Relationship

This week, join host Mike Montague as he engages in a compelling conversation with Steve Spiro, renowned as the Master Connector, unraveling the secrets to transcending the digital barrier and fostering genuine virtual connections.

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 Louie Gravance as they dive into the secrets of making customer service a superpower.

Discover the power of emotional relevance with Mike Montague and Alon Zaibert! Join the conversation that explores the future of sales in a tech-driven world and gain practical strategies for standing out.

Step into a world of insights with Bob Bolak, a seasoned networking expert, and explore the keys to thriving in the trade show arena.

Join us on this journey to event success and discover how structured approaches, two-hour time limits, and social proof can transform your networking game. 

Astonishing advances in information technology have made big headlines recently- are good salespeople now, or will they ever be, irrelevant?

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, Collin Mitchell, VP of Sales at Lithium and host of the Sales Transformation Podcast, joins the show to talk about the power of selling to the person and not the persona.

As a construction business owner, you need a solid sales strategy that enables you to cultivate enduring relationships with your customers. In this episode, we'll discover the key solution to achieving sustained success in your sales efforts - fostering long-term client partnerships.

In this episode, Megan Miller, who is an intentional expert, speaks on the podcast about intentional selling, offering advice on how sales professionals can stay on top of their game in the midst of chaos.

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.

Sales are all about relationships. To be successful, you need to be able to build trust and rapport with your potential customers. And one of the best ways to do that is by reading other people.

Mike Montague interviews John Barron, voice coach and vocal expert of the Alexander Technique, on How to Succeed Vocally. 

Mike Montague interviews John Glennon on How to Succeed at Customer Success. 

Mike Montague interviews Robin Rosenberg on How to Succeed at Living in Their World.

Mike Montague interviews Mike Crandall, Sandler trainer from Oklahoma, on How to Succeed at Understanding Motivation. Mike is the author of Motivational Management the Sandler Way.

Here’s the LinkedIn® Levers tool, a focused, user-friendly checklist that helps you to get the most out of your connections on LinkedIn. Put it to work every day!

Within the professional buyer/seller environment, preferences and practices have altered dramatically since the spring of 2020.

Within the professional buyer/seller environment, preferences and practices have altered dramatically since the spring of 2020.

Mike Montague interviews Michael Gordon on How to Succeed at Improving Your Money Concept.

There is clearly a limited supply of raw materials and finished goods around the world at the moment.

Keeping a client is typically ten times cheaper and easier than finding a new one. Here are five powerful behaviors you can build into your account plan to support better, more profitable, and more loyal business relationships.

Mike Montague interviews John Rulin, author of Giftology: The art and science of using gifts to cut through the noise, increase referrals, and strengthen retention, on How to Succeed at Giftology.

Mike Montague interviews Jeff Peek, an immigration attorney, on How to Succeed at Keeping Your Clients.

Mike Montague interviews Shawn Nason on How to Succeed at Radical Relationships.

It’s baseball season, and here in Southern California, we have high hopes for our teams this season.

Have you ever noticed that the people in sales and the people in marketing often seem to be on the opposite sides of important discussions?

Humans are either open or close minded to any suggestion. Once the mind is closed its nigh impossible to open it back up again until that person wants to re-open their mind.

Mike Montague interviews Hamish Knox on How to Succeed When a Client Leaves.

Remember the childhood game of whispering a phrase to someone and asking them to pass it on? By the time it reached the fourth or fifth person, the meaning of the original phrase was lost! Then, it amused us; in customer care, it can be costly.

Are “Relationships” really relevant to the sales profession?

One of best pieces of advice I ever received about holding on to important clients and customers was this: During times of uncertainty, approach your business contacts from a different perspective than during so-called “normal” times.

Everyone wants to know what business closed today. Or this week. Or this quarter. But is that really all we should be asking?

The global pandemic has highlighted the need for sales teams to focus appropriate amounts of selling time, effort, and energy on client retention.

Everyone loves a good quiz and the Sandler Research Center has a tricky question for any business leader responsible for customer success or net revenue retention.

Mike Montague interviews Ray Setter on How to Succeed at Customer Service.

The value of client retention is significant, especially when compared to the cost of customer acquisition.

Brian Sullivan Interviews Jonathon Farrington on The Critical Elements of Proactive Client Retention.

