Sales and Marketing Alignment

The biggest challenge in organisations has been the tension between sales and marketing. More and more, organizations are solving this issue and not just hitting revenue goals but exceeding them. The companies that are able to excel at this are the ones that put the buyer at the center of it all.  They work at being able to monitor and map how their customers go through their buying processes.

The 4 steps organizations can take to improve sales and marketing alignment are as follows:
 

1.    Alignment effort between Sales and Marketing from top management

Getting agreement from the CEO is the important first step. Sales and marketing alignment is a leadership issue. If you don't get the buy-in from the head of the company, trying to do this becomes an academic exercise.  And you'd be surprised how many CEOs aren't interested in the change of management exercise that makes up the backbone of really bringing marketing and sales into alignment.

2.    Effective Lead Generation from Marketing Team

Marketing executives want to be treated as equals to their sales counterparts.  If that is so, then they need to have their performance and compensation needs at a  similar level of variable compensation as their sales counterparts. There's a lot of resistance to this in the marketing world. The logic goes, "we can open the door to a lead, but sales has to close it." That's hogwash. Marketing can do a lot to affect lead volume, quality, velocity and close of business. If it means one less doodad they produce and get out in the field to help close, so be it. By paying marketing in part on closed business, the organization puts its money where its alignment is.

3. Report on the same metrics

It becomes more apparent with the advances in lead generation, nurturing and conversion that if sales and marketing aren’t playing with the same rule book, things can go south quickly. Stop problems before they start by making sales and marketing alignment a priority. Both departments should be working together throughout the whole sales process: from the criteria you create for a productive lead scoring system, through the touch points marketing engages in with prospects to a clean hand off to sales through continued communications to close. If you ask sales and marketing leaders what they report to the management team (or the Board), very often you'll get things like this from them:

a.    Marketing: downloads, names of trade show attendees, "touches" (unless you are in the spa industry, this probably isn't an important metric), web traffic, social media mentions

b.    Sales: closed deals, total revenue, opportunity pipeline, sales forecast, qualified leads

c.    Make sure the management team cares about, and talks about, the same measures.

4.    Develop a unified process

The collaborative development of a process is one of the core issues that causes the gap that exists in many organizations. Companies that excel at sales and marketing alignment have processes and procedures that are mapped to how their customers buy.  With marketing and sales working together to address:

a.    Data Management

b.    Lead Planning

c.    Lead Routing (SLA's)

d.    Lead Qualification (including scoring and definition of every stage of the funnel)

e.    Lead Nurturing

f.    Content Blueprint

g.    Metrics

With the integration of companies CRM systems and many companies implementing marketing automation, the ability for the two previously separate silos aligning into a unified process with performance metrics, companies are now able to manage a complete revenue cycle that is mapped to how their customers buy throughout their buying cycle.

 

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Do Sales Training Really Help?

Research conducted by Revenue Storm during the Strategic Account Management Association Conference measured 100 Strategic Account Managers in 48 companies and showed they were 35% deficiency in allocating time to creating demand compared to Revenue Storm's best-in-class benchmark. One potential reason of spending less time in this critical area is the lack of competencies that Revenue Storm has identified; namely, managing pipeline, mapping politics, building momentum, establishing executive credibility, providing thought leadership, selling consultatively, messaging and probing. These competency deficiencies are further exacerbated when the market is like it is today.

In order to address these deficiencies, you could assess your sales force against the above competencies and develop specific training curricula to bring them up to best-in-class levels. From my experience, sales training is not enough. One approach would be to align the organization with the sales training initiative by starting with clarifying the Go-to-Market Strategy.
 
The Go-to-Market Strategy provides a direction not only for the sales force but also the rest of the organization. There are four Go-to-Market Strategies that companies can select. In fact, companies can deploy all of them, but each of the Go-to-Market Strategy needs to be aligned to each selling group. The four Go-to-Market Strategies are Transaction focus (example: low cost, commoditized offerings), Process focus (example: solution, one-stop shop selling), Business focus (example: business improvement), Partner focus (example: equal risk reward and gain sharing).
 
Once the Go-to-Market Strategy has been selected, sales process and sales roles including competencies need to be designed and aligned with the Go-to-Market Strategy. Sales management needs to be front and center in this step since they are the key role in successful implementation in the field. Sales management needs to be educated and trained so they can own and lead the implementation process.
 
Assessing the sales force against sales roles and competencies provides at least two important factors: fitting the right people into the right roles and identifying the competency deficiencies for each sales representative. Identifying the sales representative's competency deficiencies provides direction for both specific training and specific coaching from sales management.
 
Other functions need to be aligned to the Go-to-Market Strategy including Marketing, Delivery, Customer Service, Human Resources, Information Technology, Legal and Finance. All of these areas need to be educated and trained on the strategy. Marketing will need to provide specific inputs into sales such as developing market messages and customer case studies. Delivery and Customer Service outputs need to be aligned with the specific strategy. Human Resources function can assist with sales on assessment, hiring, selection and compensation. Information Technology manages the Customer Relationship Management application and needs to be aligned with the Go-to-Market strategy, not the other way around. Legal and Finance will also need to be aligned with the strategy. Large companies have a Sales Operations function that also assists and aligns the sales organization. When these functions are aligned with the Go-to-Market Strategy, the company will avert the often complaint from sales forces that it's much more difficult working with internal processes compared to working with customers.
 
This holistic approach starts with the Go-to-Market Strategy and purposely aligns all functions with the Go-to-Market Strategy. So it's not just about sales training, it's about building an aligned engine that can provide fast acceleration without the drag of sub-optimized, legacy, silo functions.

Advance’s Go-to-Market Strategy Programs are designed to give the learner comprehensive sales training and will provide essential training for new or less experienced sales professionals as well as the ideal means to refresh and update the skills of experienced sales professionals.

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Sales Training Programs for New and Less Experienced Sales Professionals

Most times, salespeople fail when they have less than excellent prospecting skills and don't spend sufficient time improving their performance. If you are a broker who works alone you can invest in the large selection of sales and coaching books available. Provide detectable value to your clients and they will less likely perceive you as a salesperson and more likely as a valued resource.

Ultimately, prospects buy from individuals, remember it's all about relationships and coaching improves your relationship skills. Coaching teaches reps how to pick the best prospects, how to really sell their services, and how to practice good stress management techniques. It focuses on development and what's truly on a sales reps mind. Most reps don't spend time thinking, "How Can I Close Better," but think, "How can I make sure I'm not missing out on opportunities?"

Because of today's economy, many Sales Manager's think that their only option is to cut back on training and instead look to recruit sales professionals who, in theory anyway, already possess the necessary skills needed to do the job. However, most of those same Sales Manager's are discovering just how difficult it is to find skilled salespeople, who have all of the essential skills and personal traits. Also, it is not possible to equate experience or longevity with success. Any organization that hires only experienced salespeople and fails to provide them with proper sales training is setting itself up for disaster. The reality is that selling in today's climate is both an art and a science. Selling is a profession that demands a far wider range of skills than ever before, skills that require continual fine-tuning and constant practice.

