Tag Archives: emotions

Sales training for everyone who touches the customers

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Everyone who works for a sales and service organization will eventually have some contact with clients or prospects. So everyone needs the confidence to present your business professionally in a way that will assist the sales process of the official sales team.

When running sales training I always suggest we invite,  anyone who wishes to consider a career move to selling. After the sales audit is complete we may choose a few to invite as well.

As an example of some of this content and an introduction to my sales style, you are welcome to download the first component of my sales training series. This first session is the broad view of selling and is not specific to any industry. All in-house training is fully tailored to your industry with industry-specific examples, techniques and tools.

I believe as sales staff we are not selling something ‘to’ people, rather that we are assisting people as they make decisions. In real estate, we are helping them with an incredibly important decision so the process is even more difficult to do well. If as salespeople we understand how people make decisions we are able to help them in a way that will make the most sense to each person we met rather than just repeatedly giving out information about our offering, leaving them to make sense of it themselves.

Most sales training is only focused on how we word our information or the ‘pitch’. Some courses even teach ‘magic’ words or phrases that they claim will improve your sales performance. As an example, you may have heard trainers’ advice we refer to the price as the ‘investment’. But this all assumes that every prospect has the same existing knowledge of your product/service and that they are all looking for exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason.

I have a degree in Psychology, providing sales training since 1994, and have merged my knowledge of practical selling with how the human brain makes stable decisions. Starting from understanding why they are searching for this product or service and on the journey to that decision they currently are before introducing your solution. To do this the salesperson needs thoroughly know about the role of emotions, especially fear, in the decision process and how to build trust before a decision is possible.

The first session, which I suggest everyone attends focuses on how the brain works and what our role in that is when we are selling. The following sessions use that decision model in situation-specific contexts.

To create a training schedule tailored to your business anywhere in the English-speaking world please email me at maya@salesinventoryprofile.com

Places I have trained include Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada and the US.

How we make decisions and the effect of fear in building trust

Finding your way through the decision maze.

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Can Sales Managers change sales results in their staff?

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I absolutely disagree that managing people differently will yield significantly different performances. They either have it or they don’t and most people who take on sales roles are earnestly trying their best, so bullying them or bribing them with awards, or tricking them with team activities into more sales results does not work.

If there is a sales person who has it in them, but they are still under-performing, then there are a few very different causes and these need to be addressed differently to allow the person to sell more.

1. Lack of skill – Category 1 i.e. the pure Hunters will eventually work it out without training but while they work it out they will make mistakes which cost them sales and your office it’s reputation. The other selling style staff will always need to be taught how best to sell a particular product before they are able to start selling alone. While selling capacity comes naturally to SIP selected people the process needs to be taught for that capacity to translate into skills and therefore sales.

Sales Management Solution:

a. Training in the specific selling techniques that suit your industry and product

b. Time to practice. This varies between industries. As an example in real estate the average learning time to translate knowledge into effective skills is two years

2. Lack of motivation – even with the very best attributed and trained sales people  they need to WANT THE MONEY. Selling takes energy and if you don’t need the money, even if you could make more, you won’t bother to exert themselves to the level required for sustained success. If they don’t want the money they need their own highly demanding reason to succeed and we (as managers and coaches) cannot give them a reason (i.e. externally set goals). It must be something they really want for themselves.

Sales Management Solution:

a. Help them identify real highly personal reasons to excel

3. Lack of available energy – people’s attention is distracted or energy can be consumed by other issues in their life (divorce, illness and even hobbies) that simply don’t leave them enough juice in the tank to fuel their selling activities. Selling cannot be done well by anyone as an afterthought or secondary focus. This is why  so called ‘selling rock stars’ lose their mojo. I’ve heard so many stories of sales people who ‘used’ to be good. If they really were any good but are mediocre or poor now then there must be something in their lives now that is consuming their energy.

Sales Management Solution:

a. Wait for the external issue to be resolved (or very significantly reduced)

b. Help them manage the external issue better. This is a very low yield solution even with a professional Coach or Psychologist.

c. Consider managing them out of the business. Your energy as a manager can be better spent

For more information on Sales Training, check out our blog here

Are your staff too scared to cold call?

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Are your staff scared to cold call?

