Everyone wants a sales breakthrough, and while leaders introduce generic sales-training workshops to enhance skills, many struggle to define the precise area to boost. Despite the prevalence of data, too many executives still depend on intuition to select training. Introducing “negotiation workshops” seems to be a sure-bet, but moving away from a “spray and pray” methodology is crucial. To make an impact and realize a diagnosed sales breakthrough, leaders need to diagnose before prescribing any solution.
Why Precision Is Important
From leading teams to landmark victories and closing over $500M in revenue, I learned that you need to plan and deploy resources strategically. Investment in good sales training practices is quite tall – both in direct costs and time away from the field. When you sign off on a large budget, you want to ensure you are investing in the right direction. I’ve seen companies buy negotiation workshops for teams that were actually failing at value creation. This mismatch explains why many initiatives fail to deliver a true sales performance breakthrough. To solve this, we introduced the Sales Skills Analysis Tool.
Diagnose Before You Prescribe
This tool is not just a survey. Taking the guesswork out of sales professional development, one may want to explore this online diagnostic engine. Instead of asking salespeople what they need, the team goes online to answer real-world sales scenario questions. Their results are compared with a success model based on behavioral research that included observation of thousands of salespeople. The success model’s base line for being the most effective, follows the common behaviors of consistently successful salespeople.
The tool provides insights into the salespeople’s effectiveness and potential knowledge gaps in specific areas:
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Creating Value: Do they know how to tailor value propositions to each persona and discuss strategic business outcomes?
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Negotiation: How well do they expand the range of negotiable variables before folding on price?
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Beating the Competition: Do they own strategies to influence buyers to prefer your solution?
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Closing: Are they stalling because of a lack of closing skills or a failure in earlier stages?
From the person’s results shown below, it is easy to understand that the biggest gap lies with Competitive Strategies.
A Competitive Strategies workshop is not something many organizations take, yet in the case described below, it was a life saver for my team.
Case Study
Why Varied Sales Training Matters
Years ago, I was part of a team fighting for a massive transformation deal. We were shortlisted against a fierce competitor who literally copied every argument we made. Despite having senior executives and experienced negotiators, three rounds of bid submissions left us drained. We had played every card and simply couldn’t match their price point.
Desperation set in as we brainstormed with the company’s leadership, searching for any way to prove our superiority. That’s when a concept from a competitive strategy workshop sparked an idea in my brain. We held an “Ace”, a unique detail we rarely marketed. It wasn’t a formal requirement, but it was the one thing our rival couldn’t copy. We realized that even if the customer didn’t ask for it, we could still use it as critical leverage.
Precision-led Breakthrough
Our company had a history of 40 years delivering major projects, while everyone knew that our competitor was relatively young in the industry. It was before the customer’s final visit to our offices. So, we made the whole visit around this topic – our vast experience and what it means, our legacy. We highlighted risk management policies and how this kind of legacy can affect their program, their investment and their careers. The customer’s CEO, who had to make a career defining decision, then realized that he could sleep better at night if the project was in our hands. That is how we won this battle.
The Lesson: Sometimes the gap isn’t in price or product features, but in strategic positioning. Whether it’s finding your “Ace” card or creating a high-value perception, the Sales Skills Analysis Tool ensures we uncover exactly what your team needs to learn, to make a sales breakthrough.
In summary, these are the expected benefits when using this sales-diagnostic tool:
- Make decisions based on real data and insights
- Get an opportunity to benchmark individual knowledge
- Define priority learning instead of going with what is trendy
- Gain confidence in your investments, knowing they are targeting strategic growth areas
- When training solutions are focused on identified gaps, the ROI usually comes faster
- This tool and the insights it provides ensure we build a tailored learning journey that fits the specific team, avoiding “one-size-fits-all” programs.
Want to learn more?
Don’t delay, schedule a 30-minute introduction session with me. We’ll discuss your sales challenges and give you access to this tool to identify where to focus.
Book your session here to progress faster
When millions are on the line, strategic guidance isn’t optional – it’s essential.
