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It’s Time for Implementation

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It’s Time for Implementation

It's Time for Implementation

As with everything we do implementation is the critical element to our success. As it’s time for implementation, here are some thoughts for you to consider.

HELP! I’m in CRM hell!

From my extensive work in training equipment dealers, I have observed the challenges that most of them confront. If a dealer is in the early stages of selecting or initiating a CRM, here are some important concerns to anticipate:

  • Connectivity problems – especially in rural territories.
  • Integration and compatibility with operating systems and existing databases
  • Customization flexibility and speed of requested changes or revisions of the structure or fields.
  • Technology comfort barriers of the users
  • Data entry time requirements and user-friendliness
  • Ownership of the importance by sales and support (facilitated by training)
  • Adoption and utilization of all functions (calendar, quoting, opportunities, machine population, service history, account prioritization and call frequency)
  • Integration and compatibility with all segments or functions of the dealership (service, parts, other divisions-such as power generation/GPS technology/allied products/etc., rental)

If you want to add more to our list please let us know by email. Good luck in your journey to implementing this important sales and sales management tool.

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions.

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717 or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

CRM and Dealer Executives

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CRM and Dealer Executives

A new guest blog by Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training. Today, Don shares with us the importance of CRM for Dealer Executives.

Customer Relationship Management is a long way from a salesman having his little black book. This concept causes concern in the executive leadership of the business and the sales teams.

HELP! I’m in CRM hell!

Here are a few of the reasons that dealer principals and leaders are constrained to have a functional CRM solution:

  • Coverage, market share growth, awareness/participation and better service
  • Real time selling information
  • Team selling and strategic growth of key accounts
  • Marketing campaigns (focused mailers, promotions etc)
  • Dealership possession of market and customer information (not out in a salespersons trunk or private laptop)
  • Benchmarking and accountability of activities

Do these points look familiar? How you overcome them and move forward is a critical decision and implementation.

For more information on our assessments and classes, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Help! I’m in CRM Hell!

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Help! I’m in CRM Hell!

Help! I'm in CRM Hell!

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions. He is beginning a series on Customer Relationship Management with “Help, I’m in CRM Hell!”

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717 or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

Help! I’m in CRM Hell!

For the next few weeks, we will discuss Customer Relationship Management. This has become a real hot button particularly with the current pandemic and economic conditions.

What does it mean to be trapped in CRM Hell?

I come front and center with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) issues with every construction equipment dealer I train. I personally have not researched or compiled any conclusive data as to which products are most used or which are best suited for construction equipment dealers. I have observed however, that every dealer has their own unique goals, budget, size/scope and ‘people culture’ to consider. The product options are there, and it takes research and careful consideration to select a product or CRM service that is the right fit.

The dealers that address the core issues first (noted in this blog) – and that involve all levels and departments in the CRM vendor selection process seem to be the most successful.  Conversely, those that invest in a CRM system without a broad involvement and buy-in, and then demand conformance to its use, have the lowest adoption rate and effectiveness – from my observations.

For more information about our training programs, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Know When to Walk Away

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Know When to Walk Away

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions. Today, he answers another tough question: how do you know when to walk away?

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717  or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

QUESTION 4: If a customer is not honest with you on a regular basis and they continue to buy on price only. . . at what point do we walk away from the relationship?

 Don Buttrey: First let me establish the fact that there can be a time to walk away from an account. However, it must be decided strategically with input from the sales professional, sales managers, and appropriate leaders. Many things should be considered: the market situation/economy, other opportunities you have available, inventory levels, how this account might distract us or use up resources we could spend on better business, strength of the competition, if we want the competition to get the volume, etc.

Tactically, before doing anything radical, the salesperson must pre-call plan and set up a good face-to-face with the customer and ask some well-crafted open-ended questions to verify the real situation versus just what it appears on the surface. Ask the hard questions and face the honesty issue head on –but do not argue or accuse. Just get the customer talking and be firm in waiting for answers instead of filling any silence with a bunch of rhetoric or nervous chatter. Ask and shut up. If you have assessed the risk and decided it was worth stirring up the hornet’s nest–ask some blunt, to-the-point questions (but do it in a non-emotional, non-threatening way).

Have a minimum objective for the success of the call based on your decisive strategy. If the customer will not agree to that objective, or refuses to talk and interact honestly (after given plenty of chances to do so), then it may be a good management decision to walk away and not waste your time. Walk from this deal and run to others (prospecting) —-BUT– do not burn any bridges –just back off your sales effort in that account. Mark your calendar for 6-12 months to check in again. Things change. Buyers quit or leave. New owners and leaders come into place.

