Sales Training Programs Review: Solution Selling, Professional Selling Skills, Microsoft Solution Selling
Solution Selling , Microsoft Solution Selling and Professional Selling Skills
Professional Selling Skills
In my 14 years of selling, I have taken three different training courses on how to more effectively sell my products and services. The three courses I am going to discuss are Professional Selling Skills (at the time offered by Times Mirror Corp.), Solution Selling (by Sales Performance International), and Microsoft Solution Selling (by Sales Performance International and Microsoft). Each of these programs offer benefits to your sales team depending on their level of experience and the types of things they are selling.
The first program I took was Professional Selling Skills in 1995. This consisted of a seven week training program including product training (yes it was really seven weeks long) before my company shipped me out to my territory in Southern California. This was great initial course to help me understand the differences between open and closed probing questions and how to get to the need behind the need for the buyer. One my favorite aspects of this program was the four levels of sales competency. They are as follows:
- Unconsciously Incompetent: This the phase when the sales rep is not even aware they are asking closed questions and not recognizing buying signs or when the prospect is losing interest in the conversation.
- Consciously Incompetent: About two weeks into the program most of us were trying to remember the steps in our role plays but were making mistakes along the way. The difference is we could recognize what we did wrong and how to correct it.
- Consciously Competent: At this point in the class, we were able to make it through the role plays with few mistakes but had to constantly be thinking about the next step and how to react to certain responses from the buyer.
- Unconsciously Competent: By the final weeks of the program, we were able to get through the entire role plays with relative ease and not make any major mistakes.
This course is excellent for teaching young and inexperienced sales people about how to focus on understanding the buyers needs and concerns instead of just trying to push a product or service on someone. It helped me focus on using open probing questions and get to the need behind the need. An example of the need behind the need is selling a retail pharmacy on stocking more private label over the counter products. The need is to give their customers lower prices and increase gross margins. The need behind the need is the increased profits will help the owner with improving his cash flow to make his monthly expenses.
Solution Selling (Sales Performance International)
While working for a distance learning / computer based training software company, I took a week long Solution Selling Course. This class was held at our offices and was customized for our products and services. Our entire sales team and managers participated in the class. This curriculum was very effective at helping understand the art of selling larger, more expensive products and services. (Our offerings were priced between $50,000 and $300,000 on average) In addition, to the basics of questioning and probing the course focused on selling solutions and the benefits of the products and services not just the features. Finally, it was effective at describing latent versus active pain, how to redefine the vision of the client, and understand when you are simply column fodder for someone else who has the inside track on the deal.
This has been the most influential class in my selling career and I think it is an absolute requirement for any IT sales professional who wants to be more successful. I will say that it will not be nearly as effective for inexperienced sales professionals who have not had their share of wins and losses.
Microsoft Solution Selling
The final program I took was called Microsoft Solution Selling, which was a partnership betwen Microsoft and Sales Performance International. This course follows the same methodology as the Solution Selling course I took a couple of years before. The difference is that the curriculum has been customized for VARs (Value Added Resellers) of Microsoft's many products. The course was a shorter version of what I previously took and the students were from several different companies and most were experienced sales professionals. Since my company sells staff augmentation and project based services some of the content was not as relevant for my needs. However, it was a good way to reinforce what I learned 7 years ago.
Finally, if you are unwilling or unable to send your IT sales reps off to training programs like these, it is important to hold consistent meetings to discuss sales strategies and tactics. I feel this is much more important to their career development and success than just setting weekly dialing quotas and proposals out the door. I will be sharing my ideas for sales meeting content in future articles soon.
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