Successful salespeople have a knack for making people feel important. They understand the value of building trust and rapport early on in the selling process. It really doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are about your product line or how many closing techniques you have mastered, unless you earn your prospect's trust and confidence you are not going to make the sale.
Once you have established trust and rapport with your prospect, you will encourage a situation where you make it easy for them to buy from you. Often there is not much difference in specific products that we sell anymore and the amount of trust you can build with your prospects becomes the only differentiator between you and your competitors.
While there is no system that will work 100 percent of the time with every situation, studies show that there are four elements that precede trust.
Ethics — Conducting business with honesty and using good business practices, such as a high standard of customer service and high personal moral values.
Bonding — Conducting an individualised and value-added relationship over a long period of time. This may include feelings of friendship.
Empathy — The ability to see a situation from another person’s perspective. ‘Take a walk in the customer’s shoes’.
Reciprocity — Providing favours or making allowances in return for similar favours or allowances.
So next time you enter a sales discussion, consider the four points above and how you can build a trusting relationship with your customer...it's what the great salespeople do!
This article is taken from a section in the workbook of 'Practical Sales Skills', which is a set of training course materials that our customers have been downloading and using to develop their sales team. Visit our website today for sales success! You will also find many other useful training resources.
Wednesday 24 October 2007
Wednesday 17 October 2007
Perception
It seems the video of 'Did you spot the gorilla?' was removed from Youtube. For those that missed it, try this video perception test instead...
Tuesday 16 October 2007
Did You Spot the Gorilla?
It's surprising how many people miss the gorilla when watching the short clip that I posted on my blog last week. This clip was developed by Daniel Simons to study the psychology of vision. It points out that because you are asked to focus on something specific, you often miss the seemingly obvious as your brain will filter out what it feels is not important. In this case, you were asked to count the passes and so a gorilla beating it's chest was deemed less important by your brain and so it filtered it out.
Richard Wiseman uses the video to demonstrate the 'blind spots' people have to opportunities and argues that those people that learn (or naturally) manage to identify these hidden opportunities are more likely to succeed and maximise opportunities in their personal and professional life.
The challenge in life is to look at things from different perspectives and not close your mind off to knew thoughts and ideas. You can read more about Richard's findings from his book 'Did you spot the gorilla?'
Richard Wiseman uses the video to demonstrate the 'blind spots' people have to opportunities and argues that those people that learn (or naturally) manage to identify these hidden opportunities are more likely to succeed and maximise opportunities in their personal and professional life.
The challenge in life is to look at things from different perspectives and not close your mind off to knew thoughts and ideas. You can read more about Richard's findings from his book 'Did you spot the gorilla?'
Tuesday 9 October 2007
How Many Passes?
Watch this basketball clip and tell me how many times the basketballs are passed...
Monday 8 October 2007
Top Ten Tips for Engaging Learners
Even the most mundane subjects can be made much more interesting if participants are given plenty of opportunity to do things with the subject material, to think things out for themselves and to talk to each other. Participants also need to know where a session is supposed to take them. They need to know about the intended outcomes, and (more importantly) what these mean for them and what they will be able to show when they’ve achieved the outcomes. Here are ten tips to make training more engaging:
1. Establish participants’ ownership of the agenda. Ask them what they really want from the session or what they feel they really need from the session. Write their expectations on a flipchart. Ownership is achieved best when it’s the participants own words.
2. Express the intended learning objectives. Work out carefully some completions of ‘By the end of this session, you will be better able to…’, and talk them through why it will be useful to them to achieve these learning outcomes. After all, it’s the reason for the training!
3. Acknowledge their experience. Don’t tell them anything you can ask them first. Usually, there will be people there who already know the answers to most questions. Give the group as a whole ownership of their answers to questions, rather than you being the source of all wisdom.
4. Keep them busy. Get them learning by doing, rather than listening to you explaining the theory. If it’s an area that can only be described through talking, create a discussion, or even better, get them to stand up and review ideas on flipcharts around them room.
5. Give participants a variety of different things to do in successive tasks. For example, use different activities such as written, brainstorming, prioritising, sorting, discussing, arranging, playing, acting, case studies, games and so on.
