Sales boosting strategies for sport organisations

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hello and welcome to brief and ours for sales leaders we promise to be brief bright and bring it all to you in 19 minutes today we're going to be giving you six tips to boost your sales team's confidence and improve their performance I'm joined today by Steve Hackett Regional VP of Sales Steve has been a driving force in the Brooks group's growth for nearly two decades Steve thanks for joining us today rich it's great to be here and just to build on those six tips this is how we're gonna drive sales in 2018 awesome let's get going so Steve we all know that confidence is an important for every position but in sales especially having a high level of confidence can have a big impact on performance levels when your salespeople are confident and I'm emphasizing confident not arrogant they can build confidence with your prospects and customers and remove any doubts or fears that they may have with working with you or your organization or any products or services services that you offer luckily sales leaders can take some steps to help boost their team's confidence and especially in their sales salespeople so let's jump into the six tips that we have here for you today tip number one focus and build upon your strengths areas Steve tell us how do you identify those strengths you know it comes from observation of your sales team in the field performing it spending time with them in the office its observing them in real-time situations I need to have an intimate knowledge of the strengths and the areas that need to be developed for the sales team if I'm gonna effectively coach them and there's some different ways to implement that too as well rich the first way is help the reps identify areas that they naturally excel in it's really interesting we've all seen salespeople that appear to be self-confident on the surface but yet when you have a chance to talk to them you can kind of senses there's there's this uneasiness there's this lack of confidence that's below the surface not that false privado so what you need to really do is to sit down with them and really identify the areas that you believe they have tremendous traits in in areas that only for them to identify those but he can coach them up to develop those areas even further makes sense to me Steve I mean focus on the ones that you need to develop and keep them going you know it could personally also look at the areas that they need to improve in as well it's all part of it tip to learn from the success of others and Steve this is actually one of my personal favorites I love to be around others and talk about their successes and learn from them so that I can use them in future instances for myself can you tell me a little bit about maybe a success that you've had from your past yeah it's really interesting rich in the world of sales I like to do a little bit of a deal autopsy many cases we may think we know why we want to deal but more importantly when we lose a deal how can I actually review that so I like to look at a few areas and how we would go into this and implement that one is that you have to build this culture of trust within your team and what does that mean it means that they have to be totally self confident in you and what you're doing is having them and their best interest but also other members of the team being confident and you because we have to learn from the successes of others but in addition let's encourage reps they have to share that tribal knowledge I know that we have new reps in our organization right now and every one of the VPS of sales for our organization are spending significantly time with her right now to help her to escalate her learning curve and to get her more successful than others that's encouraging to know is there Steve I mean to share the to share the knowledge and to get someone else up to speed is only going to help the team grow and to make sure everyone's hitting their numbers rich we had a meeting earlier today and we shared best practices I honestly believe that the best learning comes on in our organization is we create this culture where team members are sharing each other different ideas different examples we talked about marketing today we talked about implementation we talked about website we talked about clients we thought about different programs today and the knowledge that we share with each other and the feedback that we give each other I think is absolutely invaluable to all of us and you as a manager you're the one who has to foster that type of an environment that culture within your organization to have members feel comfortable that they're willing to share their thoughts in the openly in those meetings that's the way that you're gonna grow your team so they can learn from others tip number three master the fundamentals what are the fundamentals Steve you know that's it that's a great question what we tell you about fundamentals in sales let's break it down into the skill sets that they have to have mastery over the ability to prepare for a sales call the ability to do research on different clients or prospects the ability to ask good questions and follow-up questions the ability to tie the information that they received when they quote probed people with these questions to be able to make recommendations understanding their products and their services and how they would apply to and provide solutions for so you can break down fundamentals in the world of sales into very specific actionable items in steps and there's some other ways that we implement it as well salespeople should know a sales process like the back of their hand in today's cell in an environment there's so many different influences on the selling process so many different people that are involved with just a typical decision so for a salesperson to control the sales process they need to know where they are and where they're going no matter who they're interacting with no matter how many different influences come in to the each one of the