Sales Training Targeting Technique

You may have already thought about how to get more benefits for you next year.

And I mean you. Not your boss, or the company,(unless you own it) but you.

You might be considering a course, a book, or just doing it yourself by self assessment and taking actions.

If you are employed your boss will be looking at how to get more out of you next year. Now it’s time to put actions into place to meet those new challenges and make life easier for you.

If you manage your own business then this time of year is a good time to assess your objectives for next year. The sales results you want will come from the actions you decide to take now.

The sales training targeting technique you’ll see here will pinpoint the specific areas of your sales process that you should invest in improving to give you great benefits next year.

How this sales training technique works

I use this sales training technique with my sales team and my private clients. It works by combining visualisation, your feelings, and logical reasoning, to highlight the areas you should focus on improving.

All of us can always improve how we sell. There is always something we could do more of, do better, or have more ways of doing it.

First you use visualisation to discover how you feel about each stage of the sales process. This will highlight feelings such as confidence, apprehension, strength, or insecurity at each stage of selling.

Then, you use logic to make a final list of the sales stages you should work on to give you benefits next year.

Look for where to invest in you

Look for the areas of your sales process, your sales pitch, and your selling techniques, that you can specifically target.

Consider the different sales stages and go through in your mind, what you currently do at each step of your sale.

Think about marketing and prospecting and how you make your first approach to your potential customers. Perhaps you are not making as many sales appointments as you would like. Then there is your sales pitch from your introduction through to closing the sale.

If you work in retail sales, is there are a part of your sales pitch that lets you down, for example that first contact with a customer in your shop or showroom.

Direct sales and B2B sellers might consider the number of sales appointments they currently make, and how they make them.

Two stages many sales people identify as areas that need working on are; Handling sales objections, and Closing the sale.

Let your feelings guide you here

Grab a coffee, sit in a comfy chair, and let your mind wander through your sales process.

Start with your first action. That could be your first prospecting action where you identify the prospect as someone you could potentially sell to. It could be the way you answer an incoming sales query. Then move on to whatever comes next.

Take it slow and listen to what you say to the prospect. Ask yourself questions such as:

What am I trying to achieve at this stage of the sale.

What is the next stage in the sales process.

As you go through each stage of the sale in your mind feel how you are feeling. There will be some parts where you feel confident and strong, and this will come through in your visualisation. You will have clear memories of what you say and the words will be definite and easy to recall.

Other parts of your sale will be areas that you don’t enjoy or feel confident with. Here the memories may be less clear, the words you use may not be recalled as easy or as definite, and some people say the pictures they see are different to the ones when they are recalling confident stages.

A good retail sales tip is to visualise yourself approaching a customer and see it through your eyes as you make the first contact. How do you feel: confident, strong, or apprehensive and already hearing the rejection, ‘It’s okay I’m just looking.’

This exercise will usually highlight your weaker areas that you are not fully confident on. To find the areas that you feel good about but could do more of you need a logic based perspective.

Now use your logic to make a decison

When you have recalled how you feel at each stage of the sale, use your logic to decide where actions will benefit you most.

List the sales stages that will benefit you if you do them more effectively, or get better results from them.

For example consider sales appointment calls. You can gain a benefit by making more appointment calls and filling your sales diary. You can also gain by making the same amount of calls that you do now, but converting more of them to appointments.

This same logic can be used throughout the sales process and can help you decide on which areas of your sales process to focus on for training.

By now you have a list of any areas of selling that you want to feel more confident about, could be more effective, or you feel may be lacking in technique.

You also have a list of sales stages that are working, but if you increase their effectiveness you can gain benefits for you.

Now you have identified the specific areas of your sale that you should invest in to gain benefits for you in the coming year.

Some ideas to get you started

Decide now that you are going to invest in yourself and start looking for the options available to you.

To get you started her are some links to training on my website. It’s a good place to start and will give you details of online sales training workbooks so you can compare them to other options you might find.