Note: If, in your strategy, you know there is someone over their head that may be a better contact – devise a plan to call on them. If you decided that you will walk anyway – this may be a good option. Just do it carefully — and you better pre-plan what you will say and how you will say it! Here is another idea: Sometimes having your company’s sales manager (or even the president) call on the customer’s top management is a great way to go over their head without it looking like the salesperson is out of bounds. This will confirm whether it is one person who is not honest –or if it is the culture or way of doing business for the entire customer organization.

To learn more about how to maintain productive relationships with your customers, visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Avoiding a Mutiny

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Avoiding a Mutiny

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions. He is able to negotiate restructuring while avoiding a mutiny.

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717 or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

Avoiding a Mutiny

QUESTION 3: How can I make some necessary territory changes and restructure the sales department without a mutiny? Also, how can we implement technology such as CRM when it seems to be resisted for numerous reasons?

Don Buttrey:  Believe it or not, I suggest laying tough issues like this out on the table with your salespeople. Teach them the realities and the issues that you see and face as a leader – with a larger perspective. Sell to them the importance of changing. You are not the enemy – the competition is! I am a believer in getting the solution, buy-in and ownership from the salespeople themselves. If you jam it down their throat – they will not do it anyway – at least not with the heart that would be needed to succeed. My training is effective at showing them the disciplines and the activities that they must be doing as professionals. I am confident that once they see and learn the stuff of professional selling – they will be convicted about how far they are missing the mark. From there a ground level of support can help you restructure your sales department and make needed changes.

Then, to implement, it requires top leadership commitment with firm execution of necessary strategic changes. Change your system! Otherwise, if you show the slightest lack of authority or conviction – it will get overturned, ignored or “waited out”. Michael Gerber put it this way, “If you tell people to do the right things and your system tells them otherwise…the system will win every time.”

Leadership with a clear mission—along with persuasive “selling” (versus “telling”) of the required changes—are the keys to necessary restructuring.

For more information on avoiding a mutiny, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Are Salespeople Born or Made?

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Are salespeople born or made?

This week’s blog post is a continuation of last week’s series Answers to Four Tough Sales Questions. The second question in the series asks us: are salespeople born or made?

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions.

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717

or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

Are salespeople born or made?

Don Buttrey: Neither. It really takes both. Granted, some individuals are born with great gifts. They have contagious personalities, persuasive ability, the gift of talking, or technical/mechanical aptitude. These are all excellent talents that can be good starting points. However, I am of the firm belief that these are not enough. For sales success in today’s tough market it will also require training and practice on fundamental selling skills. The skills and disciplines of sales professionals are what take those innate gifts and make them produce with maximum effectiveness.

On the other side of this issue it must be noted that training and practice alone will not make a great salesperson. All the training in the world will not fix a salesperson who refuses to grow or who has the wrong attitude. Plus, it is very important that we begin with and invest training into people who want to be in sales and who have some of the raw talent and aptitude for daily interactions, communication and self-management.

My conclusion is; attract and find good people with some (or a lot) of the basic talents and aptitudes needed for selling. Confirm that they have a drive to succeed and a teachable mind-set. Then direct, train and coach them. This is a formula for a winning team.

For more information on our sales training programs, visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Four Tough Sales Questions

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Answers to Four Tough Sales Management Questions

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. He has given answers to these four tough sales management questions over the course of his career. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions.

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717

or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

Four Tough Sales Management Questions

As a sales trainer I get to work with heavy equipment dealers all across North America. In this 4-part series I will provide some answers to four tough questions that sales managers often ask me. I hope they give you some clarity and direction as a sales leader!

QUESTION 1: What preparation should I expect my salespeople to do before picking up the phone or meeting with a customer?

Don Buttrey: Most of the time salespeople do the typical prep such as considering the situation, doing some research, or reviewing notes on the customer such as past sales, problems, internal politics, personal facts, previous calls etc. That is important – but it is not enough. Often, at that point they just charge in or pick up the phone and “see how it goes”. I call this, “showing up and throwing up”.

I accept the reality that selling is very dynamic and that anything could happen.  However, one of the most important disciplines and skills I teach is, tactical pre-call planning. When salespeople make proactive calls, they are on the “offense” and they should prepare their offense! What will they say to start? What questions will they ask and how will they word them for maximum effectiveness? What benefits of product or distributor value will they leverage? What is their action-oriented objective and how will they ask for commitment or action?

My short answer to this question is that before every call salespeople should pre-call plan using the SELL Process tool. SELL stands for Start, Evaluate, Leverage, Lock: and each of these steps should be prepared in order to maximize every precious customer interaction. Preparation and ongoing practice are essential. You play like you practice—and salespeople just don’t practice enough.

For more information on preparation, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.