Sales training, personal development & business success from motivational speaker & seminar leader Gavin Ingham
This site is packed full of sales training, small business and personal development tips from author and motivational speaker Gavin Ingham that will make a positive difference to your business, to your sales performance and to your personal success. You can check out inspiring sales training articles free in my blog, view my seminar schedule or visit my sales training and personal development shop.
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October 30, 2007
- Audio interview of sales motivational speaker Gavin Ingham on ExpertsOnline.tv
And now for something a little different…
I thought it was about time we did a bit of podcasting so here is an mp3 for your enjoyment! Sales motivational speaker and sales training expert, Gavin Ingham (that’s me by the way), interviewed on ExpertsOnline.tv.
In this interview we talk about sales strategies, sales techniques and sales atitiudes and a lot more besides so grab a cup of tea, a biscuit and a pen and enjoy.
Interview length 22 minutes 30 seconds.
Get Flash to see this player.
October 23, 2007
- Stand up if you like cold calling!
Gavin
What are your thoughts on this? I am a firm believer of standing while selling but none of my colleagues are. Thank you for your training on cold calling, I thought it was excellent, however experienced one is with cold calling there is always room for improvement.
Please let me know your thoughts on standing,
MW, No Fear Cold Calling attendee
Is standing up whilst on the phone a good thing? Does it improve sales results? Are you right or are your team right?
What a great question!
October 10, 2007
- Goal setting with no limitations
I take holidays as a good opportunity to read, digest and think about life and work in general and this week I am in Spain thinking about goals and goal setting. It´s occurred to me that I don´t talk about goals and goal setting enough. I don´t really know why.
Certainly, it´s one of the most powerful personal and career development exercises I have ever done. I remember the first time I ever came across goal setting, years and years ago. It was through a book by Anthony Robbins called Unlimited Power. A friend of mine recommended it and said that reading it would increase my sales results.
October 3, 2007
- Cold calling howlers, Gavin’s kitchen nightmares!
Last Friday I was working from home for the day. I had spent the last three days delivering two of my favourite sales seminars, No Fear Cold Calling and Professional Selling Skills, in Manchester, Nottingham and Birmingham. I was working on my forthcoming book No Fear Cold Calling and was determined to not be disturbed when my home phone rang.
After a sip of tea I decided to answer the phone just incase it was someone from my family or one of my friends. It wasn’t, it was a cold call.
September 26, 2007
- How to build confidence and close more sales
Confidence! You either have it or you don’t. There’s confident people and there’s not. It’s the way that we are made. There’s nothing you can do about it.
That’s what perceived wisdom would have us believe about confidence but perceived wisdom about confidence, as about many things, is seriously wrong. Perceived wisdom can also seriously damage your sales results, your sales career, your business and potentially your life.
Know this, confidence is a mental programme. It’s something that we do not something that we are. It’s a way of thinking. That means that it’s something that everyone can learn.
August 13, 2007
- Getting in a right state versus getting in the right state
When I ask salespeople and business people, "What are the key attributes of a top sales person?" they come up with words like the following…
Motivated, professional, positive, friendly, resilient, tenacious, communicative, outgoing, smart, reliable, trustworthy, independent, go-getting, smart, respectable, ambitious…
What do you think these words have in common? I’m sure you will agree that they are all attitudes.
I have worked with literally thousands of sales and business people and they all believe that attitudes are more prevalent than skills in sales and business.
“If you don’t have the right attitude then you’ve no chance!”
July 26, 2007
- Selling pies should be easy
Make it easy for your customers to buy from you…
So finally British summer has arrived, the heavens have opened and it has chucked it down. After moaning for the last few years that it’s too hot in the summer and that the heat is down to global warming we’re now being told that it’s raining so it must be global warming…
But amazingly, inbetween the rain, it’s actually really quite ok weather up here - for Yorkshire anyway! So today I managed to get the roof down on the car for a bit and decided to forget about having done 18 sales training seminars on Sales Negotiation Skills and Powerful Presenting all around the country and to have a little rest…
June 2, 2007
- Work life balance for sales people� realistic or a pile of steaming dung?
Seems to me that there’s been a lot in the press recently work life balance. So many people have thrown their hats into the ring that I’m beginning to think that it’s the precursor to some sort of twilight world of badly dressed, Brut drizzled, 70’s wife swap party.
Even David Cameron has been on record saying that people are more interested in work life balance today than money and possessions.
Really?
See, as a sales training specialist I meet thousands of people every year and I think the politicians are right that there has been a change and they are right that people are TALKING about work life balance but they are WRONG in their intepretation of this information…
April 24, 2007
- Who should win this year's apprentice?
