Sales Communications Foundations

Overview/Description
 William Safire, a columnist for the New York Times, said, "To communicate, put your thoughts in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce." This is true especially for the sales professional. As a sales professional, you are a professional persuader. You must possess the communications skills to effectively instruct your prospective customers and help them discover the value of your offerings, and you must seduce them with the customer experience you offer. Every buying decision that has ever been made, or ever will be made, is an emotional decision rationalized with facts. Your communications skills are the crucial element behind stirring the emotions of your prospective customers and communicating the supporting facts that will lead to greater sales success. "Sales Communications Foundations" will help you to understand the fundamentals of interpersonal communications. More importantly, it will help you to understand how these foundations of interpersonal communications impact your sales communications. This course will also provide you with communications strategies that will help you most effectively send and receive sales messages to and from your clients. This course contains information on vocal qualities. Because it is important to be able to hear differences in these vocal qualities, it is recommended that you include audio while taking this course.

Target Audience
 This series will be useful for learners beginning careers as sales professionals, as well as for seasoned sales people who are seeking to take their careers to the next level. As with all Sales UniversityŽ programs, this series is designed to meet learners where they are, and challenge them to stretch themselves to a higher plane of professional excellence. This series will prepare learners to climb the next rungs on the ladder of success.

Expected Duration
7.0 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Interpersonal Communications in Sales

  • identify the benefits to a sales professional of understanding the fundamentals of interpersonal communications.
  • sequence statements to show the flow of communications, in a given example.
  • assess a given sales professional's ability to encode and decode messages to find the common field of experience, in a given sales scenario.
  • match communications zones with given examples of each.
  • apply strategies for enhancing one's ability to expand the common field of experience, in a given sales interaction.

    • Communications Styles in Sales Situations

  • identify the benefits of understanding the impact of communications styles on sales situations.
  • match each communications style to examples of the characteristics for each.
  • match the communications styles listed with the sales approaches that are best used with them.
  • deliver an appropriate sales message to a given buyer, based on the buyer's communications style.

    • Building Credibility in Your Sales Message

  • identify the benefits of understanding how to build credibility in your sales message.
  • match verbal strategies for encoding effective sales messages to their appropriate descriptions.
  • apply verbal strategies for encoding effective messages, in a given sales scenario.
  • identify appropriate examples of the elements of vocal communications, in a given sales scenario.
  • identify examples of actions that illustrate guidelines for effectively sending visual messages.
  • apply visual guidelines for sending effective messages, in a given sales scenario.

    • Course Number: SALE0431