Sales Coaching with DiSC

The sales department is at the heart of a successful organization, and so, retaining sales talent is equally important. This department can either make or break your vision of being at the top. The unique and important role of a salesperson is to convert customer’s demand to money by juxtaposing and matching client’s needs and the products or services that organization offers which shall fulfil their needs.  

Because they interact directly and daily with potential clients, salespeople unconsciously build loyalty and trust for their organization and hence a pool of loyal clients. Loyalty and trust play a significant role in becoming the preferred choice of customers which means great reviews and testimonials do matter. These reviews and testimonials are a great source of validating potential clients about your organization’s work and further helps in building the pool of loyal clients. Hence customer centricity comes handy with this role.  

With all that said, it is not hard to see that this role comes with tremendous pressure; pressure in terms of meeting sales target, continuously farming existing clients and creating a pipeline of potential customers. Research also shows that limited career growth opportunities and job boredom are other set of reasons why employees tend to leave the organization. Due to this existing pressure and limited growth opportunities, the sales retention rate has always been high.  

You may think what exactly Learning and Development department can do to keep them engaged?  Well, the answer is “Learning and Development”. We, L&D professionals, can work around so many things from getting to the root cause of attrition via TNA/TNI to formulating long-term interventions which not only grows them personally but also professionally.  

Without enough sales training, the sales team is likely to flounder, and your growing business may become stagnant. This can turn into a domino effect as the more experienced employees may fall into a slump and newer ones will not be exposed to quality leadership. 

One of the best ways for retaining sales talent sharp is by having them trained on recurring basis. By doing so, the team learns from everyone’s experience – the past victories or failures. Here are some ways to keep your trainings sustained: 

1. Use Psychometric Assessments: Psychometric assessments are a great way to provide insights about oneself. The insights provided helps in preparing for the intervention and locates gaps which needs to be filled. One great psychometric assessment for sales professionals is Everything DiSC Sales. This assessment assesses the taker’s style and suggests ways they can flex with their potential clients.  
2. Crisp Training Session: With the decline of attention span, keeping your training short and crisp is of outmost importance. Keeping them short will make both the learning and engagement intact and sustained.  
3. Incorporate E-Learning: Organizations around the globe are adapting e-learning platforms to train and educate their employees. The biggest advantage of having e-learning platforms is that your employees can educate themselves wherever they are, which means, if they have questions and need immediate help, everything is readily available at their e-learning platforms.  

The above list is just a few tips to retaining sales talent. Elements like coaching, assigning buddies etc can also add value to retaining your sales team and impacting your organizations bottom-line.   

The goal of a sales coaching program is to create an environment where team members feel self-motivated to grow, excel, and take greater responsibility for what they do. Effective sales coaching is the key to continual performance improvement and organizational success. In fact, it is the most important work a sales manager has. It follows the following steps – 

• Providing An Outside View - The first step involved with effective sales coaching comes from the observation of a sales coach. The company brings in an outside agent possessing the knowledge and skills of an experienced sales professional, who works to increase and refine the sales representative’s skills. When you engage a professional for sales coaching you are hiring someone to look at your organization and your sales executives to provide a third party, impartial, view of the team and how you work as sales professional
• Bridging The Gap – Your expert professional will use their perceptions to tell you how far away you are from your goal and help you to reach your goals by bridging the gap between where you are and where you should be as a professional
•  Developing Skills – Your sales coach will also take a look at individual and team skills, tell you how to highlight the advanced skills that you and your team members already possess and teach you how to develop the skills that still need improvement. In addition to providing insights and suggesting changes; your sales coach will likely have you do different confronting training sessions designed to help develop skills
• Training - A professional sales coach will then offer training for you and your team so that you can progress not only individually but as a team. They may also observe you throughout the day to provide on the job training and providing you with guidance when you face issues with certain tasks like unexpected sales call. An efficient coach will continue with the training until you get it right
• Ongoing Mentoring - Once your sales coaching program is completed, the sales coach will provide you with important ongoing mentoring to help you continue to improve. This way your sales coach will be there to provide you with suggestions and insight as your company grows

Benefits of a Sales Coaching Program

Professional sales coaching gives sales managers the skills and framework they need to coach sales teams to success, helping them to develop mutually beneficial, long-lasting customer relationships. Sales managers and coaches learn how to use collaborative techniques to hold coaching conversations and develop a culture that supports high-performing sales teams. It enables sales managers to implement coaching processes that promote confidence and success within their sales teams. Some of the benefits of a sales coaching program are mentioned below: 

• Develop Better Coaches to Develop Better Sales Teams – Sales Coaching gives sales managers the skills and arrangement they need to coach sales teams to success, helping them to develop mutually advantageous, long-lasting customer relationships. Sales managers and coaches learn how to use combined techniques to hold coaching conversations and develop a culture that supports successful sales teams
• Maximize Your Sales Team’s Potential – Sales coaches help sellers define goals and techniques that will penetrate into their purpose and lead to increased sales energy, focus, and engagement
• Build a Motivated Sales Team – Provides support for sales managers to coach sales teams that are motivated and challenged to reach highest performance levels
• Improve Seller Performance – Sales leaders work with sellers to meet and exceed allotment, improving performance every year
• Reduce Employee Turnover – By providing salespeople with guidance, facilitation and professional development, sales leaders will help to reduce organizational turnover
• Increase Coaching Confidence – Coaches will practice and expand skills for handling difficult conversations, increasing both confidence and capability 

Sales coaching is the role played by managers in progressing people, enhancing performance and achieving goals. It is best thought of as a behavior rather than a task where the focus is on helping team members self-assess and self-discover ways to solve problems and grow. Sales coaching uses a process of inquiry so that people can access their own power or inner strength to reach their own level of realization.  

Sales coaching, like any other type of coaching, requires a unique, person to person approach to each sales representative and not a standard approach. A sales coach will not be able to manage the results but can manage the behaviors or the steps that the sales representatives take to get to those results. In another way, sales coaching is the act of improving the coaching ability of the manager, not the salesperson.   

Importance of Sales Coaching –

A sales coaching program helps in enhancing the skills, knowledge, and use of strategies that improve sales results. Those who get coaching have better selling skills and advanced industry and product knowledge. They also know how to think about sales opportunities calculatedly to generate higher profit sales. Organizations can employ a variety of strategies to improve their sales teams. Although it can be challenging, sales coaching is very important for any business. Below are a few reasons why – 

• A Refresher with New Tricks – Sales continues to expand, which means sales coaching is important for both learning new methods and refreshing old skills. Employees may have forgotten some steps of the sales process or misinterpreted parts of the practice. They need to stay well- informed. A sales coaching program comes furnished with all of the necessary tools to do this, whether it’s for beginners or experienced workers and ensures the entire team is well- informed. Coaching with these strategies helps employees at all levels
• Open-Table Discussion for Better Conversation – Not all workers outshine at the same tasks, and each team member will have his or her own issues. Coaching presents an opportunity for a round-table discussion to get these feelings in the open, allowing for a better understanding of what employees need in order to do their jobs effectively. It’s a good time for self-assessment since outside of these sessions, employees don’t have enough time to focus on how to improve.  

By undertaking this kind of coaching creates a safe environment for employees to voice discomfort and fears and share best practices that can help other team members. Not only does it benefit the employees, it gives managers penetration into issues facing their employees, allowing an opportunity to build trust and focus on improving performance.  

