No offense but, there is no such thing as an outdated sales course.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.
