In This Issue:

• Are Your Sales Meetings Boring? By Bill Lee
• Archived Articles

• Next Week - Cracking Into Corporate Accounts
• Next Week For Management - Rewarding Sales Behaviors You Want Repeated

For Management Next Week

Rewarding Sales Behaviors You Want Repeated TeleSeminar: The only reason for rewarding sales behaviors is that they have and will produce significant results for our salespeople, us as managers, our customers, and our company - IN THAT ORDER! By the way, get them out of that order and you will fail...

Learn to:

• Identify the sales behaviors that you want repeated (and there are only 6!).
• Create a Program that is self motivating, self funding, and self sustaining.
• Have a a supporting Measurement Program that in "real time" (not at the end of the month when the damage is already done...)
• Much more . . .

Can't make the seminar? Pre-order the cd for a discounted price. Click here for details.

"Manager's Minute" Tip

(Article Archive)

Are Your Sales Meetings Boring?
By Bill Lee

(Note: If you enjoy this article, then you may be interested in the teleseminar with the same title Are Your Sales Meetings Boring? now on cd or immediate download.)

Many sales meetings are boring and a waste of salespeople's time, say the majority of salespeople I interview. A review of what's going on in the market is good to know, but to be effective, sales meetings need to be a lot more than that venues for quick market updates.

Inviting a vendor's sales representation to present a product training program never hurts, but if product knowledge were the criteria for success in sales, about 90% of the fledgling salespeople in our industry who are about to lose their jobs would be top performers. While product knowledge is important, it won't turn a mediocre performer into a top producer.

What's missing in most of the salespeople I meet is a general lack of selling skills. Yet rarely do I see sales meetings in our industry focus on teaching salespeople how to sell more products to existing customers or how to penetrate prospects who are giving the lion's share of their purchases to the competition.

Here are several ideas that will allow your sales force to leave their next sales meeting with enough ammunition to improve their performance:

1. Ask two or three of your top salespeople to join the store manager or sales manager on a panel. Give the sales force enough advance notice to identify several sales obstacles they are facing and jot each of them down on a separate piece of paper. At the sales meeting, call out the question and allow the panel to respond with their most effective ideas.

2. Invite three loyal customers to attend your next sales meeting and answer questions from the sales force about what services they most appreciate from an outside salesperson and what it is about your company that makes them such loyal customers.

3. Invite each salesperson draw a number out of a hat to determine the order each salesperson will present a 15-to-20-minute sales presentation on a key product line that the company is emphasizing. What makes this approach especially effective is to video tape each presentation. When the presentations are over, replay the tape and ask the audience to critique each presentation.

4. Ask each salesperson to present to the sales force background and details on one of his or her key prospects. Invite the sales force to make suggestions as to what the salesperson might do differently to penetrate this account.

5. Buy a copy of the One-Minute Salesperson for each salesperson to read, and at the sales meeting, go around the room and ask the salespeople to tell the group what they plan to do differently after reading this little book.

6. Give a copy of my Gross Margin book to each member of your sales force. At each sales meeting, ask a different salesperson to make a short presentation on how each factor affecting gross margin can be better utilized in your company. www.BillLeeOnLine.com

7. Announce a sales contest that will reward the sales force with a weekend getaway if they achieve a measurable goal over a measurable time frame. Goals could include:

·Bring in five new credit-approved customers who purchase a minimum of $20,000 over the next 120 days.

·Identify each salesperson's year-to-date gross margin. Improve individual gross margin by one percentage point over the next 120 days.

·Achieve a sales goal on an emphasis product line over the next 120 days.

8. Identify specific problems your company's typical customers frequently face and brainstorm specific techniques to help your customers overcome them.

9. Brainstorm what your company has to offer contractors that your individual competitors cannot match. What sets your company apart from each of your key competitors?

Set a personal goal to make your company's sales meetings more fun and more effective.

(To order my new book, 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot, go to www.BillLeeOnLine.com)

About The Author:
Bill Lee is president of Lee Resources, Inc., a consulting and training firm that works with owners and general managers who want to earn optimal bottom line profits and with salespeople who want to increase their sales and improve their gross margin.

Bill’s national clients include: Ace Hardware, Amarok, American Wholesale, Andersen Window Corporation, BMA, BMC-West, BSC Corp., Budget Car Rental, Blue Tarp Financial, Building Suppliers Corp., CALPLY, ENAP, Stock Lumber, Datastream Corporation, Diamond Hill Plywood, Do-It Best Corporation, Drake Group, Home Depot, Equipment Resources, Lanoga Corp., LMC, Lowe’s Companies, Lumberman’s Merchandising Corporation, National Gypsum Company, National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association, Nextel, Owens Corning Fiberglas, True Value Hardware, and Zep Manufacturing.

Bill can be reached at 800-277-7888 or at blee3paris@aol.com.
Website: http://www.BillLeeOnline.com

(Article Archive)

"Volume 4" CD Package

Save up to 40 - 50% off! With your purchase we will include the next upcoming live teleseminar as a bonus!

Sales Management Package 4 Includes:

• Building A Sales Plan
• Move Them Up Or Move Them Out
• Common Sense Selling Part I & II
• Conducting Meaningful Sales Meetings

For details, click here.