North American sellers honour and welcome a person’s ‘need-to-buy’. However buyers treat, with disdain, those who demonstrate ‘need-to-sell’. Is it any wonder we reject salespeople so readily? Their is a more ‘principled’ way to sell.
 
Salespeople who need-to-sell (that is, most salespeople) make us feel uncomfortable, frustrated, impatient and even angry, often triggering our fight or flight responses. Yet North American businesses send their salespeople out into the marketplace handicapped by need-to-sell every day. What creates need-to-sell? Fear, indulgence and desperation.

• Fear of not meeting sales quotas; fear of job-loss; fear of rejection.
• Indulgence: visualizing prospective buyers as a commissions and revenue.
• Desperation: the end of the day is looming and not a sale made.

North American business owners do their salespeople, prospective clients, their companies and shareholders a disservice by perpetuating the old selling axioms that create fear, indulgence and desperation.

SELLING should be an impartial introduction of options and advice.

SELLING, done properly, should be an impartial qualification/disqualification process. A prospective client either needs to buy or does not. Companies either have what prospects/clients need or they do not.

SELLING should ‘impartially’ (there is that word again) help prospects make timely and informed buying decisions.

SELLING should operate in an environment free of fear, indulgence and desperation.

SELL impartially and your salespeople will sell much more, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of your current selling costs.

1112  Cole Harbour Road                                                                                                                                                                                        

465-1900

Instructor: Carna Morton  carna@carnam.ca  

SATURDAYS:  May 25 – AUG 10 … 5 PM until 8 PM … A 10-Week/30-hour course

INTRODUCTION  to  SEWING

Basic Sewing Confidence and Skills

• Thread, Needle and Fabric selection
• Hand Sewing and Machine Sewing Techniques
• Basic hand stitches, hems, decorative stitching
• Machine Operation (Care & Maintenance)
• Creative Project You’ll Be Proud To Take Home:
• You will create one of 3 take-home sewing projects, your choice:

Decorative pillow cover

Roman Blinds

Decorative Tabble-Runner & Napkins

PATTERN DRAFTING (one)

WEDNESDAYS:  May 22 – July 24 … 6 PM until 9 PM … A 10-Week/30-hour course

Learn how to create and understand the components of fitting a basic body block. Student will pair off taking and turning body measurements into a paper pattern. Basic sewing skills are a perquisite for this class. The class will follow a workshop format: lectures, hands-on exercises, group discussion & visual aids. A package of course handouts will be provided. Some additional reading may be assigned. Each student is required to supply their own portable sewing machine.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• How to Draft & Design Body Blocks
• Fundamentals of Fitting
• Problem Solving
• Pattern Adjustment & Manipulation
• Basic Principles of Fitting
• Measurements & Drafting of Basic Block
• Fitting the Basic Block
• Problem-Solving the Body Block
• Simple Pattern Designing & Dart Manipulation
• Collars
• Designing Collar Pattern & Problem Areas
• Intro to Skirt Drafting
• Skirt Fitting & Problem Areas

School Registration

$295 per 10-week Course + HST

Non-Refundable

Includes Drafting Tools

Payment Options

• e-mail money transfer
• PayPal
• Debit, Visa, MasterCard, American Express

‘There is no such thing as failure. There are only different results.’   Mike Lipkin, CEO of Environics/Lipkin, Canada’s leading research and motivation company.

Mike Lipkin is right. How often have you thought, “I lost that sale, I’ve failed.” The truth is most so-called lost sales could not have been closed by any reputable seller, or should not be closed in the first place.  Most of the so-called ‘failure’ salespeople endure is based on four misguided notions:

• Every prospect is a potential sale
• A sale succeeds or fails on the salesperson’s merit
• Selling is a coercive skill-set. He/she who masters it, wins
• The products or services I sell are right for everyone
• It’s all about the ‘close’

Today’s sophisticated sellers use a step by step qualification/disqualification matrix to identify prospects who need what they sell, are ready to buy, have the authority to buy, have the money to buy and who welcome their attention. Today’s reputable sellers are impartial advisers, carefully guiding their prospects toward informed and timely buying decisions or ‘not-buying’ decisions that are mutually beneficial for the long-term. If need and ability to satisfy need exist, both parties see it and a sale occurs organically. No pressure, no coercion, no convincing, no stress.

