Sales Skills for Non-Sales Professionals

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In today's fiercely competitive business environment, organizations worldwide fight an ongoing battle trying to gain every possible competitive advantage. To that end, many organizations make substantial training investments to equip their sales force with the necessary skills to effectively market their products and/or services. For most organizations, this investment is successful, resulting in a well trained and competent external and/or internal sales force. The challenge is, however, that their competition has made the identical investment, resulting in no, or very little, competitive advantage.

Customers are "touched" not only by an organization's sales force but also, on a more frequent and continuing basis, by areas such as Customer Service, Warehouse, Delivery, Service, Engineering, Operations, Accounting and more. Regularly during these non-sales force "touches," sales opportunities occur and, unfortunately, are not capitalized on because non-sales professionals don't see themselves as sales people, don't feel comfortable "selling," don't possess the skills and knowledge to take advantage of the opportunity, don't believe it is their job to sell, etc ... Clearly, the result is countless missed opportunities.

Increasingly organizations realize that a key strategic competitive advantage can be gained by equipping all customer "touch point" employees with the knowledge and skills to perform as "Sales Professionals" when appropriate and/or when opportunities arise. The outcome and key benefit of creating an organization- wide sales culture is far fewer missed opportunities, directly translating into improved top and bottom line performance. World Class organizations realize that sales and revenue generation must be a priority not only for the sales force but for all key "touch point" personnel.

Workshop Content

This one-day workshop has been specifically designed to help non-sales personnel realize, and take advantage of, sales opportunities as they occur. The core objectives and learning points are:

Develop an understanding by all touch point employees that sales and selling are not "bad" words, but rather are critical skills and behaviors that are appropriate for employees organization-wide
Define selling skills and understand the sales process including "closing techniques"
Define "up-sell" and determine when it is appropriate
Understand how the core communication skills of questioning, listening and giving and receiving feedback influence the sales process
Learn how to effectively "diagnose" customer pain, frustration and dissatisfaction
When appropriate, learn how to turn this potentially negative or difficult situation into a sales opportunity by linking your company's products and/or services to provide a solution or solve a problem
Determine when it is appropriate to "sell" and how to avoid being perceived as "pushy"
Learn how to design and develop a seamless communication process or information flow from all touch point departments back to the sales force for immediate action or response