GET MORE SALES

I love sales training. I also love listening to sales trainers speak. They radiate enthusiasm and motivation that ignites passion for excellence. The methods they teach are often of the highest quality, however, they are usually no longer in the business of sales. Their marketing methods tend to be old, and old marketing styles are as useful as an airplane with no wings.

That doesn’t mean the airplane wouldn’t work if it had wings. We can give wings to old methods by integrating new twists and spins on classic marketing. Successful businesses, however, learn to recognize several common myths that some sales training continues to teach.

Some sales training teaches that you just have to “get more people in front of your offer” or “make twice as many calls and you’ll double the results” or even “just pump up the numbers.”

All of these sayings are catch-phrases for “work harder”, and nobody likes to do that. These three phrases are circulated everywhere and it really makes me sad to see so many people working so hard and then even harder but still getting weak results. This is how people burn out and give up on sales and marketing.

There is a better way. Instead of increasing the number of people who see your offer, how about pre-qualifying the people who see your offer? I choose only to work with highly-qualified prospects. Time is too valuable to spend with somebody who has little or no interest in your widget or service. Make people qualify themselves to be worthy of your attention.

You need to become an expert, and ultimately a mentor. If you aren’t able to bring real value and additional benefits to your prospects honestly, then you may be better off running a casino where people expect to be cheated. To be successful in sales, you are the most important asset. You need to become the gold mine of benefits to your prospects so they will buy more often and at higher prices.

Prospects aren’t going to give you a big wad of cash for a little list of benefits. Price needs to be just and fair, but your prospect needs to understand the full benefits before price is even mentioned. You should compare your benefits to others who charge more for less. At that point your prospect cannot complain about price because your offer is clearly superior to the competition and they will not only buy from you but refer their associates who also want that same stack of benefits.

Sales and marketing is simply a battle of perceptions in the mind of your prospects. Become the best in your field, and the best prospects will come to you without your cold calls, direct mail, newspaper ads, or pay-per-click ads. They will seek you out, and all you have to do is be available and be honest. Your karma will shoot through the roof (on the positive side) and you will have everything you wanted because you helped others get what they wanted.

Tyler James Ellison
http://www.articlesbase.com/sales-articles/overcoming-three-big-sales-myths-110802.html

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I remember years ago hearing from a phone trainer from Belgium, in his heavy French accent, “If you live off the floor, you’ll die off the floor”. He was right.
People will RV, and thank goodness there is nothing we can do to stop them. Part of our problem today is that there is not a lot of them coming in the front door. Don’t get, or stay, discouraged. Remember the harder we work the luckier we’ll get. I know that the sales and money are available to us if we just know where to look.

Diggin’ for Gold.
California is Gold Country and I enjoy prospecting as a hobby. Unfortunately, I get to use the analogy more than I get to go out actually looking for gold anymore but… Prospecting for gold is an art and a science, combined with hard work. You could just pack up your shovel, pan, sluice box and a strong back, head into the hills or a river and start digging. But more than likely you’ll end up with a sore back and an empty pan. Or you could do some research first. Discover where gold might actually be. Understand what geological features of the land to look for. Go where gold has already been found. Listen to people who prospect. (Don’t ask them where the gold is, they won’t tell you. Just let them talk…there’s a lesson there.)
We do all this, before we even pick up the shovel. You see, I don’t mind getting dirty. I just want to do it with a Purpose in mind and maximize my return.

So where is the “Gold” in the RV business. Well, like prospectors during the gold rush, many times it’s laying right at our feet. 3 key markets to look at are.

1. Repeat Business
2. Referral Business
3. Service Drive

Let’s look at the facts:
1. Repeat Business.
Math doesn’t lie. If someone bought an RV, there is a good chance at some point they will buy another. The average time for someone to trade in their RV is around 39 months depending on where you are. If you’re relatively new to the RV business and you have not built your customer base yet, there are still ways to tap this market.
If you have been in the RV business for a couple of years you should be taping this now. If you have been in for several years you should be taking, (or waiting for), very few walk in customers.
Do your own math. Find out how many RV’s you have sold during your career. Most sales people don’t know. After the deal rolls we maybe, maybe call the customer to make sure they are happy and that’s about it. I know as well as you do that it is all about “the deal today” but if I don’t continue to stay in contact with my sold customers I have placed my own self imposed limits as to their value to me, and my income. If we work smart, we “create” be backs, not hope we will get one. Customers trading in quickly is not unusual. I’ve seen it happen the same day. I’ve seen customers buy and trade 3 units within 6 weeks! Stop thinking that “you would never do that”, “you” are not buying anything. “They” are…let them.

