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Sales trainer Enfield Archives - Tadpole Training

May 12
0

Modern-Day Buyers can be tricky!

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It used to be the case that you could just make a phone call to a buyer, tell them about your new ‘thing’ and get an appointment. OK, I make that sound like it would work every time – it didn’t – but it worked enough times to make it worth doing.

Well not now! Everything is much tougher!

Whether you deal with a procurement professionals or the general public, they have one big thing in common – they will have done their research already and are probably quite well informed!

Think about your life – if your washing machine fails or you need a new phone, pretty much the first thing you will do is to start Googling the options. We all do it!

This has implications for the way buyers will engage with you.

If they have done their research already, they are more likely to approach potential providers themselves. The huge message here is that you simply MUST be discoverable – otherwise, well, how will they discover you? So you (or your marketing department) had better be ensuring that your main channels of promotion are working hard to tell the world about you.

But this new way of buying also has an implication when you are with customers or are talking with them.

THEY know they have done their research.

YOU know they have done their research.

THEY know you know they have done their research.

So don’t let it be the Elephant in the Room! 🐘🐘🐘🐘

Be honest and up front – ask your prospects what research they have done and if there is anything they would like you to clarify. This demonstrates that you are not afraid of their having done research already, rather you acknowledge it and want to be an additional and valuable resource.

Remember, you know what they are thinking because you do it yourself! So take advantage of that to help them make a buying decision.

Jan 10
0
Janet Efere looking frustrated

What first impression are your team giving your customers?

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Do you love Greggs?

I love Greggs.

Usually Greggs are fabulous, but here is a tale of how just one person getting it wrong can undo a whole load of good stuff.

I was at Liverpool Street Station, London, on my way to deliver some training at Aldgate. I went to Greggs for a bit of brekkie!

To give you context, it was 8.30am and heaving, very noisy and the food counter is not visible to customers queuing on the right hand side, where I was.

I asked the assistant “do you have meat and vegetarian pasties?”

He said “yes”

Janet “OK I’ll have a vegetarian one and a coffee.”

Assistant ….. silence …. went off to get the food. He came back, gave me the little Greggs bag with my food in it and I paid.

Something was wrong. The bag was too heavy. He had given me both a vegetarian and a meat pasty.

Janet “Excuse me, there are two pasties in here”

Assistant “you asked for both”.

Janet “no, I only wanted the vegetarian one”

Assistant “no you didn’t – you asked me for the meat one as well”. Petulant stare from assistant.

Janet “I only want the vegetarian one”

Assistant “you asked for meat. I heard you”

[I literally felt my brain shift gear]

Janet “I clearly stated that I wanted vegetarian. Please take it back and refund me” (I think I may have used my ‘trainer’ voice here – I wasn’t in the mood for a debate)

Assistant visibly rolled eyes and huffed. Mumbled “you asked for meat”. Went to get manager.

Manager was polite and helpful and it was no trouble at all to refund me. I did make it known to him that I appreciated his help. I also relayed the conversation I had just had and suggested the staff member could do with some training.

So there are loads of levels to this, of course but here are a few:

🟣 However good your company or product is, the customer-facing staff you employ must fundamentally like dealing with people. Not once did I get a smile or even a suggestion of friendliness

🟣 Even if I was wrong (we do all make mistakes) the assistant should have cheerfully changed my order. A good assistant might even have apologised for the misunderstanding. Note that is different from saying ‘I’m sorry’ which implies they got it wrong. Apologising for the ‘misunderstanding’ is neutral and it does not suggest blame on either party.

🟣 Body language matters – rolling eyes will never a happy customer make!

🟣 Don’t argue with customers! End of!

🟣 A little bit of training would have gone a long way here. This was such a simple little exchange.

🟣 How many customers would one assistant see in a day? Hundreds probably. How would it affect your brand if, every day, one person was upsetting customer after customer?

Getting it right matters massively.

For a conversation about how I can help your customer facing team delight your customers instead of wind them up, send me a direct message.

And if you know anyone at Greggs ……!

Happy selling!

Does your customer facing team need a bit of a boost? For information on how we can create some bespoke training for you, let’s have a chat. Here is the link to my diary https://calendly.com/jefere/half-an-hour-with-janet

Jul 03
0
sales training, how to close

There is more to closing sales than just ‘closing’

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If I was to describe which aspect of sales I’m best at, I’d probably say ‘closing’.

But you hear lots of rubbish spouted about closing, such as ‘use this technique, or that trick’. It’s as though closing is treated like a separate discipline instead of as part of a holistic whole

‘Experts’ tell you that you can close anyone by using their secrets. Well, if you do the rest of the selling properly, you’ll find that closing becomes super easy and you don’t have to try and fool anyone!

Think of it a bit like getting married. If you haven’t done the preparation, then it’s going to be hard to get anyone to marry you! It’s the same with selling – you are going to find it near impossible to sell something if you haven’t done some other things first.

