At 12:55 p.m. EST on March 1st, I'll be hosting the first in a series of free, 35 minute webinars.

It's called "Selecting the Highest Performers."

If you're like many sales leaders, you recognize that selecting sales talent is a critically important part of your job. You also recognize that it's rife with challenges.

In order to help you wade through those challenges, I'd like to invite you to sign-up for this webinar where you'll learn:

• What to Focus on in a Candidate's Background
• What Interviews Won't Reveal
• Interviewing Best Practices

Because 2012 marks our 35th Anniversary in the Sales Training Business, we wanted to use the year to give back. Since all of our customized sales training programs incorporate individual sales assessments, we have unique insight into what makes the best sales candidates "tick."

If you can't make it, sign-up anyway for access to the recording!

Click here to sign up!

- @JebBrooks

Well, we're getting close to that time of year when cable television networks broadcast their retrospectives. Since we can't provide a reality television marathon, we've decided to offer links to our eleven most popular posts of 2011. So, here they are...as chosen by YOU, our readers:

1. Is it Better to Ask Permission or Beg Forgiveness?
2. The Ten Worst Practices in Selling Today
3. Outline for a Sales Training Manual
4. A Sales Skills Audit
5. Avoiding the Activity Trap
6. What if you Really Do Offer Great Customer Service?
7. No, Professional Sales is Neither Dead Nor Dying
8. In Sales, as in High School, You Are the Company You Keep
9. It's Not in the Budget
10. How Big is the Sales Profession?
11. Stop Collaborizing and Synergating

As always, thank you for reading. Your comments, criticisms, ideas, suggestions, and questions are encouraged and appreciated.

- @JebBrooks

At Noon Eastern Time on February 22, I'll be participating in a very exciting roundtable discussion about the future of professional selling. It's something I've been talking about for awhile now, and even have passion for. I hope you'll be able to join us.

Here's the information from the organizer (and my friend), Jonathan Farrington:

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change" - Charles Darwin

Whatever got you where you are today will not be sufficient to keep you there. A rapidly changing environment is the regular background against which organizations must develop.

Change is continuous and will become more rapid as we move forward over time. The one constant that we can rely upon in commercial life is change - everything is changing, everyday.

We can choose to embrace the changes, adapt, and thrive, or we can resist, and risk extinction.

The questions we should all be asking ourselves right now are:

• What will the sales landscape really look like in five years time?
• Who will survive?
• How will they survive?
• Who will perish?

Join seven of the world's top sales experts and recognized thought leaders in the sales space, for what promises to be a highly thought-provoking debate.

The Panel

• Joanne Black - is the leading authority on referral selling, and the author of No More Cold CallingTM: The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust. Wherever genuine sales thought leaders have congregated, you will always find Joanne, and also in that company, you'll discover....
• Paul McCord - is the president of McCord Training, author of the Amazon and Barnes and Noble best-selling book on referral generation, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2008), and SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar, not forgetting Bust Your Slump, which he released last year. www.dynamicsalesgrowth.com
• Colleen Francis - is the president and founder of Canada-based Engage Selling Solutions -- a thriving sales-training organization that delivers tailor-made, winning solutions to sales and marketing professionals internationally. Colleen is high-energy and high-commitment, personified.
• Jeb Brooks - is Executive Vice President of The Brooks Group, one of the world's top Sales Training Firms as ranked by Selling Power Magazine , Training Industry, Inc., and The American Business Awards. Over its 35 year history, The Brooks Group has helped more than 2,000 sales-driven companies in nearly 500 industries select, hire, train, and retain top performing salespeople.
• Nigel Edelshain - is the man who first coined the term "Sales 2.0" and he is CEO of Sales 2.0 (LLC). Sales teams trained by Sales 2.0 get radically superior results by employing social media and Sales 2.0 tools in their sales processes. Sales 2.0 works extensively with companies in sales-intensive industries like IT services, insurance, software, printing and telecommunications
• Dan Waldschmidt - is one of the founders of IntroMojo, a popular inspirational speaker, expert author, and a sought-after strategist on creating edgy conversations in the marketplace. He blogs regularly on his popular motivational selling blog Edge of Explosion

The Chairman

Jonathan Farrington - is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant. He is Chairman of The JF Corporation and CEO of Top Sales Associates, the creator and CEO of Top Sales World and the man behind the Annual Top Sales Awards.

