Why Salespeople Fail

Why Salespeople Fail
...and what you can do about it!

©1991-2006, 2008 Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sandler, Sandler Training, Sandler Training Finding Power In
Reinforcement (with design), Sandler Selling System and Sandler’s
Professional Advantage are registered service marks of Sandler Systems, Inc.

ii

Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

Foreword
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 1
What’s Happened to Your Promising Sales Career? . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 2
Whose System are You Following? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 3
The Prospect’s System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 4
Traditional Selling Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 5
The Sandler System—A Better Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 6
Why Most Sales Training Doesn’t Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 7
Create Your Own Performance Improvement Program . . . . . 25

Chapter 8
Effective Training for Sales Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Postword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

iii

[Foreword]

Executive Summary
Your company survives on its sales numbers. Sales levels help
determine the value of your company’s stock, and whether your
organization is investing in new facilities and markets and paying
bonuses—or closing down operations and handing out pink slips.
This book is all about making and exceeding those all-important
sales numbers and sales forecasts. It’s an eye-opening look at the deﬁciencies of modern-day selling systems and sales management efforts,
prepared by the company that literally rewrote the book on selling.
The fact that you’re reading it means you probably already have
encountered some of these shortcomings:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Painfully long selling cycles
Unmet sales “forecasts”
Bad sales habits that are eroding your margins
Prospects demanding—and getting—costly price concessions
Lack of a common sales culture or methodology
Hiring salespeople that don’t work out
Bidding wars
Over-promising that creates customer dissatisfaction

When David H. Sandler developed the Sandler Selling System®
methodology, it was a matter of his own professional survival. He
had to ﬁnd a better way to sell than the stale, rote methods he had

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been taught. So, he began to innovate and track his results.
Sandler’s experiments extended far beyond developing new sales
techniques. He gradually created a comprehensive selling system
that included valuable self-management tools and a completely
new sales and management philosophy and framework . . . decades
ahead of its time.
Sandler® sales training is different from any other training the
industry has to offer. Local Sandler training centers provide training with emphasis on ongoing reinforcement training, role-playing,
expert coaching, adult learning methodologies and quality support
materials. Long before “performance improvement” became a corporate buzzword, the Sandler Selling System was making it happen
for tens of thousands of salespeople and sales managers, across the
business spectrum. Industry leaders such as Trane, EDS, Oracle,
Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young, Minolta, DaimlerChrysler, Essilor
Optical, US Bank, Iron Mountain, Sage, Mass Mutual, KPMG,
Lennox and Microsoft, to name a few, have all adopted the Sandler
Selling System. They received training through a network of
Sandler training centers throughout the world.
After you read this book, your view of selling will never be the
same. The Sandler Selling System completely changes the tenor of
sales encounters. It provides an honest, no-nonsense, dignified
approach to selling that places the salesperson firmly in control.
And it has inspired a new level of honest dealing and mutual
respect between sales professionals and their customers and clients.
Sandler hopes that what you discover here—both about selling and
sales management—will encourage you and your organization to
continue to explore the benefits of Sandler Training.

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“Traditional selling
always left me feeling
that I was underpaid,
overworked, and worn
out. I had to work too
hard to get a sale...”
David H. Sandler

[Chapter One]

What’s Happened to Your
Promising Sales Career?
You didn’t go into sales to be “average.” Like everyone else in this
line of work, you’re an optimist. You believe you can be a top producer and earn the highest possible compensation. After all, you
can handle rejection, and you’re not afraid of hard work either.
Yet your close ratio is not what you (or your company) think it
should be. What’s gone wrong? And more importantly, what, if
anything, can you do about it?
This report examines why salespeople fail. It looks at what
keeps so many otherwise talented, capable people from reaching
the top of the selling profession. It explains why some sales careers
rocket to great heights and then suddenly sputter—and why others
never quite get off the ground. Sandler bases its findings on countless interviews with salespeople and sales managers performing at
every conceivable level of sales success. These findings represent a
distillation of what Sandler has learned in more than three decades
of intense sales and sales management training activity.
The good news is that sales performance can be improved—
dramatically and permanently. But first you have to know where to
begin and what really requires fixing.

