Creating Client Value A practical, proven and tailored approach to consultative, value-based selling Sales Coaching Sales Manager Programme Negotiating Client Value Commercial Acumen Strategic Account Management Creating Client Value Consultative Selling Skills
Are your salespeople world class? What makes a great salesperson, account manager or client developer? It s hard to differentiate on product alone, so great salespeople create value by identifying needs more clearly, designing solutions more creatively, and facilitating the customer s decision process more skilfully than the competition. Poor salespeople, on the other hand, destroy value. Not just through the wasted time and costs of unproductive meetings, but through the hidden costs of leaving real needs unmet. These salespeople struggle to get meetings, fail to grow accounts, and suffer from long sales cycles. Imparta s sales methodology, Creating Client Value (CCV), has been helping salespeople to drive revenue growth for over a decade. CCV was developed in a unique collaboration between Imparta and Neil Rackham, the author of SPIN Selling and arguably the world s leading researcher into sales effectiveness. Imparta has been ranked among the top three global sales training companies for the depth and effectiveness of our solutions by US-based consultancy ES Research Group. CCV is not just a course. It is part of a Capability Building System that has generated hundreds of millions of pounds in incremental revenue, by providing insights, skills and tools that support and influence the customer s decision process. I attended the Imparta CCV programme last week and have to say that I was totally stunned by the quality of the work that both Imparta and [the internal team] have done. Salesperson, Telecoms Recognising where the customer is in that process lets you support and influence them through each stage of that process, which is why CCV is built on a model of the buying decision known as the Buying Cycle. Awareness of Needs of Results Achievement The Buying Cycle of Alternatives Assessment Decision Alleviation of Risk 1
The issues... and how CCV addresses them Awareness of Needs stage During this first stage of the Buying Cycle, the buyer realises the need to change from the status quo. CCV will help you addresses these common problems: Weak sales pipeline. CCV includes advanced techniques for referral and lead generation, combined with highly effective account entry strategies; Long cycle time. CCV s sophisticated approach to navigating complex buyer roles finds the pressure points in the organisation and the questions that will build momentum behind the decision; Low share of wallet/average account size. Participants develop solution selling skills that identify a broad set of business issues and KPIs across the customer s organisation, then map your capabilities onto those needs in a process of structured creativity; Low conversion rate from suspects into concrete opportunities. CCV improves conversion rates by teaching salespeople to quantify the case for change. Assessment of Alternatives stage At this stage, the customer has decided to act and is evaluating competing alternatives. Typical issues include: Low win rates. CCV tools uncover the criteria that customers use to assess competing solutions, and help develop strategies for dealing with them. One client recorded a 3x increase in win rate. What would that do for your business? Discounting to win business. CCV focuses on what client s value, offering more levers to win pitches than price alone. CCV also focuses on how to work effectively with Procurement. Alleviation of Risks stage At this stage, the customer has a solution, but begins to worry about the personal and business risks involved. The pitfalls include: Stalled opportunities. CCV will teach your teams to identify when risks are blocking progress, and to uncover specific risks at the strategic, tactical, political and personal levels; Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. CCV improves conversion rates through three main approaches to risk alleviation, and interpersonal skills tailored to each type of risk. Decision Decisions flow more naturally when CCV is applied, helping to unblock the process. Additional skills are covered in the companion programmes Negotiating Client Value and Commercial Acumen. Achievement of Results stage In this final phase, while the solution is being implemented, issues include: Failing to deliver the value that has been promised. CCV provides insight into the phases of implementation that follow a sale, and tools to make sure you deliver the promised value; New opportunities not identified. CCV builds the right behaviours to extend your reach within each account. I was extremely impressed with every aspect of the training and software and the incredible value that can be leveraged out of it. I believe that Imparta has positioned itself as a standard bearer for the industry. Consultant, PWC 2
