Learning Without Scars provides comprehensive online learning programs for professionals starting with an individualized skills assessment. These assessments allow us to then create a personalized employee development program. From their assessed skills, the employee is asked to select from classes designed for their skill level, thus allowing them to address the gaps in their knowledge. Employees can move through four categories of progress: Developing, Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced.

LWS: Selling Market Strategy WDC (ENG)

The only way to position your labor business is to provide customers with something they value.  The fundamental principles of customer value are to offer something the customer wants and needs and to provide that offering better than your competition can.

This class provides methods and a road map to follow in developing a strategy. We identify three key strategies for enhancing customer value. Companies focus on being: Better – through the provision of superior quality labor and service. Faster – sensing and meeting changing customer requirements more quickly than others. Closer – creating durable linkages and even partnership with channel members and customers.

This program takes you more deeply into operational excellence offers customers good pricing as well as convenience and reliability. Then we examine labor leadership which is the result of superior product performance. Finally, customer intimacy which utilizes “micro” marketing techniques. These strategies for providing customer value indicate the importance of the marketing focus in overall strategic planning. Customer value offers a way to gain strategic advantage over competitors and to differentiate the company’s products or services.

Communications is the critical element to successful implementation of a strategy for the parts business. The final emphasis of this class is to ensure that the strategy is effectively communicated to all employees so that they will be committed to executing the strategy.

LWS: Selling Presentation WDC (ENG)

The second part of the “becoming a professional salesman” series continues from the first part. All of the various steps in selling are discussed in this webinar, which is the second of two parts. This part deals with the discussions with the customer during the selling process: explaining the benefits, meeting the objections, and closing the sale. This requires that a lot of skills be present. This is where the salesman earns his money by proving to the customer that what he is selling is what the customer wants and needs. A good salesman does not sell anything – the customer buys from them.

Understanding the importance of product knowledge, the features and benefits of all the products and services at hand, and being able to deal with any objections that might come back from the customer are the core of the sales process. The final result is a sale, yet closing the sale is not as straightforward as it seems.

This second part of professional selling covers the final elements necessary to obtain the business. Without obtaining the business, the benefits of having professional salesmen covering the marketplace are lost.

LWS: Selling Balanced Scorecard WDC (ENG)

In the service business we communicate with the marketplace in a variety of methods. We deal with various systems, manually and technologically. We have a responsibility to serve and retain customers while at the same time we have to make money for the business. This is a complicated business.

To assist us in managing the business and help us implement our company strategy we use a business tool that is called the “Balanced Scorecard.” The Balanced Scorecard was developed in the 1990s, designed for use in the planning and implementation of a company’s strategy. The scorecard looks at your business from four directions; finance, internal, innovation and customer. From this vantage point the company can develop a strategy as part of their operating plan.  These plans are meant to help a company achieve its goals.  If a plan cannot be agreed upon and effectively executed, a business cannot effectively reach its goals.

In this class, you will learn the ins and outs of this valuable tool, and the costs we pay in our business when we fail to execute our plans for success in our market.

LWS: Selling Preparation WDC (ENG)

Everyone everywhere sells. That is a truth that is little understood. We sell ideas at work and we sell manners at home. There are many things that we sell over the course of our lives. Sales personnel sell for a living, and the skills that they have as individuals are enhanced when they know the proper tools and methods involved in being a professional salesman.

All of the various steps in selling are discussed in this program which is the first of two parts. This part deals with the set-up of the selling process: the research, the objectives, and the questions that need to be asked. There is a lot of work that goes into being a professional salesman and it starts with research. This is not dramatic or exciting work, but it is necessary. What the research needs to cover is discussed in detail. With each and every customer there needs to be objectives. These goals and objectives will take on many forms: from calls to parts business, to service business, to profitability. Finally, in selling everyone knows about the “talking” aspect of selling but more important is the “listening” part of it. In order to get the customer talking, the professional salesman must know what type of question to ask and how to ask it.

Selling is much more a science than an art and this first part covers the first three elements necessary in becoming a professional salesman.

LWS: Selling Instore Merchandising WDC (ENG)

The days of your customers walking into your business have long since passed. This is truly a shame. Some thirty to forty years ago, we taught our customers that our inventory management meant that those parts that the customer wanted would not all be available when they came to our store. So they started to use the telephone and we didn’t see the customer in our store very much at all.

Yet it still continues to be true that you have an opportunity to create an interesting and successful retail store. This is the first step in becoming a retail operation. From Harley-Davidson to Ski-doo to Artic Cat, there are specialty suppliers that have made merchandising an art form. We will look into the successes in other Industries and how we can learn from them. The layout of your merchandising area, as well as the methods to keep it fresh and appealing, will go a long way to determining your success. All of this and much more will be covered in this content rich class.

