Stephan Kober

Increase your sales power

with an activating sales training

Stephan Kober

Increase
you your sales force

with an activating sales training

Increase sales and earnings with business customers with strategy, training and enjoyment in B2B sales –

via the right combination of on-site and digital customer contacts (Sources: 1 and 7)

About me

  • Master of Business Administration (University of Surrey)

  • Research topic of my currently running part-time doctorate: “Digital customer communication in B2B sales organizations”.

  • Two decades of B2B sales experience, from field salesperson to executive with nine-figure revenue responsibility

  • Multiple awards as speaker and trainer (Top Speaker Award | Silver Winner European Award for Training, Consulting and Coaching 2015/2016)

  • Lecture and training language: German and English

  • Multiple book author at Springer Gabler Verlag

Your benefit

  • We know how sales training via Hybrid Selling can reduce sales costs and at the same time increase sales and earnings.

  • There is clarity among management and participants about the goals, the path and the means

  • You gain new customers

  • You displace competitors

  • You increase sales efficiency through clear task assignments and a structured approach to customer acquisition and order closings

  • You awaken even more joy in selling through a gripping sales training course

  • Through the successful combination of analog and digital customer communication, you reach your business customers better than the competition and thus increase your sales opportunities

Trainings and event formats

The “face-to-face” training: live, powerful and still an event format that creates high impact. Concrete exercises as well as the creation of sales strategies still succeed very effectively via training and workshops in which people can look each other in the eye.

The “blended learning” format is already standard today and impresses with the combination of the advantages from both worlds: the high interaction and practical content of classroom training and the efficiency and effectiveness of virtual training methods. In contrast to the hybrid, we work here with prefabricated videos that can be worked through regardless of time.

This training variant is new. I conduct a live training with some participants on-site. This training is streamed in real time via video conferencing software, so that other participants are included in the training who are not in the seminar room – but somewhere in the world. Nevertheless, the participants who are not present can be interactively involved in the training, because they see and hear me – and I see and hear them.

What was considered impossible before “Corona” is now common practice among innovative providers of continuing education: training content live and interactively virtually. Even with online seminars lasting several hours, it is possible to keep the interest and motivation on the part of the training participants at a constantly high level from the first to the last minute through clever didactics and methodology within the framework of the training. In this way, the transfer into practice is also successful here.

The virtual training sessions offer a number of other benefits:

  • The sales team is not taken out of the business by the day. Sales losses due to absence are reduced
  • Contents are trained in smaller units, this ensures higher transfer into the practice of the participants
  • Location independence provides further flexibility and cost savings for venues

The Salestraining Programme

With joy, fire and expertise to measurably better results in B2B sales

Both my presentations as a keynote speaker and the courses of the sales training programme, which I developed, revolve around one central point: How do you improve your sales performance in order to always be the No. 1 in the market for the customer? How can the sales department be supported by the right sales training …

  • … better understand the customer’s problems, important issues and needs – including through an open, honest and structured needs analysis?

  • … improve the quality of sales conversations, so that after a successful conversation the customer has the information and impulses that will noticeably help him in his work and he wants to close the sale with your sales representative?

  • … clearly present the benefit & value of the service or product – especially if the price in the offer is higher than that of the competitor 5 ?
  • … combine virtual and on-site communication in such a smart way that customers are positively amazed 6. Effective seminars take away the shyness of the digital communication keyboard and train the confident handling of it.

As a sales trainer, I activate the desire to win in sales in my participants through sales training, sales seminars and accompanying coaching with a methodical approach!

As a sales coach, I also provide one-on-one coaching for salespeople, sales leaders and corporate leaders to develop their professional and interpersonal skills. You will not find standard training courses, “info showers” and seminar events “off the peg” at Team Kober. Each sales coaching or sales training is individually and concretely tailored to the respective situation in the practice of each participant, regardless of whether the event takes place on-site as a face-to-face training or digitally via video conference.

I deliberately avoid the term motivational trainer: how should motivation be trained, what should motivational training be?

A good sala training also offers participants to ask themselves the right questions individually regarding their own lives. By the use of scientifically founded elements from the “positive psychology” it succeeds, far away from senseless Tschakka slogans, to answer important questions for the own life, in order to reduce thereby negative stress in the occupation and to activate more Kraft for the selling job. Mental fitness is one of the prerequisites for exceptional success in sales and distribution, sales leadership must also take care of this issue.
2
 While this area was often dismissed as a “nice-to-have” in the past, it has long been clear to today’s successful salespeople: it is enormously important to deal with questions about what is really important in professional and private life so that every salesperson can motivate themselves.

The training and coaching sessions are supplemented by video conferencing.

In this way, I achieve that a high proportion of the knowledge imparted in the training is implemented in the everyday life of the sales employees and managers. In addition, participants will learn techniques and methods for making winning online presentations in B2B sales in order to convince customers virtually and, of course, to close the deal.3+4

Winning new customers is a joy – when sales staff learn clear, honest and immediately applicable methods.

All seminars are individually tailored to your sales strategy in order to achieve measurable results in a shorter time. The results are always: higher inner drive in the team, the number of deals increases, and with it the competence in sales and thus sales and earnings increase. Increasing sales efficiency ultimately also increases profits, because sales costs decrease in relation to turnover.

Both my presentations as a keynote speaker and the courses of the sales training programme, which I developed, revolve around one central point: How do you improve your sales performance in order to always be the No. 1 in the market for the customer? How can the sales department be supported by the right sales training …

  • … better understand the customer’s problems, important issues and needs – including through an open, honest and structured needs analysis?

  • … improve the quality of sales conversations, so that after a successful conversation the customer has the information and impulses that will noticeably help him in his work and he wants to close the sale with your sales representative?

  • … clearly present the benefit & value of the service or product – especially if the price in the offer is higher than that of the competitor 5 ?
  • … combine virtual and on-site communication in such a smart way that customers are positively amazed 6. Effective seminars take away the shyness of the digital communication keyboard and train the confident handling of it.

As a sales trainer, I activate the desire to win in sales in my participants through sales training, sales seminars and accompanying coaching with a methodical approach!

As a sales coach, I also provide one-on-one coaching for salespeople, sales leaders and corporate leaders to develop their professional and interpersonal skills. You will not find standard training courses, “info showers” and seminar events “off the peg” at Team Kober. Each sales coaching or sales training is individually and concretely tailored to the respective situation in the practice of each participant, regardless of whether the event takes place on-site as a face-to-face training or digitally via video conference.

I deliberately avoid the term motivational trainer: how should motivation be trained, what should motivational training be?

A good sala training also offers participants to ask themselves the right questions individually regarding their own lives. By the use of scientifically founded elements from the “positive psychology” it succeeds, far away from senseless Tschakka slogans, to answer important questions for the own life, in order to reduce thereby negative stress in the occupation and to activate more Kraft for the selling job. Mental fitness is one of the prerequisites for exceptional success in sales and distribution, sales leadership must also take care of this issue.
2
 While this area was often dismissed as a “nice-to-have” in the past, it has long been clear to today’s successful salespeople: it is enormously important to deal with questions about what is really important in professional and private life so that every salesperson can motivate themselves.

The training and coaching sessions are supplemented by video conferencing.

In this way, I achieve that a high proportion of the knowledge imparted in the training is implemented in the everyday life of the sales employees and managers. In addition, participants will learn techniques and methods for making winning online presentations in B2B sales in order to convince customers virtually and, of course, to close the deal.3+4

Winning new customers is a joy – when sales staff learn clear, honest and immediately applicable methods.

All seminars are individually tailored to your sales strategy in order to achieve measurable results in a shorter time. The results are always: higher inner drive in the team, the number of deals increases, and with it the competence in sales and thus sales and earnings increase. Increasing sales efficiency ultimately also increases profits, because sales costs decrease in relation to turnover.

1 Bharadwaj, N., & Shipley, G. M. (2020). Salesperson communication effectiveness in a digital sales interaction. Industrial Marketing Management, 90, 106-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.07.002
2 Bolander, W., Chaker, N. N., Pappas, A., & Bradbury, D. R. (2021). Operationalizing salesperson performance with secondary data: Aligning practice, scholarship, and theory. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00752-0
3 Cartwright, S., Davies, I., & Archer-Brown, C. (2021). Managing relationships on social media in business-to-business organizations.Journal of Business Research, 125, 120-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.028
4 Fraccastoro, S., Gabrielsson, M., & Pullins, E. B. (2021). The integrated use of social media, digital, and traditional communication tools in the B2B sales process of international SMEs. International Business Review, 30(4), 101776. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2020.101776
5 Klarmann, M., & Wouters, M. (2022). Benefits, discounts, features, and value as communication foci in selling: Exploring concepts, drivers, and outcomes. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2022.2082451
6 Guenzi, P., & Habel, J. (2020). Mastering the Digital Transformation of Sales. California Management Review, 62(4), 57-85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008125620931857
7 Koponen, J. (2019). Sales communication competence in international B2B solution selling. Industrial Marketing Management, 15.

