In less than a week – YOUR success is the focus of 35 sales and marketing experts from around the world. We’ve joined together, under the planning and organization of Jonathan Farrington at Top Sales World – to deliver an impactful series of sales and marketing webinars.  The best thing? The proceeds of the $5 donations will go to the Red Cross efforts for the Japan disaster relief.

The donation is one fantastic reason to begin to consider this…but that won’t be why you participate.  Look at the topics and presenters!  No matter where you are in your sales career or in your success level – there is SOME thing during this week that will benefit you immediately.  Or maybe there are MANY topics for you – and your sales team.

Click here for the full listing.  35 different topics – 7 each afternoon.  And they are ONLY 30 minutes long. We’ve been challenged to put our ‘best’ into a targeted 30 minutes so you gain the most in the least amount of time.

My presentation on Tuesday, May 10th is geared to those in a position of influencing a sales team. Maybe you are a business owner, or maybe  you lead a sales team personally - I will share with you how to  Build the Success of Your Sales Team with 3 Simple Steps to Improve Skill and Will. You won’t want to miss it.

If you are really ready for more success – select at least 3-5 of the topics during the week – make it one a day – or all 5 in one day. It will be hard to choose when you look at what is available.

I wish you the best of success today (and everyday)! 

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Filed Under: Marketing Tips, Sales Productivity, Sales Tips, Success Tips
Tags: maximize sales productivity, Sales, sales conference, sales expert, Sales Meeting, sales seminar, Sales Tips, sales tools, Sales training

Japan’s disaster may seem long ago to many of you. For those in the US, the hundreds of tornados and deaths in the last week have replaced the news of Japan.

But sales and marketing experts around the world are giving back to japan!  The give back begins the week of Monday, May 9 through Friday, the 13th.  During those five days you’ll have the opportunity to attend up to 35 incredible webinar sessions—7 every single day—presented by 35 of the top sales minds in the world. You pick your topics – for just a $5 donation for each topic – which is a donation to the RedCross!

Each session will be a quick, but highly targeted, 30 minutes of tips and information.

Who are some of these presenters?  Well, there’s Dave Kurlan, Jill Konrath , Kelley Robertson, Colleen Francis, Linda Richardson, Paul McCord, myself, and manyothers.  Topics covered will range from Sales 101 Isn’t Enough: Advanced Selling Capabilities For Outselling Your Competition to 7 Habits of Highly Effective (Social) Salespeople to Successfully Profiting from the New Buying Cycle to my session on Build a Successful Business on Referrals by Knowing Who Your Client Knows and, of course, many, many more.

You can see the whole list of sessions HERE

And here’s even better news—when you attend any given session you’ll be helping the Red Cross in their mission in Japan.

Jonathan Farrington, the host of the conference says,

Just four weeks after the Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and a tsunami which delivered 46ft waves, we learn that the death toll is likely to top 25.000, and recovery is going to take not years, but possibly decades, maybe even a generation, at a cost of at least $250 billion.

This is our opportunity to show that the sales community – so often derided for being shallow and materialistic, amongst other things – actually has a very big heart.

We plan to charge just $5 registration fee per presentation, and we are limited to 1000 guests per session, so places will be allocated on a “first come – first served” basis.

Can I count on your support? Together we can make a worthwhile *contribution to the people of Japan.

That’s right, it only costs $5 to attend any one session and all proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross specifically for Japan.  At the end of each session you’ll be given an opportunity to donate an additional $1, $5, or $10 if you so wish.

Here is a tremendous opportunity to contribute to the efforts in Japan and get great training at the same time. 

What a great deal!!!

If you are a leader – who needs to engage and equip your sales team this year (and beyond) I encourage you to seriously consider attending my session Tuesday, May 10 at 12:45 Eastern time as I’ll sharing 3 Tips to Build the Skill and Will of Your Sales Team.  Here is the direct registration page for my session.

Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to help yourself improve your sales while helping those who are in desperate need of help.

View the entire list of topics and presenters – seriously, you will find MANY that will be ‘just’ what YOU need.

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Filed Under: Marketing Tips, Sales Productivity, Sales Tips, Success Tips
Tags: maximize sales productivity, Sales, sales conference, sales expert, Sales Meeting, Sales Tips, sales tools, Sales training, skills

Months ago I was interviewed for a potential article about effective sales meeting practices.  Both Alice Kemper and I were on a joint call firing off ideas to the reporter and we had no idea what would work for him…

Now that the article is published here in the Insurance and Financial Management magazine you can read all the wisdom we shared. Heck, I even gave away my signature ‘how to ensure people pay attention’ tip!  Play doh and chenille sticks are powerful focus-generators! 

If you are planning a meeting and want it to be interactive, engaging and productive, the tips in the article offer some sound advice.  my favorites:

1. Break large groups into smaller groups where conversations can happen.
2. Make time for networking/socializing for Type A sales pros.
3. Use audiovisual equipment effectively to engage and educate – not as your presentation notes!
4. Only share relevant and timely  information.
5. Your room set up and the ambiance matters! Plan for it.
6. Make sure there are ‘how tos’ shared and not just information dumps.

You’ll need to read the rest of the article to get the rest of the tidbits.