For example to get married you have to do a lot! (the sales equivalent is in brackets):

👉🏽 There is the initial outreach (prospecting)

📚 Research – are they single, are they looking (researching the customer)

📱 Getting a phone number (finding out the contact details)

📅 Closing for a first date (getting an appointment)

👔 Creating a good first impression by dressing to impress, or going somewhere nice (be smart, be punctual)

🥂 Having that first date (meeting)

❓Asking lots of questions (the same)

👀 Establishing what are they looking for (uncovering needs & wants)

🤩 Seeing if you want the same thing (talk about possible solutions)

📅 Getting subsquent dates (closing for the next stage)

👩🏾‍🤝‍🧑🏽 Build the romantic relationship (build the business relationship)

💍 Propose marriage (close for the deal)

If you have done all the steps properly, then you have a much higher chance of getting engaged (winning the deal)

In sales, it really is about relationships and doing the right thing at the right time.

And remember don’t promise things you can’t deliver, otherwise you could be heading for a divorce (your customer leaves you!)

Let’s talk and see if we can avoid that happening to you!

07748 994 334

Jun 20
0
Diagram showing why people buy

You can sell more if you understand why customers buy

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Whilst delivering sales training in London, Essex and the wider UK, I am often asked abour why customers buy. Do you know that you can sell more if you understand this imporant area?

If you think you will sell more because of your excellent service or your friendly demeanour, then you could be right, but it goes a lot deeper.

This diagram is adapted from the excellent book “Ebook Secrets Exposed”by Jim Edwards and David Garfinkel.

Look at the diagram – what is at the top?

That’s right, PAIN closely followed by PLEASURE

Under this are all the other main reasons people buy.

Now, it is unlikely that all of the list will apply to your business, but if you sit down and think about it, then you will probably start to see patterns.

So for example, in many businesses, the top 4 will be the primary motivators for people to work with you.

If you are in the health and wellness sectors, then it will probably be the last 6.

(in my business it is PAIN – clients aren’t selling enough)

So why not have a little bit of fun (with a serious goal) and work out why your customers buy from you. It could be transformational!

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

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

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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

May 19
0
Janet Efere looking frustrated

What sales mistakes have you committed?

By | sales tips, Training | No Comments

What terrible mistakes have you committed in sales? As a sales trainer and sales coach I see loads of sales mistakes, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t committed a few in my time!

One of my worst was at Xerox. As a senior member of the team, I often had the newbies shadowing me.

We had this one call. The trainee hadn’t started yet, but had been on the training. So he was out with me for the day.

I had a meeting. It was with an ideal client. I’d done my research. I knew our solution would work for them.

I conducted the meeting.

It went perfectly (you know when everything works, you ask the right questions, you get the right answers?). It was one of them.

The client gave agreement to go ahead – I needed to submit the quote for it, to be rubber-stamped, but basically all-systems-go!

The trainee was ridiculously excited about how well it had gone – along the lines of ‘that was brilliant – I see how everything fits together, thank you so much Janet for showing me how it should be done”

So far so good.

Then I made my mistake. I can’t even pretend it was something I did …. it was something I didn’t do.

Can you guess what?

Well full marks to you if you got it …..

I never followed up.

I didn’t do the quote.

Then I felt bad because I didn’t do the quote straight away, so then it became this ‘thing’. I couldn’t even ring to apologise I was so embarrassed. Just all that effort down the drain.

Big lesson there.

Just do what you should do in the right order. No bells, no whistles. Just common sense.

Silly Janet (I’m smarter now I hope!)

So what are your howlers – if you’re brave enough to share?

May 18
0
Janet Efere typing on her laptop

Do you Prep for Meetings?

By | sales tips, sales training | No Comments

So you got the meeting….. now what?

Do you turn up and hope for the best, or do you prep?

Yesterday I was invited to a meeting with a potential new client regarding sales training and, as usual, I did some research first.

There is a lot out there if you look:

? Companies House (I checked their financials and their directors)
? LinkedIn (of course …. we’ll come to that in a minute)
? Their website
? From that I could see they were recruiting, so I checked out the sales roles they advertised
? Twitter – lots of company posts
? Now, back to LinkedIn – I discovered hundreds of employees, searched by job role and then had a look at some of their profiles to see how they presented themselves and how active they were on LinkedIn
? I also had a look at the people who were going to be in the meeting

I found out a ton of stuff.

Some wasn’t that relevant, but loads was – it helped me understand about the size of the company, the culture, I could quickly see some of their issues as well as what they were good at.

It made the meeting more focussed, more relevant and personalised.

They liked that I took the trouble.

I wouldn’t do it any other way.

You see, I think it’s about respect, but it is also about positioning yourself as being better than the competition (I haven’t got the faintest idea who I am up against, but I can only be the best version of me).

And that’s how I like to work.

So, back to my question, do you prep before a meeting?

Feb 22
0
Small Business Sales Dilemmas

Why I am much more important than I was a month ago

By | entrepreneurs, Food for thought, marketing, Training | No Comments

Why am I more important than I was a month ago? Because clearly I am! And, before you start to mutter under your breath about me having over-inflated ideas of my own value, a lot of it is to do with perception.

