Industry & Insights - Walsh College & Sandler Training

Summary

In this engaging discussion, Eric Van Djk from Walsh College interviews Eric Meyer of Sandler Training, delving into the organization's focus on performance development through sales and leadership training. Meyer shares insights into the three main client categories Sandler serves: individuals in sales roles, small to medium businesses, and larger organizations seeking to re-engage with continuous training. He also discusses his personal journey to Sandler Training and the upcoming partnership with Walsh College, highlighting the benefits of their 10-week foundational sales methodology program. Meyer emphasizes the importance of investing in one's personal development for success in sales and provides actionable advice for early-career professionals.

Takeaways

• 🤝 Sandler Training is a performance development organization specializing in sales and sales leadership training.
• 🎯 They cater to individuals in business development or sales roles, small to medium-sized businesses, and larger organizations needing to re-engage continuous training.
• 🔍 Clients often fall into one of three categories: individuals seeking external support, small businesses with a gap in founder's knowledge transfer, and larger organizations that have lost touch with their sales training programs.
• 🛤️ Eric's professional journey began with an entrepreneurial interest, leading to a dock installation business in college, and later, a role in the financial industry where he discovered his passion for sales and training.
• 🌟 Sandler Training pairs Eric's love for selling with his interest in training and developing people, leading him to a fulfilling career path.
• 🤔 The partnership between Walsh College and Sandler Training offers a program teaching the foundational framework of Sandler's sales methodology over 10 weeks.
• 📈 The program aims to provide a functional selling framework, addressing the issue of 'winging it' without a structured approach in sales.
• 📚 Continuous learning and development are emphasized as crucial for professionals in revenue generation roles.
• 📈 The 'Success Triangle' principle of Sandler Training focuses on behavior, attitude, and technique as key components of effective selling.
• 🚀 Investing in oneself through skill-building programs is advised for early career professionals to accelerate growth and avoid future pitfalls.
• 🔗 Eric recommends following him on social media for valuable content and tips on sales and professional development.

Q & A

What is Sandler Training focused on?

Sandler Training is primarily focused on sales training and sales leadership training, providing performance development for individuals and organizations.

What types of clients does Sandler Training work with?

Sandler Training works with individuals in business development or sales roles, small to medium-sized businesses, and larger organizations that may have lost touch with their sales training programs.

How does Sandler Training help individuals without support from their organization?

Sandler Training provides these individuals with external support, third-party feedback, ongoing training reinforcement, and helps them grow and develop their sales skills.

What challenges do small to medium-sized businesses face regarding sales according to the transcript?

Small to medium-sized businesses often face a gap between what the founder has learned and their ability to transfer that knowledge to others, leading to a lack of a defined sales process and difficulty in scaling up the team.

What is the issue with larger organizations that Sandler Training aims to address?

Larger organizations may have lost touch with continuous training and development, having wound down their training programs from a decade or more ago, which Sandler Training seeks to re-engage.

How did Eric's early experiences influence his career path?

Eric's early experiences with entrepreneurship, such as running a dock installation business in college, and later working at Quicken Loans where he was exposed to continuous training and development, led him to his current role at Sandler Training.

What is the success triangle principle used by Sandler Training?

The success triangle principle used by Sandler Training consists of behavior, attitude, and technique, focusing on the right activities, belief systems, and the tools to overcome mental roadblocks in selling.

What does the Sandler sales methodology program offer?

The Sandler sales methodology program offers a foundational framework for selling, delivered in small segments over 10 weeks, providing participants with a functional and replicable approach to sales.

What advice does Eric give to someone early in their sales career?

Eric advises early career professionals to invest in themselves by finding programs that provide skill sets and continuously building their toolkit for better performance in their sales roles.

How can one benefit from following Eric on social media?

By following Eric on social media, particularly LinkedIn, one can gain access to valuable content and tips related to sales, training, and professional development.

What is the partnership between Walsh College and Sandler Training?

The partnership between Walsh College and Sandler Training involves offering a program that teaches the foundational framework of Sandler's sales methodology, with classes starting in April and enrollment currently open.

Outlines

00:00

🤝 Introduction and Overview of Sandler Training

The first paragraph introduces the discussion between Eric Van Djk and Eric Meyer, highlighting Sandler Training as a performance development organization focused on sales and leadership training. It outlines the three categories of clients Sandler Training works with: individuals in sales or business development roles, small to medium-sized businesses, and larger organizations looking to re-engage continuous training and development. Eric Meyer shares his professional journey, from his early interest in entrepreneurship to his involvement with Sandler Training, emphasizing the value of combining sales and training.

