UC Sales Training and Education

A.   What is the UC Sales Training Program?

The UC Sales Training Program is a comprehensive curriculum for sales professionals who sell Unified Communications solutions. The program is offered by Communication Perspectives through UCStrategies.com. The purpose of the program is to support UC vendors in meeting their UC sales and customer satisfaction goals by enabling the sales professionals who represent them to:

  • clearly explain UC to prospects and customers
  • identify UC sales opportunities, and
  • effectively sell their company's unique UC solutions as business process improvement tools.

The UC Sales Training Program is a modular program that allows you to pick and choose from a broad base of training topics. Each module will be a videotaped class taught by an expert in Unified Communications and will be accessible to licensed users online via the internet from a desktop or laptop computer. Licensed users can also download the modules for offline study using a computer, an ipod, or another device. In addition, the modules will be available in CD format. Each video module will have a downloadable Participant Guide that summarizes its content. Online testing and certificates of course completion will also be available.

B.   What does the program cover?

The curriculum includes these modules.

1.  Introduction to UC for Sales Professionals 

To sell UC solutions effectively, sales professionals need a clear understanding of the basic concepts of Unified Communications, where to find the UC sales opportunities, and the differences between selling a UC solution and selling telecom products. This module covers the basics and lays the foundation for all of the other modules. Topics include:

  1. What is UC?
  2. Why all the buzz about UC?
  3. What are the new communications methods that enable UC?
  4. How business processes work before and after UC
  5. How UC can optimize business processes and deliver value to customers
  6. The major UC applications and opportunities, including both business process applications and personal productivity applications
  7. The UC value proposition
  8. UC application examples
  9. The differences between selling a UC solution and selling traditional telecom products
  1. Going beyond cost savings to business results
  2. Selling beyond the telecom department
  3. Selling changes to business processes
  4. Selling packaged applications
  5. Selling professional services

2.      The Current UC Market

This module provides an expert, concise briefing on the current UC market, using an innovative industry map that can serve as an ongoing framework for tracking industry developments. The module enables sales professionals to see how their company's UC offerings fit into the big picture, who their competitors and potential partners are, and how they can differentiate their offerings. Topics include:

  1. Technology elements in UC solutions
  2. What does the UC market look like today?
  3. Who are the players?
  4. What is each player doing to compete in the UC market?
  5. What are the market trends?
  6. How will customers make their decisions about UC?
  7. How will customers choose their UC suppliers?

3.      Understanding UC Applications and Solutions

Sales representatives can best serve their customers when they know how to do targeted discovery to find UC applications. This module teaches the principles that underlie that skill. It focuses on:

  1. The top 10 communications hot spots for UC applications in business processes
  2. The five major UC application types
  3. Understanding the enterprise value chain
  4. How to use the enterprise value chain to find UC applications
  5. Real customer examples from the value chain to the UC solution
  6. How improvements to the value chain create cost justification and ROI

4.      UC Applications in Vertical Markets (one module for each vertical market)

Patterns are already emerging for the adoption of UC applications in vertical markets. Sales professionals who are focused on specific vertical markets and understand these patterns will be able to streamline the discovery and sales process. The initial curriculum will provide one module for each of these four vertical markets:

  1. Manufacturing
  2. Distribution
  3. Health Care
  4. State and Local Government

Additional modules for other vertical markets will be added later. Each vertical market module will cover these topics:

  1. A value stream view of the business in this vertical
  2. What drives the communications needs in this vertical market
  3. Current trends in this vertical market
  4. Most pressing business problems
  5. What do top managers care about?
  6. Where are the communications hot spots?
  7. The top UC applications in this vertical market
  8. Understanding the solution elements for each UC application: technology, system integrations, and change management
  9. Customer examples of UC applications
  10. Keys to selling UC solutions to this market:
  1. How to discover UC opportunities quickly through targeted discovery
  2. How to propose a UC solution
  3. Value proposition for this market
  4. Cost justification and ROI for this market
  5. Metrics to measure business results

