I attended a first-rate two-day sales training workshop this past week, which was led by Kent Reilly and Tom French at The Baron Group (www.barongroup.com) in Westport. For anyone in sales, sales management or any other client-facing role (that’s just about all of us!) I would highly recommend this course. Here are a few highlights that I picked up from the meeting, and if you want more insight, feel free to email me at: roberta@vectorexpogroup.com. Also, if you like these ideas and want to learn more about The Baron Group, contact Tom French at 203-227-7907 and be sure to mention that you heard about their course from me.

Kent Reilly’s initial overview focused on how we set the tone – and increase the likelihood of success – for a new business meeting. In order to elicit the highest quality of ideas and to create a environment where everyone feels comfortable enough to state their needs and ask question, it is important that you – as the owner of the meeting – provide an agenda that everyone can adhere to. There should also be a scribe to take accurate notes and a “traffic cop” so that everyone’s ideas can be expressed without people talking over other people. The bottom line is that you want to create a meeting where people (both sales and prospects) will fill that they made productive use of their time. Also, be clear about the amount of time that the prospect has set aside for the meeting and be sure to adhere to it. If time is running out, alert the prospect and ask if the meeting needs to be wrapped up or if the prospect wants to continue. Doing this will increase your chances of being invited back.

Asking the right questions is probably one of the biggest challenges that salespeople face in the course of the sales meeting. Kent emphasized that you need to prepare your prospects so that they know to expect that you will be asking them questions to better understand their situation. Focus on open-ended questions rather than close-ended questions (the kind that can be answered with one or two word) in order to gather the kinds of information that will enable you to write a business-winning proposal.

Another great gem I picked up from this workshop: Take notes while you are meeting with clients. Don’t bank on your memory – you need all of the data you can get for your reference after the meeting. Some people questioned whether this wouldn’t put prospects off but Kent and Tom assured us that clients like feeling that you are capturing what they are communicating to you. Active listening was also a big topic since this can be a useful technique for making sure that you understand what the client is says. Reflecting back what the client is telling you is a great way to make sure you got all of the necessary points and will help you later on in the sales process when you present a proposal that addresses the needs they stated early on. It can be really easy to miss key elements of what is important to clients and asking the questions and saying: “….Did I get that right?” can go a long way to converting prospects into customers.

These were just a few of the many great ideas that I learned at The Baron Group’s workshop. Even if you have done sales training previously, then I encourage you to take a look at this training course – it’s a great jump start for the new year.