Sales modelling project - Selling in the 21st Century - Any ideas or thoughts?

We're all aware selling is changing in the 2000's. The from the cost and effectiveness of multi channel strategies to the up and coming impact of social networking via the internet. While it's unlikely that social networking is going to replace cold calling it's already beginning to have an impact.

To put a stake in the ground I'm going to be running a modelling project on top sales people in early 2007, the purpose is to identify some of the attitudes and skill sets of successful sales people. What does actually make the difference in 2007?

For the participants it's a low cost option (the phone conversation will take about an hour) which will give them the opportunity to reflect on their own skills and capabilities - which they may choose to use in their owm personal development plans.

However the collated information will be invaluable both as a benchmark and a 'sales needs analysis' relating not only to training and coaching but also to marketing, customer service and proposition development.

The approach is to use a series of questions as a starter and checklist - although the conversation will go wherever it goes.

As well as the factual anwsers I'm interested in my own intuition about the individuals. The key target is corporate

To model some of the skills and capabilities of top sales people in the 2007

The approach will be both logical and intuitive (or DTI in NLP terms). The following question set will used to start various conversation threads. The frame is exploring top sales performance.

The current question set is:

Backgound - brief answers!

Name, organisation and brief bio
Target customers
Brief description of your customers decision process in a typical sale?
What model or methodology do you use?
Do you work to a sales process, if so what is it?
How do you identify and contact target customers?
What benefits do customers get from you product / service?
What do you think makes a good sales person?

Modelling questions

Environment

Where and when do you do it?

Behaviours

What specfically do you do?
If you were going to teach me how to do it,what wouldyou ask me to do?
What different behaviours are useful at different parts of the sales cycle?

Capabilities

What skills do you have that enable you to do this?
How did you learn to do this?

Beliefs

What do you believe about yourself when you do this?
What do you believe about your potential customers when you do this?

Identity

Do you a have a personal mission or vision when you do this?

Other questions
How to you monitor your own performannce?
Are you paid for revenue or profit?
What difference do you think this makes?
What do you think are the biggest issues that effect sales people today?
What barriers hold you back?
What would help you achieve your objectives more quickly?
How would you describe your attitude to selling?
What are your outcomes when selling?
Why do you think your customers buy from you?
How do you know you're good at this?

How important to you is F2F and electronic networking?

What key associations or societies are you a member of?

Are you a member of LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy, Plaxo or other?

And last question - how do thinking selling has changed and is changing in the early 21st Century?

If you had to describe sales as story with fairytale, fantasy charachters or animals how would you describe the sales client relationship?

Additional checklist:

Your product / solution type

Product
Problem solving solution
Value service

Incremental value / disruptive value?

Your product solution vs market

Dog (low growth market and low market share)
Problem Child (high growth market and low market share)
Star (high market growth and high market share)
Cash Cow (low market growth and high market share)

Your customer?

Do you have to influence different people in your customer / account:

Initiator?
Gatekeeper?
User?
Decider?
Influencer?
Purchaser?

Generic stages in a sales – what makes a real difference?

Prospecting
Making contact
Identifying needs

Qualify and plan approach
Develop offer and value
Present solution

Negotiate and handle objections
Close

Implement
Track Value

Give a score of 1/10 for each of the above as to their importants in your market. 10 is high. Which gives you the biggest opportunity to improve your own performance?

Activity

Where could you get the greatest improvement:
What you do?
How well you do it?
How much you do?
Who you are?

Key Sales capabilities – what makes the difference?

Market knowledge
Proposition knowledge
Attitude
Influincing skills
Problem solving skills
Buying / sales cycle knowledge
Taking action

Give a score of 1/10 for each of the above as to their importants in your market. 10 is high. Which gives you the biggest opportunity to improve your own performance?

Key influencing skills – what makes the difference?

State
Appearance / image
Breaking / making rapport
Eliciting values
Agreeing outcomes / vision
Questioning

Listening
Presenting
Storytelling
Belief change
Profiling (and adapting to cultures)

Give a score of 1/10 for each of the above as to their importants in your market. 10 is high. Which gives you the biggest opportunity to improve your own performance?


Key values


Meta Programmes (personal profiling)

Active / Reactive
Towards / Away from
Internal / External
Options / Procedures
Specific / General (Big picture)
Feeling / Choice / Thinking
Independent / Proximity / Co-operative
People / Task
Sensory preference: visual/auditory/kinesthetic

And lastly has there been any sales training / coaching that has made a real difference? What aspect of selling did they cover and what was good about them?

Subject to any confidentuality issues that arise I'm happy to share the results.

The purpose of this article is to let anyone suggest:

• Additional questions
• Considerations before I start
• Ideas of who to approach

I'm not setting a firm timetable on this until I'm comfortable with both the approach and I have the right people, who will be genuinly open enough to makes the results useful.

Any thoughts and ideas really appreciated,

Michael
01908 506563
Director
PPI Business NLP Ltd - The Business NLP proider of choice
Sales Analytics - Information to improve your sales

See also:
http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=77229