Sales Training Blog

Moneyball, best clean movie this year!

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:40:00 GMT

Just saw a great movie, with no sex, drugs, nothing blew up, not even a drunk appeared. Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt (Sev7en, Ocean’s 11, 12, 13), Jonah Hill (Super Bad, Knocked Up), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Mission Impossible III, Magnolia), Robin Wright (Unbreakable, Princess Bride), Chris Pratt (Wanted, Bride Wars), Steven Bishop (The Rundown, Friday Night Lights), and Jack Mcgee (Crash, 21) is that movie.

It is great family entertainment, and had a lot of messages for us business folks. It is based on the true story of Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, who is handicapped with the lowest salary allowance in the game. If he ever wants to win the World Series, Billy has to change the way baseball is played. Billy decides to go up against tradition and the old way of doing things, where scouts looked for young promising players, paid them a lot to join, and expected them to turn into stars a few years later. He has a salary cap of a little under 40 million, the Yankees are at 120 million. So he can’t pay the big numbers.

When he looses three key players in one season, he makes a decision to do things a new way. He meets Jonah Hill while trying to make a deal for another player, strikes up a conversation, realizes he is into statistics. Economics degree from Yale, he is using a computer program written by a security guard at a meat processing plant. Not a prescription for success. But since he has nothing to lose, Brad hires him, and they are all in.

They use statistical analysis to determine who will join their team. No matter if the guy has played somewhere else, and is too old to be productive (Steven Bishop at age 36), or if the player has played at one position and cannot play there any more (Chris Pratt, a catcher with a bad arm), they are evaluated by how many times they get on base, and how that affects the score. So the catcher is now a first baseman, who doesn’t have to throw to second base anymore. Robin Wright plays Brad’s ex-wife, lots of others you will recognize; all the scouts are famous for character parts, which is what the scouts are all about. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the team coach, who actually determines who plays what position. When he and Brad disagree as to who plays what spot, Brad trades a couple of guys, just to be sure the message gets through, he wants a certain player to play a certain spot.

So does it work, you will have to see for yourself. Let me say that it seems at first it is not gonna happen. Then momentum builds, and it looks like it is. The key to Brad’s job is the last game. If you lose it, you have lost the season, at least in his mind. You baseball fans know this already, so this is not a spoiler. They set a record of a bunch of wins in a row, a real winning streak. It is exciting to watch, the baseball game is full of superstitions. Brad never watches the team play, it is bad luck. The only game that he comes to see, they lose a 11 run lead! So some of those superstitions are not just folk-lore, they really happen.

The movie is one of those flash-back types, so popular today. We see Brad as a young boy playing ball, then in high school, then getting signed by a major league team. He moves from one team to another, not exactly on the rise with each move. In fact, it is more of a step down than up in most cases. Pretty rare not to have drinking, sex, women who throw themselves at the stars, etc. We are not shown that part of the ball game, though it is probably there, just not glorified this time.

You may think, not much drama in watching a ball game or several years of ball games. There is, trust me. We have emotional ups and downs, Jonah gets to be in the spotlight when it looks like the system is flawed, Brad is fighting his own demons, lot going on. The movie ends up on a good note, you will have to see it, or know you baseball to realize where it is going. Great movie, 4 innings.

Two new videos!

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:03:00 GMT

Sales without incentives!

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:32:00 GMT

Thinking about how to sell HVAC equipment this summer, with a tough economy and vastly lowered government rebates: we must increase the demand. Happened to carrot sales a few years ago, they leveled off, then dropped off. junk foods reign!

So a bunch of carrot farmers went to advertising agencies and listened as they told them how to increase sales.

1. Advertise more, when is the last time you saw a carrot commercial?
2. Advertise them as health foods, a good thing.
3. Advertise more.

All except one. When they got to Crispin Porter + Bogusky (you know, the group that invented the creepy Burger King King), they had a different message. Re-brand carrots as a junk food. here are a couple of commercials that they proposed, and a website to go along with it. Started with a few Baby Carrot vending machines in Boulder High Schools, improved sales by a ton in that market. They rolled out the baby carrots as a junk food, built a campaign around the benefits of that concept: easy to carry, easy to eat, you can dip them, eat a few, make a meal, see where we are going?

