open courses > sales training courses > professional selling skills > a delegate's view
A
Delegate's View of Professional Selling Skills
by Alison Taylor
Many of us working in the business of sales would probably
admit to being competent but average at our jobs. We win
a few new customers, we lose a few and on the whole we
get by with a reasonable track record. But have you ever
considered what makes the difference between the average
salesperson and the supremely successful one?
Just recently I found out. The new management team
at the software company I am employed by recently suggested
that I might like to hone and refine my skills by attending
a professional selling course. Following conversations
with various of my colleagues who had undergone similar
programmes,
the strong recommendation seemed to be to book into
'Professional Selling Skills', run by Leadership Development
Limited (LDL).
Described in the brochure as 'a
highly structured course designed to give sales people
of all levels a complete training in the modern consultative
partner skills demanded by today's market place',
I was looking forward to learning how the professionals
go about this business. From my first contact with LDL
at their Fulham office I was impressed by the enthusiasm
of their staff and the general helpfulness and clarity
of the joining instructions.
And so with a mixture of eagerness and apprehension I arrived
on the first morning at the Kensington
Palace Hotel in central London. Meeting the other delegates
over coffee at registration I soon realised that we were all
in the same boat. The group consisted of salespeople and account
managers with varying degrees of skills, some were just months
into their first selling jobs whereas others had years of
experience on the circuit. Likewise, the companies represented
could not have been more diverse from technology - computers
and software at one end of the scale, to tax briefs, financial
services and even agricultural liming at the other.
After coffee it was straight down to business. The pace throughout was dynamic and certainly stretching.
Yet the excitement, entertainment value and boundless energy
of the course leaders was such that one section flowed
effortlessly into the next. We were all instantly put at ease
by the warmth, friendliness and above all, understanding of
the instructors and never before had I seen such an ability
to galvanise an audience into positive learning.
Participation is stimulated right from the start by a constant
flow of questions to delegates, and new skills made easy to
absorb by the use of illustration, descriptive anecdotes or
parallels with personal experiences.
LDL believes that product knowledge and sales skills alone
do not create a successful salesperson. The vital ingredient
is attitude and the desire to win. The 'Professional Selling
Skills' course, therefore, is not just about learning how
to find and win new business. It moves across a much broader
programme of development from self confidence and physical
determination techniques, to handling adversity.
These were just a few of the LDL key criteria:
- People buy people first, everything else is secondary,
we must sell ourselves first
- Use questions not reasons, when planning a call
concentrate, not on what you're going to tell the
prospect, but on what you're going to ask
- Sell solutions - not products
- We are problem solvers, advisors and partners and
the key is to define the problem and build value in
the solution before offering it
- Sometimes to define the problem it is necessary
to magnify the customer's perception of the problem,
a technique known as 'Gap Analysis'
How many sales people have
ever given thought to the psychology involved in a sales
process? I for one had not but the LDL
unique formula for this is remarkable. LDL's structure
involves finding out what the prospect wants by continually
asking questions and then accurately matching your own
product or service to it. The various stages of this
8 stage selling sequence are entirely logical and, as
we discovered through our group syndicate work, once
learnt and practised, are easy to apply.
One-on-one role playing within a group or with a trainer
was a highly successful device used by LDL. This
was used to teach us how to analyse and adapt to our individual
styles the various techniques we had learnt. The encouragement
and support we received from the trainers and from fellow
delegates enabled us all to make massive strides forward.
Without doubt, these interactive sessions represented one
of the most beneficial aspects of the course.
Armed with the LDL official course notes and my own copious
notes, I departed
for home on the Friday evening with an overwhelming sense
of exhilaration and achievement. The different skills I had
learnt would open up the world of selling through a host of
new and creative techniques and my first task would be to
experiment with them. The high level of buzzing from all the
other delegates indicated that their convictions were the
same!
For further information complete our enquiry
form or call our team of learning advisers
on +44 (0)20 7381 6233.
 
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