2.What type of training have you provided to your direct staff, where, when, and why?

3.What have you done to build the competence of your staff?

4.You are a Sales Manager with 15 Sales Representatives reporting to you, is there a link between your success and their success? Please explain;

5.Two employees come to you about a verbal disagreement. One says the incident happened one way, and the other employee has a different story. There are no other witnesses. What will you do?

Please guys give me answers not instructions

thanks in advance

Since I didn’t take much interest in what he was pitching (he shoved his business card into my hand) I watched and listened as he did that with several other people he met.

Sure, we all know we should ask questions. But the effort is wasted if they’re not asked in the right way, or you don’t listen to the answers.

++++++++KEY SALES POINT+++++++
When a listener hears a question, their mind immediately is conditioned to begin searching for answers. However, when several questions are posed in rapid-fire sequence, you leave the person confused as to which one they should answer first. And, some questions are not answered at all if you don’t give them an opportunity.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For example, read this scenario without stopping to think about each question, as if you were the person hearing the questions:

Caller: "And what do you feel your company needs most regarding boosting morale and enthusiasm? Do you think it would be compensation related… or maybe training? And how does that affect performance in all of the departments?"

Did you feel like a spinning top, rotating around trying to focus on the questions coming from all directions? Same thing happens with prospect and customers.

EFFECTIVE QUESTIONING GUIDELINES
1. Ask one question at a time. If it’s not important enough to stand on its own, don’t ask it.

2. After you ask it, shut up. If they don’t answer immediately, resist the urge to answer it for them or follow up with another one. They’re likely thinking about what they’re going to say.

3. After they apparently have finished, remain quiet for 1-2 more seconds. You might get additional information, and ensures you don’t interrupt.

4. Follow-up their answer with a related question. Don’t ping-pong around from subject to subject. For example, if they answered with, "I believe the main problem we have right now is a lack of motivation," a logical next query would be, "Oh, what are some specific situations where you’ve seen a lack of motivation?"

5. Be confident in your questioning. One reason people ask multiple questions is that they aren’t comfortable asking questions. The only way you’re going to truly help someone is by finding out about them. You’re not intruding. You’re assisting.

Fielding multiple questions is confusing for the listener, and counter-productive for you. Ask one at a time, and listen!

Art

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View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog

View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog

Successful Sales Calls Have 25% More Open-Ended Questions.

Second, your questions help customers make their first key buying decision, which is whether to buy you, the salesperson. Questions build rapport and demonstrate your interest in the customer. They uncover information about the customer’s needs, who to call on, the decision-making time frame, your competition and how the customer will make a decision.

When you ask the “best” questions, customers will view you as a consultant with their best interests in mind.

Third, questions help you manage the sales call. You can control the conversation and differentiate yourself from competitors by being the best listener.

But merely asking questions isn’t enough. You need to ask “The Best Questions.” For example, asking questions that draw out needs for your product’s strengths can position you as the best or only solution for the customer’s needs.

In The Field:

Asking “The Best Sales Questions” allow you to uncover your customer’s real needs and meet them with the right solution. A sales representative from WESCO International, Inc., a $4 billion electrical equipment provider, used this selling technique learned through Action Selling Sales Training to do just that.

Great questions helped the sales rep land a new account on the first call. By zeroing in on the key needs behind a contractor’s stated requirements, he was able to craft a bid that matched those needs exactly. He won the business (a $77,000 order) and opened the door for future opportunities.

Duane Sparks is founder of The Sales Board, a Minneapolis-based sales training company that has trained and certified more than 200,000 salespeople. Please visit our Sales Training Site or call us at 800-232-3485.

In other words, leverage questions are queries that allow the salesperson to find out, from the buyer’s perspective, “What’s really in it for me?” This tells the salesperson which needs are most critical to address when presenting product features and benefits. What’s more, by clarifying the actual stakes of the decision in the customer’s mind, leverage questions serve to “turn up the emotional heat,” making the expected gains even more desirable to the buyer.

Leverage questions turn up the heat by clarifying what’s at stake for the buyer, not just the seller.