• Staying Ahead of The Trend Curve – Your team may fall behind on current trends in the industry, especially when trying to keep up with attaining sales and performing daily duties. The process in turn implements the latest methods to ensure the employees have the necessary tools to progress in such a competitive business. Coaching introduces processes more in line with current selling standards and techniques, so your team doesn’t look detached.

As customers and clients buy differently, bringing in a sales coach with the talent to improve today’s business practice helps employees to close more deals. With the newest trends at their fingertips, the employees will be more effective at selling and improve the other skills that come with it, making coaching a worthwhile investment. 

Coaches brings in the best practices and strategies crucial for employees to do the best job. They spend the time researching, learning, and experimenting new methods so employees can achieve optimal results. Sales is an ongoing process and embracing all resources available creates a better team. 

Training Material on Sales

Learning and development is important for an organization’s success. Continuous investment in training provides all the employees to expand their knowledge base however many organizations view learning and development as a cost centre. Basic psyche that goes behind training is that the employees who are attending it are missing out on business hours which may delay the completion of tasks and projects. They fail to understand the benefits that make the cost and time invested worth the while. The return on such investments is really a no brainer.  

Here are some of the benefits of a training program for sales team one can foresee:  

1. Employees who receive the necessary training are able to perform better than those who haven’t. The learning gives armour to the employees to perform their jobs better and hence improve their performance and productivity   
2. Investment in training and development help employees realizes that they are valued by the organization. Employees who feel appreciated and valued through training are likely to feel more satisfied towards their jobs  
3. Learning and development helps employees in addressing weaknesses by analyzing them and then developing programs that will help them in improving those weaknesses 
4. Consistent up-skilling of the employees fosters creativity and hence innovative ideas 

Therefore, it is pretty clear that training does help in retaining employees and has a direct impact on the bottom line. With this understanding, let us dig deeper on learning and development. To conduct any training program for sales team, one must have training material. Training material involves: 

1. Presentation: While looking to conduct training, it is important to have a presentation visually delineate the learning nuggets. The presentation set contains the key content of the training program. This presentation should have the agenda, learning objectives, and the content for each topic. It will be used while running the training program and helps in structuring the entire program. 
2. Instructor Guide: If you are someone who is curating the program by yourself for your employees then this may not be necessary. However if you are wishing to buy the training material from a third party like Strengthscape, you may want to make sure that it comes with an instructor guide. Instructor guide is a guide for any trainer which gives specific instructions to conduct the training program. It has elements like say, ask and do which helps in giving specific instructions for each slide of the main presentation   
3. Workbook: As the name suggests, it is a workbook for the participants which can either be used during the training program to capture participant’s insights and observations or be used post training as a reflection note for the participants to sustain the learning. It contains brief description of each topic covered in the program along with the activities conducted and provides spaces where participant can take notes.   

Retail sales training is the process that is used to train sales associates in retail stores on how to engage customers, how to build rapport and trust with them, how to demonstrate a product with its features and benefits, how to compare a range of products, how to manage objections to showcase value over price and how to close the sale in any type of scenario.   

Training material for retail trainers need to include all the skills and competencies required for a sales associate because the associates need to have the skills to effectively communicate the information to the clients, in a way that builds rapport simultaneously and while also directing them to the other options and products the company has, in order to close the sale and also ensure that the customer has a good impression about the brand. This will lead to brand loyalty and generate higher sales for the organization.   

Training material for retail trainers can be customized to what the specific organization needs. Following are the areas or competencies that the training session should include to make an impact:  

1) Knowledge of products 

The training must iterate the importance of knowing all the products that the company has to offer so that even if the customer does not purchase the product they intended to, they make other purchases. It is a well-known fact that buyers make many impulse purchases, the sales associates must study the customer and showcase all the relevant products so that they have the chance of being purchased.   

2) Listening skills 

As mentioned above, to make a successful sale, the sales associates must study the customers to identify not only their needs but also their wants. Customers mostly intend to purchase what they need but can be swayed to purchase what they want.   

3) Influencing skills 

In order to sway a customer to purchase what they want but not need, the retail associate needs to be equipped with influencing strategies and techniques. These methods should not be overt lest it be perceived as artificial or forceful.   

4) Negotiating skills 

The training material for retail trainers may contain strategies on negotiation if the setup of the company is such that the product prices are negotiable.   

5) Non-verbal communication 

The non-verbal cues or body language displayed by the retail associates must be mindful of the fact that the customers’ decisions are also subconsciously influenced by them. Reading the non-verbal cues, the customer displays may also help the associate modify the way they pitch the product.   

The retail industry is a faced-paced and dynamic one where purchase decisions happen within fifteen to twenty minutes and one person is the decision maker. Studies even show that everyone who intends to make a purchase ends up making a purchase 60 percent of the time. Every action that the sales associate makes, verbal or non-verbal, influences the purchase decision and decides whether the sale falls under the 60 percent or the 40 percent. Although recruitment for sales positions may ensure that associates have the necessary skills and competencies, the proficiency in these skills may be lacking and improving them may increase sales significantly.   

Your team will struggle if you don’t provide proper sales training, and your company’s growth will be stifled. This can have a cascade effect, as more experienced members become stagnant and newer members are not exposed to good leadership. Making it a point to have training program for sales team on a regular basis is one of the finest methods to keep new and seasoned talent fresh. Your team will be able to learn from previous successes or mistakes while they are still fresh in their minds.  

Tips for Training a Sales Team

Here are some proven methods for bringing your sales team up to speed and ensuring that your company is always improving. 

• Make Use of Useful Content – On the best sales strategies, there is nearly an infinite amount of information available. Examine the ones that go into great detail regarding established approaches and strategies
• Use e-learning – E-learning systems are being used by businesses all over the world to educate their employees. With the right training program for sales teams, your employees will be able to identify the most common client concerns while also comprehending how your product or service may help them. Because everything is easily available, your employees can educate themselves wherever they are
• Make Use of Buddy Systems – A buddy system will help to establish an environment where your employees feel comfortable asking questions and sharing vital knowledge, making the whole process less stressful. This will save time while also improving the quality of the workplace
• Keep Training Sessions Short – There will always be a loss of attention, no matter how engaging the information is. As a result, it’s essential to keep your training sessions brief and to-the-point. Training should be done in a fun and easy-to-understand manner

A deliberate, structured training program for sales team is one of the finest strategies to boost results in any sales organization. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to sales training. Since your team members are likely to have distinct talents and limitations as well as varying levels of expertise, putting them all on the same course could not only be a waste of money, but it could also demoralize the better performers. You can build a program that will not only assist your company’s bottom line, but will also help you retain your top salespeople, with just a little smart preparation. 

It’s critical that you examine your team’s strengths and shortcomings, as well as the gaps in their knowledge, both collectively and individually, and the company’s demands. A thorough examination of your sales figures over a long period of time can be quite beneficial, but it is even more critical that you speak with members of your staff to determine their special demands.  

