With one simple change to your sales closing techniques you can bring out the majority of real sales objections, and smoke screens, at the start of a sales meeting. By making a simple change to the traditional sales process you will only be faced with objections related to your products or service when you try to close the sale. These are objections that you can overcome. Objections to sales that are related to the buyer, or their company, are not in your control and can be very difficult to resolve.

Make more effective use of your sales time because you will know from the start of the meeting whether the buyer can buy from you. Think abut the difference that will make to your sales conversion rate. From the introduction stage of the sales meeting, or even from the sales appointment making call, you will be in a position to decide if you are making the best use of your sales time. Working with the sales teams I manage and train we have developed this sales closing technique in real sales situations, not just in a classroom. These successful sales skills are used by working sales professionals that rely on their results to earn a living and keep their job.

In a traditional sales process the sales person usually starts the meeting with an introduction of themselves, their company, and the reason they are meeting with the prospect. This will be followed by questions to discover the buyer’s needs, and then a sales presentation of the features and benefits that meet those needs. Then the sales person tries to close the sale, or gain agreement to the next stage of the process. After all this time and work the seller can then be hit with an objection to the sale that they have no control over, and no way of overcoming. These are sales objections that are related to the buyer or their company.

These objections can be: There are other decision makers. The buying process involves their head office. The company is tied into a contract. Budgets are over spent, and many others that stop the sale dead.

By turning the traditional sales process on its head, and using sales closing techniques at the introduction stage of the meeting, you can bring out the buyer related sales objections. When presenting sales training, on how to close a sale, I focus on gaining the strongest agreement near the start of the sales process, rather than at the usual closing stage, after the sales presentation. At an appropriate point near the start of the meeting explain to the buyer the sales process you would like the meeting to follow. Tell the buyer how you will establish their needs, wants, and desires, and then present the best proposal you can offer. You will then ask them if they are happy with the benefits of the proposal, and if they would like to do business with you.

Present this as a win-win situation. There are great benefits for the buyer. They can relax, and communicate with you freely, because they know you’re not going to pounce on the smallest sign of interest, or buying signal, that they may show. Many people you sell to may not be full time buyers. By setting out the agenda you will help them with their buying process. When you do try and close the sale there will be no need for linguistic trickery or manipulative sales techniques. All it requires is a gentle direct question. You will find it easy to ask, and the buyer will appreciate your directness and honesty.

Setting the sales meeting agenda is the important point on which you want to gain their agreement. You are asking, if they like what they see, are they are in a position to buy from you, or to agree to the next stage of the buying process.

The strength of your agreement gaining question will vary depending upon the type of sales you are making. You can use stronger agreement gaining question with a one-time sale to a customer you will never see again than. With a repeat business prospect ,that you want to build a relationship with, you will be more tactful. Assessing the strength and directness of the closing techniques you use is a sales skill that comes with experience, practice and good sales training.

You’ve seen how to close a sale at the start of a sales meeting. If the buyer raises an objection to the sale, a reason why they can’t do business with you, you can now make a decision on whether it is good use of your time to continue with the meeting.

Once you have gained their agreement to the sales process you know that the objections, which may arise when you try and close the sale, will be related to the sales presentation you have given. These are objections you are more likely to be able to answer or resolve with your sales skills.

Closing a sale by gaining agreement near the start of the meeting requires confidence. Like all change it may be uncomfortable at first, but the results make it very worth while becoming competent at using this sales closing technique. Once you’ve mastered this sales skill imagine what else you can add to it.

Author: Stephen Craine
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Smart cooker

Did you know that an estimated two-thirds of employee hiring decisions may be mistakes? This article will provide you with information that can help you improve your employee hiring and screening practices so that you can cut costs and maximize productivity in your organization. Whether you’re an owner, an executive or a manager, the following information will be beneficial to you.

From your experience you know you have hired some excellent employees and some who failed. Now take a moment and think back. Did you use the same employee screening method to hire both? Typically we find that employers do employ the same methods for each position. This suggests that your existing employee selection process may produce inconsistent hiring results.

Assessments are invaluable employee screening tools for increasing consistency in your employee selection system. What makes them so invaluable? Job Fit technology. By combining tested and reliable data derived from pre-employment screening assessments with a customized job analysis survey, you can create a benchmark by which you can hire an employee who best fits your job and company.

How does it Job Fit technology work? Based on objective criteria, the management team selects top performers in a given position. The top performing employees are assessed on their mental ability, behavioral traits and occupational interest, which include the following 20 core characteristics:

- Learning index
- Verbal skill
- Verbal reasoning
- Numerical ability
- Numeric reasoning
- Energy level
- Assertiveness
- Sociability
- Manageability
- Attitude
- Decisiveness
- Accommodating
- Independence
- Objective judgment
- Enterprising
- Financial
- People service
- Creative
- Technical
- Mechanical

This data is used to create a unique Job Fit profile that lays the foundation for the skills and characteristics required by your company for screening and hiring talented people.

