More sales training in Sydney, August 2006

Training alert - Selling With Confidence is being offered again in Sydney on Thursday August 31, 2006. This course is especially designed for service business professionals, business owners, technicians who need to sell, sales people, managers, and service providers.

See the latest testimonials here.

Get all the details of the course, including a downloadable registration brochure here.

For corporate inhouse training please contact my office.

Below: Sydney training room at The Castlereagh Boutique Hotel (CBD)

Learning what NOT to say when selling

Last week in my sales training course we covered the reasons for NOT answering this question from clients - "Tell me about your business". I didn't mean that you should avoid the answer, but if you don't handle this question correctly you can quickly bore the pants off your client.

As the seller you need to be aware of what is happening. You see, when clients ask about what you do, they don't really mean it. What they want to hear is "how can you help me". But they don't always ask it like that.

If you jump straight in and explain in great detail what your business does, there is a good chance much of what you say wont be of interest to that client.

So what should you do?

My recommendation to delegates at the course was to answer the question very briefy, and then steer the conversation back to the client by saying something like "So I know what's relevant to mention, can you tell me a bit more about what you are looking for".

Remember... smart sales people talk less.

One-half knew about it, but did nothing.

Today I was a key-note speaker at a conference for the international education sector. There were around 60 people in the room, all specialists in their field, all involved with marketing education to international students. I was speaking about cost-effective marketing tools and mentioned blogs as a specific tactic. (Like this one you are reading now.)

Do you know that nearly half of the people had heard about blogs. But when I asked "Who uses blogs as part of their marketing program?" - the answer was... NONE.

After that, I'm sure there will be a number people from that audience who will investigate the use of blogs to improve their communication processes and reach a broader market.

Are you using all the marketing tools you know about? Or are you letting opportunities slip by. My audience knew about blogs, but weren't using them. Give yourself a wake-up call and make sure you are getting the best results possible.

Make a deal with yourself to do something new next week!