Sept. 19, 2018

This paid piece is sponsored by the USD Beacom School of Business executive education program.

Strategize your sales efforts to make the most of prospecting and shorten your sales cycle in just one day with a course coming up from the USD Beacom School of Business executive education program.

Held Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the University Center in Sioux Falls, this one-day course taught by Rand Wergin will help participants meet a range of powerful objectives:

• Explain the relationships between sales and your firm’s overall marketing effort.
• Have a practical understanding of the principles of selling and selling techniques.
• Develop knowledge of sales tactics that are beneficial to everyone with attention to developing interpersonal interactions and communications.
• Develop a level of comfort with the inherent ambiguity associated with the sales environment and uncertainty of outcomes.
• Improve productivity and adopt professional sales and business development skills.

To learn more and register, click here.

Wergin, an associate professor of marketing and the senior faculty member in USD Beacom’s marketing department, is a dynamic, award-winning teacher who shared some insight on sales and his course with us.

Do you feel that strategies in sales are evolving? In other words, is teaching sales today different from how it might have been a few years ago?

Selling strategies have changed in the past few years. It has not been a radical revolution of thought but an evolution of strategies as firms and sales professionals attempt to reach their customer. Some of these changes include moving from a selling orientation to a service and partnering orientation. We now look to add value to our customers’ endeavors and help them achieve their goals. Second, firms look to their vendors to be the experts and advisers for their firm and operations. And third, we see that electronic communication is helping us listen and learn from our customers like never before.

Many occupations require sales skills, but often people aren’t formally trained in them. What are some of the basics you should know to be successful in sales?

I suggest that selling is fairly simple, but it is not always easy. I think many sales professionals would agree with that statement. As such, one of the most challenging skills for a sales professional is the habit of listening. From that, I ask the sales professional to approach the problem and conversation from the customer’s point of view. The role of the sales professional is to represent their product and service to the customer and also to represent the customer back to the sales professional’s firm. In that way, sales professionals are really boundary spanners; they are the connection between the buyer and the seller, and the ambassador that helps these organizations and people connect and solve problems.

Salespeople can get told “no” a lot. What’s your advice to make potential customers’ objections work for you?

There are many ways to approach an objection, and “no” is one of the most daunting objections for a new sales professional. “No” is often not the end of the conversation but the start. My advice is to not take it personal, listen to the customer and focus on the relationship. That “no” will take care of itself.

You plan to cover ethical sales practices in your executive education course. Is there a growing need to address this in the workplace?

There has always been that need, and I think the need for strong ethics will continue for all of our days. In some ways, ethics is simple. I ask my sales professionals how much they love their customer. How do you treat someone you love?

Who is a good fit for taking your course?

This course is designed for the person who recognizes that they can do better in their customer interactions. They may not have had any or little sales training and they want to know more.

A key moment in sales is the close. What tips do you have to hone your closing technique?

If the salesperson is partnering with the customer, we may not need a closing technique. The customer gets to close the sale.

To learn more and register for Wergin’s course, click here.