Advanced Selling: Consultative Selling Techniques/Behavioral Styles; Hiring & Firing: Things You Need To Know

From the makers of Dealing With Sexual Harassment (reviewed in our April 1993 issue), these two business packages offer very low prices--comparatively speaking--for the subject matter, but suffer from overuse of dramatic skits to deliver information. Advanced Selling is the better of the two. An unnecessarily complex extended skit (involving one company's installation of a computer network) illustrates consultative selling techniques, which differ markedly from the direct sales approach. Here, where a wide array of services are being provided over a considerable period of time, more importance is placed on establishing a good rapport, discovering the client's long-term needs, and presenting flexible recommendations. The second tape continues the skit to examine the behavior styles of four customer types: business-focused, people-focused, task-focused, and social-focused. Overall, the information is good, and will benefit sales reps involved in this type of selling.The other program, Hiring & Firing, uses a rather awkward skit in which a personnel manager and a company CEO discuss steps for creating hiring and firing procedures. On the hiring section, viewers learn about the Equal Employment Opportunity Act as well as related acts, and are shown the problem areas which interviewers must avoid during a hiring interview (questions about marital status, religion, age, children, etc.). In the firing section, viewers are told the 10 "legitimate" reasons for dismissal, and advised on the importance of documentation during all stages of the firing process. Very good information is poorly presented in the tedious and quite unnatural "conversation" approach, and the occasional titled screens carry such obvious misspellings as "obsene," "absense," and "severence," further lowering the professionalism of the program. However, as we said, the actual information is good.Advanced Selling is recommended, especially in light of its low price. Hiring & Firing is an optional purchase. Other titles in the American Business Videos sales and management series include: Building a Successful Business Plan, Asking for the Order & Closing the Sale, and Making Unhappy Customers Love You. (Available from: American Business Videos, 3850 Annapolis Lane, Plymouth, MN 55447; (800) 486-8273.)