Mindcell Sales Training Blog

Stop Settling for Mediocrity: 10 Commandments for Continuous Sales Improvement

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 01:13:36 GMT

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Ask yourself this question: if the company you are working for right now in your OWN company, would you be doing what you are doing now? If you are a manager who handles a team of people, ask your staff this question, too. Get them to think like entrepreneurs and empower them to make decisions.

A commitment to excellence is not a switch that you can just flip on or off when you feel like It. This “commitment has to be done every day until it becomes a habitual behaviour. Of course, a habitual commitment to excellence leads to continuous improvement. But all these may seem abstract. What exactly must you do to eventually achieve excellence?

Here are the 10 Commandments of Continuous Improvement. I encourage you to use them on your own, and on your own sales team:

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Happy, Or Cranky: Your Morning Routine May Dictate Your Day

stephen@mindcell.co.uk (Stephen Tierney) — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 02:54:59 GMT

What is your morning routine?

Do you often wake up happy? Or do you find yourself a bit cranky because you are not really looking forward to starting the day? Admit it, at some point you have felt that set of negative emotions at the start of the day, (most especially every Mondays). And if you are not enjoying what you do at work, the negativity can be twice as much.

But you cannot allow negativity to dictate your actions and swallow the entirety of your day. You cannot go on blaming your challenges or misfortunes to fate or the alignment of the celestial bodies, or the mechanisms of the Universe. You have to take action and be accountable to your mindset and behaviour. If there is something you do not like about your current situation or state, then it only makes sense for you to do something to change it, doesn’t it?

Would you believe me if I say that this change starts with the series of things you do by the time that you wake up? Exactly! Your morning routine does play a great role in setting your mind and mood for the day. A good morning routine leads to efficiency, saving you time and effort, since it eliminates the part in which you have to decide what you will be doing next. Hence, the word “routine”.

Have you ever wondered if morning routine is one of the secrets of the highly successful CEOs of multinational companies? For sure, it is one of the factors in the formula to success. Sure, you can imitate their morning routine step-by-step. But here is the tricky part. A morning routine is not a one-size-fits-all kind of regimen. It is more like trial-and-error. So you have to and try and see which steps works for you, making you a better person, and sustaining your internal bliss towards the end of the day. And whatever works for you, keep on doing that.

With all that being said, I would like to share the things I do upon waking up. Feel free to compare your routine with mine. And if there is a step you think would work for you, then by all means, do add it to your list, and start doing it by tomorrow.

First, I like to set my schedule for the whole day. I usually look at my calendar to check what things I need to do or people I need to meet. I like to think that this schedule serves as an outline to how my day will go.

Second, I also set my intentions for the day. It is essential for me to know what my priorities are and where my focus lies today. What do I aim to accomplish today? What are my goals, short-term and long-term? Trust me, it feels so satisfying achieving a goal no matter how little it may see. Satisfaction also contributes to your happiness.

And third, I watch read or learn something that improves my skillset. Learning is a never-ending process. As much as possible, I add value to the skills I already have by constantly improving. I will not say I am the best at what I do. There will always be someone better in my craft. There will always be someone who sells more than I do. But this realisation helps me keep my feet on the ground. I do not compete with anyone. Though this sounds as cliché, I am only in competition with myself. Again, this concept contributes to my happiness and peace of mind.

Of course, my morning routine will not be complete without my green drink and short bouts of exercise. I also need to take care of my physical body, don’t I? I do this to remove the little traces of sleep that still lingers in my body. I have to wake up. And to be ready for the challenges if the day, the last thing I need is to drowse and feel sleepy.

Then, it is time to go to work!

I’m sure, every now and then, I add bits and pieces to my overall morning routine depending on the situation. But those are the primary steps that I do. So far, this works for me. And this routine does help sustain the positive emotions I feel for the entire day.

What about you? How do you prepare for the day? What is your routine?

Want to start your day with purpose and achieve your sales goals faster? Discover how a powerful morning routine can transform your performance. Schedule your free

consultation with Mindcell Sales Training today!

From Wishing to Winning: Earn the Right to Expect Success

stephen@mindcell.co.uk (Stephen Tierney) — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:19:52 GMT

How many of your goals this year were you able to achieve?

By turning a wish into a dream, a dream into a goal, a goal into a plan and then taking some action (however small) to move towards your dream, you earn the right to expect rather than just wish and wait.

