Travelling In Business: How To Be Successful On The Road.

You’ve been informed that you will be facilitating a ‘road trip’, or meeting with another company within your industry in another city, or even country. Although you’re excited and happy of the opportunity given to you, you’re also scared of what will happen. This is your first time to facilitate your team to a meeting in another city or country, and you basically don’t have any idea what will happen. You still don’t have any idea of what you should and shouldn’t do to guarantee that this meeting and trip will be successful, not just for you but for your company. To help you out with your dilemma, here are some ways you can make ‘road trips’ a success:

Reach out

Some business partners have different preferences, it’s important that you’re able to meet all of these when they meet up with you. By calling ahead and reaching out prior to your arrival you can schedule time with everyone you want and need to. This goes along way to making your time as beneficial as possible. By doing your research online well in advance you can avail yourself of where best to base your team and where you can take your team should you be successful in hitting a goal you set them, like out-performing their previous week or the best team in the company you are visiting during your visit. The same goes for an international meeting with businesses all around the world.

Speak slowly

When you’ll facilitate an overseas visit (either to or from), keep in mind that you’ll be talking with people who might not have the same language as yours. Sure, they might understand the English language, and (fortunately for us) most countries have English as a second language these days, but there might be some terms which are uncommon to them. To ensure that everyone is on the same page during the meeting, speak slowly. This isn’t condescending, this will allow the participants to process what you’re saying and ask questions when there are words or terms vague to them. Highlight that you are happy to explain anything as you go along if there are any terms that are new to them so that no one feels reluctant to ask anything or speak up.

Be prepared

Regardless of how much you try to prepare for a meeting, there could be issues arise at the last minute. This can have adverse effects on the progress of your meeting or visit. You can avoid this from happening by coming up with your Plan Bs, and even Plan C. For example, you might have a place booked for a meeting but what will happen when participants inform you that they’ll be adding ten more participants? Are you prepared for emergencies like these?

Do your research

Don’t show up to the meeting being clueless about what will happen and try and cuff a meeting at the last minute. Regardless of what the meeting is all about – whether it’s about closing deals or hiring the best manpower services for your business – you should be prepared. You should REACH OUT and ask where the people you are meeting could improve on currently so your meeting is relevant and beneficial to them so they get the most out of it as possible. This  create an impression that you’re interested in helping them.

In Conclusion

When you facilitate a ‘road trip’ within the UK or overseas, or a visit/ meeting from a company to your own, it’s not as simple as the ones you’ll have with your office in the boardroom. For one, this is participated by people who have different opinions and backgrounds. Some traits might seem normal to you, but these might come off as offensive in people from different countries. This is just one of the reason why you should pour in time and effort to prepare for your travel and activities during your business trip.

Create A Vision.

Running a business takes more than a day-by-day approach. You need a clear idea of where you want your business to be ten years from now — your own North Star that not only inspires you, it inspires your team as well. Essentially, if you want to get somewhere and you want people to follow you there, you have to visualize it first: you can’t be a leader without vision.

Even after fifteen years I have a clear plan of where Pure is going as a company and my vision and how that will be achieved is displayed in the office for all to see. This has been something I have strongly believed in since I started in business. If you don;t have a plan, or your team cannot see that you have a plan for growth, for success, then why would they follow you?

Here are four simple steps to picture your business in ten years, and chart the best course to get there and inspire your people to get behind you and come along for the ride:

1. Start with the mountaintop.

Imagine it’s ten years from now. Write down all the particulars you can of what your business looks like. There are no right or wrong answers here. The point is to focus on learning your vision of your business in the future: where you want to go, and what you want it to look like. Don’t worry about whether it will actually turn out this way.

Include:

  • How many team members you’ll have
  • What locations you’ll have
  • What products and services you offer
  • How your business is structured
  • What your ideal customer or client looks like
  • What kind of volume you’re doing
  • What your own life is like, and how involved you are in the daily goings on of your business.
  • And if you’re not involved any more, what are you doing instead?

