Selling in today’s hyper-competitive business environment forces sales teams to gain and maintain new capabilities. Sure, basic Sales 101 is required.  If a sales person doesn’t possess those basic skills they are not going to perform to expectations.  But the problem doesn’t stop there.  A sales person with excellent basic skills pursuing business against another sales person with the same basic skills will not have any competitive advantage.
 
ES Research’s ongoing research based on our work with companies across many industries in many geographies has yielded some potential areas for significant competitive advantage.  ESR now recognizes that there are three skill areas that can be significantly leveraged for a greater degree of performance, depending on the industry.
 
1. Financial and business acumen. Due to the significant demands for cost and value justification and the tremendous resistance of corporate procurement organizations, salespeople need to be better prepare to present their solutions in financial terms to finance people and business managers.
 
2. Political selling (leveraging corporate politics) Although vendor evaluations and selections appear to be unbiased and fair, post-mortems on lost business reveal that decisions are often made for political reasons, then justified with logic.  Sales professionals  with the ability to understand and leverage political situations fare far better than those who don’t.
 
3. Competitive strategies and tactics. Competing today isn’t just about what you sell.  It’s about how you sell it, and protecting yourself from competitive attack, understanding the competitor’s selling strategy, and having an unbeatable sales plan are what helps win the million dollar deals (and smaller ones as well)
 
During this session we will explore these three areas of competitive selling advantage and discuss how to assess a sales team’s needs for these capabilities.
 
Specifically you will:
 

• Learn the 2 flavors of corporate politics and the risks and rewards associated with each
• Discover the 10 political selling competencies
• See why effective political selling will yield as many as 8 significant outcomes
• Learn what financial acumen is and 8 areas of leverage it will provide
• Understand what specific competitive strategies and tactics are and 5 critical competencies
• Be provided with a tool to assess your sales team’s advanced selling capabilities

 

Dave Stein has worked as a sales representative  sales manager, Director of Worldwide Sales Development, VP of Sales, VP of International Operations, VP of Client Services, sales strategist, and consultant. His hands-on work with businesses ranging from start-ups to the Global 100 provides him with a unique and pragmatic view of sales methodologies, sales training approaches, social selling, and the cultural, behavioral, and operational changes required for corporations to excel at the sales function. Dave’s  first book, How Winners Sell, was a highly-acclaimed commercial success, and he is considered an expert by Sales & Marketing Management, Fast Company,  the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Inc., Fortune,  the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes.