Sales Training Exercise – Build a Sales Starter that Grabs Attention

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on Sales Training Exercise – Build a Sales Starter that Grabs Attention

use a sales starter and seize your contact's attention
In an earlier post, I cited an example where Jessica had unsuccessfully tried a few times to engage a prospect during her sales opening. Yet when she asked a question that cut to the heart of her contact’s problem, Jessica’s sales starter got her contact’s attention. And it earned her a meeting!

Here’s a tip: the more generic your sales starter, the less engaged your contact will be and the less effective your sales opening will be.

Instead, make your sales opening specific to the contact and to their business or industry. Jessica was successful when she created her opening to address her contact’s challenges down to a personal and career impacting level.To make that happen, Jessica had to do some research on her contact. She had to know something about her contact’s business, and the challenges her contact faced on a regular basis.

Mind you, these aren’t cold contacts. These are people in companies where you think you have a decent shot at driving some business. These are people who have already raised their hand and have in some way indicated that they are in the market for what you are selling. So take a little time to do some discovery work on these people.

Sales Training Exercise – Sales Starter Assignment

Here’s your assignment for the week. During your lunch break today, write down the top five industries that you serve. Then, for each industry, write down five companies that you are looking to break into or are looking to upsell.

Then, when you are back in the office, write down three contacts that are in a position to make a decision for each of the companies you have listed. Now, for each of those three contacts, write down:

  1. Their name
  2. A compliment on one of their accomplishments
  3. A startling statement or statistic about their industry that ties into the solution you provide

The information here is easy enough to find on Linkedin, your CRM, and their social media streams and blog posts. You don’t have to go overboard and discover every detail about their lives. But you do have to show them that you are seriously interested in their business.

Now, you have some options in creating your sales starter before you perform that follow-up call. And your sales starter will be more effective at grabbing your prospect’s attention because it leverages an issue, concern, or idea that already has their attention.

Remember, no one cares how much you know unless they know how much you care. So, do like Jessica. Use a sales starter that shows your prospect immediately that you have their best interest at heart. Your sales opening will seize your prospect’s attention every time.

 

Are you ready to take the quiz?

Want to know if your sales process puts you in the field of play and not on the sidelines?

Take our online sales evaluation here  and quickly assess how your knowledge and skills stack up in the industry.

The Prospect’s Buying Process – Leverage Powerful Insights

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on The Prospect’s Buying Process – Leverage Powerful Insights

buying process gaining insights into your prospects thinking

The Specific Interest Statement in the Buying Process

To make the right diagnosis, the salesperson must align their sales process to the prospect’s buying process. The salesperson accomplishes this by making interim summaries throughout the process. For example: “Based on what you’re saying, you’re looking to address your number one or number two interest, and that’s going to address your motivation.”

This is where the salesperson makes a Specific Interest Statement. They can apply the product or service to the prospect’s needs and appeal to both the prospect’s logical and emotional reasons for buying. Continue reading →

Sales Training Exercise – Resolving Common Sales Objections

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on Sales Training Exercise – Resolving Common Sales Objections

sales objections sales training exercise

In a previous post, I gave an example where I coached a member of my sales team on how to resolve common sales objections at the start of the sales process before the prospect brought it up.

Here’s a tip. If you review your past sales calls and you find you’ve repeatedly addressed a particular class of sales objections, don’t become a prisoner of hope. Don’t run through your sales process *hoping* your prospect won’t bring up that particular objection.

Instead, create a general response to those objections and offer it as a solution at the start of your sales process. In the past post, time was a big issue when we sold training. I turned it around by transforming the time spent in training into time invested in personal and team improvement, a win for the company as well as the individual.

Sales Training Exercise – Sales Objections Assignment

So, here’s your assignment. Sit down at the end of today and review your calls from the previous week. Identify and write down all of the objections you faced. Keep a tab of your most popular sales objections; i.e. the ones you encounter multiple times throughout the week.

Next, create a solution, or solutions, to address those sales objections, and create a general response based on those solutions.

Then, when you deliver your presentation, lead off with your solution to address the problem before they bring it up. You’ll reduce your sales cycle time and your prospects will perceive you as a forward-thinking business consultant.

