Changes Coming to Bennett's Blog

A New Era Has Arrived for Greg Bennett Sales Training and the GB Sales Blog!

If you're coming here looking for content from Greg Bennett sales training, well you've come to the right place!  Greg Bennett Sales Training has morphed into a new company called Surgence.  Surgence is more than "just" a sales training company, or a sales consulting company...Surgence is really a sales transformation company, focused on helping our clients radically change the way they sell and engage their clients.  Here's a better look at the new logo!

My partner in the venture is Jon Fleming, a top consulant for over 18 years with the progressive firm Point B (you'll recognize Jon and Point B as they were both featured in my book "Consultative Closing"). Jon is a top line thinker, doer, seller, leader, and coach!  Together, along with some very innovative and creative consultants, coaches, and sales leaders, Jon and I plan on helping our clients to achieve their most crucial sales and business objectives.

As for the blog, well I plan to get back and active with regular postings!  We'll also have great contributions from Jon and other colleagues, so please stay tuned!

To a great 2012 for you and yours!

GB

Activity & Accountability Are The Most Important Things!!!

People ask me "As an expert Greg, what would you say are the important elements involved in being successful in sales?" 

My answer is easy...far and away the most import elements are activity and accountability.

Without steady activity and accountability you won't survive in sales!   You can have all the techniques, ideas, concepts, plans, great products, follow-up, integrity...while all those are important additional ingredients, none of them will matter if you don't have the right activity levels and accountability structures!

 

 

 

Another GB Video Segment on a Core Fundamental

Here is another of my video segments that explains one of my core fundamentals of sales excellence. This one is all about how the Pre and Post process is more important than what happens in the call itself.

Steve Jobs Nails It On Living a Fearless Life

How many BORING commencement addresses have you heard in your life?  I mean the speakers try hard, but the setting is just so ripe for boredom that their words hardly have a chance to crackle and pop.

Every once in a great while a speech will break through and make you go WOW.  And it's usually the written version of the speech (since it's escaped the boredom vacuum of a live graduation event) that blows me away.  Like the one I'd STRONGLY suggest you read from Steve Jobs, the dynamic, brilliant, visionary founder of Apple computers. 

Jobs was speaking to the graduating class at Stanford and his words are so right on the money re: finding passion and living a fearless life.  If you've been following along, I've been writing some articles here on the blog regarding being fearless, so it fits right in with the topic.  Below is a little snipit from the speech, then there is a link to the whole thing below. 

Note:  When Jobs talks about "being dead soon" he's speaking to his eventual death (the same one we all face), not anything to do with his cancer, which he says he's beating..   Enjoy...

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Can I Share a Secret With You About Sales? The Sales Call Itself Has Little To Do With Being Excellent!

After 20+ years of doing what I do (coaching, teaching, and consulting with sales folks, just in case you didn't know), I've learned some amazing things about people, and about the wacky engagement between two humans we call "sales".  One of the things I've learned is that excellence in sales has little to do with what goes on in the actual sales call. 

Seems odd doesn't it?  We trainers and coaches spend so much time talking about, writing about, and  preaching about how to act during a sales engagment -- how to open the call, question effectively, listen at deeper levels, and of course close like a hammer head shark.  And while these are certainly good things to learn and practice, they're not the most important skill sets in being excellent.  What I've discovered is that the secret to excellence lies in the BEFORE and AFTER of the actual sales engagement.  Here is where you can make your mark and separate your self from your competitors.

Look at it this way; any fool can memorize some clever lines, act like they care, listen a little bit, and maybe even have an effective closing story to get some deals done, but that's not what I'd call achieving excellence.  True, lasting, exceptionalism means doing much more than performing well in the sales call; to me, it's all about the prep and the post that separates the super stars from the wanna be's.

It's hard to really wow clients in a sales call.  First of all they may be used to being "wowed" by good performers, and you won't stand out.  They may also be so threatened, jaded, or defensive in the call that they really aren't paying attention to what you're doing anyway.  Plus, most sales calls are all about the seller winning, leaving clients feeling anything but open to being "wowed" no matter what you do.

So if you've been stressing because you don't feel you're that great in the heat of battle of a sales call...don't worry.  The secret to excellence in sales lies not in the sales call, but in what you do before and after. THAT'S where you can crush your competition!  

I'll talk more about how we can WOW people in the pre and post steps coming soon...stay tuned.

GB