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If you’re like most salespeople who hit “dry periods,” your first
inclination may be to blame your sudden lack of success on the
quality of your leads or the softening of the marketplace. Don’t. By
seeking to place the blame elsewhere, you’ll cheat yourself of a
valuable opportunity to learn. Instead, take a good, hard, dispassionate look at what you’re doing. Chances are you’ll find the fault
lies somewhere within you: either with your attitude, your behavior
or your technique. Sandler’s research has shown this to be particularly true for salespeople experiencing any of the following common sales problems:
• Prospects increasingly want to “think it over.”
• “Gatekeepers” easily turn you away, and you have no strategy
for dealing effectively with voice-mail or e-mail.
• You’re uncomfortable discussing money . . . unless and until it
becomes an objection.
• Your answer to most competitors’ selling advantages is an offer
to lower your price.
• You’re doing too much “unpaid consulting.”
• You take rejection personally and let it affect your performance.
• You blame at least part of your problems on your manager’s
shortcomings.
While the telltale signs of sales underachievement may appear
endless, the true causes are generally quite specific. More often
than not, their roots can be found in the overall approach you take
to the selling process.

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“The key to successful
selling is to have a better
system than the one your
prospect has been using
on you for years.”
David H. Sandler

[ C h a p t e r Tw o ]

Whose System are
You Following?
In the “buyer-seller dance”—Sandler’s metaphor for a sales interaction—there are always two systems at work: the prospect’s system
and the salesperson’s system. To lead in this process, you must
know and apply a selling system that works. Merely showing up at
the sales meeting and placing yourself in the arms of your prospect
is not enough.
Ideally, the sales encounter should be viewed as a win-win situation. But as any salesperson who has spent time “in the trenches”
knows, this simply is not the case. Prospects see themselves as
individuals with something to lose: their money. This helps explain
why prospects typically adopt an adversarial approach to salespeople. Under the prospect’s “system,” the goal is to get as much as possible from the salesperson without acquiescing to a sale. Prospects
seek “free consulting.” They negotiate for the best possible price and
terms for the salesperson’s goods and services while they play their
own cards very “close to the vest.” Prospects seek to prudently manage their own time while they freely spend the salesperson’s, because
they know that the more time a salesperson invests in a sale, the
more eager that salesperson will be to “close” something. And that
further strengthens the prospect’s bargaining position.

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Many prospects believe they’re doing the salesperson a favor
merely by granting him or her an audience. They think salespeople
should be grateful and should willingly assume a subservient role in
the buyer-seller dance. That’s why salespeople frequently ﬁnd themselves cooling their heels in crowded reception rooms waiting to see
their prospects. This situation closely resembles the medical model,
where doctors place little value on their patients’ time and routinely
overbook appointments.
Salespeople must assume responsibility for the current sad state of
buyer-seller relations. By tolerating their “subservient” status or frequently assuming the stereotypical “hard sell” approach, they have
actually trained prospects to assume a superior, defensive posture.
The status quo could not have existed as long as it has without the
salesperson’s active participation.
Whether you lead or follow in the buyer-seller dance depends
largely on whose system prevails—yours or your prospect’s. It also
depends on how effective your system is. To take charge, you need to
be fully aware of what’s happening at each step along the way. And
you have to be comfortable in the leadership role. Sandler’s experience shows that most salespeople fail because they do not know how
to be in control of the selling process. Most say they are not even
aware of the manipulative measures prospects take—often in selfdefense—during sales calls.
We believe there are no bad sales prospects, just bad salespeople.
Prospects developed their current system in response to the behaviors
and techniques of the salespeople they have met. If their system can
derail your sales efforts, then you need to adopt a newer, more effective selling system. It’s that simple. This report will show you that
there is a better way. You may not always get every sale, but you will
certainly know what’s happening to you on each sales call. And more
importantly, you’ll know what to do about it! But ﬁrst, let’s take a
closer look at how and why the prospect’s system works so well.