With the job profile analysis, multiple managers have the ability to weigh their opinions and express views regarding a specific position. Once the 57-question analysis has been completed, managers’ responses are entered into the assessment center for processing. The result is a unique Job Fit profile.

In addition to providing information about a candidate’s personality type and behavioral characteristics, the Job Fit Assessment will provide customized, tough interview questions that are prepared specifically for a particular candidate based on their assessment results. These Department of Labor approved, specific interview questions can be used in the second interview. This gives managers a critical advantage in the hiring process.

Including Job Fit as a key factor in your employee hiring and screening process will make your allocation of human capital significantly more effective and give you a competitive edge in your industry as you increase consistency and success in hiring talented employees. Matching people with the work they do creates a solid workforce that has the right people in the jobs they were born to do.

Most employee hiring decisions are made with inadequate information; however, assessments will deliver the information you need to know before tendering a job offer and making a hiring mistake.

Author: Jim Sirbasku
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty

A sales letter is a document designed to generate sales. It is a distinctive type of persuasive letter. It persuades the reader to place an order, to request additional information, or to lend support to the product or service or cause being offered. For most sectors other than retail, a sales letter is the first and most important way of reaching new customers. The purpose in writing a sales message is to sell a product. It influences the reader to take a specific action by making an offer-not an announcement-to him. Sales letter attempts to persuade readers to spend their time and money on the value being offered. To sell, the sales letter must be specific, go to the right audience, appeal to the readers needs, and it must be informative.

Before writing the sales letter you need to plan about the type of sale campaign that you will conduct. Whether you will send a letter only or will you include brochures, reply forms, special inserts, samples, response cards etc.? How do you plan to market the product or service? Through the Internet, direct mail, email, direct sales, print advertising, etc.? Do you need other advertising or literature to support the sales letter? Who is your competition? How are they marketing this product or service? What is your advertising budget? Are your marketing hopes realistic? Another important decision is to determine the specific purpose of your letter. Whether you want your reader to call for a free video, presentation or demonstration? Or you want your reader to fill out an order form? For these you need to know and analyze your audience and the purpose for writing. Try to form a mental image of the typical buyer for the product you wish to sell. Ask yourself:

Who is your prospective buyer?

What motivates a person to buy this item?

What might the reader want to know about this product?

What does the product or service do for the one who needs it?

What can the reader gain from buying it?

What is unique selling point of the product or service?

Does your offer appeal to the reader?

Can you transform him from prospect to buyer?

A sales letter is one of the important instruments of sales promotion. The principles of effective sales letter depends on your communication skill and your ability to convince your reader to accept or act on your recommendations. You may be promoting a product, a service or an idea; your sales letter should catch the readers attention, build interest, and motivate him to buy the product or service offered. A good sales letter should possess the following qualities:

Emphasize good looks

Design your document for visual impact. Make it easy to navigate so your reader reaches for it first-ahead of the competition’s. You can create professional-looking templates for your sales letter that use your company logo, branding and colors.

You Attitude

The most effective word in a sales letter is “you”. Never begin a letter with “I” because chances are the reader won’t get to the second word. It all comes down to selling benefits – your prospects are not interested in the features of your products services, but in what how your products or services can benefit them. Then it must build a reader’s trust. It should make generous use of “you” and “your” – so it is clear the customer’s needs come first, not your desire to sell something.

Use bullets

The body of your letter should contain key points, shown by bullets. Use bullets because it makes the letter easy to read. As the writer or seller, you benefit by immediately pointing your reader in the direction of the important points you want to make.

Keep your letter brief

It’s rare that someone is going to read anything past the first page, so keep your letter to one page. Staying at one page will also force you to be to the point, since a wordy letter is an ineffective letter.

Use statistics

Using statistics shows that you understand the issues of their business, while demonstrating that your product or service can solve a problem. It also gives your prospect a reason to support your product or service within the company.

Show your prospect’s needs

Your sales letter is a very brief sales proposal, so you need to show that you are thinking about your prospect’s needs. You might be hesitant to put your best ideas in your letter, fearing that your prospect will use them but not hire your company. That’s a mistake. By putting your ideas in your letter, you will make your prospects feel like they are getting something already, and that they will benefit from your products or services. More importantly, you will be demonstrating that you are creative and have your client’s best interests in mind.

Use right tone

Use the right tone in your writing. Use active voice. Use the present tense. Be positive. Avoid negatives. Keep sentences and paragraphs short.

Proof read

Proof read your letter before you send it out. This will help you determine if your letter is clear and if you’re getting your point across. Also, misspelled word or other careless mistake will give bad impression to the reader.