In order to combat this frustration and fear of product obsolescence, producers offer you over-the-air updates that upgrade your product’s software to perform new tasks and make your user experience, in general, more satisfying.

As 2019 draws to a close, it makes sense to survey the landscape and take note of the ideas and innovations that are most likely to affect markets, and sales teams, in the year to come. With that in mind, here are five emerging trends we at Sandler believe sales professionals should be on the watch for in the year 2020.

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’ve all heard the sobering statistics that winning a new major account costs far more than keeping one – depending on the study you read, perhaps twenty times as much. And we’ve all heard how even a small increase in a firm’s overall major client retention rate has an exponentially positive effect on revenues and profits. We also know, of course, that, on the flip side, decreases in retention rates produce similarly negative impacts, often devastating and long-lasting.

Mike Montague interviews Carlos Garrido on How to Succeed at Asking for Referrals In this episode:

• Why do we struggle to ask for referrals?
• Attitudes to help you get business from referrals
• Give referrals to get referrals

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.

Read Time: 8 Minutes

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 10 Minutes

Most salespeople who need to prospect for a living will tell you that it’s a very proactive, immediate results-driven exercise that can be uncomfortable at times. Hard to disagree with that. This is a topic that we get involved with far too often as it’s a common point of frustration for many business owners and sales leaders regarding their selling culture.

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Many sales professionals we work struggle with the question of how to leverage social networking platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter into their business development plan. Here are twelve simple steps you can take that will make it easier for you to launch and sustain mutually beneficial social connections online.

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Brian Sullivan, VP of Sandler Enterprise Selling, speaks with Steve Moritz, thirty year veteran of the technology industry and CEO of Moritz Consulting Group about  Consulting Services: Putting the client first in sales and delivery.

Listen Time: 40 Minutes

Potential buyers of your product or service – like the rest of us – spend a lot of their time online. This gives rise to a question: What are the best ways to engage with them when a voice to voice or a face to face conversation isn’t a possibility? Here are five simple, effective steps you can follow.

Sales superstars keep a fuzzy file about their clients. These are detailed files about their clients that they can reference quickly.

Sean Coyle, Sandler trainer, prospecting expert, and David H Sandler Award winner talks about how to lower defensive walls and build rapport quickly in a sales call. Learn the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of master salespeople and prospectors who can quickly and easily build trust with their prospects.

Sandler provides an easy way to remember the five key components of getting a mutually beneficial conversation started: the simple mnemonic PLATE. 

Learn how to engage and partner with gatekeepers to get to more decision-makers. Sean Coyle is Sandler's prospecting expert and host of the online course. In this episode, Sean talks about the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of top sellers and how they interact with gatekeepers and admins. 

Learn how to do a simple five-part client satisfaction call using the RECON framework. Caroline Robinson, Sandler trainer from the UK, talks about checking in with your clients and getting on the same page.

Customer relationships are the lifeblood of any sellers’ career. The ability to attract clients, build rapport, and start sales conversations ultimately determines the level of success that a salesperson will enjoy. You can be an extreme specialist who knows all the tricks of the trade, but without supplementing your knowledge with interpersonal communication skills, you’ll fail to connect with your clients or prospects on a deeper level. Building rapport is essential to turn yourself from a transactional seller into a trusted partner. Below I’ve outlined four ways to strengthen your bond with clients.

Welcome to Selling the Sandler Way, with your host Dave Mattson, the president and CEO of Sandler Training. He is a five-time bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and consultant to hundreds of international organizations. In this show, he talks to other Sandler trainers about the Sandler selling system.

One of the most obvious reasons you should be building brick walls around your existing clients is to reduce the impact of aggressive competitor activity. While you are off flirting with seemingly more attractive and exciting new opportunities, your competitors will be targeting your “home base.”

The more opportunities you have to interact with your prospects, the better, and the end of the year is an opportune time to reach out and reconnect with your clients and prospects to get in front of them prior to the new year.

But, that’s exactly what many salespeople attempt to do when they engage with a new prospect. Typically, it plays out in one of two ways. Either the salesperson attempts to force his solution on the prospect (after nothing more than a cursory analysis of the situation), or he allows the prospect to dictate the solution (again, without a proper analysis of the situation).

Welcome to Selling the Sandler Way, with your host Dave Mattson, the president and CEO of Sandler Training. He is a five-time bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and consultant to hundreds of international organizations. In this show, he talks to other Sandler trainers about the Sandler selling system.

