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The Professional Society for Sales & Marketing Training is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating business results for our members and their companies by improving sales performance. Our longstanding vision is to continue our leadership role as the leading resource and authority for the sales and marketing training industries.
SMT welcomes aticles, idea mints, and book reviews to be submitted for future newsletters.
Please e-mail Becky Stewart-Gross if you are interested in submitting material to be considered for the newsletter.
Click here for article specifications.
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SMT to Conduct First Ever Comprehensive Sales & Marketing Training Survey
Survey Open in Early October
The Board of Directors of the Professional Society for Sales & Marketing Training (SMT) has announced today that the Society will undertake its first ever Comprehensive Sales & Marketing Training Survey. Over 10,000 corporate trainers, Vice Presidents and Directors of Training, Sales and/or Marketing will be invited to complete the survey, which will be open for a span of 60 days. Results of the survey will be published in the First Quarter 2005 and made available complimentary to all who have completed the survey.
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Message from the President
by Renie McClay, SMT President
Have you seen the Sales Trainer Competencies identified by SMT? They are listed on the SMT web site, www.smt.org. What a good place to give yourself a “check up” on developmental opportunities! SMT is committed to providing opportunities for trainers to grow – through our annual conference or webinars, or reading great articles from industry professionals, or learning Best Practices from your peers.
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Less Than Eight Weeks Until SMT's 2004 Annual Conference
Please Join Us in South Florida for This Year's Dynamic Experiential Event
SMT's 2004 Annual Conference is less than two months away!!! Don't forget to register today!
The Conference will be conducted in sunny South Florida at the Renaissance Boca Raton Hotel, November 8 - 10, 2004. SMT's highest profile event of the year will bring together the best and brightest in sales and marketing training world. This year's conference titled “Customer Focused Sales and Marketing Training” has been designed for trainers to create an opportunity to learn, network, socialize and relax in a casual, yet learning-intensive environment.
Click here for more details http://www.smt.org/home.jsp?page=99&tog=3.
To open the Conference Brochure PDF, please click http://www.smt.org/servlet/viewWhitePaper?gmr_id=8&dbtb=upload_files
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What the Sales Leader is Keeping From the CEO
by Dirk Beveridge, President, Beveridge Consulting Group
There are some things the leaders of the sales team do not want the CEO to know. The first "hidden" issue suggests that if your sales team is selling in the same way they did just 24 months ago, your company is in major trouble. The second hidden issue - research demonstrates that over ninety percent of all sales organizations are selling in the same way they did 36 months ago. That's trouble! But, it can and should be a major opportunity for your sales organization.
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Thinking Straight About Training... and Training Evaluation
by Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Ed.D. and Glenn Jackson
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Rob Brinkerhoff | Sometimes training works very well to help achieve business results, and sometimes (unfortunately many times) it does not. The difference is most often not in the training program itself - is in how the company manages its training programs and processes.
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Letting Salespeople Set the Price
by Rick Wills, Manager, Education & Development, GROWMARK, Inc.
Most managers will tell you that letting salespeople set price is much like having the fox guard the chicken house. What you end up with is chaos, which is why few companies consider getting their salespeople involved in the pricing loop.
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Making Change Happen: Know, Believe, and Do
by Barbara Yoli, Principal, Change Results Consulting
Are you moving your sales force from product selling to solution selling? Are you trying to increase customer face-time by driving consumption of more e-Learning? Are you gearing up to combat a significant competitive threat? Have you recently re-organized the sales force around distinct customer or product segments? Are you worried that your sales teams’ skills are becoming increasingly obsolete in a changing marketplace? In the past few years, almost every major sales organization has attempted to change how its sales force sells and approaches the market. The challenge is: How can the sales training organization help support and drive sustainable organization change?
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IMPACT Without Authority
Leveraging Internal Resources to Achieve Greater Success
by Jane Helsing, VP – Strategic Accounts, Personnel Decisions International
The ability to influence others is increasingly crucial – and difficult – in today’s matrixed corporations. This article discusses its importance and provides some ideas to becoming more skilled in this area.
