If this is your first time visiting, you can receive this blog by RSS Feed or email .

Fact: As sales professionals, we are ultimately in control of our sales career. This isn’t a good thing, this is a great thing! But it also requires us to take on certain responsibilities if we want to maximize this control.

The following are five truths about our sales career:

1. We are our own best sales career counselor. No one cares as much about our career as we do, not our
employer, our manager or anyone else.
2. We are responsible for our own development and training. This may mean getting our employer to train us or for us to seek training on our own.
3. We must think beyond our current sales job; we are in a career, not a job. As I’ve written in another post, Sales Staff Turnover, few sales jobs are permanent.
4. We are ultimately our own best motivators; no one else can motivate us over the long haul.
5. The most successful sales professionals are those that stick with it. I’ve never met a number one salesperson that got to that position in 3 months - it took years and usually spanned over several employers.

Do we have 100% control of our sales career at all times? Hardly. The “Divine Director of Sales” in His heavenly office can grab the wheel from time to time, but our individual actions, and inactions, will have a huge impact on our sales career.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Neuro Linguistic Programming (also known as NLP) was created in the 1970’s. The idea behind it was to understand human communication beyond just the words being used, with obvious implications to sales. Over the last 30 years most researchers have come to the conclusion that it is a highly subjective semi-science that should be used with caution, if at all.

NLP was initially used in psychology and counseling. It wasn’t long until sales practitioners of one sort or another started applying NLP theories to sales training. Am I the only one that has noticed that every new type of pop-psychology is ultimately applied to sales? My most displeasurable example of this was the distortion of the data about the importance of body language in communication (The Myth of Body Language in Communication). I still hear sales trainers refer to that and it makes my skin crawl.

The meta-model of NLP says that when one human being communicates with another they go through the following steps: the speaker first has a thought, it’s coded into words, the words are spoken, the hearer receives those words, the hearer decodes those words and then interprets the thoughts. The concept is actually fairly interesting to consider because, after all of those steps, the potential for misinterpretation in human communication can be better understood. Clearly we can see how this could apply to interactions with our customers.

As appealing as the theory sounds, it is generally accepted that NLP has not withstood the test of time (especially in the area of sales training). It has not been adequately supported by legitimate research and smacks of “new age” thinking, which has more of a spiritual or philosophical appeal.

My feeling is that NLP sales training is unproven and if it were advertised on TV you’d find it at 3:00 in the morning on an infomercial.

Stick with the sales basics that are proven over time and represented in Sales Vitamins™. There are no magic pills in sales.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

It’s been 20 years since Neil Rackham published his 1988 book, SPIN Selling. For those of you who are too young to remember when this book was a business best seller, I can tell you that it turned a lot of traditional sales training concepts upside down. To a great extent it set in motion some major changes in how we currently view the customer/salesperson interaction.

1950’s style sales training wasn’t very pretty, nor was it very effective. Neil started a trend with his book that made us challenge those outdated views of the sales process. He also made us look more objectively at how sales professionals are trained and how we interact with prospects and customers.

Let’s review what made this book so noteworthy in relation to sales skills and concepts.

1. The author took time to research his material. Prior to the writing of this book (and even today) much of what passed for sales training was just the writer’s personal experiences and biases. Neil used a scientifically crafted approach to prove his points. This is a trend that fortunately is becoming more prominent in sales training today.
2. Neil broke the sales process down into four basic steps which you’ll find in most current sales training. Prior to his book these steps were not so clearly defined and understood.
3. He introduced ideas that were probably thought to be sinful to even consider in sales training circles 20 years ago. Things like: first impressions are greatly overrated, using scripts is a great way to destroy the sales process, questions are everything when it comes to selling, etc.

While I certainly don’t agree with all of the content in SPIN Selling, I have to applaud the author for researching his subject so well and not being afraid to be a contrarian. We need more Neil Rackhams in sales training.

While we don’t talk as much about this book today, many of its concepts have been integrated into current sales training. We shouldn’t forget the powerful contributions that were made by this book.

Should you read this book? It would be most helpful to those that are involved in consultative sales versus transactional sales, but I would encourage it as a classic sales training must-read, regardless of what type of sales environment you work in.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Summary: Sales is a soft science. When four top sales trainers were recently surveyed about sales training issues there was suprisingly little overlap in their responses.

Why is there so little commonality in sales training?

Sales management hires sales trainers, hoping that they will increase the sales performance of their sales force. Simple enough. Over time, however, most sales managers realize that every sales trainer has their own unique materials and techniques. The sales manager is forced to decide:

a. None of these people know what they’re talking about.
b. One of them must know what they’re doing.
c. All of them know something, and blended together it’s somehow helping my sales force.

After observing countless sales trainers I believe that most sales trainers can bring value to an organization. But what are we to make of the broad range of content and training methods used by different sales trainers?

Selling Power Magazine recently surveyed four top sales trainers. Below I’ve summarized and paraphrased the questions and answers to two of the questions that were posed to them.

What is the biggest mistake most companies make regarding their sales force?

Howard Stevens: Companies focus too much on business development and not on customer service.
Jerry Acuff: Sales representatives not focusing on the customer’s needs.
Linda Richardson: Sales representatives that don’t customize their sales presentations according to the customer’s needs.
Joanne Black: Lack of preparation and planning on the part of sales representatives, especially when prospecting.

What sales training has the biggest impact on sales performance?

Howard Stevens: General business training in order for the sales representative to understand the context of his or her selling environment.
Jerry Acuff: How to build valuable business relationships.
Linda Richardson: Training sales management on sales coaching.
Joanne Black: Sales training alone will not work; start with your goals and fill in the blanks.

See what I mean? These respected trainers are all over the place. Are none of them right? Are all of them right? Is it a healthy blending of information?

The truth is that in sales training there are many variables that can affect which kind of sales training is best for an organization. Size of the sales force, industry, sales channels, etc. all impact the correct choice of sales trainers and methodologies. Sales management has to actively look for a trainer or training organization that understands their business and markets.

While every sales trainer is not a superstar, it is my opinion that most bring value to an organization. Deciding who is most appropriate for your training needs and moving away from the one-size-fits-all concept will get you better results for your training investment.

There’s almost certainly a sales trainer out there that is a good fit for your organization, but not all of them. Do your due diligence in finding one.

If you’re not already a subscriber, click here (salesvitamins.com) to subscribe and automatically receive Sales Vitamins™ as new posts become available. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer