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WHAT IS TARGET ACCOUNT SELLING (TAS)?

The TAS Group’s Target Account Selling® (TAS®) methodology has been developed over a 20-year history, and is the world’s leading sales methodology for organizations and enterprises with demanding selling processes and sales cycles. In use by more than 650,000 sales professionals worldwide, TAS continues to be improved by The TAS Group, and benefits from feedback provided by some of the world’s most admired selling organizations. TAS provides customers with a structured, repeatable methodology that enables sales organizations to: Improve bid-to-win ratios Shorten selling cycles Minimize discounts and negotiated concessions Establish clear, unique business value with customers Reduce selling costs through more efficient resource allocation Increase sales per employee Build successful sales organizations quickly by getting new employees more productive sooner Decrease risk of unprofitable, resource-intensive contracts Enhance account control and forecast accuracy Eliminate departmental barriers with a common sales language

TARGET ACCOUNT SELLING LEARNING

Delivered through The TAS Group’s Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation Platform, the TAS Methodology breaks opportunities down into their key components, and educates and sustains sales people on how to best evaluate, progress and win deals. This creates a standard, repeatable, measureable framework for working opportunities, and allows management to focus on coaching rather than inspecting. Specifically, the TAS Methodology addresses the following areas of an opportunity: Assess the Opportunity: an objective process that reveals critical customer, business and competitive information, and drives an informed decision to compete. Set the Competitive Strategy: a framework for determining the most effective approach to winning the customer’s business. Identify the Key Players: a method to identify the roles and status of people who affect or will be affected by customer buying decisions. Define the Relationship Strategy: a process to align with influential decision-makers in the buying organization who can help you win the sales opportunity. Turn Ideas into Actions: an approach to identify specific tactics needed to win the opportunity and the resources required to support each task. Test and Improve the Plan: a structured process that analyzes Opportunity Plans and refines them to the highest possible quality for implementation in the field.

TARGET ACCOUNT SELLING® (TAS®) METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW

TAS CONCEPTS

1. Introduction Objective: Working proactively and strategically rather than reactively and tactically Summary: Overview of the Target Account Selling process. Explore the need to establish control (work strategically) in an account and the risks of operating in react mode. Learn to characterize levels of sales proficiency, draw distinctions between tactical, strategic, and competitive behavior, and establish a desired level of sales proficiency. Outcome: Understanding how controlling the sales opportunity can help win sales campaigns

2. Opportunity Assessment Objective: Apply standard, robust criteria to assess an opportunity Summary: Learn the consequences of inadequate qualification. Learn to distinguish between product-focused, vendor-oriented qualification from a more complete business-oriented approach. An alternative approach to assessing sales opportunities by embracing strategic, competitive, and political issues. The complete Opportunity Assessment process consisting of 20 criteria and applying each criterion to an active sales campaign. Outcome: Comprehensive assessment of the live sales opportunity

3. Strategy Objective: Select the best sales strategy given your competitive position Summary: Learn the critical difference between a product strategy and a competitive sales strategy. The two classes of sales strategies: Attack and Position. Attack strategies are used to actively compete for pending business and necessitate that a compelling event can be identified for the specific sales opportunity. Position strategies are used to establish a base for competing in future opportunities or current opportunities in which a compelling event cannot be identified. Outcome: Selection of a relevant sales strategy given the participant’s opportunity position

4. Politics Objective: Analyze and map the organization to identify the formal vs. informal political structure Summary: Learn how to identify the key players within the customer organization who affect or are affected by the buying decision. Learn to differentiate the informal political structure from the formal organizational structure using a unique mapping system. Consider a number of important factors, including: influence, status (with sales rep), coverage, adaptability to change, and buying roles. Outcome: Organization map of the customer’s formal and informal organization

5. Alignment Objective: Analyze influence and develop relevant relationship strategies Summary: Learn how to develop relationship strategies to align with key players by analyzing how influence works in an organization. Learn to identify influential players using four major factors: business value, track record, partisans and allies, and orientation to organizational philosophy and policy. Learn to apply relationship strategies to best leverage their assets and limit their liabilities. Strategies include leveraging, motivating, and neutralizing. Outcome: The development of relationship strategies for key people in the customer organization who can influence the buying decision

6. Planning Objective: Align strategy and tactics and drive ideas to action Summary: Learn how to create specific tactics to win sales campaigns. Learn to develop comprehensive tactics that move the plan forward and help members of the sales team understand exactly what they need to do to win. A model for tactical planning that moves the process from ideas to action. Emphasis is placed on clarity, responsibility and accountability. Outcome: Consolidated set of tactics that focus on winning the sales opportunity

7. Testing Objective: Test and improve the opportunity plan using a highly effective, structured process Summary: Use a structured process to review, test and improve the Opportunity Plans they have developed over the preceding two days. Use the numerous concepts taught and developed during the program, as well as own sales experience, to test and improve the Opportunity Plans created by each of the sales teams. Outcome: Fully tested and improved Opportunity Plan

8. Implementation Objective: Identify barriers and enablers to the effective implementation of TAS Summary: The implementation of TAS in the field. Discussion of implementation challenges and desired outcomes. Brainstorm implementation of own ideas. Outcome: Additional implementation