Getting started in sales, or increasing your success once you’ve established yourself, can be a very challenging task. One of the hardest parts of this process is securing leads. What’s even harder is ensuring those leads are qualified.

To grow as a salesperson, mastering this aspect of your career is key. Below I have identified three ways to get qualified referrals. Incorporating these simple tips will help you step up your referral game and uncover a path to new levels of success.

Early in every sellers’ career, they learn to segment clients. They have As, Bs, Cs, and “everybody else.” What separates great sellers from others, is their ability to balance these segments and manage their relationship with each. 

This blog will illustrate several techniques to nurture those prospects in your funnel and how to effectively turn them into clients. The ability to do this is what separates good salespeople from just good networkers. Below are four keys to developing a successful nurture funnel and how to convert your prospects into clients. 

The How to Succeed Podcast is a public and free podcast from Sandler Training, the worldwide leader in sales, management, and customer service training for individuals all the way up to Fortune 500 companies with over 250 locations around the globe.

Welcome to Selling the Sandler Way, with your host Dave Mattson, the president and CEO of Sandler Training. He is a five-time bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and consultant to hundreds of international organizations. In this show, he talks to other Sandler trainers about the Sandler Selling System.

The sales industry is fast-paced now and isn’t showing signs of slowing down. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the clutter of new selling techniques, emerging technologies, and more specialized analytics. Although those components – and some others – can play a major role in your level of success. It would be a mistake to spend too much time on them and ignore the basics. Before you get carried away learning this or that, remember to take it back to your roots and ensure that you are providing optimum customer service. If you have strayed a bit or are just looking for a reminder, below are five imperative tactics to employ in your practice.

There are three tools that are particularly effective and easy to use in making people feel good about themselves: stroke, struggle, and validate. You can use one, two, or all three of these tools in interactions with patients—it depends on the situation.

You’ve closed the deal – but your job isn’t done quite yet. Managing client expectations can help you make the most of your new relationship and ensure you are striking the right balance. By working together to outline goals, define success, and clearly communicating your progress and milestones, you can increase transparency to build the long lasting relationship with your new client.

Fear may be the most powerful motivator affecting your buyers’ decisions. However, in their effort to maintain an image of power and control, buyers will be reluctant to share their true anxieties and concerns with you. You’ll increase your sales production when you help buyers discover and overcome their fears, show that you are sensitive to those issues, and then lead those buyers to the conclusion that your product will replace their fear with peace of mind.

2016 has been a year of many successes. Whether you are a sales representative, a sales manager, or simply interested in learning more about trending topics in the sales industry, we hope you have gathered some key insights from our blog this year. Before moving into 2017, we would like to take a look back and highlight some important topics from 2016.

By focusing on tracking activities in a Customer Relationship Management software, you can evaluate which things influence prospects to move forward in your sales process. Understanding exactly what’s moving a deal forward will help you decide the best next steps you should take to close any similar deal in the future. Tracking activities also highlights the telltale signs that a deal might be slipping away, and helps you pay it the proper attention to keep it moving forward. 

A salesperson striving toward success and prospecting for new clients may think that he or she must do something grandiose to draw customers away from the competition. Occasionally, something spectacular may be just what's needed, but it's not practical to do on a regular basis. Incorporate the following four simple gestures into your interactions with potential clients to experience greater conversion success.

Rescheduling appointments, talking about budget and change, and keeping a prospects attention can be difficult. Here are three tactics to keep your meets on track and to help you reach your sales goals.

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.

Your sales team`s attitude is one of the main factors in determining your business` success. Learn three of the most common weaknesses of sales professionals and how your sales team can avoid falling victim to them.

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?

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.

The consultative approach to selling is not so much about asking questions as a means of gathering information as it is about asking questions as a means of sharing and exploring information. Isn’t that what consulting is all about?

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?

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.

Clients’ willingness to provide salespeople with referrals is primarily a matter of trust. And, salespeople can earn that trust not only by providing products and services that ultimately deliver exceptional results, but also by “delivering” exceptional experiences.

Whether you’re building a house or a sale, you’ll need solid ground on which to build it. If the base is unstable, it’s only a matter of time before the structure collapses.

Don’t involve your customer in your problems and your company’s problems. Your customer has enough of his own problems.