“Always do the things you fear the most. Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.”
– Erica Jong

Erica Jong is an American author who wrote about fear, usually her own, and how she managed her life despite those feelings. Her quote is great advice for anyone feeling the grip of fear.

Fear is very a common human reaction and an important part of our survival processes. Fear helps us avoid situations that are dangerous and which could result in our death. However not all things that are scary will actually lead to physical death and we do need strategies to continue to engage in our lives despite our natural fear reaction.
The thing that sales people find the scariest is usually prospecting and specifically, cold calling. Going into the unknown and facing the risk of rejection (i.e attack) will paralyze the average sales person into a state of non action, or freezing, or compulsive business where they do not have the time to do any selling yet feel productive as they are working hard. It is a very small percentage of people who can face their fear and fight on despite it.

When I write about cold calling in this blog it seems like such a trivial thing, but the effect on most of us when confronted with the physical reality of the phone or being on the street door knocking is real and usually very daunting. Our mental danger radar does not distinguish the risk of verbal attack from the physical, so our fear response can be just as strong when the risk is verbal humiliation rather than actual physical harm. To our brain, the risk and thus the fear response, is the same no matter what the nature or source of the attack.

I know from the 20,000+ candidates we have tested using our sales IQ system, Sales Inventory Profile or SIP, that less than 5% of the general population are able to cold call consistently. Consistently, meaning for several hours every day, week in and week out for years.

Another 10% will, as Erica suggests, come to be able to tolerate it given time to acclimatize themselves to the process and with some support from their organization.

Most people are too scared to prospect consistently

So how do you find these precious 15% who can become new business sales people?

No longer do you need to have literally 100’s of people coming through your business to find the very few who don’t run out screaming or work themselves to a standstill or get sick. Using the traditional mass employment i.e hope-some-will-survive mentality within the recruitment system, the cost to the business in direct resources wasted is bad enough. But when you think of the effect on your reputation of having the wrong person on the job representing the company and the revenue not earned while we are distracted with the wrong people, the cost is catastrophic.

Then we often overlook the cost of the subtle energy drain on the other staff as they watch the carnage from the safety of their administrative roles, thinking ‘who would want to do that?’ Ultimately, the morale across the entire business is subdued by the revolving door recruitment strategy for sales staff.

It does NOT have to be that way.

It is possible to recruit from only those people who have the core capacity and inner fortitude to sell and specifically cold call, train them well so they are effective quickly, support them effectively over time and have a sales team that is stable, successful and making themselves and you lots of money. It is also possible to build a team that is admired by the rest of the organization..

Am I dreaming?

No! We have been doing just that since 2008 in Australia and New Zealand. Just ask any of my clients (see our testimonials page which contains a selection of our 100+ client base) how effective it is to accurately identify sales capacity in candidates before they even interview them so that at the recruitment interview they are focused on assessing the candidate on product and cultural fit to their business and/or the market place.

If you have had enough of the revolving door system of failed recruiting lets organize a 20 minute Skype demonstration of our sales IQ system. The system has been used and tested across many industries and will work in any country where English is the primary language.

How to start?
Leave a comment on this blog or send an email to maya@salesinventoryprofile.com with your own contact details and one of our staff will call you to organize a time that best suits you.

More on cold calling? Read on why cold calling is still vital in sales

Put your head on!

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effect of fear on how we communicate“Put your head on!”

I said this as an instruction to my children as I was pulling up in front of their primary school on a very rainy day last week.

I was attempting to be funny (first mistake – humour before midday). It was an instruction to them to put the hoods up on their raincoats.

Result: anxiety and confusion first, anger second – from both children.

The 11 year old sitting next to me in the front looked at me a little perplexed, got the message when he looked for cues in my face and saw that I was smiling. The 9 year old, who is as bright as a button but sitting in the back seat and had no visual cues, sounded distressed and said “What’s the matter, I have my head on?” The 11 year old came to the rescue “It’s okay, mum means put your hood up”.

It seemed so simple to me but it totally missed the mark and created a negative effect. It reinforced how important communication is and how we should not take anything for granted, even with an audience you think you know well.  After I had left them at their school I realised just how unreasonable my statement had been.

This day was the umpteenth day of heavy rain, our whole State was flooding, the dam in Sydney is overflowing (I know as an adult that it is within the dams processes but they don’t). We had just left our own garage slowly flooding through the light fitting and as we were rushing to get to school on time I was unable to do anything about it. They had asked if they would get electrocuted. I had quickly answered no but without any explanation as I was too rushed. To top it off the evening before we had watched a Johnny Depp movie called Sleepy Hollow about a headless ghost horseman in 18th century America chopping people’s heads off to find his own. As soon as he found and put his own head on he was happy to return to hell and stop killing people.

Well done mum! How far off the mark can my simple statement have gotten?

What a perfect reminder of how important it is keeping our communication simple, to the point and taking nothing for granted. How often in our business day do we communicate with people over the phone, quickly in passing and without any knowledge of the framework in their lives that affects their ability to interpret?

Having thought all this through and knowing the psychology of how the brain functions and the effect of fear I was able to reverse all of the effects of my miscommunication later that day and reassure everyone that they were safe and all is well in our world. Most of us don’t get the luxury of being able to deliver our message a second time.

Brain graphic

If you want to better understand the effect of our words on the way the brain works and how we process information, especially as it relates to developing trust and making decisions, I’d like to recommend my Emotions in Selling workshop. This course will show you how to keep your message within the listeners trust range so that they can continue to communicate with you rather than run for the hills and refuse to have anything more to do with you or your company.

 

To book your training contact me at maya@salesinventoruprofile.com

SIP sales recruitment training and coaching programs pricing

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Sales Recruitment

Recruit Sales Staff with Sales Inventory Profile (SIP). Why? It answers your number one question in recruiting sales staff is “Who can sell?”

SIP is the best sales staff pre-selection tool in the world and it answers this important question by means of a proven independent psychometric online assessment. The SIP Assessment can determine if a person has the necessary attributes to sell.

SIP: SALES CAPACITY AUDIT $ 950 + GST

Includes:
• Test your existing sales and support team to achieve an independent sales capacity audit.
• Team results debrief with the manager – two hour onsite / phone review with a SIP specialist.
• Includes eight team members. Additional staff $180 + GST per person.

SIP: FULL RECRUITMENT CYCLE $2,950 + GST

Includes:
• Advert copywriting – the creation of the compelling, emotionally engaging, sales message advert.
• Loading and managing your advert on SEEK.
• All candidates tested with SIP.
• We analyze all the SIP reports and résumés within the score range for your job.
• We will recommend questions that you can ask each candidate within the score range for your job.
• Manage and communicate with the candidate pool via our online SIP Candidate Management System.

SIP: 12 MONTH SMALL BUSINESS RECRUITMENT LICENSE $4,950 + GST

Includes:
• Includes a Sales Capacity Audit of your existing team.
• Two full recruitment cycles including everything listed above.
• Direct employment inquiry program includes:
a. Copywriting an employment information pack for individuals who inquire between recruitment campaigns.
b. Copywriting an employment page on your website including a link to the SIP website.
c. Unlimited assessment of individuals (written summaries by SIP staff not included).
• Vocational guidance promotion program to local students includes:
a. Copywriting an invitation to complete a SIP.
b. Unlimited assessment of individuals (written summaries by SIP staff not included).

SIP: 12 MONTH UNLIMITED RECRUITMENT SERVICE $19,950 + GST

Includes:
• SIP becomes your recruitment provider across all job functions for 12 months.
• Write, load and manage all your adverts’ on SEEK.
• All candidates tested with SIP for all your jobs.
• We analyse 10 SIP reports and résumés per job for the first 3 months.
• Manage and communicate with the candidate pool via our online SIP Candidate Management System.

SIP: SINGLE CANDIDATE OR STAFF MEMBER $ 190 + GST

Includes:
• We analyse the SIP report and résumé and provide a written summary.
• We will recommend questions that you can ask this candidate during the interview.
• Manage and communicate with the candidate via our online SIP Candidate Management System.
• For existing staff we include a one hour coaching session directly with the individual or their manager.

