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Lessons in How to Close the Sale Put a Premium on Open Dialogue

Local sales coaches and consultants are making it their mission to help professionals rethink and fine-tune sales strategies in the midst of a terrible recession that has shattered bottom lines and slowed accounts receivable.

Sales trainers such as Darren Cecil, president of San Diego Sales Inc. as a unit of the Sandler Systems Inc. network, and Flannery Sales Systems founder John E. Flannery share their strategies for achievement in two-day intensive training sessions to semester-length courses, with reinforcements and tuneups included.

“The recession has enhanced the search for training,” Cecil said. “Two years ago, a lot of salespeople were really order-takers and now salespeople have to become more creative and be much more than order-takers.”

Virtually every business has felt the sharp economic pains. And people who want their business to thrive need to understand how to better deal with their clients’ concerns, according to Flannery.

“There’s never been more scrutiny on capital and operating costs than right now,” he said. “Credit has dried up, receivables are out longer than ever before, and no one knows when it will end.”

Working Harder for Sales

Like many, many other professions, the sales ranks have been crushed by the recession’s brute force, and those still working are working very hard for their commissions.

The pool of customers and potential customers is smaller and those that remain are making people work harder for sales.

“Salespeople find they are looking at potential customers who have (obtained) three bids,” said Jim Dunn, co-founder of San Diego-based Whetstone Group. “Some customers are looking for a better deal from their current vendor and the salesperson helps them get it.”

With all that pressure, some of the advice from Dunn is a little surprising.

“We try to get people to not think about the sale and commission, to be accepting of the idea that ‘no’ is OK,” Dunn said. “We should be thinking of ourselves as problem solvers, not as product pushers.”

Sales training is very tightly focused these days. While the Sandler program works on process, Flannery and Whetstone take different approaches to developing a meaningful conversation with potential customers.

Cecil offers Sandler Training, a franchised program that is designed to give sales managers and business managers the tools to help them select good salespeople and then monitor and support them, and a teaching method that relies on ongoing reinforcement of the basic tenets: Listen to the customers and figure out what they need.

“Salespeople often talk 70 percent of the time,” he said. “We teach them to listen 70 percent of the time.

“Salespeople tend to have a high need for approval — they don’t ask tough questions because they want to be liked,” he added. “The hiring process for salespeople is difficult because the candidates look good on paper, they interview well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they sell well.”

Cecil counts SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, the San Diego Padres, American Express Co. and Qualcomm Inc. among his clients. In 2003, he trained 4,000 people for customer service for Super Bowl XXXVII, and he realized he wanted to add sales training expertise to his already healthy consulting business.

Creating Good Conversations

Dunn of the Whetstone Group hosts two-day sales boot camps, including one scheduled in September. He also travels regularly to train corporate sales executives, particularly in the banking and real estate sectors.

One area where Dunn sees people need wisdom is in qualifying opportunities more effectively, under the “no is OK” theory.

“At the beginning, there should be an information exchange to see if there’s a fit,” Dunn said. “We are about the dialogue between the buyer and seller, how to have good conversations throughout the transaction so it really does benefit both the buyer and the seller.”

He also teaches a 12-week Common Sense Selling class that emphasizes defining the sales process and establishing a dialogue with potential customers. Dunn also works with managers to provide tools that reinforce the sales process they’ve perfected.

Flannery leads his trademarked CustomerCentric Selling Workshops throughout the world, including upcoming seminars in Barcelona, Spain; Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco. His firm offers tools and technology that guide salespeople through the process of selling, a process that the system seeks to define at the outset.

Following Through to Get Results

Calling between meetings with a Fortune 500 company in Boston, Flannery said that his methods go beyond training.

“Training doesn’t drive results, what drives results is implementation,” he said. “I focus on how people who go through training implement it, to build the steps they’ve learned into an implementation plan.”

He works mainly with life sciences companies, although his background is with the wireless industry.

“Companies spend millions of dollars on information about their products as tools for their salespeople,” he said. “I try to help them figure out what the customer will do with the product.

“Asking relevant questions and listening to the answers, sincerely and competently following up and delivering,” are the most critical skills, he said. “Relying on relationships has suffered. Regardless of that birthday card, if someone finds a better solution, the relationship won’t hold the customer.”

At Dale Carnegie Training, Jim Perdomo begs to differ.

“This is a consultative business. If people feel good about you and trust you, the business will come,” he said. “It’s relationship-based to say let’s see if we have a match here. It’s not pushy.”

Among the skills he teaches, Perdomo coaches people to keep a conversation with a prospect going long enough to see if there may be a fit sometime in the future.

“You should have a power question, like: ‘If the economy were to turn around, would you consider investing in this specific thing then?’ ” Perdomo said. “You always position clients into the future because you can count on change. If you’re not prepared for change you can have real problems.”

Perdomo teaches a concrete series of steps to make the conversation meaningful to the customer by focusing on their needs.

