You’ve probably had the experience of visiting your local supplier to purchase a product, only to find that the sales team can’t tell you much about it.  Even if you like the product, unless they can give you the kind of details you need to be sure that it’s right for you, then you just won’t feel happy about buying it.

Selling is the engine that drives your business. So your salespeople are the engine drivers. If they aren’t performing, then neither is your business. Poorly trained salespeople who can’t build up a good head of steam in the sales engine room means it’ll be slow speed ahead for your business.

Training a sales team isn’t a one-off event or a simple matter of showing them how your product works and saying, “Now - go sell!” It’s a process that begins with a proper induction on the day they arrive, and regular updates to their knowledge and skills as time goes by, if you aim to keep them up to speed.

Know your product

Products may not sell primarily on their features (showing the benefits to the buyer is a more successful approach), but no salesperson should be caught off-guard by a customer needing to know the basic design features and technicalities of a product. The more a salesperson knows about the FEATURES of a product the more they can decide if they have just the right solution to fit the customer’s need and start pushing the BENEFITS they will derive from having it.o:p>

How long needs to be spent with your sales people, and what depth of knowledge they will need depends on the complexity of what you sell.  But the investment is worthwhile. 

Product training is more than just handing them the instructor’s manual.  It can extend to studying specs, becoming acquainted with the marketing materials used with the product and even watching other salespeople carry out a sale so they understand exactly how the product is being presented. Get them to put together their own sales presentation and critique it.

Know the competitor’s product

Salespeople will sooner or later be faced with the prospect who has done their homework and can quote details about the features and benefits of your competitor’s product. Knowing the same information yourself let’s you explain where the rival product fails to meet the customer’s need as effectively as your product does.o:p>

Develop customer relationship skills

Initial training usually concentrates on learning the product, so it’s bound to focus the new salesperson on product knowledge. In fact, studies show that by far the majority of training provided to direct sales people is product oriented. Of course, having digested all this product knowledge they are eager to show it off to prospects. The result can be a rejection. The focus of selling should always be on the prospect - specifically their particular need - not on the product. All that knowledge is there so you can demonstrate just how right the product is to satisfy the prospect’s need.o:p>

Understand how you like to sell

Individual salespeople may have their unique talent for selling but in any one business all salespeople should operate according to the same sales system. Maybe you work on a ‘pressure them into buying’ approach. Or maybe you prefer something more subtle (and more effective) such as a relationship selling approach. Whatever it is, train your salesperson in the way it operates. Get them to understand all the steps in the selling process, from developing a relationship with the prospect, to recognising the selling opportunity, to asking for a commitment, to making a successful close.o:p>

Understand your sales policies

To avoid rogue discount offers that can eat into margins and create resentment among customers it’s smart to have a discounting policy that covers how much they may offer, to whom, and under what circumstances. Your salespeople need to know these before you set them loose so they don’t make mistakes or look ignorant when prospects ask them about a discount. Similarly, they need to be aware of the terms and conditions that attach to each product, alternative delivery arrangements and the after sales service on offer. There may be other things worth clarifying up front as well e.g. how often you expect them to be in the office - as opposed to out selling; what reports you want on their activity - and how often.  Don’t leave yourself open to frustration or your sales team open to being criticised later because things weren’t explained fully from the beginning.

Using online technology, online software and services - also known as ‘Cloud Computing’ solves many daily problems and irritations. It allows you to concentrate on your business and not running an IT, accounting, legal, or marketing department. It gives you the greatest possible freedom to pursue your entrepreneurial vision and having a life at the same time.

Cloud computing can broadly be defined as a computing technology that relies on off-premise central servers for the delivery and maintenance of applications. Through cloud computing, the hardware and software that businesses use is centralised and accessed over the internet. The ‘cloud’ refers to the offsite resources supplied by an outside entity.

Businesses do not own the software applications they use. They rent them or pay as they use them, so they don’t have to invest in servers or software licensing to use the applications they need. Subscribing to a SaaS provider – Software as a Service – means you don’t have the overhead required to implement traditional enterprise software. This overhead includes buying, maintaining and housing servers, then installing and maintaining the software.

SaaS offers financial flexibility. Instead of having to pay for a software license upfront, you can pay a monthly or annual subscription fee. If you decide to change applications, you don’t lose money invested in licensing. Some SaaS applications are metered and charge on a pay-per-use basis, so you pay for the exact amount of users or services you require.

In a fast changing environment, SaaS gives you access to the latest version and most up-to-date innovations. With conventional software, you have to wait for the newest release to implement the latest innovations. Even with a license, the cost and time of moving to the latest version may be prohibitive. Using SaaS enables you to take advantage of innovations as they are introduced. SaaS systems are easily scalable and can be increased or decreased in size to match changing conditions.

SaaS provides these advantages by creating economies of scale. Sharing costs and resources among a large number of businesses delivers cost savings.

