Coach your sales team to achieve the right outcomes with this sales training tip: Make customers commit to achieving a solid outcome to each sales call. If the salesperson doesn’t get an immediate agreement on an order because multiple steps are involved, that’s okay. This sales person should not stop at leaving some literature and promising another call. He should always have a purpose — a call to action.

It could be as simple as the sales rep scheduling follow-up meetings with other parties, or an appointment to return to demonstrate a product or service to the customer, or bringing the customer and his boss to visit and evaluate the salesperson’s facility — whatever it takes for the sales rep to encourage customers to continue the sales process by getting them to invest time and or resources, demonstrating a willingness to keep the sale moving forward.

A sharp salesperson doesn’t take “no” for an answer, but he knows he can’t just strong-arm his way into a sale, either.  He’s confident he can use his customized sales training to identify hidden needs and solve problems because he’s done his homework and understands the issues and needs involved. To get his foot in the door, he opts to approach the situation from a fresh new angle.

For example, I had been trying to reach one organization’s VP of Sales for months, to no avail. In a stationery store, I saw notepads made to look just like a $100 bill. I bought them and wrote a note to the VP: “Let’s turn this into real money for you and your sales team!”  I crumpled up the “bill,” threw it into an oversized envelope, and mailed it to him. The client got a laugh, and I got his business after a great meeting that really got a good dialogue going. Combining perseverance with inventiveness sparks interest in both you and your business solution.  

Performance Based Results recently completed a three-month sales-management training process with one of the largest and fastest growing electrical distributors in the Pacific Northwest and the nation. Training was initially targeted to the company’s sales force, then extended to include sales managers and leaders. On-site sales-management training workshops were presented at numerous company locations which enabled PBR managing partner Patrick Connor and me to customize each session for individual sales and leadership teams. Follow-Up sales-management training seminars were conducted additionally to ensure selling and leadership skills learned were reinforced in real-life corporate situations and scenarios.

In today’s highly competitive agricultural biotechnology sales industry, value selling is one of the more important selling skills needed by top level sales professionals. For this reason, my article, Value Selling: Getting Customers to Buy at a Higher Price is being featured in this month’s eConnect Magazine published by Dow AgroSciences.

Because growers and other industry leaders and influencers often use price as the dominant factor in a sales negotiation, biotechnology sales pros need to demonstrate that sometimes the higher price is actually a better solution — a higher value. Asking the right questions and utilizing value-added selling techniques can help biotechnology sales pros satisfy their customers without getting themselves cornered on price issues.