What do you want for Christmas?

Dear Santa,

How are the reindeer and the elves? I’m sure they are very busy preparing for the big trip on December 24th.

I have been a very good salesperson this year. I have picked up a few new clients, grown many of my clients’ sales and I’m close to achieving my yearly sales goal! Sometimes, I do forget to submit my sales reports on time – but I eventually get them in… and if I don’t, it’s because I’m too busy trying to increase sales.

This year for Christmas, there’s only a few things I would like:

• Prospects and clients who return my calls
• A new assistant who will do everything for me so I can spend all my time increasing sales.
• The new Blackberry “Curve” to track all my client activities, schedule and contacts. I know I can be more organized if I have the right tools.
• A direct mail campaign generating 42.8% response rate and over $100,000 in new business
• If you are really generous and have room in your sleigh, a million dollar client would be really great, too!
  

I’ll leave out a Tim Hortons’ coffee for you on December 24th – they always help to get me through a busy day on the road.

Love,
A Hardworking Salesperson

P.S. If Santa doesn’t bring you any of the items on your list, the Teneo Elves are here to help!

How Good Are Your Client Presentations?

How good are your client presentations?
· The sales cycle is 22% longer than in 2001*
· A salesperson is only spending on average 18% of his/her time in front of a client*
· The sales pipeline ratio is 3.46:1 – you need more opportunities to close just one deal*
· Only 50% of salespeople are making their sales plan*
· 75% of Marketing Dollars don’t generate revenue*
*Source: Sirius Decisions

What do these startling stats tell us? As a sales person you need to sharpen your presentation skills to close more business.

With increased competitiveness, and clients having less time for you – the need to be much better in front of your prospects and clients is painfully obvious. During the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with sales reps on the road – and will admit I’m appalled and what salespeople will do to “wing it” in front of their clients.

So many times, I hear salespeople say they don’t have time or they don’t feel it’s necessary to rehearse their sales presentations. I would say you can’t afford not to practice and deliver a killer presentation every time. As one of my fellow sales trainers says, “It’s better to bruise in the playground than get hit in the street.”

What are you doing to prepare for your client presentations? Rehearsing in the car as you drive to your client doesn’t count!

Thanksgiving Is A Time To Be Grateful

With the Thanksgiving season upon us, I would like to take the time to say ”Thanks” to all of you - my clients, supporters, advocates, seminar attendees and Teneo team members.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for the opportunity to work with you to achieve your marketing and sales successes. The goals that Teneo has achieved over the past 3 years wouldn’t be possible without you. It has allowed me to enjoy my work, my family and even some vacation time! I look forward to building our relationships with you and helping you achieve your future marketing, sales and personal goals.

As an expression of our gratitude, Teneo has decided to furnish a classroom through the World Vision Gift Catalogue on behalf of you - our clients. In North America, we take things like chairs, desks and blackboards for granted. But for countless children in rural schools around the world, their chair is a dirt floor and their desk is a lap. In the spirit of investing in and training people, we felt it was important to invest in children around the world and their education. The gift we’ve chosen this year will provide an entire rural school with the essential furnishings for teaching and learning.

From all of us at Teneo, we wish you and your families a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Is It Time For You To Go Back To School?

Today’s customers are more knowledgeable, sophisticated and demanding - sometimes with a capitol “D”.

Teneo recently interviewed all types of customers for our new keynote presentation “What’s Keeping Customers Up At Night”. The customers we interviewed re-enforced what they are truly looking for in B2B environments; pro-active, consultative partners who understand their business, and its needs, and provide them with pro-active solutions.

What type of selling do you engage in with your customers? Is it transactional – just selling more of your products and services? Or are you using a consultative sales approach that allows you to truly understand your customer's needs and provide them with the appropriate solutions - giving them added value?

For many years, I too was guilty of “winging it ” in my sales approach, and was still very successfully in identifying opportunities and closing business. However, I’ve learned - and now train - sales teams to use the 7-Step Consultative Sales Approach: a proven step-by-step methodical process that moves the sale through today’s complex and longer sales cycle to earn more business.

