PROFESSIONAL SELLING SKILLS SYSTEM® by Achieve Global™ Presented by
Professional Selling Skills® Seminars
3 Day Seminar $1,895.....all materials included
2010 PSS® Public Sessions
February 8, 9 & 10, 2010 - we still have a few seats April 19, 20 & 21, 2010 June 14, 15 & 16, 2010 August 9, 10 & 11, 2010 October 4, 5 & 6, 2010 December 6, 7 & 8, 2010
The Giants of Sales
by Tom Sant
The sales techniques that work best...have always
worked best. An incisive look at four legendary sales pros, and how
their strategies still apply today. Sales theories come and sales
theories go, but nothing beats learning from the original masters. The
Giants of Sales introduces readers to the techniques developed by four
legendary sales giants, and offers concrete examples of how they still
work in the 21st century. The book reveals how:
In his quest to sell a brand new product known as the cash register,
John Henry Patterson came up with a repeatable sales process tailor-made
for his own sales force . Dale Carnegie taught people how to win friends
and influence customers with powerful methods that still work . Joe
Girard, listed by Guinness as the world's greatest salesman, didn't just
sell cars, he sold relationships...and developed a successful referral
business . Elmer Wheeler discovered fundamental truths about persuasion
by testing thousands of sales pitches on millions of people, and
achieved great success in the middle of the Great Depression
Part history and part how-to, The Giants of Sales gives readers
practical, real-world techniques based on the time-tested wisdom of true
sales masters.
Taken from Page 31 However, by far the most influential of all of the men who worked for Patterson was his vice president of sales, Thomas Watson. Watson led the National Cash Register sales force for years and not only followed Patterson's methods himself, but inculcated them into hundreds of the company's sales reps. Eventually Watson angered Patterson, as almost all of his senior managers did (Patterson was notoriously cantankerous and difficult to work for.) Patterson fired Watson, apparently because the young man had become too "popular" with the sales force. At that point, Watson cast about for something to do and finally took the helm of a struggling little company in New York called the Computing Tabulating-Recording Company. One of Watson's first moves was to rename the company calling it--drum roll, please -- International Business Machines. That's right: IBM.
Three initials, just like NCR. And a sales method that was an
exact copy of what Watson had learned from Patterson. In fact,
Watson even stole Patterson's slogan, "Think," and had it posted around
the offices and factories of IBM.
Taken
from Pages 55-57 PROFESSIONAL SELLING SKILLS Another major branch from the
original NCR trunk was developed at Xerox which created a sales course
internally called Professional Selling Skills.
Designed to train Xerox sales reps how to
sell complex products against tough competition, it proved tremendously
successful.
It was a bit ironic that Xerox should
develop one of the most influential variations on process-oriented sales
methods, because for years the company didn’t need to do any selling at
all.
Its patent on the xerographic procedure gave it
exclusivity in a product that had tremendous value to businesses.
Only when competitors emerged did Xerox
learn that many of its customers thought that the company was
high-handed or even arrogant, and were eager for an alternative.
As a result, Xerox invested heavily in
developing n effective selling process.
As was Xerox’s habit with so many of its
successful ideas-such as the mouse, the graphical user interface,
distributed computer processing, and quite a few others-it decided to
spin the sales program off as a separate company.
That led to the creation of Learning
International and one of the first consultative selling skills courses
known as Professional Selling skills or PSS.
Again, the method emphasized steps, breaking down
a sale into component phases and training the salesperson how to execute
each step the way a top-performing salesperson does.
In fact, the whole method was supposedly
based on research into the techniques used by top performers, with the
underlying assumption that these techniques are repeatable by anyone who
understands and practices them.
The most recent iteration of Professional Selling Skills is now offered
through Achieve Global, a training company that acquired the assets of
Learning International and two other training companies, Zenger Miller
and Kaset International.
The essence of the PSS approach is recognizing
that almost nobody wants to be sold anything.
However, people do want to make informed
decisions.
By structuring the sales process as a means
of facilitating the decision process, a salesperson overcomes some of
the resistance that a prospective customer may have and builds a
stronger working relationship.
