Strategic Enhancement Group (SEG) uses a Growth Path to Successful Sales for sales people to learn new skills that, when used properly, will help them sell more and be more successful.
The Growth Path includes not only the training element, but also a process for communicating the importance of the initiative, preparing the participants for the learning and reinforcing and coaching them to use what they have learned.
75% of overall effectiveness is achieved before and after the training event.
+ 25%
Pre Event Preparation and Communication
Prior to an learning event, preparation should be done to set the expectations and help improve learner readiness. This takes little time but reaps great rewards.
25%
Learning Event
Having seminars that employ inside-out learning with skill practice in the workshop give the best chance for the skills being used. Our programs challenge people to think, which helps participants to make better connections between the new skills being learned and their use in the work place.
+ 50%
Post Coaching and Reinforcement
Selling is more than a technique, or a set of techniques. It is a process. But more importantly, it is a process executed from the buyer’s perspective.
Understands that people want you to help them buy, not to be sold.
Is consultative, understanding their buyers well enough to provide value and a competitive advantage.
Is strategic, winning business that is good for their own company.
Keeps a good balance between meeting the needs of their clients and advancing the business of their own organization.
Organizations seek out training for their sales team when there is a problem that is getting in the way of growth and profitability.
If that problem requires learning new skills or better use of skills, then our Growth Path to Successful Sales is the answer. There are two kinds of training: technical/product and interpersonal selling skills.
We specialize in interpersonal selling skills development.
A well trained sales team can generate new sales as well as expand opportunities in existing clients, which can lead to huge returns for a company. The better trained the team is, the better the results. A strong sales team becomes a competitive advantage for your company. The caliber of the salesperson in a B2B environment is the most important factor in influencing a prospect’s decision to buy.
The training could best be described as Transformative. How else can you explain the change in the sales culture from “Last Chance Position” for those going into sales to those same people becoming Vice-Presidents and Key Account Managers, our sales growth and our increased closing ratio?”
The Results AREVA Achieved
Up to 70% of sales opportunities are lost because salespeople forget to shut up! Asking the right questions is good, but actually listening to their answers and learning what is important to the client is critical. When a salesperson is focused on what they are going to say next, they miss important information that would give them what they need to position a powerful solution that is valued by their client. A good listener becomes a trusted advisor, developing good relationships and boosting credibility. Who knew that being quiet and listening could garner better results than talking? An excellent salesperson does.
Sales training gets everyone on the same page regarding the process. Using a common language facilitates internal conversations with everyone understanding where the sale is in the process. Using the common language with your customers provides a consistent experience that fosters confidence on the part of the buyer. If all salespeople, customer success and support use the same process, your customers and prospects experience consistency and quality. This helps to establish your brand and communicates to the market who you are and how you work.
How a company’s sales team goes to market is a direct reflection on their company. How they behave and interact with clients and prospects becomes a part of their brand. The wrong experience with just one salesperson from your company can have a ripple effect that could take years to overcome. A bad first impression is very difficult to overcome, even when the rest of the experience is good.
The inability to differentiate your solution (product or service) results in losing deals to the competition. In a survey of customers done by Training Magazine, buyers said that only 3% of the companies they compared effectively differentiated themselves from the competition. There is a lot of opportunity to differentiate your offering which will result in more sales.
Not being able to communicate the value of your solution, from your customer’s perspective, can mean losing the business, getting stuck in the price wars or wasting your time with someone who is just kicking the tires. In order to do this well, the ability to gain in-depth knowledge about what the client wants and why they want it is paramount to finding out what your client values. In order to get this kind of information, trust is key. Studies show that 71% of people base their buying decisions on trust and believability. They will allow a salesperson they trust to ask the questions that will give them a thorough understanding of their wants and needs. The salesperson needs this information to be able to communicate benefits that truly are important to the client, which in turn helps to build loyalty.
If a salesperson is doing their job effectively, they are continually prospecting for new clients. Your new clients could be your existing clients who are willing to jump ship. It is so easy to become complacent about clients, forgetting to check in to make sure they feel like their needs are being met. It is important to understand the ways in which a competitor can infiltrate your client and ways you can overcome them. We all have heard how much easier it is to get sales from existing clients than it is to find new ones. What goes unsaid, though, is that it still requires work on the part of the salesperson to make sure their client is still finding value in working with them.
In an economic downturn, when customers are less willing to spend money, being able to show how your solution will benefit them in the long run is even more important. For one of our customers, the skills learned in sales training proved to be the key that helped them penetrate accounts to discover what was really going on in their clients’ organizations. Based on this information they were able to craft a value proposition that didn’t rely solely on price. They were able to show their customers that they were making good decisions to make the purchase and do it now.
Companies want to see an upward trend in sales and profits. Factors that get in the way go from taking too long to close a sale to winning business for which you wish you never competed. Learning when to compete and when to pack up the tent and leave is a skill that could make or break a sales organization. Salespeople need to use effective and efficient sales skills and know which ones are right for certain situations and which ones are not. This helps with the profitability of a sale.
Sales is a high pressure environment. Sometimes it could take months or even years to close a sale. In those cases, the reward is certainly not immediate. Salespeople need to feel supported and valued for what they do. Feeling valued is definitely one of the benefits of training, especially if they are learning the skills they need to be even more successful. Only a few people are natural born salespeople. And even those who do have a high aptitude for sales require training and development. Giving them the fundamental skills to be successful fosters a supportive environment and gives them the confidence they need to grow and succeed. Showing them they are valued and supported goes a long way to retaining their talent in your organization
Since 1984, we have helped create some of the best sales organizations in the world. We’ve helped them build their competitive advantage and bring exceptional value to their clients. We work in these areas to develop the skills and behaviors that will help your sales team consistently win.
Organizations often default to their standard practices to backfill roles with the same skills they’ve hired for in the past. Have you identified the skills and behaviors that your sales people will need to demonstrate in the future for success? Are you crystal clear on what it takes to be successful in sales at your organization?
To succeed, companies need to revisit their profile of what a successful salesperson in their sales environment, selling their type of products and meeting their buyers’ needs looks like. Then they need to hire or train new skills that fit that new profile.
Four areas where salespeople need to be proficient: personal effectiveness, technical effectiveness, and also as a consultant and a strategist.
Many organizations believe that prospecting is a numbers game. Salespeople spend a great deal of time and energy trying to get one sale out of every 30 prospects.
Improve prospecting so that you can better profile, develop a value proposition, and write an access message that speaks to your prospect.
The reality is that if salespeople took a Counselor Approach to sales, they would realize that preventing and overcoming customers' concerns and objections happens at every stage of their conversations with their customer.
As any experienced salesperson or consultant will tell you, Discovery is both an art and a science. Without a plan, it’s easy to miss critical information as well as nuances that can help you shape your value proposition to the client.
Discovery Agreements are an effective tool to differentiate and elevate you as a trusted advisor in the sales process.
Understanding how to incorporate technology into your sales process may seem cumbersome, but it is actually a matter of learning the ins and outs of how technology can differentiate you and improve your effectiveness.
By integrating what has been discovered and developed about social styles over the years, we can learn about our style and learn to understand others’ styles so that we can become more versatile in our approach to others.
While you may not need to be friends with your negotiating counterpart, negotiation can and often needs to be amicable. Negotiation can result in mutual gain.
Take ownership for creating trust. Facilitate the customer’s buying process. Make sense of complexity. Your efforts will produce ongoing, long-term relationships that present multiple opportunities to sell and service while enabling your customers to buy how they want to buy.
One of the most stressful times for the client is after they’ve signed the contract and agreed to do business with you.
Gain the skills to have conversations at the C suite level, so they can tie their solution’s value proposition to their strategic priorities.
The bottom line reason to sell to top executives is quite simple: selling to them means more business for less effort.
Helping technical people and inside salespeople understand how to provide value to a customer and simplify how they express the knowledge they have is critical to helping them sell.
Companies want their sales people to recognize and ask questions about opportunities for the cross-selling of products or services from their company’s other divisions or in their other markets. Then they either want them to refer this opportunity to another sales person in another part of the company or, in some cases, make the sale themselves.
Sales teams need the knowledge and skills to function at their best, but also the ability to implement their own behavioral changes to be able to excel. Executive and leadership support is critical to start the training process.
Sales coaching is all about taking an active role in developing their people to be the best they can be. It is what a good sales manager does to help their sales people grow and achieve success.
Critical to a company reaching its goals is developing sales leaders who have the skills to effectively manage key sales functions and manage and motivate salespeople to reach greater level of personal, team and organizational success.
