Case Study
Client: Windhorse Trading
Brief
Our sales team operates with customers away from our central offices. They face the challenges of hectic schedules and busy customers. But the real tension is between maintaining and serving their current customer base, and developing new customers.
Solution
Our training with the team covered key factors for effective sales and focused on the issues relevant to the team. Our theme was the well-known sales adage, that marketing is a matter of meeting customer needs profitably (from Philip Kotler’s Marketing Management). This was a highly interactive training, peppered with fresh, real-life scenarios. We examined the unfolding sales process, from the point when the sale first opens to its closing deal. To start with, we focused on first impressions: how to approach, meet and connect with customers, how to present oneself confidently. We then uncovered the issue of trust and how to focus authentically on the explicit and implicit needs presented by the customer. We also delved into some of the generic challenges which face sales representatives, in particular whether to make ‘quick’ sales for short-term benefit, or to foster customer contact for long-term rewards — namely, how to win confidence and trust over time. Nor did we shy away from the thorny subjects of what not to do during sales! Strategically, we addressed the planning and prioritisation of individual sales trips in order to meet market challenges flexibly — how to maintain a balance between serving an existing customer base, and developing new customers. A particularly lively discussion followed the question: is it possible to approach sales genuinely from the position of abundance?
Consultants
Simon McKibbin
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