Consistency Is Key. Ongoing reinforcement and development is essential for success. The operative word here is "ongoing". Even if salespeople have undergone progressive sales training, there's no guarantee that they will be successful. It is common knowledge that skills grow rusty over time and salespeople are prone to pick up bad habits along the way or to simply skip steps and take shortcuts that can lead to long-term trouble. Even more important is the fact that markets, competition, technologies, and customer preferences are all in a constant and accelerating state of change. This fact requires that sales people are able and willing to rethink their sales approach frequently and receive regular skills and motivational coaching. Sales training generates goodwill and concrete skills that forge a path of excellence for your reps to follow.

Advance’s Sales Training Programs are designed to give the learner comprehensive sales training and will provide essential training for new or less experienced sales professionals as well as the ideal means to refresh and update the skills of experienced sales professionals.

Implement One-on-One Coaching in Sales by Advance

Advance’s Sales Workshop on Implement One-on-One Coaching in Sales

Sales coach Jeremy J. Ulmer, who lists among his credentials twice being ranked the No. 1 sales performer at two global Fortune 500 companies, says the first step to improving sales is talking directly to the team to find out what struggles they are facing. What makes their jobs difficult? What could they do better? What could they be provided with to do better?

"Sometimes they're very open and they tell you a lot of things," he says.

Other times you will have to pry a little by asking how they're managing time, what an average day looks like and to describe how they run sales call.

Then he picks one problem at a time to work on to get better results. That sometimes means removing technological distractions and giving additional management support.

Several experts recommend pairing low-performing sales representatives with successful ones. Ulmer says that strategy was a better learning experience at his first sales job with Xerox than the company's 10 weeks of official training.

Sometimes Ulmer will put a sales team on a strict schedule so they are making sales calls during dedicated blocks during the day, instead of sporadically throughout all work hours.

Limiting the coaching to specific groups of employees is often more effective than spreading it around the company as a whole, says Matt Dixon, managing director of the Corporate Executive Board.

"Coaching is not meant to be democratic," he says.

Too many managers fall back on what he calls "spreadsheet coaching," where the focus is on whether the sales staffs are hitting their numbers. Instead, you should be working closely with the individual sales representatives to understand the context of the problems.

"When it comes to coaching, they're so focused on that number and hitting that quota, they lose sight," he says. "The way that you do that is not focus on those outcomes but focus on behaviors."

Dermot Bradley who is the founder of Advance Selling Skills Academy (UK), creates what he calls a Performance Improvement Plan for each ailing salesperson he meets. It's essentially a battle plan to help the employee assault obstacles to productivity. Often times, the problem is a lack of follow through, which leads to fizzling sales momentum. Having an action plan helps keep track of things like that that might otherwise be overlooked, he says.

"That's why I try to document," he says. "I can show the sales person or manager that there's some growth or some success."

Advance’s sales workshop is a must attend for all sales professionals to get a proper road map of Sales Success.

Contact Details:
Advance Selling Skills Academy Limited
Web: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/
Email: customerservices@advancetm.com
Telephone: 0845 125 9098 (UK)

The Next Generation of Sales Training by Advance

We've come to acknowledge that different types of salespeople have different types of roles. For example, some salespeople manage a handful of major accounts, while others oversee vast territories with hundreds of customers and prospects. Typically these different types of sellers would be armed with different types of skills and tools.

What we haven't yet come to appreciate is that there also are different types of sales managers. Depending on the type of salespeople they manage, their required skill set also will differ. For instance, the manager of the major account rep will need to have strategic discussions with that seller about strategic alignment with his customer. Account management also has a heavy project management component, so the manager will need to be able to help the rep develop and execute a long-term plan.

However, the manager of the territory rep might need a completely different set of skills. For example, if a sales manager is managing a sales representative with 200 accounts in a fairly large geographic area, prioritization of sales effort is critical to sales success. That territory rep would need help segmenting the customer base, determining appropriate call cycles, and then mapping out a plan to cover the territory. Even though many organizations have segmentation strategies, we often see a lack of follow-up between sales managers and sales reps to determine if the sellers executed according to plan. In short, if the management tasks differ from sales manager to sales manager, so should their training.

In our research, we uncovered four salesperson activities that must be managed differently: account management, territory management, opportunity management, and call management (see table).

Account management is applicable when a seller has a few large accounts. Large accounts typically represent multiple opportunities for a seller and are worthy of a greater amount of planning. If an account manager has only three or four accounts, it is not necessary to segment them or develop differential call cycles. It is important, however, to strategically align the seller's solutions with the account's strategic objectives. It also is necessary to have a broad base of contacts in different business units within the same account. Account management training typically involves in-depth planning to include

• Different business units
• Strategic initiatives by business unit
• Key players and their political ties
• Action plans to navigate each business unit to generate new opportunities.

Territory management is applicable when the number of assigned accounts in a territory is too large for the seller to treat all accounts in the same manner. Segmentation and prioritization methods are critical elements of any training on territory management. Territory management training typically involves

• Prioritizing accounts
• Designing call patterns
• Executing calls according to the desired patterns.

Opportunity management is applicable when sellers are pursuing deals that require multiple interactions over time to close a sale. If a seller is involved in a transactional sale that is typically closed in one interaction, opportunity management is not relevant. Opportunity management involves educating sellers and sales managers on the process a buyer navigates when purchasing the seller's solution.

If it is effective, it also will compare and contrast the specific company sales process with the buying process. To effectively navigate an opportunity, the seller must understand the milestones and activities at each stage of the sales process and possess the necessary skills to move the customer through the various stages to a close.

Call management is necessary when a seller is involved in sales in which each sales call is important to the outcome of the deal and each interaction is different enough to warrant planning. If all calls are roughly the same, then planning for each interaction is impractical and unhelpful.

Depending on which types of processes a sales manager supervises, she will need a different set of skills and tools to manage her team appropriately. One-size-fits-all training doesn't work for varied salespeople, nor will it work for varied sales managers.

Therefore, the first task in designing relevant, practical sales manager training is to understand the unique management tasks of the individuals. Then build sales training that has direct applicability to what he does from Monday to Friday, which is to manage his sellers.

It has been our experience that when managers are exposed to training that equips them to better execute their day-to-day activities, they are extremely willing participants. Many even thank us. Research and experience tells us that generic sales management training needs to be a thing of the past.

You must have rhythm

Sales managers exist in a chaotic world, primarily because they serve two demanding groups—the salespeople below and the executives above. Consequently, they live reactive lives. They respond with haste to every fire their sellers encounter, and they feed constant information up the chain of command. Sales managers always tell us that no two days are ever the same—but perhaps they should be.

One of the key insights from our research and work with clients is that sales managers need more structure. It's difficult to coach a salesperson when the seller's hair is on fire. Unless some structure is given to a sales manager's week, ad hoc interactions will populate the day.

