1) The challenges of today BtoB sales field:

Does this sound familiar?

greater difficulty differentiating your company's products and services from competition's;

customers/prospects only looking for the lowest price, ignoring value and trying to commoditize everything you have to offer;

gatekeepers keeping you from meeting with key decision makers;

reps facing an increased number of product evaluators, trying to cut costs and focusing on price;

longer and more complex sales cycles.

Did you answer yes to most of these questions? You are not alone. Indeed the game has changed.

Customers have hijacked key aspects of the selling process.

According to the Marketing Leadership Council, clients are now almost 60 % into the decision process when they call the vendor.Sometimes they won't even offer you a chance to pitch your products/solutions.They do their own online research and reach out to sales organizations on their own terms. They define their own criteria and find who best matches them.

Consultants, buying committees and procurement departments play now a bigger role in the buying process.

Meanwhile an increasing number of gatekeepers tend to deny access to a shrinking number of real decision makers.

As a result, solutions/products tend to be commoditized, putting prices under heavy pressure. 

Sales cycles tend to be longer.

Therefore, winning complex sales has become more  complicated than ever.

Going to market with unique, high-quality products and services is no longer a guarantee that sales will be made and accounts will be retained.

No wonder so many sales reps are confused by the new game. Some even get disheartened.

Yet the ones who know how to adapt to the new environment, and regain control of the sales process, differentiate themselves and become very successful.

This is what our training helps to achieve.

2) The solutions we provide:

Todays winning sales reps need to broaden the array of their skills to regain power.

Therefore, we provide an actionable, closed-loop system, where the closing of each sales provides momentum to kick off the next one. We call it "Doctor Business™".

It will enable your sales reps to build momentum, control the sales cycle and make it turn faster.

It involves strategy, planning and tactics.

We show your sales team members how to:

adapt to the customer’s buying process;
scout new territory to find out and qualify opportunities;

Identify real potential and figure out where to best spend their time and energy;

gather and utilize customer data and information, become experts in their customers' business;

write powerful prospection emails and deal with voice mail;

approach informed buyers with insights that build their credibility as a trusted business partner; 

understand the organization, identify and deal with influence;

dig out needs that the Customer was unaware of, shape his thinking, generate creative solutions;

deal with gatekeepers and gain access to key decision makers;

identify and manage champions, who will share inside information, and support them throughout the process;

engage customers on a deeper level using advanced dialogue skills to steer conversations in a natural way, and build up real influence power over key decisions makers;

effectively structure product information in order to make itactionable when dealing with the Customer;

develop and deliver high impact presentations;

justify the purchase in terms meaningful to the Customer;

smoothly but decisively steer the sales interaction to closing;

switch the Customer focus on how much he is gaining instead of how to reach the limit in squeezing your margin; 

establish and sustain ongoing relationships with clients, beyond selling products/solutions; 

cultivate networks.

3) Main improvements our customers typically observe:

Generation of higher quality leads;

New prospects showing more interest;

Reps wasting less time and efforts on the wrong prospects;

Reps finding it easier to deal with gatekeepers, access power and sell to top executives;

Better ability to sell value and resist pressure on price;

Reduction of “no decisions” after lengthy sales cycles;

Shortened sales cycle;

Improved success rate;

Increased deal profitability through mitigation  of competition and client’s price sensitivity.

Retail Difference is our department specializing in retail.
Click here to access the dedicated website.

1) The sales team leadership challenge:

Managing people is far different than managing accounts.

Managers need more than the drive and independence that brought them to their place of sales leadership when they become responsible for more than just their own KPI’s.

Recent changes in the sales field,  combined with new expectations from last generation of sales reps, have driven higher standards for effective leadership.

It takes a lot of clout, understanding, and skills to guide a sales team to success.

Today’s sales leaders are expected:

to be experts in the new sales process, but also in the process of helping people;

to keep a highly mobile and distributed sales force engaged with the organization;

to provide them with focus and direction;

to make sure reps fully embrace their true role, and stay out of the “living brochure” trap…
… and of course to deal with the emotional turbulence that sales people go through with the business ups and downs.

Helping your managers to successfully take up these challenges is what our training is about.

2) The solutions we provide:

We provide a system, strategies, methodologies, tips.

Our system is closed loop and replicable.

It will equip your managers with clear directions on where to start, what to look for, which actions to take at any moment, and how to troubleshoot their team member’s sales process.