How good would you say you are at listening to your prospect? Most salespeople we talk to rate themselves pretty highly in this area. Yet most, sad to say, fail the Tooth Fairy Test.

Did you ever have a conversation with a prospect who suddenly, and for no apparent reason, became unreceptive to perfectly good advice?

How many salespeople look upon their relationship with their customers as one that should endure regardless of what product is being sold?

Salespeople, in general, frequently move on to other companies. There are many reasons: lack of performance at the former, poor product line, perhaps the former company was poorly run. The list of possible reasons is long.

To really understand what someone means, not what you hope he means, ask for clarification.

What you find out is more important than why you found it out.

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.

Most salespeople are taught or assume that in order to begin the sales process they need to be excited and enthusiastic. I say that’s crazy! I prove in my workshops that enthusiasm kills when the enthusiastic one is the salesperson.

Customers, if given the choice between buying from a stranger or buying from someone they know, will always buy from someone they know.

If you don’t solve both customer repair problems, the actual and emotional, there are tons of other salespeople ready to do the job and take your commission.

When the prospect seems to be upset, annoyed, or bothered, ask him about that. By ignoring his feelings, you will be shown the door.

Knowing where your client is, future and past, tells you where your prospect is in the present.

The world of the prospect and/or customer is the only world that matters in a business situation.

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.

You have nothing to lose by asking a prospect, who has told you “No, thanks,” to give you one more chance to get back in and do business.

Failure to Launch Syndrome happens when the other person – who may indeed be a perfect fit for what you sell – decides that you’ve jumped into “countdown mode” too early in the relationship. The other person loses confidence in the process because he or she feels unheard.

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.

Just because you sold your client something yesterday, doesn’t mean he’ll know you're still around today. Let him know you are.

Is it really a disaster, or is it a brush-off? Only the prospect knows unless you ask.

Has this ever happened to you? You’re in discussion with a prospect about the possibility of working together. The meeting is going well. You’re working your way all through the questions you know you’re supposed to ask at this stage. You’re paying close attention; you’re taking notes. One of the questions you ask strikes a nerve with the person you’re talking to. Suddenly the floodgates open, and you find yourself listening to a detailed, fully expressed, fully engaged answer -- one where the prospect really opens up to you.

Remember Smokey the Bear? “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

Does your workplace make you happy? Some 52.3% of Americans report feeling unsatisfied with their jobs, while 39.4% of people reported disliking the people that they work alongside. If you find a strong correlation between being unhappy at your job and weak relationships with your coworkers, follow these nine rules to develop interpersonal skills and become well liked by your peers.

The hiring process can be a rocky journey involving dozens of candidates and weeks of interviews. Although a painstaking process, finding the right employee for the job is crucial, and the choice should never be rushed. Carefully studying resumes, checking previous job history, and meeting face-to-face to get to know the contenders takes time. Employees are the ambassadors of your brandMany companies even hold multiple in-person interviews with candidates to decide if they fit the criteria. Once the obvious applicants have been cut because of inexperience or other shortcomings, the hard work starts. Look for these eight red flags to weed out the candidates that may spell trouble for your company

I spend about 80% of my time working with sales professionals to perfect their ability to structure the questions that need to be asked. They all understand the importance of asking questions but need some assistance in creating their own tailored versions. Salesmen often enjoy the exercise of deciphering which questions uncover the compelling reasons the prospect should do business with them. 

Although teamwork is frequently the most efficient way to complete a big project, many managers struggle to lead a cohesive team. Managing individual employees along with the broader group dynamic brings confusion to team projects, causing the work and your team management capabilities to suffer. Tackle teamwork problems before they come up with these 25 tips for becoming a more effective team manager.

 "Two heads are better than one." We've all heard the old adage encouraging teamwork, but what does working together really do for you? Salesmen thrive off healthy competition, but sometimes the use of teamwork in the workplace is a better answer for winning sales. Here are six ways that teamwork benefits you in the workplace.

No one likes being told that his or her work is lacking but, as a manager, relaying this information is a fundamental part of your job. The manner in which you deliver constructive criticism, however, determines whether you are simply a manager, or a great team leader. Yelling and belittling your employees will prevent them from appreciating or trusting your leadership abilities.

