INTRODUCTION

It’s an interesting fact that no-one likes being sold to and yet we all like to buy!  The role of the salesperson has changed out of all recognition down the years.  One of ‘the oldest professions’ is now no longer about customer manipulation and high-pressure techniques but instead, is a two-way dialogue where seller and potential buyer come together, to explore situations of mutual gain and benefit.

Commercial buyers are trained to negotiate hard, often using price as the only variable.  This has the effect of ‘commoditizing’ the market and reducing negotiations to ‘price-bidding wars’ that destroy value and have calamitous effects on the bottom-line.  This programme will give tools and techniques for counteracting this commoditization and allowing companies to sell on, and be paid for, the real value they bring, not just a low price.
Using the old methods, it is still possible to get the sale.  Once.  In these more enlightened and sophisticated times there is a need to look at the ‘lifetime value’ of a customer, since research shows very conclusively that the customer who bought from you in the past is most likely to buy from you again in the future.  The key skills needed now then are those of account management and to develop long-term relationships so that sales will come through for many months and years to come.

This programme is about exploring, developing and mastering those skills that will enable delegates to learn, practice and polish the skills necessary to vastly improve their selling skills and improve their sales figures.
This Masterclass uses a mixture of lecture, case studies (which reflect best practice) and extensive role-play to practice and perfect these new skills in a safe and fun environment
It will give participants an insight into what drives individual behaviour and personal motivation, so that they will be able to tailor their sales communication approach to the personal style and preferences of each client, which, in turn, will enable them to be successful in building rapport with and influencing clients.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• Individuals wanting to update and improve their current selling skills.

• Individuals wanting to learn and master some exciting new techniques in building rapport, creating and capturing value and closing every deal.

• Individuals who need to be able to ‘sell’ or influence others within their own organization in order to progress their business objectives

• Individuals responsible for the supervision, management or coaching of salespeople, or those on the ‘Fast-track’ to management.

PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES

• By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to;

• Manage their customer effectively

  • Assess the customer’s criteria for judging value received,

  • Analyse their business and purchasing strategies, and in particular their value drivers

  • As a consequence, develop true, customer focused value propositions

  • Measure the value received by the customer, and to measure that value in the customer’s own terms

  • Penetrate the customer’s decision making process in order to find those to whom your value matters the most

  • Use a poven technique to overcome customer inertia

• Sell the value through the use of enhanced questioning skills, and a joint problem-solving approach to the customer relationship

• Negotiate both a value price and a win-win outcome

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

• Training input will consist of practical knowledge, role plays, case studies and self revealing instruments and questionnaires. Learning will be enhanced through active involvement; individual and group exercises followed by review. Opportunities for self-assessment will be provided and feedback on individual and group performance will be encouraged. Participants will work on their own individual team issues during the programme.

ORGANISATIONAL IMPACT

Participants who attend this programme will learn the skills necessary to influence and persuade others, whether they are external customers or even colleagues within their own organization.  This programme will give details of techniques, skills methodologies and tools for handling Key Accounts and other, smaller customers.  Although the focus is on selling skills, the programme’s focus is on driving up profits, rather than just sales. Delegates will learn to position themselves, their products and their company as added value partners to customers and will be able to negotiate on the real value they bring rather than being ‘a price commodity’

PERSONAL IMPACT

The skills of communication and rapport building which will be covered in some depth are valuable life skills as well as being extremely useful assets for successful performance ‘on-the-job’.
Participants will leave the programme with new insights into how they can relate to people, how they can present themselves, their company and their products in such a way that they can demonstrate a profound and lasting impact on the value chain of the customer and make a positive impact into the customer’s future.  Key Skills addressed are;

• Get new skills to uncover customer needs

• Acquire skills to enable you to better ‘read’ customers

• Increased awareness of non-verbal buying signals

• Gain Rapport skills that are invaluable in your professional and private life

• Gain experience in a safe yet challenging environment

• Close more deals and get the sale

COMPETENCIES EMPHASISED

• Increased knowledge of human psychology, and behaviour, as applied to commercial situations

• Increased selling skills, how to uncover and maximise customer needs, even when they are not overtly expressed

• How to talk the customer’s language, even when you have little else in common

• Ability to uncover, and communicate your true worth to the customer and express your unique value proposition

• Planning for sales success

• Building rapport and opening the interview

• Understanding the customer’s personal motivation type

• Making a positive impact

• Creating true & lasting value

• Successful negotiation skills

• Closing Skills

• Following up.

PROGRAMME OUTLINE

MODULE 1 – Phase 1, Before the call and the key first two minutes

• Introduction & Welcome

• Ice-Breaker exercise

• Your Views on Selling

• ‘Customers are not all equal’

• Classifying Customers

• Planning your Strategy

• Pre-Call Planning

• Opening the call

• The Psychology of sales success

• Establishing & Building Rapport

MODULE 2 – The Sales Interview

• Listening versus Talking

• Customer’s Personal Motivation Styles

• Questioning Skills

• Models of Questioning

• Linguistics and their role in the sales process

• Selling on Value not price

• Building significance

• Identifying Needs

• The psychology of needs

• Corporate Motivational drivers

• Seeking Referrals

MODULE 3 – Building Significance

• Positive impact analysis

• Shared future analysis

• Uncovering Concerns

• Selling on Consequences

• Discovering and unlocking your true value

• The Customer Activity Cycle

• The Customer’s Influence chain

• Talking their language

MODULE 4 - Overcoming resistance

• Handling Objections

• Preventing Objections

• Uncovering objections

• False Objections

• Real Objections

• Overcoming inertia – The Change Equation

• Handling the Competition

• The ‘Feel-Felt-Found’ Technique

• Using Third Party Testimonials

• Trial Closes

MODULE 5 – Capturing the Value – Getting paid what you are worth

• Negotiation Skills

• Bargaining

• Closing the call

• Action Planning & Post-call analysis

• Workshop Summary

• Personal Action Planning – Next Steps