Author: Sienna Anderson

Sales Trends That You Need to Know About In 2019 — Infographic

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson
Another year has come to an end, and this is the perfect time for companies to reflect between their achieved goals and failed attempts to increase sales. With the influence of modern technology in the world of sales, various tools, platforms, and strategies have evolved and became more accessible to businesses and sales teams across different industries. For 2019, what will be the sales trends that salespeople should watch out for? In this infographic, we will discuss notable trends that are either new or developed techniques inside the sales industry. Fasten up your seatbelts because here are the sales trend that you need to know in 2019: Sales Trends That You Need to Know About In 2019 - Infographic

Preparing New Sales Reps for Success: The Importance of Training After Coaching

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson

Sales representatives are the people who have a significant influence on how the prospects will respond to each campaign you initiate, and more importantly, how your sales will perform in the long run.  

To ensure optimal results, your sales team must possess a number of skills, especially in the area of communication and relationship building. The best salespeople aren’t always the slickest talkers — they’re the most effective listeners.

Instead of doing all the talk and trying to stay one step ahead, an effective salesperson carefully listens to the client’s needs. As for your sales representatives, it also takes time of quality training for them to hone and utilise their skills efficiently.

In this article, we will discuss the importance and benefits of sales training after coaching that is very relevant for startup businesses and small businesses this 2019. Moreover, since 2019 seems to be a fast-growing year for different companies, here are the critical importance of coaching and sales training that you should consider:

Sales Training Supports Coaching 

Coaching and training go hand-in-hand, as training provides employees with the knowledge and techniques to develop their skills, while coaching helps instil these skills by assisting employees to apply them at work appropriately. By providing annual training for skills improvement, and then evaluating how well your sales team used what they’ve learned, you will be able to identify more effective ways to sustain productive training for your company.

Creates an Interactive Environment for Learning 

Once a preliminary training program is underway, push the agenda onward and upward. Begin by providing ongoing educational opportunities that keep your entire staff up to date on changing protocols, regulations and technologies. When employees are consistently offered opportunities to acclimate, grow and lead, they’re more satisfied with their work and committed to the organisation.

Boost Productivity

By helping your sales representatives to work smarter, they can better understand and balance their time during working hours. This also means that they are less likely to suffer from too much stress because they are more able to approach each task more strategically, thus providing them more time which they can spend on other self-enriching activities.

Improves Emotional Intelligence 

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the capability of individuals to recognise their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately. Guiding your sales reps with how they should balance their emotional understanding in times of crisis will shape them to be cooperative in solving a problem, rather than being incapable of coming up with certain sales issues.

It Helps Bring in New Clients and Appease Current Ones 

When combined with a rigorous training program, sales coaching has the added benefit of inspiring and motivating sales representatives to feel more comfortable about taking risks which can lead to big deals and clients. Great coaching can also improve your customer service which can, in turn, appease your clients and raise awareness about your business through word-of-mouth.

If you are looking for a professional sales training company that can help you prepare your sales representatives, contact KONA Customised Training and Consulting today to learn more about our different services that can help your company.

Ways on How to Quickly Hit Your Fiscal Year Sales Number – Infographic

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson

Every business has a fiscal year. A company’s fiscal year is its financial year; it is any twelve-month period that the company uses for accounting purposes. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says a fiscal year is “12 consecutive months ending on the last day of any month except December 31st.” The IRS distinguishes “fiscal year” from “tax year,” stating that a tax year can be either fiscal year or the calendar year.

It is no doubt that the end of a fiscal year is considered one of the toughest times for any sales organisation. Whether you’re planning for next year or selling to meet end-of-year numbers, the crucial part of your sales assessment is with surviving your last month’s designated fiscal year goal. However, today, you can conquer this sales dilemma in your business. In this infographic, we will discuss different ways on how you can maneuver your sales number into a successful fiscal year, and not worry with your year-end results from your sales.

Ways on How to Quickly Hit Your Fiscal Year Sales Number - Infographic

7 Effective Strategies to Close Deals Faster (Infographic)

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson

The probability of closing the deal with your prospects always changes based on their current needs and trends in the market. Securing their purchase amidst their ever-changing preferences will require you to update your sales strategy from time to time, and to have a capable sales team that can quickly determine the exact needs and wants of your customers.

Closing the deal in a fast manner sounds very intimidating, but once you master the art of assertiveness without being rude or arrogant, having a closed deal will be like bread and butter. In this infographic, we will discuss the different effective sales strategies that you can use when closing a deal faster. Here 7 critical pointers that you should consider.

