Recently, I made a prospecting call to a Director of Sales for a large local sales force. I introduced myself and we talked briefly about how I ended up calling him. He finally stopped the conversation and told me that he was not interested in using Sandler Training because he already had a sales process that he used from a fairly large competitor. I said that was fine, no is always okay. But I got his permission to ask one more question. I asked him simply if he was disappointed that his current trainer had not bothered to help him understand the difference between a Sales Process, which Sandler is not, and Sales Methodology, which Sandler is. His answer was telling, “I thought they were the same thing.”
Sales Methodology is totally separate from Sales Process. Sales Methodology is the philosophy and tactics your sales team uses to navigate their Sales Process. If you have a sales rep who finds themselves in trouble with a prospect, it will be based on one of two distinct problems. First, they may not know what information they need from the prospect to advance to the next step of their Selling Process. Second, they may not know how to apply the techniques or philosophies of their Sales Methodology to gather the information they need to advance to the next step of the Selling Process.
If you have hired a sales trainer who has failed to define the process your company uses to sell, it is very difficult to effectively implement a methodology that will accelerate that process. If you have hired a trainer who will apply their methodology only to a single sales process it might be impossible to make their methodology work for your operation. If you have hired a sales trainer who believes Sales Process and Sales Methodology are the same, both your process and your methodology will be worse from the training.
If you are looking to understand how to accelerate you process and improve your methodology, we should talk.
Contact Matt Nettleton, Sandler Training, DTB at matt.nettleton@sandler.com or 317-695-8549.
