This week, elevate your customer service strategy with insights from Karl Schaphorst. Discover the pivotal role customer care plays in driving business success beyond reactive support.
Join Mike Montague and Daniel Murray as they delve into the world of marketing millennials, discussing the attitude, behavior, and techniques needed to climb to the top and stay there.
We’re all taught at some point that we need to ask for a Call to Action (CTA)– a request that the person we’re talking to commit to do something. And usually, we make that request. But how effectively?
The “forecast” from the salesperson is not based on any meaningful data. It’s more of a guess. Often, what sales leaders hear is best translated as, “See, I’m a closer!” Or, if a deal collapses, as, “Look, it wasn’t my fault.”
Let’s dive in the awe-inspiring journey of conquering Mount Kilimanjaro with Claudia Dencer as she unveils the leadership and teamwork lessons drawn from this remarkable expedition.
Join Mike Montague and Grant Baldwin of The Speaker Lab as they unravel the essentials of powerful speaking techniques, from presentation preparation to landing speaking gigs.
In this episode hosted by Mike Montague, VP of Community Engagement at Sandler, discover the game-changing impact of Personality AI in sales. We dive deep into conversations with Amarpreet Kalkat, the CEO of Humantic AI, Sandler's AI partner.
Let’s explore the intricacies of mastering Sandler tactics skillfully and understanding the tactics triangle with the seasoned Sandler trainer, Jim Dunn, hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina.
Without trust, effective sales coaching is impossible, and without a good coaching contract, trust between salesperson and coach is virtually impossible.
Price increases: they happen. Let’s face it, they’re part of business. But communicating about them effectively with buyers isn’t always something salespeople are given a lot of guidance on.
In this episode of the "How to Succeed" podcast, bilingual sales trainer Jorge Saunders joins to discuss the principles of selling in Spanish in North America.
In this episode, Jeff Stasiuk talks about the significance of writing effective field copy that can grab people's attention and lead them toward the sales funnel.
In this episode, we are joined by Dan Solin, a New York Times bestselling author and President of Solin Strategic LLC and Evidence-Based Advisor Marketing. Tune in to this podcast to learn from Dan's wealth of experience and knowledge.
In this episode, we sit down with Stephanie Paul to discuss the magic of the story and how to use it to engage and influence any audience. Stephanie is an author and speaker coach who coaches executive sales teams, TEDx speakers, fundraisers, and other experts on how to become better storytellers and presenters.
In this episode, Chris McDonell discusses how to use Sandler's up-front contract to increase rapport. We will talk about how an up-front contract can help with bonding and rapport and how it can be used to ensure that objectives are clear.
In this episode, Brenden Kumarasamy will discuss how to succeed at public speaking, sharing tips on everything from body language to delivery. We will share the common misconceptions and challenges around public speaking.
The goal of creating a better buying experience is to make it easier for people to buy. In this podcast, we will discuss the importance of follow-up after an initial discovery call or demo, and how sales reps can use tools like Qwilr to progress conversations.
Andrew Wall is a long-time Sandler trainer from Toronto, Canada talking about how to adjust your communication style for sales and leadership success. This is an advanced lesson about DISC behavioral style for the sales profession.
Mike Montague interviews Shelly O’Donovan on How to Succeed at Non-Verbal Communication. With over 20 years of experience as a proven leader in the public policy arena, she has gathered experience and expertise in government relations, public policy, lobbying, grassroots advocacy, legislative and regulatory processes, and policymaker engagement.
The global pandemic forced the buyer/seller relationship online, dramatically accelerating a trend toward digitization of the buying process that was already in place.
The best negotiators always start negotiation by negotiating with themselves. One of the communication tools that will help you better understand yourself and how others communicate with you is called DISC.
Communication is a key component for any successful sales team. And when sales teams work remotely, the need for excellent communication increases even more.
