting all the business from one of them.  So I say, â??What about getting more from the others?â?

Well, somehow he dodges this question and tells me what his company has that others donâ??t.  â??We can react within a day,â? he says.  â??Our competitors need 1-2 weeks.â?Â 

So I tried to say, â??What if your other customers are not in a hurry, then what?â?  But he didnâ??t answer this.  He just kept bragging about what he felt made his company special. 

So here are two points to learn from this story.

1. You may feel you have a differentiator - fast in his case, but be careful.  Not everybody wants what you think they should want?  In his case fast is a macro differentiator.  This can be used in marketing campaigns to attract leads that want work to begin with a few days.  However, once someone shows interest, youâ??ve got to move to the micro differentiators.  These are the issues and concerns that the individual wants solved and/or the desires s/he wants you to deliver.  Fast maybe one of them, but there may be others.  So just in case another competitor can do it fast also (because they have extra capacity during the slowdown), youâ??d better have some other deliverable that the person wants that you do well.
2. Not everybody wants youâ??re macro differentiator even though you think they should.  So when youâ??re going after a project and you want premium pricing, you have to find those that have to have youâ??re macro differentiator.  Actually this will be one of the criteria of you Ideal Customer Profile.  You want customers that need your services delivered right away. 

   For those that donâ??t, youâ??re going to need other differentiators or else youâ??ll have to be the low bidder.  So, are there other things you do well?  Of course there are.  Start documenting how well you do them and what experience you have doing them.  Then when someone says they want services like you have, but not for a few weeks, and they want it done accurately with quick follow-up if needed, you can tell them how accurate you are and what your follow-up program is, as you back it up with numbers of jobs, testimonials and other proof.

The moral of this story is that in a recessionary period seek customers that fall in your sweet spot, but also open your thinking to other things you do well.  Document those other things and market those strengths also.  You donâ??t have to be the best or the only, just good.  And, the best place to start is within your existing client base.  You want 100% of the business from 100% of your clients.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus tip:  FREE SALES TEAM ASSESSMENT TOOL.  Would you like to see something tangible that gauges the skills and behaviors of your sales people?  Just click this http://www.sammanfer.com/cleveltest.htm  C-Level Relationship Selling Link.   Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales manager to be effective coaching his or her sales people to feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders. 

Sam Manfer
http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/sales-management-training-differentiating-your-business-during-this-recession-677250.html

Sales programs and sales training courses can prepare a sales professional for advancement, and keep a sales manager prepared to manage, train, and motivate their sales staff for continuous improvement and a continuous increase in sales.

Sales courses from sales training courses and sales programs will give the new sales manager the background needed to fluently handle the transition from a staff sales professional to a respected sales manager. For a sales manager to be respected, and thus effective, the sales staff must be able to look up to the sales manager for insight, fresh ideas, consultation, management and motivation. Sales programs for sales managers supply the sales training needed to develop a well-respected sales manager that continuously develops and improves with his staff.

Sales programs with sales training courses for sales managers offer training on advanced sales skills as well as sales managerial skills. If a company will not pay for sales manager training, it is still in the sales manager’s best interest to continuously improve his / her skills so that he may effectively perform their managerial responsibilities. Whatever sales and managerial skills are gained can be carried throughout the sales manager’s career.

It is, however, in a company’s best interest to make the investment in sales programs and sales training courses for their sales management. Sales training is contagious. Sales skills gained through sales courses from sales programs will be passed on to the sales staff â?? assuming the sales manager has refined their communication skills to include one-on-one mentoring, sales training, and on-the-field evaluation and follow-up. If sales training skills have yet to be gained, there are sales programs and sales training courses for sales managers that can train the sales manager to train the sales staff. Investing in sales programs and sales training courses for sales managers is making an investment in your sales manager â?? and getting a profitable return from your sales staff.

Training courses from sales programs can provide sales managers with the skills they need to manage job constraints that are unique to sales management. Sales programs and sales training courses are available that train sales managers in advanced time management skills, territory management, assessing the strengths and weakness of the sales staff as individuals and as a team, coaching, influence, staff communication, and setting sales goals for a team.

If the sales manager has gained the responsibility of hiring and firing with the newfound management position, sales programs for sales managers can also provide traditional human resource training. Sales programs and sales courses are widely available that can train sales managers to screen potential members for the sales staff, interviewing techniques, evaluation techniques, the legalities of discrimination and sexual harassment, the selection process, and the new hire acclimation process. Sales courses from sales programs for sales managers can also include training in evaluating staff for sales performance reviews and effective staff-management communication skills.

