Developing sales skills

Precedo Consulting has the exclusive right in Finland to represent Huthwaite International, one of world’s leading sales training organizations. The unique strength of Huthwaite stems from three key factors:
- The research on improving the effectiveness of sales that Huthwaite has been doing for over 30 years
- Measurable results of developing sales skills
- Extensive international network of experts, which allows Huthwaite to propose training in more than 30 different languages and to ensure that each participant, being able to participate in his/her own native language, gets the maximum benefit of the training.

Through our sales research we have been studying and improving sales behavior for over 30 years. From key account management to face-to-face selling, and in every sales situation you can imagine, we have a database in excess of 40,000 sales calls, isolating and documenting behavioral characteristics that differentiate effective sales people from the average.

The Huthwaite approach to sales training is neither theory-based nor received wisdom. Rather, it's field-researched, field-validated and field-proven to increase sales effectiveness. It is this 'based on fact' backbone to everything we do that allows our clients to trust our training in every aspect of selling.

Incorporating a whole range of sales related situations, from face-to-face calls to negotiation, our work concentrates on three areas:
- How do successful people allocate their time to the different tasks they face?
- Which issues do they focus on?
- What are the behavioral skills they use to bring success?

The majority of the skills that determine sales effectiveness are interactive. When people sell, persuade, negotiate or make presentations they communicate. We know that some people communicate better than others. The baffling question is - exactly what do successful people do differently which makes them more effective?

Huthwaite has spent the last 30 years answering this question. Through our work we have isolated and documented the key skills that improve effectiveness in a specific interaction. For example, by observing many negotiations and analyzing the data collected, we know what the most successful negotiators do differently.

Measuring before training

At its most sophisticated, measurement begins before training. In order to benchmark your existing sales approach we collect data on a number of live sales calls to record current seller skill levels, the call outcomes they produce, and customer responses.

This benchmarking establishes a base level against which to measure the success of the training. It also provides us with the opportunity to provide you with tailored training models that match your people’s skill requirements exactly. .

By using exercises, case studies and role plays as vehicles for practice and feedback, we can measure skills at each stage of the course. This allows individuals to work on those skill areas where they have greatest need, and it equips them with a clear skill profile to guide their post course reinforcement.

Measuring after training

After training, we use your own sales managers to provide ongoing coaching and reinforcement. As part of this process your managers collect data on live sales calls to measure results and ongoing skills change, to show how people are responding to coaching, and to gauge customer reactions to the new approach.

Measuring the results

Finally, the impact on bottom line results, in terms of increased sales and improved profit margins, can be measured to show the degree to which changing skill levels are linked to improved sales performance. This can be realized as well by utilizing SMART, the extranet based tool for qualitative follow-up.