As you stare at the heading on this post, with your head cocked to one side, hopefully it rings a bell. It’s the title of the first gold record by THREE DOG NIGHT (1969). From 1969-1974, no other band had more top 10 hits, sold more records or issued more concert tickets than this legendary group; which by the way still perform today.

Well, so much for the lesson in pop music history. My intended purpose during this post is to remind you how much more can be accomplished when people pull together, sharing their skills, ideas, and synergy. As you look at the group photos below, you are viewing a student study group, a stock investment club, a neighborhood watch group, and a real estate investment team.

The purpose in all four of these groups, are for individuals to band together and contribute what they have to offer, in order to help increase and improve everyone’s performance.

When people pull together

Let’s see if this concept is applicable to the selling profession, which is where the focus of this blog lies. To paraphrase the song title above, “sales is the loneliest profession you will ever do.” If it’s not tough enough to go out there into the marketplace and kill something and drag it back to the office each day, add to that fact that most of the time it’s a “lone wolf” activity. When I was actively selling for a living, I can’t tell you how lonesome my job was and how often I felt that it was me against the world on a daily basis.

Enter Keith Gaudreault. For years Keith was an innovative high-performing operations manager in the Midwest working for a 100+ year old nationwide environmental services company. I had the privilege of providing some sales training and coaching for Keith’s employees for a period of time toward the end of his tenure there. One morning Keith decided he was tired of coloring between the lines for the corporation and decided to become self-employed in a place where he can do Christmas on the beach.

Low and behold I got a call one day from Keith telling me that he bought a service company franchise in Mobile, AL. and had moved his family to beautiful Baldwin County. I was happy to hear his news, but even more surprised to hear the next words out of his mouth. He shared with me that he had been mulling over several new ideas for providing sales training and coaching for his sales team, and wanted to hire me to quarterback these sessions. I was excited to get a chance to work with Keith again, but what I want to share in this post goes way beyond that.

Sales TipsKnowing how lonesome it is for his reps, as they run around south Alabama looking for sales, Keith envisioned and put together several training concepts for them to take advantage of that I was, and still am really impressed with.

1. He recruited three other franchise owners, from different states, that were willing to join this new training group. During the ensuing 1½ years, this training group has grown to 7 locations and 28 participants, and because of geography, they don’t have to compete with each other.

2. Keith convinced these owners that it was critical for their managers to participate in the training sessions alongside their sales reps. He knew this would show support to the reps as well as reinforce what I would be covering during the sessions.

3. Although I was used to conducting remote training by telephone only, with decent results, he taught us all how to use Google+ video chats for FREE, so that everybody could see and hear everybody else, making it easier to keep all the participants interested and involved. He was certainly right to convince me to use that newer venue.

4. The next piece of the puzzle was the addition of a 30 minute Q&A session prior to my 30 minute training session. This is helpful to newer salespeople, as they can freely ask questions about any topic of concern. It’s also helpful for the veterans, keeping them interested and excited, since they are providing the answers and mentoring these questioning rookies.

Book for Sales Coaching5. For the training curriculum, Keith suggested I use my book Sell is NOT a Four Letter Word. He had read it and thought the 2-3 page topical segments I wrote would be perfect for the 30 minute time allotment available. Each participant has a personal copy of the book to use in order to prepare for each session, which consists of facilitating a discussion of the assigned topic. I don’t lecture but rather function as a “guide on the side”, calling on participants by name with questions or comment requests.

6. Keith set up an email account, available to each participant in the group. Every time a rep makes a sale, the group is notified by email blast, and immediately the other reps and managers respond by return email providing uplifting kudos, positive comments, and internet high-fives. Invariably someone will email asking how that sale came about, giving the rep an opportunity to “brag” and explain electronically where the prospect came from, and how the transaction “went down.” What’s not to like about a dozen positive strokes after making each new sale?

7. Finally, Keith used Google drive, a web-based application, to create, update and modify spreadsheets to be able to share data live online. This is used to produce a virtual sales board that is remotely updated by each manager with current proposal and sales results by rep. I access these stats prior to each training session and use them to “shout out” top performing reps for the prior week at the beginning of each training session. We all applaud and yuck it up for a couple minutes up and then transition into the assigned training topic for that day.

So there you have it; a quick flyover of what Keith has put in place to be a positive advocate for his sales team, realizing how tough and lonely their jobs can be. I can assure you that being a part of this multi-state team of sales professionals provides a very positive environment to work in, and as a result, salespeople from these franchises are some of the top performing reps nationwide in their industry. What a great example of entrepreneurship at work changing the game in a profession that gets tougher year after year. I really believe if there were more proactive and innovative business owners like Keith, “sales would not be the loneliest profession you will ever do.”

How about commenting about this topic below in the Speak Your Mind area? Also, if you have an interest in learning more about how remote internet sales training or coaching might work for your company, click here for details. You will be surprised when you see how effective, yet inexpensive these training sessions can be.

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