'When a collection of brilliant minds hearts and talents come together - expect a ..... lively debate"'

When? Wednesday February 22^nd at 12 Noon (Eastern) 5pm GMT

How Much? Registration is FREE

Where? Please register HERE

In fact, don't just join, join in!

@JebBrooks

In order to be sure the principles from our Customized IMPACT Sales Training Programs "stick," we follow the classroom training with a nine-week reinforcement program to coach salespeople.

I just wrapped up one of the nine-week programs and it didn't go as well as we'd like. The reason?  The group's sales manager didn't play an active role. He always had “other, more important priorities.” He told me he didn’t need to follow-up on his people because “they're professionals that know what to do.”

Peter Drucker said

“The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.”

Nothing in a sales manager's day is more important than the professional development of their salespeople. That leads to growth for accounts, territories, and entire companies.

The moral of the story?

Sales Managers: Your sales team will rise to the level of your expectations and coaching.
CEO’s & Owners: If your sales team isn’t getting the results you want, take a look at your sales managers.  Change your manager and you will change your results.

Wow! What a day already! We just learned that we were named a finalist for Sales Training Practice of the Year by the Stevie Awards.

Here's the press release:

THE BROOKS GROUP NAMED AS FINALIST IN 2011 STEVIE® AWARDS FOR SALES & CUSTOMER SERVICE
5th annual awards will be presented on February 21 in Miami Beach

Greensboro, NC – January 13, 2011 – The Brooks Group was named a Finalist today in the Sales Training Practice of the Year category in the fifth annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

The awards are presented by the Stevie® Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious American Business Awards.

More than 800 entries from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted to this year’s competition, an increase of more than 60% over 2010

The Brooks Group has been consistently recognized by the Stevie Awards, Selling Power Magazine, and Training Industry, Inc. as a top ranked Sales Training Provider.

Members of the Awards' Board of Distinguished Judges & Advisors will select Stevie Award winners from among the Finalists during final judging, to take place January 24 - February 4. Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging.

“Being named a Finalist in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service is an important achievement,” said Michael Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards. “It means that independent business executives have agreed that the nominee is worthy of international recognition. We congratulate all of the Finalists on their achievement and wish them well in the competition.”

“This recognition is really an acknowledgement of our clients and their drive for meaningful sales behavior change. We exist to help them improve their sales effectiveness through assessment, training, and coaching. Their results are our real achievement,” said Will Brooks, president of The Brooks Group.

About The Brooks Group

Founded in 1977, The Brooks Group has helped thousands of organizations in more than 500 industries transform their business practices through practical, down-to-earth skills development in sales, sales management and personal performance growth. We offer our clients proven, best-practice tools – an easy-to-implement sales methodology, industry-leading reinforcement and accountability systems, and sales management training for performance coaching – all geared toward producing long-term, sustainable results. Learn more about The Brooks Group at www.TheBrooksGroup.com

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about The Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com.

@JebBrooks

###

]]> http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/index.php/2011/01/13/the-brooks-group-named-finalist-for-sales-practice-of-the-year/feed/ 0 http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/index.php/2010/12/21/introduction-to-high-impact-selling/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introduction-to-high-impact-selling http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/index.php/2010/12/21/introduction-to-high-impact-selling/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:54:36 +0000 Jeb Brooks http://www.brooksgroup.com/blog/?p=2605

Hello readers.

I need your help with our new book.

My brother and I are collaborating on another book, High IMPACT Selling. We're completely revising the original (first published by The Brooks Group in 1988). It'll probably be out by March 2011. Right now, everything is set except for the Introduction. That's where you come in.

Sales 2.0 is a thread that runs throughout the book, but I want to frame up our discussion on the front end. As a result, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this section . . .

Combine rapidly evolving technology with a dynamically changing marketplace and you’ve got what has been called “Sales 2.0.” Factors like CRM’s, smart phones, marketing automation, social networking, and all kinds of cloud-based solutions have changed professional selling forever. However, that's nothing new. After all, sales has been changing since the first sale was won and, if we’re just now arriving at “2.0,” we’re a bit behind!

