Archive for For Business Owners
Why CEOs Should Have Sales Training, Part 3
Posted by: | CommentsWhat makes SolomonRk different from most other sales training programs is that it is designed not only for the sales staff, it is intended for the CEO and Business Owner as well.
More Accurate Sales and Revenue Forcasts
In Part 2 I talked about tools to qualify prospects. If you have good tools for qualifying prospects (like our 9-element qualification model) then you can eliminate the poorly-qualified opportunities early.
More importantly, your company’s sales forecasts will be more accurate. One of the biggest problems that CEOs have is lack of good data. By qualifying opportunities you will easily learn the revenue you can actually expect in stead of the smoke and mirros that sales people and sales managers unwittingly (or wittingly) push upon you.
From the CEO’s perspective there’s probably nothing more important than being able to forcast revenue, and as a result being able to budget for future expenditures,
SolomonRk put the business owner back in control of his (or her) business.
Why CEOs Should Have Sales Training, Part 2
Posted by: | CommentsWhat makes SolomonRk different from most other sales training programs is that it is designed not only for the sales staff, it is intended for the CEO and Business Owner as well.
The CEO Needs to know How To Qualify Prospects
Portions of the SolomonRk curriculum are designed for:
- A CEO who spends part of his time as Sales Manager.
- A CEO that is also the company sales guy.
- Any CEO that needs to understand what his Sales Manager is doing.
That pretty well covers most CEOs and business owners, doesn’t it? Sales people often go elephant hunting. They often come back with what they think is a great big deal, then they camp on that deal thinking they are going to meet their sales goal on that one deal. The fail to adequately pursue other opportunities that meet their goal.
The only way you can protect yourself from the elephant hunter is to have tools to qualify prospects. By taking our SolomonRk training you will learn to use our 9-element qualification model that identifies and customizes itself to your selling environment. Then you will know if the sales guy is pursuing a real opportunity or if he is wasting time on an opportunity that will never close.
If you can eliminate the elephants your staff will save a lot of time and be able to focus on the opportunites that will actually generate revenue.
Why CEOs Should Have Sales Training, Part 1
Posted by: | CommentsWhat makes SolomonRk different from most other sales training programs is that it is designed not only for the sales staff, it is intended for the CEO and Business Owner as well.
Understanding Your Value Proposition
Our customers buy from us for some of the most interesting reasons, don’t they? In fact, I’ll predict that most of the time in your customer’s mind they are buying something entirely different than what – in your mind – you sell. Homebuilders sell houses. Homebuyers are buying dreams, lifestyle, a place to entertain, a place to watch their kids grow up, etc.
Part of our curriculum is designed to help you get past ‘what we sell’ and drill down deeply into ‘what they buy’. Experienced sales people will work though this on their own but wouldn’t you like your entire sales staff to have the same vision of the value of your product or service? Better yet, wouldn’t you like to impart that to brand new salespeople you bring onboard?
Wouldn’t you like your marketing materials, advertising, website, and even the receptionist to all be using the same language about the value of your product or service? The sales guy can’t make that happen but you, the CEO can – if you yourself have clarity about your value.
Elephant Hunting
Posted by: | CommentsDo you find yor sales people stalking the ‘Big Deal’ to the exclusion of all the others, only to have the Big Deal fall through? That’s elephant hunting.
In a former life I was a product manager who was suddenly called upon to manage the company’s sales reps. While I was undoubtedly a lousy sales manager, one thing I did recognize was our product’s sweet spot. In that sweet spot our product had a $30K price tag and if it was a good fit for the customer’s needs the sale was almost a slam dunk. The key was that while we had competition, our big giant-sized competitors viewed a $30K sale as too small to bother with.
Unfortunately, our sales guys would go prospecting for elephants. They would find a prospect that needed a much larger configuration of our product – one costing perhaps $300,000 – and large enough to attract the attention of our Goliath-size competitor. This competitor would airdrop in the full force of his regional sales team. It truly was David (us) against Goliath. Add to that the additional layers of authorization our prospect needed to get approval for an order that size.
The result was that the time, effort, and energy required to close the $300,000 sale was probably fifty times that required to close the $30K sale. And unfortunately when it came to the $300,000 sales our competitor almost always won.
We Give You the Tools to Keep Your Sales Guy from Elephant Hunting.
If you are the CEO, Business Owner, or Sales Manager, our training program will teach you to use our 9 element qualification model so you will know if the sales guy is pursuing a real opportunity or if he is wasting his time on an opportunity that will never close.
