sales tips & articles

Hiring salespeople is a time consuming and costly exercise, so it’s important to get it right and keep it right. Unfortunately, not all salespeople are equal and managing poor performers is a common (and stressful) problem for many businesses, no matter what their size.

There are many reasons why sales people stop selling and why some just don't work out and it’s usually not the ones that they are telling you. Personally, I think the main reason salespeople fail to perform are due to lack of direction and little to no accountability. Salespeople, no matter how professional or how experienced need direction and need and expect accountability.

Salespeople can be your best asset or your worst asset depending on how you manage them. If you have a salesperson that is not performing, here are some reasons that might shed some light on the situation:

All care, no responsibility.

This is where you as the Manager or Business Owner don’t take responsibility for the success of your sales person and you simply dump everything into your salesperson's lap, hoping they will miraculously turn things around. You provide no leadership or support to the salesperson – just set and forget which is an extremely risky thing to do. I see this a lot in smaller businesses where the owner has little to no interest in sales or salespeople. If you employ salespeople, you need to be ask questions, be interested and be involved.

The Business Saviour.

Many business owners secretly hope that a salesperson will be the answer to their prayers; the saviour who will quickly start generating sales and increasing profits. While a good salesperson can make an enormous difference, it won’t happen overnight. You still need to invest considerable time and resources to market your company and to manage and develop your salespeople.

Not communicating expectations.

Salespeople need direction and they need to know exactly what is expected of them. Unfortunately, many Owners and Managers fail to communicate expectations clearly to their salespeople. When that happens, it's common for salespeople to think they're doing fine, whilst the Manager/Owner sees them as under performing and starts to get very frustrated. Communicate expectations (also known as KPI’s, key performance indicators) in writing from day one. Setting KPI’s on sales activities, customer meetings & networking events in addition to sales revenue, will ensure that sales remain consistent month to month.

Lack of Accountability.

When you are reliant on your salespeople to generate sales, why would you risk your business by not knowing how much and when the sales will come in? Holding a weekly team meeting to discuss the sales pipeline and sales activity is a simple way to introduce accountability. If your salespeople aren’t making sales at least your aware of it and can do something about it. Don’t wait until it’s too late. At the beginning of each month, have a performance review with each individual salesperson and discuss their performance for the previous month against expectations. If you have poorly performing salespeople, ask them to achieve specific revenue targets or tasks within a specified time frame. It will help you know whether to keep them or get rid of them.

Remember, if no-one cares what the salesperson is doing or whether they are making sales, why would they?

Hiring the wrong type of salesperson

There are two types of salespeople: those who can win new business (Business Development Manager or Hunter) and those who grow existing accounts (Account Manager or Farmer).

 Most businesses want to employ salespeople who can generate new business, because they're already good at developing relationships with current clients. They want the type of salesperson who can make cold calls, build new relationships, and close a deal with a new client. This is much harder to do, requires different skills and has higher salary expectations.Be clear on what you want your salespeople to do so you can match the skills, experience and salary accordingly. If your salesperson isn’t selling, ask them what they have done in the last month to add to the sales pipeline and generate sales. This is where the majority of mistakes are made with salespeople – hiring an account manager find and close new business sales. They rarely have the desire or the skills to do so. 

How much is enough?

Coming up with a fair and equitable commission scheme that works for everyone can be challenging. Giving away too much, too easily can make salespeople lazy and lose their hunger (not to mention frustrate the business owner or manager). Others can be too stingy or hard to achieve which does nothing to attract or keep the best performers. Remember, salespeople that win new business should be paid more than those who manage existing accounts. A commission scheme with an emphasis on commission rather than just a base salary will help to retain, reward and motivate ‘hunters’ whereas the security of a higher base salary will retain, reward and motivate ‘farmers’

Poor marketing and tools to support the salesperson.

