Here is a great example of sales people seeing a customer’s problem that their solution can fix! In sales training we talk about “building the need”. How big was the need here? Criminals were getting off prosecution because of a paper jam! Great implications and consequences if the the problem was not fixed. The Xerox reps took the glory for that one…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11993089
Congratulations to Tanya mogg, who has facilitated her 100th workshop for ProFormance! With vast experience in Leadership and Management Development, Tanya has been working with ProFormance clients as a consultant trainer and facilitator for over 15 years. The 100th workshop was facilitating Strategy Planning for Lifestream International which prompted the following feedback:
“Tanya was excellent as a facilitator of our recent Strategy Planning workshop. She was incredibly professional and respectful whilst able to challenge a highly articulate and qualified team! We got so much out of the two sessions and have planned to build a regular session with Tanya into our business strategy programme” – Dr Emma Parry, Lifestream International
With 2 working days till Christmas I want to thank all our clients for an amazing year. It has been a busy year where we have seen significant growth in the uptake of learning and development programmes across a wide range of industries. Investing in your staff is crucial and a lack of training investment is regularly sited as one of the reasons employees feel disengaged and potentially leave an organization. The change in Government has not slowed down the training investment.
Many of the programmes we have designed for clients have incorporated DISC behavioral types as it is such an enlightening and rewarding tool. It has been a foundation for sales training, leadership development and high performing team workshops. This unprompted email from a client (post sales and DISC workshops) explains why……
“I wanted to tell you how effective and lasting the results of your work with my team this year have been. They all spoke about how they have modified their sales calls for the better and have made long-lasting changes to their day to day activities especially in the areas of assertiveness and handling group calls!”
Already fully booked for January and February, we are excited to continue this great programme for our clients into 2018
“Winging it to Christchurch to facilitate a Values session for a client. Last of a series of 8 workshops to get all staff engaged and empowered with their new values program”
The third group of PrintNZ members are now more than half way through their NZQA Certificate in Sales training and at least one of the participants has seen immediate results following the Negotiation Skills workshop last Thursday:
“I Just wanted to let you know, that I have retained the particular job over the competitor that I negotiated on “our benefits” over the price.
I just cannot thank you enough for showing me such a powerful tool in my toolbox. This is something I would not have been trained on/shown if I hadn’t done your course. So our company has already benefited in many ways (including two new large multi-national companies) purely based on what you have shown me.
I’m so much more excited about doing what I do because of the confidence you have instilled in me.”
The feedback from the whole group has been extremely positive and they are all making excellent progress on both the course and applying their new sales skills. It is great to see how well they have developed and it has not gone unnoticed by their managers! Read the full feedback report here:
Fantastic feedback for Mike Carr’s session on Advanced Presentation Skills with three experienced sales people. Mike is such an experienced expert in the field of “persuasive presentations” that he is able to coach higher impact presentations for everyone he works with. Contact us to find out what he can do for you.
A fantastic Customer Centric program written for CHEP to deliver in-house to all their sites in NZ. We had a great 2 days training the customer centric champions how to deliver the training and they left that workshop thoroughly prepared and looking forward to their first training sessions. The combined participants feedback report and the trainer’s evaluation of the participants evoked this response:
“Wow what a valuable report, thank you for pulling this together for us. Thanks again for everything. You and your team are magnificent and I have loved every minute of working together.” – Customer Services Manager, CHEP
See the full feedback report here:
Earlier this month Becky Carr facilitated an Advanced Sales Skill workshop for the sales team of a medical company with a diverse range of skills and experience. This can often be challenging to keep all participants engaged when some are more experienced than others, however, the feedback showed that where skills were already in existence it was a great refresher and helped to reinforce their knowledge base. The lesser experienced participants found it a great confidence building exercise with the opportunity to develop their sales call structure. The key areas that everyone found valuable were developing “needs” questions relevant to their industry and the DISC personality styles, a great tool for communicating better with customers.