SIP: PRIVATE SELF ASSESSMENT $ 190 + GST

Includes:
• Immediate access to your own 14 page SIP report.
• 45 minutes of personal coaching directly with a SIP Sales Excellence Coach.
• SIP Sales Potential Certificate to include in your job applications

Sales Training Programs by Maya Saric

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling:
Trust based selling to help clients make strong decisions. Duration 2 hours $750 + GST

What is included:

• Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives all decision making. We will review the progress of data arriving from the senses (hearing, sight etc) to the two levels of thought processing; emotional and logical.

• How to uncover the buyer’s personal perceptions of safety and the decision process they are using in order to guide them to use your service. If you contradict this process and trigger even the smallest feelings of fear they will reject you and your product.

• Learn how fear and anxiety can turn your client’s thoughts from caterpillars into pythons and how to prevent this; so that the caterpillars turn into butterflies instead.

• Learn how selling your own home is the scariest decision a person may ever make and how to guide your client safely through their anxiety to a stable decision to list with you.

• We will look at very specific strategies to maximize your message and the way you present it, so that your clients are able to safely process the message through their emotional filter to make effective decisions. Decisions that will not unravel when they continue to think about the situation after you have left or when they hear new data from your competition.

• Importance of the customer doing at least half of the talking during the sales process in order for the purchase to be stable. Using the magic wand technique that helps a buyer express their needs so you can discuss the real value to them of your offering.

• How to manage your clients fear response to help them to continue to listen and have the ability to buy from you.

DVD Set

Emotions in Selling:
Introduction to trust based selling to help clients make strong decisions $249 + GST

What is included:

• Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives all decision making. We will review the progress of data arriving from the senses (hearing, sight etc) to the two levels of thought processing; emotional and logical.

• How to uncover the buyer’s personal perceptions of safety and the decision process they are using in order to guide them to use your service. If you contradict this process and trigger even the smallest feelings of fear they will reject you and your product.

• Learn how fear and anxiety can turn your client’s thoughts from caterpillars into pythons and how to prevent this so that the caterpillars all turn into butterflies instead.

• Importance of the customer doing at least half of the talking during the sales process in order for the purchase to be stable. Using the magic wand technique that helps a buyer express their needs so you can discuss the real value to them of your offering.

• How to manage your client’s fear response to help them to continue to listen and have the ability to buy from you.

• Managing your own fears and rejection responses.

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling (RE):
Appraisals to Listing by overcoming the fear barrier. Duration 3 hours $950 + GST

What is included:

• Overview of neurological systems that drive decision making specific to listing and selling Real Estate.
• Brag Sheet: exercise to define why a property owner should hand their greatest financial decision over to you. Having clarity on how vendors choose agents.
• How to manage the vendor’s fear during both appraisal and listing meetings.
• Detailed scripts for appraisal walkthrough. How not to give your opinion on the spot.
• Setting up the parameters for a return meeting to conduct a listing call. Includes how to have all decision makers present.

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling (RE) –Prospecting for Real Estate. Duration 3 hours $950 + GST

What is included:

• Overview of neurological systems and the role of fear and trust in selling. Learn to manage your own fear response to overcome your fear of cold calling.
• Managing your own fears and rejection responses.
• What is effective prospecting in real estate for residential listings and new property management?
• What is the difference between warm and cold calls? How to be warm calling most of the time.
• The role of scripting and developing your own script.
• Getting started: territory definition, personal organisation of your time and energy.
• Introduction and explanation of six different types of prospecting, each with starter scripts includes a Door Knocking System and Survey Prospecting. This is a specific system, fully scripted with supporting tools.
• Prospect tracking systems: Managing prospects from first touch to formal appraisal, role of follow up contact and marketing material.

Group Workshop

Emotions in Selling – Full day combined program.  Duration One day $ 1800 + GST

What is included:

• Emotions in Selling – Trust based selling to help clients make strong decisions
• Emotions in Selling – Appraisals to listing by overcoming the fear barrier
• Emotions in Selling – Prospecting for Real Estate

Sales Excellence Coaching Programs by Maya Saric

Individual Coaching Program

New Listing Agent Start Up. Duration 9 hours over 3 months $2,500 + GST

What is included:

• Emotions of selling overview.
• Personal motivation exercises targeting addressing cold calling issues.
• Getting started: territory definition, personal organisation and
• Introduction and explanation of six different types of cold calling, each with starter scripts.
• Door knocking system: Survey Prospecting. This is a specific system, fully scripted with supporting tools.
• Prospect tracking systems: Managing prospects from first touch to formal appraisal, role of follow up contact and marketing material.
• Weekly prospecting reporting by email.
• Three end of month coaching sessions on self emotion management.

