Your sales people are fresh out of their sales training and all, hopefully, will hit the ground running. However, it is no good them selling in isolation. They need to understand the consequences of their actions for other departments. In particular, as they strike what seem like amazing deals they need to consider the effect on cash flow.

It may be great that they have just closed an amazingly profitable deal, but the throwaway remark agreed to at the close of the negotiations can make a crucial difference. A customer just placed their biggest order ever but as the meeting closed asked if it would be okay to have 60 days to pay instead of the normal 30. Surely, that’s not going to be a problem after all. Hopefully, it will be evident to you, without spelling it out, just how big a problem this could be.

Companies are therefore becoming more and more adept at finding ways to get paid earlier or, at least on time.

Some companies are offering incentives. Either they offer a discount if payment is made by a certain time, or they apply a penalty if it is not paid on time. Unfortunately, customers will take advantage of discounts and ignore penalties. Ultimately, it can be very difficult to enforce these variations and can end up causing difficulties with customers.

Sales training makes clear that one of the most important things to do when selling your company’s products or services to someone, or even pitching an idea, is to build rapport with them.

One of the easiest ways of doing this is through mirroring. This is exactly what it sounds like. Matching the posture, body language and vocal qualities such as tone and pacing of the other party. When you try this the first time, you may feel incredibly self conscious. Won’t it be obvious that you are copying somebody’s every move? Of course there are limits to how far you do this, but with practice you can make it seem the most natural thing in the world and the only thought you will provoke in the other person is how much they like you.

When you have grasped the techniques of mirroring, you can go further and start to cross mirror so that your body language or posture complements the other person’s. For example, subtle hand gestures can echo the other person’s flailing arm. Your weight distribution as you sit can complement a foot on the table.

This should be done in addition to usual techniques such as good eye contact. The whole point is to build trust with a person.

In advanced sales training, delegates are shown the importance of mirroring. This is a technique which involves matching your body language, breathing, pacing and tone with your customer and building rapport.

If you have ever been captivated by an actor in the theatre then you will understand the importance of the tonality of a voice. It is suggested that voice tonality accounts for 38 percent of the message whilst the actual words only account for 7 percent.

The importance of tonality is even more vital in telesales or any form of telephone conversation. When you only have your voice to communicate, it needs to be as varied and tuneful as possible to engage the listener.

Let me give you an example of this. Have you ever dealt with an angry person? Notice how as they shout and scream at you, by adopting a quiet thoughtfully paced tone on your part seems to make them even angrier. In fact matching their tone and pace will help to diffuse their anger. You should be careful not to direct your apparent anger at them but empathise instead.

The monotone middle manager is a staple of television situation comedy and it is important not to become an example of life imitating art!

Sales training is a good thing, but there is an extent to which sales people are born not made. One has to understand communication in its broadest sense if one is to persuade, sell and negotiate successfully.

Communication is, of course, a two way process. However, one of the most common flaws in poor sales people is that they make it a one way process. They do not pay attention to what the other party is transmitting. This is because they are so focussed on pursuing their own strategy.

The best sales people constantly work on their communication skills, both listening and projecting. They not only need to understand the words, but the body language and vocal qualities with which those words are delivered. Similarly, they should be observing the impact of their messages on the other party and ensuring that there is a constant feedback loop operating so that they can adjust those messages if required. For example, if there is a particularly positive attitude to one of the features of a product, they should make sure they reinforce that.

Equally, alarm signals need to be picked up and acted upon. This will reduce apparent surprises that floor sales people when they come up against objections, at the end of a sales presentation, which should have been picked up and dealt with earlier.

Sales training like all other areas of business is something which has to constantly evolve. This is particularly true for businesses which rely on door to door selling.

It has always been the case that certain types of sale are conducted by a salesman calling on the home of the prospective client. They will often not want to provide a straightforward quote as you would expect when one business is dealing with another. Instead, they will try to get the highest price they possibly can for the goods. They may also look to sell extras which will attract commission. Perhaps the most common of these is financing for the cost of the work being undertaken.

Latterly, clients have been entitled to ‘cooling off periods’. Initially, this led to many cancelled orders as customers had time to reflect on, what they came to perceive as strong arm tactics of the salesman. However, there is a way to reduce cancelled orders substantially. That is, to use a little basic psychology.

Whereas, salesmen used to fill in the order form and just get the client’s signature, they now get the client to fill out the order form. This simple act of putting pen to paper means that the client feels they are making more of a commitment to the purchase and makes them far less likely to cancel.

Sales training will give you lots of motivational ideas on how to be a more effective salesperson. One of the most basic things in sales is starting relationships with new clients. Part of the skill is to get a commitment from the new customer, no matter how small.

For example, when first contacting someone, don’t expect to make a sale. The first step towards building a lasting and beneficial relationship is to get some face time. Don’t talk to the potential client about how you’d love to sell to them. Explain why you think your company might be able to help them by giving some information about your products and services along with an explanation of the relevant benefits. Ask them to give you, say 30 minutes, to explore whether you might be able to work together.

Once you go to see the prospect, be prepared to suggest a way forward that will not involve them in too much commitment. If they want to place an order worth millions of pounds, don’t stop them, but you are far more likely to get them interested in something like a risk free trial of your products.

By gradually building the relationship and the level of commitment, you are far more likely to build a mutually rewarding relationship.

Sales training is usually concerned with ensuring that sales and marketing professionals maintain a pride in what they do, in spite of the public perception of salesmen being con artists. It is not surprising that the public have a jaded view when door to door salesmen introduce themselves as market researchers. The way in which trainers ensure salesmen maintain their pride is by ensuring the highest ethical standards. However, there are some approaches to sales and marketing which some might consider effective, but others would say they are questionable. One of these is something known as ‘the social proof model’.

In its simplest form, this model is a way of saying that something must be good because other people like it.

There is of course no problem with the simplest examples of this such as accurately describing a product as the fastest or best selling. Similarly, charities will often list all the people already donating to them.

However, there are areas where manipulation seems less than 100 per cent honest. For example, a nightclub owner ensuring that there is a constant queue of people waiting to enter. Even more common is salesmen telling fictional stories of the many satisfied customers who have bought their product. Estate agents have sometimes been accused of creating fictional rivals for a property you are considering buying. Likewise, recent reports have suggested that auction websites often have people inflating prices by either bidding for their own sale items or having friends do it.