You woke up this morning and decided that today is the day to get sales training for your team. But what is driving that decision? What makes you think you really need sales training? Before setting out to find a sales trainer, the next best step may be to assess the sales team since there are a lot of options out there. Do they meet your profile for your ideal salesperson? If not, training becomes secondary to finding sales talent that meets your needs.

There are few decisions more critical for a company than the hiring of the leadership of their sales organization. Yet, few know how to do it well. Many err and promote their best seller to a sales management position. Why this is called a promotion is beyond me. The job of the sales manager is vastly different than that of a sales person, so why is this considered employment elevation? Often times, sales managers earn less than the top sales people.

Many cars today tell the driver when it is time to perform maintenance. Even better, some tell the driver that maintenance is needed in 1,000 miles with updates along the way. It would be great if as a business executive or small business owner, you had this kind of technology at your fingertips. Unfortunately, managing a sales organization will always be a manual effort.

After a lengthy buying process, the time has come to submit pricing. Countless hours are spent formulating a glorious proposal that details your comprehensive solution. Proud of your accomplishment, you present the proposal to the buyer. Skipping the sections about your company and your solution, she flips right to the pricing page. "Oh my gosh, I didn't think it would be this expensive!"

What happens next determines whether or not you will get the business.

The competition has been fiercely pursuing this account, but you feel like you have the edge. All indications are that you are going to win the business. Then, a call comes in from the Procurement officer who says:

"We think you guys are great and we think we are going to go with you. Here's what we want to do. We want to try your service for free for thirty days.

Ok. This is false advertising. There is no secret to "overcoming" the price objection. The truth is that the price objection cannot be overcome. That is because it isn't intended to be overcome. It is meant to be resolved through thought facilitation by a sales person. The sales person's role is to help the prospect work through the price concern as opposed to attempting to overcome it.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group of CEOs about their sales recruitment needs. To make a point, I mentioned to them that my friend, Willie McMoney, had heard that I was speaking to this group and asked that I mention he was looking for a new sales home. I shared Willie's background with the group: Willie has a Bachelor's Degree from a well-respected institution, has a great look, has been selling for over ten years for household name companies that offer low-price products, and has exceeded quota each of the last three years.

So, it's been another round of price squeezing. Very painful! They want it cheaper and your company has tasked you with protecting margin. To make matters worse, the prospect called you one of the worst things possible, a vendor! At this point, you have probably decided that sales really isn't fun. There is hope! You can change the entire playing field by changing your style, your approach, and your game.

Albert Einstein formulated the theory that says that space and time are relative concepts rather than absolute concepts. For example, consider a car speedometer reading at 65 miles per hour. How fast is the car going? This question seems like the beginning of the joke of who is buried in Grant's tomb and you are expecting a punch line. No joke here, I assure you.

This is the time of year when salespeople begin to reflect on their performance. Was it a good year? Was it a great year? Some will say they earned the dollars they desired, so it was a great year. Others will hang their hat on an account that they won and say it was a good year. However, as Joe Torre, former manager of the New York Yankees recently learned, employers have a single data point for measuring success that dwarfs all other statistics.