So how do we sell out stuff this summer, the old fashioned way, by selling comfort. And energy savings, IAQ, humidity control, lowered sound levels, lowered carbon footprint, even temperature, consistent temperature, all the things a new system can do, we have set aside many of these benefits for the tax credit.

Here are the commercials and website, enjoy! And practice your benefit statements to the consumer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bhq_NL6jL0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbZHasnugts&feature=related

then go to the website:

http://www.babycarrots.com/

So that is how baby carrots are back on the menu, they sold the benefits of them, just like we have to sell our products. So get started.

Professional Email and You!

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:30:00 GMT

At SIP Training we feel very strongly about always maintaining a professional image which is why we advocate using a professional email account for dealing with your clients. If you already have a website and domain name then you most likely have the ability to setup a professional email address (ex. mike@siptraining.com) but you may still be using a free account through, AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, MSN etc.

There are many advantages of using professional company branded email accounts such as:

Branding, it is a proven fact that top of the mind awareness is king with customers. the more they see and identify a company the more likely they are to do business with that company.
Advertisements, when using free email services they include advertisements at the end of your messages. You are missing an opportunity to brand your own company, instead you are giving free advertising to your choice of email client.
Professionalism, Showing your customers that you take your business seriously and are making conscious decisions in how you will interact with them.

The last thing you want your customer to think is:

"This person is using their personal email, that must mean they haven’t been doing this for very long."

"If they haven’t been doing this for very long, their product or installation might be of a lesser quality than their competitor."

"If they are still using a personal email, this could mean they are not fully invested in their business."

We hear time and again from businesses excuses to continue using their Hotmail, Gmail, AOL or Yahoo account.

The most common objection we hear is:

"I have had this account for years, all my clients have this address, if I change I will lose all those emails!"

NOT TRUE! all of these free email accounts have the ability to forward messages received on to another account, while some may charge a fee to add that service, it's not even necessary to forward those emails on. You don't have to delete the free account. Just start using the new address and update your customers as you go. Jim still has an old AOL account active that has been around since the early 90's, he gets about 10 emails a month on it and just lets the contact know his new email address.

Objection #2: "All my contacts are in my free account."

All of the freebie accounts allow you to export your contacts as a .csv file. Which just happens to be the perfect format to import them into Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird or Mac Mail.

Objection #3: "I can't afford Outlook"

Almost all hosted email solutions will offer a webmail panel not to mention there are many free email clients just as nice as Microsoft's including their free Windows Live Mail program that replaced Outlook Express.

So after examining all of these aspects it's very hard to find a reason to continue using a free email client.

What kind of message are you sending your clients when you interact with them?

Email Woes

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:40:00 GMT

Greetings! Currently We are experiencing some intermittent email down time where we may not receive email for an extended amount of time or in some cases may lose and email entirely. Luckily with the advent of social media we can still connect with our clients! If you are having trouble contacting us or if an email gets returned to you undeliverable head on over to our Facebook page and contact us through there, you can post on our wall, send a message or simply give us a call. You gotta love social media!

Sales Improvement Professionals Facebook Page! Click here to visit us!

Florida reviving solar and HVAC rebates

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:28:00 GMT

Florida may start paying off on a couple of rebate programs for AC and Solar. They had a couple of unique programs, both stopped due to funding. Now the AC customers who had signed up and purchased qualifying systems may get their money, then the balance of the fund going to solar customers who have already put in their systems.

Click Here To Read More

Financing Survey

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:05:00 GMT

We want to here whats happening in the market place these days!

We put together a short 6 question survey, we are always eager to expand the 30,000 foot view and you can help!

Click here to take the survey!

Thank you for your time!

-The SIP Team

Benefits of Maintaining Solar Hot Water Heating Systems

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:51:00 GMT

Head over to Contracting Business.com to read Jim's article on solar maintenance plans and why you should be involved!

Click Here To Read the Article

Secrets to Online Success

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:46:00 GMT

An Interview with Jonathan Hinshaw, web strategist and co-founder of EBWAY Creative Solutions and Certified ADOBE partner. EBWAY is a digital design agency based out of Colorado, USA - with a network of people around the world and sites serving up pages every second, we asked them to share their wisdom and successes with us...

Interview By: Mike Hinshaw of SIP Training

Q: Before we get started I'm sure everyone wants to know - what does EBWAY mean?

EBWAY is actually pig-latin for WEB. I always wanted a cool name like Google or Yelp, so I sat down for an entire weekend and did nothing but write down short words. It kind of happened by accident when my son started to say something to me in pig-latin… the rest is - as they say, is history.

Q: Well, let’s start off with the big question. What is the secret to website success?

Ha ha, the secret is this: there’s no secret. It boils down to hard work and experience. It’s a constant effort to improve what doesn’t work and maximize what does. If your site is going to be successful, then it’s got to be “Sticky”. Your site must get visitors to stick to it long enough so they can make a buying decision. A successful website will always have a proven strategy behind it. A strategy that puts the visitor into the content. Giving them something to hold onto, so to speak. Something to Stick too.

Q: So, how do I get my website to become “Sticky”, how do I get visitors to stick to my website?

Well, it won’t miraculously happen overnight but a site can improve its stickiness with visuals, branding and its structure. The basic rules of thumb are this: balance, structure, and experience, you must create something people will want to come back to time and time again. Here's a tip, you can't do that by talking about your products and services all the time - today's website visitor needs more than features and benefits - know what I mean. They need good, quality content.

Q: Can you talk more about Content? Our customers ask us about content all the time, Can you tell us the secret to Content and why it's important?

No one will visit your site more than once if it has poor content. People want to be met with inviting, helpful and useful information. They don’t want to be faced with a site full of dull or poorly written content. Make it fun, entertaining, and useful. But don’t overwhelm your users with pages and pages of text – keep it short and sweet.

It's actually harder to write less. Give users the key messages they need, or their attention will go bye bye. Without nailing this, the other factors to achieving site stickiness are pointless. Poor content will distort your website.   - It’s important to remember that not only do you need to create good content – you also need to regularly update it – this will help make your site sticky by offering visitors an incentive to keep coming back. Write about what you know, the services and products you offer and the industry they fall into.

Q: OK, with that in mind, how do I give them what they want - I mean, how do I know what Content will work?

It's really quite simple. Carry out research on what your audience wants from your site and gather as much information as you can (without being annoying). This is what I do at EBWAY all day long. I research and analyze things that will either help or hurt my customers. Part of my job is knowing what works, the other - finding out what doesn’t.

Don't make the mistake of writing your own content to save a buck - hire a copywriter. Then, let the designer and copywriter work together to create product visibility with functional interactivity; this gives your user a more fulfilling and engaging environment they will want to return to. Most professional web design agencies either have a copywriter in house or a relationship with someone they trust.   - Remember: Engagement is key to site stickiness. You can’t get that with the same old babble everyone else is using.

Q: This might be off topic but, does Social Media help, if so, why?

ABSOLUTELY! Yes. and It's not off topic.

Fact. Social media is huge. Make the most of platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. If done right, the benefits for your brand are endless. In its simplest form, social media is a quick and cost effective way to engage with your target audience. People have become accustomed to real-time conversations that they can tap into and take part with at any time, and they will expect this from you as well. But, here’s come that word again - “Content”. Have a professional help you the descriptions and content you put into Social Networking sites. Again, content is key.

This is a "NOW" internet. No one cares about yesterday anymore, they want to know what's hot now. And Social Media provides just that. In short, you get to communicate with your customers outside the typical "Sales" scenario - this makes them more open to talk about what their really looking for. In a way, their guard is down.

Q: Let's talk a bit about the design. Is there a "Perfect" way to design my website?

YES. and No. - There is a perfect way to "Design" your site - if we're talking branding. If we're talking functionality and/or coding, then the answer gets a little tricky.

For starters, the idea that a website could be perfect needs to be thrown out the window right now. All websites develop new weaknesses over time. As content is added, structure is changed, and designs are tweaked, we introduce problems into our sites that were not previously there. And let's not forget the ever changing browsers and new devices that your customers are using. Each new device is a chance to show your customers whether or not you are serious.

The Truth is, there is only way to "design" your website. And that depends entirely on your brand, your goals, and your budget. But, the perfect website… Well that is a myth.

Q: I’m just wondering, all this talk of content and design and strategy - could I just get a couple of books and do this myself on the weekend? Is it possible?

YES. It’s absolutely possible. However, it takes a huge commitment to learn this stuff. I mean, forget about color theory and layout design - even throw out web design all together. It took me 3-4 months just to learn how to use DreamWeaver and Photoshop together, then they releases CS4 and now CS5 - I’m stuck in a never ending learning cycle - the difference is, I love it! The amount of software and the knowledge it takes to run that software is enormous (we’re talking professional web design). Sure, now it’s easy - I can do stuff in 5 minutes that used to take 3 hours. But it took me 7 years to get here. I think it would be better to just let the guys who loves to design build your site, unless you’re one those guys - then, more power to you. But get ready for some serious study time, your first website will be better served as a picture on your Moms fridge - don’t use it for your business!

Q: So, it sounds like I need to find a pro, can I just hire someone and forget about about it?

Absolutely Not. We’ve been talking here about how to be successful online, basically about successful websites. It’s your business and it’s you website. You have to be involved! I tell our clients all the time, get ready to work - we put our clients to work because we need them. Running a successful website is a lot of work for the business owner. The site needs to be constantly updated and then there’s the Social Marketing and the Email Marketing, and all those other ingredients that require research, input, and don’ forget typing “ugh”. But, someone has to do it.

Q: Would you help me to outline some sort of Success Strategy for our readers? Something they could use to get them started down the road to website success?

I would love to!

Do some research. Don’t do anything until you learn a little something about websites. I’m not talking wen design now, I’m talking web business. The first thing to do is to purchase the book called “Website Owners Manual” [http://boagworld.com/websiteownersmanual/], written by Paul Boag - one of my heros and probably the best web strategist in the world. It’s the best $35 bucks you’ll ever spend. Then, read it. Twice! This will become your website Bible, take it everywhere!
Start a list of web design agencies you’d like to work with. This is the tricky part! Don’t just click on the top Google add for web designer. First decide what type of website you want, then find designers that specialize in that type of design. Let’s say you want to have a website with a really strong blog - well then, find a WordPress designer who has done work that suites your needs. Look their portfolio and ask for example sites.
We actually offer Web Consultancy [http://ebwaycreative.com/web-consultancy/] at EBWAY for this very thing. We consult with Business Owners all the time, helping them find the perfect agency. Not even EBWAY is perfect for everyone. Most of all, just talk to people in the industry.
Start looking at your competition. Do this now! What they doing right? What are they doing wrong? Get a list of your top competitors - both online and offline.
Content Planning. You can never start this too early. Here’s a great blog article that covers planning in much greater detail than we can do here - Smashing Mags, Content Planning.
Secure your domain names. Purchase all the domain names for your company in the .com, .net etc. Then, make sure you secure your business names in the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Don’t get stuck with "AcmeCompany2846377" - that just looks lame.
Set up professional email accounts. That should go without saying. "GoFastGuy3857@aol.com" doesn’t say professional, it says lazy.
Get a journal started. This could be digital or printed - whatever you like. And start writing down your ideas. You don’t have to be a web designer to have great ideas. Many of the webs most successful apps were created y guys that couldn’t write a lick of code. Journal your keywords, industry info, start to sketch out who you are and how you want to present yourself.

That’s it, for starters. The funny part if this. After you get through with Step 1 - the purchase of the Website Owners manual - everything will simply fall into place. The truth is there’s no secret - it’s just dedication and patience. I wish you and your clients the best of luck.

By the way, The Website Owners Manual is not an EBWAY or SIP product, it is the sole product of the author and should be treated as such.

Thank you Jonathan Hinshaw! I though I would plug Jon's sites as they are a great resource too. Actually Jonathan just re-designed EBWAYCreative.com, so check it out. Also - take a look at EBWAYDev.com, his Adobe Partnership site.

