Old school rules, new school tools Kate had a snap lesson with sales coach Simon White and took some handy tips away with her
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N THE CURRENT economic climate we could all use a bit of help to maintain and expand our businesses, be it a large corporation or a sole trader. I met Simon White of Simon White Business Development Ltd, a sales trainer, sales coach and LinkedIn consultant, and was impressed by his advice. On his website Simon promises to help businesses ‘win more deals, retain more customers, and grow key accounts.’ But is it really that easy I wondered? he first thing you noti e hen you meet Simon is his energy, friendly, easy-going
manner and straightforward way of explaining anything to do with sales. It’s no surprise to hear he has over 25 years’ sales management experience, the last eight years running his own consultancy. Most of his work is sales coaching and training but he still continues to sell for one or two clients ‘to keep me sharp and constantly developing my own skills.’ As he points out, ‘if I’m standing up in front of a room of people giving them sales skills, it’s nice for them to know the day before I was using those same techniques.’ The world of sales has changed over the
years. The internet has helped hugely in the early part of a sales process. ‘If you cold called 25 years ago,’ Simon told me, ‘and someone was interested in your product, you’d have jumped in your car and driven three hours to Slough say, and you’d lose days and days doing that. Now if you approach a company via LinkedIn or email or phone you may agree to have a follow up meeting over Zoom or Teams which would take less than an hour. ‘If I’d been coaching 25 years ago I’d be using my own knowledge and what I’d read in books which is based on someone else’s experience. Now a lot of what I share is based on fact or intelligence gathered via research I’ve done. And I know where to look for those facts. Selling is not telling, and telling is not training either. It’s not all about what I know but how I create the content and the activities and games that bring that knowledge to life. The old ‘chalk and tal approa h isn t as e e ti e anymore.’ As a sales trainer you’d expect most of Simon’s clients to be sales people but they’re not always. A lot of the time they’re small business owners or subject/technical experts like solicitors or engineers; someone
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