January 21, 2019
Happy New Year! As we work on our resolutions (as well as work off those extra holiday calories) most of us endeavor to tackle the year with a sense of optimism and new-found motivation. What helps to do that is to be on the cutting edge, and that’s what this post is about!... read more
January 14, 2019
Finding and training sales managers can be hard, as most sales executives can attest. As 60 to 80 percent of sales rep turnover is due to “lack of connection with leadership or incompetence of leadership” according to SiriusDecisions, this is a problem worth solving since it costs businesses a fortune in lost productivity.... read more
January 7, 2019
So, you’ve hired one or more new salespeople who show tremendous promise and now it’s your job to settle them in and provide some elementary training. Where do you start?... read more
January 4, 2019
Social media selling refers to receiving business directly from platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn, as opposed to simply increasing brand awareness or performing customer service. It leverages social networks for more than sharing photos or catching up with old college buddies, and when done correctly, it can be a lucrative source of business.... read more
December 28, 2018
Sales training seminars are necessary! For new salespeople who need to learn the basics and veterans who need to freshen up, investing in training is one of the best actions you can take to bolster your sales team’s performance.... read more
December 26, 2018
You get what you pay for, and this includes top sales training programs versus the low budget ones. You can save a bit of money by using a new firm trying to enter the market with low prices, and risk losing your investment if the training is subpar. Same with sending salespeople to a community college to take courses on salesmanship there.... read more
December 21, 2018
Top sales training programs do more than just present information once and let salespeople loose without further guidance. The majority of your training investment is wasted if you buy a program which does this, as very few people can absorb and apply information the first time they hear it. In fact, most of us forget just about everything we hear if there is no repetition!
In contrast, the top sales training programs consistently include a few important elements to stack the odds that salespeople actually retain and use their training to close deals faster and in volume.... read more
December 17, 2018
Closing sales faster is an overriding goal for both executives and salespeople alike, especially in B2B businesses where deals can take months to come to fruition.
The desire to speed things up can transform selling into a stressful, pressure-filled endeavor. How do you lessen this, while still closing sales faster?... read more
December 14, 2018
Have your past sales seminars been snooze-fests? Whether they were small affairs held in company conference rooms or mega-productions complete with stage lights and enormous video screens, perhaps you felt the trainers could have done a better job in holding the audience’s attention. Since this problem occurs with both simple setups and elaborate ones, the secret to engagement must lie elsewhere than the venue or the A/V equipment used.
This is good news for firms that would like to host their own training – you don’t need to spend a fortune on fancy bells and whistles. Instead focus on the following elements to make sales seminars more enjoyable for your trainees.... read more
December 10, 2018
You want to close deals faster and increase revenue in 2019, right? Sales training workshops could be the key to achieving that goal. I know you have several options, from employing ASHER or the many others easily found through Google or Bing searches. In this post, I will give you some best practices for selecting a training firm and making the most of your sales training workshops, regardless of the vendor you end up choosing. ... read more
December 7, 2018
Sales Consulting Services... read more
December 4, 2018
Everyone wants to close sales faster, especially in B2B sales which tend to take a long time to come to fruition. Navigating the multiple layers of authority required to sign off on purchases can take months, and shaving off even 10 percent of the time involved can make a big difference. Speed equals power!
Deals which take forever drain energy and dampen morale. They are definitely a signal something is wrong. However, closing the sale training can help. Let’s explore this indicator and two others which point to the need for sales training.... read more
November 30, 2018
A sales aptitude test is the best way to hand-pick applicants who possess natural sales ability from a pool of applicants. Sales aptitude tests are affordable, convenient, and accurate, with results corroborated against actual sales performance through 20 years of research and 300,000 assessments. A large body of real-world experience and testimonials exists, including that of many of our customers who credit the APQ for revolutionizing their sales staffing efforts.... read more
November 26, 2018
You could throw a lot of money away by choosing sales training which isn’t a good match for your business — or isn’t good period. And there is a great reason the best sales programs consistently get a large volume of signups and many of their students go on to stellar careers in sales – and the reason is they DELIVER RESULTS.
The best sales programs have a few characteristics in common which you should expect whenever doing your due diligence on a training firm.
The trainers sell constantly in the real world
There are things which simply cannot be taught in a college classroom or learned from a textbook. Often the hard knocks in life are the best teachers, and this wisdom only comes from rolling up one’s sleeves and getting dirty in the trenches.
