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sales confidence Archives - Tadpole Training

May 21
0

Are you just an order taker?

By | sales training | No Comments

Here’s a quick and easy question. The answer might show you how good you and your team are at sales:

Is your closing rate too high?

In other words, can you proudly boast that you win every job (or nearly every job)?

Well, if you do, there’s a good chance that you’re more of an order taker than a salesperson.

In sales, your job is to make a difference. Your job is to win those deals that wouldn’t walk through the door by themselves.

If you’re closing everything then that’s probably…. wait for it…. because you are not charging enough, OR the orders come in by themselves, in which case, what is the point of paying you a salary????

Any fool can sell something too cheaply …. the real test is whether you can sell on value.

I’ve got one client who has engaged me to LOWER their closing rates.!

Why? Because their team was bringing in too many deals with poor margins… that is a threat to the entire company.

They wanted profitability, not vanity metrics.

So have a think… in your business, are you taking the easy route and just taking orders, or are you really selling?

If you think this applies to you, let’s chat. Click here to schedule in a chat:https://calendly.com/jefere/half-an-hour-with-janet

May 28
0
Janet Efere, Sales trainer saying 'shhhh'

Take some sales advice – you can win more sales by being quiet!

By | sales training | No Comments

As a sales trainer, I often try and get people to shut up more, to win more sales.

So do you know when to shut up?

It matters a lot.

Even among sign language speakers, studies show that typically we leave just a fraction of a second between taking turns to talk. BUT, our perception of silence differs dramatically across cultures – for example –

Research conducted at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands in Dutch and also in English found that when a silence in conversation stretched to four seconds, people started to feel unsettled.

But, here is where it starts to get really interesting – a separate study of business meetings found that Japanese people were happy with silences of 8.2 seconds – nearly twice as long as in Americans’ or anglohones’ meetings.

In the US, there is a saying that ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease’ while in Japan it’s reckoned that ‘a silent man is the best one to listen to’.

In Japan, the power of silence is recognised in the concept of haragei (belly talk), which suggests that the best communication is when you don’t speak at all. “As soon as you need words there’s already a failure to understand each other so you’re repairing that failure by using words,” says Dr Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in the US.

WOW!

So, why does this matter in sales?

3-5 seconds is powerful.

I have won deals because I just shut up and let the customer work things out.

Do you think you should be speaking less?

#salestraining
#salestrainer
#salescoach
#listening

Feb 15
0

The surprisingly effective sales question you are probably not asking

By | customers, entrepreneurs, sales tips, sales training, Training | No Comments

Some things you learn through training. Some things you learn through actual real life experience. The question I am about to share with you is an example of the latter.

As a sales rookie, I went on loads of training courses which undoubtedly helped me go on to have a successful sales career. However, it is true that you don’t really start to learn the best lessons until you are interacting with real life customers in all their glorious variety! Although I have since come across training which suggests using this question, it is one I stumbled upon by accident and, realising how powerful it was, I still try to incorporate it into as many discussions with customers as possible.

So what is this question? Well it might seem a bit counter-intuitive, but the question is simply this. When you get an enquiry from someone about working with your company, ask them:

“Why are you interested in working with us?”

or, a slight variation of this is when they ask about using a particular service (or indeed buying a product):

“Why are you interested in [insert name of product or service]?”

See – very simple isn’t it?

So why is this such a good question? Well I started using it because I wanted to make sure that prospective delegates were signing up for the right course. There is lots of competition in the training world, as well as a whole raft of different courses offered at different levels with varying objectives and for a wide variety of people. So, I began asking this question to make sure that organisations and individuals signed up to the correct programme that best met their needs.

This is important for several reasons:

  1. Clients often think they know what they want but, after gentle probing sometimes reveal that actually something else is driving them. If I can find out what, I can offer the best possible solution
  2. Business is really not just about taking the money. It can be hard sometimes to question someone who is on the verge of buying, but you have to think long term. Good advice now may yield better results in the future than just the cost of one lost sale. You should be thinking in terms of a lifetime of customer loyalty and you won’t achieve that if you don’t give the best advice you can.
  3. If I get an enrolment and a client comes on the wrong course, they won’t get the maximum results from it, may end up being bored or detached because the content is not relevant and of course, will leave not having achieved their objectives.
  4. This has a knock-on effect within the rest of the class because it changes the group dynamic negatively.
  5. An unhappy delegate will go away without that all-important ‘Wow’ factor, which is so vital. Their feedback won’t be as good and they won’t give referrals as willingly, because the course didn’t meet their needs
  6. Because the overall group wasn’t as engaged, then again, overall feedback is less good with similar results to point 3.
  7. Over time, my brand gets eroded and that is bad for business
  8. The dissatisfied client goes away and has to spend even more money going somewhere else for an alternative solution.

