28 Days to Better Selling with Shane Gibson
Launches May 18th 2009
If you want to improve your sales and have been too busy to put a plan into place you’re not alone.
I have had many people in the sales community including sales professionals, senior executives and high tech entrepreneurs and bloggers who are all looking for ways to convert connections into long-term clients and relationships.
Their challenge is that most resources available are either one time training opportunities, or extensive and over whelming programs that are tough to implement. This program takes care of all of this.
The 28 Days to Better Selling program is completely free and is 100% content and 0% advertising or promotions. All content focused on helping you.
This concept was inspired by a 31 Days to Build a Better Blog program that Problogger.com put on for 12,000 other bloggers. As a participant it was very helpful for me. The concept is simple:
Here’s how 28 Days to Better Selling Works:
1) A daily task that you can easily implement to improve your sales and business
2) A succinct daily lesson to help you make the improvement
By the end of the 28 days you will have looked at 28 ways to fine tune and improve your sales process and business. The daily lessons will be in written, video or audio format and will take less than 10 minutes each to review.
To Register for the program please enter your e-mail address below:
Top Sales Blogs and Top Sales Podcasts This Week
This week has been an awesome week. I did two blog entries while I was away in Chile which was half of my usual volume compared to the previous few weeks. The most memorable one was the interview I did with Jay Levinson father of the Guerrilla Marketing movement. With that said the world of sales blogging and sales podcasts has churned forward regardless. Many of my peers and friends have posted some great new tips and content that I would like to share with you.
Shamus Brown did a blog post called “Your Prospects are Human Lie Detectors.” It’s amazing that in this era of extreme transparency that sales professionals and business people still are missing this core lesson.
Simone Blum urged us to be Un Reasonable when it comes to business decisions and launching a new idea or product.
Alan Majer provided a great list of 21 things we can do to succeed in a carreer in selling.
The guys at Sales Roundup put together a good sales podcast on finding and prepping for a sales job.
The guys at the Advanced Selling Podcast did a great podcast on The Rules Tools and Attitudes needed to put more prospects into the sales funnel.
Brad Trnavsky at the Sales Bloggers Union did a good sales blog entry on The Primary Role of a Sales Manager.
Skip Anderson in his Selling to Consumers Podcast talked about the Essence of Selling. It’s all about helping the client make a decision according to Skip.
Lastly I found this sales cartoon from Count5.com and it reminded me of at least half of the sales people that call my office daily. Anyone else suffering from the same?
Jay Levinson Guerrilla Marketing Video Interview With Shane Gibson
I had the fantastic opportunity to spend several days with Jay Levinson (twitter) and his wife Jeannie while I was in Santiago Chile this week. Jay and I both spoke at the Annual Sales and Marketing conference put together by Seminarium, the leading provider of executive business education in South America.
Jay Levinson has sold over 20 million books on Guerrilla Marketing making him one of the top selling marketing authors in history. Following is a brief video interview I did with Jay on Guerrilla Marketing.
Why writing a book in more than 90 days is not an option
Mack dropped by this blog today and made a comment about Stephen Jagger and I writing our book in 90 days. We felt is was critical that we published this new book on how social media and social networking as soon as possible.
Number one Sociable! and it’s principles are needed right now by most of our collective clients. If we waited a year to release it, and went the traditional book publisher route we would be hypocrites for saying “the rules of business have changed but we are going to write, distribute, market and roll-out our book basically the same it has been done for years.” So we broke a bunch of rules, and we also set some big aggressive goals that are going to create some real momentum.
