From Recession to Recovery – Professional Selling E-Conference

Session 1 – Sales 2.0 – can you afford not to know about the trends that are rocking sales and marketing today? Learn how to effectively use on-line tools like Twitter, Linked-in &, You tube.

Presenter: Rob Hartnett (Selling Strategies International)

Learn how businesses are using on-line tools such as Google, Blip, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Blogs strategically to connect with new prospects and build brand awareness.

These tools have moved from the bedroom to the boardroom and are no longer the domain of Generation Y. How much time should you spend on them? How can a sales team use them productively? Which ones are really working – and why?

In this session, Rob will share case studies from Australia and overseas – in everyday language.

You’ll find out what the trends are, who’s winning and who’s not.

And you’ll learn how social media and web tools can integrate into your existing prospecting and lead generation activities and tools such as CRM and webinars.

Session 2 - Developing a world class selling approach for the new economy.  What you can do with your team today to win business tomorrow.

Presenter: Professor Neil Rackham (the creator of SPIN® Selling)

The dramatic changes in the economy over the past 12 months have forced every organisation to question its fundamental approach to selling and value creation. Questions being asked by senior executives include:

• Have we really been selling or just taking orders?
• Do our clients understand how we can help them succeed in this environment?
• Are our salespeople engaging with the right level of client around their most pressing business issues?
• How good are our people at creating projects and budgets with their clients when discretionary spend has dried up?
• Can we consistently answer the question “what value do we create for our clients?”

Neil will draw on his findings based on his 30 years of research to deliver some insights into these, and other, key questions which are of concern to all sales leaders in these challenging times.

Session 3 – The lost art of using the phone. How you can increase your results by 20% with a few simple but forgotten telephone techniques.

Presenter: Jenny Cartwright (Sales and Telesales Solutions)

Whilst the rise of the internet and social media have changed aspects of communication, if you’re in sales, then at some point you’re going to need to pick up the phone and connect directly with your customer or prospect.

The telephone is still one of the most powerful and effective tools that salespeople have. It can beat email and regular mail responses by 20%. But many salespeople hate the phone because they fear rejection.

Jenny is passionate about teaching people the skills to become sales consultants on the phone. When you learn the skills required to win business on the phone, you gain confidence and making sales suddenly becomes easy.

In this session Jenny will share some of her insights into the skills you need to call new prospects, generate leads, build rapport, ask powerful questions, demonstrate listening skills and follow-up inquiries. You will learn how to:

• Talk with existing customers so you keep them
• Revive inactive customers
• Build relationships with new customers now, so you can close them when they’re ready

Session 4 – Best practice growth strategies for tough times. What the best are doing to stay competitive and prepare for the inevitable recovery.

Presenter: Michael Light (Miller Heiman)

The “Sales Best Practices Study” is Miller Heiman’s annual research study of sales practices, success metrics and world class organisational behaviour. It was launched in 2003, and is recognised as one of the largest continuous research projects dedicated to sales performance in the world. More than 21,000 sales professionals have participated in the study. The results of the study enable organisations to understand how they compare to their peers, and also helps them identify areas for improvement.

In this session, Michael will share some of the learnings from this study. Key topics covered include:

• An overview of the key findings from the study
• An outline of activities that “world class” sales organisations are doing to out-perform the rest
• Tips on how your organisation can improve your sales performance in tough times

Session 5 – How to leverage the power of network relationships – tips to help the best salespeople become even better.

Presenter: Julia Palmer (BConsulted)

In these times, salespeople are looking more widely to develop business, and ultimately sell their products and services. Developing strong networks is a proven method for laying the foundation for long term success in professional selling. And now is the perfect time to refocus on building this foundation.

Julia has spent years helping the best salespeople become even better by developing a strategic approach to network development. Do you want to?

• Discover the biggest networking mistakes and how to avoid them
• Identify the critical components of networking effectively
• Understand how to develop internal and external relationships for bottom line results
• Illustrate the skills to improve your non verbal and verbal communication
• Create meaningful connections and how to follow-up to build reciprocal business relationships

Most importantly, this session will provide you with a starting point to utilise the single most powerful thing that drives sales success -personal relationships.

After this session you will have the foundation of a real networking strategy aimed at creating high performing networking relationships that work for you long term.

Session 6 – The art of “readiness”. How to make certain you are ready for the inevitable sales opportunities a recession brings.

Presenter: Barry Porter (Quantum Shift)

The current economic climate demands that organisations examine the true readiness of their sales operation. Developing readiness means being constantly prepared to take advantage of opportunities (in both markets as a whole as well as in individual accounts) AND respond to marketplace threats and competitor attacks.

Sales leaders need to have control over 3 strategic imperatives:

1. Delivering revenue – converting opportunities and maximising order value
2. Minimising cost – increasing productivity, eliminating wasted effort and reducing sales cycle time
3. Improving the customer experience – making sure customers get what was promised, turning customers into brand ambassadors

In this strategic session, Barry Porter will outline a framework – using real life examples – that show both sales leaders and salespeople how to audit their “readiness” and what actions to take to improve results now – and maximise opportunity as the economy inevitably turns upwards.