• Data Should be Incorporated into the Development Process – The sales department should always be thinking about how they’re doing. Make it a habit for everyone to take 15 minutes or so to reflect on sales calls or meetings to see what went well and what may be better
• Start with the Fundamentals – Many sales managers overlook the significance of ensuring that their salespeople are well-versed in both the foundations of successful selling and the practicality of navigating the tools and systems they must employ. You’d be shocked how many salesmen don’t have a thorough understanding of the product or service they’re intended to offer. If you have a product that is continually being developed or improved, you may require a more effective onboarding program for new employees or some refresher courses for veterans
• Maintain a Practical Approach – Any training your sales force receives must have a significant practical component. It is much easier to keep people motivated to complete a lengthy training regimen when they observe an instant positive influence on their daily experience. If you can encourage your employees to like utilizing the tools you provide, you’ll see a significant rise in production and the quality of your company’s records
• Watch the Data – Sales is the ultimate results-driven activity, and any training program you build should follow suit. Is the training delivering the outcomes you anticipated during the planning process? Your staff may like their frequent seminars on the necessity of good posture and a pleasant view when on the phone, but if your results don’t improve, you’re most certainly wasting everyone’s time. Including measurability is a terrific motivator as well as a tool for instilling a strong sense of accomplishment
• Inspire, Nurture, and Motivate – Schedule regular feedback sessions with your sales team and truly listen to their suggestions while providing your own. People are usually hesitant to disclose flaws or failings in public. Implementing an incentive system, which does not always have to be monetary, is also crucial. People will feel appreciated and inspired to keep going if they get simple praise and acknowledgement of advances in performance, especially if it is done publicly. A monetary bonus scheme, of course, would be beneficial

One of the most important things you can do in business is to have a strong, effective sales staff. Giving your department access to the most up-to-date training and resources is a sure-fire approach to help your company and its employees flourish. You want a team that is self-assured and capable. You must accept the fact that no amount of sales training will ever be sufficient. One of the most critical aspects of successfully managing a modern sales team is creating a culture where learning and progress are recognized and appreciated. 

Most people use the terms “sales” and “business development” interchangeably. This could be because salespeople are frequently transferred to business development roles. It is obvious that the term “sales” has a negative connotation. A business development manager always sounds more professional than a sales manager. However, one must understand the distinction between these two terms and use them correctly rather than interchangeably.  

Business development is a marketing function role rather than a sales function role. The goal of business development training modules is to identify the appropriate market segment and match the opportunities that arise from it to the products and services that the organization provides. In the most literal sense, business development is about growing and expanding a company. This role’s sales function is primarily limited to opportunity qualification and negotiation. It entails more brand placement, acquisitions, and partnerships, as well as market expansion.  

Sales, on the other hand, entails generating revenue by selling products and services directly to customers. The link is that the business development function would generate opportunities and establish a sales channel while the sales team worked on those opportunities to close them and generate revenue. 

Sales and Business Development Training

Sales training is provided with the goal of increasing sales success. The emphasis is on improving sales skills and understanding seller-buyer behavior. Negotiation skills, understanding needs, pitching, sales acumen, customer focus, strategic selling, prospecting, client relationship management, rapport building, and other skills must be developed, in addition to adequate product and service knowledge.  

Business development training modules, on the other hand, is not only for Sales professionals. It can be given to all leaders with the goal of expanding the business and optimizing market potential. The emphasis is on developing skills such as strategic thinking, market analysis, customer focus, negotiation skills, networking, business acumen, and knowledge of the organization’s products and services.  

Now that the training focus has been differentiated for sales and business development training modules, let’s describe what approach can be taken for both the trainings to be effective.  

The Methodology

According to Heman Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve, we remember only 21% of information after 31 days, and surveys have shown that much of what is provided through training is lost. Previously, training was limited to one to two days. Professionals in sales and business development are left to retain and apply what they have learned on their own. This is not a viable option. With the growing needs of the learner, the demand for blended learning methodology is increasing. This methodology aids in the reinforcement of what is learned during training.  

Both sales and business development training modules must encourage and focus on behavior change rather than just superficial knowledge change. One-on-one coaching that focuses on individual strengths and challenges, personalized feedback to calibrate behaviors, and specific action plans for application on the job should be combined with training methodology.  

Leader connects sessions, in addition to coaching, are essential. These sessions help to maintain the sales and business development culture by allowing learners to learn from leaders who have “been there, done that.” Leader connects sessions employ the storytelling technique to convey learning about selling and business development skills. For example, classroom training and eLearning cannot cover many of the difficult situations that sales and business development professionals face. A coach cannot also assist in problem resolution or provide advice on how to deal with difficult situations. That is when leader connect sessions come in handy for learning the ropes. 

To summarize, when it comes to sales and business development training, do not treat the two in the same way. Although the overall methodology remains the same, the emphasis on competencies has shifted, and this should drive the primary learning experience.  

Hiring a good salesperson has always been a challenge for recruiters across the nation. According to Harvard Business Review, hiring a wrong person account for almost 80% of all turnover rates in the business. Making a mistake in hiring can cost a lot to the organization. This can be avoided by integrating a sales aptitude test before hiring any candidate for the sales profile. Sales aptitude test is a tool which helps the recruiter to objectively  identify and recruit the salesperson which has the potential for success in the field of sales. It saves time and money and expedites the hiring process. It also makes the hiring process more efficient and reduces the cost of hiring the wrong person. Ultimately it helps in reducing the turnover.  

If any candidate is hired after getting a good score on sales aptitude test, that candidate will help in increasing the sales as the sales team will be full of high-potential salespeople. If the team has good salespeople, mentoring them will be effective and will help them become high-drive salespeople. On the other hand, the recruiter can ask specific behavioral questions based on the scores of the candidate. This will help the recruiter to understand the candidate’s personality in a deeper manner.  

A sales aptitude test should measure both teachable and non-teachable sales skills. Teachable skills like building and maintaining relationship skill, confidence, persuading skills. Non-teachable skills like the need for achievement, competitiveness, and optimism. Candidates who possess these traits can be a great potential for sales success. They can perform well shortly after being hired and will maintain the performance.   

According to studies, the turnover rates in sales is 27% which is nearly twice as high as overall job force. Companies spend a lot on training salespeople and expect a good return on investment but still do not get the expected results. The solution to this can be hiring the candidates who already have the potential for sales and can do well in this field. This will reduce the investment in training and the turnover will also reduce. Having the knowledge that the candidates have the traits needed to succeed before onboarding them will give some satisfaction to the hiring managers also. Also, the organizations will be at lower risk of an investment loss into hiring a candidate.  

Aptitude test also helps in finding the candidates who have good potential but no experience. Usually, companies do not hire people who have no experience and due to this a lot of potential go unidentified. But sales aptitude test will give a clear picture of the potential and skills of the candidate and if there is good potential, the company can hire that candidate. This will generate mutual benefits i.e. benefit for the company as well as for the candidate.   

Candidates can take the sales aptitude test before applying for the job. This will give an insight into their current skill. Based on the results, they can improve and then apply for the position and that will increase their chances of selection. 

The success of a business is influenced by a methodical approach of generating leads that can be persuaded to sales and in turn establish customer loyalty. The principal objective of any business is not only to generate new customers but also retain the existing ones and, in the end, propel sales growth.  

Salesforce customer service is the epoch of cloud computing. It is a secure cloud-based customer relation management (CRM) platform that can be accessed through the internet. It constitutes of Cloud platforms such as Sales, Marketing, Analytics, Service, Commerce, Quip, Health, Chatter, and more that encompasses the sales, marketing, as well, as customer service outlook. It is not just a database platform but also allows you to enhance the information by way of customization by integrating with various tools and applications. Salesforce customer service is a strategic approach to increase efficiency and revenue and cut the cost of hardware management an organization incurs.   

