Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Fun stuff is always great, but I would put together a presentation on exactly why your product can make their job easier, how they can make more money using you and why your product can ease the pain and suffering salespeople go through in a recession.

Has this partnership been successful in the past? If so, could your presentation included couple examples showing how salespeople of made easy money from this partnership?

If it were me, I would be sure whoever attended this conference on my company's behalf had a generous expense account. With this meeting be held in a hotel? If so, in addition to your formal presentation, you can probably get some helpful one-on-one sessions by hanging out after hours in the hotel bar, and the advice and insights you get from these informal sessions will probably pay for the entire trip. Good luck.

Spiff Spiff Spiff

Sales people sell to make money. That's their (our) language.


Michael

Salespeople need to feel as though they have been heard. In order to increase the level of commitment from your partner's sales team, host an interactive session. Make it a two-way conversation, not just about how great you are and all you are doing for them (that should of course be an important part of it) but that you are responsive to their needs. Give them the opportunity to express what they feel is missing from your product line, your service offering or your marketing. Let them know in advance so that they have time to prepare for the discussion. Then make sure that you really listen to their feedback and don't be defensive at all. Be sure to commit to review their ideas and set a timeline by which you will get back to them with your action plans. You will have to be very careful that this doesn't turn into a negative bitch session, but you can do this by setting the criteria in advance, and keeping positive control of the meeting. If you are sincerely open-minded, people will respond positively.
Whenever I have taken this type of approach, I have found it to be very effective. Good Luck!

Linda Whitehead
Zuz Marketing

I would suggest that you have two main objectives for such session:

1. Make them realize that they can make money out of your products: You could do this by showcasing how much an average and a good sales representative could make a year selling your products (assuming that they get commissions out of this).

2. Make it easier for them to sell your products: In order to make this effective, you should focus on only 'what sells your product' (i.e. what makes it better than the competition). You can make this stick by going through a role-playing with them or distribute some handy sales tools that they can keep to themselves. A good example is a sales battle card, and you can find an article with more information about it on https://forteconsultancy.wordpress.com