Micro-Training

TERRITORY MANAGEMENT

Discuss ways to maximize your time and consistently prospect through good territory management practices. We’ll discuss the days and times that are best for reaching prospects and customers, then make a plan for using time well by breaking seller territories up into segments.  

IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE 

The world is not your prospect! You’ll make more money faster when you hone-in on the right audience. This class is about refining how you talk about what you do, why you do it, who wants to buy it, and who to sell it to. You’ll come away knowing who to target for the fastest path to revenue.

MARKETING ISN'T SALES

The line between Marketing and Sales can get blurry when you’re focused on getting your business out in the world. If you’re trying to figure out why your sales efforts aren’t getting the results you want, you might be marketing and not selling. Using a visual model to map the buying/selling process, you will be able to define which tasks are marketing, which are sales, and take deliberate steps to improve both types of effort for better results.

PROSPECTING & COLD CALLING

Prospecting and cold calling can seem like throwing ‘stuff at the wall’ and hoping some of sticks. Couple that with a high rate of rejection, and these activities quickly become people’s least favorite thing to do. Knowing who you should be calling, why they’d want to hear from you, and then using methods of outreach that get to them in a way that is least intrusive will keep your pipeline flowing the way it should be. It will also make prospecting more productive and who knows, maybe even enjoyable.

IS IT WORTH IT? LET ME WORK IT.

Missy Elliott knows all about lead prospecting. This session is all about what it takes to qualify a lead into an opportunity. Do you have clear criteria for scoring leads? And what information do you need before you can say with certainty that it’s an opportunity that should be moved into the funnel? We’ll discuss best practices and adjust them to match your business so the deals that get in your funnel are most likely to result in wins.

OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF SALES

You know you need sales for your business to make money, but sometimes that’s the last thing you want to do. If you prioritize everything else first, look for excuses, or cringe at the idea of having to sell, then this is the session for you. We’ll discuss the reasons we have negative feelings about selling and provide techniques for approaching sales in an authentic, comfortable, and—dare we say—enjoyable way.

STAFFING: 2 KINDS OF DISCOVERY

In staffing, there are two different types of “Discovery” we need to do with clients. We must “Uncover the Need” and ask questions in order to “Fill the Need.” The problem is that we often jump to questions that help us fill the need—like asking about skills, preferred experience, and timelines—and skip the most important parts of Discovery. Let’s discuss the difference and the value of doing both types of Discovery. 

RELATING

A quick reminder of how to decrease relationship tension and increase task tension to help move deals forward faster. 

DISCOVERY (BUSINESS NEEDS IDENTIFICATION)

This session provides a framework for understanding customer priorities from a strategic perspective. 

ADVOCATING

A quick refresher dedicated to positioning services based on the impact they will have to the business and the buyer, balancing task motives with personal motives.

SUPPORTING

A quick reminder of the five types of closing techniques, emphasizing natural next steps to keep relationship tension down. 

FUNNEL MANAGEMENT

The sales funnel is a sales leader’s gauge for what is happening or what will happen in the business. If The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. By knowing the necessary stuff to add you avoid people being a slave to admin tasks while still being able to smart, effective decisions. This conversation is a must for sales reps and sales managers. Without it, both groups end up wasting time and energy. 

BUYING INFLUENCES

Don’t take a “No” from someone that can’t say “Yes”. Don’t take a single “Yes” and assume your deal is done. Buying organizations, a complex maze of people that all need to weigh in on your offer. Learn how to navigate that maze and even better, be able to guide your prospect through it to close deals faster and minimize surprises.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Ask any salesperson what they need, and they will say “I wish I had more time in the day”. Makes total sense, right? Every year we get tasked with bigger goals, more work, and new projects. Here’s an easy to use, realistic approach to time management that will give you more time to focus on what’s most important. 

CRM, DATA CLEANUP

Garbage in, Garbage out. We’ve heard the term and we all know we have blown off the time we should’ve spent updating CRM data. It’s a like a black cloud looming overhead. Reps ask us “Would you rather have me out prospecting or cleaning up CRM?” The answer is ‘we need both’, but do you know why? Productive reps understand the impact dirty data has on productivity and results.  Let’s figure out how to get the data clean up in a way that will boost productivity but not turn reps into admin roles. We’ll lay out an easy to implement plan that will get stuff cleaned up and outline practices to keep it that way. 

IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE

The world is not your prospect! You’ll make more money faster when you hone-in on the right audience. This class is about refining how you talk about what you do, why you do it, who wants to buy it, and who to sell it to. You’ll come away knowing who to target for the fastest path to revenue.

PRICING TO VALUE

What’s your pricing strategy? Whether you choose to focus on price, product, or service shapes how you present your offering and its price to prospects. We’ll discuss the services you offer and how you create value that justifies your price. Whatever your strategy, you should feel confident talking about the numbers.