Salespeople who adopt this new selling paradigm earn the respect and admiration of their customers and of the person they see in the mirror. They save precious time, earn more money and thoroughly enjoy the honoured and oldest profession on the planet … SELLING.

Look at their faces. Look at their body language. Do you think for one second they are thinking about their salaries, quotas and commissions?

In my selling classes I tell business people that as salespeople they too are FIRST RESPONDERS … like the people who rush to an injured football player on the field … like the paramedics who calmly, reassuringly and professionally treat auto accident victims in the middle of a busy highway …  like firefighters and police officers, salespeople save lives in their own way.

Salespeople save the lives of the people in the businesses they work for. Without selling these businesses might have never gotten off the ground. Without selling, businesses would fail. Without salespeople rushing to the scene of a needy customer and performing their duties promptly, efficiently and with the customer’s best interests at heart jobs would be lost and lifestyles would crumble. Salespeople save lives.

FIRST  RESPONDERS are respected and admired for the jobs they do and the way they do their jobs. People can’t wait for FIRST RESPONDERS to arrive … so very welcomed when they do.

Learn to sell like a FIRST RESPONDER. Your company will be stronger and so will the companies that belong to your customers. Join me at NSCC on January 23rd.  http://www.nscc.ca/Learning_Programs/ConEd/Course.aspx?I=716&C=Institute+of+Technology+Campus&G=#4921 Please Note: Our January 16th class did not not happen due to the heavy snows that evening, so you still have time to register and you won’t miss thing.

It’s COLD out there in the world of selling.

I’m excited to be teaching HRM employers to come in from the cold and bring their salespeople with them. Come, be part of my NSCC business growth class each Wednesday evening and learn to:

• sell the way potential customers respond most positively
• find the right employers & remain loyal to them
• find the right sales people & keep them motivated
• reduce your selling costs & keep your clients loyal longer
• shorten your sell-cycles & improve your bottom line
• build your business & provide more jobs for HRM

My class is at the Leeds Street NSCC campus starting January 23rd. Coffee will be on. Bring your questions, challenges & goals. Make 2013 a banner selling year for your company !! Please not: The 1st class on January 16th did not happen due to the heavy snows that evening so if you still want to register you will not have missed a thing.

Sign up for my class:   http://www.nscc.ca/Learning_Programs/ConEd/Course.aspx?I=716&C=Institute+of+Technology+Campus&G=#4921  Ask me about private sales strategy development and one-on-one sales mentorship. Come in from the cold. Questions? Call me 446-3995.

WE ALL REACH FOR IT. Regardless of age or gender. But what if your path to the ring is through selling?

You are a new small business owner, a post secondary grad, a technical professional or a down-sized employee entering the financial services or real estate industries and suddenly you are thrust into the arena of selling. You may even be a seasoned salesperson driving home at the end of a long hard day and you say to yourself, “There has GOT to be a better way to sell!”  There is.

Take a long, deep breath … exhale slowly and calm yourself. To those who have never sold before, understand that principled selling does not require that you sell your soul to the Devil. To seasoned salespeople seeking a better way to sell … know that you can buy your soul back.   

Tangent Strategies and SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING teach a selling model that upholds and respects your principles, is easy to learn, enjoyable to engage in and helps you find and sell to friendly buyers who need what you sell. You can learn to ENJOY selling in three ways:

By enrolling in SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING … $2500

• 32-hour evolved-selling course
• Canadian principles
• Public classroom settling
• Interactive, experience-sharing with your peers
• Includes a delicious lunch each class

By putting Tangent Strategies squarely in your corner … $550.00 per month

• Private, confidential, paced to suit your needs
• Learn all the evolved selling disciplines through one-on-one tutoring
• A powerful selling strategy will be created for you to deploy
• Weekly strategy and debriefing meetings
• Canadian principles
• Set your objectives and goals and achieve them

By bringing SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING to your company location $7500

• Private, confidential
• 32-hour evolved selling course … Canadian principles
• Creation of a custom selling strategy for your company to deploy
• Weekly strategy and debriefing meetings
• Set your company’s sales objectives and goals and achieve them   

So much of the market’s push-back and rejection of salespeople is not of their own making.