We have spent a significant amount of time observing manager-seller interactions, and we've found that little coaching takes place in ad-hoc discussions. Such discussions are hurried interruptions where the goal is to solve immediate problems, not to look farther down the road. Effective management and coaching is best done in a formal environment with an agenda and two parties who are prepared for the conversation.

Therefore, sales manager training needs to help them structure what they do during the course of a day, week, month, and year. They need a management process or rhythm to quell the chaos and let them interact with their sellers in an effective, value-added way.

Most managers we know need help thinking through the management rhythm that is right for their teams. How often do they need to meet? What is the purpose of each meeting? Are they best conducted one-on-one or in a group? What are the inputs and outputs of the interaction?

Sales managers need an operating manual that defines their specific jobs. They have been taught how to lead and coach; now they need to learn how to manage. An example of applicable structure and associated management rhythm for a sales manager managing a group of territory sales reps might include quarterly and monthly meetings.

Quarterly territory reviews with each sales rep. This quarterly meeting might be two hours in length; incorporate a segmented and prioritized list of accounts that the seller has prepared; and provide the venue for a facilitated discussion about the selected segmentation, top accounts in each segment, and then a desired call pattern over the course of the next three months.

Monthly one-on-one meetings with each sales rep. These monthly one-on-one discussions might be one hour in length, and include a discussion about overall pipeline health for the given seller, as well as a more extensive discussion about two or three early-stage opportunities. As appropriate, each of these opportunity coaching discussions may include a specific planning discussion for any upcoming sales call associated with this opportunity.

Clearly the comprehensive management rhythm would include additional interactions. However, what is critical is the inclusion of the most significant interactions—by sales role—needed to produce the desired results. We often find that sales managers are busy and are involved in many various types of activities with their sellers, but they are often not representative of the activities most likely to yield the best results.

Because the majority of manager-seller interactions are ad hoc, they are not conducive to the type of in-depth coaching that drives results and builds seller skill. The incorporation of intentional, planned manager-seller interactions also helps managers to focus their efforts on the most manageable aspects of their job—the activities being executed by their salespeople.

Focus on the manageable

The single greatest learning from our research was this: There are factors you can manage, and there are factors that you can't. While this might seem boringly obvious, it's not.

If you asked 10 sales managers to name their primary responsibility, more than half of them would respond with some form of the following: "To make sure my reps make their quota." And what do all 10 sales managers stare at each Friday afternoon? Reports of their salespeople's recent performance. Can a sales manager actually manage a quota? Of course not. Can sales managers manage historical performance? No, but they
sure do try.

In reality, the only factor managers can manage, and directly affect, are the activities of their sellers—which customers they call, what they say during those calls, which deals they pursue, and how they pursue them. In the end, all of these activities will determine whether they make their number and hit their revenue target, but the target itself can't be managed. You only can manage activities, not their outcomes.

Most managers we work with find this concept liberating. There's so much complexity and noise in a sales manager's world that she wants to simplify. Sales managers need to focus. Winnowing their attention to only what they can manage has two desirable effects. First, sales managers are more confident in the things they do because they know they will have an impact. Second, salespeople get better direction because the managers are focused on the tactics that will lead to the desired results—better sales management.

Training for sales managers needs to go beyond traditional leadership and coaching; it should emphasize the manageable. These manageable activities will look different for different management roles because, as we learned, one sales manager does not equal another sales manager. The activities will need to reside within a solid management rhythm to ensure consistency and impact. But the simplest concepts are often the most powerful. There are factors you can manage, and there are those you cannot.

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How to Generate Revenue through Up Selling and Cross Selling

Sales professionals need to use Up Selling and Cross Selling techniques according to needs of the customers to derive a win-win situation.

In many circumstances, it has been often found that the sales professionals get completely engrossed with a single product and totally ignore other possibilities to address the customers’ needs.

Cross-Selling

Cross-selling generally occurs when the sales representative has more than one type of product to offer consumers that might be beneficial to them. Some fields in which cross-selling is most evident include those of the banking and financial services industries. Banking customers may go into the bank and sign up for a checking account and later be sold various investment vehicles such as bonds or CDs as part of a retirement plan. Investment firms do much of the same, starting off clients within a specific investment product that they need and then later identifying additional needs that their company can meet on behalf of the client.

Up-Selling

Up-selling differs somewhat from cross-selling in that the salesperson is not so much concerned with selling an additional product to generate additional commissions, but rather with selling a higher-end version of the product the customer originally came to buy. The automobile salesman often engages in up-selling by showing the customer multiple versions of the same product. Each version may differ in quality, starting with a base model and progressing through more luxurious models with additional features.

One of the main differences between up-selling and cross-selling is in the approach that the salesperson takes when engaging in either method. When cross-selling, the salesperson identifies a definite need that the customer has and fulfils that need by recommending an additional product. Up-selling is somewhat less need-based in its orientation and typically involves the salesperson building value in the product being offered. In other words, a car customer may not need the top-of-the-line SUV with leather seating and a full entertainment centre, but the up-selling salesperson can help that customer see the value in having it by painting a picture of how much more comfortable the family vacation will be with these additional features.

In many ways, cross-selling and up-selling are similar in that they each offer customers additional value than what they would have otherwise received had they only bought what they were initially looking for. Some salespeople make the mistake of cataloging features of these additional products, rather than building value, or showing customers how they will benefit from these additional or higher-quality products. A successful cross-selling and up-selling salesperson will be able to paint a picture of the value that the customer will receive so that the customer will be able to visualize the benefits of making the purchase. Up-selling benefits the customer by providing higher quality, while cross-selling adds benefit by providing additional quality.

Every sales professional should be trained thoroughly about all supplementary and complementary products and their benefits and features. Advance’s Professional Selling Skills Program can be an ideal training course to be attended by sales professionals across all hierarchies.

To Read More Please Visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/programme/Professional+Selling+Skills+Programme_48

Quick Tips on How to Maximise Return from Sales Staffs

The Value of Field Selling

It can be argued that today brand, social media and marketing sell products and services. This can be the case, but only where the market is educated and prospects know how best to satisfy their needs..

Sales are the lifeblood of organisations. The route to market is either direct through employed sales people or via channels.

In either case, sales people are brand ambassadors who educate and build the need for products and services.

There are two fundamental types of need – recognised and unrecognised. Responding to recognised needs is relatively straightforward and driven by specified criteria such as performance and price. With unrecognised needs, you are dealing with an issue – problem or opportunity – and the selling skills required are very different. It is more of a consultative sale, still best handled face to face, either in the flesh, via one of the online conferencing services or a combination of both.

The Opportunity

There are over 750,000 people involved in sales in the UK alone. Worldwide, millions are being trained by thousands of sales trainers, consultants and sales methodology companies.

Professional and academic development is important to many sales people. This presents universities with a great opportunity.

