The Versatile Salesperson™
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Even the most unique, innovative products and services have limited appeal on their own. To respond to customers' business needs, interests, and priorities better than the competition, salespeople need to add value. This process begins with being able to quickly strike a chord with customers—to make them feel comfortable talking about real business issues. In other words, sales success is as much about the "how" of sales as it is about the "what" of sales. Simply put, today's no-nonsense environment takes an agile salesperson with exceptional interpersonal versatility.
The Versatile Salesperson (VSP) is built around the four-quadrant Social Styles matrix. Participants are profiled for their perceived Social Style and interpersonal versatility level, then learn how to identify others' Social Styles and temporarily adjust their own to communicate more easily and effectively with others.
Program Outcomes
People buy from people with whom they are comfortable. The Versatile Salesperson gives salespeople a simple method for quickly building rapport with customers and prospects of all levels. Implemented as a flexible and integrated Human Performance Improvement (HPI) solution, VSP enables a more comfortable customer experience, offers a variety of tools to aid in effective coaching and performance management, and can increase topline sales performance.
Approach
Further Reading:
Wilson Learning believes that learning must be transferred to day-to-day work practices. To achieve this, The Versatile Salesperson includes components and activities that enhance:
Participant Readiness: Prepares salespeople and managers for the overall learning experience
- Pre-workshop communication sets the context for learning.
Learning Transfer: Embeds practice and use of new skills in the learning design. The learning can be flexibly delivered as a:
- Two-day face-to-face application-oriented workshop
- The workshop can be delivered in modular format over non-consecutive days to allow application between sessions.
The face-to-face workshop can be taught by a Wilson Learning facilitator or by an organization's own leader-trained in-house professional.
Organizational Alignment: Ensures the organization supports the use of the new skills
- Post-learning reinforcement activities for both the manager and salesperson support skill application and implementation.
As a result, salespeople will continue to apply the skills and tools learned in The Versatile Salesperson long after the learning event is completed.
Enabling Improved Performance
The Versatile Salesperson (VSP) features various performance application, reinforcement, and support tools. These additional learning components—application exercises, job aid cards, implementation guides, electronic reinforcement tools, performance checklists, etc.— ensure that salespeople can hone newly acquired skills and behaviors upon returning to work.
Involving sales managers early on, and training them to coach for interpersonal versatility, is also fundamental to successful VSP implementation.
To discover how we ensure learning is reinforced and applied for improved performance, see our Learning Transfer Approach.
Measurement
Organizations that implement The Versatile Salesperson also have access to measurement and impact evaluation tools. For example, many VSP customers use the Social Style Profile (administered in the preparatory stage of all implementations) a second time after core learning has taken place to measure shifts in perceived versatility. This concrete, real-world feedback motivates salespeople to perform and acts as a blueprint for creating individual, group, and organizational development plans. VSP customers also receive a Win-Loss Review that helps sales managers track with their salespeople the actual impact the use of versatile selling skills have on real sales performance.
Evaluation
Client Results:
Wilson Learning will partner with your organization to measure the initial behavioral changes and business results. Our common interest is to make sure that The Versatile Salesperson delivers the results you seek. We are committed to helping you succeed, and we will work with you to set up evaluation systems to keep the change going well after it's begun.
To learn more about measuring the impact of learning, visit Measurement and Evaluation Services.
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.
Please complete this form to download the factsheet for The Versatile Salesperson™.
