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Account Development Skills
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Account Development Skills (ADS) equips inside and field sales reps with the unique
skills and processes to prospect for new customers. The following is a detailed
overview of each module and the competencies required to successfully expand opportunities
within current accounts as well as initiate relationships within dormant or cold
accounts/decision-makers.
Who it's For: Sales Reps & Managers
Seminar Length: 2 Days
Download Printable Brochure
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Upcoming Dates
Dates have not yet been set for this seminar. Please call 770 690-9616
ext. 104 for more information.
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What participants are saying about the Account Development Skills Seminar...
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“The training was top notch. I have been in sales a long time; this
was awesome and directly applied to my everyday challenges.”
– HP
“This undoubtedly is the best training program I have ever experienced.”
– Getty Images
“Totally revolutionary and ground-breaking stuff. This is how the sales process
should be.”
– Blue Cross Blue Shield
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Seminar Details
Module 1: The Foundation: Trust, Credibility & Rapport
Module 2: Outbound Sales Process
Module 3: Engage
Module 4: Discovery
Module 5: Build Value
Module 6: Gain Commitment
Reference Tools
Module 1: The Foundation: Trust, Credibility & Rapport
In this foundational module, participants learn that the customer buys the sales
rep before they buy the product, based on three criteria – trust,
credibility and rapport. If we successfully establish trust, credibility, and rapport,
we gain a tremendous competitive advantage. Establishing this principle-based relationship
creates a scenario where the customer is willing to communicate honest needs and
consider alternative solutions.
Guiding Principle:
Relationship determines influence…and ultimately
your success in sales.
Participants will learn to establish Trust, Credibility, & Rapport, over
the phone by:
- Embracing their role as a trusted advisor.
By fully understanding their role as a trusted advisor, reps will recognize that
it is in everyone’s best interest and critical to their long-term success
to put the customer’s needs first.
- Demonstrating thought leadership. Participants will learn to
establish credibility by understanding the decision drivers, role-specific challenges,
and key objectives of the decision-makers and key influencers.
- Meeting the customer's greatest emotional need and recognizing and appropriately
adjusting to the four unique communication styles.
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Module 2: Outbound Sales Process
Participants will learn a proven selling process that increases the probability
of their success – regardless of the rep’s level of expertise.
Aslan’s Sales Process provides reps with a tangible step-by-step
methodology to initiate relationships, uncover needs, persuasively position their
solution, and reach agreement on the appropriate next step. This four-step process
includes: Engage, Discovery, Build Value, and Gain Commitment.
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Module 3: Engage
The goal of the introduction is not to create interest, but to simply move the prospect
from a non-receptive state to an open state. Once the prospect is receptive, it
is the rep’s responsibility to lead the buying process.
Guiding Principle:
We will initially resist any outside pressure to think or act differently,
even if it is in our best interest, if we feel that we are being forced
and our right to choose is not respected.
(The Tug of War principle)
Participants will learn to Engage customers over the phone by:
- Understanding the Rules of Engagement. By understanding the
dynamics of human emotions and behavior, sales reps learn to influence
and resist the temptation to force the prospect to respond.
- Conducting pre-call planning and research. Reps will embrace the
importance of strategically planning for a sales call and conducting
the necessary research to obtain the information needed to
pre-qualify a prospect and then optimally positioning their call and
solution.
- Establishing an other-centered agenda. Sales reps will gain
an understanding of the key components of an introduction that
will disarm the prospect and ultimately gain a commitment to the next step in the
selling process – the Discovery Meeting.
- Navigating to the decision-maker. Reps will develop the techniques
to identifying barriers (e.g., “screens”, voice-mail)
and connecting to influencers and key decision-makers.
- Gaining access through sponsorship. Reps will be enabled
to utilize four sponsorship strategies that will give them greater
access to more receptive decision-makers.
- Gaining access creatively. Additionally, reps will be provided
creative strategies for gaining access to and engaging influencers
and Level II and Level III decision-makers.
- Appropriately responding to objections. Reps will learn how to
appropriately respond to the five most common“false”
objections prospects employ to avoid sales reps.
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Module 4: Discovery
Initiating a Discovery Meeting with a new prospect is probably the most
critical step to successfully growing your account base. This module is designed
to ensure that participants develop the capabilities to initiate and engage a manager
or executive level decision-maker in a Discovery Meeting to the degree
that both perceived and unconscious needs are revealed.
Guiding Principle:
Until we demonstrate that we understand the customer’s needs,
they will not be receptive to our recommended solution.
Participants wil learn to uncover perceived and unconscious needs over the phone
by:
- Initiating Discovery. Establishing value for the discovery
process in the initial stages of the call
- Gaining alignment. Seeing the opportunity from the
prospect’s point of view and understanding their primary buying
motive, and utilizing the keys to uncovering the prospect’s perceived
needs
- Utilizing a customized Discovery Matrix that provides
the essential components to discovering the prospect’s perceived
and unconscious needs, decision drivers, and their
strategic fit (i.e., “Can you win?” and “Is it
worth winning?”)
- Identifying the political structure in the organization to determine
the key influencers and decision-makers
- Recognizing the different forms of value (e.g., financial, emotional)
in the mind of the decision-maker and identifying their personal and corporate decision
drivers
- Expanding the “comfort zone”. The importance
of creating an environment where honest needs are revealed by developing LEADership
skills (Listening, Empathetically Acknowledging,
and “Dropping the Rope”)
- Using effective questioning strategies. How and when to ask
opening, informational, attitudinal, and clarifying questions to ensure obtaining
the most accurate information, as well as learning how to position questions
in a way that ensures that the customer is motivated to answer
- Formulating GAP2 (Get At
Problem and Payoff) Questions to expose
the hidden needs and determine “what’s at stake”
– through self-discovery
- Regaining a leadership position when the customer changes the direction
of the Discovery Meeting (e.g., initiates price discussion, asks questions
about product/solution)
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Module 5: Build Value
Once you have built a foundation of trust, credibility, and rapport, understood
the prospect’s needs, and defined the “value gap,” it is time
to build value in your solution and in “you” as the solution provider.
Guiding Principle:
Communicating benefits that are not connected to a customer’s needs
erodes the foundation of Trust, Credibility & Rapport.
Participants will learn to Build Value in their solution over the phone by:
- Communicating your solution as an other-centered benefit by demonstrating
the relevancy and payoff of your recommendation
- Delivering your presentation persuasively –
with passion, authority, professionalism, and appropriate voice inflections
- Ensuring that customers emotionally experience the benefit through:
examples/word pictures that allow the customer to visualize the benefits
and be emotionally engaged; and strong statements to further build
credibility and better position your product/service as “best of class”
- Isolating the customer’s key concerns and removing
barriers to commitment
- Analyzing competitive pressures and assessing your opportunity
to win
- Utilizing four strategies that validate your recommendation, establish
the value of your solution (over the phone, face-to-face, and in writing), and gain
a competitive advantage
- Responding to honest objections/questions by learning to distinguish
between and appropriately handle the three types of objections by adopting Aslan’s
recommended five-step objection-response methodology
- Transitioning the prospect from focusing on price alone to focusing
them on the overall payoff
- Understanding the keys to negotiate a win/win solution
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Module 6: Gain Committment
Often sales reps are either intimidated by the closing process or they place undue
emphasis on using a “close technique” to “close the deal.”
In reality, this phase of the sales process is simply reaching agreement on the
appropriate next step – a step that aligns with where the customer is in their
decision-making process and ensures your solution is perceived as best and unique.
Guiding principle:
It is much easier to sell your process than your solution.
Participants will learn to Gain Committment to the appropriate next step, over
the phone by:
- Developing a pre-determined objective of the call
- Developing and presenting the offer that minimizes risk and moves
the prospect to the next logical event in their buying process
- Understanding the prospect’s buying process and how to link
the appropriate advance strategy with the prospect’s commitment
level
- Creating an Opportunity Development Process that ensures the decision-making
team experiences the value of your recommendation and sees your solution as best
and unique
- Creating an Account Management Strategy, once the prospect becomes a customer.
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Reference Tools
- Pre-qualifying matrix
- Strategies to approach decision-makers
- Discovery Matrix
- Discovery questions (e.g., to expose hidden needs, determine decision-makers &
influencers)
- Opportunity/Account assessment tool
- Responses to the 5 false objections
- Account development strategies
- Self-Assessment tool
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