Questioning Techniques for 21st Century Sales People

Here’s the next in a series of vids that we shot with Chris Jupe recently.

Click above to watch – Questioning Techniques for 21st Century Sales People – and see how sales questioning techniques have evolved in the last 50 years, and discover why certain sales training (that’s stuck somewhere in the 1970’s) should really be focused on helping sales people explain the value of their proposition or run the risk of losing all those customers who know when they’re being sold AT, rather than being helped to make a great buying decision – feel free to share with friends and colleagues.

These short videos were created so that we could share some of the key Varda Kreuz Sales Training messages, with no charge , no sign up, just a quick bit of something useful for those who might not get the chance to attend one of our workshops or courses.

Hope you find it useful, best regards

Chris

PS – My new book The Extremely Successful Salesman’s Club has its official launch later today – click on the book title to download the first 4 chapters

New Sales Training & Customer Service Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on 0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

The 3 Must Know Rules of Sales and Customer Service

Here’s the next in a series of vids that we shot with Chris Jupe recently.

Click above to watch – The 3 Must Know Rules of Sales & Customer Service and how to understand and uncover customer needs, even when the customer doesn’t know a problem exists at all – feel free to share with friends and colleagues.

These short videos were created so that we could share some of the key Varda Kreuz Sales Training messages, with no charge , no sign up, just a quick bit of something useful for those who might not get the chance to attend one of our workshops or courses.

Hope you find it useful, best regards

Chris

PS – My new book The Extremely Successful Salesman’s Club will be available in a few sort weeks

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

The Sales Pitch Your Prospects Really Want to Hear – Short Video

Here’s the next in a series of vids that we shot with Chris Jupe recently.

We created a number of short videos – just a couple of minutes long each – so that we could share some of the key Varda Kreuz Sales Training messages, with no charge , no sign up, just a quick bit of something useful for those who might not get the chance to attend one of our workshops or courses.

Click above to watch – The Sales Pitch Your Prospects Really Want to Hear, feel free to share with friends and colleagues.

Hope you find it useful, best regards

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

2014’s Best Selling Days

It’s that time of year again when I share my annual free download, showing the days available to you over the next 12 months which can be classed as ‘prime selling time’.

A little information that is glaringly obvious to the top 10% of high achieving sales people, but ignored or missed by virtually everyone else.

Actually, I’ll bet – in the back of your mind – you’re all aware of what I’m about to share with you, so much so that today’s free PDF download will be once again greeted with as many people saying “that – is – brilliant”, as those stating “that is just so obvious!”

You can print it off, pin it up, send it out or share it at your first sales meeting of the year.

If used properly this single sheet of paper will;

• Organise and focus you and your team to achieve the important stuff first
• Help you develop a long term business view, which has the flexibility to recognise what needs doing today
• Remove the opportunity to complain about “time running out”
• Scare the living daylights out of your inner procrastination gremlins

To achieve this you will need your personal target (worked out as an annual figure for the whole of 2014), your holiday dates and internal meeting dates.

Here’s what to do;

Download the PDF here

If you have just clicked on the link, you will now have before you the selling days available to you over the course of the next year – 2014 – in the UK.

You may need to change it slightly for which ever part of the world you are in.

FACT – Almost all of you have 253 days next year to effectively sell.

FACT – In the UK next year – due to holidays – the sales industry will have five months with only 20 effective selling days each.

FACT – Quarter 3 (July, August, September) has the most selling days – 65 – but will undoubtedly become the time when your competition take their foot off the gas because “there’s never anyone in over the summer”

Here’s what to do next

Work out when you will be lying on a beach or stuck in a hotel meeting room with a group of hung-over colleagues looking at a large, projected forecast graph – and then deduct those days from the appropriate months.

OK

• How many real days have you got to achieve your target?
• How much does your pipeline need to achieve on a daily basis?
• What does that mean for each of those monthly figures?
• What is your target figure for Quarter 3?

We all play differently when we are keeping score.

Take for example a group of kids kicking a ball around a park just for fun, watch the change – in mood, reactions and body language – on the pitch after someone shouts;

“OK, let’s keep score!”

