First Dimension – 5 Steps to Selling

STEP 1: The Engagement

The first crucial stage of our methodology is to set up the call or meeting in the right way so your contact is looking forward to (and psychologically accepted that they are going to have) an exchange of information for personal and organisational gain.

You’ll need to develop rapport, give the contact a reason to want to have the conversation with you, and help them understand the need for an exchange of information (as opposed to a one way delivery).

Key engagement skills

• Getting through to the right person
• An energetic introduction
• Getting the contact in a positive frame of mind
• Capturing their attention and interest
• Checking what time they have and motivating them to answer your questions

STEP 2: The Investigation

“Seek first to understand before you seek to be understood.”

During The Investgation stage you must find out everything you need to be able to positively progress the sales opportunity. Only in a perfect world would you be able to find out everything in one sitting or call so you’ll need to glean enough to make good decisions straight away. And the more you can investigate before you respond, the better and more effective your response is likely to be.

Knowing what you need to find out only takes you halfway. Knowing the right questioning and conversation techniques will ultimately define your success.

Key investigation skills

The ability to effectively assess

• The current situation (facts and figures about them, their team, their organisation)
• Aspirations (where do they want to be? where do they want to move away from?)
• Constraints/barriers (what’s stopping them? what issues do they have? what problems to they need to solve
• Authority (who has the authority? what might stop it going ahead? when do they want to see the benefits?)

STEP 3: The Alignment

The Alignment stage positions your product or service in light of what you have found out during The Investigation stage. Great proposal writing skills and/or great presentation skills are part of this, but if you don’t know what you’re aligning to, your presentation skills are wasted. Business to business selling is not about pitching and hoping, it’s actually about positioning. Whilst there is a place for features, advantages and benefits, they only have value if the contact can see and understand how this solution, service or idea will help them.

Key Alignment skills:

• The ability to conduct a great investigation and alignment of products or services
• The ability to deliver a compelling alignment presentation in terms of structure, content and style

STEP 4: The Negotiation

Once The Alignment stage is complete (you’ve presented your idea/service/solution), your contact may want to vary the proposal to suit their circumstances. This is often financial, but also may relate to timescales, locations, product/service sets as well as a host of other variables. You’ll need to make sure that both parties are happy with the outcome and are ready and able to move forward.

Key negotiation skills:

• Objection handling
• Negotiating while making the customer feel good about their decision making
• Objection handling

STEP 5: The Commitment

A successful and effective Commitment Stage sees the contact taking action in the way and at the time you have agreed. Gaining commitment from your contact is not just something that happens at the end of the sales cycle, it happens throughout the process. You need commitment at each stage before you can move on to the next. The final commitment rests on every stage falling into place. Most conventional closing techniques are simply inappropriate in today’s business to business communications.

Key Commitment skills:

• Making moving to the next stage (fulfilment) of the process a comfortable and sensible thing for the contact to do
• This relies on a variety of techniques but the ultimate commitment to go ahead with the investment should be a simple step for the contact to make.

Second Dimension – 4 Key Virtues

In addition to the 5 steps to selling, 2020 UK Sales Academy delivers transformational improvements by training delegates to exude 4 key virtues at every stage of the sales process.

Enthusiasm and Energy

Exuding positivity through effective tone and body language - being a ‘can do if’ person rather than a ‘can’t do because’. This is whilst balancing fun and enjoyment with professionalism and rigour, and sounding like you love what you do and are inspired to share.

Interest and Care

Exuding interest and care by doing something unexpected and demonstrably acting in the customer’s interest. Using recognition speech and empathy to build relationships whilst maintaining thoughtful and engaging conversions.

Third Dimension – The 4 Elements

2020 UK Sales Academy includes 4 key elements to each module and course outline. We recognise that engaging with delegates is the key to a successful learning outcome, and learning needs to go beyond the classroom. With this in mind your sales force receive end-to-end learning support, encompassing both pre and post-course activities, accommodating different learning styles to assist in embedding the learning.

Engage and Excite

This first stage prepares managers and leaders for a new ‘Sales Methodology’ and ensures their teams are ready for each learning intervention. This includes pre-course materials, e-learning modules, welcome instructions, surveys and questionnaires with clear objectives and measures.

Face to Face

Through our experiences and consistent approach, we deliver engaging workshops that are tailored to your teams’ training requirements. Additional training materials are available to support the learning through live prospects. Crucial to the success of any learning programme it is essential that managers are involved at an early stage to ensure that they have the knowledge and skills to embed the learning.

Supporting Behavioural Change

Research shows that most training courses fail to embed behavioural change following a few months beyond the classroom. It is essential that ’Post Event’ coaching takes place at least once a month for each sales person. Progress is recorded on a personal development log (to review previous achievements and agreed actions) and is positioned as a continuous learning journey, rather than a finite amount of learning that takes place.

Measuring Success

The objectives in most training programmes are measured in terms of results required. In most cases, sales training programmes are needed to increase results, margins, improved motivation and reduce staff turnover. It is therefore imperative to measure the success of the training by evaluating the previous three steps.

• First of all, to determine the level of engagement and enthusiasm using online surveys
• Secondly, to evaluate the learning that takes place in the face to face sessions
• Finally, to measure the changes in the job behaviour.