Customer testimonials

“Coaches like you want them to be!!!
In my life, I’ve had the privilege of taking some training related to customer acquisition, how to deal with customers, how to be self-reflective, and what are the most important topics in a conversation.”

“What I have been able to experience here has surpassed anything that has gone before.
“>Mr. Kober is responsive to the people, activates to participate and reassures with highly interesting training methods that everyone has also understood everything.

,,Mr. Kober, please activate more and more people!”

“Stephan Kober has internalized sales and his trainings are an asset to anyone who is in contact with people.”

“If you get two participants to sit in the car for 500km as early as 06:30 in the morning just to not miss any (online!) seminar unit, probably everything is said. Top content mix, excellent practical relevance.”

“Every sales manager who wants to move his team forward in terms of motivation, quality and results should let Stephan Kober activate him.”

“It pulls you along and activates you in the truest sense of the word. He and his team use a modular program to teach proven and new digital tools for high-quality, success-oriented sales work. The combination of tools is ideal.

The methodology is characterized by high interaction. Through active task setting
the transfer of knowledge is ensured in the long term.

Choosing this training from “Kober Activates” is very valuable for our company.”

“Plain speaking in sales means dispensing with truisms such as “the customer is our focus.” The focus is on people? That’s what the cannibals were thinking!”

  • Stephan Kober

“Stephan Kober brings everything the customer expects from an excellent sales trainer: his own sales experience from practice, crystal-clear analysis, convincing didactics and stirring rhetoric: highly recommended!”

What does such a training look like

Clear strategyand vision

  • We develop a clear sales strategy with you and your team – without PowerPoint!

  • The clear picture is designed: Where will your sales and your company stand successfully in five years?

  • Interactive workshop format to generate new ideas

  • You will receive a clear implementation plan on how to sell products and services more successfully to the right customers

  • Internal communication is clear, fresh and unambiguous

Activatethrough the story

  • The history of the company is interesting, but activates new energy for action in sales only to a very limited extent

  • Together with the participants we develop the convincing future story for your sales and your company

  • Representation in a newspaper article “from the successful future”.

  • Presentation form generates curiosity, article is posted in the company so that it is clear to everyone what the “journey” of the company looks like

Power from training

  • To build competencies, employees and management train in the seminar honest sales techniques

  • Seminar contents are aligned with the sales strategy in order to implement the measures in the company and, above all, with the customer

  • No standard sales training or long-winded theory days, but training, tips and exercises on concrete customer situations.

  • Content is additionally transferred into practice through online video calls

Organisation

  • The “O” stands for the organization within the company. Sales will only proceed efficiently if the internal processes are geared to one goal: Serving the customer order in the best possible way, quickly and professionally, in line with the target group.

  • This means further building up sales competencies and at the same time putting the “in-house sales organization” to the test so that quotations and orders are processed efficiently and effectively.

Contents of the sales training

  • Smart combination of face-to-face and digital customer visits
  • Convince decision makers
  • Digital customer communication
  • Smart questioning techniques
  • Calculate customer benefits and present them in a gripping way
  • Acquiring new customers – classic and digital
  • Know and be able to use negotiation techniques
  • Enforce higher prices
  • Higher sales activity and efficiency
  • Self-motivation: Fire and flame for hybrid sales!

Case studies

Industry: Mechanical engineering

  • Task:

Increase in new customer sales in the machine class up to 40 tons. Specifically, the task was to profitably increase market share through new customer acquisition, competitive displacement and value-added argumentation. This was done in an extremely competitive market environment with high market transparency and machines with highly comparable specifications. The development of the sales team in the area of “online and on-site communication” with B2B customers was the main focus.

  • Result:

Number of new customer contacts multiplied in 6 months, volume of offers to new customers increased by a high six-figure figure, accompanied by a significant increase in the quotation-to-order completion rate. The work in sales became more successful as a result of the training. The employees as well as the leadership and management of the company achieve goals faster – without standardized coaching, but with sales trainers who individually address the participants and their sales areas.

KOBcast – the podcast for salespeople and their bosses who want to use hybrid selling in business sales to sell more at higher prices to stunned customers.

Awards

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