It’s the same with sales – we all play differently when we’re keeping score!

This year, do yourself a favour – count every available day and make every day count.

Seize those days and make your lives extraordinary

Feel free to leave a comment

Until next time

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

5 Alternatives to Simply Wading In with PowerPoint

Can You Imagine a Life without PowerPoint?

What would you do if you couldn’t take a ‘deck’ into your next sales appointment?

In the nineties my team launched a product into the UK market and we each received one of those triangular presenters that open up into a little stand for you to flip your plastic covered photocopies over in front of the customer.

I’d never had anything like it before – amusingly, back then, it was cutting edge – it also meant for the first time in my career I could just speak AT the customer rather than having a conversation about what they actually wanted – you know, cut out all that unnecessary selling stuff, go straight in with the opportunity and price.

Trouble is, telling ain’t selling!

Recently, with an extremely senior sales team, I mentioned that they were probably over reliant on their 120-slide brand presentations – which nearly got me carried out and burnt at the stake.

But I reckon you probably know better.

So ask yourself this – Do you simply go in and TELL customers what you’ve got; or do you FIND OUT what they want and then help them achieve it with what you’ve got?

Subtle difference, enormously different results.

Listen, I’m not going to take away your wonderful presentation, carefully created by marketeers who have never had to stand in front of customers and then be measured for their results – but just try this out for me.

Think of 5 open questions you could ask before you give your presentation – 5 open questions that will lead to a conversation about their needs, gaps in the market, unexplored opportunities – which then give answers that require a presentation about your product or service.

If you do – and you get it right – you don’t just talk AT them, you spend your time showing them why your presentation actually MATTERS while you’re going through it – you even know which bits are no longer relevant and – god forbid – can miss some out.

Your Mission – by the time you’ve finished presenting they’ve recognised the value of your product or service because it was aligned with a set of needs and requirements that they’d pointed out at the beginning of the meeting.

Or – if you’re really good

Your Mission – During the conversation about their needs and requirements they’ve already started to recognise the value of your product or service and don’t need to see the presentation at all.

Just imagine….

Until next time

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

It’s Not THIS One You’re Trying to Sell – It’s the Next One

Whenever great marketeers write amazing advertising copy the idea of the first line is always to get you to read the second.

Well, here’s my sales version and if you adopt this mindset it can have a huge impact on the results you’re currently getting – and by the way – it doesn’t matter which industry you’re in.

Instead of focusing on whatever it is you’re selling now try to concentrate on achieving the sale after that.

What would it do to your style and presentation content if you went in thinking;

“I know you want to buy this one – that’s a given – so that’s not what I want to concentrate on. I’m just going to try and help you make the best choice possible and then deliver it to the best of my ability. I’m going to do such a good job for you with this sale and during all our meetings that you will be so impressed you will definitely buy the next one off me.”

You see concentrating on customer satisfaction to that extent, matching their needs with benefits that really matter, focusing completely on their desired outcomes, delivering 100% of your promises and being there afterwards to make sure there’s nothing left that needs sorting out – that’s how you get the next sale.

Funny thing is – that’s how you stand the best chance of getting this one too. 

Now listen – I get it, you’re all young, thrusty individuals living in the NOW – it’s all about the next big win.

Fair enough.

But I can promise you this, when you start selling to ensure the future sale, when you help people to buy rather than just selling at them, when you set your sights on the long term – then the customer will start to get something really special and you my friend will end up with a sensational career. 

Until next time

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

What to do When Your Customers Want a Real WWII Air Raid Shelter

Have you ever ‘gone in’ on price only to be knocked back with “It might be cheaper but it isn’t half as good as the one I’ve got”?

When I was about ten or eleven there was a guy in my class called Giles.

We’d always gone to the same school but were never really great friends, it wasn’t that we didn’t get on we just didn’t mix in the same circles.

That year Giles moved to a really nice BIG house round the corner.

On the long sunny nights of our childhood (and even the dark rainy ones) me and the boys would jump on our bikes and head to the local common where we’d built a club house amongst the rhododendrons.