05:00

📚 Walsh College Partnership and Program Benefits

This paragraph discusses the partnership between Walsh College and Sandler Training, offering an opportunity for individuals to learn Sandler's foundational sales methodology. The program is designed to be completed over 10 weeks, providing a framework for selling that addresses the common issue of 'winging it' in sales. The benefits include a structured approach to sales, enhancing the ability to replicate success and correct course when needed. The success triangle principle of behavior, attitude, and technique is introduced, emphasizing the importance of each aspect in the sales process.

Keywords

💡Sandler Training

Sandler Training is a performance development organization that specializes in sales and sales leadership training. It caters to individuals in business development or sales roles, small to medium-sized businesses, and larger organizations looking to reinvigorate their sales training programs. The organization helps clients by providing ongoing training, reinforcement, and development to enhance their sales processes and grow their teams.

💡Sales Methodology

Sales methodology refers to a systematic approach to selling that encompasses techniques, strategies, and processes designed to improve sales performance. In the context of the script, Sandler Training introduces a sales process methodology that helps businesses scale up their sales teams by providing a structured framework for selling.

💡Performance Development

Performance development involves the process of improving an individual's or team's skills and capabilities to achieve better results. It includes ongoing training, coaching, and feedback. In the script, Sandler Training is described as a performance development organization that focuses on enhancing the sales performance of individuals and businesses.

💡Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship refers to the process of designing, launching, and running a startup or a new business venture. It often involves risk-taking, innovation, and strategic management. In the transcript, Eric Van Djk mentions his interest in entrepreneurship, which led him to explore various business opportunities, including the dock installation business during college.

💡Revenue Generation

Revenue generation is the process of earning income or profits from business activities. It is a critical aspect of any business, as it involves strategies and tactics to increase sales and drive income. In the script, individuals and organizations that are responsible for revenue generation, which may include salespeople and entrepreneurs, are encouraged to adopt a structured sales framework to improve their effectiveness.

💡Continuous Learning

Continuous learning refers to the ongoing process of acquiring new knowledge, skills, and insights to stay current and competitive in one's field. It involves regular training and development activities. In the context of the script, Sandler Training emphasizes the importance of continuous training and learning for salespeople and leaders to maintain and enhance their performance.

💡Professional Journey

A professional journey refers to the path or progression of an individual's career, including their experiences, roles, and transitions over time. In the transcript, Eric Van Djk shares his professional journey, which includes his early interest in entrepreneurship, his work in various businesses, and his eventual involvement with Sandler Training.

💡Sales Framework

A sales framework is a structured set of principles, strategies, and processes that guide the selling activities of individuals or teams. It provides a roadmap for salespeople to follow, ensuring consistency and effectiveness in their sales efforts. In the script, the program offered by Sandler Training is designed to provide participants with a functional sales framework, equipping them with the necessary tools and techniques for successful selling.

💡Success Triangle

The Success Triangle is a concept used by Sandler Training that encompasses three key components: behavior, attitude, and technique. It suggests that success in sales is dependent on a balance of these elements, with technique referring to the skills and strategies used in selling, behavior referring to the actions taken to engage with potential clients, and attitude relating to one's mindset and belief systems.

💡Invest in Yourself

Investing in oneself refers to the act of dedicating time, effort, and resources to personal development, including acquiring new skills and knowledge. In the context of the script, it is advised as a way for young professionals, especially those early in their sales careers, to build a toolkit and enhance their capabilities, leading to better performance and career advancement.

Highlights

Sandler training is a performance development organization focused on sales and sales leadership training.

Clients of Sandler training fall into three categories: individuals in business development or sales roles, small to medium-sized businesses, and larger organizations.

Individuals seek Sandler training for support in their revenue responsibility and lack of internal training and coaching.

Small to medium-sized businesses often have a gap between the founder's knowledge and the ability to transfer that knowledge to others, which Sandler training helps bridge.

Larger organizations may have lost touch with their sales training programs from a decade or more ago, and Sandler training helps re-engage continuous learning and development.

Eric's professional journey began with an interest in entrepreneurship and a dock installation business during college.

Eric's mentor at Quicken Loans emphasized the importance of training and development, sparking his interest in Sandler training.

