First DRill Certification!
How to use your first drill certication
and where to go to from here
Now that You're SalesGym Certified!!!
If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you’ll be participating in a unique training program to practice and develop your selling and influence skills. Because you’re enrolled in the program, you now have a membership to the SalesGym.
Elements of that membership include:
- You’ll be participating, with 4-5 other team members from your company, in a drills based training program with weekly 60-minute practice sessions with your SalesGym coach.
- Access to learning materials highly customized to your business and the selling challenges you face.
- Access to planning and preparation materials to help you get the most out of your practice sessions.
- Links to supplemental materials as they’re developed while you’re going through training.
This video will walk you through what to expect in your drills based practice sessions and how to prepare and get the most out of the entire experience.
Most training is actually discussion, analysis and identifying best practices to use when facing different selling challenges.
SalesGym is more similar to how athletes practice and train to perform at their best under pressure, when it matters most.
So, What's Next For You?
To understand exactly what we’ll be focusing on in the training, it’s important to understand the difference between the sales cycle, sales process and influence dynamics.
The SALES CYCLE is the stages we go through from the opening contact or meeting with the decision maker, all the way through to a closing commitment. In some businesses the sales cycle can take weeks, months or even years. In B2C businesses, a sale can often be made in one interaction, but in most B2B businesses, it takes several meetings, often with different decision makers and influencers to get to the finish line.
Additionally, making the initial sale just starts the relationship and the sales cycle also includes developing and growing the relationship in what is often called account management or development.
Series, Full Program or a la Carte?
Think of the sales process as the steps we go through to prepare for and lead an actual selling interaction. Although different authors and training companies use different terms, the steps are pretty similar.
A sales interaction starts with pre-call preparation and the meeting itself should have an agenda, discovery questions, a summary and transition into recommendations. Most sales interactions should end with identifying and confirming next steps. The sales process is a roadmap on how to lead a sales interaction in a way that increases the odds of success..
Pre-Call Planning
The Agenda
Needs discovery
Summarize / Confirm
Present Solutions
Respond to Concerns
Agree on Next Steps
Follow-Up
Think of Martial Arts ... Belts, etc.
The sales cycle and sales process are very important but they are primarily analytic or process oriented concepts. Think of them as locations on a roadmap that shows us where we need to go next to get to our ultimate destination. These analytic elements, however, are not something we can easily practice.
If we compare these concepts to sports, think of the sales cycle as the schedule an NFL team must work through to ultimately get to the Super Bowl, from pre season training, through the regular season and the playoffs. In pro football, the objective of the schedule is to win the Super Bowl.
Think of the sales process as the game plan for a specific game. The game plan has the plays and overall strategy to prepare for the game. To win the game, though, it takes much more than goals and game plans.
It takes practice, training drills, repetition and coaching to develop the skills and confidence needed to actually win the game. The best game plan and plays in the world will have no impact on the outcome of the game whatsoever, if the players haven’t trained and practiced in a way that drives them to perform at their best, under real pressure.
Influence Dynamics
Influence Dynamics, in selling, are similar to the speed, strength, quickness, agility and endurance abilities athlete need to perform at their absolute best.
Your SalesGym experience will focus primarily on the most important influence dynamics that determine how we perform when speaking with or meeting decision makers and influencers.
Like the sales cycle and sales process, influence dynamics are easy to discuss and understand. What makes them different though, is that just like speed and quickness require training and practice for athletes to achieve, influence dynamics require the same kind of drills-based practice for sellers, account mangers and consultants.
SalesGym has developed and refined powerful practice drills based on how elite sports teams practice to take your influence dynamics to a much higher level. Each of these influence dynamics can be developed in the same way a golfer practices putting or their golf swing
Make no mistake about it, these are difficult skills to develop, but they dramatically increase your odds of success in all influence situations you’ll face.
Sales Messaging and Leading the Conversation
The first few topics in your training will focus on sales messaging, which is our ability to communicate our competitive advantages, differentiating factors and how to position us as tier 1 thought leaders. You’ll learn how to use open-ended questions in a more effective way and how to bring in the voice of your customers in a way that has much more impact than your opinion alone. We have listened to some strong communicators in your company and we learned from them the important elements of your sales messaging related to the differentiating factors you need to communicate. What we learned is built into this program.
Then, about a third of the way into the program, we’ll work on our ability to lead and guide the ideal influence interaction from start to finish, under pressure. The influence dynamics we need to lead more effective interactions have been tailored to your business, sales cycle and sales process. The SalesGym materials are customized to your company.
The program will finish up with topics on presenting ideas and recommendations in a more dynamic way along with closing for the sale or the next step of the process.
We’re excited to be working with you and bringing you the kind of practice salespeople rarely get so that you can take your selling and influence skills to a much higher level.
How to Get the Most Out of the Training
By far, the most important X-factor in terms of getting the most possible benefit from this training is how much effort you put into it. This is a program built around practicing the most important influence dynamics in all selling interactions. The more you prepare for the practice sessions, the more you’ll get out of it.
Specific recommendations on how to get the most out of the training:
- Mark your calendar in advance. Clear any conflicts so you can attend every practice session. Every topic is important so try not to miss any.
- Plan to put 30-45 minutes of preparation into each topic. We suggest doing this one day before your scheduled practice session. This will involve watching an instructional video, reading the topic guide and downloading the worksheet to make notes in advance of the practice session.
- Approach the practice sessions understanding it’s a safe positive place to learn. The coaching will be positive and we will learn from one another.
- Some participants find it extremely beneficial to partner up with someone else in your training group that you can connect with every week to practice / rehearse together before the practice sessions.
Links to Supplemental Resources
Various Sales Tips
Presented in short videos by SalesGym coaches that work with and learn from top performers around the country
Links to SalesGym Webinars
Variety of topics including selling skills, sales coaching and leadership
Books by Michael St Lawrence
Many salespeople find these books helpful, in particular, “How to Influence” as it is the most updated version of the Influence Dynamics you’ll be learning and practicing in the SalesGym with your Coach.
You’ll find more in depth background and examples on each of the topics you’ll be practicing your skills on within the pages of these books.
Relevant Supplemental Links and Videos (Need two more videos)
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Lao Tzu
How to Get the Most Out of the Training
By far, the most important X-factor in terms of getting the most possible benefit from this training is how much effort you put into it. This is a program built around practicing the most important influence dynamics in all selling interactions. The more you prepare for the practice sessions, the more you’ll get out of it.
Specific recommendations on how to get the most out of the training:
- Mark your calendar in advance. Clear any conflicts so you can attend every practice session. Every topic is important so try not to miss any.
- Plan to put 30-45 minutes of preparation into each topic. We suggest doing this one day before your scheduled practice session. This will involve watching an instructional video, reading the topic guide and downloading the worksheet to make notes in advance of the practice session.
- Approach the practice sessions understanding it’s a safe positive place to learn. The coaching will be positive and we will learn from one another.
- Some participants find it extremely beneficial to partner up with someone else in your training group that you can connect with every week to practice / rehearse together before the practice sessions.