Have you ever wondered why a once-promising new hire is performing far below your initial expectations? From one perspective, what’s happening here is pretty simple: the person you hired is not the person you interviewed. The dynamic at work in an interview situation is similar to the dynamic at work on a first date./blog/how-succeed-onboarding-new-hires-podcast
It’s that time of year. The holidays loom, there is a chill in the air, and countless articles appear providing guidance to sales representatives about how to close the year strong. The five, ten or twenty best strategies are outlined in checklists to insure end-of-year success. “Contact every client” is an action often recommended, as is “Revisit prospects who have chosen another vendor.”
We all know the statistics. Most selling organizations derive 80% of their revenues from 20% of their clients. Winning a new major account costs up to 20 times more than keeping a current one. And even a small percentage increase in a firm’s major client retention rate can have an exponentially positive effect on revenues – while similar decreases can produce negative financial impacts, often devastating and long-lasting.
Here are five simple ways we can improve the quality of our communication with the people who are currently buying from us and expand and deepen those relationships over time.
We know all about the importance of team selling, don’t we? It's that powerful strategy in which multiple team members from different functional areas of a selling organization work collaboratively to win deals. Especially in the enterprise world, team selling is widely implemented.
One of the things I talk about often with sales leaders who are eager to maximize their team’s performance is the principle of reinforcement. All too often, we think of training for salespeople as a one-and-done initiative, as something we can check off a list once the "training" event is over and consider finished. Actually, the training we have invested in is next to worthless if it is not reinforced over time, incorporated as a personal priority, and made an ongoing topic for discussion within a personalized sales coaching plan. Reinforcement is thus one of the neglected secrets of effective sales leadership.
In the past couple of decades, our workplaces have gone from the office to mostly virtual spaces. We get our jobs done and we communicate in the cloud. However, we still struggle with the same issues in communication which we had decades ago. Here are a few effective ways to overcome communication barriers in the workplace which you can apply right now.
Of the corporate blind spots shared in The Road to Excellence, “not sharing the vision with those who have to implement it” is one of the most detrimental to the sustained growth of an organization. To create buy-in with your team (aka “those who will have to implement it”) share your vision in the form of questions instead of statements.
Greg Skloot is President and COO at Crystal, an online app that can tell you anyone's DISC personality before you meet them. Greg and his team at Crystal are a new strategic partner of Sandler Training, and he will tell you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to tailor your sales pitch to your prospect's personality.
It's common for people to mistake sales management for sales coaching. In fact, these are two very different roles. The table highlights some of the most notable differences.
Clint Babcock, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful when you have been ghosted by your prospect. Get the best practices collected from around the world.
Linc Miller, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed at the connection with prospects through the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world for bonding and rapport in sales.
Hamish Knox, Sandler trainer from Calgary and two-time author, shows you how to succeed at overcoming common objections in the negotiation process with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world for overcoming these common negotiating tactics.
Justin Stephens, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed at following up with prospects with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world for following up.
David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-Time Best-Selling Author, talks about his fifth book, Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders. The book is on sale here, as well as the companion video course.
Gerry Weinberg, a Sandler trainer from Detriot, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in connecting with your clients through advanced bonding and rapport tactics. Get the best practices collected from around the world.
Bill Bartlett, Sandler trainer and author, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in branding your personal presence. Get the best practices collected from around the world.
Hamish Knox, Sandler trainer and author, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful with body language. Get the best practices collected from around the world.
David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training, talks about how to rehearse your pitch with a prospect so they can sell your solution internally. If you can't be in an internal meeting, the next best thing is to have a white knight fighting on your behalf. Learn the best practices collected from over a thousand Sandler employees around the world.
Stephen J. Cloobeck is a self-made business leader with over 30 years of experience across every aspect of hospitality design, development, and deployment. As the original founder and former CEO and chairman of Diamond Resorts International - a business that grew to become one of the largest vacation ownership companies worldwide - Cloobeck made a name for himself as the industry's most adamant advocate for radical customer service, which he calls embracing the Meaning of Yes.
Sharlene Douthit, Sandler trainer from New York City, returns to talk about building rapport with clients and prospects. Learn the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of top salespeople, and learn how to incorporate them into your next sales call.
