Program Overview

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The eie course on how to Develop Your Sales Knowledge and Skills

Overall Programme Description

Learn the key skills necessary in today's selling environment—from negotiation to telling great stories and selling with authenticity. Recognize that selling is a partnership. Develop your sales skills, people skills, and ability to create emotional engagement and earn the trust of others.

Skills

• Sales Effectiveness
• Sales
• Situational Sales Negotiation
• Negotiation

Mode of Delivery

Online through Self-Study.

Duration

9 hours

Assessment

Quizzes at the end of each Module

Certification

Digital Certificates at the end of Each module, and an eie Certificate of Completion (this is NOT an Academic Qualification or Academic Award. For an Academic Award, please visit our MQF Levels section).

Modules

1. Sales Foundations

What makes someone effective at sales? A genuine desire to help others solve problems. In this course, former Genentech senior leader and Braintrust founder Jeff Bloomfield explains why and how the best salespeople learn how to see through the eyes of their customers. He outlines strategies to help you connect with and understand your customers' needs, and position your product or service as the solution to their problem. He also provides a step-by-step how-to guide to creating your own sales process or identifying gaps in your existing one.

2. Selling with Authenticity

Having a successful career in sales doesn't mean compromising your values. In fact, authentic salespeople often have the most success in sales. Learn how to bring authenticity, curiosity, and your true self to your sales role, with these lessons from Lisa Earle McLeod and Elizabeth (McLeod) Lotardo. Explore the purpose of sales, from multiple perspectives. Discover how to put the human touch back into customer interactions and use your authentic curiosity to spark great sales questions. And since life on commission isn’t easy, Lisa and Elizabeth also offer some advice for managing your personal finances and reducing anxiety around quotas.

3. Asking Great Sales Questions

All too often sales calls become an interrogation, leaving the prospects feeling defensive and unsure where the conversation is leading. In this course, sales coach Jeff Bloomfield provides an alternative that puts the focus back on customers and clients. Jeff helps you gain insight into your customer’s business problems and objectives, and use those insights to guide your sales questions. By asking the right questions, you can create connection, drive credibility, create urgency, and confirm value clarity—validating the business impact of your solution. Plus, get advice on digging deeper and continuing the conversation—for more successful sales interactions and longer-lasting relationships.

4. Selling with Stories: Stories Great Sales People Tell

Stories connect people. Telling a compelling and authentic story can solidify the relationship with your potential customer and win the sale. In this course, you can learn how to leverage the power of storytelling throughout the sales process. Paul Smith—the author of the best-selling book Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale—covers the 25 most essential types of sales stories and shares formulas for developing your own specific narratives. Learn the stories you should tell from introduction to pitch to close, to capture buyer interest and build loyalty that lasts for the long term. Check out part one of the series for an introduction to selling with stories.

5. Sales: Handling Objections

Even the most outstanding sales presentation can be met with objections. As a sales professional, your success hinges on your ability to respond to these concerns with confidence. In this course, instructor Dean Karrel digs into some of the most common objections that crop up throughout the sales process, explains how to prepare for them, and shares strategies for responding. Get a better understanding of the buyer and seller relationship, discover how to respond to buyers who object to the price of your service or product, learn what to say to a buyer who simply insists that "they'll get back to you," and more. Upon completing this course, you'll be better equipped to tackle this critical aspect of the sales process.

6. Sales Negotiation

Bestselling author and sales coach Lisa Earle McLeod has helped companies like Google and Roche build passionate, purpose-driven sales organizations. In this course, sales professionals can learn how to negotiate with the best interests of their organization and their customers at heart, by uncovering their own noble purpose. Lisa reveals the surprising truth behind why compromise doesn't work; instead, she explains how to ask questions that reveal information about the buyer—and help you decide when you can negotiate and when you can't. She also identifies common negotiation traps and ways to negotiate that don't just close the sale today, but build longer-term relationships for tomorrow.

7. Sales: Closing Strategies

What separates the inexperienced salesperson from the successful one is the ability to close sales. However, along with prospecting and handling objections, closing sales is one of the hardest skills for salespeople to master. Join Dean Karrel, a trainer and sales executive for over 30 years, for this course, which provides tips and techniques to help you develop your own successful closing strategy. Learn how to nurture the relationship with your buyer, overcome obstacles, recognize buying signals, and ask for the business. Plus, find out how to improve your close rate throughout the sales pipeline by expanding what it means to sell.

8. Following Up after a Sales Meeting

When it comes to closing deals, stellar presentations aren’t always enough to clinch a sale. Effectively following up with prospects after a sales meeting is critical—and failing to do so can cause a once-promising deal to go cold. In this course, Steve Benson, a top sales coach and expert, shares practical strategies for following up with prospects in a way that keeps the momentum of a great sales meeting going. Learn the ingredients for a powerful follow-up; how to tackle common objections such as “I’ll think about it”; and how to evade common pitfalls, including which phrases to avoid in your follow-up email or calls.

9. Networking for Sales Professionals

Referrals and relationships are at the core of sales. They can be the difference between winning and losing a deal. That's why growing your network is so critical to your career as a sales professional. Networking can feel overwhelming, or even sleazy, but this course will teach you how to make the most of your time, energy, and effort. Join Robbie Kellman Baxter as she explains how to build and nurture your network. Find out about the seven types of people you need to know, the body language and mindset to attract connections, and specific tactics that really work. Plus, get tips on which events to attend, learn how to ask for referrals, and find out how to bridge the gap between professional networks and personal friends.

10. Soft Skills for Sales Professionals

As a sales professional, you probably know your product inside and out. But success in sales requires more than just technical know-how. Soft skills—those tough-to-define relational skills that help you earn your customer's trust—are equally essential to your bottom line, and in today’s global, virtual, and constantly shifting world, they’re more important than ever. In this course, business strategist and instructor Meridith Powell covers soft skills in depth, sharing strategies that can help you bolster your emotional intelligence and communicate more effectively with prospects. Meridith starts by explain the value of soft skills in sales—why they matter, how they can be developed, and how they differ from hard skills. She then explains how you can build important soft skills like adaptability, listening, and selling with greater emotional intelligence. Finally, Meridith shares tips for putting your soft skills into action.

After this course

Once you complete this short course, you might consider furthering your education with another short course but ending up with an academic qualification. We offer an array of Awards, which are considered as short courses (30 / 60 hours) but have an MQF Level and a number of ECTS's attached to them. These Awards are recognised by the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority (MFHEA).

You might also consider starting a full qualification such as a:

• Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration (MQF Level 6 - 180 ECTS)
• Undergraduate Higher Diploma in Business Administration (MQF Level 5 - 120 ECTS)
• Undergraduate Diploma in Business Administration (MQF Level 5 - 60 ECTS)

These qualifications are offered through Online or Classroom modes.