Bryan Neale, Brooke Green,The Importance of the Sales Package
As sales trainers who get asked in to fix sales problems, we find that the solutions aren’t always in the place you’re looking. Often, our VP of Sales clients want us to come in and teach the team how to “sell harder” and “close more.”
But sometimes, the package just isn’t right. Which has caused me to think a lot about packaging lately. I wonder if this is a skill for the 21st century salesperson. Or, maybe I should say the 21st century company.
Years ago, we used to refer to Proctor and Gamble and the like as “packaged goods companies” before they were consumer products company. That was probably a very useful description.
Mainly because they knew that on the supermarket shelves, it truly was a packaging challenge. Album covers were the same way–and CD covers. Ever bought an album partly because of the package/design?
B2B Challenge
If you’re in B2B business which most of our readers are, then you, too, are a packager. You package your message, your diagnostic and yourself. How a message is packaged can be as important as what the message is.
A new way to define it is “all that the customer sees ‘around’ the product/service.” It’s not just website. It’s not just brand/color scheme.
It’s “how you are” and “who you are.”
So when we’re training sales teams, we work as much on “the package” of questions you ask, of skills you possess, of stories you tell, and of “how you behave” in front of the prospect.
In selling high level solutions, the package is the thing. Bryan Neale and I will podcast on this topic in the future. But what do you think? How important is “packaging” in your business? Before you say “not at all” think hard.
Tags: Bill Caskey, sales packaging, sales strategies, sales training, VP of Sales
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May 15th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Hi,
I find this very interesting - and your definition of the “Sales Package” seems new, but you are illustrating something that has always been.
People/Prospects have always bought off on the “complete package” – on a conscious and subconscious level. And I think, up until recently, most prospects defined the “Package” around very simple ideas and concepts. I think this is how the adage, “…people buy from people they like…” started.
Today, it is not just about the kind of car you drive, the color of your tie, the way you articulate your ideas, or even the amount of money you may have saved other clients - It is about everything you have become as a selling professional and a as a person.