Uses the MDS 360® Sales Assessment

This assessment has 40 behavioural questions which assess all the skills used by your sales people in their daily sales roles. You may change these questions to suit any particular sales challenge in your company. The report can be a full 360, or just self and boss. It provides easy to read assessment data and a template for an effective personal development plan.

Objectives

• Use the MDS 360® to understand your development needs
• Agree on methods to improve prospecting
• Use techniques for effective consultations – listen more, speak less
• Understand your client’s need – don’t sell a product, create a solution
• Communicate persuasively and overcome objections to close deals

Content

Day 1

• Building your sales presence and impressing clients at the prospecting stage
• Building solid skills for asking questions, engaging dialogue and understanding client needs

Day 2

• Communicating your solution effectively using persuasive language and energised delivery 
• Moving the client to the commitment stage and closing deals
• Managing your sales funnel using your company’s CRM system

Uses interactive exercises, short demonstrations and tailor made role play scenarios.

Objectives

• Use techniques for creating persuasive material

• Shape material which is creative and convincing

• Control your nervousness and deliver in a confident manner

• Engage your audience by using an interactive style

• Handle questions from your audience using a 6 step model

• Present powerful body language  

Content

Day 1   

• Work in a class (12 people) to practise all the above key skills

• Take part in several short exercises for body language, voice control and eye contact

• Develop a team presentation and use this twice during the day for critique, improvement and handling questions skills

• For homework you refine and improve your business presentation (which you prepared before class)

Day 2

• Break into a half class (6 people) and attend for half a day to deliver your 20 minute business presentation 

• Demonstrate delivery and question handling skills. Receive critique from your audience and the trainer

All practical exercises on day 1 are recorded on camcorder. On day 2 both individual presentations and trainer critique are recorded. You will receive a CD rom with your recordings immediately after the programme for personal development and review with your boss back in the workplace.

Uses the Thomas Kilmann Instrument™ (TKI™)

This is the classic assessment used in the Harvard win-win model for negotiation. It presents your score on the 5 conflict modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. It is important for you to know your habitual mode. During the programme you will learn the skills to feel comfortable operating in any of the modes.

Objectives

• Use the TKI™ to plot your strengths and pitfalls in negotiating
• Use a 2 phase model for negotiating – preparing and bargaining
• Gain a huge advantage by preparing extensively – not only your own position but also your client’s
• Direct the negotiation to your advantage by using skills from the TKI™ – plus bargaining skills from the model
• Get the best deal when faced with very hostile negotiators – remaining professional and ethical

Content

Day 1     

• Learn the modes of the TKI™ model, learn how to read situations and build the skills to work with the mode which will give you the best advantage
• Be creative and use collaborating skills to achieve win-win
• Practice the 12 steps of the preparing / bargaining negotiating model

Day 2

• Get more assertive as you learn how to negotiate in hostile settings 
• Learn how to maintain ethical standards and not be beaten
• Deepen your skills in extensive role plays specially written for your company

Uses many exercises and short role plays on day 1, assisted by video learning. On day 2 you take part in extensive complex role plays (one for win-win and another for hostile settings). All role plays plus the trainer critiques are recorded on camcorder. You receive a CD rom of your own recordings for future review.

Using the Sales Performance Assessment™ (SPA™)

The SPA™ is the world’s leading instrument for assessing the sales behaviours and drivers of sales professionals. It presents a unique profile for each sales professional and leads to a clear development plan for higher performance. It is usually used in conjunction with an SPA Strategic Directions assessment. (See Creating the Ideal Sales Profile in this series.)

Objectives

• Use the SPA™ to understand your sales profile
• Value your assets in selling  – and be aware of your liabilities
• Assess the needs of your present sales role – and work out the gaps
• Build skills to close the gaps
• Focus energy on selling more effectively in your present role

Content

Day 1

• Assess how you are gifted in selling and what motivates you to do better
• Understand what is needed for sales effectiveness in your company
• Measure your sales profile against the “ideal” profile and design a development plan

Day 2

• Align yourself with the company’s need for higher scores in market awareness, prospecting, 
• persuasiveness and empathy
• Learn how to be more energised in your client interactions, and build a stronger customer 
• focus for long term client relationships

Uses interactive exercises, short demonstrations and tailor made role play scenarios. You will receive your own SPA™ Development Report and work with this extensively during the programme – and for your development plan following the programme.