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Treasure vs. Trash
Differing Perceptions of Marketing’s Leads -- And How to Get in Sync with Sales
by Jennifer Saunders, Vice President of Marketing, Huthwaite
There’s estrangement between Marketing and Sales in many organizations. A major reason for it is the chasm between them about the value of the leads Marketing provides. Marketing believes its leads can make a significant contribution to the sales process. The leads identify live prospects. The salespeople can target their efforts better. It took hard work and in some cases high cost to generate the leads. They’re to be treasured.
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Customer Satisfaction No Longer Enough To Assure Loyalty
by Susan Onaitis, President, Global Learning Link
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Terry Vavra | “Consistently delivering experiences that delight a customer creates loyal behavior that cannot be achieved through mere (customer) satisfaction alone,” according to Terry Vavra, author of “The Customer Delight Principle: Exceeding Customers’ Expectations for Bottom-Line Success” and keynote speaker at the upcoming SMT Annual meeting in Boca Raton, FL. Delighting customers, on the other hand, is a strong predictor of their behavior and those behaviors translate into repeat business and higher spending.
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Profile of SMT Board Member Jay Franciscus
Jay Franciscus, SMT Secretary and National Learning and Development Manager for Time Warner Retail, is profiled in this month's issue of Trainer Talk.
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Don’t the New Hires Get It?
How to Tell if They Really Sell
by Carletta Young, Senior Consultant, The Omni Group
The last training session proved disastrous. There you were, at the front of the room, speaking enthusiastically about the challenges of turning reluctant prospects into satisfied clients. But the faces staring back at you looked skeptical. A couple of people seemed genuinely and openly uninspired by your unabashedly brilliant and animated presentation; others simply looked confused. Isn’t this the sales-training class? What’s wrong with these new hires?
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The Business of Improv
by Renie McClay, SMT President
If you have seen an improv group perform, you likely have seen great comedy, had some laughs and experienced an enjoyable evening. So, what does improv have to do with training?
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Is That a Mouse in Your Hand?
by Ruth Soskin
Recently, I taught a group of sales people how to use e-mail. Before the session began, a participant approached me with a nervous look on his face. Timidly, he told me that he had not been “born with a mouse in his hand”. I smiled and assured him that neither had I! I promised him that I’d make the process as painless as possible.
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Effective Corporate Universities
by Natalie Caldwell, Regional Training Manager, Centennial Wireless
As the economy improves, organizations throughout the business community are once again concerned with attracting and retaining the right people for the right jobs. The reasoning behind this renewed sense of urgency is that if an organization hires the right person for the right job, then the individual is likely to perform well. Because the individual performs well, he/she is likely to stay, which translates into a tenured and knowledgeable staff for the organization. Retention of these top performers is instrumental to the success of any business initiative.
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2003 Annual Conference - Sales & Marketing Panel
Part Four in a Series of Articles Detailing the Exchange in Des Moines, Iowa
by Don Sterkel, Dir., Learning & Development, Time Warner Retail
In this our final installment of the 2003 ASMT Annual Conference Recap of the Sales and Marketing Panel, we will be looking at some of the shared best practices of panel members and audience questions.
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2005 SMT Sales & Marketing Training Survey to Close Soon. Last Chance to Complete Survey and Receive Complimentary Report Detailing Results. Click here to take survey.
Deadline Extended to Submit Nomination for Best Sales Trainer Award
Questioning That Works
Isabel L. Kersen, Ph.D.
The Power Edge
A Structured Approach to Brainstorming
Steve Bistritz
Learning Solutions International
Metaphorically Selling
Author: Anne Miller
Book Review by Susan Onaitis
2005 Training for the Sales & Marketing Trainer Workshop
May 3 - 5, 2005
DePaul University O'Hare Campus
Rosemont, Illinois
2005 SMT Annual Conference
November 14 - 16, 2005
Amelia Island Plantation
Amelia Island, Florida
Click Here to Join the SMT Family
SMT Welcomes Our New Members
Piece of Pie Strategic Coaching
ProActive Training and Consulting
Softmed Systems, Inc.
"Being a member of SMT provides me with an invaluable network of sales and marketing training professionals that have an incredible amount of experience and knowledge to share... I rely on this prestigious group to support me in dealing with business challenges unique to our profession...
SMT members are my peers, my mentors, my friends... SMT is the only professional organization I belong to..."
Mary Elliott Bassett, Worldwide Director, Sales and Customer Training, Entertainment Imaging, Eastman Kodak Company
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