Announcing the Future Selling Institute!

On January 14, 2011, my business partner and friend, Dave Brock, and I will launch the Future Selling Institute.

What Is Future Selling Institute?

Future Selling Institute (or, FSI, for short) is resource site for sales leaders, including sales managers, executives, general managers or entrepreneurs who are responsible for the sales function, or aspiring sales leaders.

We built Future Selling Institute around the idea that salespeople have access to all kinds of ideas and resources to improve their skills as salespeople (hopefully, you count this blog as one of them), but sales managers have limited resources and limited access to the ideas, the tools, and the resources to help them succeed in an increasingly challenging role.

As a sales manager or a sales leader, you are charged with producing results, and you aren’t often given long to produce those results.

Two New Monthly Modules

Each month, we will post two new modules on a sales management topic. These topics fall under the broad categories of Leadership, Strategy, Business Management, Coaching, People, and Professional Selling.

The categories cover the whole range of what a sales manager needs to master to succeed in their role, and the modules present both the principles, as well as the “how to,” so that you can immediately apply the ideas to your business.

For example, under Coaching you will find Coaching Opportunities, Coaching the Pipeline, Coaching Sales Calls, Coaching Territory Management, Coaching Time Management, Coaching Problem Employees, Coaching and Performance Reviews, and Effective Coaching Communication.

These modules will contain video presentations, a recorded audio podcast you can download and listen to, a transcript, the worksheets and the tools we use in our own practices, as well as the spreadsheets and samples you can use modify and use.

Go the site and hover over each section and you will see the modules that are either developed, being developed, or planned for the coming months. (Much of the content is hidden until the 14th) If you have trouble, watch this video.

Live Webinars

These modules will also have follow on Webinars that members can participate in. Dave and I agree on far more issues than we disagree, but we sometimes have very different experiences, ideas, and opinions. These webinars will offer Future Selling Institute members the chance to listen to a deeper dive into the subject covered in a module, to hear some different opinions, and to have their questions answered.

But this site is built on the idea of community. So we wanted to give our members something more, and something that will differentiate our approach from other membership sites. We call it Office Hours.

Office Hours

We believe that even though the webinars and the forums (more about those later) will allow us to communicate with our members, answering their questions, providing ideas and resources that they can immediately use in their work, that we can provide more value by having direct communication with members.

Each Friday at 1:00PM EST, we will have a web conference dedicated solely to answering questions and sharing ideas with members. We want to talk to you about what the hot issues are for you and your sales team now. This is more than we have ever seen done, anywhere, at any price.

You will be required to sign up in advance, and space may be limited. For our members in other parts of the world, we will hold Office Hours on the first Monday of each month at 12:00 PM EST, and the third Monday of each month at 7:00 PM EST (not to worry, there is a calendar on the site).

The Future Selling Institute Forum

We have a lot of ideas, tools, and resources that will go live on January 14th, 2011. But our members also have a lot of experience and great ideas. Members of the Future Selling Institute will also have unrestricted access to our forums and a community of sales professionals.

Even though we will be active participants in the forums, you will be able to share your questions, your challenges, and your ideas with the community of sales managers and sales leaders.

Why You Need Future Selling Institute

You don’t have time to read, study, learn, and experiment to figure out what the best practices are in all of the areas that you need to succeed in sales management. You are expected to know how to produce results now. We’ve done a lot of this work for you.

You could go out and read a dozen books on coaching sales people and coaching approaches. You could experiment with it in your organization and see if you come up with something that works—if you had the time. Or, you could view the Future Selling Institute modules, download the worksheets and best practices, and cut months—maybe years—off the time it would take you to become effective.

You could hire a consultant to work through your challenges—if you could get it budgeted—and you could surely come up with experts with the knowledge and experience to help you. But you may not have access to resources, and that may not be a viable option for you where you are now.

We want Future Selling Institute to be the resource you turn to instead. We want to help you produce better results now, and faster than you might otherwise.

One Last Principle

We didn’t want this membership site to be limited to sales managers and sales leaders who were able to get company funding (even though we would encourage companies to do so, and we have some packages available for corporations).

We priced membership so that sales managers and leaders that are serious about their own personal and professional development could easily pay for membership themselves. Monthly membership is priced at $48, and annual membership is priced at $480 (two months free).

We priced FSI so that you would be negligent in not taking advantage of the resources for about the cost of two books a month. But don’t take my word for it, see if you agree.

Please join us on January 14th, 2011 at 1:00 PM EST for our official launch webinar. There is no cost for joining this webinar, and we will be announcing a number of free webinars and modules so you can get an idea of what the paid membership content will look like.

Click here to be notified for the January 14th sign up. If you have questions or comments, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!

Here’s to a wonderful and prosperous 2011!

Anthony