Do have questions or ideas? Feel free to comment below, we’d love to hear from you!

Latest Web Broadcast

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:47:00 GMT

Thanks for attending the latest TM Training preview online. Here's some followup information for those in attendance...

Learn about the T.M.T. program we talked about today: TM Transformation
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Again, thanks for attending and let us know if we can help!

Xobni - Control Your Inbox

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:05:00 GMT

I have a program I downloaded months ago for my Outlook, called Xobni, which is In Box spelled backwards. So what does it do? It will pull up any of your e-mails by name, company, or any word in the e-mail or the address. Why is this good? I spend a lot of time with e-mail. I get about 100 new ones a day, send out 30 or so of my own. To locate the e-mail I sent 4 months ago regarding a program I want to do next month, it can be a tough assignment. With Xobni, just type in the program, the contact name, their company, or any word in the message.

I just did that as a test. I typed in Sell, the first part of Selling Comfort Today, one of my programs that has been wildly successful. Up came these results:

6 people who had some sort of sell in their names.
2003 messages with sell in the body
33 files or attachments with Sell in them
58 appointments with sell in the name of the appointment.

It can change your life! OK, you may say I just put my e-mails in folders. So do I. But there are times when I need materials from one message to be moved to another. This makes it easy to find that message. Quickly. Another neat feature is the program auto-populates the message headers. When you start typing Bo... it will fill in Bob Williams, Bob Smith, the last 5 or 10 people with that name that you have sent e-mails to. You may still have to go to your address book to get the name needed, but it fills in the names automatically about 80% of the time in my e-mails.

There is a free version and a Pro version for a small investment. Either one will be helpful. So for a quick way to locate anything, and help in putting together your new e-mails, try Xobni. It can help you keep up with friends, customers, prospects, everyone you touch in your busy life. Visit their website here: http://www.xobni.com/

A Broken Guitar, A Social Nightmare

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:46:00 GMT

By now, most of us have at least heard of how United Airlines broke Dave Carroll's guitar on a trip to Nebraska over a year ago. I say most of us, since the video he made to express his sorrow has been viewed over 8 million times. He went on to make a second video, and now a third. OK, so he is a song writer, that comes natural, but he has still done a great job of showing how much it hurt when his guitar was broken.

So here is my point. the internet has given us new clout in dealing with a company that, in our humble opinion, mistreated us. We have new ways of getting even, we can post, put up a facebook page in about 3 minutes (example: Kalamazoo residents against T & J Towing, who have over 14 thousand fans!) and it takes on a viral life, extremely fast. That is the good news and the bad news. If you have a customer who is not happy, they can get even easier than ever before. Even if you did nothing wrong, they can do untold damage, overnight.

To see the message the public sees, type your company name, city and the word "complaints" into Google. What will come up will be a series of postings that consumers have put up regarding your company and the service you provide. So be careful when you get a complaint. It is not your grandfather's complaint, it has to be dealt with differently. Happy customers will tell 5-10 people about your great service. Unhappy customers, we used to say, will tell 20. The new number is possibly millions!

A Pleasant Surprise

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:46:00 GMT

Just got back from the vet. Let me back up for a few months. We had to put our best friend to sleep last year. Our vet actually asked if we wanted her to come to the house, and we said that would be great. She came fully prepared, had all the things needed to make the last transition for Pixie. Pixie was about 14, had cancer, it had gotten bad. So we did the hard thing. Actually the vet did. A couple of days later, we got a delivery. A book, card and a plant from our vet. Now, I realize it was probably all part of the package, but it really made us feel better. The plant is still on the office window sill, reminding us of Pixie, who used to love to sit in the office. The book spoke to how pets love us unconditionally, yet ask so little in return. Good stuff.