I will admit it’s not always plain sailing. I have had customers visibly surprised when I ask them about why they want to go ahead; after all, in their minds, it felt a bit like I was hesitating to work with them. However, when I explain that I just want to find out what their objectives are, to make sure the course is right for them, then without fail, they understand what I am up to.

Which brings me onto another reason why this line of questioning can be so powerful. By asking why a customer wants to use you (or your service), what will you get? Oh you get something wonderful! You get a list of reasons why they want to buy from you. Pause for a moment and think about that. They actually tell you WHY they want to use you! How fantastic is that? As a salesperson, that has got to be the Holy Grail of selling surely!

It is a super-effective way of making sure you align completely with what customers want. Or indeed, if you can’t help them, you can now save everybody’s time and tell them so – ideally with a recommendation of an alternative supplier.

I not only love the simplicity of this line of questioning, I love the powerful and immediate way it engages with the customer and you get to understand what really motivates them. So much in selling is understanding customers’ needs and to do this effectively, you need to ask powerful and probing questions. So in my book, this is one of the best.

I would urge you to try this question and please let me know how you get on and what results you experience.

Janet is based in Enfield, north London and trains small businesses and entrepreneurs how to sell more. She has recently reached the final of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s national awards (BESMA 2016) in the category of Sales Trainer of the Year and, in November 2015 won ‘Start up Business of the Year’ at the Enterprise Enfield Business Awards.

If you enjoyed this article and you would like to receive a free download: Janet’s 8 Proven Sales Tips, please click on this link now.

Click Here for 8 Proven Sales Tips

Feb 04
3
your new sales team

5 tips for starting new sales role

By | customers, sales tips, Training | No Comments

So you have a new sales job!

The excitement, the enthusiasm, the nerves! Read on to learn our 5 tips for starting new sales role!

Anyone who has been in sales remembers this – I know I do. You want to make a big impression quickly – show them that they made the right decision in choosing you and that you are going to not only do well, but crush it.

The trouble is, there might be a lot of blanks – blank diary, blank deals on the table, huge big blank space in your head where there should be lots of knowledge about your customers. Sound familiar? So here are 5 sure-fire tips to get you up and running and performing quickly.

1 Be really clear on what is expected of you

By this I mean have a proper talk with your manager and discuss your territory, your customer base and how things have been performing up until now. Do they expect you to do your target straight away, within 3 months or within a year? Your manager will be able to give you loads of really valuable information – who to focus on first, who is in urgent need of a phone call, who in the team has extra information that will be useful.

2. Work out your metrics

Someone in the team will have loads of statistics on things like:

  • How many calls lead to sales conversations
  • How many conversations lead to a sale

So work it out. If it takes 50 calls to have a sales conversation and the closing ratio on these conversations is one in 5, then you know you need to make 250 calls to get a sale. If your target is 2 sales per month, that means you need to make at least 500 calls to be safe. You get the idea.

3. Make friends with the high fliers

Who in the team is constantly on top of the leader board? If you haven’t been allocated a mentor, proactively seek out the high perfomers and seek permission to spend some time with them – anything from observing their calls to seeing how they handle their admin. You’ll pick up some great tips (and learn what not to do as well!)

4. Be free with praise

Has someone helped you? Did a more experienced member of the team help you close a deal? Well shout it out nice and loud. Give loads of praise (and keep quiet about the times people didn’t help you – no one likes a moaner) The point here is that everyone likes to be appreciated – especially in sales where a lot of people are really motivated by recognition.wine

Oh, and if you haven’t worked it out already, get some wine. Not to drink, but to hand out as a ‘thank you’!

4. Don’t Panic!

Remember sales is a long term game. There is a reason why you have an annual target. Your job is to make a difference over the longer term. Now if you are putting in the effort, you know your metrics, you are doing the work and you are keeping your manager in the loop, then if you don’t achieve top spot in the first month, no one is going to mind.

Make sure you keep focused and the results will come.

5. Invest in yourself

Does your company provide training? Ask to go on every course you can. You will need to understand your product or service of course, but anything that can help you with sales skills should be grabbed with both hands.

What if there is not much training available? Well, any decent company will have something in place, but there is no reason why you can’t sort something out yourself – there is a plethora of brilliant sales training available on line or via platforms such as LinkedIn. Here is a link to my website – I do training at all sorts of price points. Also, did you know you can ask for a mentor on LinkedIn and get advice from an expert?

Learning is truly a life-long experience – you genuinely never stop learning, so get in the habit as soon as you can.

I hope these tips will help you – now go earn yourself some commission and show your boss you were worth employing!

