Sales tips, leadership communication skills insight and more from Steve Giglio, sales training professional for more than 25 years.

12.19.10 Business travel recovering

See article below.  Good news for my travel clients, and a hopeful sign that the economic recovery is starting to show some measurable results.  Corporate travel is hugely important to the travel industry, filling mid-week room nights while leisure travel fills the weekends.  When the market dropped, companies severely reduced their corporate travel budgets, negatively impacting airlines, hotels, conference facilities and food/beverage operations. A recovery of the average flight cost to pre-recession levels indicates that companies are seeing corporate travel as an imperative in which they will invest.

Read LA TIMES article here.

12.14.10 Hiring Innovators

INNOVATOR: a person or an organization who is one of the first to do something and often opens up a new area for others and achieves an innovation.

We all want to work with, and for, innovators.  But how can you tell that you are hiring a person with an innovative mind?

Read the following article for a great real world situation and some tips.  Look for what I had to say in the comments!

Click here for article

12.08.10 Do You Know Your Nelson Mandela?

Mission statements.  Credos.  Statements of purpose.  All of these are tools used by corporations to define why they do what they do.  But as a recent Harvard Business Review article notes, none of it matters if it doesn’t resonate with your intended audience.  The author asks what one thinks of when they consider Nelson Mandela.  And one word rings true:  freedom.  So, what does you company stand for?  What do you think your customers think you stand for?  Read on for more insight, including my own in the comments:

Click Here for Article

11.30.10 Service Matters

I travel a lot.  And I am always impressed with good service.  It is something to which I pay attention and I can spot it a mile away. Apparently, so can Jim Bush at Forbes.com.  He posted an interesting look at how service can compel customers to buy more, or pay more, for your services/products simply because you take the time to give them quality service.  Click HERE for the article and be sure click on the Comments link to see how I responded.

11.17.10 Leadership Development: Not Just for High Potentials

Business Week published an article this week regarding leadership development.  The author suggests that investing in upper management training is essential to growing a dynamic workforce and  instilling the company’s vision through the ranks.  Sounds familiar, yes?  It an aspect of what I work on with clients every day.

For the article and my posted comment, click HERE.  And let me know what you think.

11.15.10 Show Your Clients They Matter

0301An Account Review is an essential part of client retention and growth. Often though, we manage the process reactively versus proactively.

Here are my tips for a successful account review:

Start the design internally

Design the metrics that will produced a proactive, thorough review. It also needs to “wow” your client in its comprehension and message.

Standardize the process

Don’t end up re-inventing the wheel with each review. Standardizing the processs will save time because you avoid the “more-is-better” syndrome.  It will also give you measurable metrics from which you can determine success levels from review to review.

Do your homework

Pinpoint not only the metrics you will report on but also the clients you will interview BEFORE the account review meeting.

Read more

11.12.10 What’s the Narrative of your Leadership

Does your leadership narrative reflect what your audience wants/need so hear?  It’s a subject that Tom Davenport takes on in his blog on HBR.com.  And my comments concur that understanding what your audience/clients needs are and then reflecting those needs in how you direct the conversation (your narrative) makes a difference between good and great leadership.

Want to learn more?  Read his blog and my comments here.

11.09.10 Solutions Not Pitches

Have you ever considered how we create a “mind set” based on either sports or battle terms?  HBR’s guest columnist John Kotter has and wrote about it in his recent blog.  His point is that a mind-set is best created by listening to your customers and delivering what they need.  Any of you who have worked with me know that I teach this at length as we work to create you as a trusted advisor, not just someone selling something.

Take a look at the blog and my response by clicking HERE.

10.17 Sales Training a “Must Have” in this Economy

A press release issued this week by the Aberdeen Group points to the critical role sales training plays in keeping the best companies on the top of their game.  Here is the article:

BOSTON, MA, Oct 12, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Prospects and customers demand more than a product list from their sales rep; they seek added value through consultative and problem-solving skills, with need-based conversations instead of sales pitches, and often desire a long-term relationship that survives the drying ink on the contract. In this environment, maintaining credibility, customer satisfaction and profitability requires ongoing attention to the skill sets of any company’s front line, in order to assure the highest degree of sales effectiveness in managing prospects through the sales cycle, according to a new research study on sales training published by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (HHS 12.82, +0.12, +0.94%) .

Sales Training: Deploying Knowledge, Process and Technology to Consistently Hit Quota, which examined 835 organizations’ sales effectiveness, found that 77% of sales reps in top-performing companies currently achieve their annual quota, compared to 35% for sales teams in other companies.

 

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11.07.10 Hard Won Skills

Most likely in your business, there are skills that are intuitive and there are those that are hard won.  The latter are the most challenging yet, they are critical to your success.  Whitney Johnson tackles this issue in her latest blog entry on HBR.com.  And I posted my thoughts on the relevancy of her writing to the work I do.

Take a look by clicking HERE.