2. Back up five years.

Once you have the ten-year vision down in writing, back up halfway. In five years, where do you need to be in order to be on track to hit that ten-year point? Cover the same details, and write them down. For instance:

  • How many people are on your team?
  • Do you have half the locations as in ten years?
  • Are you offering the same products as services as now, or the same as in ten years?
  • Have you found your ideal customers yet?
  • Are you doing half the volume you’re doing in ten years?
  • Are you still going into work every day? What’s your own life like in five years?

3. Back up two more years.

Now that you have your five-year vision, take it back to the three-year version of your business. Ask the same questions, and think about whether or not your three-year vision backs up your five-year vision: are you on the right course? Where do you have to be in here years in order to achieve your five-year goals?

4. Back up to next year.

Finally, flip the script entirely: You need to take a sharp look at the next year — and now you have a ten-year perspective to do it in. So ask yourself: where do I need to be next year to be on track to reach my three-year vision? Use the same criteria, and make sure it’s as specific as possible.

By starting at the top and working your way back, you’ve already set up your goalposts, and with a very specific outline of your one-year, three-year, five-year, and ten-year vision, you can start to create a plan and structure for your business that will get you to each benchmark. You can, and should, share this vision, and its structure, with your people as it will inspire them to follow your lead. You can also check in periodically, and see if you are on pace to make what you need to make happen. If not, you have a good idea of what needs to be modified or adjusted — without losing focus.

The truth is, if you just go on about your daily activities and hope you’ll one day end up where you want to be, changes are, it won’t happen. Eighty percent of new businesses will not survive the first five years — and much of them fall prey to their own functional nearsightedness. Instead, plan out where you want to be and use a vision to guide you. Time flies when you’ve set a course.

If you want to make a start in business get in touch and ask about our business development programme today!

Brand Loyalty Is Not Dead!

If you ask people this question, you are likely to get a lot of heated responses. Never mind that people generally pick a mobile phone provider and stick with it for years out of the need for continuity.

But most people will tell you that brand loyalty is dead. They may not be entirely wrong — brand loyalty as your parents and grandparents were used to it might actually be dead.

Historically, there were some specific reasons for brand loyalty and certainly many of those reasons don’t apply today, but brand loyalty may have just shifted to adapt to the times.

Why does brand loyalty matter?

In today’s consumer landscape, it doesn’t even really make sense to be brand-loyal. With sites and companies who’s entire business model is built on moving customers from one brand to another there is surely no such thing as brand loyalty? Do you know, or even care to know, anything about companies and brands you buy from other than whether or not you are getting a good deal? A couple of decades ago brands competed for loyalty by building personal relationships face-to-face with their customers. Today we have a lot of choices and most of those choices are pretty good, so people more often choose convenience or cost preferences over brand loyalty. However, is this down to to their purchasing experience?

In 1950’s America the economy boomed and many people were producing things that were sub-par to entice a growing and wealthy middle-class into purchasing their brand, and consumer concerns about quality became a sort of de facto brand loyalty.

This is when brands like General Electric, Winchester, RCA, and GoodYear came on the scene.

After the industrial revolution really had a chance to take hold and everyone was basically manufacturing things that were higher in quality, though still to varying degrees, brand loyalty was won oftentimes through advertising and marketing.

Tide is a perfect example of this.

Proctor & Gamble was the first one to discover the perfect recipe for laundry detergent, but knowing the competitors could get ahold of the product and make a reasonable facsimile of it, P&G spent time and money on marketing to set Tide apart. According to the American Chemical Society: “the company would conduct shipping tests that involved manufacturing some of the product, shipping it to select markets, trying out advertising strategies in those markets, polling consumers about the product, and then refining the detergent based on the results of testing.”

A great deal of effort was put into packaging, marketing, and advertising, which led to Tide becoming an instant success with consumers once it fully rolled out.

Loyalty programs saved and then maybe finally killed brand loyalty

Way back in the 1980s, some of the first consumer loyalty programs emerged in the form of airline points. There was even a man in the 1990s who hacked the brand loyalty sphere by buying 12,000 pudding cups, which earned him 1.2 million airline miles. But today there are so many customer loyalty programs and cards that it now adds up to an average of 29 memberships per household. People are getting burned out on brand loyalty:

  • 77% of people retract their brand loyalty faster than they did three years ago.
  • 71% of people don’t believe these programs even work.
  • 61% of people have switched brands within the last year.
  • 23% will have a negative reaction at the mere suggestion of another brand loyalty program.