Salesforce customer service is the backbone of any business and is highly recommended and adopted by various companies. It puts forward an unbeaten approach to maintain existing and potential customers and in turn improve customer relationships. The progression of a business is possible only when you convert a potential individual into a customer and existing customers into steadfast one. 

Defining customer challenges means diagnosing a situation so that real problems can be solved. The goal is to define whether the problem exists and if it does, how much of it exists. It is one of the most important elements of critical thinking. It is simple and any difficulty that arises is because it requires some patience and thorough examination. Sometimes defining customer problems may be nothing more than the tact of asking the right questions at the right time. 

Defining customer challenges may seem straightforward at first but there are many employees who fall over one or more of the critical steps, failing to resolve workplace issues. Successful problem solving requires several skills that will help one to proceed efficiently from identification to execution.  

By problems, we are addressing the things that stand in the way of the customers and the achievement of their goals. Customer driven companies would find it easier to identify customer problems and remove them to deliver top-class, value-added services to their customers. It is natural for people to like and trust anyone who would make every effort to remove their problems and find ways to prevent their reoccurrence.  

In trying to identify customer challenges, companies must remember that it is not only about defining the problems, but also about ascertaining their impact on the customer’s business. The aim of running any business is simply to gain maximum profits with the lowest possible turnover costs. Companies that find ways to help them achieve this goal while palliating their pain get increased business and earn brand advocates ready to encourage others to do business with them.  

The key to being able to identify customer challenges lies in an in-depth understanding of the customer – their emotional and personal needs, the latest trends within the industry they operate in and some other specifics. Understanding the customers will enable companies to communicate with them in the way that customers would understand and provide them with customized solutions for the best results.  

Companies need to better the service to their customers consistently. By constantly keeping the customers engaged, companies can stand a better chance of building a personal connection, allowing customers to trust them, thereby making it easier for the company to put together solutions of possible issues. Customized solutions are better equipped to address a particular issue with higher chances of success. A company’s ability to identify customer challenges is possibly one of the best ways to build and retain customers for long.  

To more accurately define the important problems from our customers’ point of view, following four steps are necessary:  

• Identify the information you are lacking and outline the information you hope to gather before doing your full research
• Conduct empathy interviews. Design thinking begins with conducting empathy interviews with as many people as possible. Make sure to interview people from diverse backgrounds and with a range of experiences to ensure you have covered every angle
• Always frame a problem using a distinct point of view. Although you might interview 100 people, you will be likely solving a problem for only a select few. Nailing down a unique point of view will help you file in on the underlying problem
• Look for contradictory information. Ultimately, you are trying to identify and solve the problems that have the greatest tensions with contradictions. Any contradictory information your interviewees share, merits further examination. When defining customer challenges, look for contradictions in the way people self-identify and the experiences they share

Importance of defining Customer Challenges

Defining a customer problem starts with looking at our product or service through the eyes of our customers. Once we understand the problem at hand, finding the perfect solution will be much easier. The most successful salespeople are the ones who successfully find customer problems and do something to solve them in a way that is convenient and cost effective. Of course, finding these problems and then delivering good solutions for them requires a well-planned and organized effort. 

Both individuals and organizations face a variety of problems. For this reason, the ability to define and solve problems is of great importance to both individuals and organizations. The importance of defining customer challenges lies in good problem-solving skills because it helps to show them a range of other competencies such as logic, creativity, resilience and determination. It is a vital skill both for your professional and personal life, an important skill assessed at job interviews and essential skill for all managers at all senior level roles. Those with good problem-solving skills are a trusted asset in any team – these are the people who make it easier for other people to understand things and help save customer’s time and money. It can greatly help one to progress more quickly and boost career opportunities.  

Benefits of Solving Customer Problems: –

People are trained to do the usual. They usually have the acquired skills and knowledge in what they are trained to do. However, people are hardly able to solve problems when they are the unexpected or unprecedented ones. If you become a regular problem solver at your workplace, you are easily recognized and appreciated. Knowledge alone is not the key to solving customer challenges but rather, complimenting it with orderly problem-solving approaches make a huge difference.  

Some of the benefits of problem solving are summarized below: – 

• Problem solving provides the necessary ongoing assessment information that can help leaders make instructional decisions. The discussions and recording involved in problem solving provide a rich source of information about the employee’s knowledge and understanding
• Good customer challenges solving activities provide an entry point that allows all employees to be working together on the same problem
• Problem solving gives employees the tools to apply their mathematical knowledge to solve both hypothetical and real-world problems
• Problem solving allows employees to work at their own speed and make decisions about the way they observe the problem. Because the focus is not limited to a specific solution, employees with different ability levels can experience both challenges and successes in the same problem
• No matter where we work or what our profession is, having the ability to solve problems will always boost our confidence level. Because you are sure of your ability to solve problems, you do not spend time worrying about what you would do if a problem arises

Without the ability of problem solving, customers would lose patience and trust in any company. We have discussed several times that customers now have far too many options rather than to waste their time on a company which is unable to give them what they need. In addition, companies need to identify customer problems and solve the ones that customers would consider the most value-added. Top sales professionals know that when you are able to find customer significant and pressing problems, they will be willing to pay for a solution.  

A critical success factor is how to market the problem-solving abilities so people know what we can do for them and how that they can save their time, money and effort. Taking the initiative to identify and decide to solve customer challenges in unique ways is leadership. Customers today have many problems. Our aim should be to find those that they want to be solved the earliest and also that we are most uniquely qualified to do so to give us a winning combination. 

You need to develop a strong relationship before a customer even thinks about working with you. Just like personal relationships, it’s important to nurture and build customer relationships as it is critical to the ongoing success of your organization. Managing and improving customer relationships is the essence of any organization. If you can’t retain existing clients, you’re bound to fail. There can be no business and no sales without customer relationships.  

A good customer relationship is when the customers have a persistent customer experience each time they engage with the business and leaves them with a good response. Organizations aims to create a mutually beneficial relationship with the customer that continues beyond the initial purchase.  

Importance of Building Customer Relationships –

There is a great importance of building customer relationships considering an arrangement including more probable leads and higher customer retention rates. To design it, here are the top three benefits of building great customer relations. 

• Increase Customer Lifetime Value – The longer the customer stays with your business, the greater is the value provided during their lifetime relationship. This way each customer will bring in more revenue for your company. When it comes to customer success, you should try hard to build strong customer relationships
• Reduced customer churn – Most customers stop buying from a company if they have a bad experience. When you follow proper techniques to build customer relationships, they come back to you and lower the chances of customer churn. This way you stop them from switching to other brands
• Improve Customer Loyalty – Gathering a new customer can cost much more than retaining an existing one. When customers are happy and satisfied, they go on recommending your brand with positive speech

These customer relationship strategies will help you to strengthen your relations with customers and create a strong base that will help you grow your business to new levels. Every business is different, but the significance of success is the same. 

