Communication
Peter Drucker once said "Most people need to feel that they are here for a purpose, and unless an organisation can connect to this need, it won't be successful over time."
We encourage clients to take this thought to it's logical conclusion when embarking on a new learning journey with our support. A lot of thought, hard work, time and money goes in to the preparation of learning and development initiatives. All too frequently, insufficient attention is actually paid to the communication to the target audience of such programmes. A memo or an email really doesn't do it justice when it comes to conveying the significance of learning initiatives. Let alone generating demand and enthusiasm. Participants of workshops that are self-selecting for options to meet their development needs, and place a value on training, get much more from their learning than those who are simply "told to come along".
Ongoing communication support to engage, embed and enthuse high performers is an additional area of strength. Our particular focus is in providing clarity around what we refer to as the "Big Picture".
Sales Playbook Development
What is a Sales Playbook?
A Sales Playbook, is like a sports playbook, involving a compilation of the strategies, tactics, tools and techniques that Sales Performers will use during the Sales Process. The Playbook starts as a graphic representation of the Sales Process for getting to a Buying Decision. Overlaying the Sales Process are the critical inputs and outputs showing what your Sales Performers should be doing in given situations.
The Sales Playbook is a dynamic resource to support fluency and consistency of the skills and behaviours required to be a High Performance Value Seller. It sits alongside various modes of improving performance such as workshop based learning and in-role coaching (Intensity Technical Coaching).
Why create a Sales Playbook?
The creation of a Sales Playbook forces your decision-makers all the way to the Leadership Team to reflect systematically and rigorously on the company’s orientation towards its customers and markets. The demands of focus, brevity and clarity of the Sales Playbook have a value in flushing out wooliness and hyperbole to ensure that your value proposition(s) shine through.
The Sales Playbook maximises the likelihood of achieving great performance by bringing together in one place all the key information relevant to getting to buying decisions with high quality and productivity.
What does a Sales Playbook look like?
It is short, visual, easily navigated.
It does not look like a 166 slide PowerPoint deck with 12 bullet points per page.
What should a Sales Playbook contain?
Typically a Sales Playbook will contain information that addresses:
The precise content and structure should avoid being generic.
Business Simulation
Your Sales Playbook can become the basis of a Business Simulation that can be used for practice sessions at your Sales Meetings/Conferences or stand-alone events. These can be developed in the form of a board game and may include software components to develop the potential for complex variables to be experimented with is 'safe' situations. Ideal in advance of new product launches or when briging new Sales Performers up to speed on complex offerings.
Additional scenarios can be developed that involve a series of customer meetings, usually following the Triple E Value Model®, that can be deployed as a part of the 'game' format described above, or as stand-alone Practice Scenarios. These can be run with actors taking the customer roles however many of our clients have found asking Senior Leaders to take the Customer role to be highly transformative and valuable for all concerned.