Who needs It? CCV will help anyone involved in selling or managing accounts where: The decision processes are complex; Deals tend to be high value; The client wishes to buy in a consultative way, or You need to differentiate through your sales approach. CCV is modular and is tailored and configured to specific sales roles, while maintaining a common philosophy and language. These roles include: Executives involved in selling Sales Leaders and Sales Managers Key/Global Account Managers Channel Managers Sales Support and Service Staff Marketing Staff Proposition Development and Product Training teams Business Development Managers/ Account Managers / Salespeople Retail Sales Advisors Store / Branch Managers We can deliver CCV on a global basis. Sales Manager coaching is vital to ensure the uptake of any new skill- set. Ask about our Sales Coaching Programmes for Managers. The Sales Performace System making it stick Training on its own is rarely enough you need solid reinforcement and coaching to get salespeople to change their behaviour. Adults learn best from a combination of experience, reflection and experimentation supported by coaching, so a CCV programme typically includes: Pre-assessment against agreed competencies; Training for managers to model new behaviours and coach salespeople; On-line pre-work combining theory and practical real life application; A highly experiential CCV workshop; Manager- or Imparta-led coaching to help apply CCV; Account and opportunity planners that can be linked to your CRM system; Reconnect workshop to embed behaviours, review application and gather impact data; Measurement of ROI and impact via an agreed methodology, e.g. re-assessment, coaching observation, or customer case studies These steps ensure significantly more impact than training alone. They are a sub-set of the Imparta Sales Performance System, which allows you to tailor the change programme to your specific needs. The following diagram shows this System in more detail: 3
The Imparta Sales Performance System ALIGN the PROCESS Measure & Report Business Needs ALIGN the PROCESS Reinforce Sales Performance System Accelerate Learning Communicate Change Capability Current ALIGN the PROCESS ALIGN the PROCESS What does a typical CCV workshop cover? The CCV Workshop combines interactive case studies, practical application to real accounts, and multiple role-plays and exercises to embed learning. Your assigned Principal Content Developer oversees the needs analysis and tailoring. This is an efficient process that ensures your business issues and processes are embedded deep into the programme. Our tailoring process places a minimal strain on your staff, and includes well-defined client sign-off points to make sure that the result meets your objectives. I used need assessment yesterday with a customer and it opened their eyes to a lot of PAIN. It was totally amazing... heck, it opened my eyes too... Splendid! Account executive, IT Services The most common format is an initial two-day workshop followed by a reconnect day, which can be conducted virtually. During the initial workshop, attendees work on a blend of case studies and current real account situations that they have brought to the workshop. I have some great news. I used the pain and gain strategies and the discussion was phenomenal.! The client identified an opportunity ($5m) that ca n deliver twice the impact of what we expected. They have just been CCV ed-consultative Selling. I Love it. Industrial Sales Consultant The reconnect session, follows up on the attendees own sales situations and leverages the group experience to analyse and provide feedback on interim assignments. Day three also includes additional theory, and modular sessions chosen to reflect the needs of the business and the attendees. 4
Day One Activity Pre-work Review and Introduction to CCV Diagnostic Simulation & Debrief Awareness of Needs: Scanning for Opportunities Tools: Value Chain and Capability Matrix Role-plays Tool: Value Opportunity Planner Awareness of Needs: Building Momentum Objectives Identify core capabilities to succeed in a consultative sale. Understand where CCV fits within the learning journey. Benchmark skills in the first stage of the clients Buying Cycle through an interactive diagnostic business simulation. Introduce the differing types of people you will interact with (Buyer Roles) and how the tools within Awareness of Needs phase of the Buying Cycle will help navigate the client organization. Identify organisation capabilities and explore opportunities by analysing the various departments you will interact with and their Key Success Factors Create a strategic approach to account entry and account development. Combine the Value Chain with your capabilities and knowledge of potential client issues to locate potential value sweet-spots. Build value with problem owners and use Pain and Gain questions to