Individual Coaching Program

Fires of Hell- Understanding your personal action triggers.  Duration 8 hours over One Month $1,800 + GST
What is included:

• Understanding the neurological structure of the brain and how the flight/fight mechanism drives the specific decisions you make.
• Identifying your personal blocks to action.
• Creating a clear plan for overcoming your blocks.
• Identifying goals that are fuelled by your own motivation structure.

Individual Coaching Program
Sales Excellence – Follow up to the Fires of Hell Program. Duration 9 hours $1600 + GST
What is included:

• Defining goals for your immediate sales issues.
• Agreed action plan on daily and weekly levels.
• Joint review of:
1. activities
2. sales situations
3. obstacles to current performance

Structure:

• Minimum program is set up session of two hours then eight weekly sessions.
• Conducted in person or on Skype with video.

Sales Management Programs by Maya Saric

SIP SALES CAPACITY AUDIT

Understanding Your Current Sales Team. Duration 2 hours $950 + GST

What is included:

• Test your existing sales and support team to achieve an independent sales capacity audit.
• Team results debrief with the manager – two hour onsite / phone review with a SIP specialist.
• Includes eight team members. Additional staff $180 + GST per person.

Workshop

Sales Planning. Duration One day $1,800 + GST

What is included:

• Total territory definition.
• Define and agree the business sales mission.
• Set sales goals: Five years and annual.
• Individual territory creation within the total territory by geography, product or industry classification.
• Staff matching to territory (includes results from SIP Sales Capacity Audit).
• Define existing staff development needs to match territory definition.

Here’s some more information on what SIP can do for you.

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TERMS AND CONDITIONS • Settlement due in full 7 days before program starts, including recruitment. • * All facilities, refreshments and transport costs are additional and the client’s responsibility to organize. • Pricing valid until 1/03/2012.

Emotional Engagement during an Appraisal

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Selling without emotion is hard work!

Emotion stimulates the mind 3000 times faster than rational thought. The brain is structured in such a way that the emotional processing (instinct) starts responding first and creates much stronger chemical reactions then the logical processes, which are triggered much later. The emotional processes are designed to turn on the flight or fight (or freeze) mechanism and are on a 24/7 hair trigger for anything that creates fear.

It’s an emotional world we live in. Many people say we live in a rational world but nothing could be further from the truth. Emotions drive our behavior; the world is driven by emotions. Rational thought leads customers to be interested but it is emotion that sells.

Capturing minds is one thing; capturing hearts is quite another.

The most successful sales involve strong emotional connections between people. People don’t actually make life decisions on clear logical grounds. We often decide first and rationalize second. We are emotion based creatures that are first and foremost run by our fears and instincts. Our brain has been designed so that logic cannot easily override our emotions, especially strong emotions.

The better you target that human instinctual connection with the vendor the easier the sales process that follows will be. You need to start targeting their emotions the second you walk across their threshold. Given we sell Real Estate at a very intimate, personal level (in their homes) you have the opportunity to connect with them not in a brash, blatant way but in a simple and very profound manner.

To maximize your chances of getting the listing you must first connect with their hearts then later you can rationalize with their minds. Remember that the fear emotion has the strongest effect on the decision making process. You need to connect very directly with their fears in a way that explicitly helps reduce their fears.

So what are you selling that you need to be emotional about before you get the listing? Until you have secured the listing you have just one product: YOU.

Who are you? (some standard stuff, you need to tailor this to you):
• A committed member of your local community.
• A professional real estate agent of XX years standing.
• A highly experienced sales person who knows how to sell the value in each and every property.
• XX years young, e.g. through your own midlife dramas with plenty of drive and ambitions (people want personal content i.e. who are you?)
• You’re a specialist with Blue Bay Real Estate.
• A Licensed Agent partnered with one of the area’s most successful agents.
• Educated and raised in this community.

BUT of what value is that to them? How do you meet their emotional needs?
How does that make you the right person to sell their castle? How can you reduce their fears? You have to translate these things into specific benefits to them, in their context.

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