With the time and cost savings, SaaS enables business owners and managers to focus on their core business objectives instead of IT issues. Another important advantage is the ability of users to access systems from any location.

Many companies offer SaaS applications. Salesforce.com is one of the most well-known and fastest growing companies offering SaaS. Salesforce CRM software is based on the cloud computing model and is used by over 50,000 companies of all sizes.

Marc Benioff, Chief Executive of Salesforce.com, believes that SaaS offers advantages in the current economic climate.

“People need to cut operating expenses, people need to cut capital expenses and people need to reduce their risk. Are you going to do that buying enterprise software? Probably not,” Benioff said.

“Companies still need to operate and manage their information, so this is a great opportunity to move away from the enterprise software model and the enterprise hardware model and the data centre model, where you create it, control it, and deliver it yourself with this new shared model – that’s the power,” he said.

Several large companies are involved in the push for cloud computing. Amazon Web Services offers a number of services through cloud computing including storage, transaction and content delivery services.

Google Apps offers messaging, collaboration and email security applications over the internet. By paying an annual per user fee, businesses can use services such as resource scheduling in Google Calendar, Google video for private and secure video sharing, and email archiving.

Common Concerns about SaaS

Although SaaS offers many advantages, there are legitimate questions that should be asked before signing up for any service.

Data security is at the top of the list. How do you know your data will be secure in someone else’s hands? Other common concerns include the availability of the application and keeping control of data.

Ask questions and review the provider’s written policies. Questions should cover the:

• type of facilities and security arrangements in place
• infrastructure and virus protection used
• backup procedures and storage
• privacy policies
• level of data encryption to protect website transactions
• hardware and power redundancy
• qualifications of operations staff 
• hours and procedures of site monitoring.

Cloud Computing is set to continue its strong growth in the future. SaaS can offer many benefits to SMEs, including saving time and costs and increasing flexibility and scalability. Measure the costs as well as the benefits and take a close look at the service being offered.

There’s been quite a bit of talk amongst business managers and owners about the way new employees behave, largely it must be said, negative - too much entitlement, not enough loyalty, no work ethic, only interested in themselves, and so on.

Well, there’s a saying going around – ‘build a bridge, get over it!’ In other words, things will run more smoothly, and your company will thrive if you just accept it as being a different era, and tailor your workplace and management style to meet the needs of the upcoming workforce.

Gen Xers (born 1965-1979) and Millennials (born after 1980) operate in this world with a completely different perspective.  What you need to understand first is how they view concepts of loyalty, time and success, and then motivate them using that knowledge.

A different work ethic

Millennial employees will be dedicated to completing their tasks well, but they won’t be looking around to see what needs to happen next. The younger they are, the more work will be something that happens in between their real life of weekends and nights out.

They ask ‘What is MY job’, and develop the most efficient and best way they can quickly complete it. End of Story.  Your job is to take the long view – but don’t expect them to do that.

Younger team members especially are interested in completing assigned tasks, rather than being at the job per se, in the weekly pay check, rather than the long term career. Give them a clear link between the tasks you need them to do right now, and their pay check. Don’t talk career prospects, fancy titles and promotions.

Be creative about ways to motivate and reward them in their kind of currency.  Since they are more motivated by completing assigned tasks, tie in their efforts at the task with rewards of the kind they value most – such as paid time off!

In an economic downturn many employers anxious to retain good staff, but struggling with falling cash flows, found that putting their team onto one unpaid day’s leave every two weeks was a popular move.  Since their employees highly valued time off, one less day’s pay to keep an income seemed a fair trade.

Investing hours to get ahead v Work-life balance

In youth we are immortal - at least in our own minds!  The future is way out there, stretching endlessly; today is what matters. When you think about it, there’s truth in that approach; death, divorce, war, global financial crises, big corporate collapses, who is to say what’s around the corner. Baby Boomers invest ‘time’ to achieve some future goal or payoff.  Gen Xers and Millennials view time as a kind of invisible cash in hand. Use it today, or lose it. It doesn’t buy the future for you, it pays for the NOW.

That translates into generations that demand work-life balance and paid time off. They want to get the job done, then put it behind them and enjoy life.

To get results, don’t lose them with talk about the five year plan, talk about short term certainties. Make your plan’s time frame short enough for them to picture. Fulfil your promises – their trust quickly evaporates – and reward successes along the road. Buy yourself the time you need by making small regular steps towards your longer term objectives, while at the same time building their trust.

You’ll probably also find they are less rigid about the 9 – 5 working hours.  This generation is connected 24/7 on iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, Internet etc.  A quick call over a specific project out of hours will probably get them! Change your strategies. Tap into the benefits of their technical skills, and quick, flexible approach to creating faster, better ways to get the job done. You might find it results in better tenures with your company as well.

One of the biggest challenges faced by most businesses is sourcing help in a reliable, timely and affordable way.  It’s neither practical nor desirable – and often not even possible – to employ people with the expertise in all the areas your business needs.  At the same time you need to operate in a professional way.

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