James Alberson

Are you concerned about whether your sales compensation program is designed for optimum revenue attainment? You aren’t alone. Many of the business owners and sales managers we work with at Sandler Training Seattle share those concerns. Following are my top 7 things to consider when designing an effective sales compensation plan.

What scares you about the selling process? Which part of the selling process causes you the most stress? Whatever it is (and maybe it's nothing at all), deal with it by using Sandler's Up-Front Contract.

A sales template is defined as the step by step set of interactions you want your prospect to go through because it will give you (the salesperson) a clear competitive advantage or otherwise increase the chances of you winning the business.

This week’s Sandler Training Seattle President’s Club focused on the importance of talking about the prospect’s budget up front. Most salespeople wait until the end of their presentation to bring up price or other money issues.

Everyone is a decision-maker until it's time to make a decision is a common Sandler Training saying. During the Decision-Making Process, the buyer is deciding to buy or not to buy and you as the seller is trying to qualify or disqualify whether it would be a good fit to work together. These decisions in theory are straight forward - black and white, but in reality, there is a lot of gray in between.

Given the fact that people tend to do business with people they know, like and trust, what is the best way to build rapport with a prospect? Most salespeople think bonding and rapport is accomplished in some cursory chit-chat about a common interest discovered at the beginning of the sales call.

Steve is frustrated that his salespeople are having difficulty understanding how to sell his products and/or services. Steve owns a relatively new company and hired 4 salespeople. He provided them with a week of “sales training” which consisted of mostly detailed information relating their product and service. Four weeks later all 4 salespeople had either quit or were let go. The cost of this turnover was estimated at approximately $115K per salesperson.

Is your networking “not working”? If so, it could be you are exhibiting one of the following five negative networking personality types.

A common death trap salespeople get themselves into is having “happy ears,” meaning they tend to hear what they want to hear. In actuality, what they (the salesperson) heard does not reflect the real intent of what the prospect said.

In the book “You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar” David Sandler compares learning how to sell professionally with learning how to ride a bike. “People don’t learn how to sell at a seminar,” writes Sandler. “To conquer the art of professional selling, you need to learn a system. You need to master techniques