One of the most effective strategies to plan and write effective sales letter is to follow the four steps in your letter which are:

Catch attention

Build interest

Establish credibility

Motivate action

Catch attention

To be effective, a sales letter must catch readers attention. Design your document for visual impact to catch the readers attention by using graphics such as layout, colour scheme or illustrations. You can grab attention with an eye-catching headline or an interesting opening. This might be a question or statement. The opening should be short, honest, relevant, interesting and stimulating. Keep it quite general to appeal to as many people as possible. There are many possibilities for opening your sales letter that could persuade the reader to buy. Make a compelling promise for the reader, tell a story that the reader can identify with, make an announcement of a new product or service showcasing your unique selling point or ask a question.

The headline encourages your prospects and leads them to your next line. There you start to build their interest and ensure they read the next sentence and each subsequent one.

Build interest

Besides a powerful headline, your sales letter must have an immediate clear benefit for the intended audience. To build interest in your sales message you should highlight your products central selling point, the single point around which you will build your sales message. Be upfront and bold about promising a prize or a tangible reward in exchange for time and attention. Whatever product or service you are selling you need to position it so that its benefits provide one or more of the following common desires:

- To make or save money

- To be healthy

- To be popular or to maintain a social status

- To have security

- To have free time or save labour

- To get entertainment, comfort or amusement

- To take advantage of opportunities

- To be good looking

- To achieve inner peace

Show them how your product will benefit them in making their lives better, safer or easier. How will it save them time, trouble, worry or money? Look at their ultimate goal and relate it to that. Why should they buy from you?
For example, state what makes you an expert in your chosen field. How can you prove what you are claiming is true? Once you have listed down the key benefits of the service or product and positioned yourself as the person to deliver it, the time is right to deliver your sales pitch. Persuade your reader to buy based on the grounds of what the product or service does for him or her (benefit), not what the product or service is (feature)!

A benefit is what the product or service does, and what the buyer gains from the feature. A benefit is the specific outcome of the feature. A feature is something the product or service already has. Benefits are what motivate people to buy. Bullet point each benefit to make it easier to read. Think about every possible benefit your reader may derive from your product or service. In many cases, people will buy a product or service based on only one of the benefits you list.

Besides the benefit stated at the letter’s opening, you can bolster interest by adding high-profile testimonials from associates or former clients. Testimonials from happy customers are very useful for this purpose, as are quotes from established third parties such as industry leaders or reputable specialists. Opinions, figures and independent statistics are also likely to reinforce your message. Ultimate motivations are what people really want. The product or service is just a vehicle to providing these benefits so make sure your sales letter focuses on these motivational factors.

Establish credibility

You need to establish credibility and be believable by the second paragraph. You must anticipate the readers objections and doubts and offer counter arguments. There are several ways of overcoming readers doubts which must be used with good judgment and should be related with the main appeal of the letter. You can provide testimonials, money-back guarantees, trial offers, attractive warranties or free samples. Using too many points to establish credibility will not be effective. To gain credibility for you and your request, present just one fact, strengthened, if necessary, by an opinion or fact as a proof.

Motivate action

Its important to remember that people are motivated to buy based on their emotions and justify their purchase based on logic only after the sale. This means that each step in the sales letter process must build on the readers emotions to a point where they are motivated to take action. Encourage the reader to act by an easy and clear method of responding. Close with summarizing the central selling point and clear instructions for an easy action to be taken. To motivate, you can offer a gift, limit the offer, guarantee satisfaction, or promise an incentive.

End with an action: What result do you want from your letter? Are you looking to get a face-to-face appointment? Are you answering questions raised at a previous meeting? Do you want to make your prospect better informed? Do you need to get a signed contract? You need to close your letter by requesting a specific, quantifiable action. For example: “I will call you on Thursday, May 18 at 10 a.m. to schedule meeting” or “Please return the enclosed contract by Friday, April 21, or call me if you have any other questions”.

WRITING A SALES LETTER:

Like any other business letter, a sales letter has three parts introduction, the body of the letter and the concluding paragraph. Let us examine in detail how to draft these three components of a sales letter. The important thing in a sales letter is the sequence which is as following:

Introduction

Body of the letter

Conclusion

Introduction

The introductory paragraph of a sales letter starts with an opening sentence which has a vital role to play. In many instances, the opening sentence is the only sentence that is read, so it must immediately appeal to readers interests. There are several ways of writing an opening sentence in a sales letter, some of them are listed here with the examples:
A provocative question: What would the leaning tower fall for? The leaning tower of Pisa would only be put to shame by architectural splendor that outshines its own like the new range of luxury bathroom accessories.
What can you get these days for Rs. 15? Enjoy the finest that life has to offer just for Rs. 15 every month!

A striking information: We are the Number 1! We are the number 1 in revenue, customer base and customer satisfaction.

A story or an anecdote: Mr. Bala went shopping with his saving with our VISA credit card. What will you do with yours? Our credit card offers 5% bonus savings on all purchases for first six months.

A significant fact: Hearing Loss you may not be aware of Only about 25% of people who need hearing aid use them.

Most people have a vocabulary of 2-3,000 words and even a scholar uses no more then 5-6,000 words in his daily life. But there are around 500,000 words in English language and you can use many of them to enrich your vocabulary by using our Vocabulary Builder.