Study after study shows that having a single approach to sales (such as cold-calling) won’t work on its own. Salespeople need solid marketing collateral, messages and campaigns that get prospects interested to meet with them. A well-ranked & effective website, email marketing and social media are great tools to generate leads that are completely free. They also need training and a solid understanding of the services and benefits you offer. The more time you spend training them and supporting them with marketing efforts, the quicker you will see them succeed.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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There is something about hearing the definition of madness that reminds me of sales and makes me smile.
The definition I'm referring to is "doing the same thing, over and over, for ever and ever, expecting a different result". A mental picture pops into my head and I see Salespeople and Business Owners communicating to clients the same way they always have and saying the same things but hoping to get a better response!

Just as the change of season brings changes to the temperature and to the landscape, the GFC (global financial crisis) is also bringing about some change.

• Attitudes are changing
• Businesses are changing
• Customers are changing
• Markets are changing and
• People are changing

The world as we know it, is changing which is pretty obvious - but have you noticed the change that's been lurking in the shadows and hiding out behind the GFC?

It's called the NEW ECONOMY and you are currently living in it, working in it and now you or your business is going to have to sell to it.

• The new economy has new needs and new wants and brings with it new opportunities and new challenges.
• The new economy will respond and react to new messages and new approaches.
• The new economy will stop responding and reacting to old messages and old techniques.
• The new economy will need to be marketed-to and sold-to differently.

When was the last time you reviewed your sales and marketing plan to see if your ready to seize the opportunities and generate sales from the new economy?

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

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Are you someone we would want to do business with?

In sales we know that more often than not, people buy people. We buy off people that we like, we trust and that we think are credible and experts in their field. So to make the job of selling and winning new business easier, what you wear and how you conduct yourself goes a long way.

Have you ever thought about the impression you want to leave on people? What would you like people to think of you? Would you like to be seen as

• as an expert in your field
• as approachable and trustworthy
• as though you make a lot of money
• as creative
• as to reflect professionalism, integrity and confidence?

What we wear each and every day goes a long way in helping to create the right impression and getting people to buy from you, however, so many people get it wrong, don’t care or simply have no idea. Some of these people have tried to sell to me and have succeeded in creating a great impression over the phone only to leave bitterly disappointed once I’ve seen their appearance.

For me, how you look tells me a lot about how you conduct yourself and your business and whether I want to do business with you.

To give us an idea on what we can do to create a great impression, I’ve asked Stylist, Jeff Lack from To be Well Suited for some quick tips on how to dress and look the part.

Tips for your corporate profile - compete or stand out and get ahead of the rest

What do you look like when you walk out the door? How do you feel?

Are you buzzing with enthusiasm and confidence for the day ahead?

Does your appearance accurately represent your business?

We know the numbers on trying to change a first impression (i.e. it’s hard), so put some thought and energy into your appearance and reap the rewards. Ask yourself, what first impression are you giving today?

Here are some quick tips to help you get started:

• Clean, pressed garments and clean well maintained footwear are a must. If you are seen as untidy and unkempt this can leave the impression that you are untidy and unkempt in your business dealings.
• Go for modest well-fitting apparel with colours that are coordinated, suit you and suit the industry that you work in or are selling to. 
• Casual Friday - don’t look at casual Friday as an opportunity to slothe or wear what should only be worn on weekends around the house. Take on the attitude of ‘fashion Friday’ and do a great smart casual ensemble that you could go straight from work to a nice restaurant.
• When you’re going from the Job site to a Meeting. change your work boots to smart boots that you can slip on easily. Keep a knit and/or jacket handy to throw on and instantly smarten up your look.
• If you have multiple appointments to a range of different clients, gauge which clients expect that level of professional image and plan accordingly. Keep a jacket, tie or scarf and spare shoes in the car so you can easily change between appointments.
• Don’t go overboard on the perfume and after shave. When you apply don’t keep applying it until you can smell it; everyone else is getting twice what you can smell.
• Watch the body odour and the bad breath, it’s a deal killer. Have a spare deodorant in your car or in your desk for emergencies and to freshen up during the day. If you suffer from bad breath or you smoke, brush your teeth regularly throughout the day. 
• If your colleagues or your clients are a bit smelly, have greens in their teeth, threads hanging off or have toilet paper on their shoes, tell them! You would rather know, so let them know; they will squirm more than you will, trust me.

When you are looking good and feeling great you will exude confidence, positivity and success. Your colleagues and your clients will sense this, draw from it and will want to do business with you.

Wouldn’t you prefer to do business with someone like that?

Being aware of and managing the amount in your sales pipeline each week, fortnight or month can have the single biggest impact to achieving your sales consistently from month to month and quarter to quarter.

It is an important forecasting tool that all businesses should use even if they don’t have salespeople, as it clearly shows how many sales to expect and when to expect them.

If your not sure what a Sales Pipeline or Funnel is; it is simply a list of all the prospective customers that have indicated some interest in buying your product or service. They will all be at different stages of the sale depending on their interest level and buying cycle and some will drop eventually drop out.



Information such as total sale value, probability of sale and expected close date should also be included to complete the picture.

The term “funnel” is used because you need to continually fill the top with new opportunities to ensure you have an even and consistent flow of closed sales coming out the bottom. The stages can differ from business to business (i.e. can be simpler with fewer stages), depending on how you sell to customers and what the buying cycle is.

It is important to make sure the funnel is always being topped up with new opportunities, that prospects are moving through the stages and sales are being closed. When you need to close some sales quick, it is easy to identify who is the closest to making a decision (thus easiest to close) by looking through prospects in the negotiation or solution evaluation stage.

The sales funnel is a great tool to help you determine if you have enough prospects and to reduce the impact of lost or delayed sales on meeting targets. It’s all in the numbers and that’s why sales is called a ‘numbers game’. To work out how much you need, follow my example:

1. Start with your monthly sales target, lets say it is $25,000.
2. Work out what the average sales value is, even if it is a rough estimate.
3. Determine your sales conversion i.e. of all the first meetings you had or enquiries received how many of those where you successful in ‘converting’ from prospect to customer. e.g. If you received 20 enquiries and made 5 sales, you have a 1 in 4 sales conversion rate. 
4. So you will need ‘4 times’ the amount of your monthly target in your funnel at any time. If we go back to the example, you will need $100,000 worth of quotes or opportunities.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

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* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

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Typically a cold call is the process of approaching prospective customers (called prospects) typically by phone but it can also be done face-to-face (via door knocking). The term 'cold call' is used because the person you are contacting has not asked you to call, is not expecting it and is not known to you.

Cold calling can be a legitimate and successful way of generating new business, if it is done correctly and professionally. This article refers to 'business to business' cold calling to generate an appointment rather than make a sale over the phone.

1. Use a friendly, conversational approach rather than a cold, direct approach.
2. Don’t try and sell on the phone; you can’t. You can, however, get a meeting or permission to send information.
3. Talk about how you can help that business or how you have helped other business. Don’t try and sell to them.
4. Name other clients that you are working with who are in a similar industry or who are a similar size to the company you are calling.
5. Set a goal for each phone call. Would you like contact information, a meeting or permission to send information.
6. Write down all the possible objections that you are likely to encounter and have an answer ready for them.
7. Target a particular Industry at a time so the script can be adapted and modified to their current situation, challenges or problems they may be experiencing.
8. Always treat Assistants, Personal Assistants and Executive Assistants with respect; they have the power to get you in or keep you out.
9. If you get through to the right contact and they sound busy or harassed ask them “is now a good time to talk?” should I call you at a later time?
10. Make your calls from 9.30am to about 11.30am and then start again around 2pm and go through till 4pm.
11. Set yourself a call target rather than a time target, it makes it easier to achieve.
12. Don’t leave messages; it is rare that anyone would call you back.
13. Ask or appeal for help rather than just going straight into a spiel.
14. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a person asking you to send information means they are interested...they are simply trying to get you off the phone!
15. If you send information by email make sure you follow it up the next day to confirm the person received it. This gives you the chance to ask them if they have any questions and gauge their interest in meeting.
16. Try and do your calls in a block of time, one after the other, after the other. After you have finished 10 calls, for example, then send out information or do follow up. This saves you reliving the ‘fear’ or the ‘pain’ of picking up the phone. After about 3 or 4 calls you will have established a habit and you will be much more confident.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

Stand out from the crowd when you cold call with our Do-It-Yourself Guide to Cold Calling.Click here for more information.


