The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, The Final
The final of The Apprentice 2008… Who would Sir Alan choose to be his apprentice? Would he go for the corporate girl? The “reformed” loud mouth? The “young” boy? Or the geezer? What sales training and business lessons would we learn if any?
It doesn’t seem any time since we had 16 candidates and here we were with just four left and a final decision to make.
The teams for tonight had already been decided last week and were Alex & Helene versus Claire & Lee. Tonight’s task was to design a men’s fragrance and then to pitch it successfully in a sales presentation. Perfume is a highly competitive market and finding an angle was important but not as important as staying focused on business would prove to be…
As usual Sir Alan had invited back some ex-Apprentices to “help out”. I say “help out” in the loosest possible terms as I’m not sure that I would enlist any of this rent-an-apprentice crowd to help me navigate my way out of a paper bag…
But that was the game and Alex “I’m only 24” and Helene “I’m not that corporate but I’m the only one who’s not more Big Brother than big business” got help in the form of “posh bloke” Raef, “short, ex-bank manager, Porsche bloke” Kevin and the distinctly unmemorable “we’d all forgotten you” Jennifer.
Over on the other team Lee “I lied on my CV” and Claire “I’m a pitbull but I’d get mullered by a badger” had the “waste of space” Jenny, “the arrogant waste of space” Michael and Simon, “Ah! Bless him!”
Maybe it’s in their contracts or maybe they’re trying to avoid the Running Man syndrome where Arnie tries out his, “I’ll be back” line only for Killian to respond, “Only in a rerun” but it amazes me that they agree to come back… I guess the answer however is obvious, they just want to be on TV no matter what the humiliation and no matter how stupid they look!
As usual Claire leapt into action off firing on all cylinders. Alex and Helene meanwhile struggled to agree on a brand name. Alex suggested “not connection but connect” and Helen’s terse reply was, “We hate it”. As a supposed “expert” in pricing she was going to have more to worry about than a brand name by the end of this show!
Meanwhile, Alex took the reins and started to look at bottle design. To be fair to Alex and Helene they did come up with a great design and a strong brand idea. Indeed, after they had later made their sales presentation of Dual one of the audience said, “Considering you’ve had 3 days to make this I think it’s extraordinary.”
Just a shame that we later learned that several of the best ideas had come not from Alex or Helene but from the design agency!
Back on the other team, Lee and Claire had come up with the wheeze of naming their product Roulette. This was based on the concept that gambling was sexy, fun and manly and led to Lee late coming out with this classic line, “Looks like a man, feels like a man, now wants (?) to smell like a man!”
Hmmm! I guess I’m just not target market for this one!
In the rehearsals Lee, who had previously struggled with his presentation, was panicking, “It’s just shit, I can’t do this!” But in the final sales presentation Claire stepped up and helped Lee.
As usual we didn’t see enough of the presentations to really know who did and didn’t present well but in the end it didn’t matter. Helene and Alex, although seemingly having the best idea, the best brand and the best product, were destined to lose because they had made a business faux pas and stuffed up on their pricing…
In the words of Sir Alan, “This cost at least 3 to 4 times more than a normal bottle. You’re left with nothing to advertise with.” And then, “Alex and Helene, you’re fired.”
Not a good exit for a “global pricing leader” one has to say. At least Alex can consol himself (if no-one else) with the fact that he is, after all, only 24!
So we were down to two…
Lee versus Claire.
“Claire you have some great attributes,” said Sir Alan. And to Lee, “Lee you’re very convincing.”
Now let’s be straight here Sir Alan, not that convincing…
Your last four consisted of a global pricing leader who cannot price for profit; a senior retail buyer who has either gone through a monumental personality change or who must have ulcers from biting so hard on her lip to stop herself talking for the last few programmes; a regional sales manager who although good at selling needs a good shave, a good hair brush, banning from the words “I’m only 24” and some more consistent energy levels; and a recruitment sales manager who “tarted up” his CV.
But Sir Alan had made his decision…
“Lee, you’re hired.”
Now that’s what I’m talking abaht!
Not a decision that I would have made but I’m not going to knock the guy when he must be on top of the world (…but that CV would worry me…)…
So what sales training and business tips did we learn tonight and over this series of The Apprentice?
Sales training tip 1: Sales and selling is an essential business skill!
Despite the fancy qualifications, alleged business backgrounds and past successes of some of this year’s Apprentice candidates, three of the finalists were the best salespeople in the series (which is a low benchmark I know!).
Selling and the ability to sell is essential if you want to get on in business and in life. Whether selling a product to a consumer, a service to a business, a big ticket sale to a corporate, an idea to a team or yourself to a prospective employer; selling is critical to your success.
Sales training tip 2: Lying on your CV lands you 6-figure jobs every time…
Ooops! Sorry!
Sales training tip 2: Business savvy is a prerequisite if you want to get on!
Creativity and flair, artistry and imagination are powerful business allies and can be leveraged to drive your sales and your business to great heights but without a dollop of business savvy you’re going nowhere.
In my travels as an author and motivational speaker I meet many salespeople, directors and business owners who have great ideas, imaginative ideas, even brilliant ideas but no business savvy.
Business savvy is not a “like to have”, it’s a “must have”.
Business savvy is knowing what makes sense and what doesn’t. Business savvy is thinking about your market and who you’re going to sell to not getting carried away with the niceties of designing some all singing, all dancing product for which there are no customers.
Business savvy is understanding the problems and challenges of business, where you fit in and how you can help. Business savvy is knowing not only the language of business but also taking consistent actions required for business.
Sales training tip 3: Walk the talk.
The Apprentice this year yielded a lot of talk. Life yields a lot of people who talk. People who talk a good game. People who give it the big “I am”. People who tell you how great they are, what they’ve done and how important they are.
This is nothing new and it’s not just in business.
As a teenager I used to run the 400m and the 800m. For my school I mostly ran the 800m. Every year we used to enter the city championships and every year I would make the final. Some years I won it, some I didn’t. But I always made the final.
Every year there would be heats to get through to the final and every year kids lined up talking about what fast times they’d run pre-season. They’d quote five or more seconds faster than I had ever run. They’d have the latest spikes, the latest track suits and I’d be worried…
Until we ran. Because my experience was always the same. The more they talked, the slower they ran. The ones to watch were always the quiet ones. The ones warming up meticulously and focusing on the task in hand.
Talk is cheap. What successful business and salespeople need is action. I don’t want to know what you might sell or what you could sell. I don’t want to know what you sold last week, last month or last year.
I want to know what you’re going to do. I want to know what action you’re going to take.
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part X
In last week’s Apprentice the task was to rent out high end supercars. The team making the most sales would be the winner. A sales task plain and simple and one which created many interesting sales training and business lessons..
Sales managers for the day on the two teams were Michael (leading Helene and Claire) and Lee leading Lucinda and Alex. Their first task was to pick two cars per team that they would have to sell…
Michael picked a Ferrari and a Spyker, Lee an Aston Martin and a Zonda. These cars varied in sales rental quotes massively, from just over £600 per day for the Ferrari to £2750 per day for the Zonda! It’s not often in life that you can call a Ferrari cheap but in this company it most definitely seemed it particularly given the fact that the Ferrari could be sold on an hourly rental but the Zonda was only available by the day!
Sales training and business tip: This choice of cars would prove to be a wise choice for Lee’s team with a clutch of Zonda sales winning the task for him and team Alpha. There’s a lot of talk of risk taking in these shows with little to substantiate the choices. In business and in sales your choice of products and territories should be based on consientious research not guesswork!
Anyhow, this brave decision to go for such an expensive car won the day but it would have been knives at dawn for the person who made that decision if they had failed to sell any!
At the start of the show we saw Michael wandering around with a towel looking less energetic than a hibernating bear. When he found out what the task was he seemed to leak energy and ended up resembling a deflated balloon. He told the camera that he abhorred cars and that, “They are alien to me.” For all the talk of him being young and enthusiastic, there was little evidence of it. He’s only been working for a year (apparently) and he obviously has a thing or two to learn yet about sustained motivation!
Sales training tip: Success in business and sales is not about saying you’re great, it’s about proving it! That requires energy, drive and persistence; you need to keep on going when everyone else has given up and gone home. To be this tired in the middle of what is, after all, only a few weeks worth of work does not bode well…
Meanwhile, over on Lee’s team, all was not well… again! Lucinda, Lee and Alex seemed to have picked up where they left off last week – at each other’s throats! Annoyingly, this is one of those situations where we just haven’t seen enough to judge what is really going on and who is really to blame.
So here’s how I see it… you may agree… or not!
- Lucinda is a bit “kooky” in her berets, hats and scarves and takes a part intellectual, part emotional response to tasks. She has some good points (management) and some bad ones (sales and whining!).
- Lee and Alex are slightly scruffy, self-educated “salespeople” (in the broadest term of the word). They don’t seem to get on with her particularly well and I doubt they would socialise with her out of the programme. They think she is whiny and they don’t think that she adds anything to the team… particularly not in a selling task.
- They do not listen to her… Lucinda clearly suggested the raffle idea but then neither of the boys could or would remember that.
- They dismiss her… sending her off selling by herself after she said, “I don’t want to be myself” and Lee said, “You won’t be!”
Sales management tips: Sales management is not about taking the best accounts and selling into them yourself. Sales management is not about pairing up your best people (Alex and Lee in this case) and abandoning your weaker salespeople to sink or swim. Sales management is not about dismissing your team players when they want to learn. Sales management is not about failing to make decisions and then blaming others for not making them for you (Lee on whether Lucinda should or should not sell tickets for the Zonda, “Just f*****g make a decision!).
Irrespective of the fact that they won or that Lucinda was out of her depth in tonight’s sales task, Lee failed as a sales manager tonight.
Over on team Renaissance another sexual split had taken place only with Helene and Claire splitting away from Michael. Helene and Claire have radically different selling styles from each other with Claire focusing on emotions (“Do you want to hear the engine?” to an enthusiastic male sales prospect and liberal use of emotional language) and Helene focusing on facts (“They want specs” she says).
The final results will speak for themselves with Claire making numerous sales and Helene none.
Sales training tip: People buy on emotion and justify with logic. An impulse purchase of a few hours or a weekend in a supercar is always going to be an emotional choice! The size of the engine and the horsepower is not going to move people to getting their cheque books out! The thought of the wind in your hair, the jealous glances on the street and a pretty person by your side just might!
Michael, meanwhile, was trawling a veritable smorgasbord of locations in London where you would be most unlikely to be able to sell a car! He finished up in the Portobello market in Notting Hill will with a, and I jest not, German food van next to him, a dust cart parked by him and empty black bags strewn all over the road. The Italian Lakes this was not.
Roll up! Roll up! Get your hot bratwursts and schnitzels. Hot and spicy sausages to take away. With or without onions. Oh, and don’t forget your Ferrari rental!
Yeah, righto. Fool!
At 5pm both teams headed for Canary Wharf where they had 4.5 hours to sell as many more rentals as they could. Michael, who thinks he is a great salesperson despite the fact that he sold nothing, is losing it, “If you’re not going to do it for a weekend, at least a day. At least a day. Bl***y h*ll!”
Hopefully, Andy Smith will write something in the comments about emotional intelligence… Emotional intelligence is about self-awareness, about being more aware of how you feel, more aware of how those feelings affect your behaviours and more aware of how those behaviours affect others. It is also about being more aware of other’s emotions and how they affect their communications.
Emotional intelligence is a key skill for salespeople, sales managers, business owners and leaders. Michael was clearly frustrated at this stage and had lost it.
“Inside my brain I’m meant to be a high calibre salesman,” he opined. Yes Michael, and there, like many of your Apprentice “friend” is your problem… inside your head.
In the board room…
- Sir Alan asked Lee why he sent Lucinda by herself.
- He asked Lucinda if she thought she got pushed aside.
- Lee said that you cannot hand hold people. (Maybe not Lee, but to abandon a third of your teamis just foolish).
- Lucinda said that she was impressed with her own improvement during the task.
- Sir Alan pointed out to her that she didn’t sell anything!
- Lucinda said that she was not any good at closing.
- Sir Alan said that selling was about closing deals.
- Sir Alan asked Michael why he went to Portobello Road market where he clearly was never going to sell any cars?
- Michael told Sir Alan that, “He’s be surprised!”
Sales training tip: Don’t fight with reality! You will never win! How can you look like anything but a fool when you sit there and say things like that with the results so horribly stacked against you?”
- Michael said that he was a good salesman.
- Sir Alan asked if he thought that even though he did not sell any cars?
- Michael replied in the affirmative.
The results…
Renaissance with sales manager Michael, £2114. Alpha with sales manager Lee, £11,815 with Alex closing more than £8000 of the sales.
The Renaissance show down…
Back in the board room it became evident that Claire was safe when up against Helene and Michael. Sir Alan seemed unimpressed with both Helen and Michael. Surely Michael, finally, had to go. After some soul searching and some grand claims from both of them about their commitment Sir Alan made his decision, “Michael, I think I have to say to you… you’re fired.”
In the car Michael was busy pulling victory from the jaws of defeat, “He saw something in me that reminded me of what he was like when he was younger.”
I wonder if Sir Alan would put it that way? Unlikely, I think.
Sales training and business lessons from tonight’s show…
Know your market!
Knowledge of your market, who buys from you, when, where and why is critical for your success. Knowing which cars would and would not sell, at what prices and to whom proved to be a decisive factor in tonight’s show.
Perhaps this was luck, perhaps they did some research when we weren’t watching! No matter. If this was your business, then this knowledge would be critical.Claire made many smaller sales tonight but could not compete with the huge daily rental fee of £2,750 of the Zonda.
Work on your sales skills.
In tonight’s show we saw Lee’s team win because they made bigger sales. This was partly due to the more expensive Zonda rental price although also because they were selling full day rentals not hourly ones.
Claire did a good job of “upselling” from one hour to three but seemingly failed to sell any full day or weekend rentals.
You can help yourself to make more sales and at higher prices by getting into the mindset of your clients. £600+ for one day for a Ferrari may seem a lot to our humble (now there’s a word I wouldn’t have thought that I could have got into a sentence about them!) Apprentices but to a city trader with million pound plus bonuses how much is it really?
Let your results speak for themselves.
I’m sick and tired of hearing how good they are.
Prove it.
Many salespeople I work with tell me how good they are. They tell me how good they could be. They tell me how they could close more sales if only… they had a better territory, they were more respected, the market was different, the price was lower, they were more competitive…
Poppycock!
Sales results are all that counts. Not words. I don’t care what you could, might or should have done. That won’t impress me, it won’t impress your boss and it won’t pay the rent!
Michael had no prospects because he did not know how to prospect not because there were no prospects.
Claire made too few bigger sales because she did not go for them not because the clients weren’t there.
Lucinda only made one sale because she spent too much time making some tickets that the team never used rather than speaking to people!
The great thing about sales is that it’s not about education, background or upbringing, it’s about results.
In sales, results speak for themselves. Can you handle it?
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VIII
Tonight’s task for our sales training apprentices was “big business” said Sir Alan… weddings. Sir Alan had secured each of the teams a sales pitch at The National Wedding Show at the NEC in Birmingham. The Wedding Show attracts 20,000 visitors and 300 suppliers… a target rich selling environment as one of my first sales managers used to be fond of saying…
Tonight the teams had to select products that they wanted to represent and then sell them at the show. As usual, the team who closed the most sales would win.
Claire was all giggly at the thought of a wedding fair. As a buyer she should be good in this sort of business environment. Leading team Renaissance (Sara, Michael & Alex) tonight was Helene and leading team Alpha (Raef, Lee & Claire) was Lucinda.
Two particularly unbalanced teams I thought but more of that later…
First task tonight was for each of the teams to select two suppliers to represent at the show. In the event that they both chose the same suppliers the decision would rest in the hands of the supplier as to whom they chose to be their representative.
It’s at this point that I would have headed off in pursuit of a computer with an internet connection. Or I’d have been calling up the organiser for a little pre-sales chat. Failing that I would have been surfing the net (albeit slowly) on my mobile.
I’d have been looking for answers to questions such as…
What is The Wedding Show? How long has it be running? Who has already signed up as exhibitors? What are they selling? Who was there last year? How many of them are there again this year? What’s the sales pitch to the exhibitors on The Wedding Show’s website? What are exhibitors saying about it in cyberspace? What types of people attend the event? At what stage in the wedding preparation process are they usually when they attend? How many are ready to make buying decisions? What volume of orders could the hosts attribute to the show last year? What kinds of products sell well at the show?
Etc. etc…
But as usual nothing like this seemed to take place! Instead our sales apprentices played “stick the tail on the donkey” and tried to guess what would and what would not sell well. With choices of wedding dresses in totally different price ranges, wedding cakes, lingerie and too many peoples’ opinions this was going to be a difficult thing to guess – particularly without solid market research.
Helene sent Michael and Sara to view some designer wedding dresses. Michael waxed lyrical over them and then afterwards said that he feigns interest very well. He said that feigning interest was what he does for a living and that he can pull it off with an effortless charm.
Stop!
Sales training and business success tip: If you want to be a sales superstar you need to be genuinely interested in your clients. If you’re not genuinely interested then you need to find a way to get genuinely interested. When you show genuine interest in your clients you will find that you create a powerful and long lasting rapport and start to remove barriers to the sales process (For more on removing barriers to the sales process and making more sales check out my Professional Selling Skills programme).
The other two members of the team, Helene and Alex, were meanwhile looking at some cheaper mid range dresses. They were quite enamoured with them but Helene had dropped a clanger here… How could this team ever make an informed business decision on which dress supplier to represent if no-one had seen all of the potentials? How could comparisons and decisions be made?
On the other team Lucinda has tasked Claire and Raef to view all of the dress suppliers. Could using Claire, an ex professional buyer, prove to be a shrewd move for Lucinda?
After visiting all of the suppliers decisions had to be made. Lucinda’s team plumped for the expensive designer dresses and Helene’s team for the mid-priced, colourful dresses. On Helene’s team this decision was not unanimous but then no-one had seen all of the dresses anyway! Both teams wanted to represent the wedding lingerie range.
Only one team could "win" however and not surprisingly the lingerie supplier favoured Lucinda and the opportunity to associate her lingerie with a premium dress designer brand. Helene’s team were left with their second choice… wedding cakes.
On hearing that they had “won” the opportunity to represent the lingerie company Lee roared, “We fucking did it. We won it. That’s what I’m talking about. Team Alpha!” He does seem a bit over exuberant at times our Lee!
At The Wedding Show the teams had 8 hours to sell as many wedding products as possible. Lucinda’s stall with the designer dresses immediately attracted customers to their pitch. Lee seemed to be enjoying selling the lingerie ranges to all of these customers and this was proving to be an easy sale. The dresses however were not selling as well…
Over on Helene’s team, Alex was put in charge of selling the mid range dresses. He quickly started to sell a few and understood that a natural, genuinely interested and conversational style was the best way to sell in this environment.
Back on Lucinda’s team doubts were setting in over the high end wedding dresses. Raef said that he would have to shoulder much of the blame if this turned out to be an unwise decision (he does seem to be a pretty honourable guy does Raef).
Nick seemed to be enjoying telling the camera that team Alpha had chosen high end wedding dresses without taking any notice of what this “mass market” would buy…
I’m not so sure…
Alpha were selling a high-end product and “mass market” crowd or not they only needed a few customers ready to buy out of an audience of 20,000 to make this a very interesting competition indeed.
(Aside: My future sister-in-law bought a wedding dress at a charity dinner when it was auctioned… How many people in that room do you think were in the market for a designer wedding dress? Probably not that many but it sold none the less!)
On team Renaissance, cake sales were not going at all well for Sara and Michael. I am not surprised. These two might not like to hear it but in my opinion neither of them were showing much promise as salespeople…
Michael was way too enthusiastic, jumping around, clicking his fingers and speaking (rather too) passionately. Meanwhile Sara seemed to have forgotten the old sales adage of “two ears, one mouth”…
“What’s stopping you? What are you thinking right now?” she demanded of one prospect before immediately telling the prospect that she (the prospect) liked the look and taste of the cake and why couldn’t she go ahead now?!
When selling, asking questions is important but you have to stop and listen to your prospect’s answers! Far too many salespeople talk all over their clients in this way! Not surprising then that we heard that several people had not liked the pressure they were coming under from Sara and Michael.
Michael and Sara were full of excuses and reasons as to why no-one would make a decision on a cake without a husband or partner present. Now I obviously do not sell wedding cakes nor have I ever sold wedding cakes but I know that this is not the correct sales attitude. It’s also not true!
It may well be true that most people might not buy a cake without their partner present but it most certainly is not true that none would. If I had been their manager my response to that kind of sales defeatism would have been simple, “What, no-one? Not even one out of 20,000?”
In the board room…
Sir Alan asked team Alpha what they thought of Lucinda? They were very complimentary about working with her (despite the fuschia beret!). Claire said that they really enjoyed working together. For the first time this series I think we did actually see a team work well together tonight!
Hoorah!
On Helene’s team things did not go so smoothly but Helene said that she had no regrets…
And the results?
Alpha had sold £5752.99 (Lee had sold £647.24 of laundry and Claire the remainder via 3 dress sales). Renaissance had sold a total of 5 dresses and 0 cakes for a grand total of £1925.
A sizeable and well deserved win for Lucinda’s team and some good sales results from Claire.
Back in the board room Helene stuck up for Alex saying that he was brilliant in the task and elected to bring back Sara and Michael. For once, I thought, the right three in the board room.
Alan told Margaret and Alan that he thought two should go. Margaret thought there were reasons for all 3 to go! I agree with her. Go on Sir Alan, I dare you, sack all three! Let’s see what the TV production company thinks of that one…
For the first time ever I think the weakest 3 are in the board room. Fire them! Fire them! Fire them!!!
“I am in a dilemma as to who’s going to go. One thing I am sure of is who’s going right now. Sara you’re fired.”
And then Sir Alan turned on Michael… could he possibly sack two for the second week running? “Michael I think I’ve reached the end of the road with you…. There is no room for any more mistakes…”
Go Alan! Go Alan!
But unfortunately, “Get back to the house the pair of you. Off you go.”
So what sales training and business tips do we learn from tonight’s show?
Sales skills are essential if you want to succeed in business.
Many people think that they can sell. Many people are wrong! Some people talk too much. Some talk too little. Some ask great questions. Some don’t. Some get their pitch and level just right. Others miss the mark by a country mile.
If you want to close more sales you need simple, repeatable sales skills. If you want to close more sales you need a proven sales methodology. If you want to close more sales you need to work hard to develop your sales skills.
Some people sell naturally. Some don’t. No matter what your sales skills you will make more consistent sales when you focus on your own sales skills development. If you’re just starting out you can rapidly accelerate your learning curve and the results you get. If you’re an old hand you can hone your sales techniques and boost your sales results.
Tonight Claire and Alex had them and they made sales. Michael and Sara didn’t have them and they made no sales. In sales, results speak for themselves.
Don’t pressurise clients.
For a variety of reasons many salespeople put far too much pressure on their clients. They talk too fast, they talk too much and they close too hard. They put immense sales pressure on their clients and their clients don’t like it. Not one bit.
Many salespeople close way too early in the sales process and way to crudely. Here’s a rule of thumb for you… If you think you’re putting too much pressure on your clients then you probably are. Too much sales pressure causes clients and prospects to throw up mental barriers to the sale.
Sales superstars do not have to pressurise their prospects and clients into buying from them. They have proven, client-centric processes and techniques which build natural rapport, trust and credibility between them and their clients.
Know your market.
You need to know who your customers are, what they want and why they are going to buy it. You need to know how they make decisions and who else is involved in the decision making process.
The more you know about your customers, their wants, their needs, their likes and their dislikes, the easier it will be for you to communicate with them and help them to make the right buying decisions.
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VI
Tonight’s Apprentice was an interesting one although perhaps not from a sales training perspective but more from a business development angle. The task tonight was to create a range of new greetings cards and then make a sales pitch to three of the biggest suppliers in the industry – Clintons, Tesco and Celebrations. The team with the most number of cards ordered after the presentations would be the winner.
Over the last few years, sales pitches, tenders and presentations have more and more become the norm in business. Many small and large businesses and corporations spend huge amounts of time and energy preparing for and delivering sales pitches of this type. Many win large amounts of business by pitching their offerings in this way.
Knowing how to make a good sales pitch of this kind is a powerful business skill. Knowing when to avoid making these kinds of sales presentations and how to win business other ways is also critical but more of that (maybe!) another day.
Tonight Sir Alan picked both team leaders personally making Michael team leader of Alpha and Kevin team leader of Renaissance. I haven’t rated either of these two as yet but Kevin seems to me to be one of the weakest contestants in the whole show. Would he be able to step up to the task in hand? (And is it only me who thinks that Kevin looks like Matt Lucas with hair?)
As usual both of our team leaders were basking in the glory of the camera… Michael told the camera that he would “do anything to win” and that there was no-one that he would not screw over to achieve this aim. Nice chap then. Kevin meanwhile was bragging about how as a team leader he inspires devotion. Apparently, he had his first house at 20. Impressive huh, so that explains why he thinks he can be the most successful business man the world has seen by the time he is 40.
Or pehaps not…
On Kevin’s team Jenny enthusiastically promoted a theme of environmental cards. Was she having a laugh or what? How can anyone who claims to be green support the creation of something that uses natural resources to be made and petrol to be delivered? Jenny herself later admitted that she doesn’t buy as many cards these days herself because she is so green… she really does put the mentalist into environmentalist…
Perhaps more unbelievably the rest of the team all thought that this was a good idea too… No common (sense) as my mum used to be fond of saying when we were kids.
Over on the other team Michael and his mob had agreed that they wanted to create a National Singles’ Day and a range of cards for singles. Their chosen day? The day before Valentine’s Day.
Thinking about who should make the presentations Kevin volunteered himself for his team. The rest of his team were not so sure. The general consensus seemed to be that either Jenny with her environmental knowledge or Claire with her retail pitching experience would have been better for the job. Kevin however was “150% confident” that he could do it… so that’s not going to come back and kick you up the arse then Kevin…
As my mum also used to say, Kevin, pride comes before a fall… Oh, and by the way Mr Bank Manager, you cannot ever be more than 100% confident…
Meanwhile Lucinda is getting (inexplicably) on Helene’s wick, "We need to discuss the roles between the three of us" she helpfully suggests. "Nobody’s telling me what to do" grumps Helene. Lucinda says she will do anything and she does not mind but Helene rants on that Lucinda is always looking for an argument. Pot, kettle, black Helene. Lucinda in her brightly coloured beret and skirt just looks to me like something off of a greeting card not some arch rival business nemesis…
For the next few minutes of the show the teams got down to shooting pictures and designing the cards. I ate my Chinese (can you believe a hotel stopping all hot food room service at 930pm?) and thought there was little of interest going on until…
Michael wanted to know if National Singles’ Day had an apostrophe or not?! Was it National Singles Day? National Single’s Day? Or National Singles’ Day?
Hey! Hey! Hey! I can see this being argued about for weeks on the internet! It got worse. They rang a national newspaper to ask. I think they even rang the National Library (as you would!) Do they not have internet access? Oh come on! Eventually we found out that they took 4 hours to deliberate this one and in the end still were not positive of their decision!
But back to the point…
First up with a sales presentation was Raef pitching the National Singles’ Day idea. “I believe we have created an industry” he proudly proclaimed but Clintons were not so sure believing that the day before Valentine’s Day was not the best of days! You don’t say! At Tesco, Raef started his pitch by saying that they had just come back from the “market leader”. Now I understand why he said that but when making any kind of sales presentation or pitch you always have to consider the sensibilities of your prospect. Tesco may know that Clintons are the market leaders and this may be undisputed but blurting it out was rather insensitive and could have really upset them for a variety of reasons…
Tesco did not like the date either so in the third and final pitch to Celebrations Michael asked Raef to not specify a date.
Lights, camera, action… And Matt, sorry Kevin was up. This really was car crash TV. The idea was appalling. Kevin was appalling. The presentations were appalling.
Clintons wanted to know who would buy environmental cards. Kevin stuttered an answer only to be told he had missed the point. Clintons wanted to know if the cards would make someone smile? Kevin attacked saying that Clintons not putting their weight behind it was like the US not supporting climate change efforts… Yes, just the same!
You cannot attack a client this way Kevin. You’ve just lost any chance of a sale with Clintons.In the car on the way to the next appointment Kevin said that he was not worried. Alex smiled knowingly to himself. Kevin was toast.
The next two presentations were no better. At one point Kevin tried to sell Tesco the idea of helping the planet. Where’s the WIIFM for them in that Kevin? I think you’ve forgotten what your mission is here!!
In the board room…
Sir Alan wanted to know who would buy cards for singles? Why did they choose February 13th? How would a retailer find shelf space when they were already making room for cards for the 14th?! Would you change that with hindsight he asked Michael. "No" came back the reply. That’s what we like to see from our apprentices… no ability to learn from their mistakes no matter how big!
Sir Alan continued to quiz Michael about the 4 hours they had spent on the apostrophe puzzle. Michael looked annoyed and Sir Alan called him on it. Michael got even more annoyed. He clearly cannot take feedback and seems very immature. I’d lose him soon…
But he was going to get away with it tonight because the results were in and Kevin was in far worse a position… Michael’s team had sold 1500 cards to Tesco, 1500 to Clintons and 19500 to Celebrations. Kevin’s team has sold 6000 cards to Tesco but none to either of the other buyers.
Bring me some jam to spread on Kevin, there’s no way he can escape the reaper here…
After another stint in the board room Kevin elected to bring back Sara and Claire. This was a bizarre choice. Claire was always going to be too formidable for him in the board room. And I’d have brought back Jenny (for what little difference it might have made) not Sara. I admit that we have not seen Sara do much but I am not really sure why the team seem so anti her at this stage in the competition. Perhaps because they see her as an easy target.
OK! OK! So Claire, as a retail buyer, should have seen the stupidity of the idea and could have stepped in and made the pitch when Kevin had realized 2 hours before the pitch that maybe he wasn’t the best person to make it. But then again, she was not the team leader, there were other people in the team and it was very short notice given Kevin had rejected her out of hand the day before saying he was 150% confident.
Sir Alan took a last swipe at their whole concept before making his decision and, unless I was dreaming, or maybe he was joking (although I don’t think so), suggested a better idea as "Sorry your 11 year old beautiful child got shot in the head by a hoodie"! Not one of his best selling ideas methinks! And not much of a market either unless he knows of some upcoming revolution directing its paramilitary forces (hoodies) against 11 year old children… Probably be a larger market for "Sorry you’ve just made a tit of yourself on national TV" cards…
Whatever. Let’s not waste time talking trivia… “Kevin this whole task turned out a fiasco and as team leader I hold you responsible. Kevin you’re fired."
A mercy killing and the right decision.
And the cameras cut to the car. This was going to be a good one. What was Kevin going to say? “It is a massive blow and I feel quite angry that there are people in the house that I feel should not be there and tonight I truly feel that Sara should have been fired…”
Oh, read your "You’re fired" greetings card Kevin.
Yawn.
So let’s cut to the chase…
What sales training and business lessons can we learn from this catalogue of errors tonight…
Make sure that you do your planning and preparation.
When making sales presentations and sales pitches you should always plan and prepare thoroughly. Kevin failed to prepare effectively and it showed. Planning and preparation means thinking about how to best convey your message to maximize your chances of making a sale.
Planning and preparation means getting yourself into the right mental state so that you can communicate effectively with your prospects. Planning and preparation means thinking about how you are going to handle objections before you make your presentation not after you have become confrontational and aggressive with your prospect.
Know your audience! Know your audience! Know your audience!
Before any sales pitch or presentation you need to fully understand your audience and what is important to them. Think about why they are in the presentation and what they want to get out of it.
Many salespeople think primarily in terms of how they can make the sale not how their clients gain from working with them. Find out everything you can about your audience… their likes, their dislikes, their values and their traditions. Be careful of the language you use and how you put your message across.
Connecting with your audience is key.
Don’t try and change the world.
Selling is simple. You do not need to complicate it. You do not need to reinvent the wheel. You do not need to change the world.
Kevin’s team, like many businesses, became fixated on their own ideals and their own aspirations. They failed to think about how they would sell their products and whether they could sell their ideas. Their pitch was preachy and not focused on their prospects needs at all. Wakening the world up to environmental issues is a great ambition but it is not easy to sell in this format!
Their objective, as many businesses, was simple – sell greetings cards. They should have kept it simple and done just that rather than forgetting their mission and their objectives electing instead to try and change the world.
So that’s it for another week and I’m still undecided on who I am favouring at the moment but I know who I want to go! I’d be really interested in hearing who you think the contenders are, who you think should be gone and what you thought about tonight’s show…
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part III
“This is a job interview from hell. I’ve been in business for 40 years. Your prize is working with me.”
And thus we entered tonight’s third show with 14 wannabee apprentices remaining to fight for the chance to become The Apprentice. This week’s task was to transform two pubs by putting on food service. As usual, the team with the most profits at the end of the day would win.
Sir Alan Sugar changed the routine slightly by picking the team leaders himself. He chose Sara for the girls, a trained barrister and international car trader (whatever that is), and Ian for the boys, a software sales manager.
Ian, somewhat ironically given he never looked like demonstrating this throughout the whole exercise, promised to give as much clear and concise management as he could. He then informed the camera that there are two types of people in life, winners and the second type of word that he could not even say…
As my wise my mum is fond of saying, “Pride comes before a fall.”
One of the my 6 Psychological Rules of Selling in the C21 is Be Humble. Humility is essential if you want to genuinely reach clients and set yourself apart from mediocre sales and business professionals (for more on humility and the 6 Psychological Rules of Selling in the C21 see my forthcoming new book No Fear Selling).
Back on the show the boys chose an Italian theme and Kevin asked to be head chef. Despite the fact he apparently ate out at Italian restaurants a lot his idea of Italian food seemed to begin and end with Spaghetti Bolognese and Spaghetti Carbonara! Still, they should be easy to cook!
Meanwhile the girls elected to host a Bollywood themed night. Claire had an issue with the whole theme saying that it would be “costly” and that curry was “niche”. Clearly she doesn’t read the papers then or she would know that curry is frequently voted the most popular food in the UK and that several commentators have suggested that the UK national dish should be changed to Chicken Tikka Massala!
During the afternoon the two teams focused on various activities. One of the most interesting was their totally different approaches to marketing. The boys designed a glossy and tantalizing leaflet and a fancy menu. Surely common sense should have told them that they were never going to get a return on that investment in one day’s worth of meals?
One of my friends, Olympic gold medal rower Ben Hunt-Davies (whom I am going to interview soon but more abou that another day), talks of how when they were training for the Olympics they used to ask themselves a question,
“Will it make the boat go faster?”
If the answer was “Yes” then they would do it. If “No” then they wouldn’t.
I often ask a similar question in selling, business growth and marketing, “Will it increase sales and profitability?” If the answer is “Yes” then do it. If “No” then find something else that will instead. This for me was a clear case of an activity that was always going to cost too much for what if could potentially make in profit in a mere one day!
Back in the show the girls had persuaded a printer to do their printing for free and had also blagged some saris for nothing in exchange for a little promotion for the two companies giving them the services. Small business owners and salespeople in general are often far too quick in shelling out money on goods and advertising when a little lateral thinking would get them the same or even better results for far less or even, as in the girls’ case, nothing.
Equally contrasting were the two approaches of the teams to costs and pricing this week. The girl’s took themselves off to the wholesalers supplied by Sir Alan to buy quality ingredients at the best prices that they could. They based their prices and their menus on market research done at a nearby restaurant.
The boys, disastrously, bought their food (expensively) in the supermarket and made up their prices. How many competitions need to be lost on The Apprentice before people realize that pricing and profitability need to be thought through and based on research, costs and clients?
In an attempt to drum up business the boys went door knocking, canvassing in the streets and handing out their expensive leaflets. In a stroke of genius the girls sold their tickets for £5 each promising VIP entry and money off the bill. They sold 45 of these meaning that they had banked £225 before they even opened their doors. Smart!
So at this stage the boys had spent over £400, the girls under £100 and the girls had already banked £225.
The boys were adrift by over £500 and the pub doors had not even opened yet!
When it came to cooking the girls’ over ambitious menu thwarted them from opening for lunch entirely. They had forgotten a few key ingredients and took until the evening sitting to create customer-ready meals.
The boys, meanwhile, were open and selling meals but had their own problems with the quality of their food and were picking up a few complaints from customers complaining that it was bland. During the afternoon and evening the boys ran out of ingredients on several occasions and had to run to the supermarket! Cook a duck! What a waste of time and money! The boys expenses were clearly spiraling out of control!
At 6pm, and 5 hours late, the Chicken Korma was ok and the girls finally opened their doors to welcome their firat customers. They found a “dancer” from a local restaurant and were raring to go. Despite disagreements the girls seemed to be on top of things now. Helene, who we had seen little of yet in the series, said something that I have been waiting to hear for two series’… she wanted to stay as a team and perform as a team as she thinks that keeps people out of the board room.
Wow!
What a radical thought. So the best way is not to behave like an over-preened, arrogant, self-centred, me me me then?
Really? Gosh!
I do sometimes wonder whether people watching this programme who are not in business think that these people do really represent what it takes to do well in business? That would be really tragic.
Meanwhile, at the Duke of Hamilton, the boys were having a pep talk from Kevin. This talk probably did need to take place but Kevin just seemed to lack any gravitas. Why didn’t Ian step up and lead his team?
In the board room Sir Alan asked the boys what they thought of Ian. For once they were all lost for words and there was an ominous silence. The girls, whilst not showering her with praise, were broadly in favour of Sara as a manager.
The results were in. The boys had sold 844.97 of food with a measly profit of 310.97. The girls had sold less with 795 but had brought in a far more respectable 604.27. Not a lot for 7 people in a day but considerably more than the boys.
Whilst the girls swanned off to learn how to cook at a country manor (he is a wag that Sir Alan isn’t he!) the boys visited the local Bridge Café for a mug of tea!
Back in the board room Sir Alan berated the boys for not pricing things up correctly. He said that he did not see any business acumen in the room at all and that nobody picked up on this issue. This was incorrect as Simon did pick up on this and was crystal clear about it saying to Ian that they should deal in “absolutes” and “facts”. It was this conversation between Ian and Simon that, I believe, contributed to Ian calling Simon back into the board room along with Kevin.
(Aside: I’m not sure of his management or leadership abilities as yet as he has had no chance to show them but Simon seems to have his head screwed on, works well in a team and is an industrious worker. He shouldn’t be in the board room and Ian picking him demonstrated that Ian was struggling to blame anyone for the loss apart from himself.)
Under questioning from Sir Alan, Ian blamed the head chef Kevin for all of the pricing errors. Kevin said that he did not want that responsibility and that he was just looking after the kitchen.
“Ian this was a total disaster. Quite frankly I think you lost it. Ian, you’re fired.”
A good decision from Sir Alan. Back at the house Kevin is giving it large, “I let Ian speak and I nailed him to the ground.” Oh come on! Who do you think you are? Arnie in The Terminator.
Ridiculous!
So that’s it for another week. What what sales training and business lessons can we learn from tonight’s show…
Selling is not just about turnover, it’s about profitability too.
Understanding your costs and pricing accordingly is critical for your sales and business success. Whatever your costs you need to cover them and make the right amount of profit too.
In this exercise the boys massively over spent on food and on advertising. They should have either cut their costs or increased their prices. You should always be aware of your margins and your profitability when selling. Doing business is a choice and two people get to choose – you and your client. Many sales and business people approach selling as if only the client has a choice. They forget that they have a choice too.
A friend of mine was pricing up for his restaurant the other day and he started with what he thought his customers would pay. Whilst this is valuable information it is not the only information. He needs to work out his costs too. There is no point selling at a price if he cannot make profit out of it.
Advertising has to be measured – anyone can spend money.
Sir Alan made quite a song and a dance about the fact that the boys sold more than the girls. They did but it was not that much more and you have to remember that the girls failed to open for lunch at all.
Perhaps even more significantly the boys spent a whopping £272 on advertising. £272! Anyone can spend money on advertising and marketing. Anyone can buy adverts and brochures. Smart business people invest their money wisely measuring their return on investment and profit (sales, visibility, brand, reputation etc…) from each and every campaign.
Choosing the right marketing / advertising / sales mix is essential for the ongoing sales success of any business. Most business owners and salespeople are far to quick to lash out money on expensive brochures, fancy websites and paid advertising. All of these mediums have their place. The real skill in selling and marketing your business is in choosing the right one and the girls did that with their 121 promotions in the street.
Selling and business is about creativity.
There is a phrase out there that you should use OPE or Other People’s Experience to leapfrog your way to business and personal success. This is preferable to having to work out and invent everything for yourself when many of the answers are already out there. This is a great model and one that I utilize in my business and when working with clients a lot of the time.
But you need creativity too. You need to think laterally. You need to be flexible and to be open to better and more original ways of doing things. The girls had the idea of selling tickets and this more creative approach than just knocking out some fliers at the local printers gave them a business head start and a profitability margin that the boys never competed with.
So that’s it for another week. I’d be really interested in knowing your thoughts on the competition so far.
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part II
With another stirring rendition of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights The Apprentice got under way. Another show, another early morning call that we got so familiar with on the last series. One of the boys answered the phone in a superman t-shirt… I wonder what sales training strategies and tips will we learn tonight?
Tonight their task was to sell laundry services. Sir Alan Sugar had got the teams two industrial laundries and their job was to go out and win business, launder the laundry and then return it to their clients. They must be back in the board room by 2pm the next day. The team with the most profits will win.
Raef immediately offered to lead Renaissance, the boy’s team, and from the girl’s team “award winning” sales woman Jenny offered to step up. “I come from a tough sales background where I have been hugely successful”, she boasted.
Do this lot ever stop blowing their own trumpets and let their sales figures speak for themselves?
Raef quickly got to grasps with organizing his team. Much as I didn’t like him last week tonight he displayed some good management skills by letting the right people do the right jobs. Alex offered to knock on doors and prospect for business and Simon offered to manage the laundry. Due to his army experience in Bosnia Simon knew what was needed for this. “This is hot sweaty grafty work”, said Simon. That decision alone will prove to be a good decision from Raef and Simon’s experience proves invaluable later on.
Meanwhile Jenny started by giving the girls a sales training session. Now as you know I am quite partial to a good old bit of sales training or a rousing motivational speech (!) but there is a time and a place and this was not it. This time should have been spent planning and preparing not going on and on and on…
With another one of those ridiculous phrases I have never heard in any sales team anywhere (“We hit this road until it bleeds money”) the boys went door to door canvassing for customers. Quite quickly they started to close some sales proving that effort and a positive attitude will win business even knocking on doors in a random London street!
The girls meanwhile were not so happy at the idea of prospecting door to door. Canvassing and cold calling was not their bag apparently. “I dont think people will be in on such a beatiful day”, said one of them.
What? No people at all girls? Not even one?
Rubbish!
In my travels running sales training programmes and giving motivational speeches at sales conferences I meet many salespeople who are beaten before they even start. “My database is not good enough”, “There’s a recession on at the moment”, “You won’t be able to get through?”, “They won’t be interested”… and tonight, “I don’t think people will be in on such a beatiful day.”
Yawn!
Ban yourself from saying these kinds of things. Don’t listen to anyone who says them in your presence. Close your mind to them. Don’t even think them. The more you say them, the more likely they are to come true. The more you say them, the more likely they are to happen to you. The more you say them, the harder it will be for you to get the results that you want. Stop it, now!
Renaissance (the boys’ team) and Alpha (the girls’ team) were also bidding for some bigger corporate business which has been lined up for them by Sir Alan. They were to go head to head to compete to see who could close the deal. On the way to the first meeting with a hotel the boys decided to ring a laundry company to work out what to charge. Sometimes picking up the phone just once is enough to get you all of the information you need.
The girls meanwhile decided to make it up! This might not have been so bad had any of them ever been near a laundry which they so clearly hadn’t. In fact, had they had an ounce of common sense they could not have come to the decision that they did come to. Every item is £4.99!
In the client sales meeting the girls stated their pricing structure to the client saying that each item would cost £4.99. The buyer, stunned that his 1000 pieces of laundry were going to cost him just under £5000 to launder asked if this was their best price.
Lindi, who according to the Apprentice website runs sales training courses, started banging on about other “benefits” that the client would get namely two account managers and a 24 hour hotline! That’ll swing it then. Get your cheque book out buddy, it’s a bargain! The price of a small car to talk to two people who don’t know what they’re doing and you can do that at any time of the day – bargainous!
“Hello, do you know where my washing is? No? You’ve lost it? Never mind, can you explain that Feature to me again please? What? Oh, I’m sorry, benefit… my mistake…”
Sales training explanation: A benefit is the pay off to the client of an advantage. 24 hour helplines and two account managers are both features… Not Benefits… Not even advantages… Even if these had been potential benefits (which they weren’t!) we had no idea whether the client cared about them or not at which point they were neither benefits nor relevant.
The boys meanwhile quoted £556. “How do you think that sounds?” they asked. A nice question. The client responded with, “Fine We’ve got some room to negotiate.” And then, “I am lookng for around 200.”
Sales training tip: Listen carefully to what your clients say. This client started with, “Fine”and then asked for a 60%+ discount.
You’d negotiate with him right…? So would I! But the boys didn’t and just accepted the £200 offered!
Back on the girl’s team all was not well. Not surprisingly the cold calling team were failing in their door to door prospecting. They had seemingly made their minds up before they’d even started. The girl’s abandoned their prospecting and tried their hand at B2B sales, approaching businesses directly to attempt to sell some laundry services. This rewarded them with their first sale and £80 but for a group that consisted of an "award-wining" sales person, and “possibly” the best salesperson in Europe I was not impressed.
The next Sir Alan busines client was a fishmonger in Fulham. We were told that the job should cost about £60 but the girl’s quoted £10. From the sublime to the ridiculous! The buyer was clearly flabbergasted. He asked the girls on repeated occassions if they were sure. Short of the chap saying, “Now look here girls, you’ve got the pricing all wrong here. You’ll never make any money underselling yourselves like this. I think you should re-price the job and ask me for more money?” he could not have made it more clear to them that they had it wrong. But despite him giving them several outers (that we saw) they seemed not to notice and gladly picked the “loss making” contract up for £15 including the ironing!!
The boys quoted £49.50 for the same contract. The buyer said that this was a good price but that the girls had quoted less than half the price. Raef said, “We are unfortunately not going to be able to match that”. And the job went to the girls.
Sales training achnowledgement: Well done Raef. Know your market. Know what is profitable. Know when to walk away. Many salespeople and businesses that are failing, fail because the owners and salespeople wrongly believe that you should never turn away business. This is totally wrong. You should know who your customers are, what you do and what you need to charge.
Selling is not just about winning business, it is about winning profitable business.
Under orders half of the boys’s team headed for the laundry. This was a good plan. Selling is no good if you cannot deliver on what you’re selling. The girls meanwhile, knowing that their sales were pitful pushed the envelope and carried on selling to see if they could win any late sales.
Back at the girl’s laundry Shazia took control of labelling. “My job is making sure the right person gets the right clothes” she stated. You may well end up eating that statement Shazia! Running late the girls decided to finish the ironing back at the house and Shazia (sent by Jenny it appeared) headed off homeward bound leaving her “job” to be guessed at by the others!
Back at the house there were no irons or ironing boards for the girls. The boys had snaffled them all earlier and had them in their office at this stage…
A little sales management question: In the boardroom at the end of the task Sir Alan was aghast at the girl’s asking their clients for tips but he never said anything about the boys taking all of the irons and leaving them in their office over night even though they weren’t using them. Was this “sharp” behaviour from the boys or was it just downright sneaky? Let me know what you think… I know what I think.
Anyway, back to the programme…
Next morning the boys delivered their laundry faultlessly and even got a few compliments. The girls meanwhile had mixed up their bags and given the wrong laundry to several customers, losing two shirts in the process.
In the board room…
In the board room Sir Alan was upset about the lost shirts. “You lost the fellow’s shirts!” he barked and deducted the girls £50. The result was predictable.
The girl’s Alpha team made £195.55. The boy’s Renaissance made £328.
The boys won and departed for The Ritz and afternoon tea. The girls went to a greasy spoon to eat their last supper. Jenny told the camera that she was looking forward to going into the boardroom, “I am the strongest candidate within the team I am working in at the moment and I will be really delighted to get rid of some of the weaker candidates.” A supportive leader then our Jenny.
Back in the boardroom Jenny elected to bring Shazia and Lucinda into the final meeting with Sir Alan. It didn’t look good for her. She agreed the ridiculous price in the first big pitch, she put the wrong people on the wrong jobs, she couldn’t handle Lucinda (with whom she had argued terribly) and, to make matters worse, she doesn’t half labour a point!
That said, Shazia left the laundry unorganised and Lucinda failed to show for a meeting and cried when Jenny had a go at her. Not what you’d expect from a £100k a year apprentice.
After telling Jennie he held her fully resposible for failing to hold her team together Sir Alan fired Shazia. “I think the most heinous thing you did is to leave that laundry. Shazia. You’re fired.”
A bit harsh I thought and that certainly would not have been my decision but then it wasn’t my decision and it is easy to seconde guess!
So another programme packed full of sales training tips, business strategies and ideas. Here are a few sales training themes that stood out…
1. Know your products, services and solutions.
Product knowledge is critical for sales success. If you don’t know what your product is, what it does, why your clients need it and how much it costs then you are never going to sell effectively or profitably.
With one phone call the boy’s were able to get the low down on how to price their product and win that all important £200 contract. The girl’s with their ridiculous pricing strategy were out of the game from the moment that they lost that first big sale.
2. Learn to negotiate.
Understanding the principles of negotiation is essential if you want to be a great salesperson and build a profitable business. Sales skills are very important but so too are negotiation skills. If you fail to sell at the right price you will always struggle to deliver the profits and results that you require.
Despite winning the programme this week the boy’s negotiation techniques were pitiful for the second week running. This hasn’t mattered as yet but in the real world it woud have. (That’s why seminars like my Sales Negotiation Skills seminar are so important). You cannot afford to do all of the work and then undersell yourself in this way.
Learning to negotiate and pre-negotiate will help you to secure more profitable sales and higher margins.
3. Sell benefits.
The girls made a cardinal mistake this week of confusing Features for Benefits and assuming the client cared when he didn’t. This is pretty common…
I worked with a major client who told me that his sales team had been through extensive sales training and were experts in sales skills techniques. I was helping them to make powerful and persuasive presentations. During their first presentations of the course it became clear that not one member of the team were able to identify even one benefit of their products This is not uncommon. Many salespeople get wrapped up in features and facts. That’s why its called “feature bashing”. Don’t do it!
Equally imoportantly, make sure that your client cares about what you’re selling. If you’re talking, talking, talking and they don’t care then they won’t be listening and you are about to lose a sale.
4. Work hard.
Boring I know but the boys appeared to work hard this week. They worked hard knocking on doors and, perhaps more importantly, they worked hard in the laundry. Simon was a “little trooper” and it paid off.
Sales is hard work. Anyone who tells you it’s not either hasn’t done it or is lying to you. Selling requires you to work harder than the next person. Some people might tell you that you can work smarter rather than harder but if you do that you will only achieve the same as the less smart salesperson who is working harder than you.
You need to work smarter AND harder! Now you’re talking!
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part I
So here we go, 12 more weeks of The Apprentice and 12 more issues of The Sales Apprentice. Are we going to be wowed with amazing sales techniques and strategies? Are this year’s apprentices going to prove themselves to be sales gurus and experts? What sales training, business and personal development lessons will we learn? Will I regret ever starting this report at the start of the last series? Only time will tell…
Towards the end of last season I was losing patience with the self-serving, self-satisfying apprentices. Would this year’s new start and apprentices give me hope?
In a word, no!
It was clear from the opening credits that, despite Sir Alan Sugar’s protestations in The Times today, this year’s Apprentice was going to be as show-biz-candy and eye catching as last year’s. Apparently, he wants it to be a “serious” business show but I can’t see that in the current format… But that doesn’t mean that there is not fun to be had and sales training lessons to be learnt.
In the opening credits two of our group rated themselves as excellent salespeople, one girl saying that she was probably “the best in Europe”. Now, and as I have said time and time again, sales is an amazing profession and provides virtually unrivalled career opportunities… if she really were that good, what on earth was she doing here?
Of the clips we saw of the other candidates all displayed the kind of arrogance that would leave Tom Cruise (at his most confident) needing shades to hide from the glare. Why do these people feel the need to display this level of arrogance? Especially when chances are that they are going to get exposed for all of their weaknesses on prime time TV.
In the board room the hopeful apprentices and Sir Alan’s trusted advisors Margaret and Nick are sitting waiting when Sir Alan enters. After a brief introduction he tells the apprentices that the real prize for winning is not the money or the job but working with him…
“This is a business bootcamp, Mary Poppins I am not”, he barks. But this year he has a twist. There will be none of this pansyesque settling into the house, oh no. This group have to start their first task right away and in their Sunday best…
“I’ve got you two van loads of fish worth 600 quid and permission to roam around the streets of London and trade. The team who brings back the most money wins. Boys versus girls. See you back at 7pm tonight.”
A simple sales task. Surely there must be some good sales training lessons to learn, even in this early show!
Raef, who I took an instant dislike to, despite the fact that he later tells us that he can get on with anyone “prince or pauper”, starts off in the pompous way he means to carry on, “If I am faced with a situation that will create mere mortals to quake, I won’t.”