OK, so let’s have a look at this curious statement; in many ways, I am no different from the Janet who existed one month ago. Of course I have roughly a month’s more life experience (I’m a month older though, so maybe that’s not so good). I have achieved some good things in the last 4 weeks and I hope I’ve spread a little happiness among my friends and some prosperity among my clients, but so far, so normal. Read More

Feb 21
1

Why the best way to sell is …er…not to sell

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

Why the best way to sell is …er…not to sell

Time and time again when I am running my training courses, particularly those that focus on basic sales techniques, delegates express their worry that they don’t want to be pushy or too ‘salesy’. This is for a variety of reasons (aggressive telephone selling, the cliche of the smarmy salesman, people not giving up when there is no interest or desire), but actually they don’t need to be like this anyway.

Most customers are fairly sophisticated and know when they are being ‘sold’ to. I’m the same – the  minute I get a phone call from someone who asks “How are you today?” then I know immediately what they are up to and I zone out. I can’t help it. And I am sure you’re the same.

Fortunately, that does leave an opening for the rest of us who are not employed in telesales.

Selling has changed a lot in the last few years – it’s all about relationships now. So if you are not that great at being pushy, guess what? YOUR TIME HAS COME!!!!

Now that doesn’t mean learning some sales techniques won’t help you – it definitely will (otherwise I wouldn’t be in business) but there are lots of things that you can do as a person, a human being, a helper, a solver of problems that will enable you to close a lot more business than you are right now. Check out this list:

  1. Listen – ask questions, then shut up and let your customer talk. The more they talk, the more you will learn about what is important to them.
  2. Keep in touch – try lots of different ways – telephone, email, letter, social media, face to face. Keep it varied
  3. Be human – don’t treat prospects like potential money and nothing else. Behind every decision is a real human being with real human desires, problems, worries and concerns.
  4. Try and be different from everyone else. When was the last time you sent a customer a hand written note, a ‘thank you’ card, tagged them on an interesting social media article or made an effort to find out about their hobbies and what they do in their spare time? It’s not an accident that a lot of business takes place on a golf course.
  5. Help other people first and without expecting anything in return. If you recommend, refer or give a testimonial, particularly if it is unsolicited, then people remember you and will return the favour if they can.
  6. Only do something you feel passionate about. People can sense if you don’t truly believe in what you are doing, so make sure you absolutely LOVE IT or they will sense that you’re not the real deal.

So be yourself, get out there a bit more and help people. What could be better?

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 17
0
sales training USP

Why you will get gobbled up by the big fishes if you don’t nail your USP

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

Why you will get gobbled up by the big fishes if you don’t nail your USP

USP stands for Unique Selling Point. USPs are the benefits or features that set your product or service apart from similar things which are offered by your competitors. Of course, if you are lucky enough to have something which is completely new or unique then knowing your USPs becomes less critical (although that opens up a whole different range of problems, which I am not going to tackle here!), but most of us are not that fortunate. Examples of USPs could be:

  • Ethically sourced
  • Quality of ingredients/components
  • Easy payments
  • Smaller versions available
  • Extra functions
  • Better after sales service
  • Good location
  • Free delivery
  • You (especially if you are a sole trader, as you are the ‘face’ of your business)
  • Extensive experience in the sector
  • Highly trained staff
  • No quibble money back guarantee

You will also notice that your USPs might change from time to time. It is really important to keep up to date with what your competitors are doing, because the chances are they will be watching you and might adopt some of your best USPs, (in which case they are no longer unique!) or it may be that you come up with something else new and better that you should tell customers about.

If your product or service is something that has wide appeal to many people, this might, on the face of it seem ideal. However, in reality, this can actually make it more difficult to sell it because it can be very expensive to try and market to lots of people. You will also be competing against huge brands with enormous marketing budgets in what is known as The Mass Market. These are the big fishes I was talking about and, yes, they absolutely will gobble you up if you cannot differentiate your product or service from them.

Instead, a lot of smaller businesses have more success with identifying a particular niche into which they can focus their efforts. A niche is a small segment of customers, for example a clothes store selling to petite women or a food store focussing on vegan food. By identifying this niche and then focussing your marketing money and effort into it, you will be become a specialist and people who need that particular thing will seek you out. But even within your niche, there will be competitors, so you still need to know your USPs. This is something I cover in detail on my course “I’m not a Salesperson”

For example, I know that some of the USPs of Tadpole Training include:

  • Award-winning trainer (me)
  • Teaches sales in a non-pushy and non-salesy way
  • Has extensive practical experience of running a growing a business
  • Can create bespoke training courses to fit your requirements request more information

If you have never sat down and thought about your USPs before, take 5 minutes to work them out now. Make sure you include them in your marketing materials and remember them when you are talking to customers, because you never know when that particular USP will make the difference that leads to a new sale. Best of luck!

If you want more training on USPs or any general sales skills, get more information here

If you just want some simple sales tips right now, download Janet’s 8 Proven Sales Tips