Take a minute to stop and ask yourself, is it time for you to get Back to School and Back to Business by learning a new sales technique?

Are You Ready for the 4th Quarter Sales Sprint?

Summer is an amazing time to relax, rejuvenate, revive – and prepare for the 4th Quarter Sales Sprint!

The next few weeks are an opportune time to strategically review your sales and marketing plans before the hectic fall selling season.

Consider the following exercises to help you get ready:
· Review your sales by client – Compare actual vs. target sales goals
· Pro-actively set-up meetings with your key clients
· Schedule your 2008 Strategic Planning Session
· Assess your sales skills – is it time to invest in upgrading your skills?

Enjoy these last few weeks of summer and find a tranquil place to think and review - a lake, walking trail or quiet rock - to map out your plans for a stellar fall selling season. Focus on attracting what you want most in your business and personal lives, write it down, and then make sure all of your decisions and actions are aligned with those goals.

On your marks… get set… go!

Enjoy the Summer With the Power of People!

I love summer! With its warm weather, longer days, and the opportunity to spend more time outdoors.

Earlier this year, I committed to walking 60km in the “Weekend to End Breast Cancer”. It was my commitment to staying healthy as I turned 40. I knew one of my biggest challenges would be finding the time to train during the summer, when I want to enjoy more time with my kids, friends and of course boating.

Initially, I was hoping to recruit 1-2 friends to be a part of this walk. I was thrilled when five energetic and enthusiastic friends were willing to do this trek - especially when we had to commit to raising $2000 each in order to participate. Through creative brainstorming, we decided to host a summer outdoor fundraiser with live bands - and we’ve almost achieved our fundraising goal! When you surround yourself with the right people, I’m amazed at the increased energy level and momentum you gain.

The training schedule to prepare for a 2 day 60km walk consists of walking about 500km over 24 weeks. When I’m feeling too tired to walk at the end of the day, it just takes one of my fellow team walkers to call and say “Let’s go”. Even my kids are walking with me (walking 5km to the ice cream store is a good bribe!) The best part is how much I’m enjoying the walks. It gives me time to “think” and I’m amazed at the ideas and solutions you can create when you’re walking among the trees, water and fresh air, or the great chat time it provides with my kids, friends and team mates.

This summer, what sport or hobby can you enjoy with friends and family? It’s so worth it!

Enjoy your summer!

Are You Growing a Bumper Crop of Sales?

We all hope to have a great sales year - and we’re already six months into 2007! Have you been planting the seeds of success with your clients and prospects during the past few months?

As summer quickly approaches, everyone begins thinking about vacation and I consistently hear salespeople say it’s not a good time to reach out and grow their business. On the contrary, this is the ideal time to nurture, fertilize and cultivate your clients and prospects to produce a bumper crop of sales this fall.

Today’s sales cycle is longer, more complex and involves several decision makers. Using an effective combination of marketing and sales tools like; strategically planned sales presentations, marketing e-mails, white papers, client testimonials, success stories and telephone calls, during the various stages of the sales cycle can help you and your teams move sales further down the sales funnel.

Utilizing strategic sales and marketing processes versus “winging it” will definitely help you to close more business, faster. Disciplined sales processes, consultative sales training and dashboard metrics are today’s necessary tools to outsell your competition.

The next 90 days are the ideal time to plant the seeds of success and implement strategic marketing and sales tools to harvest a bumper crop of sales in the 4th quarter.

Here’s to fertilizing and cultivating your prospect seeds!

Even Our Government Creates a Phenomenal Customer Experience!

I marvel at companies who create phenomenal customer experiences like Walt Disney, Starbucks, WestJet and many others. I love researching their philosophies and leaders who guide their teams to deliver incredible customer experiences.

