Selling Programs versus Products by Len D'Innocenzo and Jack Cullen Paul Meyer, Director of Marketing at Alta Genetics Inc. wrote us to ask about selling Programs versus Products. Like many businesses today, he is attempting to move the sales force from a "transactional" product oriented approach to a more "service" and "customer focused" mindset. Paul believes this may take a great deal of effort. It will require some changes, but not as many as people might think. We have successfully worked with many sales organizations needing to implement a similar customer focused approach within their sales organization. While there is not one sure-fired way to force your sales team to be more customer-focused and sell value rather than push products, a few fundamentals do apply.

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Customers are usually not solely interested in products. More often, they want a solution to a problem or an answer to a critical business issue. Taking a more consultative approach to sales leads to selling the value of a complete solution or the benefits of a program rather than pushing products. That means first and foremost, salespeople need to understand their customer's needs, goals and priorities, and critical business issues so they can craft a solution that addresses them all.

There are several requirements to becoming a customer focused consultative sales professional. Understanding that people are different and learning how to match a selling style to a buying style is critical. Salespeople need to be able to read and adapt to different people's styles. If they don't, they hurt their chances of establishing credibility and trust with prospective customers.

Learning how to do this is not difficult, but it does require the versatility (the skill) and the flexibility (the will) by salespeople. We have written many articles on how to read and adapt to different people. Please review What's Your Client's Style? by Susan Foster Cullen from newsletter Issue 1 for insight into this important technique.

You should also take a look at our online self-paced course Understanding Behavioral Styles for Sales. This 2½ hour self-paced course will provide the skills salespeople need to read and adapt. It can be taken in several small increments at times convenient to each person.

Another critical element to the consultative sales process is the ability to ask good questions. Asking good questions does two important things. 

First, it allows the prospective customer to talk more about their business and salespeople to talk less about their products. This helps salespeople learn the customer's needs, goals and priorities, and critical business issues. Salespeople must listen actively to be sure they understand which of these items are most important so they can recommend a solution or program that is compelling to the customer.

Secondly, asking good questions enhances the credibility of the salesperson in the eyes of the customer. In the words of Nobel Prize laureate, Naquib Mahfouz "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." Sales consultants can show they are wise by the questions they ask their prospects and customers.

Conducting a good customer focused sales interview at initial sales meetings allows the salesperson to focus on the customer's needs and priorities rather than pitching a product. This technique, coupled with a little research prior to a meeting, leads to much higher levels of credibility for the salesperson. CRKInteractive has created an excellent online self-paced course for conducting sales interviews. You can review the introduction of this course at no charge by clicking here.

The intent of this article is not to promote our online courses. If you like what you see during the free demo, we sincerely hope you investigate purchasing that course or signing up for the entire online sales library (your best value at $249 for a 12 month subscription). Included in our free introductions are the basic fundamentals that salespeople need to establish their credibility, create trust so they can influence the customer to buy their recommended solution or program.

Take advantage of what we have made available to you in these links. Explore the other sales training courses we have created. You (and your sales team) will find them entertaining and educational. They will certainly remind sales veterans of the fundamentals they should be following and those new to sale of that they need to be successful.

We want to thank Paul for asking us to talk about selling Programs versus Products. We know there are many other people out there in similar situations. Please let us know what sales challenges you are facing and we'll be glad to provide you the benefit of our experience.

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About Jack Cullen - A co-founder of CRKInteractive, Jack Cullen also has over twenty years of senior sales and administrative management experience. He was Vice President of Sales for Okidata Corporation and Zenith Data Systems prior to starting in the sales training business. Jack adds his real world experiences and extensive training expertise to each and every CRKInteractive course.

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About CRKInteractive, Inc. - CRKInteractive is devoted to helping its clients realize employee potential through tailored learning experiences. CRKInteractive offers diverse training courses and professional services for companies that want to dramatically improve productivity, customer satisfaction and employee retention.

Our curriculum focuses on these critical skill areas designed for business:

• Sales Skills
• Customer Service Skills
• Leadership Skills

Our Professional Services group specializes in website and course development for online corporate learning.

We deliver our curricula via flexible delivery formats, including traditional classroom; live instructor-led training over the Internet or corporate Intranet; and self-paced Web-based courses. For more information please contact us at (978) 474-8657 or visit us on the web at www.crkinteractive.com.