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JULY/AUGUST 2008
FEATURESTORY
Question: Why Train Unmotivated Sales Reps?
Answer: Because the Motivated Ones Go With Them
Training is an investment that many companies short shrift in good times. It's no surprise, then, that it's nearly impossible to get adequate training dollars allotted during economic downturns. It's even tougher when many of those who receive the training don't provide a return on that investment.
Why spend the money on training if one-third of the reps are going to tune out?
9 Ideas to Improve Your Off-Site
As a professional speaker on customer service, consultant Ron Kaufmann has seen the best and worst of corporate meetings and events. He offers these tips from those experiences...
5 Questions That Will Improve Any Sales Meeting
Everyone I know has been to meetings that were, to put it politely, less than effective. These five questions can make any meeting more effective - if you both ask and answer them
before your meeting. Each question has a companion question to further help you improve results...
PUBLISHER'SNOTE
It’s What You Do, Not What You Know, That Counts **
Wit and wisdom from our Publisher, Mike Murrell...
EDITOR'SNOTE
Why Sales Is Like Mouse Trap **
In planning our second “What Works” summer issue of quick-read tips and tactics, it struck me that sales is a lot like the board game Mouse Trap. A process needs to be followed;
one step leads to another, which leads to another and, hopefully, the end result is a sale. But it’s unrealistic to expect it to work every time. And patience is a virtue. Thoughts from our
Editor-in-Chief, Paul Nolan...
WHAT WORKS: Sales Management
What Are You Going to Change? **
Before you read any business book, says best-selling author Seth Godin, decide that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it...
Get Tough By Showing Your Vulnerability **
Getting the best out of your sales team requires that you really get to know them individually. “Really getting to know someone” might sound vague, but it’s not. “You know it when
it happens,” says business and marketing consultant Keith Ferrazzi, author of the best-selling Never Eat Alone (Doubleday, 2005). The way you get there, he adds, isn’t vague at all: Take
emotional risks...
WHAT WORKS: Business Books
An Excuse to Have Cocktails **
“Used properly, a simple drawing on a humble napkin is more powerful than Excel or PowerPoint,” says Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling
Ideas With Pictures (2008, Portfolio). “It can help us crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that other people simply ‘get.’”...
WHAT WORKS: Sales training
Question: Why Train Unmotivated Sales Reps? Answer: Because the Motivated Ones Go With Them
Training is an investment that many companies short shrift in good times. It's no surprise, then, that it's nearly impossible to get adequate training dollars allotted during economic downturns. It's even tougher when many of those who receive the training don't provide a return on that investment.
Why spend the money on training if one-third of the reps are going to tune out?
Get Tough By Showing Your Vulnerability **
In today’s competitive business world, managers are only as good as their last decision, or their ability to stay ahead of contemporaries and competitors. Thomas Jefferson
passionately believed that learning is a life long endeavor whose flame should not be extinguished until a person’s last breath had been drawn. Regrettably, says executive coach Mike Myatt, this often
runs contrary to how most managers handle their own careers...
Why Do Your Slackers Tell Most of the Tales?: It’s the superstars who should share their secrets **
Sales managers say they would give anything to solve the 80-20 dilemma (80 percent of revenue brought in by 20 percent of the sales force). But does anyone put anything practical
in place to accomplish this? Listen to the hallway chatter for a week and keep a tally of who blathers most. Chances are, the reps who are middle performers or lower tell most of the war stories...
WHAT WORKS: XPILLUSTRATED
Beta Brigade: For many, today’s electronics are sexier than sex itself! (interactive web feature)
Nearly half (47 percent) of British men surveyed earlier this year by a consumer electronics retailer stated that they would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch
plasma TV. (One-third of women said they would do likewise.) Before you dismiss this as a wacky bunch of blokes who’ve lost their libido, know that MSNBC posed the same question on its Web site soon
after the initial survey and 44 percent of the 10,185 responders, mostly Americans, (presumably both men and women) said, “Show me the plasma!”...
WHAT WORKS: OFF-SITES & INCENTIVE TRAVEL
9 Ideas to Improve Your Off-Site
As a professional speaker on customer service, consultant Ron Kaufmann has seen the best and worst of corporate meetings and events. He offers these tips from those experiences...
5 Questions That Will Improve Any Sales Meeting
Everyone I know has been to meetings that were, to put it politely, less than effective. These five questions can make any meeting more effective - if you both ask and answer them before your meeting. Each question has a companion question to further help you improve results...
Oh! Cirque du Soleil at corporate events **
Thousands of companies have brought their employees to see unique shows staged by Cirque du Soleil, mostly during Las Vegas meetings. Now you can bring these one-of-a-kind
performers to your corporate event — no matter where it’s held...
WHAT WORKS: INCENTIVES & RECOGNITION
The Importance of Throwing Bones:
Businesses talk about fostering customer lifetime value, but is anyone minding employee lifetime value? **
In a global economy based on knowledge, intangible assets and resources, the ability to manage and leverage human capital and talents has become increasingly critical. Work forces
are now the true value creator for many organizations. Still, the prevailing mindset at many companies remains focused on products and brand and, more recently, customer lifetime value (CLTV). Indeed,
customers have been regarded as the source of profit and value while employees have been treated as a cost...
WHAT WORKS: GIFT CARDS
Playing Your Cards Right:
Gift cards continue to increase in popularity among incentive users **
When using non-cash incentives, it’s a good bet that whatever is hot at retail will drive the performance you’re looking for in the workplace. You’d be hard-pressed to find something hotter at retail stores these days than gift cards...
The 2008 Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC) Member Directory
The Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC) is a strategic industry group within Incentive Marketing Association, created to provide an awareness of gift cards as a viable option for
use in premium and incentive programs. Member companies are the elite among retail, catalog and performance improvement agencies, offering cards/certificates that can be redeemed for merchandise,
travel, food, accommodations and services. This directory is a service to SalesForceXP readers who use — or are interested in using — gift cards as employee or customer incentives...
WHAT WORKS: INCENTIVEPRODUCTS
Product Review: Spending Money To Make Money (360KB PDF document. Requires free Adobe Reader)
Companies will spend millions of dollars to build their own brand, and then turn around and attempt to motivate salespeople and support personnel with off-brand incentives. To inspire employees to truly turn in the extra effort it takes to impact your bottom line, brand-name, luxury incentives are a wise place to start...
Incentive Alley (560KB PDF document. Requires free Adobe Reader)
Take advantage of these exclusive offers to SalesForceXP readers on merchandise, gift card and travel incentives from our advertisers...
WHAT WORKS: COACHES'CORNER
Blog Hopping:
Like a good drinking hole, sales blogs can be a great place to unwind, talk shop, and pick up a few pointers **
A collection of insight as excerpted from the authors of some of the most popular sales management blogs on the 'net...
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