The article is a great reminder that planning effective sales training meetings takes effort and energy!  That’s why we did develop the Sharpenz sales training kits. The Guide and specific topic outlines and copy-ready handouts are to ensure you ALWAYS deliver effective sales training meetings.

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Filed Under: Sales Tips
Tags: sales conference, Sales Meeting, sales seminar

Want your meetings to stick?  Listen to Sales Meeting Best Practices, podcast on Salesopedia.com.  Clayton Shold interviews Alice Kemper and me on why sales meeting effectiveness is important today.  And some tips to make them helpful!

Listen for Sales Meeting Best Practices

While you are on the Salesopedia site, look around!  There is a lot of wisdom and sales tool ideas to help you end 2009 with a BANG!

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Leadership, Sales, Sales Meeting

Continuing the week with tips on running effective meetings… An acronym to use for ensuring your meeting is worthwhile, is STICK.   

Employees around the world feel “meeting’ed out”.  They go from meeting to meeting to meeting without time to get their work done.  So the “work’ is rushed or addressed at night.  So how do you ensure that your meeting isn’t dreaded?  Well, the employees I spoke with stated that they will willingly make time for a meeting if there is something in it for them – developmentally or to help them be more productive.  That means including more than operation and product updates in your meeting format.   

Much meeting information can be shared with memos, emails, quick update phone calls, without taking up valuable time.  The goal should be for a ‘live’ meeting is for it to stick! 

With stickiness as a key outcome, the STICK acronym provides a framework for planning a productive sales meeting.  Using these ideas will help remove the Teflon-effect (slides right out of mind) of a boring meeting.  

  S  – Sharpen their skills, behaviors or attitudes.  Give your people opportunity to share experiences and best practices.  Don’t make the meeting just about information.  Use the time to BUILD your team for future success.  Incorporate 20-30 minutes each meeting for this proactive activity.
   T – Timely.  Is the information and the discussion relevant to what is important today?  Don’t hold all information you have until the meeting. If you have a lot of “little” things to cover, prepare a short handout to distribute at the end of the meeting or send an email prior to the meeting.  During your meeting do not READ the handout to them – or worse – the PPT slides!  Save your meeting time for the most meaningful topics and discussion.
   I – Inclusive/Interactive.  Put more ask instead of tell into your meeting format.  Engage and involve their expertise in topics and experiences.  With involvement comes a better sense of ownership and team.  Some business people spend a lot of time alone, and realizing that their team has similarities helps them stay connected to the company, which leads to retained employees.
   C – Communicative.  Sharing relevant information is important; asking for information back even more so.  Plan ahead and allow others to present information or lead discussion and activity.  Let the information be two-way.
   K – Kinetic.  Adults need to DO – to take action and build information into their consciousness and habits.  Help them make the information actionable.  End every meeting with each person committing to ONE action they will take to apply the information discussed.  If they have no commitments, why were they in the meeting?

With a little planning and the STICK acronym followed, your team will willingly participate in your meetings.  They will skip down the hall on the way, bring YOU a cup of coffee, silence their BlackBerry and have positive thoughts in their heads as they join the meeting.  More importantly, the information will stick and result in higher productivity after the meeting!

Want help with meetig content that sticks?  Our Sharpenz..half hour of power sales boosters are ready when you are!  And you can download a FREE sales booster today!  Visit www.sharpenz.com .

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Sales, Sales Meeting

Today is a HUGE day for me.  I’ve pushed the launch button on a new venture, Sharpenz…half hour of power sales boosters. 

I’ve collaborated with Alice Kemper of Sales Training Consultants to bring a training tool to the world!  It’s been in the works for over a year! 

We whittled our comprehensive sales training expertise into specific 30-minute boosts of power!  Then we piloted, had focus groups, tested again, and then added even more value with reinforcement tips!  

We have over two dozen titles now available – with many more in development! 

Of course, to build excitement, we have two special offers:

1.  A FREE Sharpenz booster for you – you can select one of two titles:

        Better Questions which focuses on helping you idnetify and practice better questions you can ask in your needs analysis and problem solving.  Or

       Now to Wow provides a very interactive format for your team to look at all your customer “touch points” and determine how to escalate these touches to a WOW! experience.

2.  All orders through November 15th are discounted 50%!

If you want to hear me explain a little more about Sharpenz – I’ve even put together my first video!  (Really, this was one of  the most challenging pieces of this whole launch…I think there were 27 takes…and some of the “peppy and fun” Nancy was a little lost in the end….)   What makes the video even funnier to me is that when I was in NYC last week, I was selected to be one of the ‘volunteers’ for the NBC Studio Tour where I was the weather girl.  Now, without pressure THAT was a lot of fun (I even included a little weather dance.) 

I digress, back to Sharpenz.  We have tested each booster in the 30 minute format to make sure you do get a big BOOST in a little time. 

To honor the need for GREAT meetings, the rest of this week will focus on effective meetings. 

Today’s quick  tip for effective team meetings:

      Have a specific objective for your meeting.  Plan your agenda in advance to identify how much time you need for the topic at hand. 

P.S. Sales Pro Insider, Inc. is alive and well.  In fact, we are working right now with two Fortune 100 companies to build sales and service skills  and helping another sales organization hire a KEY sales exec!

Let me know what you think of Sharpenz!  Do you think you can sharpen skills and results in just 30 minutes?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Sales Meeting, Sales training