News: Customer Service/Care
Sales training imperative for 'fast-changing' marketplace
05 September 2008
Customers' desire for a more "professional" approach from salespeople has made training in account management and selling perennially relevant, suggests one expert in the field.
According to Dr Ken Le Meunier-Fitzhough, a lecturer in marketing and sales at Cranfield School of Management, sales professionals need to adjust to a "fast-changing" marketplace.
Globalisation, high-profile mergers and acquisitions and the buyer knowledge afforded by the internet are all identified as driving the need for sellers to have the edge over their contemporaries.
"Salespeople are dealing with fewer accounts and in much more depth," he remarks to Personnel Today.
"Buying is becoming a profession and [buyers] want a much more professional approach from salespeople."
Developing a relationship with clients is a must, he notes, so that their needs can be pre-empted.
"Increasingly, customers want sales reps to teach them about business challenges they are unaware of," adds Dr Matt Dixon from the US-based Sales Executive Council.
Dr Dixon, the managing director of the corporate advice provider, says the past five years have seen focus move to customer needs rather than the particular features and benefits of products or services for sale.
