Enhancing Sales Performance
While it is necessary for salespeople to have the skills to listen effectively to customers’ needs, present the features and benefits of their products to clients, and guide customers to a buying decision, in many industries, that is not sufficient to create high sales performance. For many organisations, salespeople need to also be effective business consultants; they need to be experts who can deal with complex systems issues, and can help facilitate change in their clients’ organisations.
Enhancing Sales Performance Through Business Consulting Skills
The value of these skills was effectively demonstrated in a study with a large European insurance company. Three key strategic drivers showed significant improvement after salespeople completed a process designed to teach them business consulting skills. When compared to salespeople who did not receive the consultant skill development, these salespeople showed:
- 18 percent greater increase in sales
- 11 percent greater increase in new customer sales
- 5 percent greater increase in the average size of each sale
The results provide strong support for the value of business consulting skills, and the ability of an effective training process to transfer learning to job performance.
Business Consulting Skills
In many industries, companies need salespeople to be a source of competitive advantage. This is most keenly felt in industries where there is a great deal of competition, where it is difficult to create product or service differentiation, and where economies of scale do not provide great price advantages.
The business-to-business insurance industry is a good example. First, there are many competitors chasing the same business. Second, the industry is mature and the technology that underlies insurance products and pricing is well known, making product differentiation difficult. Finally, through mergers and acquisitions, many of the competitors are very large global players, so that no single competitor can gain an advantage through economies of scale. As a result, organisational leaders face the question of how to create differentiation and competitive advantage through sources other than product, size, or price.
At Wilson Learning, our experience suggests that providing salespeople with skills to be effective business consultants can provide an important source of competitive differentiation. By learning a consultative process, identifying appropriate methods for understanding the customer’s business, and then applying these methods effectively, salespeople will approach their clients more strategically and generate more profitable and compelling solutions for their clients. The better business consultants salespeople are, the more successful their sales performance.
Contact Us
Please call us! Our team would be delighted to help you with your enquiry:
+61 2 9232 4124
For questions or comments you would like to direct to us through email:
Email us - clientservices@wilsonlearning.com.au
