Do your products sell themselves or do they need to be sold? To what degree does your competitive advantage depend upon your partner’s ability to sell and position your products or services correctly?
Professional sales representation is a cornerstone of a channel that adds
value to end-user customers. Partners need professional sales training and
want vendors to support this.
Selling Business and Personal Value is a three day training workshop for: (i) sales people who work for your partners who sell ‘consultatively’ - that is, by understanding customer needs and identifying customer imperatives; (ii) for sales people who need to be proficient at building rapport and trust with their customers.
Who should attend?
Selling Business and Personal Value is an intensive program for sales people who need a fast start and who have limited time available.
The program has value for many sales professionals.
- For those new to selling it provides a framework of basic skills and a practical understanding of the sales process.
- Participants with sales experience will understand what makes them successful, helping to systematize best selling practices.
- Those with prior sales training can update their knowledge and polish vital interpersonal relationship skills.
Workshop content
Many vendors want partners to improve their ability to talk to senior decision
makers in business terms… but much vendor sales training is heavily
focused on products and technologies. Sales people stick to talking product
features at lower organization levels, and fail to develop an effective problem
solving sales relationship with decision makers.
By ‘selling too soon’ competitive strengths are diminished and
trust is not established.
Selling Business and Personal Value teaches the skills of professional selling at each step of the sales process and how best to build strong relationships with different kinds of people.
Day One
- How products and services need to be sold - how choice of sales process varies with solution complexity, market maturity, perceived risk and customer size.
- Building trusted relationships - how the prospect’s personal style and that of the sales person impact the sale.
- Identifying maximum value prospects and sources of referral.
- Opening - making the ‘sale before the sale’, building rapport, establishing credibility and gaining interest.
Day Two
- Investigating - understanding the prospect’s needs and the source of customer value. Questioning techniques for information collection and analysis. Developing perceived value and differentiation through active listening and questioning techniques.
- Presenting Solutions - structuring the content and flow of sales presentations to address the prospect’s problems. Developing interest and being persuasive.
Day Three
- Overcoming Objections - uncovering the real reasons why customers don’t buy and developing strategies for each type of objection.
- Closing – gaining commitments and asking for the order.
- Personal development planning.
Workshop benefits
- Greater leverage from partner sales people – sell more and bigger deals.
- Improve partner profitability.
- Improve forecast accuracy.
- Greater customer satisfaction. Coverage of customer issues, buying processes, business imperatives and stakeholders.
- Build closer ties with partners. Teach partner sales people to speak your language and be more ‘comfortable’ selling your products/services than competitive alternatives.
- Tighter integration with your direct sales force. Vendor client-facing sales people will only leverage partners when they trust the partner will do a good job.
Workshop format and media
Selling Business and Personal Value uses a variety of media to maximize the learning of:
- the mechanics of selling as well as
- sensitivity to prospects
These include:
- lectures and discussions which relate these principles to participants’ own situations, prospects and accounts
- role plays which are a major part of the program where participants practise selling skills using their own products and sales situations
- video analysis which provides a method of coaching and feedback to participants
- comprehensive notes which provide a lasting reference and a set of tools for use in the field
- extensive feedback which contributes to overall development planning by each person
We believe in small group interactive sessions, so places are strictly limited to ensure quality. Ideal course sizes are between 10 and 15 participants. Larger groups can be catered for using additional Channel Enablers facilitators.