“We teach the steps — every step,” he said. “You have to practice it and fine-tune it. We have top salespeople out there who do just that by coming back from time to time.”

Marty Graham is a freelance writer for the San Diego Business Journal.

Sales trainers such as Darren Cecil, president of San Diego Sales Inc. as a unit of the Sandler Systems Inc. network, and Flannery Sales Systems founder John E. Flannery share their strategies for achievement in two-day intensive training sessions to semester-length courses, with reinforcements and tuneups included.

“The recession has enhanced the search for training,” Cecil said. “Two years ago, a lot of salespeople were really order-takers and now salespeople have to become more creative and be much more than order-takers.”

Virtually every business has felt the sharp economic pains. And people who want their business to thrive need to understand how to better deal with their clients’ concerns, according to Flannery.

“There’s never been more scrutiny on capital and operating costs than right now,” he said. “Credit has dried up, receivables are out longer than ever before, and no one knows when it will end.”

Working Harder for Sales

Like many, many other professions, the sales ranks have been crushed by the recession’s brute force, and those still working are working very hard for their commissions.

The pool of customers and potential customers is smaller and those that remain are making people work harder for sales.

“Salespeople find they are looking at potential customers who have (obtained) three bids,” said Jim Dunn, co-founder of San Diego-based Whetstone Group. “Some customers are looking for a better deal from their current vendor and the salesperson helps them get it.”

With all that pressure, some of the advice from Dunn is a little surprising.

“We try to get people to not think about the sale and commission, to be accepting of the idea that ‘no’ is OK,” Dunn said. “We should be thinking of ourselves as problem solvers, not as product pushers.”

Sales training is very tightly focused these days. While the Sandler program works on process, Flannery and Whetstone take different approaches to developing a meaningful conversation with potential customers.

Cecil offers Sandler Training, a franchised program that is designed to give sales managers and business managers the tools to help them select good salespeople and then monitor and support them, and a teaching method that relies on ongoing reinforcement of the basic tenets: Listen to the customers and figure out what they need.

“Salespeople often talk 70 percent of the time,” he said. “We teach them to listen 70 percent of the time.

“Salespeople tend to have a high need for approval — they don’t ask tough questions because they want to be liked,” he added. “The hiring process for salespeople is difficult because the candidates look good on paper, they interview well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they sell well.”

Cecil counts SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, the San Diego Padres, American Express Co. and Qualcomm Inc. among his clients. In 2003, he trained 4,000 people for customer service for Super Bowl XXXVII, and he realized he wanted to add sales training expertise to his already healthy consulting business.

Creating Good Conversations

Dunn of the Whetstone Group hosts two-day sales boot camps, including one scheduled in September. He also travels regularly to train corporate sales executives, particularly in the banking and real estate sectors.

One area where Dunn sees people need wisdom is in qualifying opportunities more effectively, under the “no is OK” theory.

“At the beginning, there should be an information exchange to see if there’s a fit,” Dunn said. “We are about the dialogue between the buyer and seller, how to have good conversations throughout the transaction so it really does benefit both the buyer and the seller.”

He also teaches a 12-week Common Sense Selling class that emphasizes defining the sales process and establishing a dialogue with potential customers. Dunn also works with managers to provide tools that reinforce the sales process they’ve perfected.

Flannery leads his trademarked CustomerCentric Selling Workshops throughout the world, including upcoming seminars in Barcelona, Spain; Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco. His firm offers tools and technology that guide salespeople through the process of selling, a process that the system seeks to define at the outset.

Following Through to Get Results

Calling between meetings with a Fortune 500 company in Boston, Flannery said that his methods go beyond training.

“Training doesn’t drive results, what drives results is implementation,” he said. “I focus on how people who go through training implement it, to build the steps they’ve learned into an implementation plan.”

He works mainly with life sciences companies, although his background is with the wireless industry.

“Companies spend millions of dollars on information about their products as tools for their salespeople,” he said. “I try to help them figure out what the customer will do with the product.

“Asking relevant questions and listening to the answers, sincerely and competently following up and delivering,” are the most critical skills, he said. “Relying on relationships has suffered. Regardless of that birthday card, if someone finds a better solution, the relationship won’t hold the customer.”

At Dale Carnegie Training, Jim Perdomo begs to differ.

“This is a consultative business. If people feel good about you and trust you, the business will come,” he said. “It’s relationship-based to say let’s see if we have a match here. It’s not pushy.”

Among the skills he teaches, Perdomo coaches people to keep a conversation with a prospect going long enough to see if there may be a fit sometime in the future.

“You should have a power question, like: ‘If the economy were to turn around, would you consider investing in this specific thing then?’ ” Perdomo said. “You always position clients into the future because you can count on change. If you’re not prepared for change you can have real problems.”

Perdomo teaches a concrete series of steps to make the conversation meaningful to the customer by focusing on their needs.

“We teach the steps — every step,” he said. “You have to practice it and fine-tune it. We have top salespeople out there who do just that by coming back from time to time.”

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