Ways to Build Customer Relationships

• Message Should Be Clear and Consistent – It’s essential that the work your company does, is clear from the beginning since the first thing a customer notices is your branding. If a brand can’t build a stable identity, customers may suppose that the brand itself isn’t steady, and therefore, not reliable
• Communicate Often and Communicate Well – Ensuring that your team communicates regularly on services that are relevant to your customers is one way of doing this. Keeping the communication channels open and active can make a huge difference with how your customers interact with you and your ability to build valuable relationships with them. The aim is to be available
• Maintain Relationships – It’s important to build customer relationships to ensure that you not only stay at the forefront of your customer’s minds, but your brand is also implanted as their reach for that product or service
• Feedback – Having a unique insight your customers will often see things which can be ignored by the company’s own team. This peculiar insight enables them to be extraordinary when it comes to feedback, and by utilizing that you’ll find that your customers will become more engaged in the success of your company. Customer feedback helps you concentrate on your customers’ specific needs so you can find the best solutions to their problems. The better you meet their needs, the more your business will grow
• Rewards – Customers hold the purchasing power, which is why it’s important to make them feel valued by rewarding brand loyalty. If your customers are treated properly, they’ll purchase again from you and also become your biggest brand agents
• Active Listening – The best way to improve customer relations is by active listening. Always listen carefully respond without delay, whether it’s a praise or a complaint. Even negative feedback is valuable and can give you an honest estimate of customer satisfaction. Listening to customers and hearing their side of the story can make all the difference to be able to ease the situation, when it comes to finding a solution
• Retaining Customers – Even though we all try avoiding negative customer experiences in the first place, they do happen. But they can be transformed into an opportunity for growth, as customers can bring up things you may not have been aware of, and provide a unique and fresh outlook on your business. Retaining customers is much cheaper than hiring new ones. So not only is building customer relationships good for your image, it’s more favorable for your bottom line

Building customer relationships is an essential business aim across the globe. For improving brand engagement, give causes to your customers to emotionally connect with you.

Do you want to energize your employees, impress your customers, boost positive word-of-mouth, and increase repeat business? This training program assists in the development of people, systems, and processes that can provide a seamless experience for your customers – regardless of your domain! Get together and develop a service culture that far exceeds your customers’ expectations. 

Customer satisfaction was the key to business operations a decade ago. However, the recent emphasis has been on customer happiness rather than satisfaction. Businesses and the corporate world have realized the value of customer satisfaction. When a customer is satisfied and his or her needs and requirements are met in an excellent manner, that customer is potentially a long-term customer, increasing the organization’s sales and profitability.  

Businesses and the corporate world have recognized this principle of customer happiness and are training their employees, particularly those who have direct contact with the client or customer, in order to improve their service and make their customers happy. This customer service includes how each employee or team attends to the customer’s needs, how they communicate with the customer, how they deliver the product or service on time, their availability and punctuality in processing the customer’s needs, how they accept feedback positively, and how they strive to provide a better service consistently.  

The best customer service training programs include techniques and strategies that will enable employees and teams to provide better customer service and deal with challenges in doing so. The ultimate goal is to increase the profitability of the organization by retaining and farming existing customers. As a result, programs benefit organizations in the following ways: 

• Recognize the importance of customer service in the profitability of businesses
• Learn the rules of providing excellent customer service
• Improve your personal service orientation  
• Make customer service a collaborative effort
• Align systems, processes, and people to ensure consistent delivery

Train your Employees to Build a Customer Centric Organization

Organizations are striving to achieve maximum customer loyalty during this challenging business environment. Building a customer centric company is hard within the better of circumstance but becomes that much more challenging during economic slowdown. Companies need to build a culture of customer centricity which in turn drives loyalty, this helps them to return with new ways and thinking and working on feet. 

Organizations should very clearly articulate – 

1. Who are their customers? 
2. How does the brand appeal to the customers? 
3. Is their organization really a customer centric organization? 
4. What significant cultural changes need to be ensured to make customer focus a mindset? 

Customer experience training is crucial to any organization that works with people. Not only does each interaction between employee and customer affect the number of consumers retained, but employees with effective customer service skills feel a greater sense useful and commitment to their job. These skills make a positive impression within the minds of current and future customers. 

It’s not possible to push customer service to the side and expect customers to be happy. People are more connected than ever, which means they’re constantly sharing their experiences, including particularly poor and negative interactions. Lately it has become vital to specialize in developing a robust customer service department with well-trained, dedicated agents who have the tools to provide exceptional customer service. Providing top-notch support is directly associated with customer retention and loyalty, also as increasing overall customer satisfaction. Delighted customers are an excellent thanks to guarantee ongoing revenue from them, also as for bringing in new customers. 

However, all the focus on customer service will not yield any results unless the organization and all the people within it develop a customer centric mindset. Customer centricity requires employees to keep the customer in mind in every action and decision. This requires a change in the mindset. Customer centricity training helps in achieving just that. It helps employees in recognizing the importance of having a customer centric culture and enables them with tools to build customer centricity. It isn’t one-off training, but an ongoing, continuous process of growth throughout the organization. 

Consistently good service and offering proactive help, leads to a 32% increase within the likelihood for repurchase or product recommendation, consistent with CX Solutions. If the customer service representatives or anyone in the frontline directly interacting with customers are proactive and consistent, there’s higher probability of repurchases and building loyalty. Here may be a simple formula to elucidate this –  

First time quality + Effective Customer Service = Satisfaction

Agents that undergo the proper training are confident, equipped to unravel problems, and that they act like your company’s negotiators: 

• They weave through difficult demands 
• Craft solutions to individual cases 
• Convince customers that are close to cancel back to the fold 

Here are a couple of suggested topics that need to be added within the customer centricity training 

1. Stages of Customer Focus – To know the four stages of customer focus journey – Customer-focused, Customer-driven, Customer-engaged, and Customer-inspired. 
2. Listening Skills – Listening carefully, knowing what inquiries to make and the way to ask questions. Once your team member knows the customer and their issues, they have to display empathy and work quickly toward resolution
3. High – Velocity Feedback -Getting constant feedback from customers about their experience and if any changes are required. 

While a spread of elements creates a successful business, customer focus and centricity are center stage. Every interaction the organization has with a customer (or potential customer) can affect the business’ bottom line. Often, customer centricity is what separates companies that thrive from people who fail. Therefore, it’s imperative that companies invest in quality customer centricity training programs. 

Merits and demerits of customer focus skills

CREATING A CUSTOMER FOCUS IN THE ORGANIZATION   

Having a customer focus contributes much to the overall success of a business and involves guaranteeing that all aspects of the company put its customers’ satisfaction first. Customers are the soul of organizations. Companies that fail to focus their trainings, strategies, and especially, their workforces on pleasing the customers are simply pursuing failure. High-performance based on growth, profitability, market share, and customer satisfaction, understand that customer focus is a blend of inclination, engagement, fulfillment, association, retention, and more.  