The 70:20:10 Model

To Read More... Please Visit Original Source at: http://advancecareerpath.com/index.php/blog/item/26-sales-training-in-a-mobile-world-art-or-science

Become a Preferred Supplier

The Purchasing Department is the first point of contact for suppliers and is responsible for identifying and contracting with companies that provide consistently high quality products and services.

It’s important to be in tune with the prospect’s buying cycles. We need to keep in appropriate touch until they are ready to move. Then our name will come first when they think of selecting a supplier.

Preferred supplier status comes in various shades – Qualified Supplier, Approved Supplier, Preferred Supplier or even Sole Supplier.  We can work our way up this ladder.

We need to lay out how to move away from a mere product/service sale towards the more inclusive policy sale. We need a track record of good service and need to sell this policy at a higher level.

When prospecting, we need to keep in touch with all of the key players – not just the initial contact – until they are ready to buy. We create a Relationship Matrix. When a buyer has had any system, product or service for some time, they begin to itch.  It’s time for a change, and we need to make sure we have the best chance of winning the business.

• Differentiate between deal selling and account management and how this relates to gaining preferred supplier status.

• Understand when and why prospecting within the account is important to gaining preferred supplied status.

• Determine the commitments that you need to get from your prospect to achieve preferred supplier status.

• Determine the areas that an Account Manager needs to work on to develop an account.

• Review your own accounts to ensure that you are delivering customer value.

• Recognise the best ways of determining buying windows and positioning your offering on top of the prospect's shopping list.

• Understand the concept of contact to contract.

• Recognise the best ways of determining buying windows and positioning your offering on top of the prospect's shopping list.

• Define ways to manage long term relationships with future prospects.

• Recall the role of networks as a means of connecting with prospects in long term buying cycles.

• Define ways to manage long term relationships with future prospects.

• Differentiate between the factors that can open markets during "Itch Cycles".

• Understand the importance of keeping good customer relationship records.

For More Detailed Information, Please Visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Gain+Preferred+Supplier+Status_105

Advance's Cold Calling Sales Module

Advance's cold calling sales module describes how some simple techniques and knowledge of the process can turn a cold call into a cool one.

Cold calling is the sales process of approaching prospective customers or clients—typically via telephone, by email or through making a connection on a social network—who were not expecting such an interaction. The word "cold" is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting a call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by a sales person. A cold call is usually the start of a sales process generally known as telemarketing.

Cold Calling is a tough business.  It is time consuming, can be stressful and gets a low hit rate. This course describes how some simple techniques and knowledge of the process can turn a cold call into a cool one – it will never be warm!

It is extremely challenging to connect with busy decision makers. And that many companies don’t even accept cold calls from sales people. However, that doesn’t mean cold calling is dead.

It takes hard work, effort, and discipline.

Advance’s path breaking course on ‘Cold Calling Techniques’ definitely makes the journey smoother and better. It’s very systematic and process oriented. You will be able to feel the difference within 30 days!

Learning Outcomes

• Recognise the importance of territory research to screen and select interested prospects.
• Determine the role of the marketing function and other mechanisms for assisting prospecting activity.
• Compose an effective slogan to introduce yourself to a prospect.
• Understand the techniques that are used to secure meetings with senior executives over the telephone.
• Ask and answer questions confidently.
• Understand the techniques that are used to secure meetings with senior executives over the telephone.
• Understand the behaviour of senior executives and how to deal with them when cold calling.
• Understand what to say when leaving a voice mail.
• Sequence the process involved in leaving effective voice messages.
• Follow up voice mail with other calls to action.

Advance Unveils The True Art of Consultative Selling

The straight forward verbal skills of need creation apply to just one person. Unfortunately, major sales are not that simple.  Typically, there will be technicians evaluating your product, financial people looking at the cost/benefit analysis, end users checking that it can do the job they want and possibly, senior directors who will make the final decision.

They all have different requirements from what you are selling. Your task is to create different needs in all their minds so that they can buy from you.

The problem is to get them all marching in the same direction, namely towards you. In other words, in addition to the basic verbal skills, there is a political overlay. In this section, we will examine how we might marry the verbal skills to the political coordination and the needs to develop unrecognised needs.

One of the biggest problems that inexperienced salespeople have is how to keep the door open after the initial contact.

We can create needs for products or services in two ways. We can shock the prospect by showing what others are achieving, or work collaboratively to resolve a problem or exploit an opportunity.

In this course, we examine how you can pro-actively set up activities with an account, by selling to many people to identify new opportunities.  In short we can define a detailed sales process that starts by gaining a formalised and replicable hunting licence and ends with the prospect appointing a responsible implementation manager with a clear follow up project.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Define consultative selling and understand the difference between recognised and unrecognised needs.
• Understand the main different ways of implementing hunting licences.
• Detail the steps for setting up typical consultative selling sessions.
• Understand the common patterns that underlie the processes for setting up hunting licences.

For More Detailed Information, Please Visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Develop+Hunting+Licences+-+the+True+Art+of+Consultative+Selling_45

Advance’s ‘Strategic Selling’ Course Demystifies How to Win a Complex Sale?

Any product or service may become a complex sale. In some instances a complex sale occurs when the market is mature and the stakes high enough to warrant attention from a variety of stakeholders in the buying organization. In other instances a complex sales process is needed when the buyer has never had experience with the vendor, technology being sold, or if the solution is business critical or impacts the buying organization on a strategic level. The series of filters, purchasing steps, and stakeholders involved are designed to reduce the risks associated with making the wrong buying decision. Big sales have many stakeholders.  To move the sale forward, we must unravel the politics and know who to meet and/or to lobby, together with their profiles, power and influence.

How to win a complex sale?

In a major sale there can be many people in the decision group – decision makers, recommenders, gatekeepers, budget holders, technical specialists, financial evaluators, users, consultants, contract negotiators, purchasing. In this course, we present a graphical tool that helps to unravel the politics and produce a comprehensive contact plan that identifies who we should meet, when and why.

Different levels of management have different interests.  It is important that a salesperson should learn to talk at the various levels, using appropriate language and terminology.

While senior management focus is competitive edge and increased effectiveness, more junior people attend to increased efficiency and cost savings. This course examines several ways where we should modify our areas of discussion depending on the level in the hierarchy at which we are talking. The sales process is identical but salespeople must adjust their focus and language.

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Understand the advantages of capturing organisation charts for key accounts.
• Create profiles of key people in a prospect's organisation.
• Map the politics of an organisation and identify decision makers.
• Analyse key people and be able to influence their decisions.
• Understand the difference between decision makers and decision takers.
• Understand how to have relevant business conversations with senior people.
• Appreciate the different benefits being sought by different levels of management.
• Phrase questions appropriately for communication at different levels.
• Understand how to sell a product or service effectively at different levels.
• Define the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.