Want additional insights on your effectiveness in moving the sale forward? Want to know if your knowledge of the sales process puts you in the field of play?  Take our online sales evaluation here  and quickly assess how your knowledge and skills stack up in the industry.

The Secret to Influence in Sales – Making Your Ideas Their Ideas

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on The Secret to Influence in Sales – Making Your Ideas Their Ideas

sales influence how to make your ideas their ideas

In a previous post, I spoke about empathy and sympathy and how it’s better to be sympathetic to the client’s situation vs being empathetic and joining them in the situation. Let’s delve a little deeper into that and see how we can use this to influence the sale process. Continue reading →

Empathy vs Sympathy: Are You a Part of Your Prospect’s Problem?

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on Empathy vs Sympathy: Are You a Part of Your Prospect’s Problem?

sympathy and being sympathetic in your sales diagnosis

The Role of Sympathy and Empathy in the Sales Process

Here’s something I learned in my past about the roles sympathy and empathy play in the sales process. Keep in mind, you are sitting across from your prospective buyer because you want to help them solve their problem, not become a part of the problem. Continue reading →

Bridging the Gap: Asking Questions to Drive Your Prospects Interest

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | 2 Comments on Bridging the Gap: Asking Questions to Drive Your Prospects Interest

questioning process builds interest and bridges the sales gap

In the last post, we explored the potential of enhancing your evaluation process by asking sales questions. In this post, we’ll take a deeper dive into using the questioning process to build increased interest in your prospects.

Previously, we used a river as an analogy to develop a questioning model. In this river analogy, one bank represented the prospect’s current situation. The opposite bank represented the desired situation. And the river represented the gap that the prospect must bridge in moving from the current situation to the desired situation. Continue reading →

The Secret to Closing Sales Is in Knowing What Your Prospect Wants

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | 1 Comment on The Secret to Closing Sales Is in Knowing What Your Prospect Wants

closing sales involves knowing what your prospect wants

Do You Know What You’re Really Selling?

As I addressed in the previous post, much of your success as a salesperson will hinge on an effective sales starter. Contrary to the popular belief, there is no skill in closing sales – it’s all about creating a great opening.  Your opening should quickly establish rapport with the prospect by engaging in brief pleasantries. But, you should also gauge how to make the best use of their time. Help them see that you value your time together.  You’ll find substantial part of creating that value is understanding what your prospect really wants and why they want it. Continue reading →

How To Open Your Call To Get Your Prospect’s Attention

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | 2 Comments on How To Open Your Call To Get Your Prospect’s Attention

get your prospect's attention during the sales opening

Use a Sales Starter to Get Your Prospect’s Attention

Opening a sales call to get your prospect’s attention is no different than introducing yourself to someone of interest in your personal life.  Both situations require authenticity, interest, and relevance.

Beginning the conversation hinges on a good sales starter – something that captures your prospect’s attention favorably. To make this happen, you can compliment a prospect on an achievement or positive quality. You can highlight a referral. Also, you can leverage statements that educate or even startle your prospect to capture your prospect’s attention. Continue reading →

sales

Run a Winning Offense Strategy

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on Run a Winning Offense Strategy

Every team needs a winning strategy. Some of the top franchises in sports turn to Tyson Group to help their sales teams move to the next level. Fenway Sports Management (large naming rights and sponsorship sales), the Dallas Cowboys (sponsorship, premium new stadium), the New York Yankees (premium space), the Boston Red Sox (tickets) and the University of Notre Dame (gifting and donor) are just some of the organizations we work with.

Despite the varied sports, our approach is one they all understand and easily adapt: when they adapted our process with an offensive strategy approach, they are successful. Whether it’s selling suites to Fortune 500s, closing multi-million-dollar naming rights deals, or selling tickets to the masses, it really doesn’t matter because it is the exact same process.

That’s the crossover power of our process that makes Tyson Group so successful. Throughout the years, I’ve worked with many of the same individuals who move from franchise to franchise and the feedback is this, “What you did at the Browns I want you to do at the Padres. What you did at the Cavs I want you to do at the Vegas Golden Knights. What you did here in San Diego I want you to do at Tampa Bay.” Regardless of the sports franchise, the process has been proven time and time again through a series of six steps that can be customized in a thousand different ways. Simple is genius.

