23 Professional Selling Skills (PSS) courses in Manchester

4and20Million run Sustainable Excellence, a course designed to help people unlock their productivity, without resorting to longer hours and unnecessary stress. For full details, further information and learning more about how to boost your career prospects, please contact: dan@4and20million.com alex@4and20million.com

OVERVIEW -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The modern buyer is more knowledgeable and savvier than ever before. By taking a collaborative approach with the buyer and developing solutions, instead of relying on outdated sales tactics, professional sellers can create real value for clients and subsequently close more deals. Learn the solution selling method, and find out how to shift the emphasis from product features to the customer. By understanding how to implement the solution-selling methodology, you can create natural and pressure-less sales interactions that accelerate revenue growth and improve customer loyalty

This is a multidisciplinary interactive workshop providing staff with essential skills and techniques to deliver a professional service.

The market for professional services is becoming increasingly competitive, with some firms and individuals becoming very effective at winning new work, leaving others lagging way behind. Given the choice between spending time on client work and business development work, we all tend to choose that which we feel to be easier, more attractive and more aligned with our image of ourselves. We stay within our comfort zones, we focus on client work, and we only resort to business development work when we have to, which can also lead to 'feast or famine' syndrome. The programme will help participants: * Understand the professional business development approach and the style that is appropriate for their business and their clients * Follow a process to guide their conversations and business development meetings * Prepare thoroughly for a business development meeting/contact with a client to ensure they use their time efficiently and maximise results * Create a great first impression and professional opening to a conversation * Ask open questions and listen effectively in order to spot opportunities, understand needs and progress the opportunity * Identify and understand buying and decision-making processes and criteria * Skilfully and confidently handle questions and objections * Sell the benefits of their services and approach over those of their competitors * Progress the sale by agreeing next steps and gaining commitment appropriately 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives of the programme * Personal introductions and objectives * Workshop overview 2 AN INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND SELLING FOR PROFESSIONALS * What is selling? * Who are you selling to? * The buying experience * What clients want * The four-step business development process * The business development cycle and pipeline management * Upselling and cross-selling as well as winning new clients 3 NETWORKING AND GENERATING LEADS * What is networking? * Networking objectives * It's not what you know but who you know * Asking for referrals and introductions * Making appointments from networking activity 4 OPENING THE SALES RELATIONSHIP/SALES MEETING * What potential customers are thinking * Judging first impressions * Creating positive first impressions * Building rapport and creating interest and impact * Earning the right 5 CORE COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR PROFESSIONAL SELLING * Overcoming barriers to listening * The art of listening * Questioning refresher * Types of questions * Questioning funnel 6 UNDERSTANDING AND IDENTIFYING NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES * Identifying the questions to ask to identify needs and opportunities * Questions to move us through the buying and selling process * Understanding their buying processes * Asking questions that position you as a 'trusted adviser' * The questions that give you a competitive advantage * Knowing when you have asked enough questions 7 INTRODUCING SOLUTIONS * Tailoring your 'pitch' to the client * Speaking the client's language * Using features and benefits * Applying the benefit cycle 8 HANDLING OBJECTIONS AND CONCERNS * Identifying the typical objections and concerns * Understanding why clients raise objections and concerns * Following a structure for handling objections * Handling the price objection 9 GAINING COMMITMENT * Knowing when to close * The art of checking * Recognising buying signals * Small c and big C 10 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER * Personal learning summary and action plans