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“The prospect’s system
is engineered to turn
you into an unpaid
consultant.”
David H. Sandler

[Chapter Three]

The Prospect’s System
Over the years, through exposure to countless sales pitches,
prospects have learned enough about the selling process to thoroughly undermine it. They rely on a surprisingly small, but effective, bag of tricks to seize control of, and rapidly derail, sales efforts.
Prospects don’t always tell you the truth and they play
their cards “close to the vest.” First, you need to understand that
in the prospect’s value system, it’s OK to withhold information
from, and even mislead, salespeople. Otherwise honest, upstanding
individuals believe they can say anything they want to salespeople.
They do not mislead you because they are bad people; they do so
out of a desire for self-preservation. After all, prospects know that
while they’re busy managing their affairs, you’re off attending
workshops on how to become a killer salesperson. They know
you’re learning how to maneuver them into making purchasing
decisions. And they know your methods work. Each time they
choose between meeting a salesperson on a Tuesday or a
Wednesday, in the morning or the afternoon, or at 1 p.m. or 2
p.m., they realize they’ve been had. They might not be able to
identify your technique as the “Alternative Event Close,” but they
know you’ve pulled something. And with each new sales encounter
they grow a little bit smarter as your competitors continue to wear
out the same collection of time-honored closing techniques.

Step 1:

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So how do prospects cope with your superior sales powers? They
mislead you. Prospects know one of your first goals is to generate
interest in your offering, so they often feign interest in order to
pump you for information. Your prospect might start off by saying,
“We’ve heard wonderful things about your company’s ability to . . .”
or “We’d like to know how you can help us with . . . .” They will tell
you their current system is working fine, when, in fact, it is in
shambles. Meanwhile, they’ll volunteer as little information as possible about their true situation or intentions. They will offer no hint
about how much they really need your product or service. They
won’t talk in specific terms about how much money they have to
spend. They won’t even tell you how they go about making buying
decisions. What you must understand as a salesperson is that it
doesn’t make much difference what your prospect says, because he
or she is probably lying to you anyway.
Remember, you’re not the first salesperson your prospect has
encountered. You may be a great, sincere professional with a wonderful opportunity to share. But your prospect doesn’t know this.
Your prospect sees you as just another “salesperson,” with all the
negative imagery that term implies.
The prospect wants to know what you know. This
would be great news, if the prospect wanted to pay for the information. But he or she wants it for free. Why does the prospect want
to know what you know? Because your prospect assumes that you
somehow have the capability to improve productivity and lower
costs. Otherwise, why would your company have taken the time
and trouble to bring your goods and services to the marketplace?
The prospect figures you are good at what you do and that you
have something of value. Your prospect wants to extract all your
knowledge and to secure your very best price, but not in order to
buy anything from you. Your prospect wants to use you to “beat

Step 2:

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up” his current supplier. He needs your numbers so he can say to
your competition, “I’ve got a better price than the one you are
giving me.” And believe it or not, there are plenty of salespeople
out there willing to give insincere prospects all the free information
and competitive price quotes they can handle. That’s what corrupts
the marketplace and helps turn valued goods and services into cutthroat commodities.
We call this kind of selling “unpaid consulting.” And as you can
well imagine, the long-term outlook for unpaid consultants is not
very good. Lots of salespeople retire early from selling each year
when they discover unpaid consulting does not put food on the
table. Yet rest assured, it’s the prospect’s system that turned them
into unpaid consultants.
The prospect commits to nothing. Even after your prospect
obtains the pricing or information she wants, she may not be
through with you. She may need you to do a little more “unpaid”
work for her, so what does she do? She misleads you about what’s
going to happen next. She dangles the hope before you that a sale
may be imminent. “I need to think it over,” she says, or “I’ll get
back to you,” or “This is very interesting. I’d like to take this to the
committee,” or “We’re thinking about putting together a task force
to study the feasibility. . . .” She’ll hold out just enough hope to
continue to string you along as a willing, unpaid consultant.
Eventually, when your prospect has all the free information she
needs from you, as far as she’s concerned, the process is over. You’re
walking around saying, “Boy-oh-boy, I got one!” when, chances
are, you have nothing.
Because the prospect may want the option to bring you back, for
free, yet again, she may mail you a “humanitarian award” of sorts.
This usually takes the form of a brief thank-you letter. What will it
say? Something like this: “You wrote a great proposal. We got a lot