The PSS course tends to focus on the steps
of a typical sales cycle, which may occur in a single call or may extend
over several months.
1.
Planning the call
2.
Introducing yourself and
starting the call
3.
Asking questions and probing
for insight into the customer’s business
4.
Proposing or presenting a
solution
5.
Handling objections and
negotiating terms
6.
Closing the deal
7.
Following up after the sale
has been made
The
number of steps in the cycle is somewhat arbitrary, but one of the
strengths of the PSS approach is that it focuses on discrete tasks
with the sales process at a more granular level than Patterson’s
four-step method did. The
Primer strongly recommended learning as much as possible about a
prospect before the first visit, but it didn’t make that an explicit
step in the sales cycle. PSS
recommends doing the necessary research on the customer, the
company, its customers, and its key competitor so that you can speak
intelligently about the company's business when you start
Don Hammalian, one of the original coauthors of the PSS
sales-training program at Xerox, pointed out to me that PSS was one
of the first attempts to use “programmed instruction” for
professional training.
This put the course at the forefront of innovative teaching methods,
particularly in the attempt to train salespeople behaviorally. The actual course was built on research into “what we now call ‘best practices’ based on field observations,” Hammalian recalls. “We were trying to take a more scientifically valid approach that could be statistically validated in terms of results.”
Because of the course’s design and its use of a process approach to
break down the task of selling into incremental steps, PSS proved to
be an excellent foundation course for people who were new to sales.
Over the years, the course evolved quite a bit, but from the
start it had a strong core on which people could build their own
style.
Hammalian is rather amused to look back at the original course,
compared to what it became and what is taught in other
process-oriented courses today.
“The first PSS model”, he recalls, “was a highly
manipulative, product-focused model that no one would advocate
today. But it evolved
into a ‘need satisfaction’ model with much more emphasis on
understanding the cust9mer and building a strong relationship.”
The roots of the “need satisfaction” model are present in
Patterson’s original Primer,
although the need tended to be restricted to just one
thing-increasing profits.
Later, the definition of customer needs became more
sophisticated in PSS and in many of the other process-oriented
approaches.
For A Free White Paper Report on Creating Sales Super Stars
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If your company would like to conduct an in-house seminar or you would like to train a significant number of people please contact us for special pricing.
Jim Ullery, President Center for Organizational Energy, LLC 3630 Sabal Springs Blvd. North Fort Myers, Florida 33917 (239) 599-8408
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Professional Selling Skills® (PSS®) Integrated components ensure your salespeople and their managers continually learn and apply critical skills that grow your business - and your profits. You and your salespeople have clear-cut priorities: expand account relationships, unseat competitors, develop new markets, close more sales faster. The Center for Organizational Energy, LLC's presentation of Achieve Global's™ Professional Selling Skills® (PSS®) System can help you meet these priorities. It offers a proven, powerful model for face-to-face selling that equips your salespeople with the skills they need to develop lasting, mutually beneficial client relationships. PSS® is a clear, structured system that supports lasting behavior change and on-the-job results. Click here to request information.
Components support entire sales organization The PSS® System provides an effective, flexible and systematic approach to learning, applying, evaluating and continuously improving the skills that result in strong customer relationships. Building on the selling skills and strategies that have benefited more than three million sales professionals around the world, the system has components that work together to improve sales performance and help you compete effectively in the marketplace. The components are designed to provide you with a variety of training delivery options, and to address all the elements required for training to produce a return on your sales development investment
The PSS System® offers:
With the PSS System™ , your salespeople will succeed by helping your customers succeed. They'll acquire the skills and competencies that will set them - and your organization - apart from the competition. The Benefits of Using the Professional Selling Skills System® Your salespeople will:
Your customer will profit from:
Your sales manager will:
Your organization will experience:
Program Highlights & Outcomes Core Available in a 3-Day Classroom version the content is the foundation upon which the PSS System® is built. Salespeople develop the face-to-face selling skills needed to promote an open exchange of information and reach mutually beneficial sales agreements. They learn to:
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