An international provider of point-of-sale data for investors wanted to upgrade the capabilities of their sales organization in order to aggressively grow their business worldwide.
Business Issues
A mid-sized specialty provider of point-of-sale retail data prided itself on the timely delivery of critical information that their clients could use for investment research in high tech and consumer firms. They were large enough to have resources to provide a superior service yet small enough to be much more responsive than their larger competitors.In spite of these advantages, sales growth did not meet projections. Senior management felt that a contributing factor to the disappointing sales growth was a lack of consistency among the sales professionals, who were located internationally.
Sales Training Needs Assessment
Peak Selling interviewed the senior business manager, who identified the sales issues cited above. It became apparent that the existing sales force was not following a consistent sales process. In addition, each of the sales professionals needed to upgrade certain foundation skills such as handling objections and prospecting for new business.
Sales Training Solutions
Peak Selling began the process by sending a detailed Selling Skills Assessment Survey to each sales professional. The assessment was used in three ways. First, it clearly identified each salesperson’s strengths and areas for improvement. Second, the collective results provided us with specific data regarding the skills and concepts that needed to be addressed in the sales training workshop. Finally, the results helped the Peak Selling consultant to provide 1-on-1 sales coaching as a post-workshop service to some of the sellers.
We designed a customized sales training workshop to help the sales team become better at winning new sales. The overall theme of the sales training program was prospecting and business development. One of the most valuable concepts from the sales training was Peak Selling's trademarked questioning technique known as IDEAL® Questioning, for which participants received our electronic email reinforcement kit as a post-workshop tool. The second major take-away was teaching them how to sell on value and overcome price as an objection.
The output of the sales training program was that the sales team became much more confident in their ability to ask great questions, differentiate their company from competition, and overcome objections.
Relevant training materials available for managers through our Coaching Kits product line, specifically the Handling Objections, Pre-Call Planning and Questioning Skills kits..