Sales Advantage Series

Researched and developed by Wilson Learning, The Sales Advantage Series equips high-performing salespeople to be seen by clients and their own organization as true business advisors, setting them apart from the competition. The series takes salespeople through the most crucial aspects of consulting: discovering the customer’s critical success factors, aligning the solution to the customer’s buying processes, differentiating the customer offering, and improving the customer’s business processes.

The Sales Advantage Series is comprised of configurable, instructor-led modules. 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.
Optional half-day application sessions are available to reinforce key concepts and allow salespeople to put new ideas into practice and further advance their understanding. Key learnings by module include:

Aligning Sales with Business Value

This two-hour webcast sets the stage for building a consultative mindset and prepares sales professionals to advance their role to that of a business advisor to their clients.

Conducting Strategic Business Calls: Discovering Critical Success Factors

A one-day, two-part learning experience, this module first emphasizes the importance of understanding organization-level priorities, industry trends, and market forces that affect sales and shape effective offerings.

The module then focuses on making meaningful, credible calls on strategic call points. Participants learn how to prepare for strategic calls, what to discuss, how to use time well, and how to maintain positive relationships with existing client contacts, while calling higher, wider, and deeper in an account.

Aligning with Customer Buying Behaviors

This half-day module focuses on leveraging the buying priorities of customers. This module explores why some clients are open to longer-term, complex solutions, while others simply want to conduct low-risk transactions. It helps salespeople adapt their offering to ensure that buying priorities never become a barrier to a buying decision.

Creating Differentiated Offerings

This half-day module equips salespeople with the strategies and tools to set themselves apart from the competition. In this module, sales professionals learn how to look beyond easily commoditized features and services to develop real differentiation based on what the customer values, which is hard for competitors to replicate.

Managing Opportunities

This half-day module focuses on how to make optimal decisions when choosing which opportunities to pursue. Sales professionals learn about the factors that influence whether a customer will move forward with a buying decision.

Managing Decisions

This half-day module helps salespeople learn how to interpret the decision dynamics for an opportunity so they can influence the decision in their favor. Sales professionals learn how to manage key stakeholders in the decision process. They create an Influence Map, which summarizes stakeholders’ perspectives about your organization and assesses each stakeholder’s level of influence.

Managing Competition

This half-day module helps high-performing salespeople learn how to outmaneuver the competition. Sales professionals learn about the competitive landscape using The Value Map^™. This tool will help them assess their value and their competitors’ value from the customer’s point of view.