sales interactions that we have they need to be able to control where they're going and where they are in addition to that it also provides the selling skills the skills training that we were talking about because in each one of those steps in any type of a sales process there's key steps and milestones and every one of them and those are skill sets that we need to master those are great points Steve I mean I go back to my selling experiences and one of the things that we lack truly was having the sales process and you know for me to go back and be able to say well this is where I was this is the stuff I should would have been monumental in my progress besides that knowing where where I needed to improve that's really where those sales skills trainings come in great point tip number four replace negative energy with positive influences this is a huge one in my book Steve tell us a little bit about it well reg I think all of us have been in environments where is that person that comes into the room and there's a black cloud over their heads all the time there's nothing ever positive everything's always a problem everything's always negative they just suck the energy right out of the room and I know you had some old personal feelings about that as well yeah for me my whole life I try to I try to emulate in and live through the life of PMA which is positive mental attitude and I just try to strive for everything and replace any kind of negative energy with positive influences to help me drive in the right direction and to change the outcomes of what those situations may be it's more positive way to go through life isn't it much easier much easier so let's talk about ways that we can implement it number one set the example of being positive and confident you as the manager are their leader you're their coach if you're positive and upbeat and confident about what it is that you're doing and what you're how you're working with your team they're gonna follow that example I think about the number one example the best practices for a sales manager is always lead by example well being leading by example is being positive and confident in your own ability and they'll feed off of you as well number two parry new sales reps with a mentor now I want to clarify this for just a second pairing a new sales rep with a mentor who doesn't adhere to the things that you're saying or follows their own rules and regulations is probably the worst thing that you can do it's a big no-no Steve that's a big no-no so what you want to do is you want to coach up the mentor for exactly what is that you want them to do and how they can help the sales rep get up to speed it's it's interesting right now rich we've got a growing population of people that are going to be retiring here as well at a point and some of the AB best sales people that I know are really conscientious about what's going to happen to the next generation of salespeople especially when they work for an organization for a long period of time and they really look forward to the role of mentoring the next generation of salespeople for their organization that's a healthy organization powerful powerful stuff Steve and encourage your reps to surround themselves with successful goal-oriented people I once sat in on a seminar and I thought it was always an interesting seminar the person that was conducted drew a circle and inside that that circle he said this is the area of your comfort zone and and anything that you did inside of that circle you are very comfortable in doing but what happens when you have to get outside of that circle we call that the area of the possible for you to venture outside of that comfort zone the best way to do is to surround yourself they'd have a bigger vision of the possible then you have people that are currently successful in those roles and can show you the way to get into that area of the possible to really expand your roles and that's surrounding yourself with successful goal-oriented people that don't accept the status quo they're always looking to improve themselves surround yourself with those people replace all that negative energy there'll be nothing but positive influences as you professionally grow great insight Steve tip number five become a subject-matter expert well Steve as a millennial what we do right now to become an expert is just watch a couple YouTube videos does that work does that work let's it let's just line up three or four you YouTube videos it will be in great shape you know what do we need to speak matter expert on well it could be things like your products your services it could also be your industry I in the book Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich there's a great article about Henry Ford and what he did to basically work out all of the problems and the issues they were having with the assembly line because remember when he conduct the assembly line for the Ford plant for the Model A cars he was the first one who ever invented it he had a discipline is everyday he would focus for one minute now now for a millennial the focus for one minute I'm sure it's gonna be a little bit more nanoseconds yeah it doesn't sound like a lot but he would take one problem one issue that he had on the assembly line and he would totally block out everything - totally concentrate and focus in on that one problem and that one issue after the assembly line was complete and they were highly productive he started manufacturing he credited that discipline while becoming a subject matter expert the assembly line by the problems that he was solving or the issue you're solving on a daily basis just by focusing in on it for one minute seems strange in the world of YouTube videos and nanoseconds but that's what they used to have to do in the old days your thing it makes sense to me Steve I mean honestly if you're if you're able to know what you're selling and know what your prospects and customers are are going through an everyday basis then that's actually gonna lead you to the confidence they're they're gonna see you as a confident person