The question you need to answer is, which part of this process is standing between you and the life you want? Do you just dream, and then wish on a star? Or do you bring your dreams into the light of day where you can see them, touch them, and give them the respect they so richly deserve?

To achieve your goals, you must first believe that you can.

Take the RIGHT actions, the RIGHT way, at the RIGHT time for the RIGHT reasons. Understand this and you can take on anything with confidence. Clearly, if you do not believe you can attain your goals, you won't. However, remain confident that you can succeed at whatever you do, as long as you take the right actions, and you will ultimately prevail.

Simply put, when you learn to expect success, then you will succeed.

Self-confidence is directly affected by what you say to yourself. Get into the habit of telling yourself you can succeed, and you will develop the confidence to take the action necessary to make that happen. When you say, "I know I can", you are giving yourself permission to succeed.

To increase the positive expectancy of success, identify everything you can do to increase your probability of succeeding. Then do every one of them. Increase your positive expectancy by looking for evidence why you will succeed, and then look for even more. The accumulation of convincing evidence justifies your willingness to make the attempt.

Start with one nettling project. Then declare it will be a success. Of course, the next thing to do is to overwhelm yourself with evidence to prove it will be. Put at least one thing per day on your to-do list that will give you a feeling of accomplishment --- and make sure you complete it. This will boost your morale, which will increase your performance.

Even if you think you cannot do something well the first time, try it anyway. When you do something, no matter how poorly, you decrease your fear and gain the information and experience to do it better next time.

Are there things you want, but you hesitate to try because you fear failure more than you expect success? Stop this destructive thinking!

When you develop the confidence to passionately pursue anything and everything you want, you move towards the results you expect.

Until then, your dreams are on hold, because you have not EARNED THE RIGHT TO EXPECT THEM.

Beyond the Lecture: The Secret to Effective Sales Training

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 13:23:07 GMT

Are sales training effective?

This is probably one of the most common questions asked by any sales training professional. And if you work in the sales realm, you probably are aware that each year, companies are investing billions of dollars on sales training.

Yes, training is a form of an investment. Companies invest in human potential with the expectation that at the end of the training, they can immediately see a boost or improvement on sales performance. However, if the training does not yield favourable results, then that only means this huge investment just ends up going down the drain.

How can you tell that the training is effective? Obviously, if newly trained individuals start closing more deals, and reaching or exceeding their quotas, then it is a successful training programme. Whereas if the numbers they produce are below the company’s baseline, then the training must have been a failure. Defining training success is not rocket science, yes. However stellar results do not always manifest immediately right after the training. We need to put into consideration that every newly trained individual has to go through this metaphorical journey called as the learning curve.

According to a study conducted by ES Research, between 85% - 90% of sales training has no impact even after 120 days of post go-live. This data gets you thinking that most sales training does not work.

In this critical 120-day window, a person who had just undergone sales training is expected to become better in the execution of sales skills desired by the company to get the job done. That is most definitely the ideal result in the ideal world. But we are living in a complex world where competition is tough in almost every industry you can think of. Take note that it is also possible that within those 120 days post-training, an exponential loss of information can happen.

Most training is easily forgotten after the first week of delivery. The science behind this one can best be explained by the theory called Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, named after this German psychologist names Hermann Ebbinghaus, who conducted extensive studies in the capacity of human memory to retain information. The basic idea of this theory is that our brain decreases its ability to retain information if there is no reinforcement. Hence, if the things learned are constantly reinforced to the learners whilst in training (or after training), then the more likely the new information gets crystallised into their memory banks.

So let’s go back to the question, “why do most sales training fail” ? Here is a simple answer: It is due to the lack of reinforcement. And this can be traced back to how the training programme has been structured, in the first place.

Being in the training field for quite a while, the author of this blog has witnessed first-hand how people learn best: that is through constant real-world application of theories and concepts learned during the lecture.

Gone are the days when training is just equivalent to a humdrum lecture wherein the sales trainer was doing most of the talking. If you want the training to stick to your learners for a long time, you must make sure they have an active role in their own learning. Reinforce the learning by making your trainees apply what they learned through role-plays, or in real-life by letting them handle real customers.

Training is one of the foundations of every company. And the quality of training provided to new hires help shape not just their careers, but also the future of your company. So if your new hires are not producing good sales numbers and you start asking why, then consider revisiting your sales training programme when you do a root-cause analysis.

Remember, training, in general, is an investment. But you do not literally invest in the training, rather you invest in results this training brings.