Brand loyalty is changing

There are still some brands that have a loyal following, though the reasons may be quite different today than they were for your grandparents’ generation. Google, Amazon, and Apple are the three top companies right now for brand loyalty. Everything else is pretty well negotiable:

  • 78% of Millennials say that brands have to work harder to secure their loyalty.
  • 64% of Millennials say they are still pretty brand loyal.
  • 63% of Millennials use many of the same brands they grew up with.

Financial reasons, personal recommendations, and the wow factor are some of the reasons that Millennials will still switch brands, but one of the most noticeable reasons has to do with public image problems. We’ve all seen calls for boycotts of certain products because of business practices, and in fact this accounts for 32% of the reasons why Millennials will switch brands.

Mobile phones, clothing, and health and beauty brands are the three top categories for Millennials’ brand loyalty, and all other products are going to have to work much harder to keep customers coming back.

Is brand loyalty really dead?

Quirky advertising alone is no longer enough to capture and retain a consumer base, and getting existing customers to stick around is harder than it has ever been. But if you have a quality product, good customer service, and your customer’s purchase experience is one that immediately builds a relationship between them and the brand they are buying then you can capture the next generation of loyal customers.

Mind The Gap

If the 20th century was the era of suffrage, the 21st Century is set to become the epoch of business, with more and more women starting their own companies than ever before, I want to discuss with you where Pure Events Solutions currently sits on the business radar and how we already offer a level, meritocratic, playing field regarding financial reward and job satisfaction that is many ways ahead of it’s time.

Below I have looked at some of the reasons behind the rise of female entrepreneurs. If you’re not already thinking about starting your own company, then you’ll be itching to get going once you’ve finished this blog.

CONCERNS ABOUT PAY

Women earn less than men, fact. Don’t believe me? Check the stats. The average pay for women in the UK and USA in 2017 was £10,000 / $12,000 and the average pay for men was £18,000 /  $21,000. Current estimates are that Women won’t achieve gender pay parity until 2234.

It’s not surprising then that more women are turning their backs on jobs and companies that under value and under pay them in comparison by gender, and are starting their own companies than ever before. The benefits are obvious: charge the rate that your work demands and be paid based on the quantity of your sales and quality of your output, not your gender. This is nothing new to us here at Pure, we’ve been helping more and more women start their own businesses since 2017. On top of that, anybody working with us in a sales or marketing role has exactly the same opportunity and earns exactly the same rates regardless of gender.

#METOO – EMPOWERMENT

2017 was the year of the #Metoo movement. Though used originally by social activist Tarana Burke, Alyssa Milano popularized the phrase by encouraging women to tweet it in order to “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem” of sexual harassment.

From adversity came strength and with strength determination. Shifts in society away from accepting established practices within all areas (work, home, culture) and this is being used to empower women to start their own businesses.

Women not only want to start their own companies, they are receiving renewed attention from organizations that exist to help new entrepreneurs make their way in the business world. At Pure we are proud to partner with determined Women, and Men, who have the drive to succeed, want to succeed on merit, not be held back or compromised in their career because of any other reason.

WOMEN ARE INNOVATORS

Not only are more women starting more businesses than ever before, they’re starting more innovative businesses than their male counterparts.

A report looking at US entrepreneurs found there to be a higher chance of women starting businesses that introduced new, innovative, products and services than there was of men doing so. Indeed, the chances of a female entrepreneur being innovative was 40%, against 35% for a male entrepreneur.

GREAT EXAMPLES TO LEARN FROM

There are so many great female entrepreneurs in the world that it’s hard to pin down the most inspirational women. Some of the women who are inspiring other women to start their own companies are:

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

Co-founder of the world renowned publication which bears her name, Arianna Huffington started HuffPost (previously The Huffington Post) in 2005 with Andrew Breitbart, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti.

In 2011 AOL paid $315 million to buy The Huffington Post, with Arianna Huffington becoming editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group as part of the buyout.

FOLORUNSHO ALAKIJA

Named the 87th most powerful woman by Forbes, Folorunsho Alakija is a Nigerian businesswoman who made her $2.1bn fortune in the fashion, oil, and printing industries.