Advance is a sales consultancy that specialises in revitalising every aspect of sales operations. We combine our experience based consultancy, sales methodology and intellectual property with modern training and technology to help our customers maximise profitable growth. Most organisations know what needs to be done. We know how, and support our customers in the achievement of their sales goals. We enable them to articulate and sell their vision, see the world through their customers‟ eyes and gain customers‟ commitment to their way forward.

Advance have served Global corporate like IBM, GE, Accenture, Vodafone, Xerox , Lufthansa & many more..

Please Visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Prepare+and+Use+a+Political+Map_40 For More Detailed Information.

The ‘Art of Listening’ from Advance is Simply Brilliant

Advance Art of Listening course explores, how we can get the prospect to open up and tell us that their personal issues. The key is to learn to listen for and react to ‘emotion buttons’. These are signals and words that the prospect uses during the business discussion that expose their underlying emotions.

As per Advance’s definition (which is very much appropriate in Sales scenario), ‘Listening is the active process of letting other person know that you’ve heard them’.

Listening is giving positive signals to the other person that say, “Hi, I’m still here. Please keep going!”

 

When the other person is talking, good listeners show   great enthusiasm. They talk at the same time as the other person! But they are not interrupting.

No! Really! That’s terrible!

Phrases like these encourage the other person to keep going. Sometimes, it is just enough to raise the eyebrow. But show the other person that you have understood. Most people can afford to be much more demonstrative in their listening. It may feel a little corny to you but to them they love it.  Many salespeople are so busy asking questions and thinking of the next question to ask that they forget to listen to the answers.

Few of the techniques which brilliantly works are:

a) maintaining the wave length with the speaker

b) Be responsive to his words

c) showing Empathy

d) offer an emotion

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Understand the skill and techniques of listening.
• Emphasise and acknowledge emotion buttons effectively.
• Understand the difference between personal and business personal benefits.
• Use listening to uncover needs and benefit.
• Introduce subjects by asking the right questions to keep the prospect talking.

Advance is a sales consultancy that specialises in revitalising every aspect of sales operations. We combine our experience based consultancy, sales methodology and intellectual property with modern training and technology to help our customers maximise profitable growth. Most organisations know what needs to be done. We know how, and support our customers in the achievement of their sales goals. We enable them to articulate and sell their vision, see the world through their customers‟ eyes and gain customers‟ commitment to their way forward.

Advance have served Global corporate like IBM, GE, Accenture, Vodafone, Xerox , Lufthansa & many more..

For More Detailed Information. Please Visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Listen+your+Way+to+Sales+Success_33

Need Creation Techniques by Advance, Impress the Sales Veterans

Plenty have been written on Need creation and addressing needs. But, after interviewing several Sales professionals, we’ve found that around 45-60% cases, they need to address to ‘unrecognised’ needs rather than responding to ‘recognised’ needs!

Unrecognised Needs define the situations where your customer is aware of the problems but couldn’t figure out a solution, while recognised needs are those , where you customer knows the solution and he is in the process of selecting the best solution available in the market.

Conventional wisdom says ‘Sell Benefits’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you how to identify benefits. First then, a definition: The advantages of your offering do not become benefits until your prospect has told you why they are important. As the prospect tells you all about their problems and ambitions, they are, at the same time, telling you the benefits that they are looking for. They are telling you the benefits even before they know what is that you are selling.

Prospects buy because they have a need. We can create, influence, and develop needs in the prospect both for our products and our uniqueness.

In this course, we explore how to create or amplify the need for our offering. The discussion starts with the prospect’s vision of problems and opportunities. Needs are then created/ developed by allowing them to ‘wallow’ in their issues in our area of expertise. The more they talk, the more they convince themselves.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course you will be able to :

• Identify areas of need for your customer.

• Hold thought-provoking conversations that stimulate needs for your products.

• Describe and sell a vision.

• Use effect questions to create need.

• Differentiate between benefits and criteria to create a need for your product.

To Know More About Need Creation Techniques by Advance please visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Create+Needs_32

Commitment based Sales Meeting Objectives

There is a world of difference between the agenda of a meeting and the commitment from the meeting.

Most Sales people remain engrossed with the Agenda and oftenly ignore the Commitment part.

We can only measure our likelihood of success in a sale by the level of commitment we get from the prospect.  In this course we learn about how to plan sales meetings. Most sales professionals when asked to describe their objective for an upcoming meeting give the agenda.  In this course, we make a big distinction between the agenda of a meeting and the commitment sought from the prospect by the end of it.

The Agenda is what you do during the meeting, while the Commitment is what you want the prospect to do at the end of the meeting.

The commitment is always a physical action. For example, you want your prospect to put a date on his diary, to introduce you with his finance team etc.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Create an effective commitment driven agenda
• Understand what questions different levels of management expect you to ask
• Give senior people appropriate decisions to make
• Define the pattern of a sale as a set of commitments
• Understand the five key commitments

Advance Selling Skills Academy is a Sales Operation Consultant with world class expertise on Sales Process Management, Sales Training Development serving to leading corporate across industries. For 20+ years we have been helping sales people change their behaviours to drive performance and bottom line results.

To Know More About Commitment based Sales Meeting Objectives please visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Gain+Commitments_36

Effective Selling Styles as per Customer Need

Salespeople sometimes feel that ‘selling is selling’. There is one set of skills that meet all requirements. That is certainly not the case.

In this course we identify four different selling processes which lie at the heart of professional selling.  The course highlights the current selling model of the organisation and its ideal selling model. It allows you to understand the weaknesses of your current sales processes and to define the ideal.

The selling styles are dependent on categorisation of ‘needs’.

Needs can be categorised into a) Recognised Needs b) Unrecognised Needs

Recognised Needs Selling

’Recognised needs selling’ asks the prospect for his or her needs and then tries to address them. It is essentially reactive. In this case prospects know ‘what to buy’ and are in the process of deciding ‘from whom to buy’. The prospects recognise their needs and

Unrecognised Needs Selling

‘Unrecognised needs selling’ is an attempt by the sales person to add value by bringing something new to the sale. In this case, prospects have a ‘recognised problem’ but have an ‘unrecognised need’. Salesperson needs to create a need to respond to their ‘recognised problem’.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course you will:

• Identify and understand four different selling styles.

• Clearly differentiate between recognised and unrecognised needs.

• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of recognised and unrecognised needs.

• Detect any differences between your current selling model and the ideal one.

• Adopt the behaviour and selling style most appropriate in different sales circumstances.

To Know More About Effective Selling Process please visit: http://www.as-sa.co.uk/course/How+to+Define+the+Right+Sales+Model_31

Advance’s Competency Based Training Delivers Guaranteed Results

Successful organisational learning is now a blend of formal corporate training and real-time informal learning, driving the need for learning solutions that can enable person-to- person learning and knowledge sharing as well as corporate initiatives.

An Advance Academy is a scalable, flexible, cloud-based learning solution that allows you to transition effortlessly to this flexible learning environment, delivering formal learning while facilitating informal, collaborative learning that encourages employee participation, continually develops your salespeople and grows your business!

