Principals of Sales Mastery

Sales Mastery is a comprehensive, three day training program that teaches the latest paradigms of consultative selling. It is designed to increase sales effectiveness, increase sales efficiency and to give your organization a customized sales process. Sales Mastery is a proven program for changing selling behaviors and getting results. 

1. Social Styles

This module teaches salespeople how to accommodate the preferences of others. This helps them to better connect and communicate with prospects. It teaches salespeople “how to sell” more effectively to each social style. 

  • How to Identify Social Styles
  • Understanding Preferences of Each Style
  • Styles Under Stress – Backup Behavior
  • Flexing to each Style
  • Style Behaviors that Limit Sales Effectiveness
  • How to Sell to Each Style

It is sad to lose a sale because your social style is in your way.

2. Listening Beyond Hearing

Listening is the most important skill in consultative selling, customer service, management and interpersonal effectiveness. Many salespeople have poor listening skills which impairs their ability to conduct a proper needs assessment. Becoming a better listener is paramount to increasing sales effectiveness.  

  • Three Communication Climates
  • How to Validate the Opinion of Others - Acceptance
  • Four Levels of Listening
  • Barriers to Listening

Prospects don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.  

3. Needs Assessment

The average salesperson doesn’t know how to conduct a proper and thorough “needs assessment.” Because of this, they don’t get enough information to formulate a customized solution to the prospect’s problems. Salespeople are taught a questioning methodology that allows them to identify, understand and quantify prospect needs and business problems. The questions are simple and functional and are usable immediately.

  • A Toolbox of Questions
  • Qualifying the Prospect
  • The Paradigm Questioning Model
  • Getting a Value Proposition & Price Justification
  • Positioning your Differentiators with Crowbar Questions
  • Differentiating Yourself with Pillars of Strength

Conduct a fact finding meeting without talking about your product and the prospect will tell you things they shouldn’t tell their lawyer!

4. Presenting Solutions

Participants will learn how to present their product as a solution to prospect needs and business problems. They will learn how to customize benefit statements as they relate to information gathered in the needs assessment. This provides a “value proposition” to the prospect. Long winded product pitches are boring, outdated and ineffective. 

  • The Paradigm Presentation Model
  • How to Customize Benefits
  • Getting Feedback with Questions
  • Rules for Powerful Presentations
  • Creating a Customized "Leave Behind"
  • Concluding the Presentation with a "Pillar Summary"

Customized presentations provide value and eliminate price objections!

5. Getting Commitment

Traditional trial closes are outdated and ineffective in consultative selling. Salespeople will learn how to get an incremental commitment at every customer contact throughout the selling process. This moves the sale forward to the next level of commitment.

  • Research Findings on Closing Techniques
  • Getting Commitment – Small Sales versus Large Sales
  • Using Incremental Commitment Questions to Advance the Sale

If you don’t move the sale forward at every customer contact, it tends to go sideways!

6. Resolving Objections

Participants will learn a simple model for resolving objections. All objections have a hidden agenda. Some objections are stated in the form of “loaded questions”. Resolving objections requires awareness, acceptance, questions and high level listening skills. Getting defensive is a poor response to objections. 

  • Using the Climate of Acceptance
  • Categories of Objections
  • Loaded Questions
  • What Causes Objections
  • Resolving Objections – A Model

Unresolved objections and answering loaded questions can kill a sale!


"I originally met Al Patey over 15 years ago in his Sales Mastery Program.  My average sales number was about 125% of my annual quota. One year after the training with Al I was able to achieve 202%!  The only changes I made were to incorporate Sales Mastery into my daily work. The ROI is a no-brainer!'

Lisa Quast, President, Career Woman, Inc. 
Former EVP and GM, Philips Healthcare, Bothell, WA