The Ultimate Guide to Sales Training: Potent Tactics to Accelerate Sales Performance

The Ultimate Guide to Sales Training: Potent Tactics to Accelerate Sales Performance

Released February 2012
Publisher(s): Pfeiffer
ISBN: 9780470900000

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Book description

The Ultimate Guide to Sales Training is the go-to reference for sales managers, sales trainers, sales coaches, and sales consultants who want to increase a sales force's productivity by using these proven techniques:

  • Building Mental Flexibility

  • Anchoring Concepts for Easy Recall

  • Encouraging Behavioral Change

Covering a wide range of topics, The Ultimate Guide to Sales Training shows how to develop a selling system, prospect effectively, and qualify and disqualify prospects. The book also covers information on using power questioning techniques, handling objections, and includes solution selling guidelines and ideas for creating and delivering potent presentation practices. In addition, the author covers such hot topics as managing reps attitudes and how to close the sale. He also includes suggestions for overcoming buyer resistance and making change occur as well as getting beyond barriers that block decision-makers, and much, much more.

Praise for The Ultimate Sales Training Handbook

"This book should be on the desk of every sales manager and sales trainer. Dan Seidman created a treasure chest of ideas, concepts, skills-sets and motivation tools that are ready to be converted into cash."

—Gerhard Gschwandtner, founder and publisher, Selling Power Magazine

"Sales professionals throughout the world will discover performance improvement through this training encyclopedia. Dan Seidman is helping make sales training a major strategic driver for all organizations."

—Tony Bingham, president and CEO, ASTD

"Each chapter just might be the one piece that plugs the gap in your team's performance. Dan is truly earning the title Trainer to the World's Sales Trainers."

—Willis Turner, CAE CSE, president and CEO, of Sales & Marketing Executives International

