• B2B Sales Essentials Sample Report [PDF]
• B2B Sales Essentials℠ Sales Team Heat Map [PDF]
• What Does the Average B2B Sales Professional Know About B2B Selling Best Practices? [PDF]

The Number One challenge in today’s economy for most organizations is to grow their sales and profits amid increased competition across the globe, increased pressure on margins, and increased operating expenses. Organizations and individuals are challenged to keep up with technology and increase sales outputs. B2B Sales Essentials℠ (B2BSE℠) from Boyer Management Group is your powerful tool to increase sales and profits in this difficult economy.

The Business to Business Sales Essentials℠ Assessment measures more than 350 current and emerging best practices for conducting successful B2B sales across ten critical B2B sales competencies:

• Preparedness and Organizational Approach – how well the B2B sales professional organizes his or her approach to secure new business while expanding current business, by utilizing the latest technologies, approaches and methods. Covers how to research a market, prospect and competitors; product knowledge; account profiles; meeting plans; time management; and SMART goals.
• Prospecting – identifying ideal customers for a product or service and securing appointments with those qualified prospects. Covers referrals; vertical and horizontal marketing; trade shows; networking; social networking; making prospecting calls; dealing with gatekeepers; and avoiding sales slumps.
• Opening Initial Appointments – effectively conducting an initial appointment with prospects (or new opportunities in existing accounts) in order to establish / deepen relationships, leading to the uncovering of sales opportunities. Covers pre-appointment planning; building trust and rapport; company positioning statements; and transitioning to a needs assessment.
• Conducting Effective Needs Assessments – the use of effective questions to uncover a prospect’s (or account’s) wants, needs, abilities, motivations, circumstances, points of pain, and priorities. Covers the requisite needs assessment skill set; business and personal level selling; questions and questioning sequences; correctly interpreting responses; and transitioning to presenting of solutions to uncovered needs.
• Presenting Solutions – the process of providing solutions that are tailored to what was learned in the needs assessment, plus the related techniques, methods and skills of making compelling presentations to individuals and groups. Covers FAB; presentation and communications skills; buying signals; body language; committees; presentation tools and technologies; creating value; selling through R&D; organizational presentations; and leading the discussion about competitors.
• Developing and Presenting Proposals – responding appropriately in all situations that call for a written proposal, including RFP/RFQ responses and bids. Covers proposal skills; topical areas; proposal response format; and presenting proposal responses to individuals and committees.
• Effectively Handling Resistance – correctly identifying when a prospect or account is resisting a proposed solution, correctly identify the type of resistance being encountered, and leading the prospect or account to resolve the resistance. Covers resistance types; resistance resolution strategy and process; tailoring resistance responses to type; and transitioning to the close.
• Closing Sales Professionally – helping prospects and accounts make decisions that are good for them. Covers closing skills; effective closing process; avoiding closing mistakes; and completing the sale with add-on services and products.
• Follow-Up Skills – creating customer evangelists through effective follow-up and after-sale support. Covers the requisite follow-up skill set, following up for prospects who did and did not purchase, and generating a stream of customer referrals.
• Account & Territory Management Skills – how well the B2B sales professional manages assigned accounts and territory to maximize sales potential. Covers critical account management skills; A-B-C profiling; account management; TAP analyses; managing multiple priorities; virtual meetings; SWOT analysis; CRM/SFA technology and systems; non-traditional sales approaches; roles and players in accounts; and territory management.

You are responsible for delivering the profitable growth your shareholders, board and/or owners demand. Most organizations have a solid grasp on their internal operations but the sales area often remains less certain.

We designed the B2BSE℠ Assessment to answer these critical questions in order to give you a better grasp on the revenue side of the equation:

• Does my sales team have a clear knowledge and understanding of current and emerging best practices associated with high performance business to business selling?
• How am I addressing the performance gaps of my sales team in critical areas like prospecting, needs assessments, and handling prospect resistance?
• What opportunities are we leaving on the table in our existing accounts?
• How can new and improved selling strategies be infused into our existing approach?
• Do we have the right sales staff on board?
• What do prospective new hires know about the current and emerging best practices associated with b2B / direct selling?
• Other than sales results, how can we get an accurate and complete read on someone’s sales effectiveness?
• What specific areas of training and development do specific people on our sales team require?

The B2B Sales Essentials℠ Assessment is administered online:

• Taken online. The B2BSE℠ Assessment can be delivered through our secure testing platform. This allows worldwide access and completion of the assessment within a broad time window. It takes 90-120 minutes to complete the 80 multiple choice questions, and can be accomplished in multiple sittings by enabling participants to complete a section, save their work, and log on to continue at a later time. Both questions and the answers within questions are tumbled to assure assessment integrity.