Here’s what Mack had to say:
Undoubtebdly you guys are both experts, but a book in 90 days? As a consumer I am a lot less interested in the book as it seems like something rushed. For you to write three books in a year is a great achievement but as a reader I would prefer one Excellent book in a year instead of three that were quickly banged out. Maybe my assessment is wrong, I’d love to hear why. (Original comment here)
I would side with Seth Godin on this when he said:
Blogs have eliminated the reason for most business books to exist. If you can say it in three blog posts and reach more people, then waiting a year and putting in all that effort seems sort of pointless. The chances that your effort will be rewarded with income in proportion to the time you put in are pretty low. (See the full post at Seth Godin’s Blog)
In order to create ROI for the writer and be relevant to the reader the way books are written, marketed and revised must change. Here’s my full response via video (please weigh in and add comments, I really want to know what my readers feel about this subject):
CEOs on Twitter Interview Video
Mike Desjardins (http://twitter.com/mikedesjardins) interviewed Shane Gibson on Mike’s Video Podcast on how CEO’s can effectively use Twitter.
Professional Sales Diploma Program Launched in Partnership with The Academy of Learning
I have been working with the Academy of Learning for over a year to launch this program and it is now available through their network of 145 locations across Canada.
New Program Trains Sales Professionals Who Meet the Demands of Today’s Business World
Academy of Learning is pleased to announce the new Sales Professional Diploma program“ said Derek Hamill, President of LaunchLife International Inc., the franchisor of Academy of Learning. “Without sales there is no business. Academy of Learning wanted to deliver a first rate diploma program to guide and prepare graduates for top notch sales opportunities, and that’s what we did.
Academy of Learning, along with speaker, author and global entrepreneur, Shane Gibson, President of Knowledge Brokers International (KBI), designed the Sales Professional Diploma program with the goal to ensure that every student has the necessary sales knowledge and practical tools to succeed in a sales career.
This program is based upon KBI’s methodologies that have been implemented and used by leading business organizations such as SIEMENS, Old Mutual, The Certified Management Accountants of Canada, the Vancouver Board of Trade and dozens of manufacturers and leading financial services companies. Over 100,000 people in the last 10 years have attended KBI’s programs in Canada, USA, Southern Africa, South East Asia, the Middle East and South America.
This program will prepare graduates with the right skills to excel as a sales professional.
Some of the key courses and areas of focus in the program include: Principles of Selling, Business Presentations, Professional Selling, Business Negotiations & Contracts, and Business Law and Ethics. Graduates will be prepared with the right tools for lucrative sales careers in disciplines such as inside sales, outside sales, key account management, retail and large business to business sales careers. This program is ideal for individuals entering the workplace for the first time, re-entering the workplace, or current jobholders who want to upgrade or get formal recognition as a sales professional.
Labour conditions for the sales profession have remained consistent. Jobfutures.ca indicates that there is a broad variety of career opportunities in sales in fields such as advertising, wholesale, publications, hospitality, entertainment, travel, as well as in the telecommunication industry. Companies need to be competitive and that means having the right sales person who knows how to win accounts and maintain business relationships.
A labour analysis conducted by Academy of Learning shows sales positions are still key requirements in the workforce. Additional research relating specifically to the sales profession research found that:
- Graduates of sales related programs can expect a salary at a mid to slightly higher than average annual salary.
- The employment outlook in sales is at a good level for the coming year.
- The Globe and Mail newspaper stated that employers are having difficulty filling Sales Representatives positions.
- 72% of those with previous work experience found a job within one month of graduation.
- 45% of respondents in the Canadian Professional Sales Association study on “The State of the Sales Nation” stated that finding good sales people was very challenging.
According to Rob Simas, Director, Academic Division at LaunchLife International, “the labour market findings allowed us to develop a comprehensive and focused Sales Professional Diploma program, designed to meet the outcomes and objectives of program standards used by many of the community colleges, without sacrificing vocation and integrity.”
Mr. Simas concluded by saying, “We are pleased to provide a program to individuals looking for a well-rounded introduction to sales. We are confident that this program will open the door to entry-level positions within the exciting and rewarding field of sales.”
Integrated Social Networking and The Vancouver Board of Trade
This video is from a seminar I delivered to the Vancouver Board of Trade on Selling and Succeeding in Turbulent Economic Times. A good portion of the seminar focused on how to use social media and social networking in the sales process.
Your thoughts and feedback would be greatly appreciated
Leadership in a Digital Age – Is there a Leadership 2.0?
I’ve heard many people (including myself) talk about the fact that the rules of business have changed. In sales and marketing this is true.
What’s interesting is that the rules of leadership are universal. Offline and online networking and building social capital follow a very similar strategy. Today’s podcast addresses this challenge and opportunity.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Peter Legge Video Be Bold
Last week I attended a great seminar by Peter Legge on Doing Business in Tough Times. It was great to see a business leader like Peter echo what I have been blogging, podcasting and speaking about for the past 6 months. So many people have taken the easy route, stopped following their business plan and started following the news. It’s all about courage and personal responsibility. This video is Canada focused but I believe it has global applications. It was produced for the event last week.
Enjoy:
Dealing with the Dark side of business criticism and failure
If you’re out there taking risks as a sales professional, or you’re promoting a vision for your community, there’s a good chance you’re being criticized. In fact the more you do often the more visible you are, and this equates to more opportunities to create opposition.
You may be a business leader that’s transforming an industry, a teacher who does things differently in the classroom, or a blogger that pours your heart out for the world to see.
Today’s podcast is about you, and how you can tackle this challenge.
- Namaste 
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Social Media and Social Networking Training by Reachd
Rodney and Stephen from Reachd Training
Last week I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t done in a while. I had the opportunity to sit through 3 half days of training on social media and social networking facilitated by Reachd training. I asked Stephen Jagger co-founder of Reachd to meet with my client Builddirect.com and have a brief discussion with the executive team about how they go further engage their customers using social media and social networking. After this initial discussion it was decided that Stephen Jagger and Rodney Bartlett would run a 9 hour ( 3 half days ) bootcamp with the team. Because I’m working with the sales team I wanted to understand what they learned and how we could integrate it with the sales process.
As someone who has sat through a lot of training sessions and seminars I was impressed. The training was relevant and customized for the client. Here’s briefly what they covered:
Day 1 – Video Blogging
Although I already do some vidoe blogging this day re-inspired me to do much more of it. In fact it opened my eyes to many other positive applications. They covered everything from what good content is right through to how one can get massive distribution for their online video blogs. We even watched a video of Ian Watt take his pants off on Tom Everitt’s show. Ian was named as a top 10 Real Estate Blogger by Inmann News, and I don’t think he did it by being safe
Day 2 – Twitter, Twitter and more Twitter
Great day. Twitter is a micro-blogging and social networking / communications tool. This day was focused on how to create valuable conversations with your clients, customer, partners and even the media using this tool. Companies like Zappos and Comcast as examples have used Twitter to directly engage their customers online. Mostly early adopters, thought leaders and of course chatter boxes of all types. Steve and Rodney were great and outline clear strategies to use the tool to engage customers, increse blog traffic and offered revenue generating examples as well.
Day 3 – FaceBook for business and Blogging
FaceBook has entire blogging communities devoted to it’s mutiple uses. In Canada in particular it has high numbers fo subcribers compared to MySpace and in the US it basically is tied in regards to the number of users. Most people reading this have probably been on FaceBook for a year or more. So I’ll spare you “What is FaceBook” rant. With that said Rodney shared innovative ways to use video, photos, the events function, groups and pages to engage and grow your client and fan base.
Blogging – This was a great overview of how to write to create a following and an engaged client base. The core message was blog and blog often. Also focus on shorter posts with a single focus this also helps with search engine optimization and you don’t tend to lose the readers interest. One other good tip was when people comment on your blogs, answer them back, even drop them a quick e-mail to let them know you replied, this stimulates levels of engagement and personalizes the interaction.
This was a very brief review (I have 9 pages of notes) from the training but it was comprehensive yet down to earth and easy to understand.
Related links:
Follow them on twitter: Jeff Booth CEO of Builddirect, Rodney and Stephen of Reachd, Builddirect.com Corporate and for Upcoming Reachd Training events
Follow me Shane Gibson on Twitter
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