Split opening: You know English, but are you quite fluent in it? It may sound incredible but classrooms cant help you achieve fluency. No, they cant. No! Nor can audio video sessions. Nor translation. But Rapid English Fluency can help you.

A conditional sequence: If home is where the most number of accidents take place, think of Woodcoat Paint as insurance.

Special offers: Free gifts! Yours for giving the digest as a gift this Puja and Diwali free diary for the year 2005 whether you order several subscriptions or just one will receive this big, handy year 2005 desk diary free.

Wings to give your childrens career a head start! Avail the special offer of financial assistance for spectrum of educational opportunities in India and abroad.

Body of the letter

You may have a lead paragraph in the body of the letter. This part of the sales letter can be used to expand the promise made in the headline or used to deliver a second major benefit of the product or service. A sub-headline can also be used as the second part, to answer a question posed in the headline. For example, Part 1 could say: “Want to learn Kannada in 30 days? Part 2 could say: “Well, here’s how to . . .

In the body of the sales letter you will begin to offer proof. You expand the theme, fill in details, offer proof, and show how you plan to fulfill the promise you made in the headline. Here, you give details of your unique selling point. You continue talking about the benefits and offer proof of the claim you made early. You share the details of the benefits. Prove your claim or statements by facts, logic or testimony. There are several ways of doing so, choose one that suits your products best. Following are some examples:

Trial offers: Get on the fitness trail! Enjoy our free offer to use our machine in comfort of your house for a week. If you are not satisfied we will take it back, no questions asked.

Guarantees: Guarantee of satisfaction

You always come first with us and your complete satisfaction is our prime concern. If you are not delighted with our product you may return it anytime for 100 % refund.

Free samples: To enable you to see for yourself how convenient it is to handle closet organizers, we are sending you a free sample.

Testimonials: Ritu Sharma, Bangalore: How the web changed my world! It can change yours too. The Sify internet connectivity provided me the ability to communicate with people all over the planet and gave me access to information all around the world.

You need to explain the qualities of your product and its special features and convince your reader that your claims are true. Remember, by the end of the body, the goal is to create an emotional response that will cause the reader to do what you are now going to tell him to do.

Closing:

In the closing part of your sales letter your goal is to motivate action. Recapitulate your points and make a final appeal. You may give a limited time offer, or limited quantity offer or special bargain etc. Use a Post Script. For example, “If you order before March 1, we will include a free . . .” Or “Money back guaranteed . . .” Or “Discount is good until . . .” If you ask the reader to order, support, or to contact you for the specified reason you must make it easy for him to reply. Support the sales letter with a post card or an order form. If appropriate, supply a toll free telephone number, an Email link, and or your URL. Always close with a thank you and use a signature at the end of the letter. Save one of the best points for last.

Author: Dr Anubha Singh
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

One of the top frustrations I hear from small business owners is about hiring correctly. They want to know how to find the right people: really good employees who will stay, people who will understand them, how they work, and match their personality. They want people who will fit in and support them so they can do their genius work – what they started their business for in the first place.

As an entrepreneur, you might have the same frustrations. You might really need to hire someone to help you with your overload – whether you need an employee, a part time worker, a virtual assistant, or a whole bunch of people – but you may be holding off for the fear of hiring the wrong person. And if you’ve ever hired the wrong person before, like I have, you know that it can often be worse than not hiring and continuing to do all of the work by yourself, or overloading current team members.

Hiring the wrong person can cost you a lot of money. And every day that you wait to hire because of indecision is costing you money. And both of these scenarios can cost you lots of time and stress. You don’t need any of this!

8 Proven Strategies for Finding and Hiring the Right Person

These strategies are for small businesses, and are very different from what big businesses will do to hire their “superstars.” In fact, many of them are the exact opposite – that’s why if you go to books written for corporate teams or consultants who working with large companies, the strategies you find there won’t work for you. You may have been using some of those tactics already, and you know they don’t bring you people who match your unique style and align with your personal culture.

1. Don’t talk about the job at first. Talk about your company and your philosophy and see how interested they are.

2. Ask them what they do in their spare time. People who can use their natural talents and preferences in their work will be much better suited for and happier in their work.

3. Ask them why they want the job. It’s amazing what people will tell you if you ask.

4. Get references and check them. All of them.

5. Have multiple interviews. The person may not present the same later, and you’ll get fresh insights.

6. Have team members interview prospective employees. They’ll have great insights.

7. Test prospective employees. Make up a test that can be completed in 15 to 20 minutes, related to the job requirements.

8. Hire on 30 to 90 day trial periods.

Taking the time to implement these strategies will give you worlds of insight into how prospective team members will fit into your unique company’s culture, and how well they’ll sync with you.