One of my readers gave me a great idea… he asked me who I thought would win The Apprentice this year? Who do you think should win? If it were based on sales ability alone would that change your opinion? Click on comments below to share your thoughts…
April 10, 2007
- Sales superstar or sales stalker?
It’s 1028pm and I have, just two minutes ago, avoided a sales call from a health care sales person. 1028pm! On Thursday afternoon I flew out to Spain for a few days arriving late evening. I flew back late last night arriving about midnight. After 4 days eating tapas and relaxing today was a busy day catching up on emails, making sales calls and sorting out my latest sales training book… of which more another day!
The sales scenario…
April 8, 2007
- Sales prospecting persistence on the Costa Blanca
Happy Easter to you all. I hope that you´re having a great one. I´m here in Spain and the weather is miserable! 330+ days of sunshine per year and I´m here when it´s raining! I suppose that´ll teach me to burn the environment up on short haul flights! At 55p per minute my sister took great joy in telling me that it´s glorious at home. I hope you´re all having fun!!
They are the most persistent salespeople you will ever meet…
April 2, 2007
- How not to close a client
I love everything about sales and the psychology of selling and I read as much as I can on the subject. I always have a book with me to learn from, to inspire me and to keep me on the sales edge so that I am constantly refining the processes and strategies that I teach in my books, audios, DVDs and seminars…
As you might expect I am not particularly squeamish when it comes to closing people down however over the last few nights I have been reading a book on closing written in the mid-1980’s. It is appalling and what’s more some of the tactics in it are based on the cheesiest of theories. Here’s one tip from the sales training book…
March 28, 2007
- The Sales Apprentice: Sales training tips from the hit TV show, Part I
I have to admit that I don’t watch much TV. I don’t have the time. When people talk about "Big Brother", "Eastenders", "I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here"… I have nothing to say because I just don’t watch them. But I do like "The Apprentice". I didn’t see the first series but I really got into the last one. So much so infact that I was positively looking forward to tonight’s first installment. And this made all the more interesting because I know one of the housemates…
Who will the superstars be?
March 27, 2007
- Dress for success. Sales training tips that the politically correct will not tell you
What’s the weather like with you today? It’s gorgeous here! Last week I got caught in a blizzard driving back from Liverpool… this week it’s beautiful. Everyone is out and about and the police force, who seem to vanish from the streets in the winter, are all out and walking around. Strange that!
So I was driving up a hill and slowed to let some children cross the road who were coming out of a first school when I noticed that the “lolipop” man (I suppose I should say person, but it was a man!) was talking to a police officer who was leaning against a wall…
March 25, 2007
- Sales training strategies from the politicians? Whatever next?!
So come on - hands up. Who´s been following the shenanigans of our governing politicians? Everyone? No-one? And who cares…?
The general consensus of opinion seems to be that people don´t care enough about politics to force politicians to do anything about the current state of affairs. Because few people are saying anything, no-one thinks it really matters whether a politician is true to their word or not….
So what if we’re not in the streets shouting and rioting!
March 23, 2007
- Which sales skills process or system should I use?
I was asked a great question today and I thought that it was worth posting here as the answer is relevant to all salespeople. Some trainers and speakers might not like my answer but hey, I never said I was here to be liked!!!
Question: Are there any particular selling systems that you advocate or follow?
That’s a great question and the answer is, “Yes, the Ingham Sales System”! It’s available in different chunks and each chunk has a name
i.e. “No Fear Cold Calling”, “Professional Selling Skills”, “Sales Negotiation Skills” etc.
March 21, 2007
- Beware the dark side of the sales training force
Strikes me there are two types of trainers / speakers who have gone over to the dark side in an attempt to win more business…
The you must “never cold call clan”. They’ll tell you it doesn’t work, they’ll tell you it costs money and they’ll tell you it’s outdated. They’ll also tell you that anyone who disagrees with them is a charlatan! They’re wrong. I’ve worked with teams who have set up on average 2 qualified sales appointments with senior decision-makers in an hour each. One large corporate I worked with landed a £350,000+ contract (year 1 only) from a cold call made whilst actually on one of my training programme. Doh!
- What the mile high agony aunt cannot teach you about cold calling
I was flying back from a small town in the South of England the other day. The flight was quite pleasant and I had just been delivering a very effective sales training programme for the sales team. One of the main thrusts of the sales coaching was helping the staff to overcome fear of cold calling and prospecting and empowering them to go out and win business.
So there I was, on the plane, drinking my coffee and reading the in-flight magazine when I chanced across a letter to a sort of Mile High Agony Aunt. It read something like this…












