Professional Selling Skills

Sales Training Blog

	#1 -
Houston	Are Xerox Professional Selling Skills materials available for purchase and is this a training program worth pursuing or would you recommend a different program?

#2 -

Frankie

Quote:

Originally Posted by Houston

Are Xerox Professional Selling Skills materials available for purchase and is this a training program worth pursuing or would you recommend a different program?

The course is still available Houston.

#3 -

Houston

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frankie

The course is still available Houston.

3-Days for $1750 looks very reasonable if the program is as good as others have said. I wonder if the material is outdated or if there is a better program to consider.

	#4 -
Gold Calling	No offense but, there is no such thing as an outdated sales course. If the skills taught were excellent 2,000 years ago they apply every bit as well today. The idea that sales skills have changed applies to poor skills training courses, not to well researched professional sales models such as this one or the ones like Dale Carnegie or Earl Nightingale taught 50, 60 and 70 years ago. If you are looking to understand direct marketing and Internet marketing skills then it is not a sales course you want ... If you want to understand prospecting then you need a prospecting course as PSS was a basic sales skills course - what you did when you were sitting in front of the prospect, not how to find the prospect. I was a coach in PSS III in 1983. Took PSS II in 1977 (at 17!). Xerox Learning Systems (XLS) became, I beleive (my memory is vague) ... International Learning Systems (ILS) some time in the late 80's, as Xerox spun the ownership of it off. We bought as copy of PSS III in 1983 and used it as the foundation of our training. In fact I am looking at the case right now (as well as the PSS II case and materials!), happen to have been reviewing the "Background" of the interactive role playing portions and the "Research". I knew it like the back of my hand so I have not looked at it for something like 15 years. I cannot vouch for this company you reference. If they took the PSS course and created their own it may be good or it may not. One thing is certain, they did not have the gigantic sales force to do research with. Other than Huthwaite, Xerox did by far the largest sales meeting research in history! Huthwaite may or may not have done more research. And the reason why I say that is their principals were hired by Xerox initially, so part of what they did was for Xerox (in the U.K.). So, since Xerox had these results too it is impossible to say which company did more. And most of the Corporate guys alive and working when Xerox started PSS are not only retired but dead, that is how long ago it began (in the 60's!). Meaning the history sales research may be lost. If you are not familiar with Huthwaite, they are the folks (or at least one of the founders) who wrote S.P.I.N. Selling. As a side note - just for interest purposes - my dad is one of the few early trained PSS I sales people who is both alive and still working. Maybe the only one! By the way, we are running our own version of PSS ... though we would not use a Copyrighted name. If you have interest you can contact me but I did not post here to advertise, just to give you insight from a man who was a "moderator/coach" of the course.

	#5 -
Gold Calling	It was 1983 it that version 3 was released Houston. 24 years ago - that was when I started training ... It was entitled Need Satisfaction Selling. I simply or basic sales skills course. One that everyone should do every three years or so, about as often as yo are required to update lifesaving or swift water rescue courses. Skills are lost and practiced badly. This is a fact of life.

	#6 -
Jeff Blackwell	Contact me via private message for information on the newest (PSS 5, Circa 2007) Professional Selling Skills(R) program.

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