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Solution Selling Sample Agenda

Day 1

• Introduction
  • Share Solution Selling® workshop objectives
  • Introduce Solution Selling® and sales process
    
    • Exercise (individual): Introduce individual selling difficulties
• Key Concepts
  • Describe key selling skills and terminology
  • Define the principles of pain / Pain Chain™
    
    • Exercise (individual): Create a Pain Chain™
• Key Concepts (continued)
  • Identify approval types within a sale cycle
  • Discuss the “three sales” within a sale
  • Align with the three levels of buyer need
  • Analyze how organizations buy
  • Discuss how buyer’s concerns shift over time
    
• Pre-call Planning and Research
  • Conduct research for new / existing accounts
    
    • Exercise (Case Study): Construct an Account Profile and a Pain Chain™
• Pre-call Planning and Research (continued)
  • Prepare job aids to initiate a sell cycle
    
    
• Stimulate Interest
  • Learn how to initiate sell cycles by generating interest for your offerings
  • Describe how to use past successes to stimulate interest
    
    • Exercise (Case Study): Build job aids to initiate a sell cycle
• Define “Pain” or Critical Business Issue
  • Develop “strategic alignment” with buyers
  • Align with buyers procedurally & behaviourally
  • Discuss how to position your offering
  • Get buyers to admit their pain
    
    
    • Exercise (Role Play & Debrief): Call Introduction
    • Exercise (Case Study): Complete prior case study exercises

Day 2

• Review Previous Day
  
• Diagnose and Create Vision
  • Diagnose before you prescribe
  • Develop buyer needs biased to your offering(s)
  • Get buyers to own a “vision of your solution”
    
    • Exercise (Role Play & Debrief): Vision Creation
• Diagnose and Create Vision (continued)
  • Enhance the buyer’s vision by articulating the value of the solution’s capabilities
  • Elicit buyer emotion
  • Develop action visions around capabilities
    
    • Exercise (Role Play & Debrief): Enhanced Vision Creation
    • Exercise (Case Study): Build a Pain Sheet™ to assist in Vision Creation
• Buyer / Process Qualification: “Sponsor”
  • Qualify the buyer to determine their ability to buy
  • Create sponsors for your offering
  • Gain access to “power” through a sponsor
    
• Buyer / Process Qualification: “Power Sponsor”
  • Determine the buyers buying process
  • Negotiate the steps of the sell cycle
    
    • Exercise (Role Play & Debrief): Buyer / Process Qualification
• Buyer / Process Qualification: “Power Sponsor” (continued)
  • Develop mutual accountability for proceeding in the sell cycle through development of a joint “evaluation” plan.
    
• Elements of an Evaluation Plan
  • Stay engaged with buyers
  • Help buyers through a transition stage
    
    • Exercise (Case Study): Develop a Sponsor and Power Sponsor Letter, Evaluation Plan and determine Transition Issues that might need to be addressed

Day 3

• Review Previous Day
  
• Elements of an Evaluation Plan (continued)
  • Describe how to conduct analysis to demonstrate the quantifiable value that your offering provides to the buyer
  • Establish success criteria for the project
  • Discuss tactics for (post and pre) proposal delivery to exhibit control over the sell cycle
    
• Active Opportunities
  • Recognize active opportunities
  • Conduct an opportunity assessment
  • Select the correct competitive strategy
  • Reengineer buyer needs biased to the strengths of your offering(s)
    
    • Exercise (Role Play & Debrief): Vision Reengineering
• Active Opportunities (continued)
  • Create anxiety with buyers
  • Conduct a sales call with multiple people
    
    • Exercise (Role Play & Debrief): Multi-person Vision Reengineering
• Request for Proposal
  
  • Highlight strategies for handling RFPs
  • Reengineer the requirements of an RFP
    
• Reach Final Agreement
  • Use process to manage making concessions
  • Prepare “gives” and “gets” prior to negotiating
    
    • Exercise (Case Study): Prepare a Negotiation Worksheet
    • Exercise (Case Study): Determine how you dealt with the competition and construct material for final presentation

Day 4

• Review Previous Day
  
  • Exercise (Role Play): Top-to-Bottom Exercise (individual)
• Managing Your Territory
  • Manage yourself by following a selling process
  • Measure opportunity and pipeline progress with process milestones
    
• Conduct Case Study Presentations
  • Presentation 1 and debrief case study presentation
  • Presentation 2 and debrief case study presentation
  • Presentation 3 and debrief case study presentation
  • Presentation 4 and debrief case study presentation
    
• Getting Started
  • Get started with Solutions Selling®
  • How to be successful with implementation of Solution Selling®
    
• Workshop Close
  • Wrap-up the workshop
  • Conduct evaluations
  • Announce Case Study winner