It’s not a trick question. I know the older I get the more I realize I don’t know; and I forget stuff that I’m sure I knew at one time. Unbelievable!
I think “Everything” is a pretty great answer to the question, “What’s to Learn?” Last week Thad, our sales guy, and I attended a wonderful sales training workshop. I have been a huge fan of a process referred to as Action Selling for a long time. I read the book with that title 8 years ago; and it made a big difference in how I approached the sales process. It made sense to me then and last week I took the process to a very cool new level. You can find the book and take an assessment to see how you line up with you own selling skills at www.actionselling.com.
Thad and I are doing 12 weeks of “Skill Drills” or follow up on the 2-day workshop, and I thought I would share this week’s homework with you. I think it is so relevant and has helped me be more laser focused on handling my own sales calls this week.
The primary job of a sales person is to gain agreement from a customer. That agreement might come in the form of agreeing to set an appointment, come to your center for a tour, give you a deposit for a birthday, review a proposal or set a time for you to demonstrate your product.
Dropping off materials and making a note to call them back is not an agreement for anything. Having a “next step” is the only way to know where you are in the selling process. The Action Selling folks have a GREAT definition for the agreement process.
Their verbiage says we must first set a commitment objective for every sales call. This process is necessary for incoming or outreach calls. Their definition of a commitment objective is a goal that salespeople set for themselves in order to gain an agreement from a potential customer, and moves the sales process forward.
I love that. Intuitively I know an encounter with a guest that has no “next steps” is a waste of time for them and for me. I love that I know have a better way of understanding and explaining the “next steps” process. I hope this helps.
I know I have no interesting story about the trip. We did not go to the Mall of America; we drove right past it. I’m barely a real woman, right? We did almost have a wreck in the MN traffic!
I’ll close today with a couple of questions:
When’s the last time you invested in training?
What would make you raise your hand and say, “I need help?”
I certainly had to think twice before spending the money to go to the training we went to last week. However, I know I can’t know it all. As a great training company it is one of our core beliefs that we better be great learners. I’m super pumped about our training trip last week. AND, if we can come and get your team pumped by providing great training for your team, I hope you’ll raise your hand and say, “Hey, we’ve got a lot to learn!”