Author: Marcia Hoeck
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Import duty tariff

Merchant funding can be confusing and complicated. There are many types of products and services geared toward helping a business with their monetary needs. This leaves many business owners frustrated as to which business funding option would be right for them. If you are in the market for a merchant account cash advance then this information will be vital to your success. After reading this information you will be able to choose which merchant funding will fit best with your needs.

The world of business funding is chock full of legalese and asterisks, this can make it seem that legal council need be present to venture into the process. Rest assured that securing funding for your business need not be complicated. What is will require of you is a plan. You need to assess what your needs are and then categorize them in a list. Do you need funding for an expansion? Is the money you are applying for going to be used to fill an emergency need such as meeting payroll or covering overhead? Before you look at any merchant account funding you must be clear about the intent of the need.

Once the intent of the merchant cash advance is established you then need to decide on where you will look for the money. There are hundreds off banks online and offline that offer merchant funding solutions. This can become its own burden as the sheer amount of choices can overwhelm even the savviest of business owners. Again, clarity of your needs will help with the decision.

Look at the websites for each lender you are considering. Check out their FAQ section see if there is an email address or phone number of an agent that can answer your questions. If you are looking offline, go into banks in your area and ask to speak to a business specialist. Set up an appointment to discuss your options and what is available to you.

When you have chosen the lender for your business funding you will have many choices that you must make. Your lender will start talking over options; all of them will have basic requirements before you can apply to them. The process of elimination will quickly render which option would be right for you.

Conventional loans are a viable option but will require good credit, newer loans such as a business cash advance don’t require good credit, but will require that your business primarily deals with processing credit cards. Each option will have its benefits and possible drawbacks. Make sure your lender discusses these matters with you in detail.

Merchant account cash advances can be a daunting but necessary task. By doing your homework and asking tough questions you can find what you need. Making a list of your needs will keep you on the objective. Investigating lenders will help you choose the one that will address your specific needs in a way that will make you comfortable with the process. Going over your options in detail with your lender will ensure that you only apply for funding that you can qualify for thereby saving you time and as we all know, time is money.

Author: Elle Wood
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: How Electric Pressure Cookers Work

Critical Hiring Mistakes

Most organizations could improve their hiring practices. Interviews are frequently poorly done and psychometric assessments are not used to help predict success.

Companies and law firms frequently hire an industrial/organizational psychologist to conduct a pre-hire assessment of final candidates. Final candidates are given online personality and ability assessments. The psychologist meets with each candidate and conducts an extensive semi-structured performance-based interview asking competency-based questions. Clients receive comprehensive Selection and Development Reports.

Could your hiring practices be improved?

Most managers find employee recruitment and hiring to be frustrating and time consuming. With this negative attitude, they hire impulsively, basing their decisions on the feelings they experience in interviews with candidates. However, a study conducted by John Hunter of Michigan State indicated that the typical employment interview is only 57 percent effective in predicting subsequent success. This is only 7 percent better than flipping a coin!

In a survey by Lou Adler, (Hiring with Your Head, 2002), 95 percent of managers said they had made bad hiring decisions, 95 percent indicated that hiring is number one or two in importance, and 95 percent admitted to not liking the hiring process.

As important as hiring talented people is, not enough time or energy is being allocated to establish a reliable process. With a 40 to 50 percent error rate, hiring processes are not much better than random. No other processes in organizations are permitted to be so random. Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to reengineer flawed processes that have only a 5 to 10 percent error rate.

A major problem revolves around the interview itself. This is a random process that does not work very well, and is one of the reasons most managers find the whole effort frustrating. Emotions, biases, chemistry and stereotypes play too big a role. True knowledge of the performance requirements of the job usually is weak. There is an over-reliance on the interaction between the candidate and the interviewer, and too little on the ability of the candidate and motivation to do the job.

A candidate is often hired because of his or her ability to interview well; presentation is more important than substance. The candidate is judged on first impressions of his or her personality, social confidence, assertiveness, appearance, extroversion, and verbal skills. Instead, the candidate needs to be assessed for initiative, team skills, achieving objectives, technical competence, management and organizational skills, intellect, leadership and emotional intelligence.

It is hard work to counteract the natural tendency to judge people based on first impressions, personality and a few select traits. Overcoming this problem can eliminate 50 percent of all hiring errors.

Lack of real job knowledge is another major part of hiring mistakes. It is necessary to know the required competencies of the position, based on the performance requirements of the job.

When an internal person is promoted, the predictability of his or her performance is very high as much as 80 to 90 percent. Performance predictors for an external hire are only 55 to 70 percent accurate. Predictions about the success rate of internal hires are more accurate because the past performance of the individual is known: attitude, work habits, intelligence, leadership and team skills, ability to learn, management style, potential, commitment, and other intangibles such as ability to handle stress.

But with external hires, there is often an over-emphasis on skills, academic record, personality and first impressions. There is insufficient analysis of what they have actually accomplished with their skills.

How effective are your hiring practices?