Step 3:

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of information out of it. It was of great benefit to us. We like to
keep abreast of what is going on in our industry, and you certainly
have helped us do that. And, by the way, the wine was very nice.
Thank you!”
Why do prospects use this system? Because it works! It’s been
around, in one form or another, since the dawn of recorded history.
What are prospects after? Your free expertise. What does this
process look like? What does it feel like? You usually don’t realize
it’s happened until it’s too late. “They got me again, and I still don’t
know what to do about it!” you tell yourself as you return to your
car after yet another unpaid consulting session. Or worse, you do
all kinds of additional work for them only to find out nothing is
ever going to come of it.
The prospect disappears. Suddenly, you find yourself
held at bay by voice-mail or e-mail. Essentially, your connection
has been severed, but you don’t know it yet, because no one has
bothered to tell you. Meanwhile, you continue to follow through,
as you’ve been taught. You’re temporarily stuck in this step, hoping
you’ve still got a shot at a sale. But of course, the deal’s been dead
for quite some time. You just haven’t admitted it, because you’ve
already invested so much time and effort chasing this “phantom”
opportunity.
It’s a fact of life: If you don’t have an effective selling system of
your own, your prospect will take the lead in the buyer-seller
dance. You will unknowingly default to the prospect’s system. And
at the end of the day, there will be no pay-off for you.

Step 4:

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“Most salespeople today
use techniques that were
popular before the
advent of jet Airplanes.”
David H. Sandler

[Chapter Four]

Traditional Selling Systems
If you’re like most salespeople today, you employ some form of a
traditional selling system. These systems have been evolving since
the birth of professional selling. While they go by different “brand
names,” their underlying structures and principles remain remarkably consistent.
Traditional sales training follows certain conventions. Salespeople schooled in these methods learn to:
• Sell features and benefits
• Withhold vital information—such as price and terms—until a
clear sense of “value” has first been established (typically during
the presentation)
• Rely heavily on presentation skills to close the deal
• Anticipate and handle prospect objections
• Employ a broad array of time-tested, manipulative sales closing
techniques
Traditional selling systems can work; that’s why they’ve survived
as long as they have. But because these approaches and techniques
are so widely used, they are no longer as effective as they once were.
Meanwhile, the evasive, manipulative behavior they encourage has
contributed to today’s adversarial sales environment in which the
prospect’s system has flourished.

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If you use a traditional sales approach and find that you frequently fall victim to the prospect’s system instead of your own,
you have plenty of company. Here are a few reasons why:
• You may be selling features and benefits, but people don’t buy
them. They buy solutions to their problems.
• By waiting until the end of the sale to disclose information about
price and terms, you may waste valuable time pursuing dead-end
sales opportunities.
• Similarly, if you rely too heavily on your presentation skills to
seal the deal, you could devote a lot of time and energy to a
sales call only to discover the necessary interest level was never
there.
• By focusing on handling objections, you perpetuate a system of
“positive selling” in which the prospect almost always assumes a
negative role. Negative customers are the toughest ones to sell to.
• And finally, your traditional closing techniques are probably
well known to your prospect. Closes like “the price goes up
Monday” or “Would the beginning or latter part of next week
be better for you?” have lost most of their effect. And one-liners
such as, “The price is the best part about it!” are simply useless.
Your prospect has heard them all before. He or she is on to you!
Be aware, if you follow a traditional selling system you will fall
into the prospect’s system that was described in Chapter Three, and
wind up doing what the prospect expects. Don’t follow the prospect’s
system and lose the sale!