5.      UC Applications in Cross-Market Key Business Functions (one module for each key business function)

Some business functions such as sales, customer service, and enterprise management (finance, HR, IT, etc.) are common to many vertical markets and represent additional UC sales opportunities. This set of modules addresses the UC applications appropriate for those key business functions. The initial curriculum will provide one module for each of these three business functions:

  1. Sales
  2. Customer Service
  3. Enterprise Management

Each module will cover:

  1. Basic business process flows
  2. Business goals for this function
  3. The drivers of communications needs for this business function
  4. Current trends in this business function
  5. Most pressing problems
  6. What do top managers care about?
  7. Most common communications hot spots
  8. Top UC applications for this business function
  9. Understanding the solution elements for each UC application: technology, system integrations, and change management
  10. Customer examples of UC applications
  11. Keys to selling UC solutions to business function managers
  1. How to discover UC opportunities quickly
  2. How to propose a UC solution
  3. Value proposition for this business function
  4. Cost justification and ROI
  5. Metrics to measure business results

6.      How to Sell UC Solutions

Selling Unified Communications solutions differs from selling traditional telecom products or software applications. This module reviews the differences and provides helpful recommendations for navigating the UC solution sale. It covers:

  1. Review: the differences between selling a UC solution and selling traditional telecom products
  2. How to identify prospects for UC
  3. How to qualify prospects for UC
  4. How to explain UC to a prospect
  5. The importance of mapping your company's products to UC solutions and creating an appropriate UC sales message
  6. The value proposition for UC applications
  7. How to differentiate your UC offerings
  8. Selling professional services to support a UC implementation
  1. Definition of professional services
  2. The role of professional services in UC solutions
  3. How to determine what professional services are required for a UC solution
  4. How the professional services business works
  5. Keys to effectively selling professional services
  1. UC cost justification and ROI, with customer examples
  2. How to create a top-notch UC solution proposal
  3. The role of sales in a UC solution implementation plan
  4. How and why to help a hesitant customer get started in UC with applications for personal productivity

C.   How can I use these sales training modules?

The training modules will be available online via the internet and can also be downloaded for offline study. In addition, they will be available in CD format. With these options, you can use the modules for:

  1. Self-paced e-learning
  2. Virtual Classroom E-Learning
    Companies that are designing and developing their own instructor-led internal UC training program may want to reduce the cost of development and add diversity to their instructional design by using some of the modules as virtual classroom sessions with the experts.  

D.   What technology will I need to use the modules?

(coming soon)

E.   Can the program be customized for my company and taught live on site?

Yes. For customers who want on site-training, certified instructors can teach any of the modules live on-site or live via the Internet. Services will be available for customizing the program content.

To help clients enhance the training components of their sales enablement program for UC, Communication Perspectives will offer two consulting services related to the UC Sales Training Program. 

1.  Mapping Your Company's Products to UC Solutions

Any internal UC sales training program ought to include a clear definition of the company's UC offerings and how they map to the top five UC solutions. The objectives of this consulting engagement are to assist the client in: 

  1. Clearly defining their UC offerings
  2. Mapping their product and service offerings to the top five UC Solutions
  3. Determining if and/or what complementary products and services are required for their UC solutions
  4. Developing a unique sales message for their UC offerings. 
     

2.  Planning a UC Training Program for Your Sales Professionals

The objective of this consulting engagement is to assist the client in creating a UC sales training program that has a high probability of success. The consultant will work with the client to address issues such as: 

  1. The importance of executive backing and involvement
  2. Choosing sales representatives for UC sales training
  3. Assessing specific training needs (evaluating competency by assessing knowledge and skills)
  4. Setting training goals and objectives
  5. Examining consistency between training goals and sales compensation and incentive plans
  6. Examining the suitability of sales proposal boilerplates for UC solutions
  7. Choosing course content
  8. Optimizing Instructional design
  9. Deciding on course materials and tools
  10. Choosing training formats 
  11. Identifying performance evaluation metrics
  12. Follow-up reinforcement and field coaching
  13. Ongoing training resources
  14. Marketing and implementing the training program
  15. Communicating training results
  16. Continuously improving training

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