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. About This Book
    1. Why Is This Topic Important?
    2. What Can You Achieve with This Book?
    3. How Is This Book Organized?
  3. About Pfeiffer
  4. About the American Society for Training & Development
  5. Dedication
  6. Title page
  7. Copyright
  8. Foreword
  9. Preface
    1. Build Mental Flexibility
    2. Anchor Concepts for Easy Recall
    3. Encourage Behavioral Change
  10. Chapter 1 How to Use This Sales Training Resource for Optimal Results
    1. Who Can Benefit from This Book
    2. Complex vs. Simple Sales
    3. Book Structure and Approach
    4. What This Book Is Not
    5. How Training Pros Prepare to Train Sale Pros
    6. Quick Sales Training Preparation Tips
    7. Teach Concepts to Sales Pros
  11. Part One: Preparing the Sales Pro to Sell
    1. Chapter 2 What Makes a World Class Sales Pro: Selling the Value
      1. Imagine Your Future as a World Class Sales Pro
    2. Chapter 3 The Many, Many Values of a Selling System
      1. Great Sales Professionals Can Predict the Future
      2. Twelve Reasons That Systems Make Your Life Easier
    3. Chapter 4 Competitive Intelligence and Prospect Research
      1. How to Obtain Valuable Research Data
      2. Where to Obtain Data
    4. Chapter 5 Potent Communication Skills
      1. Communication Skills
      2. Buyers’ Beliefs About Communication Skills
    5. Chapter 6 Buyers’ Behavior and Decision-Making Strategy
      1. Gender Differences
      2. Personal or Social Styles
      3. Motivation and Decision-Making Preferences
      4. How Buyers Manage Their Buying Process
      5. Use of Emotion in Influencing Buyers
    6. Chapter 7 Potent Proposals
      1. Do Your Proposals Allow Prospects to Steal Your Brainpower?
      2. Final Thoughts on the Dangers of Proposal Preparation
      3. Quality Contracts That Close Business
      4. The Most Expensive Writers in the World
    7. Chapter 8 Pre-Work for the Sales Call
      1. Pre-Work Questions
  12. Part Two: Training the Sales Pro to Sell
    1. Chapter 9 Establishing Rapport
      1. Matching
      2. Pacing
      3. Leading
    2. Chapter 10 Prospecting
      1. Three Thoughts on the Impact of Lousy Leads
      2. Become a Lead Generation Genius
      3. Prospecting Through Electronic and Print Resources
    3. Chapter 11 Opening the First Meeting
      1. A Psychologically Sound Strategy to Open Sales Calls
      2. The Big Bonus When Using an Opening Strategy
      3. Advantages of Behavior Contracts
    4. Chapter 12 Qualifying and Disqualifying Prospects
      1. Concept: Don’t Chase Poor Prospects!
      2. Create a Profile of the Perfect Prospect
      3. Craft Questions to Determine Whether a Prospect Fits Your Profile
      4. Relentlessly Turn Your Back on Those Who Don’t Fit!
    5. Chapter 13 Bypassing Gatekeepers
      1. Concept: Turn Walls into Windows
      2. Gatekeeper Strategies
    6. Chapter 14 Power Questions
      1. Using Power Questions to Advance the Sale Toward the Close
      2. Reasons for Questions
      3. Rules for Questions
      4. Categories of Questions
    7. Chapter 15 Practicing Listening Skills
      1. Why People Are Poor Listeners
      2. Keys to Good Listening
      3. What to Listen For
      4. Exercises to Develop Great Listening Skills
    8. Chapter 16 The Ultimate Objection-Handling Tool
      1. The Top Six Objections
      2. Potent Response Models
      3. Finding Your Voice
      4. Basic Rules for Handling Objections
    9. Chapter 17 Solution- Versus Consequence-Centered Selling
      1. Two Distinct Buyer Types
      2. How to Script a Conversation for Each Type
      3. The Magic Question to Identify Type of Buyer
    10. Chapter 18 Practicing Presentation Skills
      1. Structure Your Presentation
      2. Prepare and Rehearse
      3. Deliver the Sales Presentation of a Lifetime
    11. Chapter 19 Closing
      1. What the Buyer and Seller Are Experiencing
      2. Closing as a Natural End to the Sales Process
      3. Types of Closes
    12. Chapter 20 Debriefing the Call
      1. Seven Agenda Items for the Debriefing
    13. Chapter 21 Following Up After the Sale
      1. Connect Constantly
    14. Chapter 22 Up-Selling and Cross-Selling
      1. Up-Selling and Cross-Selling
  13. Part Three: Training the Sales Pro to Improve Performance
    1. Chapter 23 Daily Performance Tips
      1. Tips to Push You Past the Top
      2. Energy Management
      3. Time Management
      4. Personal Productivity
      5. Bonus Tip: No Excuses!
    2. Chapter 24 Know Your Numbers
      1. Numbers Worth Knowing
      2. How to Start at the Finish Line and Back Up to Be a Winner
    3. Chapter 25 Finding and Utilizing Mentors
      1. Find a Mentor
      2. Be a Mentor
    4. Chapter 26 Ten Keys to Working a Trade Show
      1. Ten Problems at Trade Shows and the Keys to Dealing with Them
    5. Chapter 27 Negotiating for Sales Pros
      1. Two Negotiation Models
      2. Tips and Techniques for Negotiating
    6. Chapter 28 Mental Health for Sales Pros
      1. Head Health, the Power of Self-Talk, and Much, Much More
    7. Chapter 29 Ethics for Sales Pros
      1. The Need for an Ethical Selling Framework
      2. A Definition of Ethics
      3. Why Sales Ethics Are Important
      4. The Case for an Ethical Code
      5. Areas of Responsibility in Selling
      6. Named Stakeholders in the Selling Context
      7. The Ethics Triad®
      8. Building Trust and Credibility in the Selling Context
      9. Legal Concerns of Sales Stakeholders
      10. Professional Ethics Framework
      11. The Company Ethical Code
      12. Ethical Challenges and Case Studies
  14. Part Four: Re-Creating Your Training Experience: Key Concerns
    1. Chapter 30 Redesigning Your Existing Sales Training
      1. The CAT Scan Diagnostic Tool
      2. Content
      3. Architecture
      4. Trainer
    2. Chapter 31 Buy It, Don’t Build It
      1. Yin and Yang Selling
      2. How Effective Is Your Sales Approach
    3. Chapter 32 Sales Contests Connected to Training
      1. How to Build a Great Incentive Program for Your Sales Pros
      2. Incentive, Recognition, and Performance Improvement Programs
      3. Incentives vs. Recognition
      4. Key Elements of Successful Programs
      5. Cash vs. Non-Cash Awards
      6. Common Mistakes with Incentive and Recognition Programs
    4. Chapter 33 Reps You Should Not Be Training
      1. Training Is Not Always the Answer
      2. Assessment of Sales Aptitude
    5. Chapter 34 What’s Missing from This Book
      1. What’s Been Left Out
      2. Three Unique Topics for the Future
    6. Chapter 35 A Critical Trend You Can’t Ignore
      1. Simulated Sales Calls
      2. The Greatest Challenges and Opportunities for the Sales Forces of the Future: Executive Summary
      3. The Professional Salesperson of the Future
      4. The Problem
      5. The Opportunity
  15. Part Five: Appendices
    1. Appendix 1: The Ultimate Sales Training Website/Blog
    2. Appendix 2: Websites of Books, Companies, and Associations in This Book
    3. Appendix 3: The Most Interesting Man in the (Sales) World
  16. References
  17. About the Author
  18. Got Influence?
    1. Unique Programs and Keynotes
  19. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Training: Potent Tactics to Accelerate Sales Performance
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: February 2012
  • Publisher(s): Pfeiffer
  • ISBN: 9780470900000