Sales programs and sales training courses are an on-the-job necessity for sales managers. A company that invests in sales training for their sales managers will see the return in the higher efficiencies and stronger selling skills that widen the on-the-job time frame to allow for building more profitable sales that would otherwise go unrealized due to inefficiencies and lack of skills. Sales programs and sales training courses for sales managers will get the sales managers managing the sales staff more efficiently, so your company can spend more time managing the higher profits from the increased sales that accelerated due to your investment in your sales manager’s training.

Lina Smith
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/sales-programs-and-sales-training-courses-for-sales-managers-721004.html

Sales courses and sales training is necessary in today’s informative and competitive environment. With every investment, there is a cost and a return. An investment in sales courses and sales training for your staff is no different. Sales training without a return on your investment may benefit your staff when they need credentials for a new job, but it won’t benefit your company. Sales courses must be chosen with an eye for return.

Investment in sales courses and sales training for your staff demonstrates that you are committed to the betterment of your company and your staff. However, if you choose sales courses and sales training programs that give little credence to your sales staff’s current knowledge and abilities, your sales training motivations will falter into resentment from your staff. Sales course content that is merely a reiteration of the staff’s current knowledge is wasted investment and will be received with deaf ears. Involving the sales team in the efforts places of sense of ownership of the sales training results, which further motivates the sales team to apply the training they have received to effectuate change. Benchmark your sales before training, and track sales for a year or two after the sales training. Training applied is ROI earned.

If you want to see a return on your investment into sales courses and sales training for your staff, involve your staff in course evaluation and selection, evaluate sales courses on their own merits and compare them to your objectives, consider long-term results of training, follow-up on the training, and consider the company’s financial expense involved with the training investment.

Determine whether individual sales training or group training offers a higher return. If the needs of your sales force members starkly contrast with one another, individual training would be more effective. If consistency is imperative, group training will be more profitable. In each scenario, be sure to evaluate salaries and any decrease in sales for the day. In many cases, an office can run more efficiently when individual training sessions are granted rather than group training sessions. Whether you are investing in sales courses and sales training for individual training sessions or group training sessions, consider the costs of location, travel, gas and lunch reimbursement.

When you choose sales courses and sales training for your team, look for value-added benefits. Sales courses may offer sales training follow-up as a value-added benefit. Many sales courses offer train-the-trainer sessions, saving your company from the expense of repeating the sales courses and sales training for new employees. If you have a fast promotional system or a high turnover, a train-the-trainer program can offer substantial savings and benefit and increase your ROI. Ensure that the sales training courses will train your sales staff with material that can be applied continuously throughout their career with your company.

Sales courses and sales training can offer a high return on your training investment if careful consideration is given to need, objective, input, selection, follow-up and expense Sales training is an avenue for continuous company improvement. Continuous company improvement is imperative in today’s fast moving business climate. Smart investing in sales force training will give your company a competitive advantage and keep your sales in the fast lane.

Lina Smith
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/sales-courses-and-sales-training-investment-and-cost-720994.html

Sales training from sales programs are profitable investments for new business owners. A sales course from a professional sales training program will give you the edge you need to refine your business plan to excellence, develop masterful sales strategies, and turn your new business into a small business success.

Sales training was not created to educate only full-time sales professionals. Every business serves to seek a gain. The gain might be for profit, or it might be to serve others or spread a message. Every gain requires sales techniques to promote the object that drives the gain. A sales course from a sales training program increases that gain when the training and knowledge gained from the sales course is applied to every day practical business decisions. Taking a sales course from a sales training program will provide the new business owner with the arsenal they need for small business success.

The basics of sales are obvious â?? find the customer, reach the customer and sell to the customer. Nothing could seem more obvious. The basics of business are obvious. Find a need and fulfill it. As a new business owner, you are well aware that to turn a new business into a small business success you must go beyond the basics. By taking a sales course from a sales training program in basic sales, (or advanced sales if you already have a background in sales), you will be able to learn and apply the knowledge gained to the sales and marketing strategies of your business development. Sales training will give your business the push it needs to turn marketing plans into sales results. But it is up to the learner to take the educational knowledge from the sales course and be able to personalize it so that it creates an asset to your unique business needs.

