Tom,
In addition to sales training, I believe Negotiation Training is equally if not more important because with services it is important that you can sell the value of your services so that you can maintain (i.e.negotiate) an acceptable price in the end when the deal is signed.  Because as we all know on this forum Sales people have a tendency to give away service with a product sale… Negotiation skill are how you keep the edge in the sales process…

Check out K&R Negotiations Associates http://www.negotiators.com

If you have questions afterward shoot me an email.

Regards,

Hi Tommy, there are three really good Service Sales training companies that I would recommend:

1. http://www.Infomentis.com - a PSVillage sponsor, they are Oracle’s Sales and Service training provider.  Contact

2. http://www.s3solutionsinc.com HP Software and Services and Accenture use them. Contact

3. http://www.visualize-inc.com - they provide the ValueSelling framework and have been widely used by Symbol, Citrix and Newscale.  Contact
I hope this helps. 

Jeanne

Tommy,
I went through the Sandler training about 5 years back and thought then and still do that it was extremely worth it.  At Accenture we went through a lot of training and Sandler was by far the most helpful I’ve ever been through.  The instructor was a trip and very impressive.  If you have a chance to make it happen, I would highly recommend it. 

Please feel free Tommy to let me know if you have any other questions.  I think I might still have the instructors card if you need it?

Scott

Tommy,
I have heard of them and know of one or 2 firms that have worked with them and I believe they were happy with the results.  I don’t think it is a matter of better or worse then something such as dale carnagie or the others recommended, but I would advise making sure that their methodologies align with what you are trying to do.  What works well in one customer environment might not work well in another.

If you do ever start looking at the Federal Government as a client shoot me an email that is my area of expertise and I own a firm that specializes in sales and sales training in the specific area of Government Professional Services.

Hi Tommy,

Please take a look at http://www.sales2sales.com. My friend Greg Winston is an expert and has helped many of the companies that I am associated with. You can reach him at or 949.388.2545

You are welcome to call me if you have specific questions too.

Best,
Rajesh

Tommy,

We have been using John Holland, who co-authored Customer Centric Selling with Michael Bosworth.  I’d be happy to put you in touch with them if you’re interested.

Tommy,
I’m not familiar with Sandler but recommend the consultative sales training provided by Prime Resource Group (http://www.primeresource.com/). Their focus is on training field personnel to assess clients’ business problems, understand their priority and urgency, and work with them as a long term partner to craft solutions that address them.

Aurelia

I am working with S3 Solutions and plan to use them this year.

I took a seminar from the lead guy last fall and found him to be excellent.

Steve V.

Tommy,

As others have said, you can find sources for competent sales training. And for me, there is some important elements missing from many of these programs. They don’t address each persons “internal operating system,” the set of rules and beliefs and coping strategies that we all develop to help us navigate our way in the world.

Selling involves “using” yourself as a source of possibilities for other people. Many would-be salespeople learn ABOUT the process of selling, and then try to add new techniques to their repertoire. That’s like building a house on top of a weak foundation. The resulting structure isn’t sound.

Much sales training supports a belief in sales as something we do TO customers, rather than as a creative act done WITH customers. Based on years of selling services, delivering services, and training salespeople, I don’t agree with this perspective.

I’ve been addressing this gap for several years with customized sales talent development programs. Here’s a summary from one of our white papers on the components of a talent development program.

Components of a solution-selling talent development program

In any group, some 20% of the people will adapt easily to change. Another 20% will resist strenuously. But the majority lie between these extremes. They are willing and able to learn, if given the time and support they need. To improve performance, focus on the 60% in the middle of the curve. They’ll give the best return on your investment.

A talent development program can cut the adoption curve for the people in the big middle group by two-thirds.  What does it take to get people comfortable with new behaviors? In our work with organizational culture change we have identified the components required in a complete solution-selling talent program.

- Agreement on the essential behaviors that spell success in a given business role

- Assessment of the strengths of people currently in those roles, in comparison to the desired behaviors

- Formal training on “Creating Powerful Conversations,” based on the view that our lives exist as networks of conversations. To transform ourselves or the organizations we work with, we must transform the conversations.

- Formal training on relevant technical topics and skills

- On-the-job practice, guided by coaches

- Measurement of progress and impact

- Formal checkpoints with management to report results

Last month, Harvard published a case study describing how this model was used to transform a financial services sales firm into a profit powerhouse and a leader in their market - simply by investing in their people. It’s a compelling story!

If you would like to learn more about how you could create an affordable program for your organization, please contact me.

Stuart Scott

We have used Infomentis for training of our PSO - project managers and consultants.  They have been a great partner, as we utilize the for our Sales and Maintenance/Renewals groups as well.  The contact is Scott Fletcher,
.

Chad W.

I have found Solution Selling from Sales Performance International (http://www.spi.org). I’ve been part of the implementation of the process and the customization of SFA tools to support it 3 times in my 20 years in IT services. It focuses on Value Selling and has some great tools for leveraging your sponser in an account to get to the “power players” at the CxO level. It also lends itself very well to having a repeatable, predictable pipeline you can measure that increases in accuracy over time. You can get eLearning courses (and certification) from SPI directly and you can pick up “The New Solution Selling” book and field book (with selling scenarios) on Amazon or most book stores.

The Sales Performance International site is http://www.spisales.com/

Spi.org takes one to a completely different organization’s web site.

Tajan K.

Tommy,

I personally know of the Sandler group and would recommend them to you, as they take a holistic approach to not only training sales individuals on techniques and skills needed to optimize their sales process, but also on the behavior, goals and measures that are needed to be able to determine success, as well as the attitude, mindset and beliefs impact (positively or negatively) their sales results.

It is not a onetime sales training program where you “hope” the sales folks changes the way they are selling when they walk out of the door. They do. And results speak for themselves.

There are locations in most cities that you could contact.

Bernadette B.