Sesssion 7 – The state of sales in 2009 – doing more with less. How to survive and thrive with less resources, fewer people and less support.

Presenter: Timothy Sullivan (Sales Performance International)

The current worldwide economy is, at best, unpredictable and uncertain. As a result, sales professionals around the world are struggling to reach their goals and targets. However, some firms continue to perform and succeed, even in a difficult environment.

Why? What are these organisations doing to win more business – and what can you do to emulate them?

In this session, Tim Sullivan, US based Director of Development at Sales Performance International, will share key findings from the latest research of sales teams around the world and show how they are winning – and describe how you can adopt these practices to make a difference – NOW.

Tim will cover these three areas in detail:

• The state of selling in 2009 – global trends form the research
• What best performing sales organisations are doing
• How you can succeed this year

Session 8 – Marketing tools every salesperson must have to win business in down markets – and how to use them to get more business today.

Presenter: Sharon Williams (Taurus Marketing)

Marketing is no longer the sole domain of marketing. Now – more than ever before – professional salespeople need to ensure their activities are incorporating the guerrilla marketing tools and techniques that successful entrepreneurs have been using and developing over recent years.

This highly practical session will highlight a number of modern marketing tools every salesperson can easily master to develop their prospect pipeline. Whilst keeping the focus firmly on the sales process, some or all of these tools will produce immediate outcomes.

As the CEO of one of Australia’s leading marketing agencies, Sharon will share her insights into a range of tools, including:

• Developing and staging cost effective events
• Leveraging the power of public relations
• Using your industry networks for maximum benefit
• Using the ”newsletter” and data-base marketing
• Using reference selling to open doors and close deals

Session 9 – Trust – the essential element for selling in difficult times. How you can ensure that both internal and external relationships are built to last.

Presenter: Keith Ayers (Intégro Leadership Institute)

In a climate where sales are more difficult, there is more pressure on sales managers and salespeople to make sales. This typically results in more pressure being applied to customers to buy. This approach destroys trust and alienates potentially loyal customers.

Through trust-based leadership, Keith will show you how your salespeople can build customer loyalty and actually win more business by focussing on trust building behaviours.

This session will cover the following topics:

• Why trust “inside” your organisation is critical to building trust “outside” – with customers
• How trustworthy sales leaders can destroy trust with their salespeople by applying pressure to increase results. And, guess what? This leads to salespeople destroying the trust they’d built with their clients.
• Discover how to use trust building behaviours using The Elements of Trust^TM, to ensure that trust exists within the team – and then with every customer.
• How to get your team committed to being accountable for building and maintaining trusting relationships with clients
• How to create a sales team that is adaptive, creative and engaged by capitalising on a genuine trust based culture

Session 10 – The science of personal performance and resilience. How to achieve peak performance in difficult circumstances.

Presenter: Elizabeth King (METTA Group)

Is it possible for individuals to thrive and organisations succeed in the current economic climate? According to Liz King it is – and one of the things which is essential to achieve these outcomes, is for individuals to leverage their performance through wellness.

Sales executives today are searching for ways to sustain their performance in the face of ever-increasing pressure – and rapid change. Some salespeople thrive on the challenges, stress and pressure of executive life – while others suffer sub-optimal performance and a variety of physical problems. The difference between these individuals is a set of behaviours and attitudes that we can all adopt.

In this very practical session which has implications for every one of us, Liz presents a set of actions based on research conducted at the Harvard Medical School Institute of Mind Body Medicine. This session will explain a range of things which relate to our individual performance and covers the following topics:

• What is the relationship between performance and challenge?
• How can we increase our performance – and sustain it?
• What practical and evidence-based techniques can we apply to enhance our health, relationships and improve our work and life satisfaction?
• What lifestyle habits can we apply to increase our physiological resilience to the stressors of our sales life?
• How can we achieve high performance by applying personalised mental focus practices

Participants will leave this session with a framework for developing a set of empowering personalised lifestyle habits and rituals that will result in greater professional performance and satisfaction

Special Bonus Session

Sales Strategies for a Recession

Is your current approach to sales to cut costs, or to invest in new skills?  Most companies are taking strategies somewhere in the middle.  If it is to invest – what return on investment are you looking for?  Is it increased confidence in the sales force, or increased revenue.

Keith Dugdale is one of the co-authors of the recently released, best-selling Smarter Selling. Having spent over 20 years holding senior positions in training and business development with professional services firms. Keith now runs IOWEU International Limited with David Lambert.

This special video session will show you how to achieve some significant sales outcomes improvements by covering the following key points:

• How to determine the strategy you will employ in the short term in order to adjust to a possibly new medium term vision
• How to measure the relationship capital that you and your organisation currently enjoy
• Demonstrate  the techniques you can use to quickly improve the level of trust, depth of relationship, and profitability in sales relationships
• Highlight technology options to manage and track revenue and relationships
• How to examine what other elements of the business may need to be addressed in order to maximise you overall ROI