Summary: If you're a sales pro, you have to respect a guy who "carried a bag" for 24 years, then bought a sales consulting company and not only made it work, but is also thriving after 11 years in business. That's Al Simon, President of Simon, Inc., a Sandler Training licensee. He serves small and medium sized business owners and sales people. His focus is helping them build their revenue bases, shorten sell cycles and protect profit margins. Call it like it is, he'll help you close more deals. And he does so by sharing expertise in three areas: Technique: What do you do when the prospect does this; what do you say when the prospect says that Behaviors & Activities: Like where and how to network, how many cold calls to make, whether to make cold calls at all, how to develop strategic partnerships and a whole host of other critical sales best practices Attitude: What's between the ears? What are you thinking and feeling before during and after sales calls? All of that done without any of the old, tired, obsolete, high-pressure tactics. "People buy for their reasons, not our reasons," he says. Simon also has a lot of pragmatic advice about the technology-driven changes in sales. He repeatedly emphasizes that the best of the best use e-mail, social media and other digital tools extensively. (Sounds like e-Rep to me...) He advises keen awareness that buyers use the technology to commoditize the sales conversation. Listen closely as he discusses how top sales performers use high-tech to "force" live conversations in the critical parts of the sell cycle to keep things moving forward. He also talks about the good, the bad and the ugly with regard to CRM. Great stuff here. His "There's a lot of dead wood out there" observation was a real eye-opener. "A lot of sales reps don't know what they're doing," contends Simon. "Many companies could cut their sales teams by half and be just as effective." Whoa! This part of the interview alone makes it worth the price of admission. So what to do? Keep the Sandler tag line in mind. "There's power in reinforcement." Get one-on-one coaching, leverage e-learning (especially during drive time and other non-call-making parts of the day) and, "Fill your head with the stuff that will make you more effective!"