Advance’s experience in sales training, content development and leading edge learning technology enables us to offer the most powerful, comprehensive and accessible Professional Sales Training in the eLearning market place.

What makes an Advance Dedicated Sales Academy different from other Learning Management Systems?

Continuous Skills Development:

Most LMS are designed for knowledge transfer, but developing a skill requires more than knowledge alone.  Skills are learned through experiential learning ideally with expert coaching and feedback. Once learned, a skill must be repeatedly applied until it becomes a habit.

The Academy has been designed to encompass end to end skills development and our training can be easily embedded into your sales and sales management process to ensure that performance goals are achieved and revenue growth sustained over time.

Individual Skills Development Plan Based on a Competency Framework:

Advance’s online skills assessment generates a personal development programme of sales courses based on competences required for the job role and current skill levels of the learner. Learning Outcomes for each course are tailored to the personal development needs of the individual. This is tailored, objective learning.

Range and Depth of Advance’s Sales Content Catalogue:

Our best in class course catalogue is unrivalled both in extent and depth  in the Sales Training marketplace. Researched and developed over many years, it is continually honed, adapted and growing.

Our content is augmented with accredited Sales and Marketing content. Learners can progress their professional development online, through the Academy and gain Nationally-recognised qualifications, from the Institute of Sales and Marketing (ISMM).

Competency Based Training:

Our Sales Academy uses a competency-based training (cbt) system which aligns employee performance with business results. It is an effective, structured approach to training and assessment. Cbt requires senior management to identify the behaviours required from employee in order for a business to achieve its goals. These behaviours need to be translated into competences (knowledge, skills and attitude) and specified in the Job Profile linked to each job role.

Advance have created a competency framework which specifies the level of competence required, at different levels of performance, for the key competences contained in the most commonly found  sales roles. It can be tailored to meet the precise requirements of any customer organisation and added to with non-sales responsibilities to provide a genuinely holistic professional development too.

Key Uses and Benefits of a Competency-Based System:

• Provides employees with clear direction on how they can contribute.
• Provides employees with a roadmap for building strengths and closing development gaps.
• Ties to career growth and becoming a learning organisation.
• Improves consistency in recruiting and selection, training, performance management and workforce succession planning.
• Streamline and simplifies HR Operations.

This is how Advance's Sales Process Management helps organizations to improve their bottom line and gain a competitive edge.

Insure your Sales Operations from Slippages and Revenue Loss

Is Sales Operation Insurance a New Concept?

No! Not at all, it’s known by all but maybe, all were waiting for Advance Selling Skills Academy (UK) to take it to a whole new level.

Let’s understand the concept and Advance’s propositions which has helped companies like Vodafone, Xerox, IBM, Lufthansa and many more.

Insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, damage or uncertain loss. Advance (UK) firmly believes, the best way of damage control is to avoid the damage itself!

What do you mean by sales operation?

Well, as per definition: ‘Sales operations are a set of business activities and processes that help a sales organization run effectively, efficiently and in support of business strategies and objectives. Sales operations may also be referred to as sales, sales support or business operations.’

The set of sales operations activities vary from company to company but often include these nine categories:

1. Sales strategy: design, planning, execution
2. Measurement of results: reporting, analytics & sales data
3. Compensation, sales targets, policies
4. Technology & tools, including CRM
5. Training & sales communication
6. Sales territory design & optimisation
7. Incentives
8. Lead generation/sales campaigns
9. Customer segmentation

Sales Operations can do the balancing act between strategy and execution from the annual, quarterly and monthly planning and analysis to the day-to-day support of the sales force – all the while enabling the front line salespeople to meet and exceed their sales and margin quotas.

How can Advance help you in ‘derisking’ the uncertainties of your Sales Operation?

Here are four ways in which Advance sales operation management can be the sales productivity accelerators for your organisation:

1. Identify the Focus based on the Goal: What is the company’s goal for the period – is it top line growth or bottom line growth? The Advance team can work closer to field-facing sales in times when top-line growth is the highest priority or work closer to internal organization-facing operations in times when bottom-line growth is the highest priority.

2. Provide Knowledge out of the Data: With all the CRM and Social Media tools and technology available to sales today, data collection is not a problem (if you have solved the technology problem that is – Enterprise resource projects are notorious for their low success rates for achieving the intended outcomes – another area where sales operations can support sales leadership in the selection of the right tools, in getting them to perform the way they should and in increasing tool usage and acceptability within sales teams along with ensuring data quality). Advance will help you in extraction of the right set of data, comparing it against trends and benchmarks and providing recommendations to the Sales leaders to help them decide the strategic direction.

3. Process Setting and Ownership:  An effective sales process can go a long way in improving the win rate and increasing the repeat sales. A sales process is effective when it balances the needs of three stakeholders – the needs of the customer, the needs of sales person to meet his/her numbers and the needs of the rest of the organization to be able to execute on the sale. The Advance team can not only help in the creation of the process but also take ownership of its documentation, adoption and implementation.

4. Metrics and Dashboards: One of my favourite topics and pet projects. Metrics need to be aligned to business strategy and objectives – metrics should not only measure the past performance but also act as leading indicators into the future and how it is developing over time. The selection of the right metrics (out of the many sales metrics that are used today) for the sales dashboards also depends on the audience. The Advance team can model the data and propose the right sales metrics to the sales team and sales leaders based on what insights they need to meet and exceed their performance objectives.

Benefits from Advance Sales Process Management:

1. Advance gives you a common language that sets the rules and standards that salespeople need to operate to. These are not vague, “it depends on the person” rules. These are agreed between the manager and the salespeople – but set by the manager.

2. Advance sales process gives you simple and powerful reporting that tells the salesperson and the manager how close they are to hitting the target based on NUMBERS and DATES and not based on opinion, hope or conversation. The Advance process applies a very high standard for determining “what is a prospect” and it’s this high standard that leads to daily – and physical - behavioural change.

3. Advance sales process gives you the practical tools for planning and executing sales - tools that MUST be used in order to consistently deliver the results. Selling is a practical art; the salesperson needs to use certain tools to do it. (Conventional wisdom has it that the “right salesperson” will do it anyway. Interestingly, the “right” salespeople instinctively use these tools.)

4. And finally, Advance sales process gets the salespeople to “self check”. It provides a framework for the salesperson to benchmark their performance against key outcomes and leads to small, but significant, daily, weekly and monthly adjustments in activity and skills that leads to stronger pipelines and more consistent results. In a real sales system, the salesperson actually develops into a much stronger performer, with credibility and standing in their marketplace.

Why Production is more Predictable than Sales?

Have you ever seen a production line or an assembly line? It starts with the raw material, and then the Raw material goes through various stages. At each stage it has its own input and its own output. There is quality verification at each stage of the output and each stage of the input. Atypical manufacturing Process could be a combination of processes with various sub processes, something like…

Process 1->Process 2-> Process 3->Final Process

Processs 1 = Subprocess 1+ Sub process 2+ Sub process 3 and so on, each Process will have sub processes.

If the Input unit does not confirm to the quality standards, it is chucked out of the system. Only those input units which are as per the quality standards are processed, others are rejected. If such input units which are not as per the quality standards are allowed to be processed, then end product will not be the desired one and it will have to be rejected at a later stage. So there will be wastage of the resources and hence the production cost increases. So the Manager knows “

(1) What to do in a Production Process

In the production process, if there is any defect in the units processed, then the maintenance person will look into the machine and ensure that the defect in the process is nullified, so that the output unit is as per the standard. So in this case the manager knows what the production process has to do.

(2) How it should be Done

When such a production process is followed, then there is a confirmation at the end of the production process that it is going to give a pre decided output, so there is predictability of the output.

(3) Predictability of the Output

If there would have been

• No detailed process in the production line(Process Roadmap), & in addition to the process,
• Had there been no Quality check(Qualification)
• Mechanism for rectifying/ correcting the sub processes(Decisions, Criteria with Actions)

There will be no control on the intermediate inputs and outputs and the end product will not be in the required quantity/quality.  Hence it is quite obvious that, Production has to have a very strict process, if the process is not strict, there will be problems.

Also since the production process is divided into various sub processes, if anything goes wrong anywhere, it can be identified and resolved at that moment, Else if the process manager would have concentrated only on the main processes, it will be impossible for him to identify the problem in between the main processes and by that time much of the damage would have been done. So in addition to micromanaging, the Production Manager also keeps a Birds’ Eye View of the Entire Process and plans and executes the Entire Production in such a process that he gets the final output, inspite of the aberrations of the production line.

Now compare this with a Sales Process.

A Typical Sales funnel will have a series of events/process like (Typical Sales Funnel Stages)

Stage 1- Suspect

Stage 2- Prospect/Qualify

Stage 3- Lead/Opportunity

Stage 4- Present

Stage 5- Customer

There are other versions of this such as AIDA, Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. All these have the same stages of recognition. So as you see there are 4-5 major stages in this process.

However, there are many sub-stages (process) in between the major stages, moving from one stage to another stage. A Sales manager is aware of these sub stages, but then he inspects only these major stages for Sales Reporting. There is a saying that – People respect what you inspect and not what you expect. So salespersons can very easily show a manager, the number of leads, number of prospects, and number of calls… All these numbers, all sales people are adept at showing the numbers, but then it does not convert to sales. The reason is Sales Managers do not inspect the quality of these stages/processes.

Similar to a Production line, where the number of pieces are passing though each stage of the process, if there is no quality check & If one just checks the numbers of units at each stage, one can be rest assured that his process is fine. It is only at the end of the process that one finds many of the units are rejected and hence resource wasted.

Similarly in Sales Process, after running the account through all the stages, one may find that at the end it may not convert, the reason being, not enough check has been done on that lead and corrective measures have not been taken.

In Sales Process, there are the major processes like Suspect, Prospect… and then there are the sub processes which will be the various meetings with the client. The quality of each meeting is important, in order to validate the success of the meeting. Only if one can have successful meetings, one will have successful sales. It is one of Quality check that similar to production line, where there are quality checks at every input and output. Similarly if one can have a quality check at each and every meeting, one will be able to identify the quality and take steps to rectify it. Else the damage carries on and reflects when after pursuing the lead the sale is not converted-(Rejected Unit in Production)...  It answers what should be done to ensure successful sub processes/sub-stages of sales (1).

But then how do you measure the success of the meeting? Most Sales managers will inspect the success of a meeting on their guesses, there will not be any formal method of doing it, and so it is not sure whether it’s a true successful meeting. So Sales Reps/Managers should have commitment based method of analyzing the meeting. One will inspect not what the Sales rep/manager has done (like doing the demo, meeting with client), BUT what has been the effect of meeting in terms of client action. In this a Successful meeting can be ensured & hence the success of the sub-process (2)

When a series of such stages/processes can be identified and action can be taken, it will only then be possible to realize the success of each stage. If a particular lead does not fulfill the success criteria of the stage/process, definitive rectification actions/steps can be taken. One can identify why the meeting has not been successful and what is the showstopper which can be seen in the progress of the Sale & necessary action can be taken to deal with the showstopper. One will be able to ensure that the Sale/output can be predicted well in advance and with accuracy. Hence Predictability of Output (3)

If there is no

• Detailed process in Sales(Process Roadmap)
• Identification of successful meetings/stages(Qualification criteria)
• Methods/Mechanism for evaluating the Meetings (Commitments from the customer)

There will  be no control on the intermediate inputs and outputs and at the end it may be realized that lead has not been converted to sale.  Hence there is a requirement of a detailed sales process with stages and sub stages and methods to identify and rectify the results of the sub stages in a Lead. So we may say, Sales is a Process, when it’s not a Process, it’s a problem.

Similar to a Production Line, in Sales Manager may also require keeping a Birds’ Eye view of the Entire Sales Process of the Lead. The Sales Manager would plan and execute the entire Lead, so he would have a Deal Planning system OR Account Planning System. Else the Sales Manager may leave various gaps for harsh surprises which may fail the Sale.

Also since the production process is divided into various sub processes, if anything goes wrong anywhere, it can be identified and resolved at that moment, Else if the process manager would have concentrated only on the main processes, it will be impossible for him to identify the problem in between the main processes and by that time much of the damage would have been done.

Effect of Process: Suppose there is a plan to convert a lead to a sale in a period of 30 days. Without a well laid process with success measurement of each and every process/sub-process, it may take unpredictable time. Whereas with a Sales process and measurement of success of each and every stage, one would be able to identify the loop holes in the Sale. In this way, he will be able to identify why a sale can be converted and by when & If it cannot be converted, what is the reason and whether he can amend that reason. Hence he would save a lot of time & effort which he would have wasted on non-converting leads and focus completely on leads which are sure would convert. Increasing the hit rate and predictability in Sales is similar to the Production Process. Sales is a process, if it’s not a process, it’s a problem.

Advance can help you,

• Set up a Sales Process Roadmap
• Train your Sales People on making and identifying successful meetings(Not only WHAT TO DO but also HOW TO DO)
• Train your Sales Managers on successful Deal Planning/Account Management
• Train your Sales Managers to achieve better predictability (in quantity, quality and time of sales closure) and improve from 3 out of 10 – TO 8 OUT OF 10 DEALS.

This is how Advance's Sales Process Management helps organizations to improve their bottom line and gain a competitive edge.

Sales Reporting - The Base of a Solid Performance Management System

Many sales professionals often confuse between sales process management and sales management. While sales process management is the entire set of activities to materialise a sales deal, the sales management process involves all the activities relating to maintenance of organisation’s sales operations.

Sales management process involves: Call planning, prospecting, sales presentation, objection handling, negotiation and closing phase’s techniques of a sales deal.

Sales management activities involve Recruitment, Coaching, Managing performance, Decision making techniques to be used by sales professionals.

Managing performance is one of the key activities of sales management professionals and ideally 25% of time needs to be dedicated for this activity. Effective sales reporting tools need to be in place for managing performance and accountability.

Daily Sales Report

Most of the organisations maintain online or offline daily report formats (often called DSR-Daily Sales Report). This is the base of any Sales report. It should be designed scientifically to capture essential activity report of individual sales persons. It should include: planned calls for the day, appointments, and commitments of the day. It requires a daily review.

The Productivity Report

Productivity report needs to built, maintained and reviewed by managers.

The purpose of the productivity report is to keep you informed about the level of activity taking place within the sales organization and to make sure that each salesperson is meeting or exceeding the productivity standards you have established. The data often includes the number of outbound calls, conversations, voice mails, customer meetings, and sales presentations. The report should compare actual results against the benchmarks you have established for each activity.

Productivity reports should be turned in (or run) and reviewed on a weekly basis. Many managers compare the activities on the productivity report to both the phone bill and the daily call report to verify what is being reported.

The Sales Forecast

The sales forecast has multiple purposes including helping to estimate revenue, determining what opportunities need executive attention, and paving the way for post-sale product or service delivery. The accuracy of a sales forecast strongly affects the entire organization and is therefore the most important report generated. This document generally contains prospect names, sales opportunity sizes, indications of where the sales opportunities are in the sales cycle, and what the customers are buying. It is the sales representative's best estimate of which sales will close during the next 30, 60, or 90 days and, in most companies, is due at the beginning of each month with occasional revisions due mid-month if the need arises.

Each sales representative must clearly understand what criteria a potential account must meet before they are allowed to put it on the forecast, otherwise the data will be meaningless. Once an account has been placed on the sales forecast, it must not be removed without the salesperson having discussed it in detail with their manager.

Reviewing these reports is time consuming. But keep on top of them. If the sales staffs suspect that you don't review the reports, they will make a token effort at writing them and you will start to lose touch with the sales organization. Remember the old adage "inspect what you expect." By setting goals and letting your salespeople know you are committed to tracking progress toward them, you will vastly increase the performance and predictability of your business.

Advance's Professional Sales Consultancy

A sales consultancy ideally should provide analysis and training to professionals and enterprises for improving its sales. The training and responsibilities of a sales consultant depends on the type of consultant: one who advises businesses and other salespeople often has years of experience and training, while one who sells products may not need much training at all to start with. The work environment for both of these careers is generally fast-paced and involves a lot of interaction with people.

There are always debates and arguments regarding the professionalism and seriousness involved in the entire process of consulting. A proper consulting approach requires in-depth study and research of client’s business proposition, its current stage and its desired stage.

Then a detailed gap analysis is required at every level of sales process before arriving to a conclusion.

‘Waterfall model’ is mostly adopted in the entire process. Basically it should cover every stage between ‘Contacts’ to ‘Contracts’.

Most sales systems measure sales activity. They measure number of meetings, number of demonstrations and number of proposals. Advance Selling Skills Academy has launched tools to help you measure the quality of the process and its outcomes. These outcomes are defined as commitments made by the customer (both internal and external).

How do Advance’s Sales tools work?

>> A framework that helps individuals excel and facilitates measurement of improvements
>> The sales process through both the selling and buying organisation
>> The generation of sales process road maps
>> Measurement of what the customer is doing
>> The capture and planning of agendas, meetings, commitments and timetables.

The approach equips sales teams and their management to:

>> Manage any complexities in the process
>> Pick up on mandatory steps, especially rigorous qualification throughout the process
>> Structure the sale into an implementable plan
>> Identify resource requirements well in advance
>> Make timely and effective management interventions – before the event
>> Measure effectiveness of the process
>> Redesign the plan as the sale progresses.

In sum, a high quality comprehensive process for sales teams and their management, designed for the real world.

Benefits

Greater consistency and effectiveness for sales teams and management result in improvements in:

>> Qualification rigour (if you’re going to lose, lose quickly)
>> Forecasting accuracy
>> Sales force productivity
>> The performance of average sales people (by following the documented best practice)
>> Working with other functions to progress the sale.

Together these should deliver:

>> Reduced costs of selling
>> Higher win rate
>> Higher sales
>> Higher profits
>> Greater profitability
>> Ability to quit unwinnable bids more quickly
>> Better use of sales, support and other resources

Advance is a professional sales consultancy that specialises in revitalising every aspect of sales operations. It combines its experience based consultancy, sales methodology and IP with modern training and technology to help clients maximise profitable growth.

How does Advance’s consultancy help Sales operations?

>> Business leaders gain control of forecasting and predictability
>> Understand, articulate and sell the company vision.
>> Take advantage of change – it creates needs
>> See the world through their customers’ eyes
>> Understand the context of what people really want to buy
>> Align and articulate the offer in the context of the customer’s needs
>> Gain customers’ commitment to their way forward
>> Manage and work within a sales process.

This is how Advance helps organisations improve their bottom line and gain a competitive edge.

Performance Management System to Grow Sales

Performance Management System helps in managing employee or system performance and aligning their objectives, facilitating the effective delivery of strategic and operational goals.

With a good performance management program in place, managers indicated that employees hit 21.5 percent more of their goal targets. Similarly, employees estimated that with an effective performance management system, they achieve 8.3 percent more of their goals.

An ideal Performance Management & Development process brings positive impact through several avenues. 

• Improves employee engagement because everyone understands how they are directly contributing to the organizations high level goals
• Professional development programs are better aligned directly to achieving business level goals
• Create transparency in achievement of goals
• Integrates individual Performance Development with incentives/bonus, learning impact and greater goals of the organisation.
• Helps audit / comply with legislative requirement
• Improved management control.

The Advance Academy is built on a Performance Management  technology platform that delivers multi-dimensional skills and knowledge training for businesses. Our business-focused approach to learning determines training needs based on job role. Job profiles define the skills required at different levels of competence, and a management led process allows managers to continually review their people’s training needs and progress.

The platform integrates with existing ERP or CRM and provides benefits like:

• The staff member reviews personal performance, documents self-assessment comments and gathers needed documentation, including 360 degree feedback results, when available.
• The supervisor prepares for the PDP meeting by collecting data including work records, reports, and input from others familiar with the staff person’s work.
• Both examine how the employee is performing against all criteria, and think about areas for potential development.
• Develop a plan for the PDP meeting which includes answers to all questions on the performance development tool with examples, documentation and so on.

What can you expect from Advance’s Performance Development & Management Process?

• Grow sales
• Reduce costs in the organization
• Stop project overruns
• Align the organization with organisation’s vision and mission statement.
• Decreases the time it takes to create strategic or operational changes by communicating the changes through a new set of goals.

Advance’s Performance Development and Management process is renowned and tested by organisations like Accenture, Vodafone, Xerox, Lufthansa, IBM.