This is why the best sales programs are almost never found in universities, and why graduates of these programs don’t leave the classroom and start selling up a storm. Most college professors are not involved in running a business day-to-day, so there is too much unworkable theory. However, when your sales trainers actively sell every day to keep their own firms afloat, they are much more in tune with what works and what doesn’t.... read more
November 21, 2018
Sales seminars prove their value time and time again. Every company should put their sales force through a training, at least once per year. One of the biggest excuses for not doing this is not “we don’t have the money,” but rather “we don’t have the time.” If this is the case for you, can you really afford NOT to take one day per year to get your sales team trained?
Here are some symptoms which indicate the need for sales seminars:... read more
November 19, 2018
Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry. While sports superstars get a lot of attention for their individual flair and abilities, teams are predominantly managed to success by statistics rather than personalities. Contributing to this were the results obtained by manager Billy Beane, as famously documented in the hit book and later film, Moneyball. Beane transformed the Oakland A’s into a powerhouse that could stand its own against the likes of the Yankees with a much smaller budget, and he did it by looking at players using different metrics than the traditional ones used by other recruiters.
A similar shift gaining a foothold in sales recruiting. Instead of relying solely on the old methods of selecting “players,” such as the resume and work experience, salary history, personal interviews with tricky questions and similar, a more scientific tool is increasingly used: the sales aptitude assessment. It is only logical — if scientific measurement proves so successful in recruiting sports players, doesn’t it make sense to leverage the same approach in building a winning sales team?
Why the APQ
The best sales aptitude assessment currently available is the APQ, which stands for the Advanced Personality Questionnaire (formerly known as the Craft Personality Questionnaire).
It is an affordable test which takes about 20-30 minutes to take and is available on any internet-connected computer through an ordinary web browser.
The APQ sales aptitude assessment plots the taker’s test scores across several ranges which correlate to low, moderate, and high correlation for success for a given sales role, from outside hunter to inside farmer.
There are nine primary traits which are the most important to determine natural sales aptitude. These are:
1. Intensity/Drive
2. Need for Independence
3. Assertiveness
4. Recognition
5. Need to Analyze
6. Self-Protection
7. Need to serve
8. Trust
9. Optimism... read more
November 16, 2018
Can you win at sales by playing it as a pure numbers game, driven by automated processes, rote scripts, and algorithms which calculate potential win rates? Or is it there more to it? I believe that I and all other sales keynote speakers will agree that the human element comes first, and that without addressing the emotions, dreams, and inspirations of both your buyers and your salespeople, all those tools are for naught.
The best sales keynote speakers inject humanity into their presentations to wake up the emotional brain of the audience. This in turn encourages salespeople to develop their own emotional intelligence and better serve their buyers.
Think of how warm Zig Ziglar’s presentations were while still imparting actionable sales wisdom – he is a perfect example of using the human touch to inspire people to change for the better.... read more
November 13, 2018
Traditionally, sales and marketing departments have distinct structures, leadership, budgets, and goals. This can lead to feuds between the two sectors in many companies. Marketers claiming salespeople waste their hard-earned MQLs by not thoroughly following up, and salespeople retort that the leads being handed to them “stink.”
The above image is representative of a more modern look at sales and marketing: two faces of the same construction, perhaps with slightly different viewpoints and with the same overall goal. And that is to drive revenue, the lifeblood of any business, working together as a cohesive unit.
A sales and marketing keynote speaker who understands this and can speak to both audiences can add a lot of value to today’s sales and marketing teams as the traditional lines of demarcation slowly erode.... read more
November 7, 2018
The top sales training programs in the world attract the best and brightest in sales who seek to gain the competitive edge needed to make it in today’s marketplace. Many sales professionals pay their own way, but a great deal has their training covered by their employers. This leads to the question many CFO and VPs of Sales ask themselves: “Is the ROI worth it?”
I am going to explain a few reasons why top sales training programs are worth every penny spent on them. Of course, I have a heavy bias, since I sell and conduct sales training, and the reason I do so is that I have a passion for helping people and businesses succeed by studying what makes them tick. It’s just my natural inclination, so I am bound to recommend what I think works to my friends and colleagues. Hence, sales training!
So, here’s why you should get yourself and your people trained without reservation.... read more
October 25, 2018
Great sales keynote speakers can deliver more than a few amusing anecdotes and one-liners. They can deliver real business benefits too. The difference between sales keynote speakers and other business or celebrity speakers is that they address the most pressing hurdle most businesses face: overcoming challenges related to revenue growth.... read more
October 23, 2018
Corporate sales training is a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States. Most well-known training firms do a good job and deliver significant value to their customers. However, some miss the mark –usually unintentionally through lack of experience.... read more
October 18, 2018
Sales training workshops are a must for every company. New people need to learn professional selling techniques, and veterans need to brush up on their existing skills and add to them. Every business must budget for this, or risk eventual collapse because the sales function is what literally generates all the activity in a company. Otherwise, all you have is products and ideas, with no money. Bleak.... read more
October 16, 2018
Sales motivational speakers, such as the late great Zig Ziglar and the very well-respected Brian Tracy, can produce life-changing benefits for those in attendance at one of their talks. From fresh outlooks on the sales profession to tips on how to close deals faster, great sales motivational speakers know what it takes to engage salespeople and motivate them to excel in their jobs.... read more
October 12, 2018
Sales training seminars are fun, informative affairs for most salespeople. They leave the office for a while, meet sales experts, network with colleagues, and pick up some new skills. The problem with sales training seminars is one of retention: because of the Curve of Forgetting, the average person loses the majority of the information they learn within days, and it becomes even worse as time marches on.... read more
October 9, 2018
Pick up any business trade paper or browse any of the articles on websites such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., Bloomberg, and dozens of others, and you will no doubt encounter stories about how self-made people endured years of failure and rejection, yet somehow made lots of money. These people were resilient and did not quit despite many wrong turns. How would you like to achieve their sales success without going through all their pain?... read more
October 5, 2018
Has your business lost its focus to the point where a confusing mix of messages, both internal and external, is the norm? ... read more
October 16, 2018 | 11:30 am – 1:00 pm... read more
October 2, 2018
As sales and marketing professionals, we have come to accept the value of data analytics from lead generation all the way to the final sale and beyond. Data informs our decisions along each step of the funnel and continues throughout the entire lifespan of the customer relationship. This has revolutionized marketing and leveled the playing field to some degree, as we no longer rely so much on some mystical intuition possessed by a select few to generate business, we rely on the facts available.... read more
September 29, 2018
Sales training seminars can transform a sales team from a sluggish crew to a team that consistently exceeds expectations. Billions are spent on training programs around the world each year because they work and provide fantastic ROI for firms big and small.... read more
September 27, 2018
Hiring sales hunters is one of the best ways to set your company on the fast track to success. Elite outside sales hunters not only have bigger deal pipelines, they also close deals faster than the average salesperson. When you’re looking to see if you’re sitting in front of the right person, you might want to think about the APQ Sales Aptitude Test as the key to a successful hire.... read more
September 24, 2018
Sales training workshops are not a one-size-fits-all affair. They should be selected after taking into consideration your size, culture and growth goals – or you might create a mismatch between your trainees’ expectations and the curriculum offered.... read more
Sales could be described as the leveraging of human emotion in order to create desired outcomes. Ideally, these outcomes should be desired by both the buyer and seller to create a win-win. Using this definition, you can see why emotional intelligence for sales success is a topic of concern for all salespeople, managers, and the C-suite.... read more
Business keynote speakers are a smart choice for conferences, annual sales meetings, and company-wide incentive getaways. With the right talent to address your audience, you can multiply the return on your conference dollars in various ways.... read more
Are you planning an incentive trip for your salespeople? How about a special training course or company-wide team-building retreat? Regardless of the type of corporate event you are planning, hiring top sales keynote speakers should be something to consider when designing your agenda.... read more
Asher Strategies announced today they were selected as a top sales blog by Feedspot, a blogger database and news feed that covers more than 1,500 niche markets.... read more
September 12, 2018
Ever wanted to join the ranks of sales motivational speakers? Perhaps you just want to be a better presenter in general, in case you need to speak in front of a crowd of peers or employees. You don’t have to attend Toastmasters in order to improve your public speaking skills, especially when simply trying to motivate salespeople.... read more
