FAQ'S

1. Does a salesperson really need to present differently at the executive level?

Yes.  Major budget approvals occur at the executive level which requires a business oriented, results-driven solution rather than a technical, process-oriented pitch. Executives are intuitive, incisive, and smart buyers. Persuasion at the CEO-CFO-COO and boardroom level requires different preparation, presentation, and tactics.

Persuading at a company's executive level requires the seller to present simply, quickly, clearly and honestly. That means selling without tricks, gimmicks or puffery. This approach is counter-cultural and counter-intuitive for salespeople.

Management strategies often fail because managers don't understand this vital and often fatal, difference.

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2. Why do we need three days?  Why can't it be shorter?

Three days is the required minimum to create an executive level presentation, develop new skills and gain the optimum return on your tuition investment.

VASS® training creates new selling assumptions. This thinking shift requires not only an understanding of the underlying persuasion process but also the physical practice that allows the seller to apply these new assumptions under pressure.

We have tried many variations of this course in an attempt to shorten it. Over fifty experiments show us that seventy-two clock hours are required for salespeople to internalize this new way of thinking and modify their behavior to fit the new information. Learning new persuasion skills is behavior modification and more like learning a sport than an intellectual exercise. After three days, salespeople often tell us they wish the course was longer.

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3.  For what level of salesperson is this course designed?

This training translates your senior management strategies into boardroom persuasion tactics and the course is designed for the salesperson who calls on the executive level of a prospect's business hierarchy. A salesperson is defined as anyone regardless of title, education or station in life who makes or changes opinion and gains commitments from a Buyer. The salespeople we train are highly educated, highly professional, highly motivated and in most cases highly paid before we meet them.

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4. Our people don't sell to boardrooms. How can we use what you teach?

Your salespeople may be calling at a lower level but the ultimate decision is made at the executive level. Salespeople must help the middle manager design a justification that will convince top management to approve and finance the expenditure.

The market has changed dramatically. So much money was wasted during the dot-com debacle that big budget decisions are no longer made by the technical staff and middle managers; they are made by upper management and boards of directors who are now legally liable.

While the middle manager may not be interested in the business benefits your services deliver, when he or she presents your proposal to management, the approval will be based only on business logic, not technical data.

The translation of your technical knowledge into business benefits can differentiate your services from the competition. Middle managers are flooded with technical minutia but search in vain for business benefits to take to the board for approval.

In high-ticket sales, if you are not speaking business language, you are inviting the competition into every presentation you give.

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5. How is VASS Executive Sales Training® different from the same old stuff?

We teach persuasion at the executive level. We destroy, not reinforce, selling illusions that cost companies up to half their sales revenues. We teach mechanics—how to develop your  business story and then deliver it. We deal in your real world terms—your strategy, your expertise, your problems, your market, your industry, your language. In this course your salespeople will develop solutions to their own selling problems by preparing for their next important, real life presentation.

We have spent over two decades developing methods for selling in the boardroom. As specialists in executive presentations, we were allowed to trademark the name for this category of training.

The biggest impact is on senior people, your seasoned veterans who suddenly realize how much money they have been leaving on the table by using low-level selling skills on high-level decision makers.

Ultimately, your decision may not be about who to hire but about your business strategy. If your business strategy calls for presenting to the executive level, we may be able to help. If your strategy calls for selling to middle management and below, any sales training company advertising on the web will work since they are interchangeable.

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6. We have already taken 'strategic selling' programs such as Holden, Target, Forum, Miller-Heiman, etc. Why do we need this course?

Strategic selling programs focus on account management skills and selling strategies within an account. They train sellers to assess their chances of winning in a given situation, to understand where to go within the prospect company’s hierarchy and how to get there.

These courses are truly strategic and don’t address tactics. They do not teach your people what story to tell or how to deliver to executive-level buyers. Our clients have consistently found VASS® training to be the complementary missing link that joins selling strategy and boardroom tactics.

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7. "After the course is completed, how do we maintain our people's skills?"

We have no interest in making your organization consultant dependent. Instead, your company should be able to continue the training in-house for both experienced people and new hires. We have developed a number of ways to help you maintain a high skill level in your company.

• Online post-course training materials designed to help your people continue improving their skills
   

• Open courses once or twice a year to train new hires or refresh those previously trained
   

• VASS ® Troubleshooting Days and Boardroom Presentation programs
   

• VASS ® Licensing programs with Train-the-Trainer courses allowing you to control schedules and reduce ongoing training costs 50% to 65%.

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8. "Who have you worked for and how much do you know about our industry?"

You don’t hire us to teach you about your business. We don’t claim to know or understand your business or industry. From our experience, we know that your salespeople have far more information about their industry, products and services than they will ever need to be wildly successful in closing a sale.

You hire us to teach your people how to translate their expertise into knowledge and apply it from the executive buyer's point of view in the right format at the right time. As you will see in class, at the executive level, pure expertise without translation usually works against your salespeople.

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9. "How important is it for management to attend the course?"

Vitally. If your management isn't involved from the beginning, VASS® is a waste of your training dollar.

Your attendance sends a message that you are serious about the outcome. Your lack of participation can create dissension as your salespeople will know more about executive-level persuasion than you.

Your presence helps build your team. After the course, everyone speaks the same language, focuses on the same problems and runs in the same direction at the same time. This is how teams are built and common languages are created.

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10. "If you're so good why haven't we heard of you?"

We do not advertise. The results reported by our clients do not look believable in print.

We are not a match for every firm. We choose our clients carefully so that they can create the maximum return on investment from our programs.

We are specialists. Our business purpose is to help our clients install a company-wide selling culture and create a competitive edge. Those clients come to us by referral—our name is passed discreetly between business friends. Since they consider VASS® training to be their secret weapon, many of our clients are reluctant to talk about us at all unless asked directly.

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11. "Can you teach everyone to be a superstar?"

No. Our results match the standard educational bell curve. We can, however, influence every student to

• Structure sales presentations to work at the executive level

• Sell benefits rather than features

• Sound as honest as they really are

• Understand that persuasion skills are as important as technical knowledge

• Avoid the twenty common selling errors that kill executive-level sales

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