Course Outcomes

This consultative sales and relationship selling course will:

  • Help participants establish a “partnering mindset.”
  • Provide participants with the tools to uncover customer needs and position products and services to address stated desires.
  • Suggest tactics to effectively use meetings, phone calls, email, and other tools to build solid business relationships with prospects and customers.
  • Offer ideas for keeping the door open when a sale is not made.

Course Overview

All else being equal, people buy from people they like to work with.  It’s that simple.  We’ve all been treated as if we were a number.  And not surprisingly, few of us like this uncaring approach.  This sales training program teaches participants how to partner with customers, listen, and build lasting, profitable business relationships.

Program Objectives

At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Describe the philosophy of “salesperson as partner” and the benefits of building and retaining client/customer relationships.
  • Articulate the features and benefits of their products, services, and organization.
  • Recognize “needs language.”
  • Explain the four phases of the sales process.
  • Use the prospecting process to identify qualified leads.
  • Comfortably introduce themselves, others, and their organization.
  • Describe professional dress, business manners, and networking basics.
  • Plan a client meeting.
  • Demonstrate the salesperson’s role in the opening phase of the sales process.
  • Effectively use probes to uncover client/customer needs.
  • Answer client/customer objections.
  • Close sales with customers who are ready to partner with their organization.
  • Leave the door open when sales do not occur.
  • Follow up with clients and customers to enhance relationships.

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of participant materials prior to the session(s).

Workshop Outline

Partner, Not Pest: Getting into the Sales Mindset

We are all annoyed by telemarketers, stereotypical used-car salesmen, and other salespeople who through their dishonesty and pushiness have caused many of us to view sales and salespeople as irritating nuisances-the last thing we want to be. Sales? Not me! Never! This sales training course begins with an introductory discussion which challenges the traditional view of selling and those who sell. At its conclusion, participants should come to view themselves as partners in a business relationship and be able to provide clients/customers with information, products, and services to best meet their needs.

To Get Where You’re Going, You Need to Know Where You Are: What Differentiates Your Product and Services

Now you’re in a sales mindset, but are you really ready to sell? No! Before you can begin selling anything, you need to understand the product or service’s features, benefits, and weaknesses (actual or perceived). In this preparatory unit, participants will spend time articulating what their particular product or service is, what its benefits are, and which market segments are desirable targets.

What Can I Do for You?: Uncovering Pain Points

Section three explores solution selling: what it is, what it’s not, and why it is essential for steady, sustainable business growth. Emphasis and activities focus on questioning and listening skills, recognizing the language of needs such as “I’d like” or “I hope” and verifying customer objectives. At the conclusion, participants should have a solid understanding of the difference between meeting a customer’s needs and simply offering or forcing a menu of products and services. 

Exactly How Does This Work?: A Look at the Sales Process

This portion of relationship sales training introduces four phases of the sales process: opening, probing, supporting, and committing.  Skills taught in the previous lesson are reinforced throughout this unit with case studies and roleplays.

First Steps: Where and How to Start

Cold calling can be scary, time consuming, and in many cases ineffective. Thank goodness there is a better way: networking. Another segment of the program introduces techniques for building relationships with current clients and customers, along with finding the very clients and customers they are trying to attract by joining professional organizations and community groups, as well as by volunteering for the right opportunities. Participants should be able to map their business network, see where improvement is needed, and generate a list of organizations and people to get to know better.

Look and Sound the Part: Networking and Professional Basics

You’ve found the client/customer with whom you wish to build a relationship. How do you introduce yourself? How do you introduce others? Uh oh, you forgot a name. Now what? In this instance, participants will learn the answers to these questions and how to make a solid first impression that says poised and polished.

Making the Call: What to Say and How to Say It

A follow-up component explores the opening phase of the sales call. From the mechanics of planning the call to the first words uttered, this practical unit provides a framework for taking the first steps in developing relationships with customers and clients.

Now What?: Beyond Introductions

In this part of the course, participants will have the opportunity to engage in the probing and exploring phases of the sales process.  Using case studies and roleplays, they will practice their questioning skills and ability to think quickly and logically to fulfill customer and client needs. 

But: Overcoming Objections

Often during the sales process, customers have objections or concerns.  In this segment, participants will look at techniques for responding to objections and develop situation-specific responses in order to prepare for real-life objections they will encounter on the job.

Wrap It Up: Getting to the Close

You’ve done a great job breaking the ice, asking and answering questions, responding to objections, and now it’s time for your client/customer to commit.  A subsequent lesson provides a structure for effectively moving through the commitment stage of the sales process: how to ask for commitment, how to respond to “no” and leave the door open, and how to help customers avoid buyer’s remorse.

Remember Me?: Serving Customers After the Sale

Great!  You got the client/customer.  What do you have to do to keep this person happy and still working with you and your organization?  How do you know when a customer is happy?  Unhappy?  What do you do to get past problems caused by you or the client?  In this discussion, participants will discover how to service relationships for business longevity.

Keep Them Coming Back: Enhancing Customer Relationships

How do you up-sell when you have had a customer for months or years? What techniques are available to move them to the next level of products and services? How do you introduce other members of your team when and if you are unable to personally serve the customer in the future? This final lesson introduces participants to a follow-up framework that shows them how to use techniques learned throughout the program to enhance the customer/client experience.

By the conclusion of this sales training course, participants will be able to identify the steps in the relationship-selling process, understand the importance of entering a partnership with their customers/clients, and know how to apply the information presented in the program to their own situations.