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30/11/2008 13:11:35
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topic:
Enough is Enough
SimonR
Posts 6
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Mr Bean asked if more training would stop rogues - I'd say not. My experience of rogues is that they'll pervert almost any training to their own ends. For example on one of our our presentation training skills courses someone said they were there because they wanted to learn how to make people by things by making better presentations. One of my staff asked (quite rightly, I thought!) if it wasn't more important that the presentation gave people the information to make the choices for themselves not to make them by things.
The response was that the person in question said (I'm paraphrasing to remove an anglo-saxon work for sexual intercourse..): if they're so stupid as to be taken in by my presentation that's their problem - now tell me how to fool 'em!
Sad, isn't it!
Simon
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30/11/2008 13:01:38
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topic:
Danger! Active Forum Alert!!
SimonR
Posts 6
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Think of Ecademy as the online, electronic equivalent of 'care in the community' - it serves the crucial role of collecting all the spam-nutters in one place so you know where to avoid. There are good people on Ecad too, of course, but the signal to noise ration is far, far too high for me. It's the mindset of Thomas himself that 'quantity' is more important than 'quality' so you're bound to get the auto-responder-brigade out in force there.
I've seen plenty of people receive multiple invitations to join Ecad only a day or so after they were banned for life! The system isn't just spammy, it's rubbish spammy!  The very antithesis of good selling!
S
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30/11/2008 12:53:46
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topic:
Assessing Sales Talent (Really?)
SimonR
Posts 6
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Okay, I know it's rude for the new boy to critisize, but.....
But what I want to know in an article is not something vague about "maybe just maybe" - I want to know the details! What are the new metrics that are riding out to save sellers like some grand cavalry charge? (Is is that Horsemen of the Apocolypse?) I've been trained in some of the most sophisticated metrics systems around and I'm curious (or even skeptical) about the detailed robustness of such things as predictive tools. Used well they're excellent tools for exploring, but not predicting. Maybe all they have to be is better than random to justify themselves commercially, but intuition is better than random too - a lot better!
You see, it's all very well to comment on the fact that the world has more computational power available to it now than it's ever had in the past, but that's not what's been missing from psychometrics - what's been missing is a comprehensive, quantitative model of the human mind.
Maybe I'm just a sceptic though - I'm pretty allergic to all things labeled as 'selling'
Simon
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27/11/2008 15:48:38
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topic:
Sales technique standup-style
It's the way I sell 'em
Posts 9
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Dale Carnegie maybe the technique that has stood the test of time but here's a comedian's-eye view of what it teaches you. Check it out here.
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27/11/2008 15:27:57
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topic:
Glengarry Glen Ross
It's the way I sell 'em
Posts 9
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I seem to remember you guys running a clip from this classic sales movie a few months ago. What does anybody think of Al Pacino as a sales manager? Is he the kind of guy we need in the current economic climate?
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27/11/2008 15:15:29
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topic:
Great video clip
It's the way I sell 'em
Posts 9
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This video is entitled The Truth in Ad Sales - it's hilarious.
Is it really like this, Neil?
There's a great section when they make the sales presentation, which seems to be relevant given that you guys seem to be featuring Presentation Skills as your current theme. You can watch it here. I promise you won't be disappointed... 
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26/11/2008 16:55:45
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topic:
Judging The National Sales Awards
NeilWarren
Posts 152
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Well it was a fascinating and stimulating day. Founder of the Awards Don Hales was in attendance, and I had a terrific couple of co-judges, being Director of Sales in the London office for Marriott Hotels International - Maria Armstrong-Gimblett, and ex IT sales whizz (IBM & Intel) Chris Stock who now heads up his own excellent Sales Consultancy & Sales Force Development Company (Endless Perception Ltd) – who can now also be found in the Directory - Sales Training Consultancies.
So it was a bit of an awe-inspiring Dragons Den kind of setting (if I do say so myself!), particularly if you consider that this took place in the hallowed halls of The Chartered Institute of Marketing and our category is for Sales Newcomer of the Year – Office Based, so for many it was an absolute first doing an in-person presentation. My overall impression was that we’re definitely making progress in trying to get young people to recognise selling as a valid profession and career in its own right, and for employers to similarly reflect a more serious approach to employing sales people – as valued employees rather than so much cannon-fodder.