Happy selling!

If our 5 tips for starting new sales role, consider check out our other blogs here! Or our Facebook page here!

Come and have a chat about how we can grow your sales. Here’s a link to my calendar

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Feb 04
0
success A to in sales

What is the best way to get YOUR sales from ‘A to B’

By | customers, sales tips, Training | No Comments

How to get your sales from A to B

Would you like to earn more money?

If the answer is ‘yes’, I have another question – would you like to do it easily and authentically?

Assuming you probably said ‘yes’ to that as well, why isn’t everyone sloshing around in too much money? After all, we all seem to want it.

It is probably something to do with the gap between where you are now (A), where you want to be (B) and, most importantly, what to do to BRIDGE that gap.

So where are you now?

  1. Maybe you are stuck in a discounting trap and you are not charging what you are worth
  2. Perhaps you are in a cycle of ‘feast and famine’ because your sales fluctuate
  3. Potentially you are always worried about money
  4. Possibly you see competitors doing better than you, even though your product or service is better than theirs

So where do you want to be instead?

  1. Imagine an endless stream of clients who pay a fair price for what you do
  2. Here you can be working normal hours and spending time with your loved ones and the people who matter
  3. What if you are making a difference to people’s lives instead of treating everyone like a cash machine
  4. Picture being able to have enough money to outsource all the jobs you hate while you so all the things you love

And what is the magic ingredient that can achieve all this? Well, it is sales and selling.

It’s important to focus on this because…

  1. Every business needs sales to survive – if you’re not earning money, it’s not a business, it’s a hobby
  2. Instead of throwing extra money at marketing, you can easily make a ton of sales just by getting better at converting your existing leads or selling more to existing customers
  3. The chances are that you’ve never been taught how to sell, yet there are simple tools and techniques that any business owner can use
  4. You may be able to raise your prices and people will still buy from you, so you will earn more from the same effort

Now is the time to focus on this because….

  1. 4 out of 10 small businesses fail in the first 5 years. That means that nearly half of you reading this might not be here in 5 years time and I don’t want that to happen to you.
  2. The main reason businesses fail is cash flow – and that means sales
  3. It’s noisy out there – social media is bombarding us with messages and adverts from your competitors. You need to make sure you stand out
  4. Lots of small business owners pay their staff and their suppliers before themselves
  5. Once you have lost a day of selling, you will never get that day back – so you will never make up the money you didn’t earn.

So do you want to learn more about how to sell?

You should. Let’s chat:

Janet Efere is an award-winning sales trainer and coach based in North London

5 star tadpole training

Jan 30
1
scared customers

5 Things that could be scaring your customers away

By | customers, entrepreneurs, sales tips | No Comments

5 Things that could be scaring your customers away (and what you can do about it)

Let’s face it, customers can be tough to win, so the last thing you want to do is scare any of them away. However, if you are involved in selling in any way at all, make sure you are not doing anything on this list:

Projecting desperation

It doesn’t matter whether it is business or life in general, we can always sense if someone is desperate and we don’t like it. In fact, we are likely to react by withdrawing, because that’s the human response. Remember your focus should always be on your customers and their needs (not your salary, bonus cheque, meeting your target or anything else financial). So even if you are struggling, push it as far to the back of your mind as you can and concentrate on helping your customer.

You don’t look professional

OK, we are not all supermodels, but can you honestly say you project the right image for whatever it is that you are selling? By the way, you don’t necessarily have to turn up in a suit and tie – if you are in an office environment, then that is fine, but you should dress appropriately for the thing you do. I go to a lot of networking meetings, full of serious businesspeople and all of them dressed differently. But the constant? Even the people who work in the more manual type of organisations can always manage to look professional. Clean, neat, tidy. See – it’s not so hard is it?

You promise everything

Seriously, the chances of you being able to give every customer every thing they need is small, so don’t feel pressured to say ‘yes’ to each request – if you do that and then the customer wants it, you are going to be in big trouble further down the line.  It is better to be honest (or perhaps sell them an upgraded package with the ‘thing’ they want for more money!). It might not be easy, but a lot of sales is about compromise anyway – just give them all the facts and keep mentioning the benefits of your solution. If you do your job well, there is a good chance you will get the sale anyway. Better than a false sale followed by a refund!

You don’t take notes

This is about two things:

  1. Listening carefully and paying attention to the person who has been kind enough to grant you some of their time. This is respectful. There is a phrase ‘people buy from people’ and one of the building blocks of a good relationship with customers is the ability to listen and understand.
  2. Ensuring that you don’t forget important details and, because you have written down key points, you can summarise and check your understanding. This is professional and it reassures the customer because it shows that you are less likely to make mistakes with their precious money if they use you.

