Hello,

I am a Sales Rep at a Fortune 500 Company. 

I am looking to take a course on Financial Selling Skills and
Consultative Selling techniques.I sell IT Outsourcing Services.

I would like a researcher to locate a class for me. The course can be
anywhere in the US, but it must be face to face. They can come to our
company or we can go to them.

THE COURSE SHOULD ADDRESS: 
Learning how to gather key information from annual reports, performing
ROI's, Leasing, anything relating to selling IT Outsourcing services,
etc...or any type
of financial and consultative selling skills.


A good answer to my question will provide information not only on
courses available but on the details behind what you learn in the
class, who the instructors are, company background, what companies
have attended, costs, and schedules.


FINAL NOTE: 
There use to be a company called Executive Conversations that did
something like what I am looking for, but I can't seem to find them.
Including their info in your answer would be excellent.

Hi Sellinggeek,

I believe I have located The Executive Conversation for you -- I'm
glad you mentioned it, because it seems to be the only course of its
type!
Here's a document on it: 
http://www.conversation.com

A more comprehensive description can be found at:
http://www.maritzlearning.com/pdf/The_Executive_Conversation.pdf

The Executive Conversation is a partner in a group called Maritz
Learning, based in Fenton, MO. Their website
(http://www.maritzlearning.com/training.htm) states that their
training courses consist of selling skills, business skills and
communication for executives.

Maritz has a list of their client companies available on their website
- they're too numerous to reproduce here, but they include such
high-profile names as Toyota Financial Services, Anheuser-Busch and
Solutia, to name just a few.
(http://www.maritzlearning.com/clients.htm)

You may be particularly interested in a program called the Management
Summit (http://www.conversation.com/programs/management.htm) which
seems to address the very concerns you mentioned in your question
above.


As for who teaches the class, you can take a look at this list of
executive leaders: "http://www.conversation.com/executives/leaders.htm".

There does not appear to be a set schedule; from browsing the Maritz
and Executive Conversation sites both extensively, I have concluded
that the best way to arrange a training session is to contact the
company at http://www.maritzlearning.com/contactus.asp or by email at
http://www.conversation.com/about_tec/contact.htm.

I hope this is helpful! 

My search strategy was simply to search "executive conversation" in
Google -- some distance down the list I found the Maritz PDF document
on The Executive Conversation. Then, I truncated that URL to find out
more about Maritz Learning, and from their site browsed back to TEC,
which is one of their business partners.

Cheers
Libronaut-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by sellinggeek-ga on 12 Jun 2002 15:37 PDT

Hi,

Thanks! Did you really only find one company...nothing else out there?

---

Clarification of Answer by libronaut-ga on 12 Jun 2002 21:40 PDT

Hi again,

I can't say with authority that it is the *only* one of its kind.
However, after some further looking, it is the only one I can find
that has the particular combination of topics you seem to desire in a
single course. While there are plenty of courses on salesmanship,
financial acumen or other aspects of business, there are few like TEC
which combine all of these.

If you are more interested in single-topic or more narrowly-focused
seminars, you may find some of the following section of the Open
Directory Project (it's like the Google directory) interesting:

http://dmoz.org/Business/Marketing/Salesmanship/

Some highlighted sites include:

http://www.anitasirianni.com/ -- Anita Sirianni is a professional
sales coach, and this site provides a lot of promotional information -
she has a variety of products and seminars that she produces, all
focusing on (you guessed it) sales.

http://www.fortune-group.com/Leader_Mgmt/index.html
The Fortune Group has a number of separate seminars (or 'systems')
focusing on management skills, sales, etc. Each seems to have a pretty
narrow (though deep) focus.

http://www.clientcenteredselling.com/
Dayton Associates presents seminars on selling in IT, and have an
upcoming seminar on "Client-centered selling" on the 17th and 18th of
July in Santa Clara, CA.

All of the above sites have sections detailing their clients, giving
testimonials, and information about the seminar leaders, as well as
more in-depth information about the content of the seminar.

I can't personally vouch for any of these companies, but they are
selected for inclusion in the Open Directory Project by an expert
editor, and their sites feature the aforementioned testimonials.

Different companies are featured in
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Marketing/Consulting/Sales/

In summary, from continuing exploration, I have not found a firm that
offers the same topical combination and breadth as The Executive
Conversation. However, if you are willing to consider separate
seminars for different topics, there are a number of other choices
available.

I hope that my clarification has given you a better sense of what your
options are, and how you might go about exploring them further.

Libronaut

You should also consider looking at a company called Behavioral
Sciences ( http://www.bsrpinc.com/ ).  I worked at a company that used
their services and they are fantastic.  It's not 100% what you're
looking for, but it may be helpful.