Learning how to communicate more effectively with people who have different communication styles than you do will lead you to more prospects, more productive discussions, and more sales.
Learn how to improve your communication in any situation. Dave Hiatt, talks about his new book, From the Board Room to the Living Room: Communicate with Skill for Positive Outcomes, and how to improve your attitude, behavior, and techniques in communication. Learn how to use Sandler's sales skills and rapport techniques in your everyday life.
You’ve experienced a “donkey moment” during an argument. The other person metaphorically digs in their heels, they physically lean back and probably cross their arms. These moments are wimp junctions. Wimp out and your conflict likely escalates to a lose-lose ending. Take the “un-wimpy” path and your conflict deescalates with greater possibilities of a win-win resolution.
The next time a prospect or customer says or does something you don’t expect, disengage from the situation, set your initial emotional responses to one side … and get curious.
The digital revolution is innovative, inspiring, and even pervasive. We’ve come a long way in a short period of time, and many of the things we take for granted now weren’t even in the realm of possibility a few decades ago. As impressive as they are, the reach and impact of electronics when it comes to communication can have detrimental effects. Below, I identify three important elements that should always be involved in business relationships, no matter how advanced technology becomes.
Most managers go into massive “critical parent” mode when they realize, too late, that a salesperson has a lot of ground to make up the remainder of the year. They say things like, “You need to sort yourself out and get back on track...” and they think it’s going to work! The truth is it never works… although a salesperson sometimes produces good results in spite of what the manager says.
Anita asked her manager to take part in a “ride-along” on her first sales call of the New Year … so he could offer her some constructive criticism on the best ways to improve her selling technique.
Communication is key in any relationship. Whether that relationship is with your spouse, your peers, your children, or your employees, it always comes back to a transfer of information, honesty, and respect.
A good business relationship whether it is buyer/seller or manager/employee is based on the assumption that both parties have an interest in doing things to accomplish the same goal. The first step in persuading someone to do what you want or need them to do is to establish and Adult-to-Adult relationship with the other person.
When communicating with a prospect, a sales professional can easily struggle to know what the prospect wants to know. By following these three tips, a sales professional can avoid communication errors that may cost them the sale.
As a leader, one of your most important roles within an organization is providing guidance to other members of the company. It is common for leaders to encounter situations in which they have to provide an employee with constructive criticism. Providing this type of guidance can be a challenge, however, as it is important to find a way to communicate your intentions without causing people to feel defensive or sparking resentment.
This tool can help you and your employees learn more about personality styles, paving the way toward improved communication. Read on to learn more about the different DISC assessment styles and communication practices that work with each.
Let's face it; communication is one of the most important issues in the workplace. Good communication helps everyone on your team (and you) to feel heard and understood, and as a result, everyone benefits from a positive, encouraging and successful environment. Conversely, ineffective communication brings about the opposite results. Ideas fall flat due to lack of follow-through. You and your team feel frustrated, unacknowledged and misunderstood, and morale declines.
Words are only a small portion of how we communicate with one another. Yet the value of other forms of communication is often overlooked. Learn more about four different types of communication, and how using them effectively can improve performance, morale, teamwork and success in your business.
In many cases, frontline or customer service teams are the only contact point from your clients to your company. It is very important for your staff to develop and maintain a good relationship with your customers. So, how do we promote togetherness, and set our team up to deliver an excellent customer service experience?
Prospects will sometimes make statements that, on the surface, sound positive, but on closer inspection, reveal no actual commitment. They contain indecisive, play-it-safe words or phrases that allow prospects (and customers alike) to avoid making commitments.
Ever been hit by a situation completely out of ‘left field’? Yes, there is a lot of repetition in customer care, but there are also situations that are so completely ‘out there’ that we have to touch our fingers to our chins to close our own mouths.
Few things are stronger than the belief systems people have about things. People save lives because of what they believe in. People go to war because their belief systems prompt them to. And the last thing we, human beings, want to change are our belief systems. This includes the prospects you meet.
