Maximizing salesperson ship- 2015

Proprietary and Confidential ©ZAHN Consulting, LLC

The Art of ‘Salespersonship’

Building New Skills to Maximize Buyer-Seller

Relationships and Improve Sales Effectiveness

David Zahn

ZAHN Consulting, LLC

February 23, 2015

1


The premise for the need to rebuild

Salespersonship skills in today’s environment

The availability of increasingly sophisticated data, analysis and insights has led to a

significant change in the buyer-seller relationship …and not always for the better.

An over reliance on data, analysis and insights and selling decks replete with chart after

chart and graph after graph have resulted in a real degradation of the fundamental customer

equity building skills and customer development skills in many sales organizations.

2

3 Dimensions of Winning Sales Skills

Connect

• Products

• Process

• People

Convince

• Fact Based

• Best Choice

• Maximum ROI

• Minimal Risk

Relationship

• Buyer Knowledge

• Rapport Building

• Trust Building

• Presentations

Gap


There are major opportunities to

improve the buyer-seller relationship

3

In our extensive work with retailers,

we have uncovered these key areas of buyer dissatisfaction

18% Lack of

Follow-

Through

• Buyer’s don’t believe salespeople really care about

them or understand them and their business.

• Buyer’s know sales people manipulate data, facts and

insights in their favor…causing a lack of trust.

• Buyer’s get overwhelmed by data and facts yet don’t

think salespeople do a good job of extracting key

insights and actionable plans.

• Buyers and their managers view business reviews and

Top-to-Tops as boring and unproductive.

• Buyers think salesperson follow-through is often

inconsistent.

*Sales & Marketing Management Magazine

Survey of Buyers

perceptions of Sales

Proprietary and Confidential ©ZAHN Consulting, LLC 4

Salesperson traits and behaviors that drive buyer dissatisfaction

• Sales people are highly focused on short-term selling “wins” to

deliver quota- programs, new items, space.

• Sales people over rely on “data” and “facts” in sales

presentations.

• Sales people do not place enough emphasis on building longer

term trust and relationships that can pay dividends in the future.

• Sales people are directed to “do a better job at penetrating key

accounts”- but they have no training on how to do that.

• Joint/Collaborative business planning processes have become a

crucial process…but sales people need to learn the real art of

partnering and collaboration to be highly effective.

• Sales people lack skill in storytelling and building impactful

selling stories and presentations.

There are major opportunities to

improve the buyer-seller relationship


Improved Salespersonship skills can greatly improve

the buyer-seller relationship and overall sales effectiveness

5

3 major components of effective Salespersonship

1. Having a deep knowledge and understanding of your buyer • His/her buyer personality type and preferences for buyer-seller interaction

• The buyer role and decision making authority…and other key influencers

• His/her motivations and objectives

• The customers strategies and go-to-market approaches

• The way he/she prefers to be presented to

2. Knowing the “Art” and “Science” building trustful and collaborative

buyer relationships • Building personal rapport with the buyer and other key decision makers

• Listening skills

• Negotiating with integrity

• Focusing on a category based view…with win:win revenue and profit

growth ideas

3. Preparing and delivering impactful and compelling sales

presentations • Focusing on key actionable messages substantiated by an level of data,

analysis and insights

• Structuring selling presentations with a storyboard based approach

• Storytelling skills

• Storytending skills- eliciting and listening

to buyer’s stories


Zahn Consulting has developed a unique and impactful training

offering to help your organization improve their Salespersonship skills

6

Our three training tracks address the three

major components of effective “Salespersonship”

Understanding the

Perspective of the

Buyer/Category Manager

Building Trustful

and Collaborative

Relationships

Preparing and Delivering

Effective Sales

Presentations

Key Modules

Different Buyer personality types

and approaches for each

Understanding the buyer’s

motivations, mindset and decision

making criteria

The Buyers point of view on sales

presentations

The buying organization and key

points of influence

Key Modules Key Modules

The truth about trustful buyer

relationships

Real techniques and approaches

for building trust with buyers

Collaborative Business Planning-

both the process(science) and the

approach(art)

Key learning from “How to win

Friends and Influence people” that

will improve the buyer seller

relationship

Preparing, planning, designing

and delivering an effective sales

presentation utilizing The

Storyboard Approach

The importance of storytelling and

key to building storytelling skills


Training delivery options

We subscribe to “blended learning” opportunities

to maximize skill integration and minimize “time out of the field”

Self-paced learning (electronic and/or paper-based)

Instructor-led classroom facilitated

Instructor-led remote facilitation

One-to-one/one-to-few coaching

Managerial/Supervisory reinforcement

7


Key benefits of improving Salespersonship skills

Greatly improved customer alignment

• Improved understanding of customer requirements

• Better functional alignment between customers and the company

More productive buyer-seller relationships

• More comfort and rapport with buyers

• Higher trust established with buyers/customers

• Greater access to decision-makers

• Greater confidence in manufacturer recommendations

Improved Business Results • Higher acceptance of key category/brand business driving programs

• More frequent and higher quality opportunities for special programs

• Less resistance to implementation/execution of key initiatives

• Quicker decision-making

8

Leading

to:


Next Steps and Getting Started

Determine interest to proceed

Identify resources to commit

Target opportunities

Build competencies (as needed)

Plan Roll-out

9

Proprietary and Confidential ©ZAHN Consulting, LLC 10

For Additional Information

ZAHN Consulting, LLC can be reached at 203.269.9290 or at www.zahnconsulting.com to discuss your training or other consulting needs

• About ZAHN Consulting, LLC ZAHN Consulting, LLC maintains relationships with specialists in Brand Marketing, Retailing, Information Systems, Sales, Operations and other functional areas.

Consultants have a combined 110 years of industry experience across multiple channels, manufacturers, categories and initiatives.

http://www.zahnconsulting.com/


Who We Are and How We Help

11

• Decades of Experience David Zahn – 25 years - Specialties: Training design and development; Sales

skills consulting; Category Management; Integration of data into sales analysis/

presentations; Organization Development, and Storytelling.

Author of four books, numerous articles, white papers, presentations and frequent

keynote speaker at industry events, Zahn brings a comprehensive wealth of

experience to his assignments and engagements that integrates the best thinking

of industry pundits, business leaders, clients, and the partners he collaborates with

on projects.

Having worked with retailers, manufacturers, and the technology providers that

support them. Zahn, and his team include everything from small regional clients to

national players, through to international/global leaders among his roster of clients.

Zahn maintains an active teaching schedule with an Adjunct Faculty position at the

University of New Haven and numerous lecture requests both domestically and

internationally