Sales Growth – Workshop 1 (Growth Playbook)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Sales Growth is provided by Mr. Longstaffe Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
Mr Longstaffe has over 30 years of global experience in Sales, Consulting, and Training. His extensive background is instrumental in enabling him to design and deliver well proven and effective sales training solutions which improve the performance of professional salespeople. His training programs provide an extremely relevant learning experience equipping participants with meaningful and applicable skills that result in their adoption, action and successful results.
Mr Longstaffe is the CEO of a company he founded in 1998. It is a sales consulting firm and training solutions provider. Mr Longstaffe specializes in developing highly effective, practical tools and processes to improve professional selling skills in B2B sales teams. In the Sales Growth Program he has built an entire portfolio of training modules, drawing on his expertise in Consultative Selling, Account Management, Channel Management, Competitive Selling, Negotiations and Tactical Selling Skills.
Mr Longstaffe has worked for large corporations and high-growth start-ups. He has led sales teams, built channel organizations and created highly effective training curricula. Mr Longstaffe also worked with Sir Winston Churchill’s grand-daughter to develop a unique training program based on the leadership principles of Sir Winston Churchill.
Mr Longstaffe has worked with clients across the globe from a wide range of industries including Information Technology, Telecoms, Aerospace, Financial Services and Healthcare. He has extensive experience in international sales, having worked in San Francisco, London and Australia.
Prior to establishing his training business, Mr Longstaffe worked at ODI as Managing Director of their UK operation. ODI was a leading consulting firm in organizational development, corporate alignment, strategy deployment, leadership, quality and customer care programs. There he led the turnaround of the UK operation, re-branding the company and launching their new software-based Alignment Diagnostic tool.
Prior to joining ODI, Mr Longstaffe was a Director of Esprit Consulting Ltd, a sales training company, based in London. He was critical in the expansion of international business and, as Director of Business Development, forged a Strategic Partnership with KPMG. He succeeded in winning significant seven figure training projects with many global IT companies, and he opened new offices in San Francisco. On his return to the UK, he managed the global operations of Esprit with responsibility for the network of Channel Partners both in the UK and Overseas.
Mr Longstaffe began his career in Sales and Management with Jardine Matheson & Co in Hong Kong. Following his graduate training program, he took his first sales role as a new business sales executive in the air cargo subsidiary, Jardine Cargo International. He won the prestigious ‘Freight Forwarder of the Year’ award in his first year in the industry and immediately became the top performing sales executive in the company, a position he maintained until being promoted to Branch Manager. He built the most profitable branch office in the UK and was appointed Regional Sales Manager on the West Coast USA.
Mr Longstaffe has an MA (Hons) and BA (Hons) from Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, UK.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
Our mission for the Sales Growth Program is to help you develop the necessary Consultative Selling process and skills to enable you to differentiate yourselves from your competition and to win more business. Your mission is to apply the new process and skills to achieve a lasting change in process and behavior which will enable you and your team to sustain the performance improvement long-term.
Along the way, you will learn new techniques and be introduced to new process tools which are all designed to help you achieve this goal. In this first workshop we will focus on the fundamentals of Consultative Selling, and you will start to develop your own Sales Growth Playbook. You will be adding to this playbook throughout the program so that by the end of the program you have a detailed roadmap to follow and a handbook to help you grow.
In simple terms, our mission here is to help you find new ways to grow more revenue, more profitably.