Develop a Strong Customer Centric Culture

• Keep in Touch – Agreeing to the reasonable needs of customers is straightforward. You need to know what they want and expect, in the first place. The right way to do that is to ask them. Then provide that in a timely way at a price that’s reasonable.  Find ways to keep in touch with many your customers to get a balanced view: in person, phone surveys, inquiries, response cards with the products and services you offer
• Customers Complain – Be prepared for both the good and bad news. Don’t be resistive; just listen and respond to rightful criticisms and note the rest. Vocal customers will usually complain more than praise. You should not be affected by the negative comments; people who have positive opinions speak up less
• Anticipate Customer Needs – Get in the habit of meeting with your internal or external customers regularly to build communication, they need to be at ease to contact you about problems and you need to be able to keep in touch with them for important information. Try to foresee their needs for your products and services before they even know about them; provide your customers with positive surprises; highlights they weren’t expecting; delivery before time; more than they ordered
• Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes – If you were a customer instead, what would you expect; what kind of transposition would you tolerate; what price would you be willing to pay for the quality of product or service you provide; what would be the things you would complain about? Answer all calls from customers, if you promise a response, do it; if it taking time inform them immediately; after you have responded, ask them if the problem is solved
• Create an Environment for Experimentation and Learning – Keep working for continuous improvement. Never be satisfied. Always drive to improve all work processes so they deliver good products and services the customers want. Don’t be hesitant to try and fail
• Look at Your Own Personal Work Habits – If your work habits are designed for your comfort and not for the customer, then it can lead to failure. Is there room for some improvement? Are you rendering yourself with the principles you have learnt? If not, then this is one of the major reasons why these efforts fail
• Imagine Yourself as a Dissatisfied Customer – Make a list of all the undesirable things that have happened to you as a customer during the past month. Things like delays, incorrect orders, cost not as agreed, phone calls not attended, poor service, careless clerks, out of stock products, etc. If any of these things are being faced by your customers, then do research of your lost customers. Find out the key problems and see what you can do to eliminate them. Study your competitor’s fouls and then try to make your organization more attractive
• Imagine Yourself as a Satisfied Customer – Write down all the good things that have happened to you as a customer during the past month. What made you happy as a customer?  Was it timely service, good values, attended phone calls? Are any of your customers experiencing any of these adequate transactions with you and your business? Study your successful customer transactions so they can be regulated. Watch for what your competitors are doing well and see what you can also do to improve customer service
• Play Detective – Be a student of the assignments and processes around you at airports, restaurants, supermarkets and other public places. As a customer, how would you design those things in a different manner to make them more effective and efficient? What rules did you follow? Apply those same rules to your own work

Being customer focused is likely to make customers more comfortable in dealing with you. Being customer focused can help you improve your business, and profits. Customer focus means feeling what your customer is feeling, thinking of what the customer is dreaming of and what he is aspiring to achieve or become. 

How to use your key competency skills to be customer centric

In an organization that is dependent on the market for their growth, customers are the most important; after all, it takes months to acquire a potential customer but only seconds to lose one! If you have the key competency skills to please customers in a customer oriented organization, you are sure to make a mark in the performance appraisal system. If you don’t, then developing the key competency skills of managing and understanding customer needs, both internal and external, is going to help you grow in your career. Many organizations fail to be customer centric and instead are profit oriented and this stunts the growth of the customer success rate.  

Seek Feedback

Getting a fair reflection from your customer database in a timely manner is important to get a true evaluation of your products and services. According to Bill Gates, your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning; which comes to show that reaching out to customers may not be the most pleasant experience, but it definitely is a good source of feedback. Use your key competency skills to get through to your customers and find out what they want and what they think is wrong now. Look at your products and services from the eyes of your customers and propose changes to the organization with records of customer complaints. 

Keep your calm

An unpleasant colloquy could set you off; however, since customers are the most important to your organization, you can’t do that because it will reflect you in a poor light in the performance appraisal system. Managing angry customers is a key competency skill you must develop if you want to stay in an organization that is a free enterprise system. Answer all legitimate questions and statements but nothing more. Stick to what you know, don’t make up an answer. Take note of all complains and questions that you don’t know the answers to and be sure to pass it on to the people in charge of the respective questions and complains.  

Keep yourself in check

Sometimes people get so focused on work that they forget their primary targets – the customer. Understand that your organization has a customer target criterion and designing your work around what you want the most, might not satisfy the needs of the customer. Stay focused on your work and who the product or service is for. Work hard and in continuance towards the improvement of the product or service. Reinstate forgotten work principles to yourself on a regular basis. 

Role play

Observe the processes and work flows in different fields of work, maybe at a restaurant, the theatre or the supermarkets. Then think of how you would design it according to your principles and how the things you liked were designed. If you liked or imagined fast customer service, quick turnaround time, courteous customer support executives or good value for money, then try to instill those qualities into your own work.  

If you are able to develop your core competency skills of customer orientation, you can be sure to make individual growth in your career.  

In an organization that is dependent on the market for their growth, customers are the most important; after all, it takes months to acquire a potential customer but only seconds to lose one! Using one’s key competency skills to be customer centric comes in handy to understand customer needs and resolve their issues. 

Prognosticate

Developing a relationship with internal and external customers will help create a line of communication both ways; when you need information from them or when they want help with something. This relationship however, is more favorable to you because you will be able to develop the key competency skill to prognosticate customer behavior and needs before it happens or them realizing it. This will always keep you one step ahead and your organization will seem just magical to your customer! Keep them on their toes, with some surprises or a bargain on the service or product they ordered, or free samples. Take the initiative to come up with new ideas to keep your customers in awe and going the extra mile for your organization will probably reflect the performance appraisal system of our organization 

Become the customer

The best way to understand customer needs is to think like your customer. What is your product or service worth and how much would you pay for it from our pocket? How much turnaround time will you accept? These questions to yourself are important because you cannot expect the customer to do something you would not do yourself. As a customer of other products and services, think of all the satisfactory and dissatisfactory transactions that you have encountered. This will help you progress your products or services with a benchmark in mind. Launch two groups of data, one for satisfactory experiences and the other for dissatisfactory experiences. Then use your key competency skills to implement the good experiences into your product and create a work flow plan with complete elimination of the dissatisfactory experiences. However, this might be subjectively focused on you and therefore, creating a parallel focus group that would objectively quantify problem areas, customer needs, wants and pricing problems is vital.  

Customer insight

When it comes to designing your work and schedule, make it work from your customer’s point of view. Do what you know what your customers want and need and not what you want or need. The key competency skills of being customer centric will not only help you win the markets over but also, win points in your organization’s performance appraisal system. Many organizations fail over time due to the lack of a customer centric work flow.  

Fall and learn

Markets change, trends change and needs change; therefore, keep creating an atmosphere where you can try new things and improve existing products and services. Keep yourself motivated to develop your key competency skill of innovation and don’t be put down by failure and accept that the only failure you will face is satisfaction. Stay in the continuous rhythm of improvement that is focused on quality and customer satisfaction. The higher management sees all, and they are the people who manage the performance appraisal system. 

In a growing, widespread and well-connected economy that we have today, customers have more information and more choices. On the other hand, the number of competitors is on the increase and they are all fighting for the same wallet. In such an intensively competitive business world, it is extremely essential to keep the prime focus on the customer. 

With the increased popularity of DiSC, supervisors and coaches now seek to understand what is DiSC. DiSC refers to an assessment tool that can help you re-establish self-awareness about your strengths, areas of improvement and blind spots. The DiSC tool focuses on behavioral and temperamental factors hinged on four unrelated styles or traits such as Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. DiSC offers a reliable self-learning tool and knowing more about others, and how to respond in interpersonal situations. The more detailed versions of the DiSC pedagogical tool help predict how an individual will react to a particular team, management and leadership, given his or his DiSC style.    

DiSC assessment tools help you and your team in the following ways: 

• Improve your self-awareness: how you react to conflict, factors that motivate you, stress-causing agents and how you resolve issues 
• Make working relationships better by understanding the communication demands of team members
• Foster efficient teamwork and reduce team conflict 
• Evolve more persuasive sales skills by pinpointing and reacting to customer styles 
• Manage more successfully by appreciating the predispositions and preferences of employees and team members 
• Increase self-knowledge for well-rounded and efficient leaders 

What does DiSC stand for? What does each letter?  