STAFFING PRICING

Staffing customers often ask us to price on mark-up so they can price-shop across staffing providers. But they often expect the quote based on payrate without understanding the other costs, such as payroll taxes and value-adding services they expect beyond the worker themselves. This session dismantles the “mark-up misconception” to demonstrate the true costs of offering staffing services and create confidence when discussing price.

SEGMENTS & PRIORITIES

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew exactly where to spend your time when it comes to Account Management? What if you had a tool that helped you decide how to divide you time but also gave an indicator of who might be more likely to grow and purchase more? We will take a look at how to decide where you spend time, who gets the best of your resources and create a plan for you and your book of business that allows you to nurture the accounts most likely to grow and to ensure other accounts don’t slip through the cracks. 

BUSINESS REVIEWS

Business Reviews are one of the most powerful tools available to build a lasting customer relationship. Unfortunately, most companies stink at them. Many reps have a hard time getting buyers to dedicate time to a formal review. Wouldn’t it be nice to have your customer value those business reviews, or better yet, be so excited for them they’d be willing to pay you for the time? Making a few changes to the way you prepare and updating the information you bring will lead to a review that customers will look forward to.

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

Account Management is a sales function. In some companies this important role is sent to the ops team. In the wrong hands, account management not only falls flat, but can cost an organization resources they could use elsewhere. To combat this, companies need to be clear about expected account outcomes, build barriers to exit, ensure resources are ready and make sure account teams know their role and expectations. We’ll show you how to set up account planning in a clear, easy way that keeps the buyers and sellers happy and productive. 

CRM, MAXIMIZING SOME OF THE FORGOTTEN BENEFITS

Most people see CRM as a policing tool and avoid it until they have to. However, every rep and manager want CRM to add benefit to them personally. They ask: “How can CRM make my job easier…?” Here we point out ways CRM can be set up to work on behalf of those that use it. We uncover some the best features that sales teams aren’t using today and figure out how to use those to our advantage. Let’s put CRM to work for us! 

FUNNEL COACHING

This is the single most effective thing a sales leader can do for their team. Period. It trumps all other responsibilities. If you’ve wanted to start and aren’t sure how to get going, this will be a great jump start. If you are doing funnel coaching already, you’ll get actionable items that will make your reps more efficient and effective. We’ll show you how to cut through the clutter to the most important things you and your teams should be talking about. 

1:1 COACHING

What is the best way to coach people for maximum effectiveness? We look at the specific types of coaching conversations you should be having, how to have them, when to have them and what you’ll need in order to be prepared. This will upgrade your coaching game almost immediately. 

PLANNING

You’ve got big hopes for your business and are ready to take 2020 by the horns! Do you know what it will take to knock those plans out of the park? This session helps you define where you’ll be by the end of next year, how you’ll measure your success, and create clear actions that keep you on track to make sure you get there. You’ll stay focused on what’s important and get results, thanks to a simple one-page plan.

W-MODEL, AGENDAS VS. OBJECTIVES

Have you ever known you had a great idea, were working on the perfect project, or wanted to get funding for something you knew would drive revenue only to have it squashed? Too often, that happens, and people don’t event understand why. In this unit, we discuss why it happens, how to prevent it, and how to get alignment in your organization. 

TARGETS & FORECASTING

There is one metric that matters more to salespeople than any other metric: the target. The problem is that targets are often set based on arbitrary aspirational growth rather than considering the factors that matter in determining a growth goal that is both a stretch goal and a real possibility. We’ll discuss factors that should be considered and help calibrate targets to be relevant and attainable.

RHYTHM OF BUSINESS

The speed of change in an organization is faster than ever. To stay agile companies are moving quickly, ramping up projects, process improvement, and technology to stay ahead of the curve. With all that motion, it can be hard to get a handle on what’s happening in an organization, understanding who is going to be impacted and aligning dates to expected outcomes to ensure people have the information needed and capacity to absorb the changes. All this needs to happen while your business continues to operate. In this unit we provide a simple to use outline that will give visibility and clarity to your upcoming priorities and allow you to be sure your fast-moving projects won’t have unintended consequences.

VALUE PROPOSITION

Sure, you know what you sell, but do you know why your customers buy it? Knowing the answer to that question and using it when selling can open more doors, get your prospect to give you more person to person time, and will add credibility to your role as a seller. We’ll find out how to get a great value prop that will deliver results. 

ASSESSING THE 4 SALES PROCESSES

The first step in improving sales processes is to define what the core sales processes are. The first step to understanding how work is done versus how it should be done is to have a clear and effective way to talk about it. This session uses a simple model to break down sales work into four categories (processes) and discuss the relationship between strategy, how buyers buy, how sellers sell, and coming to mutual agreement around how we sell and why.