Using the SPA™ Strategic Directions (Half Day)

Research with the SPA™ instrument proves that there is no one-best-way to sell. Instead a different style of selling is needed for success in different sales settings. It depends on the complexity of the sale, the sales cycle and your company’s competitive position in the marketplace.

The SPA™ is the world’s leading instrument for assessing the sales behaviours and drivers of sales professionals. It is therefore perfectly suited to help you define the “ideal” sales profile for the different teams in your company. The process is called “Strategic Directions” and includes 3 steps:

1. Selected sales leaders (usually 5 or 6) complete the SPA™ Strategic Directions questionnaire to describe what they think the ideal sales behaviours and drivers should be for a particular sales team.

2. MDS facilitates a 3.5 hour meeting with the group of sales leaders to discuss the results of their Strategic Directions Composite Report. This leads to an agreement of the “ideal” profile.

3. The ideal profiles are then used to develop sales teams (see Driving Sales Excellence in this series) and also for hiring new sales team members.

Using the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) (2 Days)

The MBTI® is the world's leading instrument for assessing personality type. This gives you deep insights into the gifts which you bring to your selling role – and also indicates areas where you are not gifted. You also learn how to interpret your client’s personality and gain a huge advantage in relationship selling.

Objectives

• Use the MBTI® to understand your strengths and pitfalls in selling

• Build skills in the areas of selling where you are challenged

• Add value to your sales team – complementing others who are different

• Develop skills for assessing your client’s MBTI® type

• Engage clients more skilfully during the sales consultation

• Persuade and influence more effectively by getting on the client’s wavelength

• Overcome objections and close deals more effectively using MBTI® skills

Content

Day 1

• Assess your personality type – your strengths and pitfalls using the MBTI

• Value diversity – work with team members who are different to you 

• Understand your client’s particular ways of thinking and communicating 

• Communicate and influence with different clients

Day 2

• Build high-level skills for running effective client consultations

• Create a deeper knowledge of your client to take relationship selling to the next level

• Be known as a people-focused sales professional – very successful in account management

Uses interactive exercises, short demonstrations and tailor made role play scenarios. You will receive your own MBTI® Interpretive Report for Organisations with details of your work style, selling style, communication style and approach to problem solving.

Overview

Strategic Selling® uses the famous BLUE Sheet. It helps you identify sales opportunities and close deals effectively – especially in complex sales settings. It helps you discover the full sales opportunity that your prospect represents. It helps you identify and connect with the different influencers who affect the deal and gives you skills to win their buy-in.

Objectives

You will learn how to:

• Position yourself with the real decision makers and influence them
• Locate and develop effective coaches for your sale (in your client company)
• Predict whether a sale is possible or not, based on your buyer’s “mode”
• Prevent sales from being sabotaged by an internal deal-killer
• Distinguish between personal wins and business results – and apply effectively
• Close business consistently from quarter to quarter using a sales funnel
• Access the final decision-maker quickly and more effectively than your competition
• Utilise your limited selling time on quality prospects and avoid “bad business”
• Leverage your strengths to put your competition on the defensive
• Guarantee repeat business and a steady stream of referrals

Content

Day 1 

• Understand changes in your selling environment
• Define a "Single Sales Objective"
• Define your confidence level
• Identify the client's 4 "Buying Influences"
• Assess the power of each of the influences
• Know what buying "mode" your client is in

Day 2

• Use the win-win matrix to avoid disasters
• Uncover ways to get to the "economic buyer"
• Leverage new strategies to use against the competition
• Profile your "ideal clients" and focus time on them
• Use your sales funnel effectively

The programme uses a very interactive training method where your table team works on an actual blue sheet as you learn the above techniques. You need to bring real client data to the programme (pre-course preparation) for this exercise which runs throughout the 2 days. You will therefore have a practical plan of action as your take-away at the end of the programme.