Once the assessment is completed, we process the raw data and interpret the results. We provide several benchmarks in the report (click here to see a sample B2BSE report) when scoring a participant’s results across each of the ten competencies measured:

• Percent Correct – the percentage the participant got correct in each of the ten competencies.
• International Average – the average of all participants who have completed the B2BSE℠ Assessment, which is helpful in seeing someone’s relative knowledge in the area measured.
• Company Average – the average of all participants from the same company or organization who have completed the B2BSE℠ Assessment, which is helpful in seeing someone’s relative knowledge to his or her peers in the area measured.

Reports are provided to clients electronically via PDF. Expert and onsite interpretation is available.

We maintain participant’s raw sores indefinitely, enabling organizations to measure and group participants over time as they add people to staff or re-assess staff to measure proficiency growth.

The B2B Sales Essentials approach℠ has been used to generate billions of dollars in B2B and direct sales over the past decade across such diverse industry sectors as manufacturing; telecommunications; electronics and high technology; business, financial and professional services; and commercial real estate. It most likely could do the same for your particular industry and business.

Once you have the results of the B2B Sales Essentials℠ Assessment, you will clearly see the gaps in knowledge on an individual, team and enterprise-wide basis. We would be pleased to tailor an organizational development plan to help you address the gaps in staff and individual knowledge.

Utilize the B2B Sales Essentials℠ Professional Development Program to train your management and staff on the current and emerging B2B sales best practices, and equip your sales team with the strategies, approaches and tools to take your organization’s sales to the next level.

Training is modularized and can be customized to fit your team and individual needs. Training can be delivered in traditional or virtual classroom settings, or in a combination of both.

• Training modules are available for each of the 10 competencies measured by the B2BSE℠ Assessment, plus related B2BSE℠ modules for indirect distribution, social media, and customer service. View curriculum here.
• B2BSE℠ Sales Management modules are available to help your sales manager more effectively model, measure effectiveness, and mentor sales staff. View curriculum here.
• Each participant receives the B2B Sales Essentials℠ Development Guide, which contains more than 100 pages of self-directed, power-packed best practices and tools.
• A Re-Assessment is available if you want to measure learning outcomes or gauge progress.
• For larger organizations, we will gladly train and equip you to self-administer the program.

“My team engaged Hank Boyer to help us accelerate our sales productivity. We began with an assessment to measure our B2B sales knowledge, then undertook the B2B Sales Essentials program over the course of four months. Hank customized the content to our industry and made it easy for our sales team to be fully engaged in each session. I noticed immediate improvements in what my staff did with their customers. Based on the sales successes we have had, I expect our investment in B2B Sales Essentials to provide us well in excess of a 25-times ROI. Best sales training investment I’ve ever made – I highly recommend Hank and his training program.”

– Peter P, SVP Business Development, Pharmaceutical Marketing

“The “B2B Sales Essentials Course” by BMG is such a comprehensive, systematic, and unique training program, with focus on prospect acquiring, customer need assessment, and new technology utilization, that is definitively beneficial to all B2B sales professionals, regardless in either North American or international business environment. I was lucky to receive this training from BMG President Hank Boyer, a two-day face-to-face intensive program tailored to my previous selling experience. The training is extremely helpful to me in developing business in the greater China market. After the training, the improvement in my selling skills and sales results are so obvious that I would like to share with you. I have better understanding the critical objective of each ten B2B selling processes, and am able to spend my time and effort in the right spots to ensure maximum results. Within a couple months, I completed a market research on decorative packaging business in the China territory and generated a list of potential prospects. With the focus of “Need Assessment” in mind, four potential large customers in the technical tape business were developed in China. My SVP of Sales and Marketing also recognized the effectiveness of this training program from my progress in China and requested the same training program again from Hank for all sales staff in the organization. Definitely I recommend this training program to B2B sales professionals, regardless your previous selling experience, particularly in today’s competitive business environment.”

— Jerry F, Managing Director, China, Manufacturing Industry

“My company has worked with BMG and the Business to Business Sales Essentials Course over the last year. The mastery of the various sales competencies has helped our team to build new business in a difficult economic environment. In addition the best practices can be used immediately after the training. BMG’s approach is interactive which helps our sales representatives and managers to work with situations and conditions that may be unique to our business.”

– Brian M, SVP Sales and Marketing, Specialty Manufacturing Industry

• B2B Sales Essentials℠ Case Study [View]
• Increasing B2B Sales & Profits℠ FAQs [View]
• B2B Selling Success Quiz [View]