Sandler training pairs Eric's love for selling with his interest in training and developing people.

The partnership between Walsh College and Sandler training offers a program to learn the foundational framework of Sandler's sales methodology.

The program is designed to be delivered in small bites over 10 weeks.

The success triangle principle used by Sandler training includes behavior, attitude, and technique.

The program helps participants develop a functional framework for selling, providing structure and replicability.

Eric advises young professionals to invest in themselves early on to build a toolkit of skills.

Continuous learning and reinvestment in oneself is crucial for growth in a sales career.

Eric is a good follow on social media for great content on platforms like LinkedIn.

Information about the partnership program can be found on walsh.edu.

Transcripts

anyone who's participating in this

program will walk away with with a

functional framework for how to

sell hi everyone I'm Eric Van djk here

with Walsh college and today I'm joined

with Eric Meyer over at Sandler training

Eric thank you so much for being here

Eric thanks for having me absolutely

Eric with a K should we acknowledge that

and just start there two Erics with a K

you don't see it too often no no very

rarely very rare very rare um so can you

tell us a little bit about Sandler

training yeah absolutely kick it off

here so Sandler training is a

performance development organization uh

primarily focused on sales training

sales leadership training so a lot of

the clients that we work with Eric they

they kind of come in one of three

buckets so you've got individuals who

are you know good at what they do they

might be in some kind of Business

Development or sales role they're

responsible for revenue and they're

they're in an organization or they're

you know you know an individual

contributor they don't have support uh

in terms of training coaching

development the company that they work

for and so they'll work with us to you

know just get that support right a

little bit of outside thirdparty

feedback ongoing training reinforcement

we help them grow and develop then

you've got this uh kind of middle small

business mediumsized business companies

we do a lot of work with with those

individuals and those organizations in

that case uh often there is a there's a

gap between what the founder has learned

to do right and their capacity and and

ability to transfer that into others

sure so they're kind of missing this

process and we come in we we add a sales

process methodology that often will map

up to a large degree in what they've

figured out just through trial and fire

right and so then they can scale up

their team through that we help with

onboarding we can really kind of grow

that business uh and then you've got the

the third structure which is more of the

larger organizations usually in those

cases they've just they've lost touch

with something that they probably put a

heavy focus on at some point so maybe

decade ago 15 years 20 years ago they

had some kind of training program where

they developed a lot of their you know

their sales people who are now the sales

leaders but then they wound it down and

they kind of lost touch with it and so

we come back in there to re-engage the

idea of ongoing continuous training

Learning and Development okay yep that's

great that's great so um obviously I

know you're a local guy as well um can

you talk a little bit about maybe your

professional journey and how how you got

involved with Sandler what led you to

the current spot you're in so you want

me to go all the way back sure uh sure

yeah so if I go you know back to

preol I I always liked the idea of

Entrepreneurship I thought that was kind

of interesting um I don't come from a

family of entrepreneurs but somewhere I

just connected with it it felt like

something that I might want to do later

on in life didn't know how to do it

right or how to get into it uh one of

the first cracks at it was a dock

installation business that a couple

buddies and I ran in uh in college where

we didn't really do anything other than

just put some flyers together and go

pepper a lake over in West Michigan and

see if anyone was willing to let us go

weit out into frigid water in April and

put some docks in sure so we did that

and we we took them out later on and

made some good money and that kept us

from having to work in a restaurant all

summer and so that was kind of the first

crack at it then you fast forward uh

when I got out of college I started with

quick and Loans which is now Rock and

when I was there that's that's kind of

the story where it really starts me on

the journey to Sandler I had a mentor

there who ran the training and

development part of that business and

they they put a heavy focus on training

and development right everyone that came

in went through deep programs continuous

ongoing training there and I would go

down and help out with some of the uh

new hiring and and onboarding there and

at that time this was you know 2002 to

2007 we added thousands of new employees

to that company so uh that was always

going on anyway fast forward uh ended up

leaving there in and uh got into another

business with uh some friends that I had

from quickin did that for two years and

just kind of took a pause and i' I'd

been lucky enough to do okay at that

point um my wife had a job and and I

came home one day and said H I think I

need like a couple of months I'm going

to do like a just kind of walk about and

figure out what I want to do with the

rest of my life right reset yeah so that

was I was

27 and uh I just randomly got connected

to Sandler it it just kind of showed up

as I was looking around for different

