Sales Effectiveness Breakfast Event Series: Friday 14 May 2010

As a salesperson, one of the things that you must do in this changing landscape is build a strong personal brand and create a presence which is valued by both clients and employers.  In a world dominated by voice-mail, on-line help, e-mail and social networks, you need to spend more time investing in the one thing that will lead to sustainable sales success – identifying, and building, social capital.

In this insightful presentation, Julia Palmer will outline how you can build your sales value by aligning with the right people.  As salespeople – and managers – our effectiveness depends on others.  Julia Palmer, acclaimed as Australia’s premier authority on networking, is leading the “Face to Face” revolution.

Julia will share how every salesperson and manager can differentiate themselves from their competitors – and exceed quota – by strategically planning and building powerful face to face networks.

75% of people believe their networks do NOT support the results they need.  What actions can you take to beat the odds and build networks to support your sales efforts?

Julia will show you how you can:

• Focus on maintaining visibility in your networks – even when you’re not present
• Create a safety net which highlights your social (relational) capabilities
• Align your networking strategy to both personal and business outcomes

Most people lack both a ‘helicopter view’ of where they are in the overall influencing process, and a framework to guide them in what to do next.

In sales, where negotiation and influencing are fundamental skills, many sales processes work against effective influencing and negotiation.  Some of the reasons for this include:

• The definition of ‘negotiation’ is usually relegated to ‘mopping up’ after offers have been made – yet effective negotiation starts before we ever contact the other parties
• The focus is on a limited set of buyers, and neglects the other stakeholders in internal negotiations – who can often make, break or derail the sale
• The temptation is to get sucked into the ‘what’ of the sale, rather than the ‘who, why, where, when and how’ – with the worst case outcome being production of ‘best losing proposals’
• Sales and CRM systems are oriented to collecting pipeline and forecasting data – rather than supporting decisions about the best ‘next influencing action’.

ENS International has been supporting clients in their commercial negotiations for over 30 years.  Michael Foulds and his team at ENS serve as process advisors and coaches for high stakes negotiations. In this presentation, Michael will draw out key aspects of coaching negotiation success that are relevant for sales teams. These include the following key coaching questions:

1. What is the outcome we’re trying to achieve?
2. Who has an interest in, or can influence, the outcome?
3. Why do they behave the way they do?
4. When should we move on to the next phase?
5. Where are we now, and where to next?  Selecting the next influencing action is critical and one of the most valuable areas for coaching.
6. How should the process of the next influencing event be handled, how can required behaviours be coached and how can learnings be incorporated?

While based on the underlying ENS negotiation methodology, these questions can be applied in real-time regardless of the sales processes you currently have in place.  Following Michael’s presentation, you will take away:

• A simple and powerful set of questions to focus the mind on the best “next influencing action” for yourself or your sales colleagues
• Increased confidence in negotiation by developing a sense of process control
• A coaching framework for negotiating that can be applied immediately.