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the BarOn EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who can assess and select emotionally intelligent people. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Author: Maynard Brusman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: How Electric Pressure Cookers Work

Time is money, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that before. But if time really is money, why do so many professionals squander it chasing anyone with a pulse, including their most horrible prospects? Because they still embrace one of the great myths of selling, common mistakes that drain profit and energy from a sales organization:

Myth #1: Everybody is our customer.

Myth #2: Every sale is a good sale.

Myth #3: Never take no for an answer.

Myth #4: There’s always time to make more sales calls.

Myth #5: Sales people pay for themselves.

Business people the world over know these statements are myths, but behave as if they aren’t. Why? It’s because the great selling myths are so familiar that they have become invisible. To uproot them, we must create effective ways to replace them with more adaptive, successful practices, and turn those practices into habits. Changing habits is hard.

In the case of the Five Selling Myths, these old habits are ingrained in decades of selling tradition, enshrined in company policy, and even taught by well-intentioned people who might be a little bit behind the times. Replace each of the Five Myths with the Five MythBusters, new approaches to the issues that create better outcomes. Selling is about money – making it, but also spending it. If you knew the real cost of one hour of selling time, you might invest those hours more carefully.

Studies have shown that the average sales person only has about 900 hours (about 100 days) of face-to-face selling time per year, once you take away weekends, holidays, vacations, sick time, and record-keeping. To reach a $1 million dollar quota, each of those 900 hours is worth a whopping $1,111. When the Five Myths rule the sales process, a lot of those expensive hours get wasted. Keep that opportunity cost in mind as you review the Five Myths.

Myth #1: Everybody is our customer. In spite of the thousands of words that have been written about this subject, we still find sales people and executives who don’t define their target markets or prospects very well. The awful truth is that when you act as if “anybody” is your prospect, you are throwing money down the drain. You’re spending $1,000 an hour to chase marginal prospects, because it feels better to be busy. But to what end?

Mythbuster #1: The right prospects seek the value you add. Selling is simple, really. Find out what you do well, and offer it to people who want it. Replacing the ‘anybody who’ll buy from me’ practice requires some effort on your part. Analyze the things you do particularly well, including your product, service, and personal charm. Then go back over your list of existing customers, asking what you liked about them, and what they liked about you. Write down the pertinent information. And use it as your qualifying ’script’ – learn to ask penetrating questions, early in the relationship, that reveal the potential for this prospect to become one of your best customers. At BSG, one of the tools we give clients is The SMART Way Prospect Scorecard, a digital scoring matrix that grades your prospect based on how likely they are to become profitable, long-term customers.

Myth #2: Every sale is a good sale. As obvious as it may seem, this particular myth persists in many businesses. If business is slow, if you’ve got unused capacity or labor sitting around idle, it’s all too tempting to accept any business that walks in the door. But is every sale worth it? Not if it’s unprofitable or damaging to your reputation.

Mythbuster #2: Good sales bring profit to the seller and satisfaction to the buyer. Now that you have a definition of your ideal customer, add the definition of a ‘good sale.’ Write down the margin you have to earn to achieve basic profitability, and don’t violate it. Add other characteristics that define the ‘good’ sale, such as evidence of customer satisfaction. Praise sales people when they decline business that is unprofitable or likely to disappoint the customer’s expectations. A component of your Prospect Scorecard should be the likelihood that any given sale represents a tangible exchange of value between buyer and seller, and is just as good for you as it is for the customer.

Myth #3: Never take NO for an answer. This myth is one of the most difficult to identify and therefore to uproot. After all, our society prizes this attitude; we build monuments to it. But think about it. Refusing to take “No” goes hand in hand with ‘everybody is our customer’ and ‘every sale is a good sale.’ Always remember that a sale is not a one-way transaction. If it isn’t right for one of the parties, then it is probably wrong for both.

Mythbuster #3: Don’t beat a dead horse. Adopt an analytical attitude. Qualify each prospect, and each opportunity, carefully, to learn if the deal is in fact going to be (a) profitable and (b) satisfying to the customer. Assess the investment costs of continued sales effort, always remembering that your selling time is probably worth $1,000 an hour or more. At some point, the deal passes the point of diminishing returns. Guide your sales people to a more effective use of their time.

Myth #4: There’s always time to make more sales calls. This myth comes into play when the sales team is focused on activity instead of results. But it’s a dangerous practice. First of all, there isn’t much more time left to make sales calls. If the average sales person has only 100 days (900 hours) of selling time in a year, or less, where is that time going to come from – sleep, sick time, vacations, administration? When sales people go after the wrong prospects, pursue unprofitable projects, or waste time on unproductive activities, then more sales calls may not equal more sales.

Mythbuster #4: Make scarce sales time count. The best way to dismantle this belief is to reinforce the investment value of sales time. Remember the investment value of one hour of selling time – $1,111? Now add up the cost of an hour of nose-to-nose time, plus travel time, gas, tolls, parking, literature, coffee, lunch. Now the cost of that sales call is somewhere north of $1200 and rising. What would happen if your sales people had to requisition that money in cash, every time they went out on a call? They would get very discriminating about the way they invested their time.