History, Hollywood, popular myth, legends and prevailing humour about selling and salespeople are inextricably woven into the fabric of our society. Unfortunately the weave is coarse and tarnished. The image, the brand of salespeople and the selling profession that literally dates back to the dawn of time, is generally negative. Worse still, many salespeople and their employers blindly, if innocently perpetuate this sullied image by selling like old-school salesmen … the very selling model prospective buyers dislike the most.

The profession’s stubborn reluctance to evolve to a sophisticated selling model, that the marketplace can respond to positively, hurts both buyer and seller alike. The dated buyer/seller dance of pursue and evade, parry and thrust, wastes literally billions of dollars each year weakening our economy … most companies blissfully achieving well below their true potential.  The selling profession has endured society’s disdain far too long. Why would any profession continue to conduct itself  in a manner that has traditionally and historically attracted ridicule? There is a selling model both buyer and seller can enjoy.

Evolved selling:

• replaces sales pitches with interviews;
• banishes the intrusive walk-in cold call in favour of social and social media introductions;
• replaces bind pursuit of prospects with  ‘prospect-qualification’;
• introduces shared logic and mutual benefit to replace the obligatory ‘close’.

Evolved selling:

• motivates and invigorates salespeople;
• inspires confidence and optimism;
• saves time/shortens sell-cycles;
• reduces costs of selling;
• sells more, sells faster and easier; 
• increases sales employee loyalty;
• reduces absenteeism and procrastination;
• keeps customers satisfied/reduces competitor encroachment: 
• earn’s the market’s and society’s respect and admiration. 

Today’s buyers are more likely to do business with salespeople who have traded in their hunter-gatherer-presenter skill sets for evolved, objective, efficient and accurate ‘qualifier and interviewer’ skill sets … skills worthy of respect and admiration.

Buyers want to be made aware of their options, but on their terms. They do not want to be fast-tracked into sales presentation meetings. In fact they have little patience for the old days of tell and sell. They prefer to be interviewed and understood in the context of the products or services offered. They would rather ask questions, get answers and come to a timely and mutually beneficial conclusion. And finally, buyers would rather respect and admire the salespeople they are about to do business with. Evolved selling engenders respect and admiration … two words rarely associated with sales, selling and salespeople … until now.

WORK HARD … LEARN TO REALLY  S E L L

SUMMER SELL CAMP FOR  W O M E N  STARTS …

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

SUMMER … THE SEASON TO WORK HARDER … Unlike any selling school you have ever attended, SKAKUM SUMMER SELL CAMP FOR  W O M E N  does NOT take summer holidays. This revolutionary course teaches CEO’s and Presidents, Sales Managers and Salespeople how to increase sales using powerful selling axioms your prospects and customers will respect and admire. Benefit from each other’s business successes & challenges. Build on Halifax’s entrepreneurial spirit.

• Sell More in Less Time & Enjoy the Process
• Replace Cold Calls with Confidence Calls
• Qualify Leads with One Simple Question
• Replace Time-Wasting Sales Presentations with Time Saving Sales Interviews
• Close in ONE Meeting
• Generate Prospect Respect & Admiration
• Eliminate Selling Pressure & Stress
• Write Proposals that Always Get a Yes
• Recognize Employers Who Respect Selling & Salespeople
• Stop Competitors from Attracting Away Their Customers
• Recognize Attract and Retain Talented,  Loyal Salespeople
• Train Encourage & Support Their Salespeople
• Transform Selling into a Profession the World Respects and Admires

EXCEED YOUR QUOTA… Wednesday, March 13, 2013     http://thephonelady.ca/registration

EXCEED YOUR QUOTA teaches you how to get more appointments and close more sales. Mary Jane Copps (The Phone Lady) and Peter Skakum (Tangent Strategies) are going to give you the power to not only make and confirm more meetings by phone, but leave those meetings with new customers, new orders and higher profits.

A full-day seminar that delivers the 1-2 punch every Business Owner/every Salesperson dreams of : *scheduling sales meetings confidently by phone and *leaving those meetings with a close. DO NOT make the mistake other BOSSES do and just send their salespeople. Come with them so you can know, support and encourage the new selling disciplines taught.

Register Early … only 15 seats remaining http://thephonelady.ca/registration or phone 446-3995

Learn to love making prospect calls and closing sales.