The JF Guest Author Spot
Shane Gibson
Edification is what they refer to it as in the direct sales industry. When selling in a team, edification or promotion of our team mates ensures that the whole team can contribute to closing the deal and servicing the client.
Every team has a rainmaker, or star and they're often the senior sales rep, sales manager, or even the CEO. In complex or high level project selling, these stars need the whole team to collaboratively sell and service the client.
Too often the lead seller and provider dominates the pitch when courting the client, and then later on they wonder why the rest of the team can 't do their part and close the deal. If you're the point person in a team sell, make sure you known why everyone of your team mates is talented and important to the deal, and the client. Most importantly find tasteful and timely ways to demonstrate their purpose and importance to the client and the success of the solution when presenting your product as a team.
Every sales person and executive has experienced meetings where one person dominates the sale in a team sell format. They sometimes neglect to tell the client, why they even brought their team mates, and what they can do for them. Then they expect the team to have the credibility needed to close the deal and service the client.
By knowing the value of each team member and discussing as a team how we can maximize everyone's profile we allow the whole team to contribute to closing the deal. This strategy also takes the weight off of the CEO, Sales Manager, or Senior Sales Rep. It all comes back to the question "imagine what we could achieve if we didn't care who got the credit."
Shane Gibson is President of Knowledge Brokers International and author of Closing Bigger the Filed Guide to Closing Bigger Deal. With 14 years as a professional speaker Shane is in high demand as a conference speaker and a sales training and sales performance specialist. KBI's clients include organizations such as BMW, Siemens, Ford, Vodacom, the Vancouver Board of Trade and dozens of professional associations and corporations in Canada, USA, South Africa, South America and the Middle East.
He is also a member of the Top Sales Experts team and you can read more about him here
Today's News: My good friend and business colleague, Leslie Buterin is presenting her next webinar today over at Business Expert Webinars and you can grab one of the remaining places by clicking on the banner below.
Elsewhere, Clayton Shold is interviewing Rick Johnson and you can listen to the short but very interesting conversation by clicking on the banner below.
A couple of very good blog posts for you:From Dave Stein - "Your Least Credible Point Of Customer Contact"
And from Paul McCord - "A Sales Training Question"
Tomorrow: If you are one of those people who has trouble making decisions, you will love tomorrow's post and even if you are incredibly decisive, you may learn a thing or two!
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