Wednesday, February 17, 2010

CPAC 2010 is here!

For the next three days (and nights) I'll be at the premiere conservative political event of the year. CPAC 2010 (www.cpac.org) is a great event with lots of networking, educational opportunities, events, speakers and parties in Washington DC.

Townhall is proud to be associated with CPAC and provides the official live video streaming efforts for CPAC.

www.townhall.com/cpac

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Gitomer's Sales Training Seminar in Atlanta Today

I thought I'd blog about some key take-aways and observations from attending Jeffrey Gitomer's seminar today.



Take-aways:

Nobody goes to school to become a sales manager so you have to get training.

Be a coach, not a manager.

Make your business card a conversation starter.

My attitude, as the Sales Coach, sets the tone for my team.

Inspire players to win for themselves.

Let each team member teach at sales meetings

Referrals are key. (this is a big mantra of Gitomer's)

Bring a customer to a sales meeting.

Look at your most heard objections and do something about them.

Have contests with your team anyone can win.

Hire women sales people. They do better, typically, than men.

Award your sales people in public.

Ask your sale people, "What is your best relationship in your life?" Now, nurture your client relationships the same way.

Lead by example, beside your people.

Set goals with your team.

Go through the sales people at your targets to get to the decision maker.

Record yourself pitching and watch it.

Enhance the comp plans.

Sales people don't like being accountable and they don't like working on a team with the other sales people.

Encourage your people.....all the way up until they leave.



Something I noticed in this, the 4th time I've paid to hear Gitomer, is that he's hawking his stuff a LOT more. Books, software, vendors, his new CRM, etc... It's annoying and I felt like I paid a lot of money to listen to him spend half his time talking about how the Phillies are awesome and his web guy is great. He lost me on this one. I won't pay to hear him again.