As the media becomes ever more saturated with stories on economic decline, the one industry that continues to buck the trend is technology. As it stands, the UK has the second-biggest ICT sector in Europe, worth an estimated £81bn and British businesses are using technology as a means to enable growth. Recent predictions position the UK economy as the most web-based of the G20, with the "internet economy" accounting for more than 8 per cent of GDP.
In order to leverage this growing market, technology companies are looking at ways to maintain and increase their customer base. As old sales techniques become clichéd and tired, the need to motivate and differentiate the sales force has never been more important.
With that in mind, Sandler Training, a leading sales, management and leadership training organisation, is fast becoming the partner of choice to ensure that technology companies can maximise this market trend and capitalise on the business and consumer appetite for all things tech in the UK.
The Sandler approach lends itself to businesses of sizes who want to increase their sales pipeline, shorten their sales cycles and reduce the amount of free consulting their sales consultants give to prospects.
Shaun Thomson, CEO of Sandler Training in the UK, explains: “The Sandler method is unique as it uses non-traditional, disruptive methods to deliver long term performance improvement performance right across the business. Research shows that Sandler Training customers will achieve 73% of their overall team attainment sales quota against an industry average of 59%. It works extremely well within the tech sector as it completely flips the mindset of the sales-force from focusing on the technology, to concentrating 100% on the pain points of the businesses – the results of which are plain to see.”
Example technology organisations are:
- Microsoft UK has just launched a six-month training programme to help its managed systems integrators and cloud partners get to grips with selling cloud-based products. The course content is based on Sandler's sales methodology, with partners attending half-day workshops twice a month, to reinforce behavioural change and new skills, with an emphasis on defining the business benefits, not just the IT advantages.
- X2, leading suppliers of rugged hand-held technology, joined Sandler’s President Club in order to maintain the company’s growth. The company had a fantastic spurt of growth, which took X2 – suddenly – to a £4m turnover, after a few years of sub-one million. The Presidents Club is enabling the sales team to stretch as well coach, in order to realise new behaviour and attitudes. In the company director’s words, the sales pipeline is now like “drinking from a fire hose.”
- WSI, a digital marketing solutions provider for SMEs has recently signed a global partnership agreement with Sandler Training. Training will be offered across the company’s global network of WSI consultants in order to ensure a consistent approach to selling and to ultimately drive a shift in the bottom line via an overall increase in sales performance.
You might also be interested in:
