Dale Carnegie Training- High Impact Sales

A 2 day training was held in Pune to help us understand 'sales' concept. Corporate aim is to make us good sellers apart from doing our normal operational activities. Ahem..it's difficult when hard core delivery folks are expected to do sales. We can execute an operation but most are not into major diplomatic talks with customers. I'd rather call a 'spade', a 'spade'. But sadly, my approach would suck in a sales environment where everything is dependant on catering to the customer's whims and fancies.

URL for Dale Carnegie- http://www.dalecarnegieindia.com/

The training was fun. It was conducted by a Dale Carnegie trainer from Pune. I was a bit harassed during my travel from Mumbai to Pune. It wasn't a very pleasurable trip to the training venue as well. I never realised that the auto driver would fleece me and charge me very high auto fare. Guess he realised that i wasn't a local. I was late by an hour. The trainer had started introductions. The icebreaker was to state something that made us unique as an individual. Most of us in class came up with something or the other. Mine was citing the fact that I did glass paintings. Someone said that he hated music of any kind. Another person was a passionate cook. So it went on. It didn't help to be the only woman in class. This is mostly the scenario at work. You land up with senior male managers. But there are no women. It felt awkward to even speak at times. The training took us through the start and closure of a sales dealing. It was laced with various anecdotes, stories, incidents, personal experiences of trainees with clients etc. The trainer made us do some exercise which had to do with sitting and standing with our hands up etc while he sang a silly rhyme about the Duke of England who made his men march up the hill. LOL! It was a good thing to do as most of us were tired after the lunch break. Once done, there were role plays for all participants. I had inhibitions around the whole scenario. I refused to do it in the sales way. My argument was that I was Dutch in my speech. I always spoke 'as is'. The trainer reminded me that I'd lose business if that happens. I said that it's fine because he'd come back if he needed our services. Ahem..talk about being blunt! But I did realise that I needed to change my Dutch behaviour a bit. Dealing with Dutch clients from an execution perspective was different from dealing with a client for a prospective sales pitch.

During the next day, there were 2 interesting role plays. I was a real shrew. Sigh! I didn't want to speak on those topics. The role play was to arrive at a consensus if in case of an argument with the customer. For that, the trainer had suggested that the class needed to divide itself into either arranged or love marriage supporters. When it comes to marriage, I just don't have an opinion. I am neither for it or against it. But the trainer insisted that I needed to take a side. So he finally convinced me to take the side for love marriage as I had replied that I'd be happy with someone I'd know personally. But i refused to give any further inputs to arrive at a consensus with the other group. It's amazing to see that there were just 2 guys who were in the love marriage group. Everyone else had joined the arranged marriage grp. LOL! That's India. We believe in the tried and tested methods. We don't want to take major risks in our personal life as well. We need to know the family, the financial status, job situation, background of the bride/groom before we take the plunge. Oh well! It works for majority. Many cited that their parents had successful arranged marriages. So why wouldn't they take the same route. Each to himself.

During the next role play, I had to go in again. I was the trainer's favourite guinea pig. The topic was 'committment'. I did tell him that I was the wrong candidate for that role play. I had a commitment phobia myself. Imagine doing a convincing role play for the same topic? He didn't pay heed to my protests. In this role play, he was the guy who was wooing me for marriage and had to get a commitment from me to meet my parents. He kept improvising on this scene by praising my dress, my looks and asking questions related to whether he could meet my parents, whether we could see a movie together and I could only giggle.  All the men in class had fun at my expense. Finally the trainer came to the end of role play.The learning from this was that as soon as the contract stage is reached, don't dilly dally. Just sign it off. The role play was a way of getting to the point that he couldn't get a commitment from me to meet my parents.

The training ended on a good note. I don't know how much of selling I will be doing in the future. But it did help in understanding the finer nuances involved in this area. It's a tough job. I should be more kind to the salesmen who come home with their products. It's not easy to do this job, day in and day out.

Corporate culture related to new learning always help to sharpen the grey cells. We need to keep renewing our skills to stay in touch with the new markets and technologies. Helps to be in IT!!!

Dale Carnegie trainings for the corporates are fun! Companies need to opt for such professional training Organisations. They are good at what they do!!! Employees won't whine about wasted hours, once training is complete. So kudos to Dale Carnegie!!!

Until my next musing......




“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned.” – Thomas H. Huxley