The Sales Training Series - How to Develop a Strong Sales Culture

In every other business function (accounting, engineering, operations) there are documented processes, common cultures, and established vocabularies with terms that are clearly understood-everywhere except in sales.

It is a rare company that has a strong and distinct sales culture, complete with a common language for discussing, conducting, and improving the sales process. The few companies that have built such sales cultures are easy to recognize-they're a lot more successful.

Everyone who makes contact with customers should understand your sales language.

It isn't only salespeople who should be indoctrinated into your sales culture. Every time a customer contacts your company, that customer becomes more or less sold on your products. If your employees all know how your sales process works, they can be far more effective at influencing customers in your favor.

Here are some tips to help you begin building a common sales culture.

o Document the way your sales process works, and identify the important milestones in the process. What are the major steps that lead to a sale? Everyone in the organization who comes into contact with customers should know what the next logical step would be.

o Teach employees how to ask better questions-what Action Selling calls The Best Questions. This allows your people to do a better job of building rapport and identifying how best to proceed with particular customers.

o Teach employees how and when to make Positive Company Statements. Nobody should miss an opportunity to pass along good news about your company, whether it involves a new product, favorable financial performance, a joint venture, or whatever the case may be.

o Within the sales force itself, a common language is especially important. For instance, terms unique to Action Selling (such as Commitment Objective, TFBR, and Universal Stall Breaker) allow a sales team to communicate clearly and precisely about how to improve performance in specific areas of the sales process.

Develop a strong sales culture, based on a common language and built upon a well-defined sales process. You will create a powerful orchestra, with all the musicians playing from the same score for your customer audience.

In The Field:

When companies see the results of Action Selling on the performance of individual sales teams, they often decide to use the system as a catalyst for building or improving their entire "sales culture."

"Our goal in implementing Action Selling was to develop a common selling language for our 300-unit franchise network," says Terry Huber, director of training at Signs Now. "We wanted a solid sales standard that could drive sales productivity in the field."

Now Action Selling Sales Training is delivering results across the whole network. Roger Watkins, owner of the Signs Now franchise in Bloomington, Ind., sums it up this way: "Before starting my franchise, I was a police officer. Gaining commitment as a police officer was relatively easy. In sales, it's a different challenge. Action Selling has given me the ammunition I needed. I'm now ahead of my aggressive goal of 26 percent sales growth."

Similar performance changes are sited by other franchises. "At Signs Now," says Terry Huber, "we have adopted Action Selling as part of our culture with tremendous success."

Action Selling Sales Management Training gives Sales Executives all the tools needed to unlock the full potential of their salespeople and coaches. They'll have sales skills assessments and diagnostic tools to assess skills that need developing, online sales training and reinforcement tools to transfer learning into the field and certification tools to measure learning and insure accountability. Action Selling provides a strategic process to follow and a common selling language that enhances communication. With Action Selling, they'll get a complete selling and coaching process in one great program so that their salespeople will close more sales, reduce sell cycle time and build stronger customer relationships.

Duane Sparks is chairman and founder of The Sales Board, a Minneapolis-based sales training company that has trained and certified more than 350,000 salespeople in the system and skills of Action Selling.

In a 30-year career as a salesperson and sales manager, Duane has sold products ranging from office equipment to insurance. He was the top salesperson at every company he ever worked for. He developed Action Selling Sales Training while owner of one of the largest computer marketers in the United States. Even in the roaring computer business of the 1980's, his company grew six times faster than the industry norm, differentiating itself not by the products offered but by the way it sold them. Duane founded The Sales Board in 1990 to teach the skills of Action Selling to others.

Contact The Sales Board for more sales information or sales training that's been documented and research-proven to help you sell more! 1-800-232-3485

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Female Adolescents in Need of Strong Role Models in Literature

Hillary Clinton almost wrested the Democratic nomination for president last year. In endorsing Barack Obama she spoke of being unable "to shatter that highest hardest glass ceiling this time [but] thanks to you it's got about 18 million cracks." Clinton did for women what Barack Obama did for blacks. Women were no longer content to remain second class citizens; playing second fiddle to males and acting submissive to them.

Just as significantly as Clinton being a woman was the fact she had flaws . . . more than a few. It was her complexity that made her so compelling. She was someone women could identify with, not the perfect female heroine with the sizzling body and glowing personality. Women saw a lot of themselves in Hillary Clinton and supported her despite her failings.

Adolescent girls now more than ever need literary protagonists they can identify with - warts and all. Too often females are secondary characters (significant, yet subordinate). The Harry Potter series revolves around, well, Harry Potter (ironically proving a woman can create compelling male characters).

Adolescent girls, so confident in elementary school, face an identity crisis and a battering to their self-esteem beginning in middle school. As an educator for 28 years I'm the first to admit teachers are often to blame (girls aren't as capable in math and the sciences far too many teachers believe. It's rubbish, but that's what pre-teen and teenage girls are taught to believe). Parents aren't as involved as they should be so adolescent girls don't get encouragement from the home.

Girls at this age need to read about others like themselves. They need to read about other girls who lack self-confidence, are full of contradictions, are childish, headstrong, selfish, jealous and bitchy. They need to see, too, that these same literary characters can be confident, inspiring, compassionate yet strong. They need role models who are able to make almost impossible choices and live with the consequences; female protagonists who can lead and accomplish as much or more than their male counterparts.

Teens have to read about girls who get knocked down, bloodied and battered, yet get up to fight another day. They need literary protagonists they can say, "That could be me. I'm not a freak. Others have the same self-doubts and insecurities as I have. I'm not alone . . . and I can prevail."

Girls need strong-willed and flawed literary role models to shatter stereotypes that hold them back. Boys protect girls. They strut their stuff when their girl is challenged or endangered. Women couldn't fight in wars until recently and even now can't fight in combat units. Girls are nurses (not even doctors, for the most part) in relative safety behind the lines helping to patch up the wounded.

And we can't ignore the double standard when it comes to sexuality. A girl who is sexually active is a slut or "easy." Yet, sexually active boys are studs. On the other hand a girl who doesn't let her boyfriend get to second or third base (much less home) is a tease. Is it any wonder girls are confused? Sexually, regardless how an adolescent girl responds she faces negative connotations, yet for boys to be aggressive is "manly."

Where are literary role models to counteract these stereotypes? Far too few exist. And with the vast number of heroic males literature only reinforces stereotypes males have of females and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Boys lead and protect. Girls follow.

Authors need to follow the example of Hillary Clinton and provide flawed, complex yet heroic female protagonists. We need female characters who refuse to submit to their male counterparts. Female characters adolescents can identify with.

Barry Hoffman is a magazine and book publisher, an award-winning author and was an inner-city public school teacher for nearly three decades. He is the author of the newly published young adult dark fantasy novel, Curse of the Shamra Barry is also the editor and publisher of Gauntlet Magazine, the only mass market magazine dealing with censorship and the limits of free expression.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.