Running an Offense Strategy Regardless of Your Industry

Last time I was in Salt Lake, I was with insurance brokers working with them on sales. We plug the same offense and process into tech, insurance, or financial as we do for major sports organizations. What these sales professionals—across all industries—learn is the same offensive strategy each of our major sports organizations leverage – a strategy and approach built on solid sales management, sales leadership and what I’ve referred to previously as, “grit.”

Like a top football, basketball, or baseball team, you can coach skills and knowledge all day long; however, the most successful sports stars have an “it” factor of persistence and grit. We not only help our clients the necessary sales skills, we help them access the grit within themselves—the element needed for true success in an offensive sales strategy.

There’s an exercise I like to do with management teams and salespeople in which they list attributes that would make their replacements successful. “If you had to hire somebody for your job and would get a bonus of 20 percent of your salary, what are things you would hire on?” I ask.

They will make a list of twenty or thirty things. But it comes down to three broad categories forming a triangle. At least 60 percent of success is based on attitude—things like grit, endurance, and perseverance. Another 20 percent to 30 percent revolves around skills like goal-setting and communication.

No matter your industry, when you approach your sales process with a proven offensive strategy—built on effective sales management, skill, and grit—your sales professionals will be unstoppable. Learn more about applying our proven offense strategy to your sales organization in my book, Selling Is An Away Game: Close Business and Compete in a Complex World.

buying and selling

Sell How People Buy

Posted on | by Lance Tyson | Leave a Comment on Sell How People Buy

Think about the steps you take when you buy something—a pair of sneakers, for instance. Something in your world gets your attention and you come to the conclusion: I need a new pair of sneakers. You start to go out and look, try a couple pairs on, go to the store, go to Amazon, etc. In that process, you remove doubt, because you’re actively looking. Then you start to consider it, lay it out and say, “Jeez, do I really need these? What pair do I need?” Ultimately, you buy a pair.

That’s a simple buying process.

In most sales, especially B2B sales, it’s more complex. In a previous blog, I’ve likened the process to a trip to the doctor’s office. Regardless of the product or service though, there’s a way to be successful: sell how people buy. Do this and you’ll be successful. Sound simple? It is and isn’t at the same time.

The Science and Art of Sales

As a sales professional, you take action to get somebody’s attention. You need to qualify them to see if they would fit business parameters. You have to engage the prospect in some kind of request for their time, ask them a series of questions that are really for their benefit, and get the buyer in a scenario where you can present them with an idea in order to start creating an opportunity where one did not exist before. Then you present something that removes their doubt and gets them saying, “This is a decent fit for me.” Finally, you get into dialogue with them to remove any objection and close.

There’s no shortcut to the process, no way to cheat the sales process—whether solicited or unsolicited. At the end of the day, sales is a science—a series of yeses. “Yes, I’ll talk to you. Yes, you can ask me questions. Yes, you can present to me an idea. Yes, you resolved my objection. Yes, I’ll buy.” It’s an algorithm of questions, each followed by five or six yeses.

But sales is also an art—one that requires a deep understanding of why someone is looking to buy and how to help them understand you’re the right solution. Practiced at a high level, the profession combines creativity with a process for predictable selling.

Success Ultimately Requires a Proven Process

I have been a sales professional, entrepreneur, and have trained other salespeople since the 1980s. Selling vacuums door-to-door in college; leading the largest franchise for Dale Carnegie Training outside Taiwan and Hong Kong; building Tyson Group as the go-to sales trainers of professional sports and entertainment as well as insurance organizations; training over one thousand sales executives and sales managers annually.

In all these years of selling and working with organizations of all sizes, the key to successful sales can be distilled down to a six-step process applicable to any product, service, industry, and solution. This process works. It’s a process that will benefit any high performer—from entrepreneur to sales professional to manager trying to boost team performance—and anyone for whom selling is a matter of life and death.

Learn more about what this proven and repeatable sales process is by visiting www.tysongroup.com, OR by purchasing your copy of, Selling Is An Away Game: Close Business And Compete In A Complex World.