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Questioning or probing as it is also known, is most of the most important skills you can learn when dealing with customers and one of the most powerful. The ability to ask questions that uncover important information about a customer’s needs, current supply and willingness to change is a strong characteristic of a ‘consultative’ sales approach.

Most importantly, when you ask great questions it can help you to win new business much quicker and with fewer objections. When we help prospects to think about the needs of their business and to really think about current or potential problems or challenges they may face, they start to see us differently and understand the value we can add to them or their business.

There are 2 common types of questions you can ask: ‘open’ questions and ‘closed’ questions:

1. Open questions usually result in longer answers and are aimed at getting your prospects to think about the answer.

For example: “What plans does the organisation have to achieve...”

2. Closed questions can be answered with a yes, no or one word and are used to qualify the response to an open question.

For example: Do you have any plans at the moment?

The challenge in questioning is to ask more open than closed questions as it is easy to fall into ‘interrogation mode’ by asking lots of closed questions rather than a few strategic open questions.

Over the years I have met many people who are looking for help to close sales quicker and/or easier and the first thing I ask them is “what happened in the first appointment”, “what needs of the prospect are you meeting” and “why would this prospect want to buy your product or services?”

When we discuss their questions they are usually very surprised to find out that they are asking the same stock-standard questions that most people ask and they typically aren’t that interesting either. Imagine how repetitive and un-interesting it is for your prospects to be asked the same questions over and over again?

Ask yourself, “are you asking questions that all your competitors are asking or are you making your prospects think?”

Here is a quick test you can take to see if you are asking the same questions as your competitors or whether you are making them think. In your next appointment:

1. Does the prospect start to give you a summary of the information you need before you have the chance to ask any questions?
2. When you do ask a question, does the prospect answer it relatively quickly or do they take a moment to think about their answer?
3. How often do you hear your prospects say “that‘s a great question, I hadn’t thought about that?”

As I said, asking great questions isn’t easy but once you start you will really notice the difference in your appointments. Spend 5-10 minutes before your next appointment thinking about the questions you will ask and write them down so you don’t forget them in the meeting!

Here are some to get you started:

1. How will these issues impact the organisation in the future?
2. How do they impact you?
3. What do you look for in a potential supplier (or partner)?
4. What do you like about your current supplier?
5. What do you like about them?
6. Is there anything that you don’t like?
7. What would make you change suppliers?
8. How would you like to see it working (perfect world)?
9. What is your decision making process?

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This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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It’s all about planning and preparation

It’s amazing how many sales people and business owners I talk to who under-estimate the value and importance of planning and preparing for a first appointment.

In the early days of my sales career making this change had the single biggest impact to my sales success. Besides, there is nothing worse than leaving an appointment without having the information you require simply because you forgot to ask the question.

The objective of the first sales meeting is to build rapport with the buyer and understand not only their needs but the priority of these needs.

Planning your appointments and taking a strategic approach helps to:

• Reduce the chance of surprises in the appointment
• Create a more professional impression
• Increase the likelihood of achieving objectives, and
• Reduces stress

Take a couple of minutes prior to every appointment and think about:

What value are you offering your prospect by having this meeting? What’s in it for them?

What would you like to achieve in this meeting (keeping in mind it is often difficult to close the sale in the first meeting)

What situations or events are occurring in their business or industry that could create an opportunity for you?

What ‘high-level’ questions will you need to ask to uncover their needs, current problems or areas they would like to improve? For example

“What has prevented you from addressing the problem before and what has changed now?”
“What would be the consequences of not dealing with the problem at this time?”

Are there likely to be any objections or reasons that the prospect may not be interested in pursuing any further? If so, what can you say to overcome these objections and move it to the next stage?

