Conducting Strategic Business Calls

Conducting Strategic Business Calls: Discovering Critical Success Factors

Selling in today's environment is more difficult than ever. Organizations need more than a vendor; they need a consultant who understands what is critical to their business and provides the expertise and solutions that help them achieve greater efficiency, productivity, financial results, and competitiveness. Salespeople who can respond to these needs can shut out the competition while increasing both the volume and profitability of their sales.

Conducting Strategic Business Calls: Discovering Critical Success Factors addresses two core areas that high-performing sales professionals need to master to successfully access and advise key decision makers. Unless they are able to uncover, comprehend, and link their offerings strategically to the client's critical success areas, they will be considered vendors and refused access to executive decision makers.

Overview

Conducting Strategic Business Calls: Discovering Critical Success Factors addresses the foundational skills of consultative selling. Understanding those few areas that are critical for business success is first and foremost. Sales professionals learn how to uncover customers' critical success factors and how to adapt, create, and position the business value of their offering to meet these requirements.

A key component to being perceived as a business advisor is one's ability to make non-product-oriented strategic business calls outside typical call points. In this course, salespeople learn how to gain access to strategic call points and prepare for the call, while gaining the confidence to call at this level to conduct a mutually beneficial discovery meeting.

Used in conjunction, these two skill areas advance sales professionals' ability to provide solutions that address the customer's business priorities and processes.

Program Outcomes

Conducting Strategic Business Calls: Discovering Critical Success Factors equips salespeople with the skills and confidence to make strategic business calls, uncover their customers' critical issues, and create offerings that address these business priorities.

Approach

This one-day module provides practical strategies and tools to better discover and understand customer priorities.

Participants complete pre-work, then engage in session activities that bring the concepts to life through reflection, case work, and analysis. During the session, they apply new tools—the Critical Success Factors (CSF) Value Creation Planner and the Strategic Business Call Planner—to their own client opportunities. They prepare for a strategic business call on a real client and receive professional feedback. Participants use their knowledge of the industry- and company-level CSFs to create an offering for a real client account.

An optional half-day application session is available immediately following the session or at a later time. This learning and application approach reinforces key concepts, allows salespeople to put new ideas into practice following the training, and further advances their understanding.

Enabling Improved Performance

Sales Advantage Series modules feature application, reinforcement, and support tools. These tools ensure that salespeople can hone newly acquired skills and behaviors back on the job. Involving sales managers early and training them to coach for improved performance is also fundamental to a successful implementation.

To discover how we ensure learning is reinforced and applied for improved performance, see our Learning Transfer Approach.

Measurement

Organizations that implement the Sales Advantage Series also have access to Wilson Learning's measurement and impact evaluation tools. The application session can serve as a leading indicator of behavior change and potential results. Account planning and coaching tools enable progress with strategically important accounts.

We are committed to helping you succeed. We will work with you to set up measurement systems to help move desired change forward and sustain the momentum of your implementation.

Learn more about our Measurement and Evaluation Services.

Series Modules

The Sales Advantage Series modules introduce strategic approaches that equip your sales team to provide greater value to your customers and compete more effectively for business. The modules include:

Aligning Sales with Business Value
Conducting Strategic Business Calls: Discovering Critical Success Factors
Aligning with Customer Buying Behaviors
Creating Differentiated Offerings
Managing Opportunities
Managing Decisions
Managing Competition

Modules can be taken independently or as a complete series over time. Participants complete pre-work for each module to better leverage session activities that bring the concepts to life through reflection, case work, and application of new tools. Salespeople also work on their own client opportunities to advance their understanding and use of the tools.

This offering, like all others from Wilson Learning, can be customized to reflect your sales environment and business priorities and can be integrated with your sales process.