Overview

Every interaction with your clients includes critical points-of-impact where what you say and how you say it can dramatically influence the outcome of your sale. Conceptual Selling® uses the famous “GREEN Sheet”.  It outlines a unique, four-part questioning process that helps you differentiate your company, product or service from your competition, secure missing information, achieve commitment, and ultimately establish win-win relationships.

Understanding why your clients really buy will significantly improve both your confidence and credibility with your most valuable accounts.

Objectives

You will learn how to:

• Leverage a unique, proactive questioning process to secure missing information
• Get inside the client’s head by understanding their decision-making process
• Position your company more effectively by utilising your unique strengths
• Identify why a client “won’t commit”—and what to do about it
• Distinguish between an objection and a basic issue and learn how to overcome them
• Position yourself confidently with senior executives
• Define realistic expectations for sales call outcomes
• Establish credibility with every buyer, every time

Content

Day 1

• Understand the client’s concept – and connect it with your sale
• Determine what action you expect from your client for each call
• Set measureable single sales objectives
• Establish a valid business reason so your client will value your visit
• Establish personal credibility with your client
• Prepare questions which will uncover crucial information

Day 2

• Learn how to use effective questioning – and effective listening
• Decide what information you need to give to influence the deal
• Plan action for a win-win interaction with your client
• Ensure you gain commitment from the client as you move on
• Prepare a detailed call plan for your next sales call

The programme uses a very interactive training method where your table team works on an actual green sheet as you learn the above techniques. You need to bring real client data to the programme (pre-course preparation) for this exercise which runs throughout the 2 days. You will therefore have a practical plan of action as your take-away at the end of the programme.

Overview

In most businesses, five percent of the accounts bring in over fifty percent of the revenue. Large Account Management Process™ (LAMP®) uses the famous GOLD Sheet. It shows you how to best manage and grow these key accounts. It also helps you improve relationships between your company and all the individuals within your key accounts. 

You’ll learn how to manage your own cross-functional teams more effectively, how to position yourself with senior people in your client company and deliver the results that matter most for your client.

Objectives

You will learn how to:

• Build lasting, strategic relationships with your best clients
• Move from commodity vendor to joint venture business partner
• Manage the large account as a whole, not as various disconnected sales
• Use your strengths and opportunities to capitalise on current market trends
• Focus on work that will pay off — and avoid projects that are wasting your time
• Decrease the importance of price sensitivity
• Identify and implement essential support programmes
• Bring reality into your quarterly revenue forecasting
• Establish hard-number revenue targets
• Write account action plans that bring measurable results
• Make your clients view your company as indispensable to their business success
• Position yourself with senior people
• Deliver the corporate results that matter most

Content

Day 1:

• Cooperate with your client to develop a strategic plan – which works for them
• Apply the 4 levels of “buy-sell relationships”
• Understand how “selling up” decreases price sensitivity
• Analyse your current position with the account using a SWOT analysis
• Draft your charter statement – avoid confusing with a mission statement

Day 2:

• Focus and stop investments – use your selling resources to best effect
• Plan Single Sales Objectives which are tangible and specific
• Set revenue targets by making clear commitments with your client
• Deliver sales support programmes which add value at little cost
• Put it all together – complete you strategic account analysis (Gold Sheet)

The programme uses a very interactive training method where your table team works on an actual Gold Sheet as you learn the above techniques. You need to bring real client data to the programme (pre-course preparation) for this exercise which runs throughout the 2 days. You will therefore have a practical plan of action as your take-away at the end of the programme.

Sales leaders need to strike a balance between executing on the current quarter’s forecast and investing in the programs and activities that will drive long-term success. It is easy to understand why this balance is often difficult to maintain. Current quarter activities are almost always all encompassing. Every ounce of the sales organization’s energy is committed to making plan. The current quarter results have the most immediate visibility to the CxO suite. A sales leader who misses a quarter will be on the witness stand testifying why.

