Understanding what you need to do to improve your selling capability

Over the past months you will have read how here at Accredit we believe that selling is fairly simple when it is properly executed. Having understood your customer's needs, problems and issues it is about providing a solution that adds value - in other words what your customer gains from buying from you provides them with benefit way beyond the cost of the solution or product.

At the moment we are talking to a couple of large corporates about potentially running their Sales Academies for them. There is an interesting contrast between the two. One is pretty clear about what they want to achieve and how they want it done (although their procurement process leaves a little to be desired). The other is less clear about what they want mainly because they are going through a huge portfolio change that involves, in their minds, a complete set of training courses, delivered as cheaply as possible via online modules and tests.

So what has this got to do with understanding what you need to do to improve your selling capability? Well, everything actually. Unless you as a business are clear about what problems you are trying to solve, about how you need your sales force to act and behave then how can you possibly know what your customers might want? The two - your customers and your sales capability - have to be thought about as an entity. They are your market and your contact with your market.

There is of course a third element - your offering, your portfolio and whether your customers want to buy your products (and whether your sales people are capable of selling them).

So these three elements are intrinsically linked when thinking about "improving" your sales force. Do you have:-

1. The portfolio capability to address your customer's needs
2. A clear understanding of what problems your customers want solved for them
3. A salesforce that regularly contacts their customer base with a view to understanding their problems and how they might solve them with a value proposition based on your portfolio

Of course there are the additional issues of your marketing and whether it helps your sales people and your customers understand how you add value and there is the key issue of the environment you work in - is it easy for customers to buy from you and is it easy for your sales people to sell within the environment you operate as a business (is your pricing process clear, do you have an order placement and fulfilment process that is painless etc?)

So before you commence on your own road towards a sales academy or any other training for your sales people, ensure you have everything else in place or at least planned to coincide with a freshly developed set of sales people

Developing your sales people has to go hand in hand with developing other aspects of your business. So if you are thinking of building a sales academy or even some less grand such as a small suite of training and development programs ensure that everything else is joined up too.

That way, when your sales people are well educated and raring to go you will have everything else in place to be successful whether that be your market messaging, your portfolio, your order handling processes, your pricing, your fulfilment etc.

Improving your selling capability is not just about sales training. It is about a collection of resources which, when optimised, will deliver increased sales and margin