Case Study
“How can we help our sales teams sell complex
solutions with confidence and clarity?”
What They Needed
VMware are a global leader in virtualisation and cloud infrastructure, supporting more than five hundred thousand customers worldwide. Their solutions are wide ranging, technically advanced and often sold as part of a broader transformation conversation with clients. To succeed, their sales teams needed a stronger and more consistent way of uncovering client needs and positioning value.
They identified the need to:
- Strengthen consultative selling skills so salespeople could uncover thorough background, needs and goals
- Improve fact finding conversations to better understand client environments and priorities
- Build stronger value conversations rather than defaulting to price comparisons
- Match prospect needs to solutions clearly across complex cloud and virtualisation offerings
- Create a consistent approach for selling solution based products across a varied customer base
In short: How do we help our sales teams confidently uncover needs and present complex solutions in a way that resonates with every client?
What We Did
Using a structured design process, we created an advanced selling skills programme focused entirely on consultative conversations and solution based selling.
The workshops concentrated on helping the sales teams draw out detailed information from prospects so they could build a complete picture of needs, wants and challenges. Once clarity was established, the training shifted towards positioning solutions based on value, impact and business benefit rather than price comparison.
Supported by:
- Advanced questioning techniques designed to uncover deeper client needs
- Practical skills activities reflecting real customer scenarios and solution based conversations
- Value building frameworks to move discussions away from cost and towards business outcomes
- Solution mapping exercises to align VMware capabilities with client goals
- Case study driven learning to embed consultative behaviours through realistic challenges
The programme was designed to give sales teams the skills and confidence to conduct thorough discovery and present solution based value with clarity and impact.
The Difference It Made
Quality of programme design
Quality of programme delivery
Confidence in consultative conversations
Ability to build value
Capability in solution mapping
The programme received strong feedback from participants across the sales teams, with clear improvements in confidence, capability and the way they engaged prospects.
- Quality of programme design: 3.9 out of 4 – seen as practical, relevant and directly aligned to real client conversations
- Quality of programme delivery: 9.6 out of 10 – facilitators were praised for being engaging, knowledgeable and highly relatable
- Confidence in consultative conversations: 89% uplift – reflected in deeper fact finding and clearer questioning
- Ability to build value: 83% uplift – resulting in fewer price led discussions and more benefit led conversations
- Capability in solution mapping: 78% uplift – seen in stronger alignment between client needs and VMware offerings
The training helped VMware’s sales teams adopt a more confident, consultative and value led approach, leading to stronger solution conversations and better commercial outcomes.