Find out today how many RV’s you have sold at your dealership. Managers, get the sales people the info. If you have been with your dealership for a few years you may be shocked to learn what that number is. Say you sell 5 units a month. That’s 60 a year and you’ve been with your dealership for say, 4 years. That’s 240 sold customers.
240 buyers who liked you, believed you, listened to you, and trusted you. Now ask yourself when was the last time you called any of them? It’s not about the floor traffic…it’s about our attitude and work habits.
If you’re new to RV sales, get a list of orphan owners. Orphan owners are previously sold customers whos salesperson no longer works for the dealership. How big is that list? At one of my in house training dealers they estimated they had over 30,000. Most with no salesperson attached to them.
You work hard for your deals. How would you like to work half as hard for the next one, and make more money?

2. Referral Business.
How do you get referrals? ASK
Ask and ye shall receive.
Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and the door shall be answered.

I don’t make this stuff up! It never ceases to amaze me what people will do if you ask.
So who do you ask for referrals from? Everybody.
When do you ask for referrals? All the time.

I run a web video production company as well as my sales training company.
It started from me doing my own personal videos for training and marketing purposes.
A friend of mine in a different industry saw what I was doing and asked me to do some work for him. Not only did I take the job, but I did it for free. I owed this man, for many reasons. He’s one of my mentors. Someone I would trust with anything or anyone.
This type of human association is worth more than all the gold in the world. More on mentors another time but suffice to say this person did not come into my life by accident.
It felt good to repay his guidance with hard work, a good product and good service.
He has since sent so much business my way I can barely keep up. He has put our business on the map. Now the clients he has referred to us, have begun sending us referrals as well.
We don’t have to look for any clients. We do good work, provide a good service, provide tremendous value, and they just keep coming. I am a firm believer in referrals.
I spoke at the RV Dealers Association Convention this year, because of referrals.

You see it doesn’t matter if your customer buys from you or not, or if they qualify or not.
None of these have anything to do with asking for referrals.
If they buy, tell them thank you, and ask them for referrals.
If they don’t buy, tell them thank you for coming, and ask for referrals.
If they can’t buy, tell them your sorry, and ask for referrals.

I’ve been in the RV business for a long time so here’s a little truth.
I don’t care what other trainers have told you.
I remember going to classes and they would talk about asking for referrals and tell me most everyone would give me a referral. I remember thinking, what planet are you on?
Most people will not give you a referral. Get over it.
I come from the RV sales line and did very well and I know most people won’t cough up a name and number, period. Setting unrealistic and unachievable goals is foolish.
Your job is to ASK EVERYONE. The right way.
Some will, some won’t, so what, next. The few you will get will be worth all the no’s you will ever get.
Referrals have a higher closing ratio ( 6 times the walk in customer ) and usually decent gross profits as well. A warm relationship, an appointment coming in, beats a fresh up any day of the week. It is usually not just an easier sale, but a more pleasant experience for you and the customer alike.
I personally know a salesperson who sells 5+ motorhomes per month without taking any ups because of repeat and referrals alone. He got in one dealership and stayed there.
Check out our Phone Skills PowerPoint Video Training to get more repeat and referral customers with high quality phone skills.

3. Service Drive
This is an untapped gold mine. If you have a service department talk to your sales or service manager and ask how many customers come through the drive in a month.
Depending on the size of your dealership and how long the dealership has been in business, it is not unusual for me to hear numbers like 200-400 per month. Yours maybe more or less but that is not the point. The point is who is out there. Qualified buyers, that’s who’s out there.
Figure out, realistically, how many customers you could touch in the service department per month. As an individual salesperson, taking out the weekends, then your week days you are off. You have about 2-3 days per week to do this. Go meet 1-2 people each day.
You have the time. I know it, you know it. Take action and watch what happens.

Let’s say you meet 5 new people per week. Remember, all you need to do is offer someone a cup of coffee and start a conversation with open ended questions. That’s 20 opportunities per month or 240 opportunities a year you got because you stayed away from the updesk, got off the internet, stopped texting your buddy (who doesn’t pay your bills) etc. If I gave you 240 more opportunities, qualified RV owners, do you think you would make a larger income? The closing ratio on these types of customers is high but let’s say that it was typical of a walk in customer, 10%. That’s 24 deals per year.
Now you do the math. How much is your average voucher times 24? Probably between $8,000 and $25,000 per year. And that is just the service drive.
We didn’t even count the money from repeat and referral business. We do this in our sales training classes in more detail

If you know what you are doing in RV sales you could make a living and rarely take an up.
Work smart and eliminate the frustration. The RV business, regardless of our present temporary economic condition, is a great business that will allow you to take care of yourself and your family, if you Sell On Purpose. If you focus and take action, you just got a big raise.

