Selling Skills Aren’t the Only Soft Skills Your People Need
Schneider Sales Management most often works with clients in the context of a comprehensive sales and service culture change effort. We’ve written often as to why these initiatives succeed or fail—the sales training effort, the effectiveness of coaching and feedback, the organization’s sales process, and the level of employee focus and accountability. We’ve also had numerous opportunities to observe as our client’s tackle major technology conversions, wholesale product line changes and mergers/acquisitions, and can attribute the success and failure of these efforts as well. The degree of success is often determined not by the core elements of the change initiative, but rather by how equipped the organization’s managers and employees are from a soft skills and project management standpoint. (more…)
As a quick reminder, Schneider Sales Management is offering a discount on our Sales Process Assessment if contracted by the end of the year. During the Sales Process Assessment, our Schneider Consultants will provide an on-site review of sales role accountabilities, assess the process for integration of the sales effort among business units, analyze high value customer/member management, review scorecard measures and compare results against best in class organizations, evaluate your sales compensation plans, evaluate sales support technology, review your process for recruiting and selection of salespeople, examine coaching routines, and review performance standards and sales plans. After the assessment, Schneider Sales Management will conduct a web conference to review the findings with your senior leadership team and provide recommendations for improvement of your sales process and identify ways to increase sales and improve profitability. This limited time offer ends December 31, 2010.
We often say that employees don’t master selling skills in the classroom; they master selling skills on the job. That’s not to say that formal training is not a critical component of the overall selling skill mastery process. Great sales training presents best practices and gives employees ideas on the “what, when and how” of good selling. It provides an opportunity to rehearse new skills and behaviors in a safe environment, to share ideas, and to hear from subject matter experts. Training is only the initial step in a three phase process in developing sales skills and behaviors that also includes coaching and feedback and demonstrating skill mastery on the job. Demonstrating skill mastery and certification of selling skills are the subjects of this brief. (more…)
Did your organization exceed your sales and revenue expectations in 2010? Do you have concerns that your process causes chronic sales underperformance? Are all of your team members engaged in the right activities to make your organization thrive in 2011 and beyond?
Just in time for your 2011 planning sessions, Schneider Sales Management is offering for the first time a special offer on a 3-day onsite Sales Process Assessment and Sales Plan Recommendations for your organization. (more…)
We would like to thank you for the continued support and positive feedback we have received for The Schneider Report since its inception in March of 2009. Since our first issue, we have grown our subscription from a little over 1,000 to currently reaching more than 16,000 financial service professionals and industry leaders. We sincerely appreciate your interest in our articles and value your readership. Please visit our visit our website www.schneidersales.com if you would like to view past Schneider Reports articles. (more…)
This Schneider Report article is written by Tom Bresnan, CEO of Schneider Sales Management. Mr. Bresnan joined Schneider Sales Management in October, 2008 as an equity investor, board member and CEO. Prior to joining our firm, Mr. Bresnan was President and CEO of New Horizons Worldwide Inc., and Capitol American Financial, Inc. (more…)
I wanted to pass a long an article written by Jim Schneider, our Founder and Vice Chairman. This article is the cover story in the current July/August issue of ABA Bank Marketing and features 10 pragmatic ways to sell your way out of the current financial crisis.
The Squeeze: Selling in Tough Times
During the last year, the market dynamics have changed, and banks need to modify their sales and marketing strategies accordingly. In this new environment of uncertainty and of mistrust of even the highest-performing companies, branding, advertising, pricing and other passive marketing strategies aren’t likely to yield the same high returns on investment that they’ve yielded in the past. (more…)
By this point in the current financial crisis most banks and credit unions have come to realize that “hope is not a strategy.” Doing nothing to increase sales until the economy rebounds is a strategy that almost certainly increases profit risk, the concentration of income within a small number of customers, products, markets and salespeople. (more…)