Every salesperson around the world has met stalls and objections when calling on potential buyers. Just as many salespeople have witnessed the wide repertoire buyers have for introducing stalls and objections.
When you negotiate, you need to modify your initial offer in some way, manner, or form to achieve a reasonable result. A successful negotiator focuses first on being a good salesperson who reduces negotiating to a minimum. Here’s how to negotiate...
Do you every wonder why you have an instant connection with some people? Then there are those other times where no matter what you do, you cannot get on the same page with another individual for the life of you.
Great communication is a key aspect of having a successful working relationship. But for some people, they dread walking into a meeting with a person that is strong willed, demanding, direct, and likes to challenge the norm.
Sales managers need to be leaders. Knowing how to inspire, motivate, coach and hold sales people accountable for their behaviors is the foundation for improving sales. Skill sets for success as a sales manager are not always the same as skill sets for successful sales people.
Most sales people have to deal with a common barrier on the phone between them and decision makers. This road block is voice mail. What was originally intended to help people communicate has largely become a tool for hindering communication. It is a convenient way to screen and prioritize calls. Who hasn’t done that?
You’ve hear the old saying, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity…” but how often are you preparing for or thinking about adding value to a client relationship?
When you meet with a prospect, you may think it’s just the two of you. But watch out. A third element sits there with you. It’s the mutual mystification monster.
Communicate in a personal manner. Most salespeople are so focused on their work that they don’t take enough time to meet with, talk to, and listen to their customers.
Have you ever heard a prospect say, “Well, Frank based on what you’re telling me so far, this all looks good and I do not see why you may not get this order and everything will work out.” An amateur salesperson might go back to their office thinking that this one is ‘in the bag’, when in fact they have nothing but a lot of smoke. This miscommunication can leave both the prospect and the salesperson wondering where they both stand.
Why is it important for sales people to bond with a prospect? It sounds like a stupid question but one that many sales people can’t answer. The fact is that no one ever won a deal because they could bond well with others.
Whether you’re simply attempting to “get your message across” or struggling to persuade a prospect that your product or service is the best fit for his or her situation, it can sometimes feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle.
David Sandler’s search for knowledge about why and how people buy coincided with the Transactional Analysis (TA) movement in psychology. TA theory defines three ego states that influence our behavior—the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.
One way salespeople get themselves in trouble is by rushing to answer a prospect’s question … before they uncover the intent that’s driving that question.
If you follow these three simple steps – understand the true goal of your communication, send the right subtle “I’m listening” signals as the other person is speaking, and restate key content to prove you really were listening – you’ll have better conversations, gather high-quality information, and make better recommendations. Last but certainly not least, you’ll improve your closing ratio!
Has this ever happened to you? You're in the middle of a discussion with a prospect, and suddenly you're caught flat-footed by what seems like an attack.
Effective communication plays one of the biggest roles in a functional work environment, but the ability to interact well with one's peers is one of the hardest skills to master. Develop stronger relationships with your coworkers using these seven tips to improve your professional communication skills.
When you get an email from a prospect with one of the following requests, what do you do?
Send me a quote for..
Provide us with more information about..
We'd like a proposal..
Forward us a brochure on..
If you thought, "reply by email," you just put your prospect firmly in control of the sales process.
How?
The reason is found in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
Over time, every successful salesperson comes to the conclusion that having the proper selling posture during the sales interview is critical. Many sales people are still struggling to understand this concept.
When we talk about posture, we are talking about the attitude reflected in the communication of the salesperson. We know that the message we send in our communication is made up of our body language, our tonality, and our words. However, how we mix those three elements creates a particular attitude that is palpable to our receiver.
There are three primary language postures
The best definition of a heated political climate is the constant "clarification" of what was said yesterday, the day before, and the day before that. When what you said is not what is heard - or if what you heard was not what was said - that is "mutual mystification."
Actress Lily Tomlin said it best, "Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?"e