Myth #5: Sales people pay for themselves. It’s true that plenty of sales people get paid on straight commission, so it seems as if they can pay their own way. But it’s not so simple. Sales people may earn compensation from a share of the profits, but their true costs include impact on customer satisfaction, market presence and awareness, lost opportunity and perhaps other considerations.

Mythbuster #5: They pay for everybody. The Sales department funds the entire business operation. So sales people have to do much more than pay for themselves. They have to pay everybody’s salaries, fund R&D, underwrite marketing expenditures, and put enough reserves on the books to justify investments in capital equipment. And they can’t do that if they don’t have the right support and guidance. Replace Myths with Best Practices Selling is probably the most important contributor to business health, even more important than products and services. It’s a difficult art to master. So it pays to develop good mechanisms to support and guide the sales effort.

Here are five Best Practices that help sweep away the myths and make the Five Mythbusters come alive. They are:

1. Create an Ideal Customer Profile. Develop this profile on customers with whom you have had success in the past. Detail not only the facts (demographics, company size, annual revenues, SIC codes), but the qualitative characteristics as well, those elements that represent the value they seek when doing business with your company. If you really want a powerful profile, use the SMART Way Prospect Scorecard.

2. Set Clear Expectations. Give your sales people clear and quantifiable performance expectations for all stages of the sales process. Don’t simply throw a quota and a territory map at them. Tell them you expect them to convert so many leads to suspects, suspects to prospects, prospects to contracts, contracts to repeat business. And follow up with them.

3. Track Performance and Share the Data. Stop managing your sales force by anecdote, those traditional sales meetings where each sales person fills up time telling about why this or that deal hasn’t closed yet. Instead focus on collective performance against those expectations you laid out above. Build sales meetings around a review of the data. Now you’re dealing with facts.

4. Work on the Process to Improve Results. If sales are down this month, don’t panic. Instead, examine the underlying processes to see where the slowdown occurred and why. Maybe sales are down because there’s an operational glitch, or an unexpected trend in the local market.

5. Give Great Support. Everybody likes nice bosses better than mean bosses, but great sales support means more than that. It means removing obstacles to performance wherever possible, smoothing the way, and leaving people alone when that’s appropriate. Go over your selling process to see if you can spot any of the Five Myths at work. If you find them, replace them with better practices. Now you are on your way to achieving great sales performance, and sustaining it.

Author: Ellen Bristol
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable pressure cooker

As CEO, company president or business owner, have you ever thought about how ineffective your sales department may be? Imagine a sales department that spends hours and hours developing proposals, rehearsing presentations, creating marketing materials only to lose the deal. The sales department might point to the quality of the presentation and offer as proof of the fact they made it to the final cut. However, if the sales person did not close the sale he or she has failed the company. The only good presentation is one where the customer says yes; otherwise, you’re left only with wasted time, effort and money.

This article is not about sales technique. It is about how a CEO, company president or business owner may want to think about the process of selling.

Sales volume and number of customers are the driving force that rules every aspect of the company. When sales people close sales consistently, revenues will be up, jobs are secure and the future of the company is bright. If sales aren’t going well, jobs are in question, expansion plans are halted and virtually every aspect of the company’s future operations in doubt. Investing the time perfecting the performance of your sales department will pay overwhelming dividends that translate into a future of growth and prosperity for your company.

The process begins with the sales department understanding every component of your customer base – where they are, what they want, and, perhaps most important, how you can solve their problems. Begin by developing a profile of your target customer base. The better your sales department understands your potential customer, the better positioned they will be to explain to the prospect how your company’s products or services can help solve problems which will translate into increased sales.

Getting the Appointment

Selling begins with identifying the right prospect. Unless your sales department is targeting the decision maker it is wasting its time.

The sales department must understand the intent of the prospecting call is to identify potential customers who need your company’s product or service – and to get an appointment.

As the sales executive is working toward the appointment, use the opportunity to gather the necessary information about the prospect’s needs. Ask questions beginning with: who, what, when, where, why and how so the responses are not a simple yes or no. The sales executive must understand selling is about educating your customer. The goal is to get good, qualified appointments that will turn into sales.

Be The Expert

Ultimately customers want to know what’s in it for them. Sales people gain the prospect’s trust by addressing those needs with examples of what the company has to offer. Throughout the meeting, the sales person should guide the discussion to provide proof, carefully presenting facts and benefits that fit with the agreed upon needs of the prospect. Emphasize results, but without overstating the case. Nothing will end the sale faster than the prospect perceiving they haven’t been told the truth.