We saw a whole range of sales skills and levels of expertise, from what I would compare to Sandhurst officer-training types through to front-line troops, as well as the most determined and relentless of hunters through to the most caring and skilled types of farmers. And they were selling everything from utilities to telecoms and conference delegates to recruitment services. But, with a marking matrix across 8 different areas of assessment, and then a mix of 3 different judges input, nobody actually correctly guessed the eventual winner (and I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you sell-em), but Don told us that
a) It was the highest set of marks he could ever recall seeing
b) Hardly a spit separated the top 4 or 5
They were, as 8 finalists out of 38 who felt strong enough to set the record entry levels for this category, quite simply stunning. If I had even been close to where these guys were at in my first year in selling, I think I would indeed have conquered the world, as more than one of them looked set to do. I was mighty impressed, and well done all. Looking forward to the big event in February now, see you there!
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26/11/2008 15:27:21
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topic:
Ban mobile phones whilst driving?
It's the way I sell 'em
Posts 9
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Driving a car to meetings is a nightmare, anyway - the roads are so congested. Maybe we should all just sit at a desk and switch to online meetings?
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26/11/2008 15:23:43
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topic:
Judging The National Sales Awards
It's the way I sell 'em
Posts 9
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OK Neil, so who actually won the award? Surely you can give us ModernSelling.com readers a sneak preview. Go on, you know you can trust us - we're in sales...
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26/11/2008 15:19:54
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topic:
Building Trust
It's the way I sell 'em
Posts 9
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I was particularly interested in Paul Sloane's latest video sales tip on Building Trust. To my mind, the qualities of respect, belief and trust are exactly what distinguish professional salespeople from the cowboys.
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25/11/2008 22:37:51
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topic:
Judging The National Sales Awards
Dazza1510
Posts 2
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Hi Neil - I hope it went well - my best tip (although this is probably a week too late) is to not always look at the most confident presenter - but the person who shows the most potential and passion to succeed and also grow from the National Sales Awards experience - good luck anyway!
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25/11/2008 22:29:09
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topic:
Natural Born Sellers
Dazza1510
Posts 2
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Hi - really interested by this debate - any programme needs to show the macro picture as sales is not about any one individual - I believe a true vision of sales would show the wider support team behind any front line sales person, how a business supports that person to go to market and how the business supports the sales person to really understand the true operational need. Sales is best when its kept simple - many of these shows try to complicate an industry that should always first and foremost focus on the best interests of its customers. Bluntly I do not care about the salespeople - we should all however care about the customers experience. This then cuts though any 'story making' as a customer will always give the most honest and representative feedback.
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25/11/2008 14:56:11
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topic:
Ban mobile phones whilst driving?
msforum925
Posts 1
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NJ wrote:
As a result of the Corporate Manslaughter legislation we are reviewing our use of mobile phones whilst driving.
Does anyone have any thoughts or experience of this issue?
Put a ban on smoking in cars then there will be a fair argument, I believe both are distracting as each other, then ban Mothers driving with their kids, then ban dogs, old age pensioners, joy riders, new drivers, complacent drivers, drinks, food, boy racer`s, the white van man (non racist comment) 4 wheel drivers, and anyone that breaths. This is the future goverment proposals. If you live in london work for the goverment, you probably have a bus pass and get free train travel, you dont need a car and these are the people telling us what we should do or will have to do.
Best wishes to all of us that drive company vehicles for a living, soon there will be a law to shoot us like game!
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24/11/2008 18:46:24
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topic:
marketing/telesales help
NeilWarren
Posts 152
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Hi Spencer
Looks like Nick's got you off to a flying start. It's true that I have a fair bit of B2B data experience/knowledge, but mostly around the sales profession to be fair. Having said which, if I don't know myself, then I probably know a man who does and, as Nick says, many of them are also listed in the Direct Marketing Section of the ModernSelling.com Directory.
My own instinct on this issue, would be to probe a bit further into what it is that you wanted to achieve with the data, either through mail or telemarketing or both? Because there is a world of difference between aiming to get one-off jobs with minor customers versus searching for major contract work that perhaps rolls on into regular work - is there not? Like if Sussex County Council has you as a preferred supplier, or supplier of choice, is that not a lot more work than Joe Bloggs Engineering wanting a one-off bit of re-wiring? So, depending on whether or not Nick's pointers have given you what you wanted for now, might I ask that you fill in a bit more detail here about your ideal sales leads and the type of contracts you are chasing?
Kind regards - Neil
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24/11/2008 16:05:40
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topic:
Assessing Sales Talent (Really?)
Andrew Dugdale, ICDL
Posts 5
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Adam, you are quite correct that there is no substitute for a 1 on 1 with a sales person. You are also right that many sales people waste a lot of time chasing KPI's. What a good assessment tools offers is an objective view of a sales person's competencies, mapped against a global comparison group of top performers in equivalent roles. This means that you can then discuss objectively with the sales person, ways to help them grow their skills, improve their desire to perform, thus helping them become better sales people and ultimately, grow revenue.
