On March 19^th in Darien, CEO Trustees and guests were treated to an engaging & informative presentation by author and dynamic keynote speaker Todd Cohen of Sales Leader LLC.  “Everyone’s In Sales: Building a Successful Sales Culture” took place at the stately Darien Community Association and was chaired by CEO Trustee Joe Tait, CIO of Lydall, Inc., who made opening comments and introduced our speaker.  With colorful anecdotes and real-world examples, Todd highlighted how to create sales culture, develop a professional Value Proposition, define your Virtual Sales Team™, and leverage your Relationship Portability Index™. 

 Salient points from his Sales Culture Presentation included:

• Everyone is in sales and every single conversation is a selling moment. 
• Building a sales culture costs nothing.  You don’t need to do anything different, but you need to think differently about what you do.
• When someone asks “what do you do?” what they are really asking for is your “Value Proposition.”  In other words, “how does what you do impact your customer’s decision to say ‘yes’?” and “why should I engage with you?”  Important components of a quality Value Proposition include:
  • It should not contain your working title
  • It should be 6 words or less
  • It must be agnostic; in other words, it must be about you specifically, not your company
• Five Steps to Creating a Strong Sales Culture

1. Keep Sales TRANSPARENT – Every person in the organization should have a view into the customer, not just the sales team.
2. Know how YOU impact the customer – Understand how what YOU do makes your customer say “yes.”
3. Know how OTHERS in your organization impact the customer – Understand how what THEY do makes your customer say “yes.”
4. Show others how they impact the customer – Help demonstrate to all others in your organization that they are in sales also.  Help them see how what they do matters and helps the customer say “yes.”
5. Monetize “I don’t know what I don’t know” – Everyone in your organization has unique expertise.  Be willing to lean on others for their knowledge and experience. 

• Building your Virtual Sales Team is about moving your connections up through the ladder of Relationship Portability.  All of your connections are in one of these stages:

1. Reliable & available – contacts who know you and understand your Value Proposition.  This is where you want to move as many of your contacts as possible.
2. Available but not reliable – these contacts may or may not get back to you when you reach out
3. Neither reliable nor available – these are people who do not see you as part their business in any way
4. Non existent – these are the people you have not yet met, but can quickly move to reliable & available once you connect with them

 Throughout the evening, Todd shared information, ideas, and best practices for building sales culture drawing on his research, expertise, and experience with individuals, teams, and corporations.  All on hand came away with concrete strategies for best selling themselves and their organizations.