What does The Strategic Advantage Program^TM
help you to achieve?
Performance Insights, LLC business process is best explained through our Strategic Advantage Program^TM .Through each phase, you are guided through a process to evaluate and determine your business needs, receive customized training to satisfy those needs, and reinforce the training later on down the road. The ultimate goal is to increase sales success - more sales and greater profitability.

Phase 1: Assessment
When it comes to sales knowlege, if you don't know what your salespeople don't know, it is costing your company money. Tools are available to help build a more productive and successful organization. Here are some questions explored during this phase.

Question: Hiring people who can perform on the job and not just in the interview is always a problem for management. What can we do to avoid costly, bad hires?

Answer: Because not everyone has the same skills or learns at the same pace, it usually makes sense to "diagnose" prior to hiring and/or training using advanced computer-based measuring and mentoring programs during and after training that guarantees results. Evaluating prior to training has been proven to be up to 50% more effective in creating the desired results from training.

Receive a free assessment. By submitting your contact information, you'll be giving us permission to contact you to review the results of your reports.

Question: The cost of replacing an employee averages between one and two times the candidate's salary and benefits. What would an effective system of hiring look like?

Answer: An effective system of hiring would first include an assessment, which outlines the individual's strengths and blind spots. Similar in concept to doctors who typically use a CAT Scan or X-ray to assess the health of a patient's physical body. Performance Insights, LLC uses on-line tools to assess the health and future expectations of an individual's sales potential.

In addition, be clear on the goals and expectations for the position. Steven Covey says, "begin with the end in mind." Be sure you are clear regarding what is necessary to be successful in a particular position and look for those characteristics in your candidate and build your interview questions around those characteristics.

Phase 2: Customized Training
Performance Insights, LLC has a goal to help you sell more and go to the bank more often. Our sales and management expertise allows us to focus on your sales goals and objectives to maximize your return on your training dollar. The following are example questions Performance Insights, LLC has addressed to satisfy training needs.

Question: How can I shorten the overall selling cycle? Also, I seem to be getting more and more involved in discounting than selling.

Answer: Shortening the overall selling cycle can be accomplished by taking charge of the selling process and nailing down prospect commitments up-front. Using powerful verbal "contracts" while still allowing the prospect to feel in control does this. Level-setting expectations so that both the seller and the buyer "mutually" agree to the process provides clarity and trust. This avoids "mutual mystification" down the road. Using subsequent "mini-contracts" ensures you always understand the next step in the selling process. Also, continue to measure and document the customer's commitment to advance the sales cycle.

In advance of your calls, design a series of questions to keep the call flowing smoothly. In addition, it has been proven that people make decisions intellectually and they buy emotionally. So, if you can identify their "emotional pain" and what keeps that Decision Maker awake at 2:00 am, you'll create a sense of urgency. (i.e. what happens if they stay "status quo?") Also, remember people buy for their reasons, not yours. An effective system of questioning in a non-threatening manner will help the prospect "discover" his/her challenges rather than you as the salesperson being put in the position of "convincing" and "arm-wrestling".

Question: I've read that technique alone will not make me a successful salesperson. What other factors would help me to be successful in sales?

Answer: Traditional sales training focuses on learning a series of open-ended questions at best, and at worst, manipulative techniques (i.e. "You DO want to save money, don't you?"). But technique in itself is inadequate. Effective sales training focuses on three key areas...as we say "Strengthen your ABS^TM !"

Attitude - understanding how improving self-esteem and eliminating "head trash" (self-limiting beliefs) can get people out of their comfort zones and create truly superior performance.

Behavior - setting goals, developing plans to achieve the goals and monitoring activity. You can only control what you can measure. (i.e. behavior)  

Skills - learning skills, which will provide situational fluency, specifically the non-traditional strategies and tactics that are effective in helping qualify more effectively and close more business with less discounting.

Question: How can I improve the integrity of my forecasts?

Answer: Accurate forecasts depend on having a clear understanding of where the prospect is in the sales process. With a clearly outlined and consistent sales process, it is easy to debrief the account to determine what the prospect's reasons are for buying, their level of commitment in solving the problem, their budget, their decision making process and what happens next. This kind of clarity provides an opportunity for accurate forecasting for all levels within an organization.

Phase 3: Reinforcement
Even the best training delivered by the most awesome trainer will be a distant memory within a few weeks if the effort is not on going. Mastery requires repetition, coaching and practice. Real learning is gradual and incremental. If the goal is improved performance - real learning is achieved over time. The answers to these questions give you a glimpse of how Performance Insights, LLC helps keep training fresh.

Question: My company is asking me to provide smarter learning services, faster and with better results after the initial classroom experience. What would that look like?

Answer: Typically in order to change adult behavior, repetition is required to transition from "knowing" the information to "owning" it. On-going training, coaching and reinforcement (Audio Cds, email tip of the week, newsletters) assist in that process.

Additional performance support is provided to enhance productivity beyond the classroom. Our web-based training allows participants to continue their learning 24 x 7 - at their convenience from wherever they are. Also, their usage can be tracked to determine if they taking advantage of the tools.

Question: How can I avoid spending thousands of dollars on training only to find that everything is forgotten after one month?

Answer:To give your training effort a lasting positive impact, here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Sales management should be prepared to coach reps to support the new skills. The training program needs to have a plan to achieve 100% management buy-in and to prepare managers to support and reinforce the process on a daily basis.
2. Provide processes and tools that reinforce the training (weekly meetings for review, tapes, e-learning) and increase willingness/commitment to adhere to a systematic approach