businesses and I was trying to figure

out did I want to try to buy a existing

company did I want to try to develop

something purely from scratch and

somewhere along the way I bumped into

Sandler and I was reminded of what id

always loved on one side selling I just

always enjoyed selling for whatever

reason um but then training and and

developing people uh and for my time and

quick and that was always interesting so

with Sandler I was able to pair those

two together and uh I started to

in

2010 got it I know I talked with Sheila

Troy chamber obviously is here C on

campus now um and she tells the story

about how you you were one of the first

members that she had signed up for the

chamber with her so she's she's loved

your journey too and and we've talked a

little bit about that in the past so

that's awesome thank you for sharing

that no no worries 14 years later right

still here yeah that's amazing that's

amazing uh one of the more exciting

announcements that we've had here at

Walsh College in the last few months is

the partnership that we will have with

you guys um and so if you're able if you

could kind of give our audience a little

bit of insight on on what that program

is and maybe talk through you know some

of the benefits of what that can help

them with yeah so the uh the program is

really it's an it's an opportunity to

come in and learn the the foundational

framework of what Sandler is as a sales

methodology and it's designed to be

delivered in small bites know once a

week over what do we like on we doing it

for 11 weeks or 12 we uh 10 weeks 10

week okay 10 weeks so so over 10 weeks

right and U you know really it solves

the problem that I think a lot of people

who are responsible for Revenue

generation we call it sales people right

but it's not always salese you could

have professional uh service providers

you could have entrepreneurs I mean

there's there's a responsibility to

drive Revenue you are technically a

salesperson to some degree right even if

you're tile in job isn't that but it's

to give these people a framework for

selling and without a framework for

selling I think what you find is the

framework has been winging it and that's

that's only going to work when it works

uh when it's working well you don't know

how to replicate it when it's not

working well it's very difficult to

course correct it so anyone who's

participating in this program will walk

away with with a functional framework

for how to sell okay yep that's great

that's great yeah we're very excited you

can find out some more information about

that on our website um the classes for

this program start in April so we are

enrolling now for this offering so thank

you so much for for that partnership can

I share a little more on that sure

absolutely you know one of the things

that's also probably important is uh

there's this this principle we use

called the success triangle Eric and

it's a behavior attitude and technique

so if you can think about three points

around a triangle and the the selling

framework part is there's a lot of

technique in there you know what do you

say how do you say some of that stuff

but we also spend a fair amount of time

on the behavioral component which is

often really what's missing what are you

supposed to do right so like what are

the activities that put people in front

of of their ideal potential clients

what's that process look like how do you

build those plans and then the a piece

is attitude and attitude is really about

belief systems so you know how people

see themselves conceptually um you know

what are the thoughts that they have in

their head we call them head trash right

often there's a you know some kind of

Roadblock there that's keeping people

even though they know they're supposed

to do something for being able to do it

yeah and working through that and having

a good toolkit to work through that is a

key component to that program too

awesome awesome very helpful information

I know we're we're very excited about

that we've got a lot of interest in that

program even in the last couple weeks

since we announced it so should be

should be awesome for us thank you so

much yeah thank you guys I'm excited for

the partnership yeah

absolutely um many of you maybe know

this already but Eric is a good follow

on social media he has a lot of great

content that he puts out there on

LinkedIn and other other platforms so

make sure if you can you can find him

and and follow him I'm sure he'll pick

up some great tips I wanted to ask you

what would be uh for someone who's Maybe

early on in their sales career or entry

level career that in in any one of these

positions that you could uh suggest to

them um you know maybe a tip or two to

kind of get them off on the right foot

in that in that Arena yeah um you know

it's going to sound self- serving so I

don't mean it to but in invest in

yourself right if you're not if you're

not going to invest in yourself quickly

uh you'll find yourself doing it later

on in life after you've failed off to

enough to realize that it's probably

something to do so the best advice I

could give to a you know young

professional trying to figure out how to

get at the top of his or her game find

programs to invest in that give you

skill sets that allow you to build that

tool kit um sure and and just re repour

into that as often and frequently as you

can the better you get the better you

will find yourself awesome awesome great

advice well thank you so much uh we

appreciate the partnership again if you

have any uh questions or interest in

this you can find the information on

walsh.edu um and we'll share it in the

post as well so for thanks so much

appreciate it yep have a good one you

too thank

you