On a recent trip to our Nation’s capital, Ottawa – our family enjoyed a phenomenal experience.
A few weeks prior, we received a newsletter from our local MP Dave McKenzie, stating if you’re traveling to Ottawa to call ahead and let them know. We thought this would be a fun adventure and that the kids would really enjoy it.

When we arrived, our MP’s Executive Assistant Leslie gave us a tour of the office and then personally escorted us to the Parliament Buildings. We felt very privileged when our MP took time out from his busy schedule to greet us both before and after ‘Question Period’. We stopped briefly to take a snapshot of us in the Parliament Building, when suddenly our MP escorted our family to have a photo taken in the PM’s office with the Prime Minister himself – Stephen Harper.

Wow, it all happened so fast! Mr. Harper even took a personal interest in our daughters asking them their names, ages and grades. We didn’t have any personal agendas or hot political topics to discuss and I didn’t think there was any opportunity to sell sales training services (well maybe there could be an opportunity!) and he still took the time to make us feel welcome.

If our federal government can create a phenomenal experience for fellow Canadians – can you?

What Is The Secret Ingredient for Marketing & Sales Integration?

In almost twenty years of working in both marketing and sales roles, I’m consistently perplexed by the cross-departmental relationships between marketing and sales teams. Recently, I’ve been working with a number of companies to learn more about the key factors involved in integrating marketing and sales and producing increased sales revenue and ROI.

It has become clear to me and the secret lies in training both your marketing and sales teams to truly listen to your customers. This allows you to better understand your customer, their needs and the solutions and/or experiences they are looking for. Armed with this valuable information you are able to develop a marketing and sales strategy that will target your ideal profitable customers using their own language.

I recently interviewed Purolator Canada to better understand the success they have realized with the implementation of their “Sales Effectiveness” team. I asked Shakeel Bharmal – the Director of Sales Effectiveness if the two year process of implementing this new team was worth it? “Absolutely, integrating Purolator’s marketing and sales by creating the Sales Effectiveness team has produced record breaking results in 2005 and 2006 for revenue, profitability and customer retention, making 2006 the best year in Purolator’s history.”

Purolator’s revolutionary approach was based on employing a more strategic methodology when considering their customer’s needs. During dozens of one-on-one interviews with Purolator’s clients, Bharmal discovered they possessed needs that went far beyond the delivery of packages. “The key to connecting with customers, concluded Bharmal, was for Purolator’s salespeople to figure out how they could help clients be successful in their business and then communicate that to them.”Integrating your marketing and sales and transitioning your teams from the traditional ‘transaction based’ selling into ‘value based’ selling, produces tangible benefits for your customers and increased sales revenue for your company… and that’s sales effectiveness at its best!

For more information, on Purolator’s success story read “Delivering Sales Effectiveness” in the April issue of Contact Magazine or visit our website at http://www.teneoresults.com/

Do You Have The Luck of The Irish?

Do you have the luck of the Irish? Or are you hoping to find a four leaf clover that will bring you good sales luck? Or perhaps you’re waiting to kiss the Blarney Stone! After all, as the legend goes “kissing the Blarney Stone will bring the kisser the gift of persuasive eloquence.”

Today’s customers are more knowledgeable and sophisticated and have very little time to meet with you. With such limited opportunities, you can no longer “show up and throw up” with your sales pitch. In order for you to engage your customers, understand their business needs and provide strategic solutions, your communications skills have to be concise and full of persuasive eloquence.

You can chase rainbows and look for four leaf clovers but being successful in sales is no longer about luck – it’s about developing the skills necessary to gain the trust and confidence of your customers and prospects. Doing so will certainly help lead you to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

So, what are you doing to develop your skills and invest in your sales profession? Earning your CSP (Certified Sales Professional) designation demonstrates your commitment to your professional growth and to providing your customers with strategic solutions. Make a commitment today to Work Smart, Sell Smart and communicate effectively and your pot of gold will soon be filled with increased sales and earnings… no clovers needed!