6. Plan short tasks, not long ones. It is usually better to break a task into four fifteen minute stages than to run it as a one hour episode. Where tasks need to be longer, ensure you involve everyone and alternate the lead.
7. Be a time lord. Managing our own time is important enough, but when training it’s really important to manage other people’s time well too. Boredom quickly sets in when participants have too much time for a task, so as soon as some have finished, start debriefing.
8. Celebrate their successes. Cultivate the art of asking participants the right questions, so that they come up with the answers. When they have worked out how to do something, they remember it far longer than if you tell them how to do it.
9. Make it fine to learn by getting things wrong. Point out that for many things, learning is deeper when people get things wrong; they find out in an unthreatening environment why they were wrong, and how to make them better.
10. Don’t lecture. When you need to give your participants some information, do so in a handout, and then get them to do something with the information rather than just write it down or read it themselves.
1. Establish participants’ ownership of the agenda. Ask them what they really want from the session or what they feel they really need from the session. Write their expectations on a flipchart. Ownership is achieved best when it’s the participants own words.
2. Express the intended learning objectives. Work out carefully some completions of ‘By the end of this session, you will be better able to…’, and talk them through why it will be useful to them to achieve these learning outcomes. After all, it’s the reason for the training!
3. Acknowledge their experience. Don’t tell them anything you can ask them first. Usually, there will be people there who already know the answers to most questions. Give the group as a whole ownership of their answers to questions, rather than you being the source of all wisdom.
4. Keep them busy. Get them learning by doing, rather than listening to you explaining the theory. If it’s an area that can only be described through talking, create a discussion, or even better, get them to stand up and review ideas on flipcharts around them room.
5. Give participants a variety of different things to do in successive tasks. For example, use different activities such as written, brainstorming, prioritising, sorting, discussing, arranging, playing, acting, case studies, games and so on.
6. Plan short tasks, not long ones. It is usually better to break a task into four fifteen minute stages than to run it as a one hour episode. Where tasks need to be longer, ensure you involve everyone and alternate the lead.
7. Be a time lord. Managing our own time is important enough, but when training it’s really important to manage other people’s time well too. Boredom quickly sets in when participants have too much time for a task, so as soon as some have finished, start debriefing.
8. Celebrate their successes. Cultivate the art of asking participants the right questions, so that they come up with the answers. When they have worked out how to do something, they remember it far longer than if you tell them how to do it.
9. Make it fine to learn by getting things wrong. Point out that for many things, learning is deeper when people get things wrong; they find out in an unthreatening environment why they were wrong, and how to make them better.
10. Don’t lecture. When you need to give your participants some information, do so in a handout, and then get them to do something with the information rather than just write it down or read it themselves.
Tuesday 2 October 2007
Trainer Bubble Partner with ITOL
Trainer Bubble are pleased to announce their status as an approved partner with the Institute of Training and Occupational Learning (ITOL).
This partnership will provide our customers with the opportunity to benefit from specific partnership discounts and offers as well as the assurance that our business practices are in line with ITOL standards.
About ITOL
The Institute of Training and Occupational Learning is the UK's fastest growing network for trainers, and is now the professional body of first choice for those specialising in training, development and occupational learning. ITOL are the only Institute in the UK solely committed to occupational trainers and their needs. They truly are the natural home for everyone involved in the world of learning. Visit the ITOL website at www.itol.org
Membership
We are currently in the process of developing a Trainer Bubble/ITOL membership collaboration, which will offer you specific member advantages as well as membership to an institute that is truly committed to the future of training.
Keep visiting Trainer Bubble at www.trainerbubble.com for great training resources.
This partnership will provide our customers with the opportunity to benefit from specific partnership discounts and offers as well as the assurance that our business practices are in line with ITOL standards.
About ITOL
The Institute of Training and Occupational Learning is the UK's fastest growing network for trainers, and is now the professional body of first choice for those specialising in training, development and occupational learning. ITOL are the only Institute in the UK solely committed to occupational trainers and their needs. They truly are the natural home for everyone involved in the world of learning. Visit the ITOL website at www.itol.org
Membership
We are currently in the process of developing a Trainer Bubble/ITOL membership collaboration, which will offer you specific member advantages as well as membership to an institute that is truly committed to the future of training.
Keep visiting Trainer Bubble at www.trainerbubble.com for great training resources.
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