Any Sales professionals out there?

[Coatlicue [KoE]]

If so, I need some help! I'm looking for some kind of online interactive sales training, that has roleplaying situations (a simulator of sorts), that will help my sales team better their roles in the company.

I have found a few things, but it's not really what I'm looking for.

Has anyone ever used something similar, or found something for their own teams? Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Nilaman]

Telemarketing via ICQ.

Each time I log on there I have some moron try to convince me why I should click on her website.

[kyoukan]

don't make people role play

[pyrella]

Here you go for free.


Have them log in here, and make a post selling us a pen.


If anyone here buys the pen, you keep that person, and fire the rest.

[Rekaar.]

Best option without knowing anything about what you do is to suggest you make your own. Sit down with the top reps and go down your list of objections one at a time and brainstorm on a minimum of 3 ways to overcome each.

Once you have that, let your team study them for a few hours then roleplay with each, or simply pair them up. Let them use a cheat sheet and videotape them if you have the resources.

Unless your people are selling via online forums I wouldn't suggest training in a medium that isn't remotely close to reality.

Hope that helps.

[Coatlicue [KoE]]

LOL Py, i love that suggestion

Well, this isn't MY idea. It's my boss's idea. He's wanting to get all the sales team a bit more training I suppose. So, he assigned me the wonderful task of finding some online resources that the sales crew can all utilize to help tone and work on their sales skills.

I have seen a few demos of simulators, but, i'm not sure if this is the right way to go. They're usually addressing either very very generic sales and marketing strategies, or very very specific, like Finance and Retail sales, and don't usually pertain to our kind of business.

I love the idea of doing our own role-playing situations, rather than using made up situations that probably have nothing to do with our business or how we actually run the business here. I've also considered sending the crew to a few seminars downtown, but they usually end up being very cheesy, and not very "motivating" anyway.

Going on Rekaar's idea, maybe I can make a PowerPoint presentation that focuses strictly on our sales and revenue, and highlight the areas that need improvement and what we need to continue to focus on. Then sit with each rep and ask them what their suggestions are to help improve their sales and approach. I like the idea of video taping, because then the rep will have a clear reality check on how they are in person and on the phone. Some of them are really brash and don't take the customer's needs into consideration.

Any other ideas?

[emmer]

Select 16 candidates from all walks of life, including both Ivy League MBA graduates and street entrepreneurs with no college education, which will endure rigorous tasks each week while living together in a hip Manhattan loft apartment. These tasks will test their intelligence, chutzpah and street-smarts. They will face the challenges of living in close quarters and must complete sometimes humorous, but always difficult, job assignments and will be forced to think outside the box in order to outshine each other to get to the top.

After splitting the group into two teams of eight, issue the first task. Teams will be given time constraints for each task and they will be observed by either you or members of your staff at every moment along the way. At the conclusion of each task, the winning team will be granted a lavish reward, but the losing team must report immediately to your boardroom where one of them will be fired.

Tasks each week will incorporate various aspects of business: sales, marketing, promotions, charities, real estate deals, finance, advertising pitches and facilities management. Most of them will be assignments that executives face in their daily lives. The twist is that these teams are thrown out to the wolves of the business world with only a few days to complete incredibly difficult tasks, many of which have hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. This is the ultimate corporate jungle where staying alive means using both street smarts and book smarts.

The winner of the competition, the true “salesman” will be granted the dream job of a lifetime with your organization and a salary of $250,000.

[Rekaar.]

powerpoint is good if you're presenting to an audience, like 30+

Otherwise it's infinitely more effective to use a more physically interactive form of communication or round-table discussion. I throw pieces of my presentation at people who are sucking, for example. Your mileage may vary.