The Senior Vice President of a leading construction firm was committed to providing the national business development team with a customized professional selling skills program. The goal was to improve their ability to qualify and assess business opportunities, reach key influencers and decision makers, leverage existing relationships and improve prospecting, presentation and business acquisition skills. A program was created which included two annual group workshops and monthly webinars utilizing the myKISON e-learning site supported with case studies and role-plays to further develop participant skills.
To engage an experienced sales team to improve and refine existing skills and increase sales capability by teaching new and advanced business development and client relationship management techniques.
To increase awareness of the importance and impact of professional and personal development to become the “go-to” person and trusted advisor for clients, consultants and trades in their market and industry.
To challenge and eliminate old paradigms relating to industry practices and adopt a leader versus follower mindset.
Develop an integrated BD model to deliver a consistent sales and service experience for national clients.
Create a sales and service culture that reinforces and enhances the firm’s brand and market position as an industry leader that delivers high quality, high value services leading to long-term sustainable and profitable relationships.
Link the quantitative systems and models of the program to the company’s CRM program.
Utilize personality profiles to identify participant’s natural selling style in order to coach and develop complementary or new techniques to improve personal effectiveness.
Define annual business development goals and targets for existing and new clients and conduct monthly assessment of progress utilizing an individual performance scorecard.
Link the business development training to specific competencies and KPI’s that are measured in their performance reviews.
Customize program material to meet the unique national and regional requirements for BD and client relationship management.
Conduct monthly webinars to develop and reinforce best practices for BD and client relationship building.
Create opportunities for team engagement which leads to group interaction and learning activities to build their competence and skill.
Provide one-on-one coaching as required to equip, challenge and support participants to achieve their professional and personal business development goals.
Greater awareness by the BD team of the value and role “soft” skills play in a selling and building relationships in a highly competitive market and technical environment.
The ability for the firm to differentiate itself on the quality of its people, their work, the strength of relationships and a compelling value proposition as reasons for selecting the firm.
Increased confidence within the BD team to present themselves as the preferred provider or partner based on their unique value and expertise.
Increased ability to secure business on high value and superior service rather than low fee.
Significant volumes of business from new clients, and increased work from existing clients, have been directly attributed to the implementation of the program.
The program has raised awareness in other divisions of the firm regarding the importance of creating an integrated approach to business development and client service to build and enhance the corporate brand in all market sectors.