On this particular Tuesday I asked the gang if our secret society were meeting up, to which they all said in unison,

“Are you mad, Giles’ new house has got a real world war two air raid shelter in the back garden, why would we want to go to the common?”

Quite right – you can’t compete with a real world war two air raid shelter, can you?

There was no bartering; no negotiating; there was nothing I owned that I could bribe them with.

That’s where they were going and that’s where they went.

So I went to the common, sat in my den and had a sulk on an upturned crate (actually I’ve always wondered what the shelter was like, my eleven year old self is still desperate to get down there and explore it with a torch).

The question – and point to the story – is this;

When you talk to your customers, what’s the equivalent of your air raid shelter? What’s the unquestionable added value?

What’s going to get them so excited that they give up on years of habit and contentment to rush off madly and change their usual routine?

Most of your competition are out there at the moment trading on price because they think that that’s what gets their prospects hot and sweaty with excitement, but it’s not, is it?

Admittedly if you’re both selling completely identical products it gets a bit trickier, but there is value to be found with every product or service, you’ve just got to have the right training and tools to help you find out what it is.

Once you’ve worked out what it is you’ll start to lead with it, you’ll sell on it, you’ll clinch deals because of it and then when the competition come knocking on your customer’s door it will have meant so much to them they’ll always say,

“Are you mad, I get a real world war two air raid shelter with my current supplier, why would I want to change to you and give that up?”

Until next time

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on 0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

3 Reasons Why Launching a New Product is like…..Starting University

1. You haven’t found out who you really are

When you start at university, you’re just working out exactly who ‘YOU’ – ‘IS’.

There are a million references you’re tapping into, a sense of humour to fully develop; you’re recognising who you want to spend time with and how you want to be perceived.

You go through a couple of fads and crazes – you try on and discard personalities like cheap, charity-shop shirts.

When a product is launched all the testing in the world can’t prepare you completely for how it’s really going to move in the market when it goes live.

On launch week, there’s a big Fresher style stream of parties, people get all hyper and excited, but the morning after – just like the newbie stumbling hung over through campus in week one – it’ll be a few star performers in the sales team who find their way round and discover what’s really useful.

A brand new company, product or service never knows how it truly helps when it enters the world blinking into the sunlight – the successful ones work it out really quickly, but it doesn’t happen on launch day 1.

However, that doesn’t stop the hierarchy throwing this newborn at the sales force and expecting them to work it out before their first client presentation – and then possibly blaming its slow climb to success on the sales team not trying hard enough.

2. Making the most of the opportunity depends on your approach

Don’t judge people and assume they don’t want to speak to you.

Try to be open-minded.

Meet as many people as you can.

Go in with a positive attitude and take everything you can from it.

3. Blowing your budget feels stupid

There are always inventive ways of doing things a bit more cost effectively.

Some people never grow out of thinking that it’s the amount they’re spending that makes them look cool. Most are frequently hungry

It’s those who always seem to have more than everyone else with change still clinking in their pockets that become popular and get to feel really smug.

Until next time

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

This Year’s Christmas Tale – Presents, Perception & Paradigms

This weekend I was having a chat with an extremely successful businessman who I met at a family birthday party.

He was telling me that he liked to show his new salespeople the video of Susan Boyle’s audition on Britain’s Got Talent.

His reason for doing so was fairly straight forward – he believes too many sales people walk in to see prospects with a ready-made set of expectations, beliefs and paradigms – he wanted to show how easily even the most experienced can be caught out by long held perceptions of certain situations and personality types.

It was his way of telling his sales people to look for the total opportunity, not just the one that they were expecting to find.

So to finish the year off in festive fashion, the whole thing reminded me of these two Christmas stories.

The Empty Box

December 24^th and Salesman Bob has finished for Christmas.

The traffic back was hell, the boss never lets anyone go early for Christmas and he reckons he might be coming down with a cold.

But at least he’s home.

Now – where is that really expensive gold wrapping paper he bought for his wife’s present.

Someone’s used it – although no one is admitting to it.

Bob has to go back out and buy some more wrapping paper.

Bob is not full of Christmas cheer.

Then it’s the big day – YAY!

The kids woke up around 5.30, came in for a cuddle, but never settled back down to sleep.