Regardless of where we are on the timeline, technology (from Internet searches to GPS devices) is useless unless salespeople can use it within a customer-focused, linked, sequential selling process. Sales training – whether it’s in a Sales 1.0 world or a Sales 9.0 world – should teach salespeople to focus first on their prospects and customers. Only then should it worry itself with how salespeople can use technology to become even more effective. Technology should compliment salespeople's professional relationships, not distract from them.

Please post your thoughts to the comments feed. Are we hitting the nail on the head? Or are we missing something?

@JebBrooks

We're pleased to announce that in the first-ever Top Sales Awards, our founder (and my father), the late Bill Brooks, was inducted into the Sales Hall of Fame. He was included for his amazing contributions to Professional Selling. Although he passed away in 2007, his books, audios, and speeches continue to inspire salespeople all over the world. Yesterday's announcement was recognition for his great work. His work on the buying process was far ahead of its time.

Other inductees included:

• Zig Ziglar
• Linda Richardson
• Earl Nightingale
• Keith Rosen
• Jeffrey Gitomer
• Neil Rackham
• Tony Alessandra
• Brian Tracy
• Gerhard Gschwandtner

What a privilege to be connected to a man whose amazing legacy lives on beyond his lifetime.

@JebBrooks

For 10 years, The Brooks Group has been helping Air Force Reserve recruiters perform their work in a professional, applicant-focused way. It's work we enjoy because it allows us to help men and women who do so much for our nation. Earlier today, I was talking to Kevin Reinert, the Vice President of Military and Government Services here at TBG and he shared some fantastic news...

The Air Force Reserve Command Recruiting Service surpassed their annual recruiting goals for the tenth consecutive year.

We're extremely proud of the men and women who recruit for the Air Force Reserve and wish them continued success as they serve the United States. So, congratulations to the Air Force Reserve for this impressive achievement. We're so proud to be partnered with this impressive group of men and women.

@JebBrooks

Retention of Top Sales Talent

Here at The Brooks Group, we've been engaged in "Sales Training 2.0" for awhile.

However, I'm particularly looking forward to joining a team of sales experts to offer a virtual sales training program to members of ASTD and others in the sales and learning professions from July 21 - 28, 2010.

For nearly a decade-and-a-half, I've been training salespeople and their managers. And now, I'll be joining a group of impressive experts to contribute specific, tested and proven retention strategies.

I will present a session entitled, Retaining Top Talent. In the session I'll be describing specific strategies sales managers can employ to retain top sales talent.

Let me know if you're interested in hearing more about this great conference!

Participating with a group to provide valuable education has been a passion of mine for a long time and now, to do it entirely online with other well-respected experts, is even more exciting.

See you online!

Yesterday, in an impressive value-building move, our bank sent us a 40-minute video of a recent speech by bestselling business author Jason Jennings.  He spoke about his research on top-performing companies.  It was a great presentation, but one thing he said really caught my attention…

Great Companies Turn What They Do Into a CAUSE.

A cause, he said, is more than a mission statement or vision statement. It’s big and bold. It’s inclusive. It's kind of like the BHAG ("Big Hairy Audacious Goal") that Jim Collins and Jerry Porras talked about.

Jennings told the story of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his cause. Gates wanted to put a computer on every desk in the world.  A laughable thought in the mid-70's. But Microsoft did it because it drove everything they did. It was their cause!

At The Brooks Group, our cause is clear. For too long sales has been unfairly marginalized as a profession. And that's too bad because we've all heard the old cliche that we're all in sales. So...

Here at Brooks, We Work to Elevate the Sales Profession.

We work on it strategically by training sales forces at organizations big and small all over the world.

We work on it tactically by eliminating the most offensive word in sales, for example.

We work every day to make sure the sales profession is viewed as one of high integrity and trust.

Elevating salespeople and this noble profession is what gets us out of bed in the morning. It floods our veins. We know how bold and exciting our cause is. We’re enthusiastic about it. It's the fuel for our passion.

We don’t do it for the money. We do it because we’re passionate about our purpose.

Will you help us fight for our cause?

@JebBrooks