Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2011 | Page 44

Grow Market Lead

Sales
smarts
By Marc Kiekenapp

Routine Maintenance
Quarterly training to tune up your sales team

O

ver the past several issues
we’ve addressed tuning up
our marketing campaigns,
websites, and working with
the operations teams to develop programs
that conform to today’s economic condition and the candidates’ needs. I would
like to share some ideas about tuning up
our sales skills and techniques and creating an ongoing internal training program
to maximize your team’s efforts.
As most of you may have noticed, 2011
has started out with a bang! Lead flow is
up, more candidates are in discovery
days, and the general public is feeling better about the direction of
the country and business trends.
So it’s time to get ready to be the
best we can be.
Education and refining of our
sales skills should not be practiced
on candidates. Instead, try creating an internal sales training
quarterly tune-up program,
and increasing the sales
skills of the team. These
actions will be very productive in attaining more sales in 2011.
Let’s focus on two essential pieces of the
puzzle: the telephone and objections.
1) The telephone (our first
impression to the candidate):
• What type of message are you leaving?
• Is it the same each time?
• Is it too long or too short?
• Is there enthusiasm in your voice?
• Who on the sales team has the highest contact rate, and why?
2) Overcoming objections
(without being defensive):

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• Do you have solid answers for the
candidate?
• Are you defensive?
• Have you “offensively” and adequately covered the concerns in your
presentation so the objections don’t come
up later in the process?

Creating a meaningful
training experience
As you review your numbers from 2010,
you should look for positive trends for
each sales person and be able to share
that with the other team members. If
someone has the highest contact rate,
find out why. It is important to hold
the team to the highest standards and
to have a training program to assist the
right people to succeed. Without this in
place, you will lack continuity in your
sales department. Hiring a new sales
person is rarely productive during the
first 6 to 12 months. Here are some
exercises you may consider doing with

your team to keep them at top performance levels.
1) Secret shop the sales team
• Record each call to share with the
team on an individual basis.
• Let them know you are doing this
as a training tool.
• Use results in finalizing the roleplaying topics.
2) The telephone
a) Have the sales consultants record
themselves on the initial call.
• Is the message consistent?
• Would you call based on the message left?
• Is there enthusiasm in your voice?
b) Record the program review.
• Is this a mutual exploration or is
the sales person doing all the talking?
• Was an opportunity missed on the
call that had gone unanswered?
• Were good notes taken for followup conversations, or do the notes not
reflect the needs of the client?
c) As the manager:
• Don’t ask to listen to all the calls.
• Have your sales professional play the best call once a
month.
3) Role playing
to overcome
objections
Assemble the information you’ve gathered
from secret shopping and
the recordings.
• What topics did the sales team
stumble over or not cover correctly?
• Role play the 10 most frequent
objections.
• Praise the team for what they are
doing well and train them where help
is needed.
Implementing this process on a quarterly basis will improve your sales ratios,
keep your team sharp, and identify the
team members that could be costing you
sales. Don’t skip any of these steps because situations and people change. Each
quarter you should use all three steps
to identify your training opportunities.
Happy Selling, Marc