A good assessment tool should only enhance the sales manager's role, and indeed, the best sales managers are those who coach and grow their people through discussion, demonstration and support. All this assessment process sets out to do is show you an individual's current strengths and weaknesses, compared to those achieving the best results globally in any given sales role.
As McKinsey said in their Q1 quarterly report this year; "Companies like to promote the idea that employees are their biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet the astonishing reality is that most of them are as unprepared for the challenge of finding, motivating and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago. When companies do make talent a priority, they often fall into a trap: focussing narrowly on HR systems and [sales] processes, which divert attention from the place where most of the obstacles lie: people’s heads."
Good assessment systems look at what is going on in people's heads and help the good sales managers focus on what really matters, driving up competitive advantage - and through that - sustainably growing revenue.
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24/11/2008 10:09:20
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topic:
Assessing Sales Talent (Really?)
adam
Posts 8
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The company I work for is a large corporate and has a number of internal tools that are used to measure and rate all of it's salespeople. Personally I have always found this particular process to be counter-productive, for 2 reasons:
1) We are all measured against an identical set of very narrow criteria. Surely, as a manger, it is your job to individually asses each member of your team and decide on appropriate carrot/stick actions to take.
2) KPI's - Key Performance Indicators, such as a certain number of meetings to hit every month. This gives no idea of the value of the activity in question and therefore many salespeople simply waste time at hopeless prospect meetings just to hit this target.
I think that 1-2-1 meetings/assessments can be a very useful tool for both manager and sales person, but the balance often seems to be in favour of the management having an easy method with which to rank all sales staff, rather than a process that the sales person can use to identify development areas and improve.
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24/11/2008 10:01:46
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topic:
Success in Sales, Discipline & Structure or Flair?
adam
Posts 8
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I have a couple of tools that assist me in developing a strategy either for a specific opportunity or an entire account. I find them very useful in identifying gaps in my knowledge, but as "sell'em" says, you have to make time to sit down and really think about what you do and do not know - if you view it as a tick in the box on the list of things you need to complete for your manager it will offer you no value.
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23/11/2008 21:04:41
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topic:
marketing/telesales help
Spencer
Posts 2
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Nick
Thanks, I have signed us up to supply2.gov.uk. We are members of business link/sussex enterprise, yet i didnt even know this existed!
I am going to have a look into the other suggestions tomorrow.
Thanks
Spencer
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23/11/2008 00:41:38
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topic:
marketing/telesales help
Nick de Cent
Posts 80
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Hi Spencer,
I'll leave the experts to come back with the definitive answers but here are my thoughts....
Telemarketing and direct mail often work best together - supporting each other. Any decent direct marketing agency should be able to explain how this works. There are quite a few listed in our Directory that you could try. My colleague Neil Warren (ModernSelling.com publisher) is a bit of a database guru and may be able to point you in the direction of some good lists.
Meanwhile, have you also tried Glenigan? They're part of the publishers EMAP and specialise in tracking all current projects across the construction sector. Contact details are: phone 01202 432121; fax 01202 431204; email info@glenigan.emap.com.
Also, supply2.gov.uk allows you to register to receive details of government contracts under £100k. As you're interested in public sector contracts this might also be worth a try.
Hope this helps and do come back if you need any further help.
Can any other ModernSelling.com reader offer any further advice to Spencer?
edited by Nick de Cent on 23/11/2008
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22/11/2008 12:45:03
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topic:
marketing/telesales help
Spencer
Posts 2
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need some help!
I run a small uk electrical contractors, like a lot of construction based businesses we do the following to generate work:-
1) Rely on adverts via the yellow pages, thompsons etc
2) basic website, with probably limited search optimisation
3) general networking, ie pub, word of mouth, the odd drive past and pop in construction sites
4) the odd bit of targeted mail shots.
Where we suffer is we are good electricians, i am good with the business finances, but i am not so good at the marketing side of things.
We have come to the conclusion that yellow pages, website etc do not work that well, i feel that instead of potential customers finding us, we need to find them. The most success has been through mail shots
I would like to commit some resources to direct mailing, and we are interested in using telesales, but i am at a loss as to which is the best way to do it.
Like alot of businesses we are suffering a down turn, but i am determined to generate more sales, and i not against trying new ideas
One last thing is the sectors we do best in are commercial, B2B, schools, County councils. This would include all electrical installation work, including Data, air conditioning, ventilation.
I would appreciate anyones ideas or suggestions.
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