They’re desperate to see if HE’s been

There are lots of gasps, screams of delights and “look daddy, look” – and, although he protests, there’s a picture his wife takes of him unshaved, sitting on the floor and wearing his dressing gown inside out.

He goes to make a cup of tea and his little girl follows him into the kitchen with a shoe box wrapped in AN ENTIRE ROLL OF EXPENSIVE GOLD PAPER.

OK Bob, no need to get angry it is Christmas.

But when he opens it – the box inside is empty.

“Honey, that’s just a waste of paper. You’re supposed to put something in the box. That’s the whole point of giving presents. You don’t just give people EMPTY boxes”

“But it’s not EMPTY daddy. I blew kisses into it until it was full and then I wrapped it up with as much special paper as I could find so they couldn’t get away, so whenever you’re away with work you can open up the box and take out one of my kisses at bedtime to help you sleep tight.”

Two Completely Different Kids & Two Bags of Manure

I have a friend who tells me how his two kids have completely opposite view points on life.

He describes it this way;

“If, on Christmas morning, they both woke up and found a bag of horse manure outside their bedroom door, by mid-afternoon my little boy would be locked in his room screaming that no one cared, while my little girl would still be searching outside for the pony that has clearly wandered off!”

Thanks for reading and allowing me to drop into your inbox throughout the year, I hope you found my warblings useful.

Feel free to leave a few end of year comments underneath this week’s article

Until next time, may I take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful, peaceful, perception free Christmas and a fabulous New Year.

All the best

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London

Your Free Download Chart of Next Year’s Best Selling Days

“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
John Keating (Robin Williams) – Dead Poets Society (1989)

It’s that time of year again when I share my annual free download, showing the days available to you over the next 12 months which can be classed as ‘prime selling time’.

A little information that is glaringly obvious to the top 10% of high achieving sales people, but ignored or missed by virtually everyone else.

Actually, I’ll bet – in the back of your mind – you’re all aware of what I’m about to share with you, so much so that this week’s free PDF download will be once again greeted with as many people saying “that – is – brilliant”, as those stating “that is just so obvious!”

You can print it off, pin it up, send it out or just pop it in the back of your personal organiser.

If used properly this single sheet of paper will;

• Organise and focus you and your team to achieve the important stuff first
• Help you develop a long term business view, which has the flexibility to recognise what needs doing today
• Remove the opportunity to complain about “time running out”
• Scare the living daylights out of your inner procrastination gremlins

To achieve this you will need your personal target (worked out as an annual figure for the whole of 2013), your holiday dates and internal meeting dates.

Here’s what to do;

Download the PDF here

If you have just clicked on the link, you will now have before you the selling days available to you over the course of the next year – 2013 – in the UK.

You may need to change it slightly for which ever part of the world you are in.

FACT – Almost all of you have 252 days next year to effectively sell.

FACT – In the UK next year – due to holidays – the sales industry will have five months with only 20 effective selling days each.

FACT – Quarter 3 (July, August, September) has the most selling days – 65 – but will undoubtedly become the time when your competition take their foot off the gas because “there’s never anyone in over the summer”

Here’s what to do next

Work out when you will be lying on a beach or stuck in a hotel meeting room with a group of hung-over colleagues looking at a large, projected forecast graph – and then deduct those days from the appropriate months.

OK

• How many real days have you got to achieve your target?
• How much does your pipeline need to achieve on a daily basis?
• What does that mean for each of those monthly figures?
• What is your target figure for Quarter 3?

We all play differently when we are keeping score.

Take for example a group of kids kicking a ball around a park just for fun, watch the change – in mood, reactions and body language – on the pitch after someone shouts;

“OK, let’s keep score!”

It’s the same with sales – we all play differently when we’re keeping score!

This year, do yourself a favour – count every available day and make every day count.

Seize those days and make your lives extraordinary

Feel free to leave a comment

Until next time

Chris

New Case Studies HERE

This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on
0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.

You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.

We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.

Chris Murray

0844 293 9777

By the way, if someone has forwarded you this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it directly from Varda Kreuz here

Varda Kreuz Sales Training – Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, London