Over the past year the Gronstedt Group has developed several customized "sales simulators" for clients. These scenario-based roleplays let field reps get their hands dirty by simulating the process of selling actual products and services to fictitious clients, and they employ their company's own sales methodology to do so. These fictional cases are closely constructed around the client's actual customers and markets. Extensive foreground research allows developers to tailor these applications to specific problems that the company's sales reps encounter in the field.

By playing these applied learning games, sales execs can learn how to better accomplish any number of company-defined objectives, including:

	selling higher up the procurement chain
	positioning offerings as strategic solutions instead of as discrete products
	addressing the client's business, as opposed to technical, needs

	better understanding product and service offerings
	improving the qualifying process
	selling with strategic partners
	learning or refreshing sales methodologies
	selling into vertical markets
	understanding the process from the customer's point of view
	integrating sales with other business functions, including marketing, brand, corporate communications, etc.

While many e-learning companies in the market approach clients with pseudo-customized solutions - essentially making small changes to canned, off-the-shelf packages and promoting them as "customized" - the fact is that 100% customized solutions are not only highly effective, they're often cheaper than prefabricated, semi-customized training. The sorts of simulations described above are developed from the ground up around a specific company's clients, products and methodologies, as well as the business, technical, market and cultural dynamics unique to any enterprise.

In some cases, companies might even want to cast their own executives as actors in the simulation, a strategy that not only delivers a clear message about leadership's endorsement of the training, but which also makes for a highly entertaining learning experience. It doesn't do much good to save money if the training is less effective, right?

In short, customized simulations provide sales reps with an engaging, just-in-time training experience that delivers unparalleled returns on investment by slashing costs and providing a more effective, on-point learning experience that they can immediately put into play with customers.