Qualifying

Mike Montague interviews Brian Jackson on How to Succeed at Your 30 Second Commercial. Brian is an award-winning Sandler Trainer in San Diego, CA.

The sales landscape is constantly changing. New technology, new platforms, new corporate structures and fluctuating economies can make sales environments challenging. Recognizing these changes, sales strategies and tactics will evolve, but if you are a sales professional, rest assured, there are 7 things that will NEVER change in sales.

The traditional salesperson is trained to believe that in order to make the sale; you need to get the prospect to make small incremental “yes” commitments that lead up to the big “yes” -- getting the order. There is a better way that will help develop a professional relationship based on trust. If you want the order, allow your prospect to say “no” first.

Troy Elmore, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at dealing with the competition and selling a crowded marketplace. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 21 Minutes

It's difficult to argue that sales is the lifeblood to any organization. How well and how often your business makes a sale, ultimately determines its success. The proper management of the sales team and the sales process is critical.

Ryan, a salesperson in his mid-fifties, had hit a performance plateau. His commissions had been flat for the past six months, and he had narrowly missed quota in each of those months. He scheduled a meeting with his manager to see if they could identify any steps that would turn this pattern around.

Having a big pipeline of “prospects” is typically seen as desirable. The more prospects you put into the pipeline, the more will eventually emerge as customers. At least that’s the theory. And the theory is partially true. Some of the people you put in the pipeline will become customers. The question is, “How many will be customers and how long will it take for them to materialize from the other end of the pipe?”

At Sandler Training, we believe in not solely talking about features and benefits during your sales call, but rather focusing on the prospect’s needs. However, there is a time for presenting, once you have qualified the opportunity. Once a prospect is fully qualified in Pain, Budget, and Decision, then it is time for you to make the presentation, and you want to make that presentation as persuasive as possible.

If your goal is to find more prospects, get more and better referrals, and make more commission dollars in 2016 than you did in 2015, consider upping your social selling game. Here are four quick tips that will help you to avoid some common mistakes online.

Creating an effective sales pipeline can be a massive headache for sales leaders because reps have been known to stuff the pipeline with opportunities that have zero chance of closing. In a previous life, I took over a product specialist role selling a web-based media monitoring and crisis communications program. My first six weeks in that role was spent culling a $3 million pipeline down to $160,000 of real, qualified opportunities

Does this sound familiar to you? Prospect A says, "This looks very good. I think there's an excellent chance we'll do business." The salesperson thinks, "I've got one." Prospect B comments, "Your price is higher than we expected." The salesperson thinks, "I'll have to cut the price to close the deal." Prospect C reveals, "We were hoping for a shorter delivery time." The salesperson thinks, "I'll have to push this through as a rush order to get the sale."e