June 2007: Cidermill runs sales role-play workshops for Hewlett Packard in Berlin

Hewlett-Packard invests heavily in employee training, especially for its sales and sales support teams. But it isn't enough just to know about HP's wide range of products. Sales and sales support people must master the skills of relating to customers. The goal of the event in Berlin was to expose HP people to simulated customer situations and help them develop effective techniques for uncovering customer needs and matching business requirements to HP technology solutions. At the Berlin event, people from HP's 'Image & Print Group' (IPG) throughout Europe were brought together for two sessions, in each of which up to 20 small teams conducted a series of simulated customer meetings. One session was for HP people selling to the finance industry, the other for those selling to the manufacturing industry.

The simulation scenarios were written by a team of experienced trainers, including Cidermill, brought together by Reading, UK based sales training organisation Red Edge using content experts from HP managers around the world. In the simulated customer meetings in Berlin customer parts were acted by both the Red Edge (and Cidermill) trainers and real HP sales managers. Each HP sales team learned how to discover potential opportunities for selling HP print solutions. At each interview half the team attended the interview, the other half observed and later provided useful feedback to their colleagues. Each meeting was professionally assessed and scored by the HP managers.

At the final customer meeting each team had an opportunity to present a proposal to the simulated customer's senior management. They were encouraged to incorporate HP products, HP services and value justifications.

Very positive feedback from HP proved the maxim familiar to successful training companies that learning by doing is the most effective way to improve sales skills. It was very clear that standards of customer interaction improved and became more business-focused with each successive customer encounter. The HP teams learned how to identify and present business benefits, rather than technical features.

If you want to know how Cidermill Consulting could help your sales teams develop their sales skills, contact Cidermill Consulting today. Either send us an email or call us on +44 (0)1386 840277

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