News: Performance Management
Sales training 'must teach value of adding long-term value'
24 April 2009
Sales training must teach employees to avoid the mistake of trying to compete on price, an expert asserts.
Tom Roth, author of Creating The High Performance Team, tells Manage Smarter that this and value-adding are both short-term solutions which do not fully differentiate the product.
He states that salespeople should examine the life cycle of the product from purchase through to the end of its useful life and examine how it can be expanded.
"This may involve providing additional services or add-ons as part of the solution, or offering options that add value and generate benefits the customer can't get elsewhere," he asserts.
Mr Roth advises that sales training should emphasise the importance of examining how the customer buys to determine how to solve consumers' potential issues.
He tells the news provider that through this technique companies can work to provide additional services their competitors can find it hard to replicate.
Recent research by the Logic Group and Ipsos MORI has found that UK businesses can boost consumer loyalty by working on providing top quality customer service.