As you ask open-ended questions to investigate a customer’s needs, you will come upon some needs that seem to have a particular urgency. Whenever you suspect this is the case, ask a leverage question to confirm your hunch and clarify the situation. Examples of leverage questions: “How has this problem affected your company?” “How has it affected you, personally?” “What are the consequences if the problem continues?” “How are your customers affected?” “What opportunities does this situation represent for the company and for you?” Good leverage questions identify what’s at stake for the buyer’s company, but the very best ones aim at discovering the customer’s personal hot buttons. Unless the buyer owns the company, boosting productivity or decreasing waste are not gut issues. Here’s a gut issue: “How will I be better off if I bring this solution to my employer? Will I look like a genius? Will I get a promotion? A bonus? Some recognition I crave?”

By clarifying what’s really at stake with a business problem or opportunity, leverage questions increase the customer’s desire for a solution. And they let the salesperson know how to present a product as the right solution to the right issues.

In The Field:

Leverage questions offer the highest payoff when they are used in the context of a full-scale sales strategy – a strategy that tells you how to build up to asking such questions and what to do with the information after you’ve uncovered it. That’s what Action Selling Sales Training Workshops teach.

The national sales director of retail-photocopy giant Kinko’s puts it this way: “By learning to sell via the Action Selling sales skills process, our salespeople now know where they stand at every stage during a call and can proceed strategically. They are better able to manage a sales call from start to finish.

Duane Sparks is founder of The Sales Board, a sales training company that has trained 200,000+. Visit http://www.thesalesboard.com or 1-800-232-3485

“What would it take to get you into this car today?”
This is the sort of turn-off question that [...]

View full post on Ann Barr» Ann Barr : Teaching You How To Outsell Your Competition : Sales Coach

No sales person likes to make the decision to no bid on a potential opportunity but helping your team make that difficult choice on the basis of reasoned and consistent criteria is a vital skill of a successful sales manager, and is essential for opportunities that require you to commit the support of other people within your organisation as the opportunity cost of their time must also be taken into consideration.

Your role as effective sales manager is to challenge your team on the bids they choose to go ahead with, don’t get swept along by their enthusiasm and keep them focused on the deals they need to close to hit your target.

The following 15 power questions are ones I’ve found useful to challenge the teams I’ve led. The sales team had to work hard to convince me and in doing so they clarified their own thinking and were better prepared for the opportunities we went for:

1. Is this a “must Bid” opportunity?

2. Is the prospect looking for a readily available product or service?

3. Is the prospect looking for service and value over a simple price comparison? If they’re not and you aren’t the cheapest then it’s got to be “No Bid”!

4. Can you introduce some extra added value to the opportunity? Can you move the goalposts and alter the specification in your favour?

5. Do you have a good relationship with the client, and the decision makers?

6. Can you meet the requirement in full?

7. Do you have a defined competitive edge? Do you have a technical or commercial advantage that can add value to the opportunity?

8. Are you competitively priced? Either you have a cost competitive offer or you can tangibly offer added value?

9. Can we meet the project timescales?

10. Will this lead to further opportunities?

11. What is in our favour?

12. How does the opportunity specification suit us? What are the pros and cons from our perspective?

13. What are our capabilities and our risks? Look at the upside and the downside

14. What about the competition? What are their strengths & weaknesses?

15. Costs – what’s it going to cost us to make the bid? Will the margin on the deal be enough to justify this?

In some cases the decision to work on a project will have already been made further up the company, or the decision is a “no brainer” because of factors like an existing client relationship or the nature of the potential contract. But when the bid decision has not been made it’s down to you as the sales manager to make sure your team are assessing the opportunity realistically and the questions above will help you and your team make an intelligent decision to bid or not.

There are plenty of opportunities for your team out there (if they know where to look), and as a sales manager you’ll be successful if you can keep them on track and focused on the deals that are easiest to win.

As someone once told me in the school play yard, it’s all about picking the fights you can win…

If you want to learn more about how to manage a successful sales team then visit http://www.doublebubblesales.com/ for more advice from Phil Smithers, one of the UK’s leading sales coaches.

Claim your chance to listen to an in-depth interview with Phil that answers the burning questions raised by other sales professionals like you.

The question-answer game in sales is vital not only to find, qualify and close deals, but also to offer the best possible solutions to your prospects and [...]

View full post on Ann Barr» Ann Barr : Teaching You How To Outsell Your Competition : Sales Coach