Consultation via Email from Buenos Aires, Argentina:
I tell you that I have three businesses dedicated to the sale of sports articles… I have approximately 20 employees and I have attended several SALES, INCENTIVATION, COLLECTION, etc. seminars. My question is what is new about SALES FORCE and STAFF INCENTIVATION?
Without any other particular I greet you and I'm waiting for your answer.
Daniel
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Dear Daniel:
Answering your question, I will tell you some of the new things we are working on in terms of training and motivation of the sales force.
In this era the consumer trend has changed. Today personal relationships, communication, flexibility, and trust come to the fore in sales work.
The mission of sales personnel today is to know and understand people and this is as important as knowing about the product they sell.
Today the seller's purpose should be, first of all, to build trust with the customer, and then find exactly what the customer wants or needs, help them get it quickly, and make them feel good about the product they want. He bought, either with the company, or with the seller himself.
Currently the biggest attraction for the consumer is that when he buys a product, he not only takes characteristics and benefits, quality, or cost-benefit ratio, but also a state of mind, a sensation.
Today, sales personnel must be prepared to add to the products or services they sell and to the company the feeling or state of mind that will make a difference compared to the competition.
To give you an example: I have had black, comfortable, nice, well-finished Reef shoes for a year, which apparently will last me a couple of years more.
I have never seen a Reef commercial that refers to the quality of the shoes, their finish, comfort, or duration.
Did you see what Reef's advertising is focused on?
Those spectacular women's bikini contests?
They are adding a nice feeling to the product, a feeling.
In car ads it is also very clear that it is more about adding to the car a pleasant and desirable feeling, than showing the seats, the engine, etc.
What does McDonalds sell? VALUE "This is value" says his slogan.
Today sales work is primarily about building trust and detecting what are the values and feelings or feelings that the person wants to buy.
We work a lot with merchants and entrepreneurs in defining the seller profile that the organization needs, and in the selection of personnel.
It is a very important opportunity to incorporate a new member of our team. Beyond the basic requirements and pre-occupational studies that the company is used to doing, what we do is interview the candidates to evaluate them from the perspective of sales and customer service and the results that our client expects to obtain with this incorporation.
In this way, we make it easier for our clients to hire personnel who will adapt to the vision of the organization, and who already have personality traits, an attitude favorable to teamwork, and a predisposition to sale and customer satisfaction.
Our client then has our report to add to the file of the new employee, which contains valuable information about his communication style and his motivating factors, which will then allow you to know how to do to positively influence his performance.
You will tell me: that is very good for choosing new personnel, but what do I do with those who have already worked for me for a long time?
Also in that case we work in individual interviews with employees, in which we have a fluid dialogue to know what is important to each one, what are their expectations, their desires, their principles, their beliefs. In these meetings, in addition to the definition of their communication style and motivational factors, interesting information appears on aspects that may be blocking their individual performance and their interaction with the group.
Let's say then that first of all we collaborate with our client in the definition of the mission, vision and expected results, then we choose new people and we know better those who are already inside.
You may have noticed that not all people are motivated by the same things. There are people who feel motivated to get closer to what they like, and people who feel more motivated to get away from what they don't like; There are people who are motivated by things that are similar to what they already do or know, and others who are motivated by different things.
In addition to these, there are many other distinctions, and it is very important to be able to understand and use them in our communication both with our employees and with our clients, in order to have more possibilities of motivating them and influencing their decisions and their behavior.
After this, and according to the characteristics of the company, we suggest a mixed system of salary plus commissions, or awards and incentives. Any increase in commissions, or the implementation of commissions if they have not been used so far, will be based on an increase in employee productivity measured by an increase in the amount of closed sales and the amount of them. In this way, the incentive program will not represent an extra cost for the company.
What works best is that there are two scales in parallel: one will measure that seller's billing compared to that of their peers, and another will measure their current billing against their own historical billing. In this way we will not only be rewarding the "best seller", but we will allow everyone to also run their own race.
There are many details that can be included. You can establish what each firm understands as "ideal performance" (for example sales that are paid in cash, sales in which no discounts have been made, sales that include product tandems -ex.: slippers + stockings; racket + balls; etc etc.). Even special cases can be established (for example sales above a certain amount) in which the commission will be paid in cash to the seller at the time.
This work will make sellers more willing to sell, get excited, and will also be the foundation for them to want to be trained to sell more. And in reality, all our efforts are put in that each one DOES earn his incentives or extra commissions, since it will be a sign that our client is achieving the results he expected.
Knowing the staff, and the results that our client expects, we give them training appropriate to their level of experience and training. These courses and workshops are exclusive for each company. They are group and can be carried out in company premises or in a place to be defined.
Depending on the level of training and performance of sales people, we can go from basic training in retail techniques and customer service, to advanced training in the Harvard negotiation model, application of NLP communication techniques, use in sales of factors of influence and persuasion, etc., etc.
The only meaning of all this is that the expected results are obtained, so the training has to come down to earth, and be adequate and adapted to the day-to-day reality of sales work in your business, to your profile of customer, and your market.
To ensure that the investment in training is a truly profitable investment for our clients, we can establish a plan to monitor and support the knowledge and new skills acquired by sales people…
Cordially, Patrick peker