September 4, 2018
Every day, in conferences, seminars, and summits the world over, keynote speakers deliver informative and motivational talks to audiences in every possible industry. Many of these speakers are big names in business, sports, television, or literature. Most are excellent and deserve every penny earned for their speaking engagement. However, sales and marketing speakers might represent a better choice for companies seeking a direct boost in revenue from their event.... read more
Washington, D.C., Sept. 4, 2018 – Asher Strategies announced today the launch of Asher Sales Sense, a radio show that will feature hosts John Asher and Kyla O’Connell, informed guests and unique conversation on sales strategies. The show will air bi-weekly beginning Sept. 6, 2018 at 3PM EST and will be available on asherstrategiesradio.com for people to listen in on the latest episode.... read more
August 31, 2018
The APQ Sales Aptitude Test is a must-use tool to hire superlative sales talent, especially outside sales hunters. But what about sales executives? After all, since many are wooed over the course of several months, this should give recruiters ample time to judge the potential and pitfall of each candidate, right?... read more
August 30, 2018
A sales motivational speaker can inspire and educate an audience, but did you know they can also boost growth and revenue immediately? The trick is to strategize their engagement and the content wisely so the keynote solves pressing problems and in this way maximizes relevance and follow-up by attendees.... read more
August 29, 2018
Sales team members have the blahs? Consider hiring sales keynote speakers to liven things up and get them back on track. ... read more
August 28, 2018
I have enjoyed being a keynote speaker for several years and attendees always seem to want some kind of magical sales closing techniques which will help them close deals faster. As you probably can guess, there is no magic. It takes a lot of skill and work to close sales, and no single technique works in every case.... read more
August 16, 2018
Marketing and sales go hand in hand. The functions of these departments often overlap, and I have worked with some firms where there is no real distinction – the sales department is the marketing department for all intent and purposes.
That being said, marketing speakers are just as valuable for salespeople as they are for dedicated marketing teams, because it gets them to own the beginning of the funnel and be more proactive in sourcing leads.
Here are two great tips to help your salespeople become better marketers in this digital age.... read more
A great corporate keynote speaker can transform an ordinary seminar or conference into a catalyst for increased sales, but only if you choose the right one. We have all experienced what a poor speaker does to us – it’s a snooze fest and our minds drift to lunch or our cell phones. Not exactly a great ROI on the speaker’s fee. So, event planners need to perform a bit of legwork to ensure a good match and get the biggest sales-boosting bang for the buck.
Here is a roundup of tips compiled from sources across the business world. They offer some food for thought when it comes time for you to book your next corporate keynote speakers.... read more
Emotional intelligence for sales success is no longer a maybe, it is a bona fide requirement for anyone involved in customer-facing positions. We have seen examples of how poor EQ has impacted businesses, such as the Starbucks debacle earlier this year, where the desire to enforce well-meaning corporate policy resulted in the unfortunate arrest of two visitors and enormous public backlash.... read more
August 13, 2018
The image on this post shows a thoughtful person – perhaps a scholar. It’s not an image much associated with business keynote speakers, who generally present a somewhat flashy, driven persona. But I think that the best speakers are not necessarily the guys who jump all over the stage in sweaty, religious fervor. I mean, they can be entertaining for sure, but I don’t believe the theatrics are what make them great business keynote speakers.... read more
July 30, 2018
As you can imagine, there is no single magic bullet to close deals faster, and speed up a company’s growth. Instead, the quest to close deals faster can be accomplished through improvements in several important functions of a business which all dovetail together to boost efficiency in sales and marketing efforts.... read more
July 23, 2018
In the Forbes article, “Five Techniques Top Leaders Use to Close Sales In The Digital Age” by Aditi Ramchandani, the author makes a couple of points which I wholeheartedly agree with, and I think you will too:... read more
July 22, 2018
There’s no doubt the APQ Sales Aptitude Assessment stacks the odds in your favor when selecting qualified sales candidates. It checks the candidate’s scores against the ideal ranges for a wide range of job roles, thus determining suitability for positions such as outside sales hunter, farmer, CSR, or sales manager. This reduces bias in the hiring process and is the recommended scientific approach to sales recruitment.... read more
July 21, 2018
Sales training seminars can enhance the lives and performance of salespeople (and the businesses they work for) because of the gains in confidence and competence – not to mention the nice increase in pay from closing more deals.... read more
You can now have access to the same PROVEN Sales Assessment test over 25,000 companies use to decrease expensive turnover by up to 70%, simplify sales coaching, and empower employees to manage their own time, stress, and career goals.