May the bottom of your pan…. always be yellow.
(That means filled with gold for you city folk

Now Go Sell Something!

Chuck Morgan
http://www.articlesbase.com/sales-articles/how-to-generate-sales-and-income-when-floor-traffic-is-down-part2-742892.html

*** 6 CDs and Interactive Workbook *** Visualization has helped millions of people achieve goals. And it can be the most powerful tool for achievement you have ever used. It gives you the power to identify the obliterate roadblocks to progress. It makes your path to success so real that you can almost feel it, hear it, smell it, as well as see it in the minds eye. Testimonials from those trained in visualization come from all walks of life. From salespeople whose bottom lines have improved year after year. From managers whose professional standings have continued to rise. And from athletes whose championship dreams have come true. But knowing the many benefits of visualizationhearing the inspiring stories of achievement and glorydoes not translate into doing it for yourselfseeing your own successful future. Training in visualization has only been available from experts in sports psychology and personal trainers. It has never been available in any easy-to-learn self-training system. Until now. In this ground-breaking audio program, Dr. Lee Pulos demonstrates and explains this amazing technology for personal change. Here are the keys to making it work in goal achievement, sales, sports, or even in maintaining your healthwherever personal challenges need to be met. Listen as Dr. Pulos instructs you how to: Utilize the six types of visualization Discover the power of image streaming Boost your energy Increase your capacity for self-healing Raise your self-esteem Create a spiral of success in your life Whether it is for decision making, problem solving, heightening creativity or controlling a specific behavior, The Power of Visualization can transform your life. Let Dr. Lee Pulos teach you that, truly, seeing is achieving.

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Sales courses and sales training is necessary in today’s informative and competitive environment. With every investment, there is a cost and a return. An investment in sales courses and sales training for your staff is no different. Sales training without a return on your investment may benefit your staff when they need credentials for a new job, but it won’t benefit your company. Sales courses must be chosen with an eye for return.

Investment in sales courses and sales training for your staff demonstrates that you are committed to the betterment of your company and your staff. However, if you choose sales courses and sales training programs that give little credence to your sales staff’s current knowledge and abilities, your sales training motivations will falter into resentment from your staff. Sales course content that is merely a reiteration of the staff’s current knowledge is wasted investment and will be received with deaf ears. Involving the sales team in the efforts places of sense of ownership of the sales training results, which further motivates the sales team to apply the training they have received to effectuate change. Benchmark your sales before training, and track sales for a year or two after the sales training. Training applied is ROI earned.

If you want to see a return on your investment into sales courses and sales training for your staff, involve your staff in course evaluation and selection, evaluate sales courses on their own merits and compare them to your objectives, consider long-term results of training, follow-up on the training, and consider the company’s financial expense involved with the training investment.

Determine whether individual sales training or group training offers a higher return. If the needs of your sales force members starkly contrast with one another, individual training would be more effective. If consistency is imperative, group training will be more profitable. In each scenario, be sure to evaluate salaries and any decrease in sales for the day. In many cases, an office can run more efficiently when individual training sessions are granted rather than group training sessions. Whether you are investing in sales courses and sales training for individual training sessions or group training sessions, consider the costs of location, travel, gas and lunch reimbursement.

When you choose sales courses and sales training for your team, look for value-added benefits. Sales courses may offer sales training follow-up as a value-added benefit. Many sales courses offer train-the-trainer sessions, saving your company from the expense of repeating the sales courses and sales training for new employees. If you have a fast promotional system or a high turnover, a train-the-trainer program can offer substantial savings and benefit and increase your ROI. Ensure that the sales training courses will train your sales staff with material that can be applied continuously throughout their career with your company.

Sales courses and sales training can offer a high return on your training investment if careful consideration is given to need, objective, input, selection, follow-up and expense Sales training is an avenue for continuous company improvement. Continuous company improvement is imperative in today’s fast moving business climate. Smart investing in sales force training will give your company a competitive advantage and keep your sales in the fast lane.

Lina Smith
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/sales-courses-and-sales-training-investment-and-cost-720994.html