Sara is also bragging to the camera, “To me business is simple. It’s about making money, making money and making more money. ”
Sometimes I want to have a kindly word with some of them. Have they not heard of the phrase “under promise and over deliver”? And did none of them see how quietly Michelle progressed through the first few rounds before beating the badger two years ago? Or are they just so arrogant that they cannot keep their mouths shut?
And then Michael read my mind saying that if anyone accused him of being arrogant he would say, “You’re 100 % right, I am arrogant. What are you going to do about it”
And then they set off to sell their fish…
Have you ever noticed how people who can’t get the job done spend a disordinate amount of time focusing on activities that won’t make sales? You’ve seen them… Salespeople spending hours on their emails and admin and not enough on the phone or in front of prospects. Small business owners expending all of their time and energy on ordering the right photocopier rather than tracking down some people to sell to…
Well this lot fell right into that trap alright spending rather too much time on deciding what their teams should be called rather than focusing on planning and preparing for their sales efforts. And, let’s be brutally honest here, there was little of originality in the names or the conversations that made it worth talking about it for so long… Alchemy, Dynamic, Impetus, Relations, Gravitas, Strike… and finally the winners, Renaissance for the boys and Alpha for the girls.
Hmmm….
I’d have called my team First and been done with it. If asked, I’d have said that it was the first name that came into my head and I saw my time far better spent planning my sales strategy…
At least they had all worked out that stepping up for team leader at this early stage is bad news because if you lose you are guaranteed to be up for the sack. Being up for dismissal at such an early stage is not good because Sir Alan has little knowledge of you or any of your redeeming factors. Eventually, Claire and Alex stepped up to lead the girl’s and the boy’s teams respectively.
Notably, Raef ducked the cut stating he didn’t have the “experience” although I am not quite sure what “experience” he was referring to.
After many discussions, both teams decide to go to Islington market. The girls however seemed to make this decision a full hour or more before the boys. Barring anything else untoward, game over right there.
1 hour extra selling time and the best sales pitch equals the best sales results. Period. What were the boys doing taking from 8am until noon to get to Islington? I’d see this as a bad case of sales reluctance and procrastination…
Sales training lesson 101 – Know Your Product.
Sir Alan provided each team with a van with 600 pounds of “top class” sea food in it. The teams had to work out what all of the produce was and how much to sell it for. To help them with this he provided them with a book with pictures of the fish in it and a wholesale guide to prices.
Rocket science this was not and I think that most bright school kids could have worked this bit out…
As the girls arrived in Islington the locals saw their chance. The girls might think that they’re the second coming but the locals saw them coming. Clearly not impressed by our team they set about “robbing” them of their fish before they had even priced it up. Swarming the girls who were trying to set up their stall none of the girls demonstrated either the nouse or the confidence to halt trading until they had priced everything up correctly. (Sales training thought – controlling your sales arena is essential for success).
Maybe the boys still have a chance after all…
As the boys arrive there are shouts that they need to get selling straight away but Alex is determined to set up properly. He gives the job of identifying the fish to Raef and gives Nicholas, the lawyer, the task of working out the wholesale prices and marking the fish up to sales prices. Nicholas tells us that he has never failed at anything ever except for a B in a French (?) exam once and he considered that as a failure. I hear a wake up call coming…
Alex then had a good idea, quickly noting the prices of other retailers and deciding to underciu them on one premium product to attract customers.
A bit of market research and a strategy. Are things looking up for the boys?
No! After a mess up the boys price lobster as £4.90 per lobster rather than £4.90 per kilo (pound?). This was mostly Nicholas’ mistake. Perhaps not so smart after all when it comes to common sense then Nicholas. (Ed. Is this deja vu or does this not remind you of a similar pricing mistake last year also made by someone who should have done better?)
After 2 hours trading the girls stock is still not properly labelled. There are 8 of them for goodness sake. What on earth are they all doing? I don’t get it. In my local market the fish stall is run by two salespeople. What are this lot all doing? How can they possibly not have labelled everything?
To make a profit the teams must take £600+ the voice over says. Sara has counted £440 so far in the girl’s kitty with ¾ pf their stock already sold. Jenny, a sales manager was “shocked to the core” by this. Talking for talking’s sake Jenny. I don’t know what you’ve been doing but why hadn’t you noticed before? As a sales manager and as a salesperson I always knew what I had to sell to hit target, where I was against target, what my commission was, what my team had sold, how they were doing against target, what commission they would take home that month…
Towards the back end of the exercise both sales teams decide that they might have a better chance of meeting their sales targets if they bulk sell some fish to prevent them being left with valuable sales stock…
In west London (how did they they get there?) the girls try to ditch the lot on a posh restaurant…
Girls: “150 for the lot. We want to get rid.” Fabulous! What a pathetic presentation. Tell the customer you have no alternatives why don’t you.
“I’ll give you 120”, offers the somewhat generous customer.
The girls I think got 125.
Meanwhile, in an North London solicitor’s office (just where you’d go to sell fish right!) the boys want to get £130. Unfortunately for them they run into a rather more ambitious sales negotiator. What follows is not pretty at all…
Boys: “We’ll selll the lot for 100.” What?! When negotiating, an opening stance is the figure at which you start. Team leader Alex, who wasn’t in on this negototion, told the team that he wanted 130 for the lot. This would mean starting at 130 or, better still, considerably higher.
“We’d do it for 50”, responds the prospect. Nice move. Half the amount and said with confidence too! A strong statement of intent to negotiate.
Boys: “Can we do 80?” A closed question from the boys. It begs the answer, “No” but doesn’t even get that much sympathy from the customer.
“50”, repeats the prospect.
Boys: “75”. I am feeling a little sorry for the boys here. This is pitiful. Since their opening line they were never getting more than 50! This is a slam dunk. There is only one person who understands selling skills and negotiating techniques here and it’s not one of our boys.
“50”, repeats the client.
“What about 65?” squeaks one of the boys with a hint of deseperation.
“No. The customer is always right.” Nice introduction of “No” and a reason for not moving, albeit not one that could not have been overcome if only…
“Can we have a moment to confer?” ask the boys followed by, “This is really the most we can do. 55.”
“No. 50”, states the client who knows he has never had anything but the upper hand here.
Brilliant. Boys, you have just been sold. Deal. They shake hands at £50.
“I negotiated as much as I could”, said Michael. I won’t be promoting him to head negotiator any time soon then!! Raef backs him up however, “We made an executive decision. We didn’t think we could get more.”
The results…
Boys team £632.69, a £32.69 profit. Girls team £753.98, a marginally better £153.98 profit.
The girls head off to the house for the first time and dinner cooked by a top chef. “It’s a taste of the lifestyle the winner can expect”, croons the narrator. What! On £100k? In Central London? I don’t think so!!
Back in the board room Sir Alan reemphasies how simple the project was, “It’s like Janet and John… You left here at 8. What did you do until 12?”
On asking Raef, “Why did you get the fish wrong?” Raef said that he only got one box wrong, Margaret, clearly not “feeling” him any more than I am was very quick to bark out “3 boxes” in very acidic tones. “Was it 3?” he asked innocently.
Nicholas was in full on lawyer mode, “I do admit some fault in this matter”.
Oh really! That’s big of you!
Not surprisingly Alex elects to bring back Nicholas and Raef but Sir Alan, full of surprises this week (the big tease!) says that he is tired and he will see them tomorrow.
Next day in the board room Alex, Raef and Nicholas break into some kind of pseudo class war. At this point I would have sacked Raef but Nicholas puts his head on the block saying that he thinks the team has split into “educated against gritty salespople”. Alex is insulted. Nicholas, not finished chopping off his own head yet, continued, “I am very into art and culture and I find it difficult to talk about football and these are the type of people who are into that.”
Yes Nicholas. This is called rapport. I will spell it out for you “R-A-P-P-O-R-T”. It means getting on with people of all different types and backgrounds and there is no way that Sir Alan will hire you now because you just told him that you cannot sell for toffee.
“Nicholas you told me you have an outstanding pass from the bar. You were devastated with the B in French. You’re going to be even more devastated by this. You’re fired.”
So what do we learn tonight?
1. Sales is a great leveller.
You might be the most educated person in the world. You might have an IQ of 200 and a first from Cambridge. You might be a neuro-surgeon or a nuclear physicist. And all of these are great achievements.
Well done.
But they mean nothing in sales. When you stand on the start line of your sales career it’s down to one thing and one thing alone and that’s you.
You either do it or you don’t. You either close the sales or you don’t. You either hit your targets or you don’t. And your background, education and IQ are not going to help you. They might open a door for you but once it’s open you have to keep it open.
This was not the first time one of the most educated people was pushed from The Apprentice and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
2. Selling is about people.
If you want to be a great salesperson you need to be great with people. You need to be great with many different types of people. Only being able to sell to people you went to school with is a start but it’s not enough!!
Salespeople need to be able to build rapport with people like them AND people not like them. And that requires flexibility in your communication patterns (check out my Professional Selling Skills seminar).
No matter how good you are at communicating you can always get better. Read books on communications. Read books on selling. Read books on personal development. Attend sales seminars and sales training programmes.
Make understanding and communicating with others your life’s study. It will be worth it.
3. Take responsibility.
So let’s leave tonight’s final thoughts with Nicholas, “Were it left to me I would always succeed.”
Well Nicholas it was and you didn’t. Sure, you can blame Sir Alan, you can blame Alex and you can blame your bad luck at being in the losing group on day 1 but ultimately these things were all of your making. Only you can change them.
To be a great salesperson you need to take responsibility for your own success. If others are difficult worry not about them but ask, “What can I do to improve things?”. If you don’t get the results you want in a market downturn don’t blame the downturn ask, “What could I do to turn this around?”
Being a great salesperson is all about taking responsibility. Responsibility for youself. Responsibility for your actions. Responsibility for your clients. And responsibility for your sales results.
Until next week, sell with passion.
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, The Final
After last week’s flashback to what interviewing might have been like in “Life on Mars” with it’s sexist questioning tactics aimed at proving woman with children have to make their case to work, tonight’s episode was back to business as normal with a task..
This was billed as the “head to head” between Simon and Kristina but turned out to be more of a battle of egos between many of the “bit “ players. This was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern centre stage and it wasn’t pretty. Not so many sales training tips tonight but many personal development and career lessons for how not to achieve success in life, business and sales.
The specialist task tonight was to come up with a landmark for London. SAS wanted a conceptual idea for the replacement of a £120m building he had just bought. It has to be meaningful, innovative and … make him some money. They were not actually going to “do” this project – it’s all about creativity and in 4 days time they are going to have to present their vision to an audience of “top” property executives.
SAS is looking at this as a test of their organizational skills, how they can run a team of people and how creative they are. Their teams will be be made up of ex-apprentices. This should be a spectacular car crash of personalities if nothing else. Simon picks Tre, Rory, Jadine and Lohit whilst Kristina chooses Natalie, Naomi, Adam and Paul.
Sales training tip: Sometime teams have history together. Sometimes there are frictions at play. Sometimes different sales personalities do not “gel” well together. As a sales leader or sales manager your role is to get the most out of the team that you have. How can you arrange teams to get the most out of the individuals and the team as a whole?
Simon and Tre are the first to come up with an idea. They want to work with a “boat” theme. Jadine and Rory are quick to start muttering in the corner. Rory thinks this is idea is uninspiring and Jadine is willing to play along.
This kind of behaviour is common in underperforming sales teams. How many times do we see this kind of behaviour? What can we do to stop it? How can you prevent it? This kind of behaviour is childish, immature and counter-productive. It’s not something that can be countenanced and it needs to be nipped in the bud sharpish.
Meanwhile Adam and Naomi are sent off to look for design ideas. When Kristina later asks Adam for feedback, Natalie and Paul exchange knowing glances. The ideas are rejected. And there is my problem with this whole show…
Tonight had nothing to do with business and nothing to do with team work. What it did have a lot to do with was ego, personality clashes and “one up manship”.
Upstairs Simon and Tre try to float their boat idea. Rory looks unimpressed and dives in with his own vision. Rory even admits that he wants to upset Tre… just not so much that he punches him. Wow! I must have missed out with the teams I have run and managed. What’s wrong with working together and getting on with the job in hand?
Next day the two teams sit down with the experts to talk about their design ideas. Paul and Adam discover almost immediately that the chosen Phoenix design agreed by Kristina and them the night before is too formalistic. So they change it. They don’t, however, bother to tell Kristina until it is too late for her to do anything about it.
Still at the house, Simon calls a meeting to lay into his team. Yesterday was a shambles he declares. Stop sitting around like children and get on with it. Rory says that there is no incentive for them to work hard. Really? You were thrown out for looking like a duck in week 2, you’re on national TV with a chance to redeem yourself but you can’t see any incentive? Get real!
Sales training tip: When I do sales consultancy, working on the motivation and dynamics of proactive sales teams, individuals often say that there is little or no incentive for them to work harder. I find this hard to swallow. For sure, sometimes the management and (external) incentives could be better thought out but ultimately these are the excuses of sales wannabees not sales winners.
Sales winners are self-motivated and self-driven as are successful individuals in all walks of life. If you make excuses such as these, challenge yourself to stop blaming others for your own lack of motivation and get out there and find a way to motivate yourself!
Rory meanwhile is on his soap box about Tre being self-taught and not having a grounding in design. Ironically, Rory himself later decides to choreograph a group of dancers to introduce their presentation and has to admit to Tre that he has no experience or skills in this area.
Meanwhile, Kristina is doing “due diligence” on her building, finding out what the exact split is between commerical and residential that will allow her to recoup maximum revenues. After a conversation with Paul on the phone about the changed design that he had not told her about she questions whether she can trust him or not. She conculdes that maybe she can’t.
Sales training tip: Trust is essential in sales and selling. Without trust, sales success will not happen. In sales training seminars, many salespeople tell me that they think that selling is all about being “friends” with their clients. Interestingly, I would suggest that personal rapport without trust does not carry over into sales and business scenarios. So, I can have gone to the same school as you and we can chat about that happily but the moment I move to business conversations you sense the change and rapport is broken.
What we need is trust. Trust and credibility. Two qualities that seem somewhat lacking in many of our Machiavellian (…as pertaining to Niccolo Machiavelli, Florentine Statesman, or denoting the political principles of craftiness and duplicity advocated by him) business wannabees.
After a day of preparations our two teams arrive to make their presentation to 100 “hard-nosed” property people and SAS.
Rory’s dancers dance into view to the strains of Nessun Dorma with Simon (?) doing a poor voice over. After a few words from Jadine, Simon came on. He made a reasonable sales presentation and took a few questions but it all felt “Apprentice Lite” until Kristina made her sales presentation.
Now I know this is TV and they may well have cut these sales presentations to make the decision that SAS was about to make better TV but from what we saw of her presentation, Kristina was more impactful, she seemed to have better content and she seemed more structured and thought through. Certainly SAS’s nods, smiles and (even a) thumbs up would imply that he was thinking that way too…
Back in the board room, and after SAS has dismissed the ex-Apprentices, SAS talked to Nick and Margaret.
Nick thinks Kristina will slog her guts out for SAS all day long. He thinks Simon may well get distracted. Margaret thinks Kristina is more focused, more mature and can be left to get on with things. From what we have seen I think we can add to that the fact that she has more business acumen too.
But this is SAS TV and only he is going to deliver the final verdict. No room for sales training lessons now. What is he going to decide?
After a build up about how difficult this decision is he commends them both saying that they are both employable. They both make final pleas about what they can offer SAS and the ball is with SAS…
He tells Kristina that she has the background and the experience and Simon that he is a risk but the devil in him won’t let him go…
“Simon do you know what a bloody old fool I am, I am going to take that risk. Simon you’re hired.”
Wow! Certainly not the decision that I would have made…
Was it the right one?
Only time will tell. I’m sure Simon will work hard and get some great results and he certainly really wanted the role. But so did Kristina and I think I would have put my money into her!
Why not let me know what you guys think? Click on comments and post your thoughts.
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part XI
It’s not the job interview from hell for nothing and tonight we saw why working for SAS might really be hell. Not for him the subtleties of interviewing but the in your face, I need to know all about your personal life crash, bang, whallop approach. With no task this week, sales training tips were a little more subtle than other weeks…
Maybe this approach will work? Perhaps we will we find out if any of the apprentices are actually drop dead shrewd? Or discover if Lohit really deserves to be there? Or uncover whether Katie really is as appalling as she seems? Maybe we’ll discover whether Kristina is the real deal, whether Simon has any substance and if Tre’s supercharged, self-confidence is accurate or misplaced?
Or maybe we won’t…
I thought last year that the interviews were aggressive and unrealistic. If anything they were worse this year with one of the interviewers being aggressive and intrusive to the point of rudeness.
Sales training tip: If you want to have a good interview then you need to give your potential employee some room to talk. You need to find out what motivates them and why. You need to plan and prepare questions.
Many of you who know me from sales training seminars will know that I believe that planning and preparation is critical for sales success. This is not because I am the process driven type. In fact, quite the opposite as I’m the sort who opens up the new DVD player and sets it up without even looking at the instructions! Until I get stuck at least!
For the last year in sales training I have talked about how in last year’s final of The Apprentice the candidates let themselves down by not even knowing what SAS’s company did. I did not expect the same basic sales mistake again. Amazingly, both Tre and Katie had to admit that they had done little or no research.
Sales training tip: Planning and preparation is critical to your sales success. Make sure that when you go on a sales meeting you know what you need to know. It is not uncommon for clients and prospects to ask, “What do you know about our company then?” Ouch! Even if they don’t ask this, lack of planning and preparation means that you have to ask basic information questions at the expense of more focused and targeted sales questions. This can lose you the client, the sales and your reputation.
SAS explains that today is going to be a gruelling interview process to see if the candidates are good enough to work for him and his companies. Three people will be fired. The interviews are going to be conducted by 3 of SAS’s friend and colleagues – Bordan Tkachuk, Claude Littner, and Paul Kemsley.
The interviews themselves were vaguely interesting however they jumped around so much it was very difficult to work out what really went on in them. There was also a heavy amount of bias as to who got airtime and for what. To say these interviews actually took hours, we really saw only a few minutes and these were all very “themed.”
Katie was asked about ruthlessness. When asked if she had ever lied or cheated she said yes to get someone else’s husband because she wanted him. She then said that this act was only an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 for ruthlessness.
Paul focused on the fact that she was a mum with two young kids. Katie said she wasn’t a “softly, softly mum” who does cooking and wears florals. She was a 90k a year, brand consultant who works for a global business and has a gold card. She does talk a good game! She also has some very strong stereotypes of people.
Sales training tip: Be careful of stereotyping your clients. Whilst it is important to do background research we need to be careful not to stereotype individuals. Once we pigeon hole people in this way it is very likely that this will effect every interaction with this person (or group). I have heard many salespeople stereotype prospects as tyre-kickers only to later discover that they bought off of one of their competitors that very day!
Lohit had a hard time from Claude. “Do you know the word humility? Would it apply to you? You talk about how you have achieved more than people twice your age. I am twice your age I would like to think I have achieved more than you.”
Paul asked what made him angry and he said when people don’t deliver. Paul asked if he had lost his temper yet and then accused him of being “middle of the road” and “boring”!
Next we saw Paul with Simon. ““Look at me when I am talking to you”
Sales training tip: Some people have a look to listen rule. This means that if you do not look at them when they are talking they do not think that you are paying attention. As a sales professional it is important that you start to notice visual information like this so that you can use it to your advantage. Spend some time in your sales meetings and sales training working on understanding people and how to communicate more effectively with a larger variety of people.
Simon was accused of having had a great education and starting in the city but then losing himself after getting made redundant. Do other companies let good people go he was asked? At least he was humble enough to concede that others had produced better results. You’ve gone from being an employee in Credit Suisse to being an entrepreneur and now you want to go back into employment. I don’t know where you are going said one of the interviewers.
With Tre we focused on whether he was running a company from his bedroom and whether he did or did not have 15 offices around the world. Was this his company or his family’s? Paul told Tre that he was confused and asked why he talks about success when the only success he had had was one that ended in disaster. He continued by telling Tre that he asked the questions and Tre should just answer!
We saw little of Kristina in interview other than to see her being asked a few simple questions.
Back in the boardroom SAS met with Paul, Claude and Bordan to give the following damning indictments…
Kristina.
They like her. She has “stickability” and is competent, hard working and fun. She’s a credible candidate who was pleasant and good on interview. She’s bright cheery and smiley. “I would employ her as a manager”, one stated. Borden thinks she could be a good asset.
Tre.
They have doubts about. When you get him in a corner he gets aggressive. He doesn’t like being questioned. But they acknowledge that he has been picking up contracts and has the best record of any of the candidates in the competition and that he has “been instrumental” in some of these wins.
Lohit.
Was the least credible candidate said one and has no leadership skills. Paul says he has no chance. Borden thinks the same. SAS says that he thinks Lohit doesn’t know what he is saying a lot of the time.
Simon.
Has all of the background and training. He is intelligent, articulate and well researched. Paul thinks he is a gross under achiever and asks what he has done. Borden says he could not get to grips with his career story and what happened. Claude says he thinks he has lost his way but that he would not write him off because he’s only young and given a chance he could succeed.
Katie.
Paul says she is bright and capable. You could give her a job to do and she would do it but she could upset people. She’s a powerful aggressive lady. Claude doesn’t agree – he thinks she is a showman and a great talker. But he doesn’t think she has a clue. Borden says the girl is ruthless. I don’t know if I saw the real Katie or if I could begin to understand anything but the charade. Paul thinks she is a go getter. They agree her motivation is all about winning.
Sales training tip: A core skill of selling is the ability to engage, communicate and present to others. Katie is a great presenter and communicator. Whatever you think of her other skills, experience or ability she has consistently made a strong case for herself when presenting and in the boardroom. Despite the fact that she has made several wrong business decisions she is still, at this late stage, seen as a key player because of her strengths in presenting herself well. As a salesperson you need all of the skills, knowledge and techniques and you need to be able to present yourself as confident, articulate and credible. By doing regular sales training you can ensure that you not only have the right sales skills but also the right interpersonal skills too.
SAS calls our famous five to the boardroom. He starts by talking to Kristina and asks her if she would move house to get the job. She says she would. He asks if she is sure. She says, “Absolutely positive”.
Sales training tip: As a salesperson people will often lie to you or be economical with the truth. You need to learn to listen beyond what they say and focus in on the way that they say it as well. Kristina absolutely meant what she said – you could hear it in her pace, pitch and tone.
SAS turned on Katie and took a similar tack with his questions. She said she would move. He asked if it was a simple as that. She said that “it can be.”
Sales training tip: Listen to language. People tell you what you need to know but we often ignore it, hearing instead what we want to hear. Not only did Katie not answer positively but her words were vague and non committal. “It can be that easy”. That is never a yes.
“This is it I am going to pick the two finalists. Three people are going. Lohit I am trying to search what you are going to do for me. I can’t see it. Lohit you are a very nice fine fellow. I want to put you out of your misery. You’re fired.”
And there were four.
SAS turned his attention back to Katie…
Ed. Now I’m with Claude. She has made bad business decisions, switched people off and has a nasty streak. She is a good presenter and can sell herself but that’s it for me. Surely she is about to go…
Katie, you’re in the final!
Amazing. He obviously sees something I haven’t. But there’s something strange going on now. Her cheeks are a strange pink colour. There is no joy on her face. She is looking down. Is she embarrassed? Upset? Angry? She looks at him very, very strangely.
“Tre you have something. But my colleagues find that you have difficulty in accepting criticism. They find you difficult and I have to say that they are spot on because I find that also. I think you need to grow up and be a little less defensive. I cannot see you slotting into the organisation. Tre you’re fired.”
SAS turns back to Katie. You don’t look happy. She says that she hasn’t planned for this and that she needs to speak to her parents and support network before moving. They have a conversation and she bows out of the competition.
What a surprise (not). She’s been playing them all along.
SAS says that what we saw there was someone who wasn’t going to give me the commitment. He congratulates his finalists Kristina and Simon.
Nick’s closing words about Katie say it all, “She’s a game player. That’s what she is, a game player.”
So what sales training tips do we learn from tonight’s episode…
Sales training tip 1: Research! Research! Research!
Whether you are visiting a client or interviewing a new salesperson you need to do your research. Planning and preparation are what separate professionals from amateurs. If you want to get more business then you need to do your prep on your prospects. If you want to get that great sales job or promotion you need to do your research. If you want to land good salespeople for your sales teams you need to plan your interview.
Sales training tip 2: Know the personalities involved
Research the individuals that you are selling to. What are they like? What do they like? How are they going to be? We saw Paul last year, we knew he was direct. The apprentices should have been much more well prepared.
Sales training tip 3: Only sell to reality
Clients will often say one thing to you when they mean another. They do this for all sorts of reasons… Maybe they just want to expedite the sales process. Maybe they don’t trust you. Perhaps they just don’t want to share with you. No matter. Whatever the reasons, your role is to open up your communication channels and seek out the real meaning and intent behind their communication. You will only make sales if you sell to reality.
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part X
Week 10 of our Sales Apprentice and what a week! I was pretty much incensed for the whole hour. This was a sales training lesson in how not to sell and for once I would question SAS’s firing decision although I think it was fairly obvious why he did it…
After a quick shuffle of the teams SAS set this week’s task, “You are going to be selling live on TV. The team that sells the most will win.” He told them to be careful about the products that they chose and then told the camera that if these products were too expensive they might not sell any and if they were too cheap they might have to sell 10,000 to beat the other team.
Our intrepid Sales Apprentices headed for Ideal World in Peterborough. Both teams were to select a range of products to sell live on TV. With the teams down to 3 each they had to do one solo slot and one duo slot per team. This week the teams were being headed up by Kristina and Simon. Kristina backed up by Lohit and Katie, Simon supported by Tre and Naomi.
As the camera panned across Ideal World we heard one of the “professional” presenters, “Would you recommend these to your friends Doreen?” “Yes”, came back the forced reply. How much more powerful would it have been to ask, “Why would you recommend these to your friends Doreen?” and have heard a compelling customer reason for purchase.
Yet again this week Katie is going to escape the chop and yet again she is on her soap box, “I would never buy anything off the TV nor would I associate with anyone who did buy anything off the TV.” She then went on to say that she is naming her target audience Mavis, a big breasted woman with no friends who rings up because Lohit looks like a nice boy. She calls herself a brand manager but all she has done so far is rubbish her competitors, the products she sells and her potential customers. If she was representing your brand, would you be confident of what she was saying behind your back?
Sales training tip: If you want to stay in your market for more than 5 minutes you need to be congruent. This means doing what you say you will do, acting in alignment with how you present yourself to your clients and being true to yourself. Anything less will effect your relationships, your reputation and your long-term sales potential.
After some brief sales training sessions it became clear that our sales teams have neither a clue about presenting nor any idea about what might sell. The teams must pick from the channel’s stock of over 50,000 items. Now I do watch TV selling channels occasionally. Not because I love them but because I think it is interesting to watch people selling this way…. Predominant on these channels are jewellery, fitness equipment, cleaning products, collectibles and craft type products. This suggests to me that these things might sell well.
Simon however was going for (in his own words) a risky strategy. He decided to present alone and was allocating a lightweight wheelchair for Tre and Naomi to sell. However you look atthis choice, it was a niche market and a big risk. He also selected a hair removal product for them to sell. Tre and Naomi picked a light weight trampoline and some Decoupage. This is something to do with craft work and if you want to know more I will email my Mum to find out what exactly.
Tre and Naomi are not happy with the wheelchair. Tre asks, “Don’t you think it’s a very, very niche product?” Simon answers, “No.”
Ahem!
Simon in turn does not like the trampoline, a much better choice in my opinion.
Over on the other team Kristina has decided to present solo leaving Katie and Lohit to present together. She has picked for them some slimming pants and a foot spa. They have picked a steam cleaner and a chocolate fountain for her.
Tre tells Simon again that he does not agree with the choice of a wheel chair. Simon says that it’s his choice and he will “carry the can” if they lose the task. Brave talk but is it bravado?
After learning more about their products it becomes patently clear that the teams are not going to be ready in time but the show goes on anyway…
Up first was Kristina with the chocolate fountain. Remember, she has been my favourite but this week she made it very hard for me to keep routing for her. Peppering every uncomfortable sentence with an uprising, “Ok” she sounded unconfident, unhappy and unprepared. This was not her natural home.
Sales training tip: If you pepper your sentences with surplus wordage (e.g. Ok, basically, honestly, frankly, at the end of the day…) you need to work hard to cut it out. It can make you sound unprepared, unsure and very junior.
But if that was bad, her sales pitch of the steam cleaner was worse. I’m amazed that Ideal World did not pull the plug. Embarrassing. SAS, who was watching, was pulling his hair out. “Didn’t you practise?” he squawked at the TV. Unfair. Clearly they did their practise. You did not give them time to learn how to do the job effectively.
Sales training tip: Learning how to sell properly is critical to your success. Walking into sales situations without the right techniques and skills will not be pretty! It does not matter how long it takes to get you well trained, what is important is that you are. It was obvious that our Sales Apprentices never were and never were going to be prepared fully for this task. None the less, I would have liked Kristina to have done better.
Next on were Katie and Lohit. Katie seemed quite natural and relatively at ease when presenting. She can present it would seem. Shame she is such a two-faced charmer. Poor old Mavis would never realise that Katie actually despised her.
Following Katie are Naomi and Tre pitching the hair removal kit and the wheelchair. Simon, who is behind the mike, and supposedly guiding them, freezes. He has nothing to say. Nothing! When the wheelchair arrives on the screen SAS exclaims, “What brain dead chose that?” and continues, “It is the worst item.”
Next up is Simon. He clearly has no idea what the Decoupage foam pads are. He fairs little better with the trampoline. Oh my goodness me. Between them the teams have lost the channel tens of thousands of pounds.
I hope SAS repaid it.
Up until now I was thinking Kristina. Now, I’m not even sure about her. Perhaps he won’t take anyone on at all? Our two teams sold 1/10 of what Ideal World would usually expect to sell in an hour. Ouch! SAS is not impressed. Simon’s team have brought home £921.79 and Kristina’s £1339.10.
Surely Simon has to go. He picked the wrong products. He said he would take the can if they lost. He froze in the control room and he couldn’t sell the products at all….
But SAS has different ideas. He says this is all about picking products and does a 180 saying that Simon’s picks sold and Naomi and Tre’s didn’t. The fatal errors seem to lie with these two he declared. Simon renages on his “carry the can” speech and sees some hope. SAS is on a roll, “Simon chose better products.”
What?
SAS may I remind you please of your initial comment on Simon’s wheelchair, “What brain dead chose that?” and then, “It’s the worst.”
First off I disagree. The trampoline was a good choice. It should and could have sold but Simon failed to sell it. This sort of stuff sells like hotcakes on the TV, it’s just a case of getting the right hook. The wheelchair sold (a couple) because Katie and Tre got behind it. Sure, this task was about picking the right products but it was also about selling and it was selling, or lack of it, that made the difference here. But SAS is not playing straight now, he clearly saw no place for Naomi in his business and he clearly likes Simon.
Naomi with regret, you’re fired.
She was never going to win but she can rightly feel robbed and Simon should consider himself an eight lifed cat! He could well take those lives right to the end of this competition – still with Kristina despite her poor performance today. My money’s still on Kristina – just!
So what’s our sales training lesson of the day?
Simple. You can sell anything but you need to learn how to sell it properly. You might get lucky in the short term but in the long run you need to employ the right strategies, the right techniques and the right processes. You need to build your sales skills through learning, practise and refinement.
You’re in your career for a lifetime so you don’t have to be great over night. In fact, it’s often better to struggle a little… at first. Salespeople who struggle a little have to commit themselves to learning and practise and this gives them effective, repeatable sales skills which they can use day in and day out, in good times and in challenging ones. Sometimes those who find it all comes to them a little to easily struggle when times are rough because they don’t have the necessary skills.
I recently got a call from a client who had been in a buoyant market. Their sales were easily come by and their sales staff complacent and overpaid. As in every industry times were changing and they were getting left behind by new players entering their market with enthusiastic, hungry and well trained salespeople. They needed sales training. Don’t wait until you’re in the mire, build your own sales development plan and take some time out of your busy schedule to ensure that you keep your sales skills sharp so that you can maintain your competitive edge.
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