Having started as an executive secretary at Sijuade Enterprises, she today owns multiple businesses and is the second richest woman in Africa.

JULIA HARTZ

If you’ve organized or attended, an event in the last decade then you probably know the name Eventbrite. What you might not know is the name of its co-founder, Julia Hartz.

Hartz started the company with her husband, Kevin Hartz, in 2006, which was the first of its kind in the world of event management. Today Eventbrite is a multibillion-dollar company and Julia Hartz is a multimillionaire.

EVERYDAY SUCCESS STORIES

Arianna, Folorunsho, Julia, are just some of the better-known women who have started their own companies. Each and every day there are scores of women starting their own businesses and you should also take inspiration from some of the smaller-scale success stories.

IT’S NOW EASIER THAN EVER TO START YOUR OWN COMPANY

If the gender pay gap, innovative nature of female entrepreneurs, the movement to self-empowerment, and the multitude of examples of successful female business women wasn’t inspirational enough, it’s now easier than ever for women to start their own companies.

Even if you have no experience, no capital to invest, or even haven’t got an innovative idea yet, we will partner with you and educate, you for FREE, to give you the skills and tools to start and grow your own company. To arrange a meeting with us just get in touch today.

Building Winners

What is the Impact Great Sales Coaching Can Have on a Sales Leader?

Sales coaching helps salespeople who want to improve their performance, leadership, and achieve their objectives.

Many sales leaders are dealing with unprecedented organizational change, they are dealing with high levels of stress as they are being asked to do more with less, as well as struggling to achieve their company’s objectives.

As a result, they find themselves overly stressed, frustrated, and not sure what to do. They begin to question their people instead of leading, engaging and inspiring them. Great sales coaching helps sales leaders build a sales culture of accountability, performance, and engagement. This is an Executive level of coaching designed to give the right people the right skills to create winning departments and teams.

Over 15 years of being in the business I have found that the best way to CRUSH Your Sales Numbers is not by implementing more sales training and certainly not by adding more technology, but by coaching Sales Leaders and their team members one-on-one to improve leadership and focus. Executive sales coaching helps sales Leaders and Managers focus on what is critical and to avoid constant distractions.

Which Sales Leaders Benefit the Most from Executive Sales Coaching?

Executive coaching will benefit high-potential fast-tracking executives and managers. Senior-level sales leaders or high potentials who are being considered for a senior role in the succession plan. Many leaders are over-extended dealing with everyday demands with little time to improve their leadership.

The truth is all sales managers can benefit from executive coaching. It only makes good business sense. A good executive coach helps them focus and remove obstacles that get in the way.

Executive coaching provides sales leaders with the focus that is not available from direct supervisors.

What Exactly Do Executive Sales Coaches Do?

Executive coaches work with clients to help them set and achieve their development goals. The executive coaches may use an assessment like a 360-degree feedback to provide their client with objective feedback. Helping them become aware of their strengths, weaknesses and potential blind spots. The executive coach uses effective questions to help their client discover solutions to their challenges, create a greater focus on what is important, provide resources and provide insights to help in the development process.

Executive coaches provide an objective and nonjudgmental approach to help sales leaders reach their true potential.

What Should You Look for in an Executive Sales Coach?

With the rapid growth of the coaching industry, anyone can call themselves a coach.  There are many good coaching schools that provide a coaching certification program. To some companies coaching certification is important. Leadership experience in your industry is also highly valuable.  When deciding on a coach, fit is critical. You need to like, trust and respect your coach. There needs to be a positive chemistry and a willingness to open up with your coach to have the best result.

Does Executive Sales Coaching Have to Be in Person?

The reality is that with technology such as Skype, Facetime and Google hangouts, coaching can be done virtually. Face-to-face coaching is ideal but not always feasible or cost-effective. Here at Pure we are lucky enough to be able bring people into partnership with us and give them our facilities and experience in order to work with them and coach them over a sustained period of time.

How Much Does Executive Sales Coaching Cost?

Studies show that coaching can range from a couple hundred Pounds an hour to £3500 a month. The median cost of coaching is £500 an hour. Do you have access to your executive coach outside your scheduled time or outside business hours? Other considerations are the duration of the program and does your executive coach charge by the hour or on a monthly retainer. Once again, here at Pure, our Business Development Partnership program gives people the opportunity to up skill themselves and learn executive sales coaching, and implement it, without having to pay for it. That’s right, we’ll work with you for free!