A sales course from a professional sales training program can provide the basic foundations of traditional sales techniques as well as keep you current with the new business trends in sales methods. There are sales training programs that offer a sales course in creating and maintaining a client base, pursuing a sale and making a successful sales presentation, developing an effective call to action, and the art of closing a sale. These are all traditional topics â?? however throughout the revolution of the technology and business models, traditional topics have gained fresh content. A textbook of yesteryear will not provide a new business owner with enough practical business applications to drive today’s new businesses to reach the gains that are at the top of strategic goals.

Sales training programs are a valuable investment for new business owners that are seeking the training they need to promote their business and increase business gains. Taking a beginner sales course or an advanced sales course while running your new business can motivate you and inspire you to apply your new knowledge to your sales and marketing strategies. The training you receive will be with you for life. If you apply your sales training sales course effectively, and continue with lifetime education â?? your new business will be on its way to becoming a lifetime small business success.

Lina Smith
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/sales-training-and-a-sales-course-for-the-new-business-owner-720981.html

People often ask me, how can I increase my sales? Will sales training help me? How can I hit my target every month etc. Well the obvious answer to the question of sales training is yes it will help depending on the quality of the sales training course you attend.

One caveat to the above is that the essence of knowledge is using it and there is no point attending a sales training course, developing new skills gaining new ideas and not putting them in to action. People often return from a sales training course full of enthusiasm and prepared to try new ideas but find the first prospect they speak with using the new technique says no, they then revert back to their old ways saying the new skills they learned on the training course did not work. It s important that sales people persevere with new sales skills and knowledge they acquire on the course.

When it comes to increasing sales there are only 2 things you can do, the first of these is to find plenty of prospects who may have a need or want for your product or service. The more prospects you have the better your prospects and always remember â??if you have no prospects you have no prospects!

You also have to qualify are these people really a prospect or a suspect? A suspect is just a name where as a prospect is a name that you have qualified as being some one who does have a need for your service or product, also has the ability to pay for the product and also has the authority to make the decision on the sale.

Once you have enough prospects it means sales are easier and less pressurised, because as long as you have plenty of people to contact â??it doesnâ??t really matter whether this person buys because there will always be some one else who will buy. Good prospectors are not overly worried about whether people purchase as they have the numbers in their favour. They work on the basis of SW/ SW /SW which means some will buy some wonâ??t so what. You see once you have enough prospects, some formal sales training and understand your sales numbers (activity to sales) the pressure is off.

The second thing you can do is become more effective at each of the steps of the sale, this includes areas such as rapport building, questioning, listening, presenting the product, closing and dealing with objections.

These are all skills that can be learned on any effective sales training course, So when people ask me how do I achieve more sales the answer is easy â??increase your activity (the number of prospects you ask to purchase) and improve your sales skills. Both of these can be easily addressed by attending effective sales training courses

Frank O’Tools
http://www.articlesbase.com/training-articles/increase-sales-with-sales-training-728237.html

As the global economy has changed over the past 12 months or so, more and more people are turning to Sales training courses to help them secure more sales.

For the past number of years companies have not had to worry about sales training as the economy was buoyant and sales people with the title of sales people did generally not need to fight for business. In fact to be honest in many industries they were order takers as opposed to salespeople. With this in mind sales training courses were not very popular as consumers with more money in their pockets were prepared to purchase anyway.

Based on personal experience I will try and explain what I mean:

If you were buying a new car in 1990 sales people would be trying every close in the book to sell the car to you. In fact they were even offering you a full weekend test drive, where you could take the car for the weekend to try and help you make the decision. In these times Sales training programmes and sales skills were badly needed as the market was tough. Formal sales training was a must for numerous companies.

Now roll on the clock 15 years to 2005 and see how difficult it was to take a car for a test drive for 30 minutes never mind a weekend. The problem was the market had changed and if you donâ??t buy the car some one else will come in shortly after you and they will buy it. I understand this is generalising and it is not fair to paint everyone with the same brush. However this meant sales training courses were not in the same demand as sales training skills were not seen as a priority.

The same can be said for numerous industries, another example of this is the real estate business where purchasers trying to get on the property ladder were at times camping outside new housing developments overnight to secure a property. You have to ask the question how much sales training skills would the real estate agent need in this type of market?

The difficulty now from a sales training point of view is that many people who were recruited as sales people over the last number of years, are for the first time having to use the type of sales training skills that can be learned from attending sales training courses.

