Five stages and the typical mistake at each
- Contact. The mistake: fifteen minutes of pleasantries before the substance. The customer loses momentum.
- Establishing the job. The mistake: questions about specifications instead of questions about need.
- The proposal. The mistake: listing the whole range instead of one solution for the job.
- The objection. The mistake: answering without asking what sits behind the phrase.
- Agreement. The mistake: finishing on «we will be in touch» with no date.
How to teach on your own recordings
- Take two conversations from one rep: one that worked and one that did not.
- Mark up both against the five stages.
- Find the stage where they diverged.
- Talk through what exactly the rep did in the successful one.
- Next week, check that same stage in new conversations.
Reviews are worth recording. Over six months they build into a training base where every example is yours, and a new rep goes through that instead of an abstract course.
Questions about need and questions about specification
- Specification: «Which model do you want?», «What size?»
- Need: «What is it for?», «How will you use it?», «What is wrong with the current one?»
The first kind turns a rep into an order taker. The second earns them the right to propose something dearer, or simply more appropriate.
How much time training takes
Basic training takes five days, then a weekly review of an hour. The weekly review gives you more than any one-off workshop, because it works on what happened this week.