Intel's Operation Crush. After Intel launched their game-changing X86 family of processors, for six months they lost 9 of 10 design-in opportunities. Having investing over $20 million to promote their new product, and seeing no improvement to their win rates, they hired Liston to teach their sales force how to start winning design-ins with this new and very important product.. Liston taught their 75 sales managers using a modified training that integrated product information into a far more effective sales process. Intel's win rate rose immediately, and with 90 days, achieved a 75% win-rate. Thirty days later, they won the most important computer design-win ever; their processor was selected for IBM's then-new Personal Computer. This campaign, known as "Operation Crush," as in "crush Motorola," is legendary in the semiconductor industry and is described in detail by William Davidow's best seller, "Marketing High Tech." For Intel, product-specific sales skills training made the critical difference. An article about Liston's sales-skills based product training was also featured in Training Magazine. See "Downloads" for a reprint.

Seagate Technology had acquired CDC's disk division resulting in a product lineup that confused the Channel so thoroughly that Channel sales dropped by 65% within 30 days of the merger. Liston was tasked to create a system that would enable inexperience resellers to sell as well as the factory reps, and train them in only 30 minutes, using what became the mostly widely used and aclaimed sales guides in the industry. Once the Channel knew how to use the sales guides, resellerl reps started having positive, authoritative, and high-margin sales experiences -- what every rep really wants most from a sales job. Consistently positive sales experiences, as delivered by Liston's new systematic training, created both growth and Channel loyalty--a lasting market share--without having to "buy" it with the lowest prices or best spiffs. This huge increase in market share, made without "buying" the increase was unprecedented, and has not been repeated. Seagate's Channel share went on to increase 21 points from 33% to 54% in two years, without having the lowest prices. This increase in market share also put 70 of 250 competitors out of business. Once competitors could not sell against Seagate on the basis of price, they could not sell.

NEC Computers had scheduled $10 million of print advertising to kick launch of their new 120-person consultative phone sales team, starting with a series of full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal. However, with the launch date only a month away, their new team's sales training had not worked. After six weeks of intensive training, their reps still could not configure a system, even a basic one. With tens of millions at stake, Roger Liston was contracted to make their sales team effective in determining needs and configuring systems immediately to meet specific needs. NEC's new training, which also integrated product information into their sales process, took 50% less time, delivered the needed knowledge and skills, enabling NEC to launch their new sales division on time. Product training---built into their selling processes -- saved the day for NEC.

Adobe Technologies could not get the Channel to use their carefully designed and highly effective long-term sales contracts. Powerful sales tools, their contracts locked-in a customer's business for up to three years. Adobe had been trying for eight years to get the Channel to use them, but the Channel just did not "get it." After the Liston Group de-mystified how and when to use each one—as well as what was in it for the resellers--the Channel suddenly started using them. Adobe used the Liston-designed training as the centerpiece of their next year's reseller campaign, increasing the Channel's use of long-term contracts by 400% over the previous year. Simplified training that was based on a simple approach; "Door Number 1, Door Number 2, ....their contracts became an easy concept to grasp, spiking their Channel revenues and giving them a record year of profits--profits they soon used to acquire Macromedia.