Telephone selling can be a challenge. It can be a pressured environment and sales professionals need to be able to maintain peak performance in order to meet - and preferably exceed - their targets. This programme will help make it easier for them. The expert trainer covers the whole process, to help participants see it from their customer's perspective. The focus is on how to use a practical understanding of sales psychology, and of the nature of the telephone sales conversation, to help make it easier for customers to buy. This programme will give your team the skills to: This course will help participants: * Understand why people buy - and how that makes it easier to sell * Manage the sales process better * Steer their sales calls to a more positive outcome * Recognise - and respond to - customer buying signals * Meet and overcome objections * Choose the most appropriate techniques for closing with confidence * Enhance their resilience * Improve their communication skills on the telephone 1 INTRODUCTION * Aims and objectives * Overview * Self-appraisal of current skills and development areas 2 THE SALES APPROACH * What selling means * Why selling is like nature 3 THE TELEPHONE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF COMMUNICATION * Qualities of the telephone * How telephone communication differs from face-to-face * Advantages and drawbacks of the telephone * How to optimise selling over the telephone * Communication techniques to help you stand out from the crowd 4 CREATING A RELATIONSHIP * Professional telephone etiquette * Building a rapport * Connecting with the customer so that they feel you are on the same wavelength 5 THE STRUCTURE OF A SALES CALL * Opening the call - creating a positive first impression * Effective questioning to gather information and establish need * Identifying and presenting the features and benefits of the product or service * Matching the benefits to customers' needs * Recognising and responding to buying signals * Anticipating, meeting and overcoming objections * Closing the sale and asking for the order - different closing techniques * The importance of testimonials - how to obtain them and when to use them 6 LISTENING SKILLS * The challenges of accurate listening * How to enhance listening skills * Ensuring the customer feels heard and understood through empathetic listening 7 SHAPING AND USING A SCRIPT * Developing a script to increase levels of confidence * Leaving the door open 8 MANAGING THE CAMPAIGN * Organisation and call planning * Identifying your target market group * Planning who and when to call * Logging constructive information 9 PERSONAL MANAGEMENT * The importance of persistence * Is there a time to back off? * Stamina - optimising energy levels * Bouncing back 10 PRACTISING THE NEW INFORMATION * Pulling the details together * Practising in a supportive environment 11 ACTION PLANNING * Personal learning summary and action plan

Increasing sales is the core of objective for all salespeople and it is vital they are given the tools and techniques to thrive in this highly competitive environment. The landscape within which salespeople operate is ever shifting, and now more than ever it is recognised that the key to successful selling is understanding the customer's needs and working collaboratively with them to achieve their objectives. This highly practical programme has been developed to support salespeople to develop their all-round sales skills using a customer-focused approach. The course will be fun and informal, using practical exercises to help new and experienced salespeople ensure they are equipped to deal with the challenges of selling. This course will help participants: * Develop core sales skills such as building rapport, questioning and presenting benefits * Identify the roles and goals of key contacts and recognize the importance of consultative selling * Understand how to achieve sales by uncovering needs, matching benefits and promoting value * Understand how to structure and control a customer interaction and set clear objectives for each account * Develop techniques for handling objections, questions and staying positive * Master the art of closing a sale and gaining agreement * Understand tactical selling and how to build multiple contacts and relationships * Develop skill and confidence in selling to both new prospects and existing customers 1 CONSULTATIVE SELLING - KEY PRINCIPLES FOR SUCCESS * Recognise the importance of consultative selling and being client-focused * Build the right processes to achieving sales targets - questions before features * Assess your core sales skills; building rapport, asking questions, presenting features and benefits, closing 2 CONSULTATIVE SALES CALL SKILLS * How best to structure and control a customer meeting or call to be client-centric: Four Cs * The importance of setting clear objectives for each call and account * Setting the agenda and pre-call preparation * Planning sessions 3 YOUR MISSION, MESSAGE AND MEANING - COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE * Defining sales messages and USPs; positioning value and quality not price * Knowing your target product and services and their value to the customer * Understanding your customers buying role and qualifying the opportunity 4 AN EFFECTIVE SALES MEETING - PART 1 * Opening the sales interview - and building rapport * Gaining and retaining the full attention of the customer * Probing and identifying real needs using effective sales questions * Planning and practice sessions for consultative selling 5 AN EFFECTIVE SALES MEETING - PART 2 * Matching customer needs and wants to products and services available * Presenting your product or service using features, advantages, and benefits * Recognising and responding to buying signals and other sales opportunities * Planning and practice sessions 6 CLOSING THE SALE SUCCESSFULLY * Anticipating objections and seeing them as positives, including price objections * Handling objections using proven methods and models * How and when to ask for the sale professionally * Follow up and follow-through * Planning and practice sessions