Where Do You Find an Executive Sales Coach?

The best place for sales leaders to start when looking for an executive sales coach is their peers. Referrals and recommendations reduce risk. There are several coaching directories online or a google search may turn up potential executive coaches in your area. The HR department may have a list of qualified coaches they are presently using. You can also contact us and arrange a meeting to discuss a possible partnership to get you started on the path to being a sales rockstar with the coaching skills to build your own company of winning sales people in the future.

Why Marketing Offline Could Be Just What You Need.

If you’ve been stuck trying to promote your business online for a while, you might be having a hard time getting results.

The truth is, online isn’t the only answer. That’s right – there’s still a lot of money to be made by hitting the streets and promoting your business the good old-fashioned way.

Even if you run a completely online venture, there’s value in looking at how going back to basics could be what your business needs to gain new leads.

Image Source: Bright Local

While it’s true that having an online business opens you up to thousands (or even millions) of potential customers, and offers huge scope for many businesses, it’s a hugely competitive marketplace. There are literally millions of potential customers, and there are also millions of competitors all fighting for the same piece of the pie.

If you’ve recently tried to rank highly for a particular search term, you’ve no doubt seen how difficult it is. As you’re probably already aware, if you can’t get onto the first page of Google, you might as well be nowhere. The first place on Google can garner up to 34% clicks from all searches for that term. If you’re 11th (first on the second page), you might struggle to get 1%.

This is why going offline can help your business get a corner of the market that your rivals may have ignored.

Marketing offline helps promote your business to completely new people

Whether you’re promoting a product or service, chances are that the channels you’re using are being visited by people who are already aware of the sort of thing you’re offering.

Let’s look at internet marketing, for instance. Yes, you might be offering an ‘innovative way to make money online’ – but you’ll probably be offering it to people who are at least somewhat aware of such a possibility in the first place.

This is one of the main reasons why going offline for your marketing is such a great idea. You get to capture potential new customers for your business who might have been completely unaware you could even make money online easily. Even if it’s something simple like filling out online surveys, most people on similar sites online will already be aware of similar possibilities. But people who don’t use their computers very much might not be.

By reaching out to those offline, you can be the first to offer them something they might truly appreciate. You’re not just fighting for people already in the internet marketing niche. You’re telling new people with no previous knowledge about a wealth of potential new possibilities they might benefit from.

Internet marketing isn’t all this approach works for. Marketing your business offline can also help bypass a large section of the competition and take you to completely new potential customers who might be much easier to convert.

Image Source: Business2Community

Unlike promoting online, the options are practically endless. You’d be surprised how cheap an advert in the local newspaper can be. Even a full page spread. These days our clients are guaranteed an ROI of around 300% and we market their products and services directly to thousands of people each week.

Leaflet delivery can be cheap – if you’re just starting out, there’s no reason why you can’t print the leaflets yourself and go door to door on foot. That cuts out at least two middle men (printer and delivery service). It might seem like a lot of hard work, but you can’t succeed in business without at least putting the effort in.

As mentioned, we market primarily at large events where we can put our clients in front of thousands of people. In contrast to one leaflet hitting one person, at a large event even just your brand is being seen by multiple eye balls at anyone time.

While you might only get five hits for every 100 leaflets you deliver, think of it this way: the 95 people who didn’t return a hit just didn’t happen to take the final step. They probably still looked at your leaflet – maybe even engaged with it, turned on their computer, and manually typed in your link. So it was still worth it, as they may convert much easier in the future.

Now, imagine this sales ratio on steroids as you are able to do the work of 100 leaflets every 2 minutes at a highly attended event.

In conclusion

Marketing offline can be huge for people who run a local business, as well as those who don’t. It can work even if you run an online venture.

You’d be surprised how many local service businesses now think that they need to put all of their marketing efforts into promoting online. It’s a huge mistake. People have more faith in something they see in the community rather than just a faceless online entity. We have a wealth of experience in giving your new customers a more unique and personal purchasing experience which sees loyalty to your brand instil itself almost instantly.

