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 Many businesses and Sales Managers think of Sales Training as just Product training. Why? Because most companies and Sales Managers think that the most important capability that a Salesperson needs to have is to ‘tell’ the prospect or customer about the features of their products or services.
This does not work anymore!
Allow me to explain.
Sales people and specifically ‘Sales Representatives’, became increasingly common in business from the 1950’s and 1960’s. Sales Representatives were taught to re-present and represent their company and its products. Their training consisted of filling their heads with product knowledge and their hands with brochures, giving them a price list, a car, and told to ‘go sell’.
These men and women were ‘talking brochures’ and ‘talking billboards’, and their primary skill was to pitch (translate ‘tell’ or ‘present’) their features to anyone who would listen, handle objections and close.
This used to work because buyers were uninformed and needed the information that the Sales person provided to help them make a decision.
Now, lets wind the clock forward 50 years and the business and consumer world has massively changed. Buyers don’t need a ‘talking brochure’ anymore and there are now multiple competitors competing for the Buyers’ dollars.
Many companies and Sales Managers have responded by doing more of the same, but we all know the definition of insanity - “Trying to get a different result by doing what you have always done”!
The Product training today for many companies consists of teaching Sales people better techniques to “communicate value” as they jockey to make their features more appealing to the potential buyer.
But in this “sea of sameness” the only differentiator is ‘price’ and the laments of CEO’s across multiple businesses is ‘margin degradation’, low cross-sell conversion and decreasing market share.
In the Huthwaite whitepaper “Escaping the Price-Driven Sale” we show that Sellers must be able to clarify value and to ‘create’ value.
The Sales Training for Sales Professionals today must include HOW to sell not just WHAT to sell!
The ‘How’ to sell today for all B2B Sales Professionals must include -
- Advanced understanding of the prospective customers/clients needs, issues, challenges and risks,
- Advanced product knowledge that focuses on solving customer problems,
- Advanced questioning and listening skills to uncover, develop and influence multiple Buyers in complex sales.
Huthwaite’s global research uncovered answers to four vital questions that Sales Leaders regularly ask -
- How do we clone the sales performance capability of our top 10% of sales champions?
- How do we develop a deeper understanding of our prospects or customers buying cycle and business and sell more strategically?
- How do we develop a consistent and common sales methodology that everyone uses and Sales Managers can coach to sustain and drive results?
- How do we stop discounting and dropping prices and compete on value?
Enhancing your Sales Training to include the ‘How to Sell’ as well as the ‘What to Sell’ will change your Sales Results - for the better!!
How Major Sales are Really Made:
Download our latest whitepaper: "How Major Sales are Really Made".
This free whitepaper provides some great sales strategies to employ and some to avoid.
Download it here.
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