I tell clients that I can bring no value to their sales efforts with my training if they do not already have an identified sales process in place.

If you are new to sales, get your sales training down first, then select and deploy the appropriate tools that will fit with your sales training and sales process. The books listed in an earlier post listing the Top 20 Sales Books will be a great place to start with your training: http://budurl.com/md7h. Many of these books are on my Recommended Reading list on the right hand side of the blog. Start with one and see where it takes you.

I believe that the main “sales tool” should be salesforces consultative skills to understand customer needs, help them to realize the impact of their present problems and offer solutions they would never think of without the sales representative help. Of course it requires a previous planning, web research, industry understanding etc.

I surely see a high value in IT sales tools – it would be a non-sense not to – but I have seen a lot of ultra-high-modern-IT sales reps without the basics: asking intelligent questions and listening attentively to customers.

Regards, Andre Santos

Use them EVERY single day…all day.