What's in Your Tool Box!? I consult and coach sales professionals in a variety of industries and disciplines; professional services, product manufacturing, real estate, hospitality supplies and equipment manufacturing which encompass a broad spectrum of companies with a few employees to many hundreds. There are common threads that I observe such as some sales people are great prospecting on the phone and others hate to make cold calls on the phone, some reps like to make in person calls and some don't, some are comfortable making presentations and some are very uncomfortable with any type of presentation, some are skilled at emailing or letter writing and some can't put together 2 compelling sentences. In these competitive, challenging times for relationship development sales people, we need to have many tools in our tool box that will enable us to sell to many different types of organization and clients. The decision maker we are selling to may be an entry level executive assistant, a senior buyer or project manager, a marketing director, a committee of stakeholders and or a C-level executive. We need to have the necessary tools required to reach out to these various professionals in an effective and thoughtful way. You will need to be able to make a cold call for one, write an introductory letter for another, email a relevant case study or white paper to gain an appointment, create a value proposition that is delivered as some form of branded company materials, deliver an interesting and dynamic presentation to differentiate yourself and your company and a combination of tools in many situations. We need to have many tools in our tool box today to be able to create selling strategies for each of our prospects and for all of our current clients that we want to up-sell or cross-sell. These include but are not limited to: the skill to create and deliver presentations the courage to make phone calls-warm and cold effective letter writing for different objectives relevant case studies/white papers to substantiate a specific application of your product or service ability to deliver informative product demos create the verbiage to communicate persuasive value propositions utilize your company's web site to help support your sales effort write and deliver voice mail and live scripts develop and deliver informative lunch and learns compelling branded company hand outs/printed materials use social media where applicable-have a professional LinkedIn profile! These skills in various situations are necessary to develop trusted relationships with prospects or strengthen relationships with current clients. Don t limit yourself to one or two of these tools that will ultimately limit your chances to find and develop new business and attain your revenue goal moving forward! Focus Point 26. Avoid the common bad habits that will drop your production level. Here are some of the most common 'time wasters": Surfing the Internet. Some current studies have estimated that employees spend up to ten hours a week surfing while at work. That's 500 hours per year that they're not working! Making excessive personal phone calls while on the job. Spending too much time at the water cooloer or in the restroom. Spending too much time socializing with administrative staff or colleagues and not working. Taking care of personal chores while on the job. Stop making excuses to your manager and/or spouses as to why the production level is not there. Take charge of your workday starting now! After all, there is only a limited amount of time during the day when you can sell to your potential clients. Use your "prime time" to sell and ask yourself what other tasks can be done after hours. Upcoming Events Time: 12:00 - 1:00 PM Cost: PIASC Member $65 each -or- $220 series Non-Members $95 each -or- $340 series September 17th - What is in Your Tool Box? October 1st - Estimating Strategies and Capture Ratio October 15th - Asking for the Next Step and Closing Techniques October 29th - Case Study Development and ROI More Information and Registration 2013 Leadership & Management Conference August 4th - 6th, 2013 Quest Business and Conference Center 8405 Pulsar Place, Columbus, Ohio 43240 Monday | August 5, 2013 | 11:00 am to 12:30 pm | Morning Breakout Sessions Sell More Solutions to Your Current Customer Base Monday | August 5, 2013 | 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm | Afternoon Breakout Sessions The Keys to Consultative Selling More Information and Registration PIM 2013 Summer Management Conference August 13, 14, 15, 2013 Boyne Mountain, Michigan Focusing on Sales Management and Breakthrough Marketing Presented by: Leslie Groene Thursday August 15, 2013 8:30-11:30 am More Information and Registration Learn more about Leslie Click here to see video Leslie named Leadership Excellence Top 100 Upcoming Events Click here to see event schedule Leslie's book Click here to buy now Talk of the Town Click here to see Leslie's Interview Washington Post Click here to read the article For a list of upcoming Los Angeles and National sales events Click here Here is 1 more of the Focus Points from Leslie's book, co-authored by Tom Mills and available on her website www.groeneconsulting.com