If you're looking to move to the next level in your career in sales, then understanding how to maximise your sales results, using a consultative and structured approach, will be key to your success. In order to develop the competitive advantage that enables you to stand out from the crowd, it is important to understand the tools and techniques to take your selling to new heights and build the confidence to apply them in work-based scenarios. We have developed this programme to be practical, fun and interactive. Learners will gain a range of practical skills that they can take back and apply to the workplace straight away, that will have a positive impact on sales and customer satisfaction. This course will help participants: * Develop a structured and client-focused approach to creating high quality sales opportunities and account growth * Learn persuasion and influencing skills to better define needs and develop opportunities * Understand how to have better sales conversations, presentations, and proposals - leading to higher order value and increased sales * Develop advanced sales questioning skills and techniques; understand the importance of listening * Understand how to add value at all stages; plus gaining competitive advantage * Develop proven ways to overcome and reduce price pressure * Know when to use options and upselling when presenting products and solutions * Develop techniques and skills for improved negotiation and closing 1 ADVANCED SELLING - HOW TO INCREASE YOUR SALES RESULTS * Review of pre-course data and questionnaire * The AVC model of increasing your sales results * Creating a sales growth plan to achieve higher sales targets * Mapping the accounts and products for targeted growth 2 THE FOUR CS TO STRUCTURE A SALES CALL * Research before the meeting or call; setting objectives, planning and preparation * How to gain instant rapport and taking control - including online meetings * Qualifying and initial questioning skills * Creating an agenda and first-meeting structure: Four Cs * Planning and practice sessions 3 BUILDING BIGGER AND BETTER SALES OPPORTUNITIES * How to use questions to 'build' more opportunities * Learning and using high-impact and third-level questions * Advanced sales questioning techniques: five questioning techniques * Qualifying and gaining commitment to the next stage * Planning and practice sessions - advanced questioning skills 4 PRESENTATION AND PERSUADING SKILLS BEST PRACTICE * Compelling benefits and reducing perceived risk - key messages to deliver * Helping the customer choose your proposition by using options * Professional and effective presentation skills * Writing compelling sales proposals that improve your conversion rate * Planning and practice session - presenting your solution 5 OVERCOMING CONCERNS AND CLIENT QUESTIONS * Proven techniques for answering client objections and concerns * How to isolate, prioritise and answer objections, including price * Overcoming delay and procrastination * Planning and practice session - answering client concerns 6 GAINING COMMITMENT AND CLOSING THE SALE * Knowing when to close for commitment * How to ask for commitment professionally and effectively * Key negotiation skills around the closing process - getting to 'yes' * Checklist of closing and negotiation skills * Practice session

In today's fast-moving competitive environment, sales are often made or lost on the strength of a telephone conversation or a brief email. This means that not only is customer service everyone's responsibility - so is sales. Customer service staff are failing the customer if they don't think about sales. And sales staff are failing customers if they don't think about service. And anyone failing a customer is failing both themselves and their employer. Too often, customer service staff feel neither capable nor empowered to recognise or capitalise upon a sales opportunity. Too often, sales people pursue the short-term opportunity at the expense of the bigger picture. The good news is - it doesn't have to be this way! Sales and customer service skills can be acquired, developed and polished just like any other skill. This tried-and-tested programme shows you how to do it. As a result of this course, participants will be able to: * Take control of a customer conversation, with confidence * Refresh and polish their customer service and sales performance * Recognise and develop a sales opportunity * Engage the customer and build rapport * Identify a customer's needs * Match the customer's needs to the organisation's products or services * Handle objections confidently * Ask for the order At the end of the workshop each participant will have developed their own action plan for developing and using their skills in the workplace. 1 INTRODUCTION * Course overview, objectives and introductions 2 SERVING OR SELLING? * Feelings and attitudes - How we can affect the outcome by our feelings and behaviour * What is selling? - Selling is helping people to buy, identifying the opportunities that exist within the conversation to develop the customer's interest in our products or services 3 DEVELOPING THE RIGHT SKILLS * Communication- The impact of body language, voice tone and words- How to make the best impression on the customer and create a 'buying environment' * Rapport-building- What makes a good working relationship?- What do customers look for when they call us?- How can we match their expectations in terms of our own interpersonal skills? * Relating to different types of people by identifying and matching their communication style on the telephone 4 MAKING IT EASY FOR THE CUSTOMER * Starting it right- Opening the conversation positively- Building rapport- How to develop interest in our products or services * Gaining and clarifying information- Questioning skills and questioning style- What do we need to know from the customer?- How can we use that information in the conversation? * Active listening- The most under-rated skill of all- Picking up on the 'Golden Moments' when a customer shows they may be interested * Presenting information confidently- Knowing the benefits of our products or services- How to tell the customer what they need to know in order to enable them to buy * Closing on a positive note- When and how to ask for commitment * Dealing with the customer's objections and concerns in a positive manner * 5 COURSE SUMMARY AND ACTION PLANS * Review of main learning points * Presentation of personal action plans

