“The Specialist” Sales and Management Training Blog

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Hello everybody,

It is the very first post of 2008. I have got a doozy for you!

Today I got to watch a young but future great sales professional (You heard me correctly “sales professional”) blow and I mean literally BLOW a lay down sale. I hurt for this young professional. The purpose of this post is not about what he did wrong but how does anyone rebound from a devastating blow like that.

The first thing he must realize is that EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE that has ever been in sales has blown an easy one. Anybody that says they haven’t is either a liar or has NEVER sold ANYTHING!

Secondly he has to have a short memory and forget about it.

Third and most importantly he has to get back on the horse and hurry up and close another prospect. It is just that simple. Consistent hard work solves everything! “The Specialist” GUARANTEES IT!!! Happy New Year and look forward to hearing from you on our web site strangeratthedoor.com. Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE newsletter and get 20% off on ALL “Specialist” Gear including “The Specialist” Sales and Management Bible, a MUST read to start the New Year!

“The Specialist”

That’s an interesting title.

Hi everybody! Lets talk about the three-legged sale. First you ask, what is it? Well those of you that are in sales have missed many opportunities to close a sale because that extra person or persons that came along with your prospect just has to throw in their two cents worth. The beginner will try to sell all three or four people and end up with none of them simply because their lack of experience has not allowed them to be proficient at controlling groups of people. I hear all of you veterans out there grinning because you think you know how to do it. Conventional wisdom tells you that if you can sell the leader you will sell the rest of them. That works SOMETIMES. What do you do if the leader isn’t interested in your product or already has something similar? Aha! Now comes the real artist.

“The Specialist” does not put himself in the position of hoping the leader wants the deal. Instead, what I do is find out is who the leader is and regardless of his interest level I make sure he becomes my new best friend. Now, either way I win! If he likes the product he will influence his friends to go along as well. That’s the easy situation. Where it gets complex is if the leader does not have an interest in your product regardless of the reason. If he has become my new best friend the effect will be exactly the same! He will influence the crowd on your behalf, just for a different reason.

So as you progress in your sales career start seeing more then just the sale. Again, go back to basics and practice closing everyone all the time. In other words, start making yourself a more likeable person by pointing out the good in others and building other’s self esteem. If you work on this concept you will find that making the sale will become secondary and you will feel much more rewarded in your career because besides having more sales then you can count, you will also feel a lot better about yourself. Isn’t that what a career should be about anyway, personal growth? I will be anxious to hear your responses.

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

Thank you everyone for your prayers, calls and letters. I have always known I have the best readers on the Internet! It has been very heart warming.

Now to today’s post. Several readers have asked me to do a condensed version of how I build a sales team. No problem, it would be my pleasure!

First and foremost you must have a lot of patience and be very persistent. Isn’t it amazing these are the same qualities you need to be a successful sales professional? The reason you need these qualities is that there are three ways to find GOOD people. You can steal them from another company…which means they can be stolen from YOU! Secondly, you can buy them, which ultimately means someone can buy them from you, or you can develop them YOURSELF! When you use this method you receive intense loyalty which cannot be bought! I prefer to hire and develop my own.

Now that we have decided the method we have to pull it off. Here’s where the patience and persistence pays off.

I initially hire a group of people, more than necessary for the task at hand, then I, THAT’S RIGHT, I show them how to sell the product! Remember what I have said before, never ask someone to do something you can’t do, won’t do, or haven’t done! Once I have shown them how to do the job I then work with all of them and give them assignments to take home and work on themselves. This separates the ones that have commitment from the ones that just want a paycheck. As a few days go on I begin watching the cream rise to the top and and I begin weeding the garden. I always end up with at least one person out of the group that has a burning desire to succeed. That is where the first building block of a sales team is cautiously put into place. With a tremendous amount of positive reinforcement and enthusiasm you can actually see the contagiousness of the excitement spread through to others.

Now before you get all excited and think you have built a sales team there are many hurdles to overcome and many minefields to avoid that will wipe out all of your efforts before you ever get off the ground. Tomorrow we will continue the building of your sales team. The nice thing about building a sales crew is it is like priming a pump. At the beginning you keep pumping and pumping until the water starts coming out of the well. Everyone knows that if you stop pumping too soon the water stops and you must start all over again. On the other hand, once you have the water flowing all you have to do is once in a while go over and prime the pump. In other words just monitor and tweak your sales team. That is the ultimate goal and by part three you to will know how to do this.

By the way we are about two weeks away from the biggest thing to happen on this blog. Stay tuned.

“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”