that understands that their business and what their needs are sales managers need to coach their reps to become in experts in the industries and the companies and the organizations that they serve in today's marketplace rich businesses clients prospects they're looking for insights they're looking for best practices they're looking for something that they don't have access to themselves they're looking for organizations and people that could provide them these insights and these expertise and these experiences of working with other organizations they're looking for that and they're willing to engage your organization on a continuous basis by doing it so if I am seen as nothing more than just a private push and sales person I'm in trouble I'm an afterthought if I'm seen as a business or an industry expert because I understand the business or I understand the industry you're going to be considered and the ultimate is when we have the opportunity to be seen as that subject matter expert or that trusted advisor where we're actually invited into those meetings where strategies are being discussed as an organization that's where we need to be that's what we want to be but if I don't take the time I don't make the effort to really learn about the industries the companies and the organizations that I work with I'm never gonna progress past that salesperson status and that is not a good place to be because you could be replaced by a computer or some online ordering system absolutely it's so it's almost positioning yourself inside the barn room and in helping them to create the RFP you know it's gonna be in your site he who writes the specs gets the check-in that's that's it going right there tip number six learn from successes and failures Steve do you recall any failures that turned into learning experiences for you well it's it's been a long time since I had a failure now for all of us if you're in sales you're having successes day in and day out but you're also having challenges day in and day out so the the the failure not to learn from successes or from failures that you had our lessons that are lost forever and we're doomed to make those same mistakes in the future so things that you can do and I think there's ways that we can implement these that are a really powerful you start out with the mentality that I lost this battle but I'm gonna win a war so rich if I was with you and let's say we were working on an opportunity and you decided to go with someone else the first thing I want to ask you is rich I'm disappointed that we didn't get the business from you but I fully expect that you and I are going to be doing business in the future stay positive and ask for coaching from the prospect what is it that we could have done differently or what is it that we need to do differently in ordered to earn your business for the next opportunity now they're going to tell you that it was price that's a universal blow-off everybody says always price but tell him to take price off the table and I've learned more from having those two questions answered and one more business from clients that I lost maybe initially the battle but I've won a war and they're long-term clients with us first of all they appreciate the fact that somebody went back to them and had that concern how I can do better how you can get better how can we serve your organization better and they'll tie you number to determine what can't contribute to your success and then repeat it one of the best compliments that we get is that when we work with an organization and we deliver training for the organization they say looking back on our conversations I can see how you use the same sales process that you're teaching my team that we had those same types of conversations so be consistent model those successes do the things that are necessary in a step to step way and this repeat those and you'll have continued success repeat those best practices in number three you know remind reps to resist the urge to coast after the win you know here we ring the gone when we win a deal but you know what all the real work starts after we won the deal I said in two meetings today there were kickoff meetings for starting the initiatives with clients today there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes in order to be successful on those calls sales is like the quarterback they get all they get all the reward yeah yeah there's always a team behind hoping the money but yeah who's the team behind it for sure but those are just a few different ideas what's that old saying Steve a confused buyer buys nothing yeah that's uh that's that's a term that we use around here a lot but there's a flip side to this a confused sales person sells nothing our job is not to confuse the buyers or the prospects our job is to educate them and and and be systematic and and have a flow to how we interact with people that's easy to follow it's repeatable which leads us to and that's that's honestly the simplicity of the impact selling process right and right before you here we actually have the online sales training system platform for youhere impact you and this is where it's accessible and it's convenient and it's right here in front of you and what we want to do is because you're all here and you're joining us today we wanted to offer you a free trial of the impact you and that's all you have to do is reach out to Steve and that's Steve at the Brooks group calm you can see his email address right there and it'll be more than willing to to walk you through and even s or answer any questions that you may have about it so looks like we are all wrapped up here we don't have any more time for any for any questions but we wanted to thank you for joining us and Steve did you have anything on your way out nope just hope just be positive be upbeat make sure you follow those six tips and you're going to build the confidence in your sales team and they're gonna be more confident in you and how you're working with them as well the drive sales moving forward thanks Steve appreciate it everyone have a great day