As technology continues to develop and increasingly interact with our daily lives, so must our sales techniques to ensure we're leveraging advances in how people do business to our advantage. It is essential for all salespeople to understand how to navigate the various tools at our disposal and grow their skills and confidence to put them into action in order to build a solid business pipeline. We have developed this programme to be practical, fun and interactive, whilst ensuring that participants will learn how to utilise new technology to their advantage, self-generate new business leads and opportunities, gain additional business and referrals from existing contacts, and save time and effort using proven business development skills. This course will help participants: * Understand the 'organized persistence' model of sales prospecting * Develop skills in using video, online and social media to generate interest * Understand how to write effective sales and outreach emails and using online tools * Develop techniques for effectively managing telephone appointments * Learn ways to use LinkedIn for connecting with customers and prospects * Develop networking skills and learn how to source and develop referrals and professional introductions 1 KEY PRINCIPLES OF SMART SALES PROSPECTING * Set your sales prospecting goals and objectives * Elevator pitch, core messages and your value proposition * Targeting and segmenting your market * 'Organised persistence' using your CRM effectively 2 SETTING APPOINTMENTS BY TELEPHONE - PLANNING AND PREPARATION * Why calling still works and the best times to call * Creating a call prompt sheet: * Opening a call and taking control * Giving a reason to meet * Key questions to ask * Overcoming the cold calling blues 3 SETTING APPOINTMENTS BY TELEPHONE - ADVANCED SKILLS * Giving a reason to meet and 'selling the appointment' * Key questions to ask that will create interest and motivation to meet * Voice tone, power words, phrasing, pausing, responding * Getting past gatekeepers and getting through 4 USING LINKEDIN FOR RESEARCH AND FOLLOW-UP * Why LinkedIn matters and how to use it * Finding new contacts, connecting and Inmailing * Short-cuts and advanced skills 5 EMAIL STRATEGIES THAT WORK * Using AIDA and other templates for sales emails * Using personalized video emails to create interest * Vertical targeting emails, with examples * Building awareness with an email chain

We've all sat through far more bad presentations than good ones, but knowing what 'good' looks like is easier than successfully replicating it. Sales presentations are a performance and, as salespeople, fluffing our lines can cost us a lot more than hurt pride. Having discovered and understood the specific needs and burning issues our prospect has, then this course will help any salesperson avoid dropping the ball and instead wowing their prospects with a high-impact, tailored and compelling case for purchase. This course will help participants: * Prepare mentally and physically for stand-up presentations * Use voice modulation and bullet-pointing to demand attention * Avoid boring their prospects * Master the do's and don'ts of PowerPoint * Deal more effectively with technical hitches and prospect's interruptions * Use eye contact and engagement to avoid prospects 'tuning out' * Deploy best practice essentials for presenting with colleagues * Steer through the toughest Q&A 1 PREPARING YOUR PRESENTATION * Mindset * Knowing your objective(s) * Vocal warm-up techniques * Assembling pre-agreed benefits * Time management * Room set-up * Technical preparation 2 HOW TO OPEN YOUR PRESENTATION * Vocal energy * Summary and agreement of prospect's needs * How to have posture and confidence * Use of humour * What to do with those dreaded hands * Confident v non-confident body language 3 HOW TO GET AND KEEP PEOPLE'S ATTENTION * Bullet pointing * Linking benefits to specific, stated needs * Practical exercise - formulating and delivering tailored benefits * Being selective with features * Third party reinforcement and case studies * 'Watering the garden' eye contact technique * Practical exercise - participants practise 'sharing out' eye contact to audience * How to handle a prospect's negative body language * Handling interruptions 4 PRESENTING IN GROUPS * Credentialing all participants * Role delineation for group presentations * Edifying other participants' messages - do's and don'ts * How to maintain energy when not speaking * Practical exercise - good and bad practice when not speaking * Teamwork in Q&A sessions * How to hand over professionally 5 POWERPOINT DO'S AND DON'TS * Use of visual aids * Good and bad PowerPoint slides * How to make PowerPoint work for you * Classic PowerPoint errors * Avoiding and handling technical problems * Good and bad flipchart practice 6 CLOSING AND / OR ACHIEVING NEXT ACTION STEPS * Power of summary * Good Q&A practice * Handling objections * Practical exercise - handling objections on one's feet * Creating consensus among prospect panel * What to do when prospects disagree with each other * When to trial close * How to close on next action steps 7 WRAP-UP * Key learning points from each participant * Action steps to be implemented on next presentations