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“Of the 50 selling programs I
have been exposed to, Sandler
works best—hands down. This
system has brought me
overwhelming fi nancial and
personal success.”
C.R. Bedrosian, Director of Sales,
K’NEX Industries, Inc., Hatfield PA

[Chapter Five]

The Sandler® System—
A Better Way
To win at sales the majority of the time, you must employ a selling
system that is more powerful than your prospect’s! And the system
in the marketplace today that can restore your sales edge is the
Sandler Selling System. The Sandler Selling System is a direct,
no-nonsense approach to selling that frames the sales call as a business meeting among equals. In the Sandler system, the salesperson
behaves like a highly paid business consultant. Instead of treating
your prospect to yet another sales call, you offer an honest,
non-manipulative exchange of information. The effect is both
refreshing and disarming. Here’s a brief overview of how it works:
Establish rapport (stop acting like a salesperson).
Prospects erect a defensive “wall” when they think you are trying to
sell them something. What you have to do at this point is get the
prospect comfortable with you. Help her know that you understand her problem from her point of view. Make her comfortable
with you so you can begin to establish a relationship. And continue
to build that rapport and trust throughout the entire selling relationship, not just during the first five minutes.

Step 1:

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Establish an up-front contract. Before every baseball
game, the umpire calls the managers from the two teams together
at home plate. The rules of baseball are discussed, including the
foul lines, the foul poles and the home run fence, and any unusual
circumstances that may apply to that particular ballpark. When a
batter hits the ball off the catcher’s head and it lands on the screen
behind the catcher, there can be no question about that being a
foul ball. And, when the batter hits the ball over the fence between
the left and right field foul poles there’s still no problem: It’s clearly
a home run.
Can you imagine the confusion that would ensue if the managers and the umpire did not agree—up-front—to what the
ground rules for the game would be? In sales, the up-front contract
serves that purpose. It establishes a clear understanding between
the salesperson and the prospect about what each has a right to
expect from the forthcoming sales encounter. Ground rules establish behavioral boundaries, decision making steps and the necessary
actions that must be taken to fulfill those expectations.
Ever hear a prospect say, “Well, George, based on what you’re
telling me so far, all things being equal, it certainly looks good.
You’re very close. I don’t see any reason in the long run why you
may not get this order, assuming things fall into place and everything works out well?”
The amateur salesperson who sets up weak up-front contracts or
no up-front contracts deludes himself. He rushes back to the office
and says, “Got one, boss!” when in fact, he has nothing.

Step 2:

Uncover and probe your prospect’s “pain.” People buy
emotionally—they make decisions intellectually. The most intense
emotion people experience is pain. What you must understand is
this: If your prospect has no pain, there will be no easy sale. People
will continue to do what they’ve done all their lives until the pain

Step 3:

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of maintaining the status quo is greater than the pain of making a
change to something new. If you do not learn how to uncover the
prospect’s pain, you will continue to sell using the most difficult of
all antiquated principles, the law of averages!
Remember all that “unpaid consulting” the prospect is after?
The Sandler Selling System® makes that a thing of the past. Your
new goal is to uncover the prospect’s pain, not to create new pain
for yourself!
Get all the money issues out on the table. You must not
only address the cost of your goods or services to get a sale, but,
more importantly, you must address the cost to your prospect if he
or she does nothing. What is the financial impact of the issues
(pain) you have uncovered? You must deal with the budget step in
order to make sure that you can get paid for what you do. Once you
have uncovered your prospect’s pain (Step #3), and you are certain
there is money available to get rid of his pain, you can move to:

Step 4:

Discover your prospect’s decision making process. Does he
make decisions on his own? Does he get help from an associate or a
spouse? Does he think things over or can he make a decision now?
Can this prospect make the decision to spend the money to get rid
of his pain?
OK. You’ve uncovered your prospect’s pain and you’ve received a
financial commitment to deal with it. You understand the decision
making process your prospect goes through, and you and the
prospect have a clear understanding regarding what it will take to
do business. What’s next? It’s time to move on to:

Step 5:

Present a solution that will solve your prospect’s pain. Of
course, using this new system, your presentation has little to do
with the features and benefits the marketing department fell in love
with. Instead, it has everything to do with showing your prospect

Step 6:

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how your product or service can get rid of his pain. Prospects do
not buy features and benefits . . . they buy ways to avoid or overcome pain. When you’re sure your prospect has bought into
your presentation, measure his “temperature” by using the
“Thermometer Close.”
Ask your prospect if he has an interest in your product or service: “Mr. Prospect, I get the feeling that you have some interest in
my product or service. Is that a fair statement?” Continue with,
“Let me ask you a question. On a scale of 0–10, zero being you
have no interest in my product or service, and ten being you have
already decided to use my product or service, where are you?”
If the answer is five or less, you have a problem. Chances are you
“pushed” your prospect through the presentation and you didn’t
really show him how you could help him get rid of his pain. STOP
and go back. See if you can’t get him more emotionally involved in
your product or service.
If, however, his answer is between six and nine, say, “What do
you have to see to go to ten?” Deal with any additional problems
he has. And, after solving each one, repeat, “Where are you now?”
Continue this process until he gets to ten. This is extremely important. When you get to ten, don’t use a worn out close like, “Want
me to write it up?” Instead say, “What would you like me to do
now?” This places the responsibility for the decision where it
belongs: on the prospect. Let him close the sale. That way, he can
never accuse you of putting any pressure on him.
Reinforce the sale with a post-sell. Don’t let this sale slip
away. It may not happen in your business, but sometimes when
salespeople take business away from a competitor, the competitor
doesn’t send flowers and a congratulatory note saying, “Nice going,
George! Good luck with your new client!” Chances are, he will
make a last-ditch effort to keep that customer by low-balling your

Step 7:

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price. And he isn’t going to be nice about it. The gloves are off. If
you don’t have a post-sell step, you may find yourself being
assaulted by your competitor. You are going to need a strong and
effective post-sell step so you don’t receive a discouraging voicemail which says, “Please call. We need to talk,” or a pink message
slip that reads, “Hold up temporarily. I’ve run into a problem.”
The Moment of Truth: Business is NOT won or lost during
Step #4 of your prospect’s system when he does not answer or
return your phone calls. Business is won or lost on the sales dance
floor—right after you establish rapport. That’s when you determine
whose selling system is going to prevail: Yours or your prospect’s. If
you don’t have a system of your own, you will default to your
prospect’s system and find yourself giving up control.
If you are presently involved in a selling cycle and you realize
you’re not leading the “dance,” what can you do? Not much! Relax,
and enjoy the ride. Look at this experience as a valuable part of
your professional education. The sale was lost right after the introductions, when you lost your nerve. But next time, you’ll do better.
Next time, you’ll apply the Sandler Training® principles. Next
time, you’ll make the sale. Nevermore will you surrender the initiative and sell out your goals, your income, your family . . . and your
future.

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“You can’t teach a kid to
ride a bike at a seminar.”
David H. Sandler

[Chapter Six]

Why Most Sales Training
Doesn’t Work
Have you attended a half-day, full day or even a two-day sales
training seminar lately? Did it make you feel good? Did you leave
all fired up with new ideas, slogans and one-liners, determined to
put them to the test? Well, now that a little time has passed, how
much of that training would you say you continue to use? If you’re
like most salespeople, the answer is, “Not much.”
Acquiring new information won’t improve sales performance;
only applying it will! Selling is applied knowledge. It’s behavior.
And changing behavior is difficult. It takes time—and practice—
to alter behavior, improve attitudes and outlooks and master new
techniques. And time and practice are two things you just don’t get
enough of at a typical sales training seminar. In fact, psychological
studies have shown that most people forget most of what they learn
at seminars within the first 48 hours.
Just as a bandage cannot heal a broken bone, a “quick fix,”
pump-me-up sales training seminar will never be sufficient to positively redirect a languishing sales career.
To master the Sandler Selling System, most salespeople must
undergo a complete behavioral overhaul. That’s because the
Sandler® system requires real, sweeping change. Using a traditional

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training seminar format was, therefore, always out of the question.
Instead, Sandler has based its training initiatives on a model
designed to facilitate ongoing, lasting change. Each Sandler
Training® center combines live, classroom instruction with professional sales coaching, interactive role-playing, support group
dynamics and quality review materials to create a powerful program of ongoing “reinforcement training”—something no sales
training program has ever used before.
Sandler® sales training works because it incorporates reinforcement training, uses the latest adult learning methodologies and
builds its efforts around committed trainers who have ﬁrst-hand
sales experience. These elements are part of all Sandler training
programs.

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“To get to the top of the
sales profession, you’ve
got to practice, practice,
practice. Find a system
that works, and learn it.”
David H. Sandler

[Chapter Seven]

Create Your Own Performance
Improvement Program
Whether you are an independent sales representative, a sales manager, a non-selling professional, or the head of corporate sales or
customer service, the Sandler Training® programs can effectively
address your speciﬁc needs.
The President’s Club
Through the President’s Club, independent salespeople and sales
teams can learn to master the Sandler Selling System® methodology—the most powerful sales methodology ever developed. The
President’s Club provides continuous, ongoing reinforcement training in a ﬂexible, off-site, supportive classroom environment. Each
training center offers as much as 20 hours or more of interactive
classroom training a month, and you can attend as many of the sessions as you like.
Classwork consists of an exciting combination of workshops,
real-world role-plays, problem-solving clinics and ongoing reinforcement. Knowledgeable and experienced trainers lead classes
that focus on trainee participation. Participants are encouraged to
share their personal experiences in applying the Sandler system.
President’s Club members get plenty of individual attention, too.
Sandler trainers help them apply the selling system to their own

25

unique sales situations, prospects and customers. Trainers also
provide sales call pre-briefings and debriefings to further reinforce
lessons learned.
The President’s Club constitutes an ongoing personal development program grounded in proven theories, hard skills, powerful
techniques and workable strategies that you can use on every call,
with every prospect . . . for the rest of your career. This program
will help you master the Sandler Selling System through the use of
some of today’s most advanced adult learning methodologies.
President’s Club members receive valuable review materials
and courseware to further reinforce training. These include an
attractive set of workbooks and a set of cassette tapes or CDs.
Corporate Consulting and In-House Training
The trend in corporate America today is to downsize in-house
training staffs, primarily for two reasons: First, it is costly to maintain an in-house training department. And second, it is hard—
except in some of the larger organizations—to attract, keep and
maintain dynamic training teams. Moreover, effective sales and
management training requires instructors who are trained and
experienced in the real-world application of those disciplines.
Still, many companies prefer to maintain the “feel” of a traditional training program and will engage the services of outside
trainers, who deliver one- and two-day intensive workshops, followed up by periodic refresher courses. Sandler Training® programs
can be designed to give clients total flexibility in course design and
service delivery. Services include customized training manuals and
course materials, on-call coaching services and on-line training and
reinforcement components.

26

Specialized Training
Though Sandler emphasizes ongoing reinforcement training for
lasting change and success it offers several shorter-term curriculums, which pinpoint specific business issues.
The Sandler’s Professional Advantage® Program offers a
proven—yet refined—approach designed for accountants,
engineers, lawyers, and anyone who needs to build a client base for
their services.
Quality Service: Defining It, Building It and Sustaining It
uses a quality management approach to improving customer
service at all levels of an organization. This program is not industry
specific, and is flexible enough to be applied to any company.
In addition to an extensive sales training curriculum, Sandler
Management Solutions program takes the methodologies of the
sales industry’s most powerful selling system, and applies them to
the issues of sales management in a comprehensive training package. Read more about Sandler Management Solutions in Chapter
Eight.

