Modern-day selling is no easy gig.
Board level and C-Suite contacts are looking for early engagement that captures their attention, and prospects across the board are better informed than ever.
Meanwhile, sellers are largely still dependent on overly-complex communication media to support their positioning, and are struggling to communicate with prospects in their context.
The challenge presented to Mentor Group was to enable a sales force to conduct early ‘storybased’ sales conversations with executive buyers that excite and energise them to action.
The sellers were already confident in delivering technical solutions, so the focus was on a change in approach rather than developing a new skillset.
It was essential that the solution connected personal and business outcomes with the ethos and capabilities of the vendor, and aligned with current and future solutions or product offerings.
The Solution
Mentor Group designed and delivered a program of learning, using a mixture of in-person workshops and virtual delivery. This program helped develop a framework for the client that:
- Engaged with human emotions and thinking
- Provided tools to develop personal credibility and authenticity
- Developed techniques to build live visuals that support stories, using high-impact presenting techniques
- Focused on adapting and personalising pre-packaged presentations to speak directly to prospects in their context
The Results
Following the success of the initial pilot program, the full Story-Based Sales Engagement program was deployed to the entire global sales team, including specialist departments in sales and presales.
This program achieved the highest feedback scores of any program the customer had enrolled in, and the concepts introduced from this program have become the customer's de facto approach to engaging prospects.