Get More Sales

People in sales, especially people in direct sales, talk a lot about the Law of Averages. You will hear people credit the Law of Averages for their successes and, less frequently, blame it for their setbacks. Still, understanding the Law of Averages could make a valuable impact on your sales.

What is the Law of Averages?

The sales-y people of the world condense the Law of Averages down into the catchy phrase “more equals more.” To be a little less pithy, the Law of Averages implies that the more people you see (or prospects you call) the more sales you will make. Furthermore, each person develops his or her own personal Law of Averages to work with. For example, over time, you might discover that you successfully sell to one out of every 22 people you meet. That means that if you want to make ten sales, you need to pitch around 220 people.

Once you understand how the Law of Averages works, you can get started making it work for you. Here are three easy steps to get the ball rolling on using the Law of Averages to help improve your sales:

Run The Numbers.

For the next two weeks, keep doing exactly what you have been doing. The only thing you should do differently for the time being is start taking better notes. Note the number of people you meet or call, note whether you were able to reach the decision maker and then, of course, note whether you sold them anything. At the end of the two weeks, bust out a sheet of scrap paper and figure out your ratios. I recommend tracking a few different things (all in ratios).

  • Number of Decision Makers to Number of People Spoken to.
  • Number of Sales to Number of People.
  • Number of Sales to Number of Decision Makers.

Do the Work.

After you know your personal Law of Averages, you can get to work meeting your sales goals. The more people you see, the more sales you will make – now you have a clearer picture of how many people you need to speak to to hit your numbers.

Improve your Law of Averages.

After you have had some time to familiarize yourself with the Law of Averages, you can use it to make improvements to your sales. This is why I recommend keeping track of your numbers every day, even if you think you already have a good handle on things. Look for small ways to improve your pitch method and then use the Law of Averages to determine if you are really seeing results and improving your ratios.

Using the Law of Averages to improve your sales can be a somewhat labor-intensive process. Nevertheless, tracking your Law of Averages is worth the time and potential aggravation if it improves sales for your business.

 

Are Great Sales People Just Lucky?

Many struggling sales people look at top sales reps and think they somehow got lucky and that’s why they are doing well. It would be great if it were that easy to just luck-into success selling your product or services, however top sales reps understand the harder they work, the luckier they get.

Luck is really only a factor if someone is there when you call.

The good news is becoming a top sales rep in any field of sales only requires work ethic and developing the communication skills to become successful. If there is any luck involved with becoming a top sales person it would be in the form of simply catching people when they are home.

However, even that can be controlled to some degree. A rule we teach at here is the Rule of Three. This means if you call 3 companies, knock 3 doors in a row, or try to speak to 3 people at an event and no one has answered, or stopped to speak to you, you must make it a requirement that the 4th has someone there or that that 4th person will stop and speak to you.

Direct sales is a contact sport, and the more contacts you make, the higher chances you will have in making a sale. You could say that it’s luck, and you can certainly make up in numbers what you lack in skill, but developing your skills alongside of your work ethic is a recipe for success.

Consistency is essential if you want to become a top sales person.

There are two major areas you want to be consistent in and that is in work ethic as well as attitude. When it comes to attitude one thing we talk about often is being a 7.

This means that you want to keep your energy level, volume, and excitement at a 7 out of 10 level when you are talking to potential customers. Having the right attitude and energy can really make a big difference when you are talking with potential customers.

If you aren’t excited about what you have to offer, why would your potential customers be either? This doesn’t mean that you need to be over the top or have weird levels of excitement when you are talking to potential customers, but you need to be a bit more excited than you normally are.

How to maintain your consistent energy levels through the day.

One way to maintain this excitement level for yourself is to avoid pre-judging your potential customers before you talk to them. Nothing kills your excitement more than believing that your potential customer isn’t going to buy from you the whole time you are talking to them.

If you go into a potential sale thinking that someone’s house isn’t good enough to buy from you, or that the territory/event or company is bad, or whatever other kind of excuse you make in your head of why someone won’t buy, it will keep you from making sales. You’ll need to assume that everyone is a potential buyer of your products or services until they disqualify themselves through an actual conversation.

Certainly there will be some outside factors that may play a small role in people buying, but most of the time outside factors that cause you to pre-judge a potential customer have little to do with if they buy or not. Assuming the sale can really go a long way to maintaining a positive attitude and energy level as well as help you to keep up your consistent work ethic.

Combining the right attitude and work ethic in sales, especially direct sales, can help you stay “lucky”.

If you happen to be considering a new sales opportunity you will certainly get the best training available as a part of the Pure Team. Learn more about becoming a part of our team here!

How To Build A Great Sales Culture.

Sales organizations invest time and money into building strong cultures. They read books on why culture eats strategy for lunch, hold team-building events and listen to pundits touting the value of culture. But, I think corporations in Britain are making this too difficult.  Building a great sales culture might be as simple as instilling one daily habit:  the habit of gratitude.

Are you rolling your eyes? Don’t, and instead, pay attention to a study published last year in the Journal of Positive Psychology. Researchers tracked the lives of gratitude in more than 500 adolescents. Not surprisingly, the study revealed that the more gratitude they showed, the stronger the relationships with their peers. Their positive dispositions make them more attractive and likeable. Incorporate more gratitude into your sales culture and you’ll build better cultures.

Grateful people are likeable people, and likeability is at the core of building trust and relationships, internal and external, which is good for business.

When you demonstrate or receive gratitude, it activates the reward center of the brain releasing the feel-good hormone of dopamine.  And this hormone is the same hormone that causes people to overeat and overdrink. So let’s use dopamine for good.

Hard-charging sales managers, take a timeout. Apply the EQ skill of self-awareness and see if you are acknowledging what your sales teams is doing well. If you are like most Type A personalities (I am speaking to the choir), you probably have a tendency to focus on fixing problems, rather than recognizing what’s working well. Speak to, NOT email, members of your sales team, and acknowledge them for their efforts, great attitudes and willingness to go the extra mile.

Salespeople, you also can take a timeout. Thank the departments in your organization that make sales happen. Yes, I know, you bring in the business. But other departments often service the sale after the sale, send invoices or ship the product, which retains business. Write a note of gratitude. Instead of going to lunch with a peer, treat a member from another department.  Give your colleagues a dopamine bump today!

I promise you that no one goes home and complains about being overappreciated!

If you want to build great sales cultures, it might be as simple as a daily dose of gratitude.  Make it your new sales key performance metric.

Knowledge Is Power When It Comes To Sales.

Why Leading With Education Is Important.

A lot of our sales reps initially think they need to be “fast talking salesmen” to close sales, however, that isn’t really the case. The more you come across as someone who is trying to be helpful (i.e. a messenger of good news), the more sales you will make.

One of the best ways to do this is to lead with educating your potential customer about your products and services and positioning them in a way that can help them. People do business with those they trust and that are a credible source on what it is they are promoting.

When you lead with education and teaching your prospect about your product or service, it positions you as an expert in your field. People want to buy from people who know what they are talking about, and when they feel like you know more than they do, this can help you to close more sales.

How Can Having Extensive Product Knowledge Help You Close More Sales?

There is another reason why having extensive product knowledge can help you close more sales, and that is being able to customize your value build and service explanation specifically for your potential customer’s needs.

For example, if you were marketing pest control and your potential customer had an ant issue, the more you know about ants and the products and techniques used to treat for ants, the more you come across as an expert in your field.

The more confidence your potential customer has in you, the more likely they are to buy from you. You also avoid the dreaded, ‘Yes-Sir’ ‘No-Sir’ mistake by agreeing with your prospects because you don’t know any better.

When you educate while you sell, especially during the value build, this positions you as an expert and establishes credibility. It also makes your potential customer feel listened to and that you really care about them.

Having extensive product knowledge will also allow you to spot and diagnose problems much easier and offer a solution. One of the best ways to qualify a prospect is to see they have an issue that your products and services can help with.

If you have extensive product knowledge and industry knowledge it will be much easier for you to identify potential needs for your product and service, rather than relying on a potential customer admitting to having a problem.

The more you know about your products and services the easier it will be to sell your products without needing to be a fast talking, pushy salesperson.

If you happen to be considering a new sales opportunity you will certainly get the best training available as a part of the Pure Events Team. Learn more about becoming a part of our team here!