You are irritating

What does your voice sound like and what is your body language saying? Do you repeat things, tell boring anecdotes, take ages to get to the point, or make negative comments about other people? Now of course, we all think we are wonderfully interesting, but what if (shock horror) we are not as engaging as we think we are? Look out for signs that you are boring or irritating your customers. Yawning, loss of attention, or early conclusions to meetings are tell-tale signs that you are being less than captivating. Consider taking someone you trust out with you on a sales call to give you some constructive feedback and help you improve.

So with any luck you are not a desperate, unprofessional, “say yes to anything”, irritating salesperson with no notebook. However, if you are, perhaps you have a few things to work on!

Happy selling!

Jan 12
1
Historical lady saying no

Have you ever talked yourself out of a sale?

By | customers, entrepreneurs, marketing, negotiation, sales tips, Training | No Comments

Have you ever talked yourself out of a sale

(and what should you have done differently?)

It is important to understand when to talk and when to stop. When we are being sold ‘to’ none of us likes to be with someone who talks constantly; it is irritating and it can make us feel resentful because it is taking up our time. This is especially true if we have already made our mind up to buy.

When you are the one doing the selling, you should also be aware that not every customer needs to know everything about your product or service – all they really need to know is whether it will solve their problem or meet their objective and how. Anything else is just clutter and can put the sale at risk. Read More

Jan 04
0
yes or no Woking school child

How a split second decision as an 8 year old changed my life

By | entrepreneurs, Food for thought, sales tips, Training | No Comments

How a split second decision as an 8 year old changed my life

About this time of year, 43 years ago, I was sitting in my classroom at Goldsworth Middle School in Woking. The teacher was asking us to audition for parts in the Christmas carol service. The format was simple: come up to the front of the class and read a passage. Then the class would vote for whoever they thought did the best reading. The winner would take part in the carol service as the representative of our class.

Many hands went up to volunteer, all of them belonging to boys. Read More

Jan 01
0
successful sales people

10 Things successful salespeople always do

By | sales tips, Training | No Comments

10 things successful salespeople always do

 

There are always some high achievers in sales who, no matter what, always seem to be able to smash their targets, whatever else is happening in the world. So what do these individuals have in common and what can you learn from their behaviours to improve your own sales? Well here, in no particular order, are my top 10:

They believe in what they are selling – anyone anywhere would struggle to sell something that they don’t like or believe to be great (interestingly, it doesn’t actually have to be great – but the salesperson must believe it is). If there is no genuine belief, then customers will sense the insincerity and they will not buy.

Persistence – Top sales people keep going even when times are tough, because they know that hard work now will pay off later. So they just keep plugging away, doggedly. It might not be sexy, but it’s very effective.

Spend time planning – great sales people have a plan – they know their targets, their territories, their ideal customers and their products. Chances are your highly successful person has a tight diary and knows exactly what they are doing several days if not weeks in advance.

They ask really good questions – they know that it is all about the customer – what are their pains, their goals, their challenges? Once a salesperson knows that, they can determine whether their solution will help. Without this knowledge, they won’t know what really matters to the customer.

They  are prepared – when an over achiever has a meeting, you can bet they have a their business cards, laptop (with all the right data on it), a notebook, a pen, research about the client, examples, case studies, pricing details, order forms [insert or delete as appropriate depending on your situation]. There is a good chance they have spares too – extra pens, spare chargers, whatever they think they might need. There is no chance they are going to lose a deal because they forgot to bring the right document.

They are on time – actually they are early. If customers have given you their time to meet them, the least you can do is get there promptly or start that call when it is scheduled. When you arrive early at a customer’s premises, you can learn lots about them too.

They never stop learning – these are the people who are always reading the latest book, going on all the training they can and who invest in self-development. Although so much in sales is the same as it has always been, change is a constant, so they know they must keep up to date and stay ahead of the competition.

They have a mentor/coach – if you wanted to be a top Olympic athlete, there is no way you could do it without using a coach – well the same is true in sales – high performers always have someone – whether it is a brilliant boss, or someone you employ to coach you individually, constructive feedback and advice can enable you to continually get better.

They practice – by this I mean they practice scenarios, closing techniques, questions. Whether it is in the car, in the office, with other people, they visualise different outcomes and how they can respond to move the sale forward.

They are always truthful – if they don’t know something, they say so, if they cannot do something for a customer they will be honest about it. They do not ‘enhance’ the truth in order to win a deal. Instead, they will overcome any genuine objections with confidence and remain authentic and genuine.

I hope you have enjoyed this list. Is there anything you would add?

Happy selling!

Come and have a chat about how we can grow your sales. Here’s a link to my calendar

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