They will be empowered to drive sustainable change and help their team to consistently optimize their performance level.

The Strategies that we share are geared to help your managers to:

establish and maintain their own legitimacy in the eyes of their team;

clarify, manage and monitor the sales process;

build up team spirit, confidence and morale;

inspire teams to fully take ownership of their job, develop a deeper level of accountability, and self generate solutions;

“sell” plans, objectives and targets;

make sure reps spend their time and energy in the most productive way;

handle stress and manage conflicts.

Our methodologies will help your Sales Managers to:

deliver consistent, effective coaching needed to make a long term impact on salespeople’s performance (vs only acting as “Chief problem solver”);

focus on the metrics that really matter;

set the bar right with relevant objectives and standards.

We also share tips on how to: 

read situations and get the real info from reps;

quickly expose any signs of trouble, so that sales reps won’t waste their time going down a road to nowhere;

run meetings to save time, not waste it;

interview candidates so that they can hire the best;

develop their charisma;

and more …

3) Main improvements our customers typically observe:

Better sales team efficiency and productivity

Reduction of resistance to change

Better motivation among team members

Reduced sales reps turn over

Solidification of new sales culture.

1) The culture challenge:

Culture is intangible, and yet very concrete.

It is made of unspoken rules, underlying assumptions, behaviours and expectations that govern the way people approach their work and interact with each other.

It is what drives what people do when nobody is watching. 

Culture is a key factor to get your team members to fully embrace their role, and operate at the best of their potential.

It is the humus on which strategies, methodologies and daily reflexes will grow.

Culture is an accurate predictor of performance.

A customer centric performance is at the core of competitive advantage and will lay the ground for self-sustained growth.

2) What are the benefits of a customer centric culture?

Today's distracted consumers, bombarded with informations and options, often struggle to distinguish one product/solution from another.

The quality of the experience they go through at every touch point with your brand is the real differentiator.

Better customer retention and higher customer profitability are the reward of a customer centric culture.

The idea of value might be very different for the company’s team members and for its customers.

In a customer centric organisation team members develop a deep understanding of the true needs and aspirations of their customers.

No matter what they do, they do it with value for Customer in mind, rather than their own concept of value.
A basic example would be to focus on client’s benefits instead of product features.

They consistently deliver a value in line with your overall business strategy and brand promise.

In Bain & Company’s recent survey of the customers of 362 companies, 80% of the companies surveyed believed that the experience they have been providing is superior.
Yet only 8% of their customers described their experience as indeed “superior”.

In addition, companies with a customer centric culture find ways to connect their employees to something larger that they can believe in, and give them a feeling that they are a contributing part of something bigger than themselves.

As a result, a customer centric culture brings about stronger employee engagement.

Everyone wants to work for the "best" company and thus being customer centric will also help you to attract the best people, so recruitment costs will be lower.

3) Our mission:

helping you to transition into a more customer centric culture and getting your team members to change their mindset and move:

4) Our approach: 5 modular building blocks

Culture change is a process that must involve simultaneously all management levels. We help you to get key messages filter throughout the whole organization.

Depending upon your needs, we can help you to :

design a comprehensive change plan,

do focused interventions,

or walk alongside your business as it progresses from one customer focus stage to the next.

a) Analysis of your real customer experience

We map your customer’s journey when experiencing a touchpoint with your organization, and assess the quality of the experience at each of these touchpoints.

We investigate how you leverage each touchpoint to build closer relations and turn customers into advocates.

b)  Culture assessment focused on customer centricity

Structured interviews based on our exclusive customer culture survey tools.

Aggregation of the data collected to obtain an accurate read on the culture of the organization as a whole.

Formulation of your culture pattern (includes a scoring on a variety of cultural dimensions).

Identification of areas for improvement and formulation of an action plan to address them.

c) Workshop with top management based on the findings from previous step (assessment)

Identification of improvement priorities

Design of an action plan to address them.

d) Design of process and guidelines for your team members on how to

really listen to the Customer’s voice.

take the Customer’s perspective and ensure that decision making hinges on his/her satisfaction;

leverage every touch point of your Customer’s journey to deepen the connection;

recognize and encourage behaviours that enhance the relationship with the Customer;

e) Training to help your team members to

fully understand your organization‘s ecosystem, and the impact of customer's satisfaction on its prosperity.;

keep their finger on the Customer’s pulse; 

build the attitude, skills and techniques to consistently deliver beyond expectations.