As the meeting progresses, the sales person maintains dialogue by encouraging questions that help pinpoint the thoughts of the prospect. The key for the sales person is to effectively address all of the customer’s concerns so that when the time for the final decision comes, getting to ‘yes’ will be easy. Many sales people mistakenly think they’ve lost a sale because of cost concerns, but, in fact, studies have indicated that typically cost is not the number one objection. The truth is most sales that did not close failed to do so either because the sales executive didn’t establish a personal relationship with the customer, made an ineffective presentation, or delivered unsatisfactory answers to the prospect’s concerns.

Closers Close Sales (No Excuses)

The close starts the moment your sales force says hello to the prospect and includes every word they use, every move they make, how they present themselves, even how they dress. Countless books have been written on the subject. Educate yourself in sales techniques so you can better manage your sales force.

The bottom line is that sales people close sales. Anything less is unacceptable. They do not hesitate to ask for the order. They give the customer what they want, and, in return, the sales person, the company and the economy prosper.

So take a look around your sales department and decide how effectively it is operating. Is your sales force boasting of quality presentations, yet bemoaning the prospects that just couldn’t be closed? Or are the results speaking for themselves?

Taking the time to analyze the situation and better train your sales department to effectively find prospects and consistently close sales could be the difference between a company that slumbers lazily and one that bulldozes its way into a new level of growth and prosperity.

Author: Howard Lewinter
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How can managers improve their “batting average” in the employee selection, hiring, evaluation, retention and discipline processes?

Selection, Hiring, and Evaluation

The employee selection process can be abbreviated due to pressing staffing issues or truncated because of hiring priorities, a limited applicant pool, unsound evaluation processes, or any of a number of reasons. The standard process results in businesses hiring and retaining certain employees that they should not have.

Businesses generally hire employees, then give them a probationary period of from six months to a year. During the probationary period employees can be released without much fuss or fanfare as long as State and Federal regulations are observed. However, unsatisfactory employees often get through this probationary period due to managerial neglect, ineptitude, or conflicting priorities. Managers, caught up in their day-to-day work responsibilities, oftentimes fail to:

1) adequately monitor and evaluate the performance of new employees,

2) document unsatisfactory performance, and/or

3) submit the required paperwork on time.

In addition, there is a perception problem. New hires (probationers) are viewed as permanent employees by their colleagues, management and themselves. Furthermore, the new employees become ensconced in the organization and its social network even if they are not high-quality.

Retention/ Discipline Issues

As indicated, the standard process results in businesses hiring and retaining employees that they should not have. This, in turn, causes training and discipline hassles and expenditures, while prohibiting the company from having the competitive advantage of the best available talent. This environment can also “contaminate” other members of the workforce, particularly as they observe the behaviors and performance of the under-performers.

A Better Approach

A reasonable and realistic remedy is DON”T HIRE THE EMPLOYEE in the first place. Instead, make new employees Contact workers.

Hiring on a Contract basis for a defined period gives the employee the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities, while providing management with the time to observe their performance (WITHOUT HAVING THEM ON THE EMPLOYEE PAYROLL). Then, following the contract period, if there are any doubts, just don’t renew the contract. This is a much simpler, straightforward and less risky process. Following expiration of the contract, management will have the flexibility to renew the contract, not renew the contract, or perhaps (and, best of all), hire the employee.

A caveat

As with everything it is not as simple as it appears. While this approach has attractive features, there are some potential drawbacks. The best employees may not wish to be hired as “only” a contractor.

And, there is the sticky matter of Employee Benefits.

Despite these issues, the realities of employee selection and hiring make the Contract Employee approach a better one.

Copyright 2008, Dr. Ben A. Carlsen, MBA. All Rights Reserved Worldwide for all Media. You may reprint this article in your ezine, newsletter, newspaper, magazine, website, etc. as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, leave my name and bio box intact, and you follow all of the EzineArticles Terms of Service for Publishers.

Author: Ben Carlsen
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Excise Tax

Perhaps the hardest part in the hiring process is making the final decision. This is no surprise. Countless hours of resume reading, preliminary interviewing, and background checking have been done in order to find that perfect new employee to fill your organization’s needs. It’s true, in some cases, that making the final hiring decision is made easier by a standout candidate; however, many times there may be multiple candidates who you think could make a valuable contribution to the organization. With this in mind, here are few ways to make the final hiring decision a little bit easier:

• Be very clear on the three or four competencies that will make the difference between success and failure for the candidate on the job. Grill the candidates about their abilities and track record in these areas.
• Talk amongst yourselves, don’t get pheklempt (are Mike Myer’s SNL catchphrases from circa 1992 still relevant?) – Have multiple interviewers question the candidates and give you their feedback and recommendations. Take a poll amongst your trusted colleagues and upper management to see which candidate they believe to be the best one for the job. If there is a clear consensus, or even a close winner, you have your answer. Having the support of knowledgeable colleagues will help you make the right decision.
• Take a look at the numbers – If there is a real struggle to make the final decision between a handful of candidates, take a look at their assessment scores (assuming you had the candidates take assessments). Base your decision on how the candidates’ scores align with the job requirements and your organization’s culture and goals.

Author: Benjamin J Nash
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Times