Business Issue
This global organization is known for outstanding technology and innovative access solutions. Part of the organization’s mission and purpose is around innovation—always looking for a better way to help people feel safe, secure, and experience a more open world.
The company knew the outstanding talent in their sales and operations teams was a competitive advantage.
The Director of Professional Sales Development was looking for additional opportunities to improve and protect their already dominant market position.
Solution
The Sales Development Director had a learning partnership in place with Wilson Learning, who played a key role in past years by providing training in a proven sales process, The Counselor Salesperson™, to their sales representatives.
The Sales Development Director was also versed in and trained to facilitate The Versatile Salesperson™. Always looking for a better way, he saw the opportunity for upskilling their already skilled salesforce by increasing their effectiveness in creating more productive client relationships, so he took the next strategic step.
In total, more than 155 sales representatives were trained. Post-training, versatility skills were further honed and reinforced over the next six months through automated participant reinforcement messages and sales manager coaching tips. Follow-up also included best practice conference calls 30 days post-training. On the calls, both sales representatives and sales managers reviewed the skills, discussed how they used each skill in client meetings, and shared results achieved in moving the sales process and opportunities forward. These forums helped to reinforce and integrate the concepts into the sales process and sales culture more effectively.
Outcome
Sales managers and participants reported widespread enthusiasm for how applying The Versatile Salesperson skills made a difference in client relationships and sales effectiveness.
Sales managers reported these results:
- “I’m impressed with how quickly The Versatile Salesperson training has translated into revenue.”
- “Reps are now aware of their Social Style and the impact they have on others.”
- “Reps are taking informed chances and trying new approaches.”
Sales representatives provided this feedback:
- “It was nearly impossible to get time with this customer in the past. I was intimidated. I changed my approach [to meet his communication preferences]—no small talk, no stories. I took him on, talked to him directly, and asked for the opportunity to quote on his work. My customer reviewed two projects that they had intended to give to my competitor. I negotiated both, resulting in orders for $370K+. This customer now calls me on a regular basis to follow up on additional items.”
- “I needed this architect to approve our products. I prepared for the call with four slightly different approaches based on Social Styles. I determined that the customer was a Driver by her tone of voice, sense of urgency, abruptness of responses, etc., some classic behaviors that I learned to recognize from The Versatile Salesperson I eliminated getting into the details (which I really wanted to get into as my preference is an Analytical style). As a result of adapting to meet her style, I got the approval and commitment to move to the next step.”