Others dealerships and other Industries have turned this into a customer convenience and money making proposition. This is much more than just setting up shelves and displays. They have made the store a pleasing environment for both employees and customers. Learn the ins and outs of successful In-Store Merchandising with this comprehensive program.

LWS: Selling Campaigns and Promotions WDC (ENG)

A new reality continues apace. Everyone by now has been affected by “telemarketing” and I trust your tele-selling life has had a successful start. But, even with the sales aspect of the job, it is hard to hold onto a performance edge: to stay motivated and excited. The job, over time, gets to be too much of a routine.

We need to generate excitement and energy in the department. We need to operate with regular campaigns and promotions. Something special needs to be going on all the time. To do this, we need to inject campaigns and promotion planning into our sales forecasts and annual budget plans. Campaigns and promotions have to become an integral part of the life in a parts business.

We provide a structure to the campaign and promotion activities with the use of a Promotion Planning Tree (PPT). The PPT provides a road map of activities, and a check list, to ensure that we get everything right. It allows everyone to be involved in the development of the campaigns and promotions so that there is understanding of what it is we are aiming to do. It allows vigorous debate in the development of the campaigns and promotions so that everyone is involved in the programs. It brings back the excitement to the job.

LWS: Selling Market Capture WDC (ENG)

The parts and service businesses within the construction equipment Industries has never had a precise method to calculate the share of the parts market for a specific brand. To some degree this has allowed the parts business to operate without a critical performance measure being in place.

This program married the market potential, that we cover in another class, with the actual sales for a dealership for a specific brand. The market potential model allows a dealer to calculate the potential consumption of parts on specific machines. That, together with the actual parts sales, allows a calculation to be done arithmetically that determines the percentage of a customer business obtained by a dealer.

This class provides a detailed methodology to calculate the share of the market the dealer obtains. This is the market capture rate that the dealer obtains in the parts business. Ideally, we would be able to perform this calculation by machine model. Unfortunately, we do not get the model and serial number for each parts sale.

Similarly, we touch on the “mean time to failure (MTF)” statistics provided by the OEM’s for their products. With territory potential, market capture we can drive market coverage methods which with the MTF the sales force can be targeting customer needs in a timely manner. This program covers all the details and methods required to perform the calculations required to measure market capture.

LWS: Selling Time Management WDC (ENG)

Time is one of the many elements of our lives that we deal with every day. It is one of those elements, however, that does not change.  We do not have the ability to add more time to a day. As a result of that fact it is important that we use all of the time that we have as effectively and as efficiently as possible.

Rarely do we accomplish that. We do things over and over again, we defer conclusions and decisions, we get interrupted with unrelated issues, we have to deal with meetings and the internet and the telephone. There is a lot to the use of your time.

From your desk, to your email and telephone you will find thirty powerful methods to better use your time. This is not about “efficiently” it is about being more “effective.”

This program will introduce you to different styles of work and a series of steps that you can consider to more effectively manage your time. At the conclusion of the course you will have been exposed to a wide range of options for you to consider that will assist you in managing your time more effectively and efficiently.  Don’t miss out on this powerful class.

LWS: Selling Overcoming Objections WDC (ENG)

The sales process is complicated. With professional selling, we know the methods and the processes. We have an assigned sales territory, and we are responsible for market penetration and market share. But all of that is put in jeopardy if the salesman does not know how to handle the objections that the customer might present.

This is an element of the presentation class. However, because of the importance of overcoming objections, we are going to deal with them exclusively in this program. How these objections are handled can make the difference between a sales success and a failure. This program deals with the methods to employ: the “how to” of overcoming objections. In the sales process, typically you are looking for an order, or at least a positive outcome of the sales call. In order to achieve that outcome it has to be understood that the customer has to learn about what it is that you are selling. In many cases, an objection is simply an indication that the customer does not have enough information yet to make an informed decision.

From keeping your cool, to making the objection specific, and providing compensating factors, everything about the “how to” overcome an objection is exposed. You can’t afford to run the risk of losing a sale by missing this important program.

LWS: Selling Buyer’s Needs WDC (ENG)

A new reality continues in its approach.  By now everyone has been affected by “telemarketing,” your tele-selling future has gotten off to a successful start, and you have also learned how to handle the objections from the customers. You know all of the mechanics of selling. Now we need to make it easier for you by exposing the “buyer’s needs.”

The needs that the customer has in this transaction can stem from “ego satisfaction,” in other words knowing that they are making the right choice, to feeling that they are treated with respect. The sales person has to be sensitive to all of these various attributes and reasons which can underlie the buyer’s needs. But your customers also need your expertise and knowledge and experience. You are in a difficult position. In order to be able to satisfy the needs of the customer, you have to continue to keep yourself current on the product and Industry trends and competition. There is a lot to do.

This class deals with survey information obtained from the customers. If they are given a chance, customers will tell us what they need and want, and we then have to be in a position to deliver it.