DOMINANCE  

Person emphasizes on accomplishing set objectives, the upshot is confidence, sees a big picture, may be blunt, welcomes challenges and does not beat around the bush.  

INFLUENCE  

Person insists on controlling or convincing others, honesty, establishing relationships, shows enthusiasm, optimism, collaborative, and frowns upon being ignored.  

STEADINESS  

Person insists on cooperation, honesty, dependability, calm approach and style, supportive and doesn’t like pressure.  

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 

Person pursues exceptional quality, accuracy, prowess, and competency also enjoys autonomy, objective analysis, attention to detail, and has the apprehension of being wrong.   

HOW IT WORKS? 

DiSC model plays a vital role as an assessment tool in organizations, governments, and companies seeking a straightforward and powerful tool: 

• Establish productive teams 
• Develop effective leadership, coaching, management, and supervision 
• Train a dominant sales force 
• Improve customer support 
• Help with adjustments and conflict management 
• Assist in recruitment, outsourcing, franchising, promoting
• Improve the coaching and guardianship  

Fundamental Principles  

• All DiSC behavioral dimensions and preferences, we all blend all four styles 
• Your career, performance and leadership skills depend on a set of factors such as experience, exposure, and level of maturity 
• Improving self-knowledge leads to more efficient relationships with others 
• Knowledge of the DiSC styles of co-workers or other stakeholders will help you know their preferences and how they stand out 
• You can enhance the quality of the workplace or other environments with DiSC for better relationships 

Closing Remarks  

The DiSC instrument is designed for use with one person in a particular circumstance when responding. DiSC allows employees who undertake the assessment and the companies for developing or teaching with a detailed system for appreciating one’s behaviors and that of others. Facilitation systems and reports use a consistent language and technique for training workforce and over a worker’s career with many applications. DiSC packs a wealth of insights for self-learning and understanding others in a broad range of situations, at the workplace and elsewhere. DiSC uses reliable and valid applications with state-of-the-art data approaches.        

What is the preferred DISC style for salespeople?

There are several pre-conceived notions about the qualities required to be a great salesperson. Many people believe that best salespeople are the ones who are risk takers, social bees and go getters. What is takes to be successful in any role is that one must be self-aware about their own needs and priorities and an ability to adapt one’s style and communication based on the needs and priorities of their customer. Good salespeople need to draw on all the DiSC styles. Salespeople must draw on all styles based on the situation, the customer, and the stage the stage they are in in the sales cycle. No effective salesperson remains in one style during an entire sales cycle. 

Salespeople are frequently at a loss for ways to establish rapport with customers. The Everything DiSC Sales profile assists salespeople in recognizing and customizing their message so that it passes through the mental filtering system of the customer. A good sales pitch is never a one-sided conversation, but rather a two-way street. It is critical for a salesperson to understand the customer before engaging in conversation with them. The DiSC Trainer Certification teaches how to use the Everything DiSC Sales Profile to identify a customer’s buying style and how to use that information to develop the right sales pitch with minimal homework. To improve the effectiveness of sales conversations, use Customer Interaction Mapping to capture the buyer’s attention. 

Today’s buyer has no time to waste on frivolous sales talk or become overwhelmed by information overload. Everything’s Customer Interaction Mapping Feature DiSC Sales Profile is a simple three-step methodology for understanding the customer and designing tailored interactions that provide the customer with information that is relevant to their needs. DiSC knowledge empowers sales professionals to engage with customers by decoding their priorities and preferences and designing value-added propositions for them. The key is to engage with the customer while keeping their behavioral priorities in mind. Learn the art of asking the right questions to open and maintain dialogues with customers.  

Selling today has returned to basics such as solving a problem or addressing an existing need in a novel way. However, in order to understand the problem or need, every salesperson must be able to balance asking and telling. The DiSC Trainer Certification Program is chock-full of activities and games that solely focus on the art of questioning, active listening, and personalized communication, all while using the DiSC behavioral model as a guide. Salespeople with DiSC knowledge may find new ways to communicate. 

Is there a Best DiSC Style for Hiring in Sales?

When it comes to hiring a sales candidate, very often people ask, “Is there a best DiSC style or DiSC personality type that I should opt for?” They wish to know which of the acronyms out of DiSC they should opt, or should they opt for a combination of the acronyms? To answer this question, there is no single DiSC profile into which an ideal sales executive can be categorized into. In fact, it purely depends on the type of business you are into, or the type of selling that is required for your particular line of product. Some factors that may govern your decision of hiring entail the business type, the industry type, or the type of sales interaction that is required. In terms of the types of sales interaction, it depends on whether it is direct sales, in-person sales, phone sales, or internet-based sales and so on and so forth. It also depends on the style of your sales program such as whether it is solution selling, impact selling, or spin selling. 

Think Twice Before You Pick a Type of DiSC Profile

Many a times it has been observed that clients directly jump to conclusions and say something like: “I am hiring for sales, and so I need a ‘DI’ or an ‘ID’ profile”. The reason behind this is that they feel that if they specify the type, it would help in sourcing a sales candidate who is motivated by results. They also further add that they need someone who is good with people and an independent self-starter. While it may sound good on the surface (since a lot of sales personnel fit into such stereotypes), and you will also probably end up sourcing high performing sales candidates, but there is a flipside of hiring the obvious. 

When you hunt for a certain type, the candidate may be driven by his or her own bottom-line instead of being driven by yours. Such a candidate may not even be a team player, as they may have a competitive spirit not only against your competitors, but also towards other sales staff within your organization itself. It is here that DiSC can help you figure out if a potential candidate is likely to act independently or if he or she is more of a team player. However, it won’t measure for you morals, values, or loyalty to be clear. While each DiSC pattern is well equipped to sell and may even perform exceedingly in certain sales situations, they may also be disastrous in certain cases. So, you need to use your discretion here. 

Every DiSC Profile/Style has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, choosing the right style of DiSC can be quite tricky. Consider the following points:  

• While an ‘I’ may be the type of person that you want as your sales person, but they may not be great in dealing with rejection and take things personally
• Similarly, a ‘D’ may be great at focusing on the bottom line, but the question is such a candidate is focused on whose bottom line, his or your clients’?  
• Likewise, an ‘S’ sales personnel may be intimidated by a ‘D’ client. So, there is every possibility that your ‘S’ sales personnel may altogether avoid asking for sale and closing the deal with your ‘D’ client. However, if you are looking out for a sincere sales person and no pressure sales personnel, this may be your type

The bottom line is that DiSC is not about cloning your best sales guy. You need to understand that people are much more complex in character. DiSC can act as a guiding force for you to make your hiring decisions.   

Sales is a Matching Process

Sales can be likened to a matching process. While you cannot pin down a specific DiSC style as the best for sales, you can certainly get your sales personnel to match the right product/service according to your client’s requirements by matching the client’s style and style of your sales guy. 

Out of the four DiSC styles, the two most outgoing personality types are the ‘D’ and ‘I’ styles. These two styles are grouped together, as they are both assertive and fast paced in nature. On the other hand, the ‘C’ and ‘S’ styles are relatively less assertive, quieter in nature, and slow decision makers. 