Having a list of pre-prepared questions written down in front of you keeps your appointments effective and efficient, for both parties. Many of you may think this makes you look unprofessional, however, in my opinion the opposite is true. It makes you stand out from the crowd and shows the prospect how serious you are and how important this appointment is to you.

Explain at the beginning of the appointment, the reasoning behind it; that you don’t want any pertinent information to be missed or forgotten.

Having these questions written down will also help to:

• Improve your listening skills. You give the prospect your undivided attention because you don’t have to worry what to ask next.
• Keeps the appointment flowing in the direction you want and keeps everyone on track. Particularly if the conversation or prospect goes off on a tangent.
• Obtain all the key information you need to move to the next step.
• Keep you focused and stop you from “selling” too early in the appointment

As they are talking, make notes and highlight any ‘hot buttons’ or ‘key points’ separately that you will need to go back to. Do not interrupt and start ‘selling’ until you have finished asking all your questions, even when you hear something you know you can fix or when pressed by the prospect.

Interrupting stops the train of thought, stops them from sharing further information and stops you from getting a complete understanding of their needs and their priority of these needs.

When you have finished asking questions, go back and clarify anything that you need further information on to ensure your complete understanding. In addition, paraphrase the buyer's concerns to indicate your understanding, and clarify the problem that needs to be resolved. For example;

"So what you would like to do is improve the conversion rates of your sales team so all members are consistently meeting their budgets, is that correct?”

Once you have a complete understanding, you are ready to move to the next stage.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

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I’m sure most of you would agree that selling to someone who has been referred to you is much easier and more enjoyable than those generated through traditional sales efforts such as direct mail and cold calling. The success rate is higher because they are in the market for your services and are also much less price sensitive because the referring party has told them the value and benefits that you can deliver.

Anyone who works in the Financial Services such as Accountants, Financial Planners and Trades and Services realizes the potential of well managed relationships. Many have built very successful businesses simply by managing a handful of alliances and have little need or desire to do any other form of marketing. Yet there are also a lot of people out there who try the same thing but it just never seems to work.

So why do they work for some people but not for others?

Successful alliances grow from good relationships with people who have a similar mindset, similar values and similar ethics. They are based on mutual trust which is built up and managed over time; having one meeting and following up with a phone call a month later just won’t work. Would you refer your clients to someone you hardly know?

It is also about your expectations of the alliance and how you position the relationship. It should never be about how many referrals you can get but rather how you can add value each others business and clients.

Here are some tips to help you maximize your alliance relationships:

1. Don’t attempt to set up an alliance with someone just because they are in a complimentary business. Do they have similar values, ethics and mindset as you?
2. Discuss your client base, do you have the type of clients they are looking for and vice versa?
3. Discuss the expectations of the alliance, how you would like to see the relationship work and why you think there is potential for both parties.
4. Give you alliances time to mature and develop and be willing to put the effort in, it can take 6-12 months before you really understand each others business.
5. Develop a system on how you will maintain contact and communicate. In the first 6 months aim to meet face to face at least every 2 months and have phone or email contact in between.
6. Don’t expect any referrals in the short-term, expect only to be informed and educated on their business, their clients, what is a good referral, how to find them and what to say when you do.
7. Develop ‘cheat sheets’ for their staff that outlines what to ‘look out’ for or ‘listen to’. Take it one step further and write a script on what they can say to introduce you. For example, “Mary why don’t I get John from XYZ to call you, he has helped a lot of our clients who have had similar problems...” It might seem obvious but it’s about making the process as easy as possible. There are many people who feel that introducing a third party is being pushy or rude.
8. Ensure everyone has a pile of your business cards to hand out. It helps the client to remember who you are when you call.
9. If you have been given a referral, communicate the progress to your alliance so they are aware of whether it was a good referral. Explain why it was such a good referral or why it wasn’t. Remember it’s about ongoing education until you get it right.
10. Once the relationship is established meet regularly to inform them of changes to your business such as new products or services and for you to learn of changes to their business, particularly staff changes.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here