February 2006: Cidermill leads role-play workshops for Hewlett Packard in Budapest

Hewlett Packard runs frequent training events for its European and Middle Eastern sales and pre-sales teams. This time nearly 300 HP server specialists flew into snow-covered Budapest for a packed 3-day training programme. Threading through the traditional product and service presentations were a series of workshops, built around a typical sales scenario. Participants were assigned to one of 28 multinational teams, and actively learned how to discover and respond to sales opportunities through interviews with role-playing 'customers'.

For the event a team of experienced trainers, including Cidermill, was brought together by the Reading, UK based sales training organisation Red Edge who wrote the detailed sales scenario for HP. Participants conducted interviews with several executives, played by the professional trainers and by real HP managers. Through the interviews each HP team learned how to discover potential opportunities for selling HP servers. 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 role-playing 'executives'.

At the final customer meeting each team had an opportunity to present a proposal to the customer´s senior management. They were encouraged to incorporate products, services and value justifications learned from the many HP presentations attended throughout the training event.

Very positive feedback from the 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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