7 Effective Strategies to Close Deals Faster - Infographic

Customer Profiling: A Smarter Way to Reach Your Customers

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson
Customers are one of the most invaluable assets that keep businesses up and running. That’s why it is imperative to adapt and develop new strategies that fit their changing preferences and needs, and it is no doubt that certain brands take good credit when they comply with their customer’s needs. In order to do just that, conducting a thorough customer profiling technique is of utmost importance. It allows you to take a closer look with the different aspects that your customers desire about the product or service they need. Having a professional relationship with your prospects is one of the clear bases that you are on the right track of profiling them. Gathering feedback from your customers and prospects, while can be quite challenging, is also a great way to gather information about your customers. But, what to “do” with that information is the next step that often eludes many small-business owners. In this article, we will be discussing specific critical pointers that you should consider when starting customer profiling. Here are a few smart ways on how you can improve your customer profiling:

  • Create Buyer’s Ideal Persona

The first step you should take in assembling your customer persona is to create broad descriptions of each ideal customer. Classifying your customers and prospects will give you time to focus on their specific needs and personal preferences.

  • Gather the Right Data 

Conducting an appropriate strategy to track down your customer’s preference will make it easier for you to assess and create a suitable sales plan for them. When gathering customer data, however, bear in mind the existing data protection regulations in place that you might breach. To ensure that you comply with these regulations, also attach on your profiling a non-disclosure agreement between you and your consumers.

  • Identify Platforms Where Consumers Find You 

If social media plays a huge role in your marketing and sales efforts, it is only wise to identify on which platforms your customers engage you with  the most. Listing down all the available platforms that you have and evaluating their built-in analytics will give you valuable insight on where they live, what time of the day they are most active, and the type of content from your brand they engage the most.  

  • Micro-Target 

The bigger picture of your product advertisement is quite intimidating regarding coming up with a vast number of consumers who are either interested or not interested in your products. While it’s important to understand the behaviour and patterns of broad customer groups, but it’s important to dig deeper into the dynamics of sub-categories, too. Let’s take, for example, toddlers. Toddlers are known for their active moods and impulsive behaviour. To target this niche more effectively, you will adjust your content and products to their preferred needs as perceived by their parents. Contact KONA Customised Training and Consulting on 1300 611 288 or info@KONA.com.au today to learn more on how you can integrate a useful customer profiling to increase more sales. You may also visit our website at kona.com.au if you are interested in keeping on track with articles about sales and management training.

Sales Negotiation Training: Essential Negotiation Skills for Sales Professional (Infographic)

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson
Every salesperson is required to be appropriately qualified and correctly manage their prospect’s expectations through the sales process. And when it comes to finally closing the deal, a seamless and fair negotiation process is warranted.   Negotiation skills are one of the toughest areas to master since it requires the salesperson to really pay attention to the needs of the prospect and be genuinely interested in their views, logic, and beliefs. Being involved in different prospects every single day who are strangers to you is quite intimidating, but with proper training and onsite exposure, one will be able to hone their negotiation skills. To help you get starter, here are the essential sales negotiation skills that you should develop Sales Negotiation Training: Essential Negotiation Skills for Sales Professional - Infographic

Train Your New Members Before You Send Them to The Field (Infographic)

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson
It’s the first day at the office for the newly hired and what did you do? You handed them a welcome bouquet, gave a pat on the back, opened the office door to show them the way out, and told them, effectively in so many words, “Now go, bring me new business”. Without the necessary training your new sales representatives, however, slipped and struggled in the market. Their performance report card too, not surprisingly, looked miserable at the end of the first quarter.Train Your New Members Before You Send Them to The Field - Infographic

Do Your Team’s Presentations Turn Off Your Customers?

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson
In business, some problems are more peculiar than others, and often the cause of such issues is easily fixed, but not always easy to detect. At least this was what one of our sales training specialists found with a client we worked with last year A leading national consumer goods distributor was able to open-up an unfocused problem that a company suffers from their sales team. Their sales team seemed to have success with small clients but were unable to win many big accounts. As a result, most of their sales were from small clients, and their cost of sales was rising. The senior management had completed a cause and effect analysis, but the root cause still eluded them. Based on this they asked our sales training specialists for an ‘outsider’s eye’ to review their whole sales process to get to the root of the problem. This assessment made things crystal clear, and we found that apart from inferior questioning skills, they had missed something elementary: poor presentation skills. As was the norm of this industry, big clients were given a presentation as part of the initial sales pitch. A good impression meant an opportunity to take the bid further; a poor presentation prematurely ended the chance.    With this experience of having dilemmas acquiring sales, we have come up with the prominent outcomes that a company can suffer from.

What happens when this is the case?

  •    Full potentialities cannot be realised – Even if they are 100% loyal to your business, small clients can provide you with only so much activity. If your portfolio doesn’t include a mix of large and small clients, your costs of sales and supply will continue to escalate, and profits diminish.
  •    Poor presentation skills lead to poor conversion rates – Hard as your sales team tries, if they fail to break into big accounts, slowly but surely their confidence starts to erode. So much so that they lose hope of converting a more significant opportunity and continue to spend their time with smaller accounts. This, in turn, becomes a decreasing spiral of missed sales opportunities and declining margins.   
  •    Fewer opportunities to grow – Employees fail to move ahead professionally as career opportunities in a stagnant or slow-growing company become few and far between.
In doing this in-depth study about how sales team acquires sales, detecting the problem is not only the remedy that we can get but also, how to avoid and solve sales problems when they arise.

How to solve this issue?

A turnaround is possible, mainly if you use professional and experienced sales training specialists to guide you. In this case, solving the issue was more comfortable than finding it. We introduced a customised sales training course in Sydney and Melbourne, tailored to their business, customers and products, (not an off the shelf, by the standard course’). These ‘In-house’ professional sales training courses helped their team to learn and master the necessary presentation skills to improve sales, which, while not difficult to determine and master, their importance had been taken far too lightly. Excellent presentation skills not only position your team professionally but also show your customers what you can do for them, relative to their specific needs Contact KONA today on 1300 611 288 or Glenn@KONA.com.au to discuss how Hearts and Minds™ Selling will help your sales team achieve their KPIs.

Acquiring New Clients: The Key Area to Focus Your Sales Training in Australia (Infographic)

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson
Is your business running on the revenue from existing customers and clients? If so, it is easy to assume that things are going smoothly. After all, the current clients are working well with you, and there is an excellent professional relationship. If you are still relying on current customers and clients to sustain your day to day operations, the future for your business could be in danger. At best, you keep providing services to existing clients and keep earning the same revenue, leaving your business stagnant. The worst-case scenario, however, is that your company is unable to keep up with the competition. Your current clients would eventually move on to better service or product providers, and your business surely will draw the short end of the stick. Acquiring New Clients - The Key Area to Focus Your Sales Training in Australia (Infographic)

Is “Always Be Closing” Strategy Still Relevant for Your Business?

Posted on | by Sienna Anderson

Some industry experts believe that the mantra of using ‘Always Be Closing’ concept is becoming unfit to use for sales strategy. ‘Always Be Closing’, or ‘ABC’ is a familiar phrase to salespeople, made iconic by Alec Baldwin in the 1992 film, Glengarry.

Its since become the go-to line for two camps: Those who firmly believe in its power to drive action, and those who feel that it takes sales back to the dark ages.

Today, as fast as how technology can get different consumers, it is genuinely a norm that different unique sales techniques are being made and some old techniques come to old.

Is “ABC” strategy still relevant for your business today?

A study by CSO Insights indicates successful salespeople spend at most, 35% of their time selling or “closing.” In this article, we will review certain points on how relevant “Always Be Closing” can be for different businesses:

  • Confirms Buyer Commitment – Regardless of which stage you are currently in the sales process, continually and respectfully confirming your prospect’s commitment is smart and proactive. The “ABC” strategy starts from setting your first meeting with prospective buyers that gives an interest with your products and services. Even though it is just the first meeting, confirming their interest and willingness to know more about your products and services early on will allow you to determine whether they are actually serious in making business with you. If they show otherwise, then you will be able to move on to your next prospect and start selling again.
  • Mobility to Adapt – Always be closing may seem to deteriorate and become old for some salespeople, but, the idea of “ABC” can take on a new meaning in today’s hyper-connected mobile world. Work is no longer a place, and salespeople no longer have to physically be in their prospect’s office to build, nurture and develop relationships. Mobility for sales is bringing new meaning to “Always Be Closing,” where you can further the sales on any device.
  • Influences Social Selling – With the active use of consumers with different social media platforms in their everyday activity, it seems that “ABC” has its way of bringing a new flair for acquiring more sales. Social media enables sales professionals to build and execute their own variation of ABC but in a more engaging and meaningful way. As such, one salesperson may still consider using “ABC” as a linearised step in creating a new sales strategy for their campaigns.
  • Creates an Interactive Mode of Communication – As mentioned earlier, it is no doubt that modern technology is gradually taking its course to change the view of most salespeople with their strategies. Still, “ABC” serves as the foundation of the new age of interactive sales in which both the customer and salesperson can engage more efficiently and easily. ‘Always Be Closing’ comes to a new way of the collaborative and modern view of what it promotes from the later years; leaving no physical, emotional, and technological barriers to closing deals.

It is truly alarming that change seems to act fast and change the views of every consumer that is loyal to your service; but, always remember that sales are not a flash card game that everyone can efficiently perform. It is still about how you close a deal with assurance and effectiveness of your sales strategy.

‘Always Be Closing’ may seem to wash all down its great skin, but today, salespeople still rely on the effective and sharp usage of this strategy. This strategy did not fade, nor come to the grave of use; rather “ABC” adapts to the modernized needs of today’s consumers.

If you want to learn the modern application of “Always Be Closing” strategy in sales, you may contact KONA Customised Training and Consulting to let your sales team be trained and exposed to different effective plan to close the sale.

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