Introduction
- The Imperative for the Sales Rep of the Future
- Market Realties
- How the world of selling has evolved
- Why we need to sell differently
- Learning New Skills and Sharpening Existing Ones
- How we learn new skills
- Why we need to keep sharpening our skills
- Understanding conscious competence and how it can help us improve our skills
- What is mastery? Can we achieve it in sales?
Skill Building
- Identifying Client Needs - A Different Approach
- Going beyond the basics
- Getting a deeper and fuller understanding of needs - even those that are not obvious or stated
- Utilizing our understanding of client needs to differentiate from our competitors
- Selling Solutions - Beyond Products and Services
- Product focus is no longer enough to set yourself apart
- How to sell in a hyper-competitive market when you are not the only game in town
- How to become a solution provider
- How to challenge the status quo
- How to sell with insight
- Understanding How Decisions Are Made
- Winning the hearts and minds of our clients
- Left brain vs. right brain approaches
- Focusing on ‘the why’ to inspire passion in client conversation
- Questioning for Insights and Advancing Ideas
- The thinking behind effective questioning
- Different kinds of questions and when to use them
- How to use questions to motivate thinking
- When to use questions to clarify and confirm
- Using questions to probe assumptions, reasons and implications
- Listening - Beyond the Assumptions
- Understanding what interferes with our being able to listen and how to control it
- Listening to understand versus listening to respond
- Tips and tactics to stay focused
- Experiencing the impact of listening yourself and being listened to
- Understanding Objectives and Managing Client Expectations
- How to take control of the sales conversation
- How to teach, customize and challenge customers in a positive way
- Articulating Value vs. Price
- Recognizing your unique value
- Getting out of the RFP, commodity selling mindset
- Handling Objections with Confidence
- How to anticipate what will objections will arise
- How to pre-empt objections before they come up
- How to maintain our cool in the face of resistance
- Establishing a common process for all objections
- What we say and how we say it for maximum impact
- Putting It All Together in Practice
- Setting agendas
- Pre-call planning
- Structuring the approach to take advantage of opportunities