motivate the need for change. Day Two Activity Role-play: Building Pain and Gain Value Proposal and Stakeholder Map Identifying Value Criteria Role-play: Criteria Value Map Presenting Value Effectively Alleviation of Risk Role-play: Risks Objectives Practise skills and strategies to evolve and confirm potential opportunities and build importance and urgency around each. Identify to financial impact of the proposed solution and create a compelling proposal to persuade client to agree to the need for change. Evolve strategy to obtain necessary buy-in. Help client identify and prioritize the criteria the will use to make a buying decision. Understand how our proposal stacks up against these criteria. Uncovering and ranking key Value Criteria. Create strategies for influencing different types of Value Criteria. Create a structure to ensure value is presented in the most compelling way given the customer s metrics and culture. Uncovering and address client concerns via prevention and cure strategies. Identifying and handling different types of risk/objection 5
Reconnect Day Activity Review: Buying Cycle and Tools Impact Presentations Decision: Unblocking and Negotiating Achievement of Results: Planning Achievement of Results: Delivering Value Reinforcement, Resources and Learning Transfer Objectives How the concepts worked in the real world facilitating the application process. Presentation to a panel of Managers and peers. Receive feedback from Manager and peers. To understand the approaches to negotiation and be able to adapt approach accordingly during the decision making phase to maximize margin Techniques to create (or contribute to) accurate and robust implementation plans that includes clear goals and take account of likely barriers. A review of techniques to make the most of the Honeymoon, Disenchantment and Success phases. Plan actions for making CCV business as usual. Why CCV? The CCV programme combines researched content with a deep understanding of how adults learn, and how to overcome barriers to change. The CCV methodology has been continuously refined over the last ten years, reflecting changes in the market place and our ongoing research into what really works in value-base, consultative selling. CCV is currently available in 12 languages and we can deliver globally. CCV covers sales skills as well as tools and strategy. Many courses focus on one at the expense of the others. We use CCV ourselves and as a result grew throughout the recent recession. We re one of the few sales training companies that take our own medicine. A major CCV-enabled Sales Academy has measured: Audited increased sales of 60m linked to new skills Increases in customer engagement scores and employee satisfaction Increased success in competitive situations from 10% to 29%. An increase in coaching activity of 400% The top 10% of salespeople by competency improvement are on average 30% HIGHER against their revenue target than bottom 10% Another client generated 150 million in incremental sales from just 5 contract wins that they attributed to CCV. The learning approach behind CCV is highly experiential and uses a range of sophisticated tools such as simulations to ensure that the learning sticks. We tailor the tools, processes and training to different sales teams (e.g. account managers vs. new business developers and pre-sales) We place a great deal of emphasis on judging the cultural and experiential fit between the trainer and your staff (a process we call casting ). Our reference clients include GE, O2, Lloyds TSB, HP, Alcatel-Lucent and the WPP Group. 6
Why Imparta? Imparta has been ranked among the top three global sales training companies for the depth and effectiveness of our solutions by US-based consultancy ES Research Group. Our clients include some of the world s leading organisations, including GE, O2, Lloyds TSB, HP, Alcatel-Lucent and the WPP Group. I had a major client that was completely stalled. CCV suggested they might be concerned about risk and helped me to think about how to handle it. Two days later we got the deal. Senior Executive, Professional Services Because we cover sales, marketing and service, we are able to provide the glue that aligns those teams (e.g. sales-enabled product training) as well as in-depth expertise in each field. I used Risk Alleviation questions the day after the course. Not only did we secure the contract, but the client actually said Thank you, that part of the meeting really added value for me. Sales Person, IT We have a dedicated Client Impact team that can help you roll out a single workshop, or a sophisticated Sales, Marketing or Service Academy covering reinforcement, application, coaching, measurement and accreditation. Next steps Please feel free to contact one of our Client Directors on +44 (0)20 7610 8800, via clientenquiries@imparta.com or via http://www.imparta.com/about/contact_us 7
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