More and more companies are turning to sales training programmes to up skill their salespeople to close more sales

Frank O’Tools
http://www.articlesbase.com/training-articles/sales-training-courses-can-help-you-close-more-sales-728246.html

Retail Sales Coaching should be designed to work on behalf of each individual Salesperson who wants to succeed for them, while being part of an environment that nurtures and speeds their growth.

Retail sales training is for each person who cared to show up today to express themselves in a retail sales environment and who demands more of themselves. Retail Sales Training is for people who want to feel they have done their best with what they knew, today.

Retail Sales Coaching’s purpose is to clarify, in a realistic, truthful and meaningful way, precisely how each person can perform better. It must do this by connecting people with the objectives of the company within the framework of their own need to succeed and be recognized.

Retail Sales Training Software must work by identifying the absolute area of selling skill, the one out of five key performance indicators (KPIs), which if the Salesperson were to focus on exclusively, would become their best performance enhancer - their best chance at optimum improvement.

Retail Sales Coaching Software should be about helping your company and its people become richer by revealing the truth about their performance, on an individual basis, so your Salespeople can focus on making their most significant improvements in the shortest period of time.

The result of implementing the right solution is that each Salesperson’s performance is increasing at optimum speed, so you can expect your retail store as a whole to increase sales by anywhere from ten to thirty percent.

Any Retail Sales Training system of appraisal and reporting should make sales people accountable for their time by measuring their performance according to key KPI’s, against each other, and against the store average. Unless measurements are taken on a regular basis and compared with the rest of the people on the shift it would be impossible to know the area in which to train.

Today, most POS software programs generate KPIs such as average sale, items per sale, sales per hour. However, they do not allow store managers to set sales goals and divide them up proportionally between salespeople so effectively POS sales reports are useless.

While door counters are useful unless they integrate with an effective Retail Training software program they cannot generate Conversion Rate KPIs - one of the fundamental KPI’s used in Sales Training.

There are software programs available to compliment your POS that will do the job including breaking down slow and fast periods of the day by weightings.

Here are some things to look for in a Retail Sales Training Software Program:

â?¢ Store Information Register to record specific information about the store.

â?¢ Staff Information Register and Coaching Log to record specific information and availability and coaching history of each sales person.

â?¢ Weekly Sales Goals Planner that automatically divides the store sales goal fairly between the salespeople on duty, including taking into account slow and fast periods of the day.

â?¢ Weekly Staff Roster to allocate staff to a time and attendance schedule within the framework of the store’s wage budgets, warning when over rostering and helping to improve wage to sales ratio efficiency.

â?¢ Actual Performance Score Card that tracks individual actual sales performance against individual sales goals to identify areas of weakness and strength so that managers can coach behaviors.

â?¢ Optimally, coaching tips should be integrated so managers can quickly get information about coaching on specific deficient selling skills.

The objectives of Retail Sales Training Software Programs are to:

â?¢ Increase profits, decrease costs, motivate staff

â?¢ Bring Retailers in line with industry Best Practice

â?¢ Filter company sales objectives down to Individual Salespeople on the shop floor

â?¢ Focus Store Managers on the two operational expenses within their control: Wages and Individual Sales Performance

â?¢ Make Salespeople accountable for their time

â?¢ Reduce payroll by Rostering within set wage parameters

â?¢ Identify each individual Salesperson’s deficient selling skills each week

â?¢ Show sales trends for each individual salesperson and store

â?¢ Integrate self-based coaching to give front line store managers’ tips on demand

â?¢ Motivate employees by instilling a performance based team culture

â?¢ Identify best performers allowing Store Managers to roster those staff more often - yielding a higher wage to sales ratio or ROI

â?¢ Reduce attrition rates, retain good staff

â?¢ Introduce a system of setting standards, tracking, measuring and reporting results, identifying under performance and coaching for success

â?¢ Integrate with POS to produce instant information at Salespeople’s fingertips.

Retail competition is fierce and times are tough. If you want to increase retail sales performance then coaching sales people is vital to success. Successful retailers put into place best practice retail training software programs to help them immediately identify skill areas requiring coaching attention.

Without the help of retail performance metrics you may be wasting valuable training time and missing the point for each individual salesperson.

Steven Lipschitz
http://www.articlesbase.com/affiliate-programs-articles/retail-sales-training-essential-to-increase-retail-sales-performance-38516.html