From the Sales Team:
“A very good refresher on sales and on sales techniques – Becky was fantastic and held everyone’s attention”
“Well structured, excellent examples to implement into relevant industry”
“Delivered very well, kept everyone engaged throughout the full days training. Excellent statement of intent too”
From the Sales Manager:
“It was definitely worthwhile and I am eager to continue with some more training in the future”
Read the full report here:
Rated in the top 10 most viewed TED talks in history, Simon Sinek’s ground breaking talk explains how we inspire action. People don’t care what you do, unless they know why!
Sinek refers to the success of Apple. Apple have been selling computer products for decades now and we all know and trust the brand. Their competitors are just as capable at develop- ing the innovative and beautiful products that Apple produce and yet many people always buy Apple. So why is it that when we look at Apple, a computer company that sells us phones, computers, mp3s and much more, we see a company to put our trust in regardless of whether they’re selling something they specialize in or not. Could you image buying a mp3 player from Dell? No! Apple? Of course!
The reasoning behind this is fairly simple. When you look at the greats throughout history, including the great businesses of today, you can see a similarity in the way they sell themselves. Most of us will promote ourselves in that classic way – we tell you what we’re good at and why we’re good at it. It gives all the information we need and it should entice you into buying from us, hiring us or just following us depending on what you’re selling. But it’s nowhere near as effective as using the golden circle.
The golden circle is what major successes throughout history have used to sell themselves. Whether it’s selling products or beliefs, there’s a similarity in the way the biggest names have talked to us. It has less to do with what they’re selling and everything to do with why. People are interested in why you do things not what you do! Sure, we won’t buy something from you just because we like the why,( unless we need it), but we do invest ourselves into things that we believe in a lot more. Taking this back to Apple, they tell us all about the innovation, what they’re aiming for, where they’re going and what they hope to see in the future. It sounds so promising and futuristic and we all love that – we all buy it on a huge scale!
The greatest leaders throughout history, whether they have been politicians, human rights activists or businesspeople have all had one thing in common, they have used their platform to inspire those around them by telling us “the why”, not “the how”. It’s not all about money and votes, it’s about giving people the power to think for themselves and know that they’re with likeminded people. Leaders and inspiration are two things that are easy to come by but rarely combined, it is the combination that truly makes a difference to the mindset of people in general.
Whether you’re the CEO of an international corporation, the owner of a small business or manager of a team, you will know that productivity depends upon your employee’s motivation and positivity. If only we could keep them motivated daily. While each employee is different, one Harvard University study found that positive feedback does wonders in the workplace. The study found that each employee, on average, needs to have six positive pieces of feedback for one negative piece of feedback received.
The average ratio for the highest-performing teams was 5.6 (that is, nearly six positive comments for every negative one). The medium-performance teams averaged 1.9 (almost twice as many positive comments than negative ones.) But the average for the low-performing teams, at 0.36 to 1, was almost three negative comments for every positive one.
The Asset-Based Thinking 5:1 Praise to Constructive Feedback Principle gives you a guideline for giving feedback to your employees, consistently and across the board.
How can you achieve this?
This process takes a couple of minutes of your day and means the world to employees. By focusing on the behavior you do want in your team, it lifts the standard in a positive manner.
A little constructive feedback is an essential part of the mix of course. It focusses people on what needs to change – showing it is not going unnoticed and that you are not willing to be complacent in your standards. This feedback needs to be in private, one on one and be objective not personal. Focus on facts and outcomes and ask them how they can do something differently in the future.
When they make a change, remember to praise them! Get that balance of 5:1.
Whether you are sitting down with an employee in your office for an annual review or are working in a collaborative team environment, practice the 5:1 Praise to Constructive Feedback Principle. Each employee is different, with various strengths and weaknesses. While it could be challenging to keep the feedback mostly positive, employing this tactic will help employees retain their engagement with your company, leading to loyalty, motivation and increased job performance.
