The Purpose of the Training
Each employee must extend his/her knowledge of sales techniques and practise them everyday. It is also important to discuss matters and any questions relating to the employee’s specific product area. The target group is our sales persons who work with both specialists and practitioners.

If each sales person gets better at meeting customers/practitioners, each visit will result in an increased sale of products and finally result in an increased business volume.
Our chance of improving the targeting will increase the quality of the calls, which means that we will use our time on the right customers to a larger extent.

Another objective was to maintain the competence in the business and we do so by letting the sales managers complete the training together with sales training – another advantage emerging from this is that the responsibility of each sales consultant being updated lies with the trainer. However, you have to keep in mind that this imposes requirements to the ability of the sales managers as trainers and team leaders.
Moreover we have to stress that this kind of development breeds a team spirit of the persons involved as each individual will get a chance to contribute with new ideas and creativity.


Choice of Supplier
When we were to choose a new sales tool, a number of points were important to us:

    - To maintain the competences of the business.
    - The responsibility of follow-up and training must reside internally.
    - The tools must be adjusted to each product.
    - In an uncomplicated way we must be able to use the tools for individual training.
    - New sales consultants must be integrated in the system quickly and easily.

For the evaluation we picked out 3 different undertakings with different concepts and the choice fell on Sales Partners – because of various reasons which are explained below:

    - The possibility of testing the concept before we bought it
    - DVD as a tool – this makes it possible to keep and develop competence internally
    - We may train whenever we want to and as often as we want
    - We only focus on matters we find interesting
    - All matters relate to our products.
    - The concept is available in 15 languages.
    - More value for money than with the other concepts.

Choice of Training Techniques
We have decided to work in sales groups consisting of 6-10 employees. The meeting was chaired by the sales manager with the sales trainer functioning as support. Each training day began with a discussion of any issues relating to the subject of the day.
Afterwards, we went through the DVD – the complete DVD, from the beginning to the end – and then we concentrated on the questions of the module.

The discussion after the DVD is the absolute most important part as it provides us with a specific analysis of what we do but even better how we should handle the relevant problems. We have chosen to spend one day on discussing every module for the above reason.
Each training occasion comprised 2 days and 2 modules – with follow-up during the next 2 months.
The extent was 4 full days per period of 6 months.

We have applied tests from the manual. They work well if you wish to document the theories – we have decided to complement these with product specific questions.

Our preparations were sent to Sales Partners to be reviewed before the meeting. Moreover, a preliminary meeting between the sales trainers and the chairman was held.
 

Results after 24 Months
The turnover per selected customers has increased and our control in connection with our important customers has improved.

Our way of handling the customers and the discussions has changed from focusing on the unique selling point of the product to focusing on the unique selling need of the customer. Thereby, our chances of adjusting each meeting to the unique customer in front of you are better.
An important result is that our sales consultants appreciate the sales training and consider it a natural part of their personal development. None of them are afraid of failing before the managers anymore. The winner mentality in Orion Pharma has improved and intensified.

Summary
Here in Scandinavia we are very pleased with the concept we have purchased from Sales Partners. We use the concept for training purposes as often as possible. Each new sales consultant learns about the concept as soon as possible.

In general, the sales consultants are very positive as regards the modules even though not everything is relevant in connections with our customers.

The support from Sales Partners and first and foremost Michael Hove has been excellent.

The best signal indicating that we are pleased is that ORION Pharma Global Sales today uses the DVD concept as a standard in connection with the development of sales consultants and sales managers.

Yours faithfully