Unavoidable conflicts often arise when you work on team projects. Coworker's differences can contrast sharply to your own, creating tension within the group. These differences are not necessarily a bad thing, though. Healthy constructive criticism helps create diverse methods of thinking and solutions to difficult problems.

The traditional corporate structure in the workplace is ready for a change. With Millennials entering the workforce, there is a resounding call for a structural shakeup. These young professionals have a lot to say and they want to have their voices heard. Successful companies are noticing this. Instead of paying attention to only GPA's, they are looking for critical thinking and problem-solving skills in new hires.

Understanding when to take a coaching approach over a managing mentality can make a huge difference in your effectiveness as a leader. To be an effective leader you need to master both leadership styles; the key is to know when to wear which hat. When you're managing, you're often organizing a project, providing instructions, outlining the end goal for your business, and you may find yourself being more directive and task-oriented

If you've heard the any of the following statements from prospects, then keep reading to learn more about how to determine when to walk away and when to continue investing time and energy. "I need to confer with other managers here." "I need more time to decide." "Call me in about a month."

Nothing lasts forever, right? While it may seem pessimistic, having a plan for dealing with a client's departure is sound advice when it comes to maintaining business and clients. We spend so much time building solid, trusting relationships with clients that it can come as quite a blow when news hits that your client contact announces they're leaving their current position.

A mistake too many salespeople make is not keeping in touch with former clients. It's not uncommon for past clients to come to a point where they need your product or service again but don't remember how to get in touch with you. They are more likely to have your competitors' information handy. (Your competitors are still calling on your client even though you are not).

The good and bad of relationship-based sales. The Good Relationship-based sales methods are ideal. Most of the time those relationships are the only thing protecting you from competing solely on price. In sales training, we have a saying: "All things being equal, people buy from people they like. All things being unequal, people still buy from people they like."e

Aberdeen's research shows that the best sales training companies, like Sandler Training, integrate sales training and customer relationship management.

Spend some time in the psychology or self-help section in any bookstore and you'll find hundreds of books written on transforming troubled relationships. Whether husband/wife, parent/child, friend/friend or employer/employee, they dominate the shelves promising THE magical solution to resolving any issue imaginable. If you're in sales, what about the buyer/seller relationship? The same elements that make any relationship thrive also apply to developing and strengthening bonds with our prospects and customers

Recently I was working with a company's executive team in reviewing the progress we had made together in solving a longstanding, difficult problem that had stunted their growth for years and slowed their momentum. It was rewarding to see their excitement as we reviewed the results of our efforts together. It was a good team meeting and an encouraging feeling to share our successes. I should have left well enough alone, yet I recognized that the true learning and best growth had not gone far enough. I posed three follow-up questions:

I don't like emails! Thought I'd get that out on the front end so there's no mystery as to where I am heading. Now you're wondering what in the world has happened. What did he do wrong? What caused such a negative reaction to something as simple, routine and harmless as email

The other day, people in the training center were discussing how they go about building trust. The group shared lots of ideas, and every idea they shared would probably do the trick. When all was said and done, we had a list of about twenty things people could do to build trust.

As a salesperson, I seem to take quite a few lessons from movies and some of the best lessons are in some of the worst movies. Most people think Burt Reynolds played only tough guy roles and the occasional slapstick comedy role. But one of the best sales lessons I have ever learned was from the movie "The End." If you have not seen "The End," do not rush out to rent it. I am about to spoil the plot for you. This is kind of a cute movie starring Dom DeLuise and Burt Reynolds.

As a sales trainer with Sandler Training, I spend a lot of time talking to my clients and I get paid to work with them in four areas of their business: Strategy, Structure, Staff and Skills. Because I spend hours talking to them, I learn quite a bit. And despite that fact, they still manage to surprise me with the questions they ask me.

Whoever said talk is cheap didn't know much about sales. Talk-too much talk, that is-can cost a lot. This is a difficult lesson for many sales professionals to learn, and that's understandable. People in sales tend to have outgoing personalities. They enjoy good conversation, and the longer they are in sales, the better they get at making small talk, establishing an emotional connection with the prospect, and driving a conversation toward the specific end of closing a sale

It's March Madness time, which I enjoy, but not always for the same reasons my friends do. Because I'm in sales, it's fun just to watch the teams execute their strategies and then try to figure out how these strategies apply to my own profession. And what stands out, season after season, is how predictable the plays have become and how easily they can be countered