Objectives
To accomplish our mission for this first workshop, you will need to achieve the following objectives for each of the 12 modules. The specific objective for each modules are as follows, By the end of each of the modules, participants will be able to:
01. Introduction to Consultative Selling – Define what Consultative Selling will mean for you and what changes you will make to your sales process and strategy. ?Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Getting Involved Early – Determine when you usually get involved in the customer’s buying cycle and develop ideas for getting involved earlier. ?Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Creating Competitive Differentiation – identify new ideas?Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Providing Insight – identify ways to provide insight to your customers through new ideas, problem solving and being more consultative.Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. The Sales Growth Playbook – create the framework for your own Playbook based on your goals.Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Company Overview – determine what is most important in terms of your company overview and what do we need to include: key messages, and your ‘WHY?’Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Sales Strategy and Process – produce a flow diagram to document your sales process from lead to close, with an outline defining each step. Time Allocated: 1 Month
08. Go-To- Market Strategy – define your strategy and Rules of Engagement for key components like demo’s and proof of concepts.Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Strategic Sales Plays – define the actions required to implement each of the 3 key strategic sales plays: New, Renew, Expand. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Tactical Sales Plays – design a sample structure for a replicable sales play as the basis for adding more later.Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Key Sales Metrics – agree what are the most important sales metrics, and decide how will you track and measure them.Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Incentives and Compensation – determine whether the commission structure is effective, decide what else is needed.Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
Throughout the Sales Growth Program we will be employing a consistent development methodology to provide you with the Strategies you need to accomplish the mission and goals for each workshop. This will include your active participation in the workshop combined with the required reading and preparation and a series of integrated exercises. These exercises will include:
• Individual Exercises – to challenge you to find innovate new ways to apply some of the new techniques and ideas to your own real world situation
• Team Exercises – to help you work in small groups to solve problems together and select the best solutions and ways forward to implement the new tools and techniques
• Brainstorming exercises – using whiteboards and flipcharts to share information and ideas in a collaborative team activity
• Written tasks – to help you define and record detailed processes and document a plan for the implementation
• Role-plays – to enable you to practice new ideas and skills in a safe learning environment before you try them for real with customers
• Sharing experiences – to enable everyone to learn from each other and maximize the power of team cooperation
Tasks
In this first workshop you will focus on completing the following tasks at the end of each module and within the 1 month period before the second workshop:
01. Introduction: Define what Consultative Selling means and define specific goals/actions you need to take to enhance your current sales approach. 1 Month.
02. Getting Involved Early: Determine when you usually get involved in the customer’s buying cycle and define ideas for getting involved earlier. 1 Month.
03. Creating Competitive Differentiation: using the 4 sources of differentiation discussed, define a list of actions to improve your competitive differentiation in the eyes of the customer. 1 Month.
04. 1. Providing Insight: Develop ideas for providing insight in sales meetings with current customers and prospects using the 3 types of insight discussed in this module. 1 Month.
05. Sales Growth Playbook: Develop the structure and ‘Table of Contents’ for your own Sales Growth playbook, defining the chapters and identify any external input needed. 1 Month.
06. Company Overview: Define the opening chapter of the playbook with a clearly define company story and value proposition. 1 Month.
07. Sales Strategy and Process: Produce a flow diagram to document your sales process from lead to close, with an outline defining each step. 1 Month.
08. Go-To-Market Strategy: Define your strategy and Rules of Engagement for key components of your strategy such as demo’s and proof of concepts. 1 Month.
09. Strategic Sales Plays: Define the actions required to implement each of the 3 key strategic sales plays: New, Renew, Expand. 1 Month.
10. Tactical Sales Plays: using the sample structure for a replicable sales play, complete at least one replicable tactical sales play. 1 Month.
11. Key Sales Metrics: Define your key metrics, develop a plan for data collection and highlight immediate actions required to make this an effective team metric. 1 Month.
12. Incentives and Compensation: create a 3/6/12 month plan to define what actions you will take in the next year to achieve your personal sales goals. 1 Month.
Introduction
Workshop 1 is designed to set the scene for the entire program. It will provide participants with a strong foundation on which to build their SALES GROWTH skills and processes. The workshop starts by helping participants to understand the critical importance of developing real Consultative Selling techniques which form the bedrock of the whole program.
Developing a more Consultative approach to sales is something that many salespeople, sales teams and sales managers can buy-in to at a theoretical level but which is much more difficult for people to really put into practice on a day-to-day basis. Salespeople do not become more consultative by osmosis, and it does not happen over-night. It is something that requires effort. It requires people to invest their time and energy into breaking some old habits in order to learn and embrace new, more consultative habits and a more consultative approach to selling.
One of the essential tenets of the program is that participants can become more successful by being more effective and more efficient in their sales process. This is possible as a result of, for example, shortening the sales cycle by aligning the sales cycle with the customer buying cycle and making sure that more is achieved in every sales meeting and customer interaction. This process starts by developing more of a focus on the customer and by looking for ways in which the participants can deliver insight and ideas which will differentiate the participants from other salespeople through the way they sell, not just through what they sell.