Successful selling goes beyond 'sales training'

Selling and sales training ideas, courses, programmes, products, etc., are just part of the picture.

Modern selling requires understanding and capabilities that extend way beyond traditional 'sales training' skills.
Modern selling is about life, people, business (and increasingly ethical business and corporate responsibility), communications, behaviour, personality and psychology, self-awareness, attitude and belief.
Selling is about understanding how people and systems work, and enabling good outcomes. (By 'systems' I mean organisations and processes and relationships, not just systems in the sense of tools and IT.)
Sales training of course addresses some of these issues, but not all of them.
So consider and learn about other aspects of modern business, management, and self-development that interest you, and extend this principle to your people if you are a sales manager or coach.
Develop your experience and understanding of organisations, management and business - beyond sales training alone - and you will greatly increase your value and effectiveness to employers and clients, and to the organisational and business world generally.
The more you understand about how people think, how organisations work and how they are managed, the more effective you will be.
Look beyond sales training and selling, and strive to become an enabler and a facilitator of good outcomes.
This is the role of the modern sales-person. It's a highly valuable, sought-after and transferable capability.

How to motivate people?

The acronym "PRICE" refers to the "P.R.IC.E. Motivation System," which stands for "Pinpointing, Recording, Involvement, Consequences, and Evaluation."

• You start with PINPOINTED OBJECTIVES that are easily identifiable and measurable. Then, you check to make sure that they are also realistic, meaningful, simple to understand, and perceived as personally worthwhile by everyone involved in their implementation!
• The second step in motivating employees is "RECORD KEEPING." It is essential to establish a score keeping system by which employees and supervisors can tell how fast and how far and in what direction their motivation is taking them!
• INVOLVMENT - Making each team player a part of keeping the scores as high as possible!
• CONSEQUENCES - Making teamwork an everyday working reality!
• EVALUATION - You can consolidate the motivational drive of your work teams and ensure that they will operate at peak performance when you deliver predictable positive consequences!

1990's adapted hierarchy of needs

In the 1990's 3 steps were added to the hierarchy of needs:

6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
7. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
8. Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization.

The first must be fulfilled to get to the second and so on,... some examples

You can't motivate someone to achieve their sales target (level 4) when they're having problems with their marriage (level 3).

You can't expect someone to work as a team member (level 3) when they're having their house re-possessed (level 2).

Check the Patéo Consulting website for a good visual

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of thousands of years. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs motivate us all.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first, which deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself.
Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.
Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.
Maslow's original Hierarchy of Needs model was developed between 1943-1954, and first widely published in Motivation and Personality in 1954. At this time the Hierarchy of Needs model comprised five needs. This original version remains for most people the definitive Hierarchy of Needs.

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Are performance appraisals truly beneficial?

Think about everything that performance appraisals can achieve and contribute to when they are properly managed, for example:

• performance measurement - transparent, short, medium and long term
• clarifying, defining, redefining priorities and objectives
• motivation through agreeing helpful aims and targets
• motivation though achievement and feedback
• training needs and learning desires - assessment and agreement
• identification of personal strengths and direction - including unused hidden strengths
• career and succession planning - personal and organisational
• team roles clarification and team building
• appraisee and manager mutual awareness, understanding and relationship
• resolving confusions and misunderstandings
• counselling and feedback
• manager development - all good managers should be able to conduct appraisals well - it's a fundamental process
• the list goes on..

performance appraisals, performance evaluation and assessment of job skills, personality and behaviour

Last week we had our assignment review. What about it? Is it usefull?
What can we learn from it?

Performance appraisals are essential for the effective management and evaluation of staff. Appraisals help develop individuals, improve organizational performance, and feed into business planning. Formal performance appraisals are generally conducted annually for all staff in the organization.
Each staff member is appraised by their manager. Annual performance appraisals enable management and monitoring of standards, agreeing expectations and objectives, and delegation of responsibilities and tasks. Staff performance appraisals also establish individual training needs and enable organizational training needs analysis and planning. Performance appraisals data feeds into organizational annual pay and grading reviews, and coincides with the business planning for the next trading year.
Performance appraisals generally review each individual's performance against objectives and standards for the trading year, agreed at the previous appraisal meeting. Performance appraisals are also essential for career and succession planning.
Performance appraisals are important for staff motivation, attitude and behaviour development, communicating organizational aims, and fostering positive relationships between management and staff.
Performance appraisals provide a formal, recorded, regular review of an individual's performance, and a plan for future development. In short, performance and job appraisals are vital for managing the performance of people and organizations.

You don't compete only with products anymore, rather with how well you use your people.

"Why should I train my Soft Skills? I know everything about IT!"

Too often we focus on what employees need to "know" when evaluating and hiring them instead of "who they really are."

I will try to illustrate this with an example.
John was promoted to Technical Project Manager at his consulting company. Some people wondered why John had risen to this level of management. His educational level was lower than others in the firm and his degree wasn't in an area that pertained to consulting. However, one of the strengths that was nowhere on his resume was his ability to be positive in all situations and to naturally motivate people. He was quick to smile and see the positive side of every project. He was generous in praising people and was consistently happy. These were his strengths - his natural attributes. They made up the sum of who John was. These soft skills are just as important as what John knows.