The Marketplace Situation

The term consultative selling has been around for years. Yet never has this skill been more important than in the age of insight-based selling such as shopper insights and category management. Account managers must gain detailed knowledge of their customers’ business needs and objectives. An information “dump” to a customer is useless unless the information is concisely targeted to meet the customer’s unique needs.

The Compass Solution

Consultative Selling Skills provides account managers the ability to penetrate customers and identify each position’s needs. They learn to determine such critical facts as who makes the decisions, how they measure program success and what help they need from manufacturers. This is the critical skill needed for a successful customer-centric relationship.

Workshop participants understand what is involved in transforming a sales call into a problem solving opportunity. They learn how to listen for ideas and perspectives as well as needs during the needs identification process. They practice the skill of offering category building ideas in addition to products and services. Participants learn how to apply problem solving skills in managing the inevitable resistance that occurs when presenting ideas.

Videotape is used extensively in simulated selling situations as a way to practice the skills learned. “Sales calls” are conducted in role-play situations that are developed specifically for your business. The cases are customized to reflect realistic situations.

Workshop Learning Objectives

As a result of participating in this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Understand the importance of needs determination and problem solving skills to the customer management sales process;
• Determine both the shared and unspoken business needs of their customers;
• Use state of the art skills to determine needs, such as drawing out, questioning, listening, understanding non-verbals and paraphrasing;
• Present business-building ideas in addition to products as answers to the customers needs;
• Resolve customer objections in a straight forward, customer centered and problem solving oriented way;
• Apply facilitation techniques in customer management selling situations;
• Plan and follow-up their sales calls in a professional manner.

Program Details

The workshop length is two days. During the two days each participant has the opportunity to make two videotaped sales calls to practice the skills of needs determination and presenting a customer program solution.

The workshop size is 12 participants. This allows the videotaping to be done in two groups of 6 people.