It is simply easier to postpone investment in longer-term programs and activities that drive pipeline growth. After all, tomorrow is tomorrow and long-term activities are less visible. With this near-sighted perspective, the sales leader exchanges sustained success for short-term gain. Eventually the lack of long-term investment and planning catches up with the sales organization in the form of a weak funnel.

A way to strike a balance between short-term execution and long-term investment is to create a management cadence where early in every quarter, long-term planning and execution review sessions are held with the sales team.

The golden rule in this long-term planning sessions is: no opportunities in the current quarter are to be discussed by the sales professional or sales management during these meetings. This rule forces the focus to the long term.

The sales professional presents to the frontline sales manager their plans for developing their accounts and/or territory. The plan includes specifics on the demand generation activities that will take place in the current quarter or subsequent quarters that will drive increased wallet share at current accounts and increasing market share in their territory. The FSM plays a critical role in these plan reviews, acting as mentor, coach, strategist, and guide to the sales professional. It is during these long-term planning sessions that the FSM can have the greatest strategic impact to the success of their sales team by helping the sales professionals to develop well-formed and realistic plans to execute.

The FSM then synthesizes the plans of his or her team and presents their overall plan to their immediate management. And so on and so on until the most senior sales manager presents their long-term plan to the sales leader.

Creating a rhythm of business where long-term planning is an essential beat of the management cadence helps to assure a better balance between short-term execution and longer-term investment. This is an iterative process and most organizations will not do it perfectly the first time, but by consistent execution of this process, sales leaders can be assured of better balance between short-term execution and sustained success.

Why do today what I can put off until tomorrow? People procrastinate because they are not certain what to do, they do not have enough time, or the task is just not that important. Sales organizations have been procrastinating on addressing their funnel confidence for years.

The 2015 MHI Sales Best Practices Study revealed that only 78% of world-class organizations had confidence in their funnel confidence, while all other respondents had a dismal 30% confidence in their funnel data.  For world-class organizations, this is the same level of funnel confidence that was reported in the 2013 study, so we’re not seeing progress.

The study also indicated that gaining insights from analytic tools is a strategic focus for sales organizations in 2015. However, the output of analytics will be based on a foundation of data that is not considered trustworthy, so even the most optimistic sales leader has to be skeptical about the results.

What is preventing sales organizations from addressing their funnel confidence issues?

Uncertainty about what to do

The task of cleaning and maintaining CRM data appears over whelming, but broken down into parts it can be accomplished. The first step is to create and educate the sales professionals and frontline sales managers on a set of business rules that govern:

• What data is required
• When it is needed
• How often the data is to be updated (e.g., daily)
• Validation process
• Who is accountable
   

The next step is to appoint a data czar who reports directly to the sales leader. Harnessing the power of the sales leader, the data czar persistently and aggressively enforces the data governance policies. The data czar’s sole mission is to create a high degree of data quality.

Last, funnel confidence needs to be routinely measured against a baseline and target goal in order to determine progress. For example, a funnel confidence metric could be expressed as “95% of all opportunities audited met data quality standards.”

Not enough time

No sales organization is sitting around with nothing to do. Any available time is quickly filled with the next emergency or critical meeting. One way to approach data quality on an ongoing basis is to make it a mindset of each member of the sales team. In deal or funnel reviews, never let bad data slide. Leaders and FSMs should always make a point of identifying the data issue and obtain a commitment for it to be fixed by a specific date. “Making time” for current, complete and accurate data should be made a baseline expectation of every member of the sales team.

Just not that important

Some sales leaders will determine that the cost of keeping their funnel data clean simply outweighs the benefits of the CRM data. This in fact may be the case in smaller sales organization with low sales volumes and not many clients. But instilling the data discipline in smaller organizations allow for these organizations to accelerate their growth in the future.

Procrastinators, by definition, are not leaders. The first step to solving the funnel confidence is for sales leaders to simply take the first step.

Tom Chamberlain, Research Director, MHI Research Institute, April 2015