We waited a few months, decided to get another puppy. My daughter-in-law actually did all the investigative work, found a breeder with some new yellow labs, we picked one out, took delivery. So now we have this new little creature, all fur and fun, lots of energy. When she turned 4 months, we took her to our vet, get some shots, check out her vitals, that sort of thing. She came out with a clean bill of health, all the employees were thrilled to see the new puppy. That evening we got a call from the vet. She asked how Poppy was doing, after her first big visit, three shots, all the excitement. It was a... Pleasant Surprise. In this day of fast service, where we only have a few minutes of interaction with the vendor, it is unexpected when someone follows up and asks how did we do? Just for the record, the bill was a little over $100. Not $1800, where you would think, major customer, gotta do something different. The girl who called had met Poppy, she seemed genuine when she asked about her health and how she was doing. Poppy is doing fine, I told her. She thanked me for bringing her in, told me they were honored we had chosen them when we brought in our new puppy, starting a new relationship with our family. So here is the application. What do you do when a new customer comes across your door? Do you thank them, act pleased that they would honor you by selecting your company to do business with? Or does someone actually call them later to be sure it all went well? No matter if they spent $100 or $2000 with you. Not enough people on staff, you may say. Yes, it does take a minute or two. In fact, if you are busy, and had 10 customers that day (new or not!), that may add up to 15 minutes. That may be the best use of 15 minutes you could ever imagine. To cement the relationship, where you don't get a satisfied customer (they are expecting you will do what you said), no, you get a raving fan. One who tells his friends what a great company you are. A customer for life, in the words of Carl Sewell. More about him at a later date. For now, think of ways to WOW your customers, ways to deliver a...Pleasant Surprise. Thanks for listening, we'll talk later.

TechTips Episode 1.0

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:36:00 GMT

Welcome to SIP Inc.'s TechTips Episode 1.0 In this series we will discuss common computer and internet issues and how to eliminate them. As Sales Improvement Professionals resident Tech Support Guru & Web Designer I often get asked how to solve common computer issues ranging from computer lockups and slowdowns to web pages displaying incorrectly or not at all. Many times these issues are quite simple to eliminate if you know where to begin.

Tech Issue #1: My computer takes forever to startup!

Solution: A slow startup can be a very frustration issue and while it can be a sign of an impending hardware crash, most of the time a little house keeping is all that is needed to bring your system back up to speed. First things first, check to insure your firewall and anti-virus software is up to date and has recently performed a system scan to rule out Trojans or Malware "phoning home". Firewall & Antivirus software is critical to protect you, your family, friends and colleagues. Don't have current software? Send an email to techtips@siptraining.com for several recommendations.

Next let's take a look at the programs that are set to run automatically when the computer starts. *Click on the Start Menu > All Programs then find the folder labeled "Startup" The only programs we want listed in this folder are programs that we absolutely must use every time the computer runs. It is actually very beneficial to simply keep this folder empty. However, certain programs, for example QuickBooks Auto Updater are fine to allow to run. Any program that is listed here to run automatically on startup can be removed by simply "right clicking" and selecting "Delete". This will not delete the actual program, only the shortcut to the program.

Now let's do a little more housekeeping.

* Click on the Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. This will run the disk cleanup utility to remove temporary files from your system. While there are several available options the key ones here are:

Temporary Internet Files
Recycle Bin
Temporary Files

Be careful to insure those 3 are the only options checked, or if you do wish to clean the other items you may do so but be forewarned that it is possible to cause a computer issue. Then begin the cleanup, it should only take a few minutes to complete, though your mileage may vary depending upon the size of the files.

The Final Step in this episode is Disk Defragmenter.

* Click Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. Depending on your version of windows the utility may automatically analyze the drive or you may need to select your primary drive "C:\" and click analyze. Then it will recommend weather or not the drive should be defragmented.

Please Note: Defragmenting your hard disk can take several hours to complete.

Be sure to check in next month where we will discuss the various internet browsers available. To request a topic to be featured in TechTips send an email to techtips@siptraining.com.

Ford rolling out new Explorer on facebook. Facebook only.

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:49:00 GMT

Ford is rolling out the 2011 Explorer with a Facebook page, not the usual marketing plan. They have teased us with photos of the car behind trees, etc. More comes out each week, but we still have not seen the full car. It is just an usual way to announce a new model. Perhaps the wave of the future, at least they are embracing this social media model for this particular car.