Consultative Sales

Introduction

In the consultative selling, or business to business sales environment, there are increasing pressures on sales operations to be more effective. Customers are more discerning and have access to more information about you and your competition. Markets are tighter and sales people need to look for new opportunities.

Many organizations run ‘consultative selling’ sales training courses to improve effectiveness and are invariably disappointed by the results – and here’s why.

(Dettaman and Sternberg – Transfer on Trial 1996 – this publication evaluates the transfer of learning from classroom to workplace of sales skills training. They concluded that 86% of training fails to transfer into the workplace. And the 14% that does transfer dissipates within 4 months.)

These are the main reasons:

1. Just too much – typically a sales training course is packed with hundreds of ideas. No one can change their habits in such a disruptive way

2. Lack of planning – no accommodation is made to help people change habits in a busy work schedule

3. Lack of context – training has not been designed to help people where they really need help

4. Internal processes don’t allow implementation – so much sales training is theoretically perfect, but the tools and will don’t exist to implement it

5. No follow up – if those who manage the people who attend the training do not coach, measure and develop the skills of their people, then there is a rapid deterioration of skills

So simply running a consultative selling course will not change skills or the business bottom line. Prosell’s sales performance improvement methodology takes this 14% and moves it to 90%.

What we offer

Prosell’s service is based on workplace accreditation, not classroom attendance. The bulk of our time is spent (in conjunction with your management) on developing people in the workplace. This development focuses on the key skills needed to succeed in the business to business market. We know these must include:

· Sales planning and campaign management

· Customer contact strategies

· Consultative selling – what makes you a trusted advisor

· Identifying needs in your areas of strength

· Strongly articulating your value proposition

· Negotiating the outcome

· Managing sales to a conclusion (avoiding drift)

We work with your teams to the point where they all do these things to an agreed standard and track changes in behavior and results.

How it works

We meet with you and conduct a diagnosis that involves us in assessing sales management, sales people and your customers. We look at the four key components of consultative selling and assess your areas for development. This allows us to agree with you the standards of sales execution you need in your business to achieve your sales goals.

We then run short, interactive workshops that make sure everyone understands what is expected of them and that they have the tools to implement effectively.

We then take both sales managers and sales teams through a workplace accreditation process. The managers go through Licence to Coach™ and the sales people go through Licence to Sell™. Both of these programs accredit the teams based on what we (and your managers) see happening in the workplace. They also measure against best practice in consultative selling. They are signed off and recognised for working to the standards you have agreed must exist for your business to achieve its goals.

We also leave you with all the tools (coaching templates, sales measurement processes), that allow you to maintain the entire process yourselves.

Why it works

It works because it applies the following principles:

· it requires the entire sales operation to support a process of developing people in the workplace to the point where they show a change in both behavior and results

· it only trains people on what they genuinely need to be more effective and it not a ‘catch all’ sales training course

· It uses the latest research into real consultative selling – based on what customers want

· It leaves your organization with self sufficiency in assessing, coaching and developing sales people

· It dramatically changes results – those who can perform better and it isolated those who can’t, or won’t meet the standards that are essential and therefore not hit targets

(Do you have ‘sales lookalikes’ in your business? These are people who look like sales people, sound like sales people and dress like sales people. They just can’t sell effectively and never will. Recent work we have done with a range of clients suggests one of these people cost in the region of $700,000 per year, when you take into account their direct costs, the opportunities they burn and their performance versus their target.)

Where it works

Prosell was founded in 1985 and has used this methodology to improve sales performance for clients around the globe. From the clients you see listed on our homepage, as well as the case studies on this website, over 60% of them have used our workplace licensing process to achieve dramatic change in sales results. The majority of these needed consultative selling skills.

WEB DEVELOPER