Sales Growth
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Sales Growth is provided by Mr. Longstaffe Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
Personal Profile
Mr Longstaffe has over 30 years of global experience in Sales, Consulting, and Training. His extensive background is instrumental in enabling him to design and deliver well proven and effective sales training solutions which improve the performance of professional salespeople. His training programs provide an extremely relevant learning experience equipping participants with meaningful and applicable skills that result in their adoption, action and successful results.
Mr Longstaffe is the CEO of a company he founded in 1998. It is a sales consulting firm and training solutions provider. Mr Longstaffe specializes in developing highly effective, practical tools and processes to improve professional selling skills in B2B sales teams. In the Sales Growth Program he has built an entire portfolio of training modules, drawing on his expertise in Consultative Selling, Account Management, Channel Management, Competitive Selling, Negotiations and Tactical Selling Skills.
Mr Longstaffe has worked for large corporations and high-growth start-ups. He has led sales teams, built channel organizations and created highly effective training curricula. Mr Longstaffe also worked with Sir Winston Churchill’s grand-daughter to develop a unique training program based on the leadership principles of Sir Winston Churchill.
Mr Longstaffe has worked with clients across the globe from a wide range of industries including Information Technology, Telecoms, Aerospace, Financial Services and Healthcare. He has extensive experience in international sales, having worked in San Francisco, London and Australia.
Prior to establishing his training business, Mr Longstaffe worked at ODI as Managing Director of their UK operation. ODI was a leading consulting firm in organizational development, corporate alignment, strategy deployment, leadership, quality and customer care programs. There he led the turnaround of the UK operation, re-branding the company and launching their new software-based Alignment Diagnostic tool.
Prior to joining ODI, Mr Longstaffe was a Director of Esprit Consulting Ltd, a sales training company, based in London. He was critical in the expansion of international business and, as Director of Business Development, forged a Strategic Partnership with KPMG. He succeeded in winning significant seven figure training projects with many global IT companies, and he opened new offices in San Francisco. On his return to the UK, he managed the global operations of Esprit with responsibility for the network of Channel Partners both in the UK and Overseas.
Mr Longstaffe began his career in Sales and Management with Jardine Matheson & Co in Hong Kong. Following his graduate training program, he took his first sales role as a new business sales executive in the air cargo subsidiary, Jardine Cargo International. He won the prestigious ‘Freight Forwarder of the Year’ award in his first year in the industry and immediately became the top performing sales executive in the company, a position he maintained until being promoted to Branch Manager. He built the most profitable branch office in the UK and was appointed Regional Sales Manager on the West Coast USA.
Mr Longstaffe has an MA (Hons) and BA (Hons) from Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, UK.
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(CLP) Programs
Appleton Greene corporate training programs are all process-driven. They are used as vehicles to implement tangible business processes within clients’ organizations, together with training, support and facilitation during the use of these processes. Corporate training programs are therefore implemented over a sustainable period of time, that is to say, between 1 year (incorporating 12 monthly workshops), and 4 years (incorporating 48 monthly workshops). Your program information guide will specify how long each program takes to complete. Each monthly workshop takes 6 hours to implement and can be undertaken either on the client’s premises, an Appleton Greene serviced office, or online via the internet. This enables clients to implement each part of their business process, before moving onto the next stage of the program and enables employees to plan their study time around their current work commitments. The result is far greater program benefit, over a more sustainable period of time and a significantly improved return on investment.
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. All (CLP) programs are implemented over a sustainable period of time, usually between 1-4 years, incorporating 12-48 monthly workshops and professional support is consistently provided during this time by qualified learning providers and where appropriate, by Accredited Consultants.
Executive summary
Sales Growth
History
This program is intended for companies who realize that they need to make a step-change in the way they sell. They want to transform the selling style of their sales teams to help them differentiate themselves from their competition by the way they sell, not just by ‘what’ they sell.
Like so many other business processes, the sales function has seen unprecedented change in recent years. Many companies and leadership teams have struggled to keep up with this constant evolution. At one level you might think that selling today is the same as it ever was. The role of the sales professional being to provide a customer with all the relevant information they need in order to make a decision to buy a particular product or service. But in reality, that job has become much more demanding. The effects of the internet and globalization have resulted in 2 critical dimensions which have made the role of the salesperson today even more challenging: better informed customers and increased competition.
In the last 40 years we have seen the evolution of sales development and sales process from a product-led sales approach, through solution selling, to a more consultative selling process and ultimately to a sales process based on true partnership with a customer, fulfilling the role as a trusted advisor.
There are 4 levels of selling: Level 1 – Product-led Selling. At this level, salespeople are product focused, they understand their product but they are very transaction oriented, short-term and feature-function focused. They are dealing primarily with operational people, and they drive a commodity buying behavior. Level 2 sales is Solutions-led Selling. Here the salesperson has learned to be more Solution-focused: they are looking to match their solution to an existing customer need. They now understand the price vs. cost argument, and they start to sell on value. As a result, they are dealing with management, and now they drive a more value-based buying behavior. Level 3 selling is all about Consultative Selling, this requires a completely different approach. It means being Customer-focused (not product or solution-focused). Here the salesperson is looking to help the customer solve their business problems. They articulate the business value of their solutions in the customer’s terms. They will be dealing with Executives, and as a result will drive a more strategic, long-term buying behavior in which they also earn customer loyalty and win repeat business. Finally, Level 4 selling is what we call Partnership Selling. The sales professional is now completely Partnership focused. Here they help their customer identify and solve real business issues. They are seen as a Trusted advisor, helping their customer with their customers and their competition. Salespeople at Level 4 partner with customer executives as an equal, in a long-term business partnership focused on win-win and mutually beneficial outcomes.
All salespeople start as Level 1 salespeople, most stay there, some progress to Level 2. Very few salespeople and sales organizations are able to progress to Level 3 and even fewer to Level 4. Progression from Level 1 to Level 2 can come through experience. Further progression beyond that requires focus, change and external help and coaching. Our Sales Growth program will help you and your sales team to achieve faster growth and more profitable sales by developing a solid Consultative Selling process as the foundation for becoming effective Level 3 and Level 4 salespeople.
Current Position
Our Sales Growth program is based on proven processes developed and improved over more than 30 years through working with companies worl