27

“There are no bad
salespeople... only
bad sales managers!”
David H. Sandler

[Chapter Eight]

Effective Training
for Sales Managers
If you’re like most sales managers working today, you probably
started your career in sales. Yet the managerial skills you learned
through selling are of only limited value to you now. As a salesperson, you only had to manage and motivate yourself. But as a sales
manager, you now have to effectively manage and motivate others.
As a salesperson, you had to hit the sales targets you were given.
But as a sales manager, you now have to get your department to
make the company’s numbers—no matter how unreasonable or
unrealistic they may seem. And you must achieve those numbers
by effectively redistributing your sales quota to your sales team,
according to the varying capabilities of each member. As a salesperson, you worked to be the best member of the team. But as the
sales manager, you now have to recruit, assemble, direct and inspire
that team to greatness.
Your sales background may make you an effective sales coach,
but as you’ve already discovered, sales coaching only accounts for a
fraction of your time—and your responsibilities. Where once you
could afford to be ﬁercely independent, you now rely completely
on the performance of others—the very same people who are

29

depending on you! These demands on the sales manager can make
his position a lonely, frustrating and sometimes discouraging one.
Unfortunately, where do most sales managers turn for the training they need to survive, and thrive, in their positions? Most
attempt to get it from general management training, which may or
may not apply directly to their situation or from attending sales
management seminar programs. But now there’s a more effective
alternative: sales management training from Sandler Training—an
organization that truly understands salespeople and sales management, possibly better than anyone else.
Sandler Management Solutions provides you with comprehensive instruction on every major facet of sales
management:
• Assembling Your Team. Master the interviewing skills and
techniques necessary to help you identify winners each time you
ﬁeld a new pool of sales recruits.
• Managing the People. Learn to apply sales management techniques of Sandler to achieve “buy-in” from your sales team
members. Discover how to teach and lead rather than manage
and reprimand. Sandler will show you how to use a simple 10minute test to gain powerful insight into your salespeople, and
teach you how to motivate your salespeople to become selfdirected sales closers.
• Managing the Process. Build your own uniform sales management system based on the Sandler® model by breaking the sales
process into templates. Learn to set realistic goals, monitor
progress and handle paperwork. Improve your team’s ability to
gather and analyze competitive market intelligence.
• Managing the Numbers. Master accurate sales forecasting
methods, and learn how to teach them to your salespeople.
Improve your ability to develop budgets. Let your Sandler

30

trainer show you how to establish performance measures that
provide useful feedback and that foster process improvement.
Like all Sandler Training® programs, SMS helps you master your
new managerial skills with powerful reinforcement training methods. What’s more, this program has been tested and refined
through years of application in real-world sales management situations.
You’ll find SMS to be:
• Flexible—you start the program at whatever level you feel most
comfortable.
• Interactive—you work, in a classroom setting, with your Sandler®
trainer and fellow participants using role-playing exercises and
active discussion.
• Customized—you’ll apply Sandler techniques to training issues
and situations directly from your sales team’s daily work environment, and then further hone and refine them to meet your
specific needs.
• Led by superior trainers—Sandler trainers lead every session as
they take you on your own personal journey of discovery and
enrichment. Meanwhile, you reap the benefit of Sandler “best
practices” gleaned through workshops with clients from every
type of organization and industry.
For more information about this valuable training opportunity,
call your local Sandler training center today. (You’ll find the phone
number on the back cover of this book.)

31

[Postword]

The Sandler Selling System® methodology may not be the only
answer for every company—or every sales force. But it might provide a solution to some of your sales and sales management problems. One way to tell is to consider the following questions:
Are you or your salespeople giving information to prospects when you or they should
be getting it?

YES

NO

Are your cost-of-sales margins increasing?
Are you ready to shake up your sales culture?
Are you or your salespeople too willing to
consider lowering prices?
Do your salespeople follow inconsistent
sales methodologies?
Are your salespeople, rather than your sales
managers, creating and maintaining your
sales culture?
Does your sales team seem to change its
sales approach with every major ﬂuctuation
in the economy?

33

YES

NO

Have you been accepting a level of
mediocrity from your sales team?

If you answered “Yes” to just one of these questions, then there are
still two more questions you should ask yourself:
Could we do better by adopting the Sandler
Selling System?
Is there any sensible reason for NOT giving
Sandler Training a closer look?

If you are ready to take the ﬁrst step on the
road to success, or want more information,
contact the Sandler® trainer listed on the back
cover of this book, or visit our website at
www.sandler.com.

34

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