Good sales personnel should draw on all the styles. Sometimes they may need to act excitedly regarding a particular product or service to get it noticed and behave like an ‘I’ style. There may be times when a sales person needs to empathize with a frustrated customer and show their sincerity to help them by displaying an ‘S’ style. The bottom line is that while hiring, you cannot choose one DiSC style over another, as each style has its advantages and disadvantages. In fact, no sales personnel follow just one style during a sales cycle. 

When you hire for sales, you need to first determine which DiSC style you are dealing with and what DiSC style customer you have at your end. Once you are able to figure this out, you need to make your sales personnel adjust his or her priority and pace and adapt to the style of the client or the customer that he or she is going to cater to. 

For instance, if your hired sales personnel are a ‘D’ style or an ‘I’ style and you want them to deal effectively with an ‘S’ or ‘C’ style client, ensure that the sales person knows that these two styles make decisions slowly and privately. So, they need to act in a relaxed manner, ask for the opinion of the client, and look for ways to incorporate the opinion of the customer in their conversation. They should follow the lead instead of trying to take control. 

Similarly, if your sales person is an ‘S’ or ‘C’ style and they are expected to sell to a ‘D’ or ‘I’ style client, they need to pick up pace. They should initiate conversations, provide recommendations, and completely avoid beating around the bush with such clients. 

Another example can be if your sales person is a ‘D’ or ‘C’ style and they are expected to sell to an ‘I’ or ‘S’ style customer, they need to show interest in their hobbies, family, job etc. Then they should utilize this knowledge to personalize their dealings with the customer. 

To conclude, it is advisable that instead of trying to hire a best DiSC style for sales, you should customize your sales training in order to support the challenges faced by each DiSC style sales person in your team. 

You can buy DiSC profile and accessory products like facilitator kits and pedagogical tools.  Order the profile online and use electronic payment mechanisms to pay on the nail. After receiving your payment, you will get a guideline on how to fill in the online assessment, inviting your respondents to a website with a customized access code. 

Allow time for each respondent to feed data into the system. Afterward, the program completes scoring and allows each participant to view or print their profiles. You can generate the comprehensive report on the website used by respondents using the access code.  

What You Can Buy and Implement Now!  

Everything DiSC Workplace Profile: Create more efficient and lucrative working relationships by team building, corporate communication, conflict resolution, motivation, improve output, and career development. You can buy DiSC profile for insights into your personality and behavioral styles of your team members. Learn persuasive communication and strategies to even out challenges when interacting with colleagues with different DiSC styles.       

Everything DiSC Leadership Profile christened Everything DISC Work of Leaders: You can buy DiSC profile for leadership training, executive or directorship coaching, and career development. It reveals your leadership challenges and shapes leaders whose net worth derives from networks on an explicit model. Leaders receive concrete measures geared to steer a team in pursuit of the desired outcome. Understand yourself and tendencies entirely to lead more efficiently while adapting to changing situations.  

Everything DiSC Sales Profiles: If you buy DiSC profile for sales, your pitch-people will communicate better with their target audience. DiSC four-dimensional behavioral proclivities help you tailor your style to that of customers or prospects.  

Everything DiSC Management Profile: This DiSC management profile improves managerial skills and flexibility in training, delegation, executive coaching, motivation, career development, and leadership tutelage. Organizations buy DiSC profile for managers to help them DiSCover their preferences or priorities, motivate staff successfully, know how to develop personnel, and how your superiors view you and your approach.        

DiSC Classic 2.0 Profile: You can buy DiSC profile online in the original form and receive results online. The profile makes professional development, career enhancement, personal coaching, communication, team-building, conflict resolution, and customer service more efficient. It helps staff at all levels to better understand their strengths, priorities, and improvement areas. DiSC provides a common language to address to organizational culture and solve issues related to behavioral styles, solves frustrations and conflicts, and improves relationships.  

DiSC Classic 2.0 Plus Paper Profile: When you buy DiSC profile 2+, you get the original program and six additional reports. It comes in handy for professional development, career progression, sales, personal training, communication, team-building, management, customer service, and more. The additional reports provide insights on how to create productive relationships, relating to colleagues and surroundings, management strategies, and approach to leading others.    

Where to Buy DiSC Products? 

You can buy DiSC profile online from a licensed and authorized partner of John Willey & Sons. Strenthscape.com is a licensee with intellectual property rights to sell DiSC assessment and corporate training tools in India and beyond. A licensed dealer in DiSC products gives guaranteed workplace results and authentic services.     

Conducting a business effectively requires much energy, time, money and many other resources. Focus on being as efficient as possible to increase your chances for success. Productivity can be improved by delegating, remaining focused, making use of tools, using highly technical processes and welcoming change.  

Ways To Effectively Conduct A Business

Your business activities might be running smoothly but, things could be better by executing the following ways to make your business more efficient to enjoy raised revenues and profits. 

• Communication is the Key – Effective and apt communication is an essential component to make a business more efficient than ever. If there are poor communication means in your organization, the employees and other business concerns will be unable to solve the issues they are facing. As a result, the business can suffer from unusual loss. Effective communication also enables a business to keep in contact with its customers to provide them quality services whenever needed
• Mechanize Business Processes – Mechanize whatever you can whether it is about generating and sending receipts to vendors or having to send pay cheques to the employees at the end of the month. This way you not only save time but also increase overall business productivity. If you are using too many tools and equipments to conduct your business effectively, you can automate various maintenance-related processes and tasks to keep business resources in good working condition
• Minimize Unproductive Travel Costs – Most of the businesses spend a lot of time and money in travel to meet their clients that can eventually leads to low productivity. By using latest technology such as video calling, remote working and virtual offices, much time and such travel costs can be saved leading to surprising boost in overall productivity and business performance
• Invest in the Proper Equipment and Tools – In this age of technology, you need to invest business money in the right tools if you really want to conduct your business effectively. Taking this step can result in enhanced productivity and completing the projects on time. In this way, employees will also be able to meet the deadlines and accomplish the assigned tasks in the given timeframe to contribute for the success of business
• Online Presence – In this digital age and highly competitive market, having successful online presence is very essential for any business. A business website, social media profiles or blog can help you provide your clients with more details and information about your products or services
• Maintain High Employee Morale – Satisfied and happy employees can do a lot for your business. When they feel valued, they are more likely to work hard to execute business operations more efficiently. Know your employees personally and highlight their achievements in front of others to make them feel proud. You can also give employee of the month award to honor the most brilliant employee of the company to keep the moral of other employees high
• Outsource – Outsourcing is a great way to make a business more efficient. By doing so, more business can be done in less time while spending minimum money and energy. Outsource the business processes that can cost you much. Hire suitable contractors or outsourcing agencies not only to save business finances but  to get the jobs done efficiently as well. The main aim of any business is to earn profits, which involves risk and investment of time, ideas and money.

Conducting a business effectively is not possible without proper management of time, human resources, money, updated technology, innovative ideas, and co-operation. To make profit, a good businessman not only tries to attract new customers, but also retain old ones and also provides the best of goods and services according to the needs of his customers. Losing a customer can be a setback, because one unhappy customer can turn down many more customers. This will lead to fewer profits, and ultimately lowering the market share and value.  

Business does not simply mean producing goods and services and earning profits. It involves a great risk and a businessman needs to be spirited and flexible to provide the customer with the best products or services at a reasonable cost which retains the customers as well as makes good profits, making it a win-win situation for the business.