“The Specialist” Sales and Management Training Blog

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Hello everybody,

It’s me again! It is not just children that love good stories. Being a professional salesman, expert trainer and nationally recognized trainer of all levels of managers I have found one of the greatest weapons in my selling, training and management arsenal…

click here to read the entire post…

Hi everybody,

I have a sad sales/management story to share with you tonight.

I know some “real trainers” that are very similar to myself. Unfortunately they share one of my biggest weaknesses. I believe that I can develop anyone! The fact is “The Specialist CAN! The problem is that in spite all of the belief, patience, skill, passion and training skills, there ARE LIMITS! Character and integrity cannot be developed. I am very sad to say there are people that just WILL NOT allow themselves to be successful!

I personally have given employees chance after chance only to find out that small percentage just doesn’t get it. I had this one young person that had NO social skills and no place to live, even to the point his own family would not allow him on their property. This young person continued to self destruct. No matter how much help we tried to give this young person, the more deceitful and keniving he became. It is beyond comprehension. I even fired this person once and when a new location opened up gave him another chance, hoping that a fresh start would be what he needed. All I received in return was a lesson in theft and deceit. It got to the point that it was time to cut out the cancer.

I felt very bad, having said that it could not continue. The lesson here for all of you new trainers, and even some of you experienced trainers, that truly train because you love to watch young people develop is KNOW WHEN TO CUT YOUR LOSSES! I, “The Specialist” was not a good example this time.

On my behalf, It is hard when you truly want to see these kids succeed. I used my blog to vent tonight but I do want you to know the entire staff was relieved, not just for themselves but for “The Specialist”, as they know how much I put into each person. What say you?

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

It’s time for part two of creating a sales team.

Remember where we left off. You have one or two persons that have just started selling and you are in the weeding out process. I think I told you yesterday not to get excited because you haven’t built anything yet! That’s exactly what I mean.

Part 2 is critical because you now potentially have a nucleus to build around. What you do next is going to determine whether you have to start all over again. One of the most important things you have to be aware of is that this IS NOT the time to let up! Quite the contrary, this is the time to put forth more effort in training your people that are selling and quickly trying to get them to be self efficient as soon as possible. It is also imperative that you begin showing them the BIG picture. Once a person has accomplished, I don’t mean “become accomplished”, in making a couple of sales you must show them the bigger picture of where their success is going to take them.

Remember, in my earlier posts I talked about reading your people and finding out what motivates them, well this is one of the times that your read really counts. For example, I might focus with one person on the opportunity for management while another person is strictly motivated by money. While all this is going on I am continuing to sell and show the older and newer people how it is done. All the while I am constantly selling the job and the company and their opportunity. The secret of success to all of this is you MUST deliver!

You not only have to teach, you have to have enough knowledge to have SOMETHING to teach! It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but you can really eliminate a lot of duplication by doing it right the first time. I also involve the people who can sell in teaching their newer counterparts. Not only does it save me some time but it also gives me insight into which person has leadership skills or unique teaching skills. These characteristics will play a very important role as we continue to Create A Sales Team.

Tomorrow…layering and polishing.

“The Specialist”

Hello kind readers,

Before I start tonight’s post I want to remind everyone that the biggest thing to be unveiled on this blog is coming very soon. I can barely contain myself without giving some clues. I can’t do it.

Be on the lookout it is coming SOON!

Now to the post. I saw an unbelievable thing in the last two months that reminded me of my past, yet 40 years later it still applies. It kinda shows that even though times change people basically stay the same. There was a company that I have a great relationship with and I watch as they have their monthly sales contests. The top three people in the country win prizes varying from money to 32″ plasma televisions. Without fail the last two winners, after receiving their cash prizes, also received a certificate relating to the level of excellence they had accomplished. I had an opportunity to meet with each one of these winners and to the person they never mentioned the money, which was substantial. All they wanted to tell me about was the certificate! This 8′x11′ framable certificate. All they could tell me was how important it was and how much it meant to them.

They proceeded to tell me they had never received anything like that since graduating from high school. Each person was going to get a special frame and hang it up in their room. To them it was validation of their accomplishment!

If more managers took note of what I am saying they will find that it is indeed the little things that mean the most to your young staff. Everything their parents and friends have told them they could not accomplish, with one certificate they are vindicated. That’s POWERFUL!

The money can be spent and then it is gone forever. The certificate hanging up in their room is a constant reminder of their success! What I am trying to tell all young and old managers is that forget about yourself…you may be jaded and only working for the money, the young people in your care need “THE LITTLE THINGS”

“The Specialist”

Hello everybody,

The response was so outrageous for last night’s post I thought I should go in to a little more depth.

REMEMBER, and never lose sight of the fact that YOU were chosen to become a trainer because your employer thought you had what it takes to teach and develop other people. What a compliment! You should be very proud of yourself.

Putting that aside lets get started on some things that will prove your boss made a good decision. When training new people, like I hit on last night REMEMBER what it was like when you first started. It was scary. A lot of new things to learn. One of the most important things is to be patient. Everyone cannot learn as fast as you perhaps. Don’t compare what you accomplished with your new trainee.

Each person is a unique individual, hence the training has to have a unique twist to it to accommodate the strengths and weaknesses of each individual.

“The Specialist” looks for things during the training session, regardless of how small, to catch the trainee doing something RIGHT! When I find even the smallest thing you would think that the trainee just won the lottery the way I lavish the praise and excitement. Believe me the trainee will do enough wrong to the point that they will be down on themselves unless YOU come to the rescue. I call those little things I catch them doing right “building blocks”. The student will be so happy they pleased you that they will be much more receptive to the constructive criticism, to the point that they will go over the things they did wrong continuously to fix them.

The speed of training will increase 10 fold using this technique. I think the most important thing is to make the training FUN! Have a good time with the trainee. They are not in the Marines. Lighten up and have some fun. You will find that by lacing the training with fun you will actually take the trainees mind off the hard work at hand and they will actually reach the desired results without the stress most companies put on them.

A moment ago I mentioned that each person is unique. Find out what is unique about your trainees. For some it may be their “million dollar” smile, for someone else it may be the quality of their voice, still someone else may have unusually incredible work ethics. Point this out! With this technique the trainee will realize you have spotted what they like most about them self, making them realize that you will utilize THEIR strengths to reach the goal. Boy, doing these things makes training a lot more fun and take the word of “The Specialist” a lot more effective! I will follow up with more tips on training for sales and management in future posts.

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

I hope you had a nice day! I had a great day.

I was training some young up and coming sales professionals and I was giving them some advanced sales training tips. When I was done working with them I just hung around and watched them interact with their newer counterparts and the most common mistake of all new trainers did not fail to rear it’s ugly head. Maybe that’s sub-consciously why I hung around.

Without fail, while I have traveled down this magnificent highway, I have seen the mistake I am about to describe over and over again. When your mentor passes on to you some advanced training tips I realize it is very flattering to you and you cannot wait to pass on this new found knowledge. The new person in your organization should not be the beneficiary.

All new trainers should flash back to their first couple of days on the job and remember how they were spoon fed the BASICS of the job and then, as they felt comfortable with the amount of knowledge that was given them, and they became proficient at it, more knowledge…even advanced material…was given them.

The down side of giving this advanced knowledge to a brand new person is at least two-fold. First, you are overloading their brain! They cannot absorb it. Secondly, you are stunting their growth. You should be teaching them the material they were given just like you were trained. I have seen countless new people blown out of the business for just these reasons. I understand your enthusiasm and I really appreciate it, that’s why you were selected to be a trainer in the first place.

This is just another tip from “The Specialist”

“The Specialist”